http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/generation-like/ Incredible program on today's marketing via social media. Well worth the hour of your time to watch it.
It just dawned on me as I hit the 'like' button, I may have to put a 'likes' phenomena into my future world.
Wooh! Likes phenomenon, Likes culture, Likes global currency lol... the ideas are far reaching. Anyway, it's too late for me to responsibly give a full review (I should be asleep by now), so I'm just going to give a quick run down of my thoughts. Basically, this video was very eye-opening. I have been aware of all of the things that they discussed, but I only just realized how little we actually think about it. They really put our obsession with likes in perspective. As someone who was initially resistant to Facebook and "becoming a fan," which eventually became the "Like" option, it was nice to see a well-organized presentation of all the marketing that really goes on and how connected all the social media really is. I never really put enough thought into how deeply connected companies are to the culture of likes, so it was cool to see that brought to light. I also appreciated the recurring focus on youth. PBS is right to say "you are what you like" because there are so many instances where we (specifically my friends and I) will like something simply because we feel connected to it. We like it because it represents us in some way, not just because we actually like it. For example, my friends and I tend to like a lot of fitness motivational pages and posts, just because we identify. The rise of media such as twitter and instagram has helped us young folk to find a public voice, and begin building our public identities, but it is in our likes and shares and hashtags on forums like Facebook, Youtube, Pinterest, Twitter, and so on, that we reveal ourselves. In so doing, we make ourselves voluntary targets for marketing surveys, and even turn ourselves into brand representatives--and for what? All for the feeling of approval. I could go on, but I'll stop there. Heck, I could write pages upon page of just my thoughts on the topic as if I were giving some lecture on it (where is that ability whenever I have to write a paper? ). But just to highlight. Some really smart people are making some good money by mastering the internet marketing game through social media. I'll definitely keep myself more aware of the things I like as representations of myself and information for companies. (And all of this makes sense if you use Google Chrome because it is a browser that tracks your pages and begins filtering information to match what you would most like. Youtube works the same way.) Very interesting piece, thanks for sharing. I hope you comeback with something to carry this discussion on because I really do want to mine this vein more deeply. Gotta keep track of my "Like economy" now. (I feel awful because this is the "short" version of things and it's so long! I'll have to start doing hardcore edits on my posts. )
As an interesting sidenote, the skateboarding kid and the the girl near the end who likes to sing were both from Southern California according to the video. What's cool about it is not that they are from So. Cal. but that I recognized it before the said it. I know it's bad to judge by clothes, as they are a poor indicator of anything about a person, but when I saw their clothes I just felt they were from So. Cal. It's in their look. Apparently I'm not the only one to notice that Californians look and act a bit differently than most of the U.S. ha ha!
