Social Media in the Toilet

There exists a company that will take a Twitter feed of your choosing and print it out on several rolls of toilet paper. The company tagline? "Social media has never been so disposable." I shit you not, the website is called www.getshitter.com.

Back in my day, we kept a book in the bathroom. Or some magazines or something. Kids today, honestly.

[Bethany Marzewski gets credit for finding this one. Not sure how she does it -- or what areas of the Internet she's surfing. We should check out her relatively inactive Twitter feed.]

Video: Donald Gunn's Twelve Advertising Formats

Yesterday's Super Bowl commercials are plastered all over the Internet today, including in this great round-up from Slate. Author Seth Stevenson mentions Donald Gunn's 12 standard advertising formats. This video, made in 2007, features the author himself going over the 12 formats. If you've never thought about how simple the infrastructure is for these bite-sized pieces of media -- or if you're trying to find meaning in Super Bowl ads beyond the apparent conclusion that Americans care only about cars, beer, and Doritos -- look no further for your crash course.

Text is no longer linear

One of my best friends is studying for her Ph. D in English literature at Illinois, and she sent me this video awhile back. I'm a sucker for typography animation, and I thought this was a creative approach, as well as educational -- I'd never thought about how computer coding melds style and content. Spend four minutes of your day watching the video and then muse with me.

I wonder what Virginia Woolf's writing would have looked like if she'd been able to copy-and-paste, to pick up and move entire sentences or paragraphs or ideas. A lot of her writing is peppered with false starts and stops ("Think what it would mean if you could teach, if you could learn, the art of writing."), and we don't really write that way anymore: On the one hand, it feels old-fashioned, and a contemporary voice is much more hip, more jive, in our Internet-savvy, hipster-joke-laden, 20-something reader constituency. On the other hand, second-guessing a digital text piece is much easier than trying to make changes to longhand or even printed copies. There's a permanence to ink on paper that is both helpful and detrimental to the creative process; it makes the piece feel real, but it also makes it feel finished, perhaps falsely. In 1976, Tim O'Brien published an essay titled "Speaking of Courage." When he re-published the story in his 1990 book, The Things They Carried, O'Briend revised the essay, changing bits and pieces to emphasize the elements that he realized, 14 years later, were the true purpose of the story.

When I was 10 or 11 years old, I wrote HTML code for my personal website. It's odd to realize that as I was finding animated GIFs of flying unicorns, others were shaping the future of the Internet. If the Internet looked like this 13 years ago and then like this 8 years ago and then like this 3 years ago and then like this yesterday (notice the steadily increasing number of ads) -- I can't even imagine where we'll be just a few years from now. Holograms coming out of computer screens? Ooh, how about Minority Report-style computer interfaces, complete with backing classical music track? That would really make the animated unicorn GIF shine.

Twitter? Educational? Same Sentence?

Earlier this year, the Twitterati were smitten with @MayorEmanuel, the fake account of the infamous Chicago mayoral candidate. The account was laced with profanity ("When I run for reelection, I'm having a motherfucking hand-shaking robot built.") and random hilarity ("Girl Scouts on Cottage Grove! I am going to fuck up this box of Samoas!") It was clearly fiction, and after almost 2,000 tweets, journalist Dan Sinker ended the ruse in February, the day after the real Emanuel won the election.

But the best part about @MayorEmanuel was not the profanity (entertaining), the target himself (easy pickings), or even the creativity of the writer behind it. It's not even that Sinker helped popularize a new type of short-form storytelling, with narratives spanning multiple tweets, a method I dissected in my blog Context back in March.

No, the best part was watching the fake Emanuel react in real time to real events -- pretty much the hallmark purpose of Twitter, yes, but Sinker took it to new heights. In his final day of posting, Sinker essentially live-tweeted the mayoral election results (through the lens of @MayorEmanuel, of course): "Axelrod's in with the early results: 51 motherfucking percent. Still a long night, but SUCK ON THAT, CHICO."

It wasn't exactly educational, but in the same way that Saturday Night Live and the Daily Show use humor to impart knowledge of current events, followers of @MayorEmanuel were likely some of the most informed voters in the history of a mayoral race. In between his ridiculous outbursts, the fake Emanuel kept tabs on the real Emanuel's schedule: "LAST DEBATE OF THE MOTHERFUCKING RACE, I MADE YOU MY BITCH." and "I am still 100 percent fucking positive that this debate would be way fucking better if we were using muppets." This, the real time component, is the basis of our fascination with Twitter, and the reason we spend hours and days of our lives following the thoughts and actions of favorite celebrities and writers and random Twitterati. It's real life, and it's sharing, but again, it's not necessarily educational.

This week I read a New York Times article about a guy who is reenacting World War II, in real time, via Twitter (@RealTimeWWII). Just fifteen minutes ago, the feed reported a "Russian ultimatum, now being read on Radio Helsinki: surrender by 3AM tomorrow or 'all cities & strategic centres will be destroyed.'" Other events, announcements, and even authentic documents (Soviet propaganda leaflet dropped on Helsinki this morning: "Throw away your guns, return to your homes...") are tweeted at a force of 40 per day. The Times article describes the intent of the author, 24-year-old Alwyn Collinson:

"Mr. Collinson said his goals are to educate his followers about the basic sequence of events and give a sense of what the war felt like to ordinary people who had no idea how it would end.

"'I still get dozens of tweets every day from people who say, 'I forgot I was following World War II, and I suddenly thought the Germans were about to invade Holland,' Mr. Collinson said. 'That’s exactly the effect I want: to convey the fear, the uncertainty, the shock. That’s what it was like for the people who lived through it.'"

And he's not alone -- there's one for the Civil War (@CivilWarwp), the 1948 Arab-Israeli War (@1948War), and even @ukwarcabinet, detailing Winston Churchill’s 1941 cabinet debates.

It's the kind of idea that could finally and intentionally hook high school history classes to Twitter. The WWII feed is being translated into multiple languages, and at the very least it's started discussions amongst historians. Of course, not all attempts are tactful: The Guardian shut down its @911tenyearsago after just 16 tweets.

The "I'm Getting Arrested" App

Should have planned ahead. via ENGLISHCLASS

 
Kids these days, always getting arrested and tweeting about it to their friends. But thanks to even newer technology, tweeting your legal troubles is hereby antiquated. Now there's an app for that.

It's pretty simple, really: You compose a text message in advance and pre-select your recipient list. Mom, Dad, best friend Larry, and your hair stylist, let's say. Then you head down to the local Occupy Wall Street protest -- there's one in almost every major city -- and participate in your favorite drum circle. As the police stuff you into the back of the squad car, you whip out your Android (the iPhone edition is being developed) and hit a button that sends your triumphant message of arrest to Mom, Dad, Larry, and the hair stylist. If the hair stylist is any good, she's reschedule tomorrow's appointment. If your parents are any good, they'll show up with bail.

What's next? Some other occasions ripe for a pre-loaded message at the click of a button:

- The stock market crashes. Recipient list: stock broker, mortgage broker, CC travel agent and Swiss banker.
- The birth of a child. Recipient list: family, friends, CC Santa and the College Board.
- Divorce. Recipient list: selections from your little black book.
- Stranded in Europe and need cash wired immediately. Recipient list: the entire address book.

I see brand development possibilities galore.

Dear Future Self: Facebook Photo Comments

Dear Future Self,

I thought it might be a good idea to publicly record some ideas for you to refer back to at some point in my current future and your current current. Because let's be honest, we all make mistakes, and sometimes we make them again. As George Bush said, fool me once...something or other.

Consider this your reminder to really think about what you comment on Facebook photos. What you said that was funny as a college freshman in 2005, when Facebook added the Photo app, is almost certainly not still funny now that you're in your mid-twenties. And since we supposedly continue to grow wiser as we grow older, it is likely that in five years, you will be five years smarter, and five years more embarrassed at the stupid shit you said five years ago.

Unless, of course, you're hysterical. Then please proceed. The rest of us need a laugh both now and in five years.

Smooches,

Brittany

P.S. I guess this goes for status updates too, but those were later and changed format so much that none of us really kept track or gave a damn.
P.P.S. Oh my God we all looked so young in 2005. 

Internet Ban Captain's Log: Entry 1

WANT. via Elena Santangelo's blog

My attempt last night at enforcing my new "One Hour a Day With No Internet" rule resulted in me falling asleep on top of my book. Note to self: When there are not screens on which to focus tired, weary eyes, sleep comes faster. The daily hour should thus not take place just before bed, in a darkened room, after a long day, as I lay on my stomach in my exceedingly comfortable bed.

It's a learning process, folks.