WOW!! And not WOW as in World of Warcraft (a.k.a. Wizards of Wonderland), but rather WOW as in, “this guy is on to something.” This is my thought after watching the YouTube video “New Media Douchebags,” (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zSP8xm_gaK4.) What exactly does the term New Media mean and what exactly do all the people who claim to be a part of it do? Well, as the gentleman who created the video made note of, you have to create a whole lot of content and “stuff” and post it everywhere you can possibly think of online, such as Blogs, Facebook, Twitter, iLike, Digg, Skype, Flickr, etc., etc., the list goes on, and on, and on… Another part that has some truth, but does serve an injustice to a large group of professionals, is the idea that these New Media Douchebags don’t do any real work. If you even own a blog you’ve probably heard the cliche’ of the Blogger who sits in their mother’s basement, in their pajamas, eating cheetohs and blogging either about a bunch of mindless matter that no one cares about and/or stealing the people’s work who are actually out in the field and trenches doing the muck-raking. These individuals don’t just stop there, however, there is as well a tendency for these individuals to find their niche in criticizing everyone else’s work that they are feeding off of. Suddenly, since they have a computer, a blog, and a small legion of minions, they’re an expert on business, government, international matters, human rights, so on and so forth… These are the kind of people who made me not want to blog. A cast that I wanted no part of.
The other evil of the New Media trend is the endless filling of bandwidth with some of the most seemingly insignificant nonsense–Twitter is a fine example of this. Why in god’s name would anyone care about when you’re eating a sandwich, at the mall, or currently completely sauced-up, vomiting in a sink at some Frat-house and ready for another shot..? This stuff is hardly profound or ground-breaking… But, as it so happens, some people do care–oddly enough. But does this text to the world really belong alongside those who have used it to update the world of the social injustices in Iran during the Iranian election and media blackout? Do they belong alongside Dr. Sanjay Gupta’s updates from Mexico during the beginning of the H1N1 outbreak? Logic would say, “No,” but I’m sure these questions could be up for debate to some people.
Heres the deal: we find news and important information in some of the must unsuspected places. Are there people dumping unnecessary loads of garbage into these New Media social networking sites? Absolutely yes. Is it fair to lump all individuals utilizing these new tools at their disposal for spreading messages into one category dubbed, New Media Douchebags? No, but it definitely makes for a better joke and punch-line. Bottom line, there will always be the people out there who are going to abuse and misuse any new technology. But, we continue to trudge forth in hopes that these misusers and abusers don’t overshadow the worthy.
