Mashable - The Social Media Guide - Latest Comments in Loren Feldman, The New Yorker, and Social Media Evil

Re: Loren Feldman, The New Yorker, and Social Media Evil

Fireant — Sun, 31 Aug 2008 15:29:03 -0000

Interesting post

Re: Loren Feldman, The New Yorker, and Social Media Evil

Mark "Rizzn" Hopkins — Sat, 26 Jul 2008 05:43:08 -0000

Jeneane - I'm not in the market for insight from Hank, Corvida or Lynne. I saw more than my fair share reading their blog posts on the topic, and frankly it was their righteous indignation and willingness to condemn and insult folks' intelligence for not being offended (or of a minority race) that caused me ultimately to fear writing this piece.

Re: Loren Feldman, The New Yorker, and Social Media Evil

Mark "Rizzn" Hopkins — Sat, 26 Jul 2008 05:39:26 -0000

Here's the thing - I can understand not understanding that Loren was doing a satire if it hadn't been explained in laborious detail both before and after.

But it was.

I think it's the failure of society, not Loren, for not understanding this. In the case of the New Yorker, I'm pretty sure the only folks who were actually offended were those in the media looking to be offended for political correctness's sake.

All this is irrelevant. As I stated in the article, these bits of discussion are completely miniscule in importance compared to the larger issue he was trying to point attention to in the first place.

Re: Loren Feldman, The New Yorker, and Social Media Evil

jeneane — Sat, 26 Jul 2008 02:45:06 -0000

The news floating around the blogosphere is not Tech Nigga and the Verizon deal. The news is everything Feldman has said and done since. Every threat, every link bait, every lie, every chicken-shit move. Maybe give Hank Williams, Lynne D. Johnson, or Corvida a call and try to add a wee bit of insight on the topic of race from someone other than Loren Feldman.

Re: Loren Feldman, The New Yorker, and Social Media Evil

francine hardaway — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 17:31:42 -0000

Loren Feldman and the guy who did the New Yorker cover both thought they were creating satire. Unfortunately, satire depends on a community with shared values. (See any 18th century lit course on Jonathan Swift)

Both of these incidents make the larger point that our society (even the "smart" ones who are engaged in social media) no longer shares common values, and therefore satire cannot work.

It's very difficult now to figure out if, when you say something funny, someone else will be offended, or even hypocritically pretend to be offended.

For Verizon it's clear: like any large company, they can't afford to take chances. But Loren is allowed to take all the chances he wants, and we are allowed to agree or disagree (civilly).

Re: Loren Feldman, The New Yorker, and Social Media Evil

Mark "Rizzn" Hopkins — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 16:03:17 -0000

Of the folks I've talked to so far, the most attractive option I've heard is forming debunk brigades.

In the context of the terrorism examples, their damage is spread by way of clever application of propaganda to social media tools. There needs to be an Arab-language snopes, or a site similar to those fact checking sites that exist to debunk incorrect 'facts' cited during presidential campaigns.

Re: Loren Feldman, The New Yorker, and Social Media Evil

Mark "Rizzn" Hopkins — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 16:00:32 -0000

Thanks for the comments.

This is one of those situations where there aren't easy answers that readily spring to mind (at least not for most of the people I've talked to so far).

Hopefully we can come up with some reasonable solutions on this.

Re: Loren Feldman, The New Yorker, and Social Media Evil

Rustyspeidel — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 10:07:25 -0000

Hey, I have a novel idea...why don't we all recognize that social media tools, while powerful, provide nothing more than the digital ability to open our fat mouths on anything we want, and that manners (or lack of )are manners no matter where you are. This idea that it's our destiny to share every thought we have with some web site and to then be appalled when we're called out amazes me.

In all these discussions, across many sites, no one seems to raise the thought that a little discretion might be in order. Maybe not everything is a potential blog topic or video post.

Re: Loren Feldman, The New Yorker, and Social Media Evil

Brett — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 09:54:19 -0000

Previously, physical distance made it unlikely that you would encounter anything in your daily life that was too distant from your base of reference. If you're in a country, you'd be surrounded by the news, views and doctrine of that country. International news was a disconnected experience.
With the current technology however, it's possible to be subjected to radically different ideals at the click of a mouse.
Globalisation at the technology level has been achieved, but on an intellectual and emotional level, it is only just beginning to present it, and mostly in the guise of issues and questions.
What do we do when we find people with different ideologies using the same Internet as us, and possibly with an agenda which is in direct opposition to ours?
Do we police our geographic portion - China? Do we prosecute any members we find within our geographic borders? Or do we individual police the intellectual property of the portions we can? Or do we let the members police themselves?
Fascinating...

Re: Loren Feldman, The New Yorker, and Social Media Evil

Liz Strauss — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 07:42:34 -0000

Hi Mark,
Thanks for bringing the bigger idea from the "woods" of the names being thrown about. I'll be thinking about this one all day.

Re: Loren Feldman, The New Yorker, and Social Media Evil

Chris Brogan... — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 07:33:32 -0000

Weird. My official Mashable login is broken. I think the email is no longer good. (How do I fix that?)

Believe me, I hadn't exactly intended to post on it, but after my conversation with Loren, I felt there was something much bigger out there, and I wanted to at last raise the notion up.

Thanks for the further thoughts, Mark. You go a long way towards making Mashable a HUMAN website. Tools are great, but thinking, feeling humans run them.

Re: Loren Feldman, The New Yorker, and Social Media Evil

gregory — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 06:53:12 -0000

only racists see race. those who know there is only one race, the human race, see only stupidity.

Re: Loren Feldman, The New Yorker, and Social Media Evil

Mark "Rizzn" Hopkins — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 03:01:24 -0000

I don't think that's the poison pill ... sometimes it can simply be race alone without politics. Loren didn't introduce any politics into his point of view and still caught hell for it (neither did Don Imus, for that matter, though that wasn't so much of a parody or satire as it was an unfortunate turn of phrase).

In terms of my overall point, what do you see as the proper way for us to answer these real threats brewing that I used as examples (or the ones that I didn't). We can't continue to ignore them and focus on these petty squabbles.

Re: Loren Feldman, The New Yorker, and Social Media Evil

Ling — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 02:54:08 -0000

Talking about race isn't the problem, per se. The problem comes when you mix race with a partisan tinge and passions really heat up. Nothing much you can do about that, except shut up and stop talking about it, as Bill Clinton found out in South Carolina, and I'm sure McCain supporters will find out soon.

Re: Loren Feldman, The New Yorker, and Social Media Evil

Dave Martin — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 02:09:52 -0000

Mark,

Interesting post. We're in luck and you're safe on this one. Not to worry. Feldman is a nobody, not even a footnote in these early days of the real social media players.