D***s
发帖数: 168 | 1 Editor’s note: Guest contributor Semil Shah is an entrepreneur interested
in digital media, consumer internet, and social networks. He is based in
Palo Alto and you can follow him on twitter @semilshah.
The world is full of illusions. Magicians use a cascade of mirrors, smoke,
and misdirection to trick their audiences into believing the unbelievable.
In the process, they mystify them, capturing their attention. Whether it’s
David Copperfield cutting his lovely assistants in half with a saw, or David
Blaine wowing street audiences by levitating himself, these types of
artists rely on illusions to thrill, captivate, and influence in their
followers.
None of these magicians, however, hold a candle to the illusions provided by
the characters who dance on television channels. For decades, the masses
have been planted in front of the tube, waiting for packaged content to
tickle their eyeballs and smooth the edges of modern life. Whether it’s the
stars of a soap opera, anchors on political news networks, or preachers
channeling the wishes of higher powers, TV provides the possibility of
distribution according to audience segments in return for huge sums of
advertising revenues.
Even criminals and mass murders try to create these illusions. In the wake
of Osama bin Laden’s death, one of the most fascinating kernels of
information to emerge from the raid on his compound is the video footage of
the world’s most notorious terrorist watching himself on television replay.
These particular clips are disarming because while the world painfully
knows that bin Laden is a master communicator, we have yet to see how he
makes his particular brand of sausage. There are parts of bin Laden’s image
that now, in retrospect, seem to have been carefully crafted. He wasn’t
hiding in the caves of Tora Bora, and his age showed in his graying beard,
which he dyed black for cameras.
And now we have the Internet, especially social networks, where the multiple
forms of content shared by people and brands form signals that amplify in
even greater ways. Today, those who participate in various social networks
online also engage in a form of magic, using illusions to broadcast signals
to their audiences. Instead of studios producing content on television, the
willing participants play the part of studio and producer, using a variety
of mechanisms to interact with audiences. We share check-ins from concerts
and sporting events, and send Instagrams to make sure others know how yummy
weekend brunch looks. We are in the age of the ubiquitous status updates,
constantly sending ambient signals, where our audience has only two choices:
to form some loosely-tiled mosaic of who we are—or to tune out entirely.
Surely, the benefits of participation are well-documented, but there are
costs, too. While information is being channeled through these social
networks, the fact remains the same illusions created by television have
mutated into a stronger strain within social media. While more interesting
information gets to us faster, the downside is that the new channels—and,
we are all the channels—sometimes unknowingly create “little white
illusions” that, over time, compound into something that may or may not
reflect real life. |
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