I live in a world that has catapulted reality television to pyramid scheme status while simultaneously allowing it to be used as society’s go-to healing device and educating tool. I live in a world where most societies fail to grasp the paradoxes of human rights and human nature when they collide with one another. I also live in a world with a self-reflecting media, but efforts thus far have apparently been fruitless. And I live in a world where my president doesn’t lie to me anymore. You win some, and you lose most, I guess. My world isn’t perfect, but it is creative enough to produce a rap phenom that moonlights as a child therapist, headline-news making pageant “beef,” 21st century pirates and a terror throwback to the early 20th century.the flu, oh and tweets.
I wouldn’t say the future looks dim just yet though.
What I will say is that the world I live in is being forced to take very good inventory of what we have amassed in materials, knowledge, guilt, suffering, friendships, enemies and laws along with a wealth of other “things” society chooses to compulsively treasure or righteously do away with.
Beauty queens have mass appeal yet limited influence, while social pundits carry even less legitimate distinction but a quarrel between the two has exposed another paradox in the scheme of social justice, i.e. Freedom of Speech vs. Marriage Rights. I closely relate anti-gay marriage speech to other forms of hate, like clan rallies and religious extremist propaganda. So it is easy for me to remain biased when I see candidates (vying for a title that supposedly makes you an American icon) run off at the mouth about how they want to limit someone else’s freedoms. I don’t find it wise to wrap a banner that says USA around something like that.
But more importantly the media sparked a debate about whether or not she was wronged out of her crown because of her explicit use of her freedom of speech and frankly that really isn’t newsworthy. Unless headlines read “Miss America title is renamed after hate monger wins crown” then keep it on the closed circuit. In my world it would be of more use to hear how the outer reaches of the seas are teeming with pirates that obviously haven’t plundered Depp’s so-so trilogy on blue-ray. I would put money on a pirate reality TV show but now that everyone has seen the “real” pirates of Somalia, I figure the real pirates of Orange County seems redundant. If only I could convince Ray J and T.I. to wear eye-patches.
Still there is light at the end of the tunnel.
Considering the amount of tweeting that I don’t do, it would be safe to assume I am missing updates from the wild world of everyone? I reckon Twitter is connected to all, so it will be pretty easy to find out whom to avoid with the pig flu and also eventually contract the thing by getting it tweeted to you, avoid twitter account whenpigsFLU. Could someone tell me how to do that?
I’m still learning Facebook. I’ve managed to live vicariously through friend tweeters, but I want to jump on the bandwagon when terror alerts and torture updates become government sponsored tweets. Note that in my world it isn’t too soon to find that funny. A society that manages to break its own social walls that it so cleverly builds is a society with staying power, until given further notice of course, which is why 2012 seems to be the new 1999. Personally I’m waiting to see what Nostradamus cooks up for 2020. Anyone for tweeting the end of the world?
I am also waiting to see how this new era of transparency plays out not only in government, but in society, in the media and in our minds. I shamefully ponder what my own bio filled website would look like, pictures and blogs and updates and avatars, lists and lists of people who apparently like me because I look at their pictures and blogs. “If I build it they will come” does come to mind.
Alas I don’t have the manpower to run a Myspace, flckr, Blackplanet, Eblog and Facebook site 18 hours a day (not including the extra stuff necessary to showcase holidays, vacations and partyfests). In my world the economy is putting a hold on my own PR crew, and I prefer doing activities rather than fiddling for electronics, when I can help it. But I guess an age of compulsion is preferable to an age of consumption (anyone remember bling?).
But the thought is interesting: can I really be condensed down to a streaming newsfeed? I wouldn’t mind as long as I get to subscribe as well. Regardless, my world doesn’t necessarily revolve around the sun as much as it does a black hole. Effortlessly forcing me to cling to a bare minimum of prejudices and dreams to keep my own, I lose everything else into a maelstrom of a world that is no longer mine but ours. Hold on tight.