If a member of my family died, I don't think the internet would be the first place I turned for support. But if I did, I would hope it would be my own damn business.
Shellie Ross, a mother who blogs for a living, tweeted about her son's death within an hour after it happened, and has since been subject to personal attack and generalized overexposure by nosy internet fanatics and overzealous journalists.
Here's the lede from the New York Post story:
A mother obsessed with posting her daily life's minutiae on
Twitter was busy tweeting about the birds in her back yard
five minutes before her toddler drowned in the family
pool -- then kept right on tweeting about the horrifying news
from the hospital ER.
There's an implication, in every story and every comment, that this woman lives for the internet. That she's self-obsessed and the most mundane exhibitionist ever. And that she's exemplary of some growing social tendency. Which she might be. But she's also a human being.
Every headline contains the word "tweet" or "twitter," even those from the family's own local paper--and that paper, Florida Today, also reconstructs the incident in terms of Twitter posts. The focus is never on the actual death of the actual child; it's about how his mother decided to react. Everything about the news coverage says to Shellie Ross, "You are not a person. You are a story."
A little boy drowning is a terrible thing, but as warning stickers on plastic pools everywhere will tell you, it happens all the time.The real news is that the little boy's mother went straight to the internet to ask people to "pray like never before." What a thoughtless, soulless, neglectful way to react to--wait, what? A mother, at the hospital waiting to see if her son will live or die, reaches out to her community for support. Is that really so novel?
Let me answer that. No. What's novel is that she replaced the usual barrage of phone calls to family and friends with a tweet--a much more efficient method, but also much more public, which is why the public somehow feels justified in involving itself in her personal crisis.
Madison McGraw, author of www.madisonmcgraw.com and complete stranger to the Ross family, posted this, quoted in Florida Today:
“The person that I have compassion for is her son — who
might still be alive if (Ross) interacted with her son like
she interacted with people on Twitter. To me, that shows the
repercussions for social media gone awry.”
To this, I can only say: how dare you, Madison McGraw? You have a Web site named after yourself, for crying out loud--you're clearly no stranger to social media. How dare all of you for turning a woman going through an unimaginably difficult experience into an example, an allegory...I have read all the coverage I can find on this (which I suppose implicates me as well, but I'd like to think I had a different motivation) and I can say definitively that the issues raised are not nearly interesting enough to justify exposing private grief for public scrutiny. The news coverage has only provided further opportunity for people with no idea what they're talking about to weigh in on a subject that was none of their business in the first place.
The Star Tribune, in an especially classy show of journalistic denial, reported: "On her blog, Ross has asked media outlets to leave her alone and said she won't comment on what happened." Except the Star Tribune, right? Right?!
There are plenty of opportunities to talk about "social media gone awry," plenty of examples to turn to without turning a family's grief into a freak show. Leave these people alone already.
Saturday, December 19, 2009
Thursday, December 17, 2009
Debating the Debate About the Debate
On the Huffington Post today: BBC Slammed for Debating Ugandan Bill to Kill Gays.
Politicians and, maybe more influentially, tweeters were infuriated by the very existence of this forum, which invites conversation on a recent proposal in Uganda to allow imprisonment of gays and people who support or protect them, and the death penalty for "serial offenders" and those with HIV.
I think I need to say this first: I'm horrified. Now, as always, I'm depressed as hell that people are treating each other this way. That entire groups of people are being condemned simply for being who they are. I think this proposed law, along with all other wholesale government-sponsored discrimination, is fundamentally, tragically, ten-steps-backward-for-the-human-race wrong. But that's not really the question, is it?
Coverage of the actual situation in Uganda has been eclipsed by coverage of the outrage at the BBC for posting this discussion.
The HuffPost article quoted a politician saying, "We should be condemning it, and the BBC should be condemning it. ... Instead it seems to have thought it appropriate to come up with something that suggests it's a subject for discussion."
I think that's a dangerous attitude. The statement that an issue is "not a subject for discussion" is at the same time a statement that the body raising said issue doesn't deserve to be heard. The Ugandan government, not some nutso backwoods rogue offshoot of the KKK, is proposing this legislation. They run a country. What are we saying when we dismiss offhand an entire culture's earnestly-held belief?
Uganda's ethics minister, James Nsaba Buturo, is quoted in the New York Times saying that homosexuality ''is not natural in Uganda.'' Ethics minister. He didn't get there by completely failing to represent the views of anyone in the country. And he supports--although with the disclaimer that the death sentence part will probably be "reviewed"--a bill whose essential message is "you're not like us, so we're getting rid of you."
But come on. What are we doing, O Great Western World? Gay rights groups are demanding that Uganda be ousted from the Commonwealth for entertaining the idea. The entire Western world is demanding that Uganda's citizenship in the global debate on human rights be revoked. What's the message? You're not like us, so we're getting rid of you.
We're doing this the wrong way. This is not the way to make human rights happen. I know we think our motivation is purer, but we are not setting a good example for how to treat people like people.The beautiful thing about a debate, a real debate, is that it has the power to change minds. Have you ever won an argument just by telling your opponent they were wrong? No. That goes nowhere. Dismissal is not the same as conversion.
So I say bravo, BBC, for acknowledging a debate, however distasteful, that is actually going on. For respecting the people of Uganda enough to treat them like legitimate players in their own fate.For believing in democracy even when it means genuine conflict. For not apologizing for reporting the truth: in the words of BBC's David Stead, the forum "focuses on and illustrates the real issue at stake."
Which is what the news should do. It's not there to censor or editorialize. It's just there to report. Even when what's true is not what we want to hear.
Politicians and, maybe more influentially, tweeters were infuriated by the very existence of this forum, which invites conversation on a recent proposal in Uganda to allow imprisonment of gays and people who support or protect them, and the death penalty for "serial offenders" and those with HIV.
I think I need to say this first: I'm horrified. Now, as always, I'm depressed as hell that people are treating each other this way. That entire groups of people are being condemned simply for being who they are. I think this proposed law, along with all other wholesale government-sponsored discrimination, is fundamentally, tragically, ten-steps-backward-for-the-human-race wrong. But that's not really the question, is it?
Coverage of the actual situation in Uganda has been eclipsed by coverage of the outrage at the BBC for posting this discussion.
The HuffPost article quoted a politician saying, "We should be condemning it, and the BBC should be condemning it. ... Instead it seems to have thought it appropriate to come up with something that suggests it's a subject for discussion."
I think that's a dangerous attitude. The statement that an issue is "not a subject for discussion" is at the same time a statement that the body raising said issue doesn't deserve to be heard. The Ugandan government, not some nutso backwoods rogue offshoot of the KKK, is proposing this legislation. They run a country. What are we saying when we dismiss offhand an entire culture's earnestly-held belief?
Uganda's ethics minister, James Nsaba Buturo, is quoted in the New York Times saying that homosexuality ''is not natural in Uganda.'' Ethics minister. He didn't get there by completely failing to represent the views of anyone in the country. And he supports--although with the disclaimer that the death sentence part will probably be "reviewed"--a bill whose essential message is "you're not like us, so we're getting rid of you."
But come on. What are we doing, O Great Western World? Gay rights groups are demanding that Uganda be ousted from the Commonwealth for entertaining the idea. The entire Western world is demanding that Uganda's citizenship in the global debate on human rights be revoked. What's the message? You're not like us, so we're getting rid of you.
We're doing this the wrong way. This is not the way to make human rights happen. I know we think our motivation is purer, but we are not setting a good example for how to treat people like people.The beautiful thing about a debate, a real debate, is that it has the power to change minds. Have you ever won an argument just by telling your opponent they were wrong? No. That goes nowhere. Dismissal is not the same as conversion.
So I say bravo, BBC, for acknowledging a debate, however distasteful, that is actually going on. For respecting the people of Uganda enough to treat them like legitimate players in their own fate.For believing in democracy even when it means genuine conflict. For not apologizing for reporting the truth: in the words of BBC's David Stead, the forum "focuses on and illustrates the real issue at stake."
Which is what the news should do. It's not there to censor or editorialize. It's just there to report. Even when what's true is not what we want to hear.
Tuesday, November 24, 2009
The Power of Cats
If there's one thing the internet loves, it's cat-related absurdity. People can't get enough of cats: videos of cats are some of the most viral on the Web, and ICanHasCheezburger, a blog devoted to "lolcats" (pictures of cats in odd situations with badly-written captions) got so popular so quickly that it was bought out for
$2 million before it was a year old. The lolcat craze has even spawned a pidgin language, as the the CEO of ICanHasCheezburger explained in this interview in October.
Some of these are legitimately clever:
while others go to show that any random juxtaposition of cat and text will probably end up amusing somebody:
An iPhone application released last week capitalizes on this cat infatuation in about the most effortless way possible: CatPaint lets you take any of 8 cat photos and tack them at random onto your existing photos. It's simple, it's ludicrous, it costs $0.99, and it has the entire tech world self-consciously thrilled. The application earned mention in articles and blog posts on Cnet, Wired, Gizmodo and many more usually-sophisticated sites. Lex Friedman, on Macworld.com, captures the general mood of these writeups: "CatPaint lets you e-mail your be-kittened masterpieces to your soon-to-be-ex-friends, or just save them to your camera roll in private shame."
They may not want to admit it, but even the most jaded techies are at least a little bit amused by the visual non sequitur of a cat--whether it be a leaping cat, an obese cat, or just a plain old cat sitting doing nothing--into an otherwise serious photo.
The internet can be a scary place. When we're not busy solving crimes or trying to avoid identity theft, I'm glad we can still find simple pleasure in one of mankind's most ancient pastimes--laughing at animals for not being like us. And as our world becomes more ordered, more mechanical, more copy-and-paste-able, I suspect that cats with their fat and fur and predatory instincts will only get more hilarious.
I can't think of a better way to end this post than with yet another ridiculous cat picture. So here's yet another ridiculous cat picture.
$2 million before it was a year old. The lolcat craze has even spawned a pidgin language, as the the CEO of ICanHasCheezburger explained in this interview in October.
Some of these are legitimately clever:
while others go to show that any random juxtaposition of cat and text will probably end up amusing somebody:
An iPhone application released last week capitalizes on this cat infatuation in about the most effortless way possible: CatPaint lets you take any of 8 cat photos and tack them at random onto your existing photos. It's simple, it's ludicrous, it costs $0.99, and it has the entire tech world self-consciously thrilled. The application earned mention in articles and blog posts on Cnet, Wired, Gizmodo and many more usually-sophisticated sites. Lex Friedman, on Macworld.com, captures the general mood of these writeups: "CatPaint lets you e-mail your be-kittened masterpieces to your soon-to-be-ex-friends, or just save them to your camera roll in private shame."
They may not want to admit it, but even the most jaded techies are at least a little bit amused by the visual non sequitur of a cat--whether it be a leaping cat, an obese cat, or just a plain old cat sitting doing nothing--into an otherwise serious photo.
The internet can be a scary place. When we're not busy solving crimes or trying to avoid identity theft, I'm glad we can still find simple pleasure in one of mankind's most ancient pastimes--laughing at animals for not being like us. And as our world becomes more ordered, more mechanical, more copy-and-paste-able, I suspect that cats with their fat and fur and predatory instincts will only get more hilarious.
I can't think of a better way to end this post than with yet another ridiculous cat picture. So here's yet another ridiculous cat picture.
Monday, November 23, 2009
Is Amazon the new Wal-Mart?
Of this I'm certain: staying-home-and-clicking-on-things is the new going-to-an-actual-store. What's not to love Amazon.com, a marketplace that has a seemingly infinite selection, with reduced prices on essentially everything, and doesn't require you to actually look for a darn thing? If you shop there a few times, it even starts telling you what to buy.
Amazon started as a simple online bookstore, but it rapidly expanded and now sells, as far as I can tell, literally everything. Electronics. Diapers. Air horns. Nail polish. Hot sauce. If you can put it in a box, they'll sell it to you. Their inventory isn't limited by the physical constraints that an actual four-walls-and-a-glass-door store has to deal with. And by allowing small retailers (as small as one guy who wants to sell one book) to open marketplaces and sell their used or new stuff through Amazon, they're even encroaching on the territory of internet giants like eBay.
I'd say Amazon has definitely become the Wal-Mart of the internet. But as the New York Times reported this week, Amazon's popularity is also starting to take a toll on stores based in physical reality. That means small retailers--independent bookstores, sports equipment stores, and other specialized retailers--but that's nothing new. Now, Amazon and Wal-Mart are getting into blatant price wars--and Amazon's keeping up.
Given that the two retail realms, let's call them he visceral and the ethereal (get it? Ether-real? Like ethernet? Oh, never mind...), have comparable prices, there are all the obvious reasons of convenience and privacy and selection to sway a shopper toward ethereal retail.
But there's another that isn't getting talked about so much, which is that Wal-Mart just isn't very, you know, classy. People are blaming everything on Wal-Mart these days, from slave labor to soulless capitalism, and it's distinctly untrendy to actually shop there. But somehow Amazon, which relies many of the same business strategies, has escaped the spotlight in most of those tirades.
And besides that, when the increasingly terrifying holiday season rolls around, with Black Friday specials accompanied by twelve-hour queues and occasional tramplings, where would you rather be--here:
Amazon started as a simple online bookstore, but it rapidly expanded and now sells, as far as I can tell, literally everything. Electronics. Diapers. Air horns. Nail polish. Hot sauce. If you can put it in a box, they'll sell it to you. Their inventory isn't limited by the physical constraints that an actual four-walls-and-a-glass-door store has to deal with. And by allowing small retailers (as small as one guy who wants to sell one book) to open marketplaces and sell their used or new stuff through Amazon, they're even encroaching on the territory of internet giants like eBay.
I'd say Amazon has definitely become the Wal-Mart of the internet. But as the New York Times reported this week, Amazon's popularity is also starting to take a toll on stores based in physical reality. That means small retailers--independent bookstores, sports equipment stores, and other specialized retailers--but that's nothing new. Now, Amazon and Wal-Mart are getting into blatant price wars--and Amazon's keeping up.
Given that the two retail realms, let's call them he visceral and the ethereal (get it? Ether-real? Like ethernet? Oh, never mind...), have comparable prices, there are all the obvious reasons of convenience and privacy and selection to sway a shopper toward ethereal retail.
But there's another that isn't getting talked about so much, which is that Wal-Mart just isn't very, you know, classy. People are blaming everything on Wal-Mart these days, from slave labor to soulless capitalism, and it's distinctly untrendy to actually shop there. But somehow Amazon, which relies many of the same business strategies, has escaped the spotlight in most of those tirades.
And besides that, when the increasingly terrifying holiday season rolls around, with Black Friday specials accompanied by twelve-hour queues and occasional tramplings, where would you rather be--here:
or here:
...?
I'm definitely biased on this subject, but Amazon seems to be in the more promising position here. Before long, Amazon won't be the new Wal-Mart--Wal-Mart will be the old Amazon.
Saturday, November 21, 2009
Kids these days...
One of City Pages' top stories this week: a group of Somali teenagers posted a video on Youtube of themselves carousing around the Minneapolis/ St. Paul area, pushing over bicyclists and tormenting pedestrians. The video was discovered by people-with-power and the boys are now being prosecuted.
I might think twice about posting the video here, except that it's, well, pretty tame:
The video was posted on the City Pages Web site, covered on kare11, and showed up and various other public forums, all of which generally approach the issue of race with a respectable, journalistic sense of political correctness. But the community reaction has been, simply put, weird. The comments are moderated, and since I first read the message boards most of the blatantly racist and defamatory posts have been removed. But "Mike" here sums up the sentiments of many of the comments:
Mike says:
Normal behaving for somali f***s, only pirates and other kind
of criminals from there, nothing new.
It was bewildering to me, and considerably more disturbing than any content of that video, how quick people were to pin this incident on racial inferiority or some sort of lack of American-ness. I can hardly think of anything more American than a crowd of restless teenagers doing stupid and disruptive things for their friends' amusement. How popular was Jackass?
Rather than talking about "Somali f***s," I think we should be talking about kids these days, kids and their internets.
You know what they say: it's only a crime if you get caught. These kids were acting like jerks, no question there, and having so publicly announced their actions I see no reason why they shouldn't be prosecuted. Still, no one was seriously hurt, no property damaged--ultimately, nothing they did was serious enough that anyone would have bothered to track them down and lock them up.
Their biggest mistake was putting the whole thing on the internet. But if not for that public forum, I sincerely doubt they would have done any of this in the first place. Their actions belong to the ever-growing category of crimes that have no purpose without an audience.
Youtube and its kin, sites that allow people to upload videos for all the world to see, have played host to thousands of videos of crimes (or just unpleasant but un-litigable behavior) of more or less violent nature. Quite a few crimes have been solved with the help of video and other information sharing on the internet.
But it's a double-edged sword: there have been plenty of crimes committed with the express purpose of posting the results on the internet. Remember Victoria Lindsay, kidnapped and beaten by a group of indignant friends who wanted to humiliate her by posting the assault on MySpace? How about Bum Fights, a veritable franchise revolving around the rather savage harassment of homeless people?
The Twin Cities assault crew are responsible for their own actions, but they aren't responsible for the culture of assault-as-entertainment.
I'm just wondering when teenagers are going to start figuring out that posting videos of yourself involved in criminal activity on the Web gets you arrested.
I might think twice about posting the video here, except that it's, well, pretty tame:
The video was posted on the City Pages Web site, covered on kare11, and showed up and various other public forums, all of which generally approach the issue of race with a respectable, journalistic sense of political correctness. But the community reaction has been, simply put, weird. The comments are moderated, and since I first read the message boards most of the blatantly racist and defamatory posts have been removed. But "Mike" here sums up the sentiments of many of the comments:
Mike says:
Normal behaving for somali f***s, only pirates and other kind
of criminals from there, nothing new.
It was bewildering to me, and considerably more disturbing than any content of that video, how quick people were to pin this incident on racial inferiority or some sort of lack of American-ness. I can hardly think of anything more American than a crowd of restless teenagers doing stupid and disruptive things for their friends' amusement. How popular was Jackass?
Rather than talking about "Somali f***s," I think we should be talking about kids these days, kids and their internets.
You know what they say: it's only a crime if you get caught. These kids were acting like jerks, no question there, and having so publicly announced their actions I see no reason why they shouldn't be prosecuted. Still, no one was seriously hurt, no property damaged--ultimately, nothing they did was serious enough that anyone would have bothered to track them down and lock them up.
Their biggest mistake was putting the whole thing on the internet. But if not for that public forum, I sincerely doubt they would have done any of this in the first place. Their actions belong to the ever-growing category of crimes that have no purpose without an audience.
Youtube and its kin, sites that allow people to upload videos for all the world to see, have played host to thousands of videos of crimes (or just unpleasant but un-litigable behavior) of more or less violent nature. Quite a few crimes have been solved with the help of video and other information sharing on the internet.
But it's a double-edged sword: there have been plenty of crimes committed with the express purpose of posting the results on the internet. Remember Victoria Lindsay, kidnapped and beaten by a group of indignant friends who wanted to humiliate her by posting the assault on MySpace? How about Bum Fights, a veritable franchise revolving around the rather savage harassment of homeless people?
The Twin Cities assault crew are responsible for their own actions, but they aren't responsible for the culture of assault-as-entertainment.
I'm just wondering when teenagers are going to start figuring out that posting videos of yourself involved in criminal activity on the Web gets you arrested.
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