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While drifting through my Friendfeed account I
discovered a funny little thing that made me realize something big is
happening.
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I present to you Conan’s sword and by Crom,
it’s an impressive one. This sword is the original used in the movie and this picture
was shot in the Californian Governor’s office.
So, what’s
so unusual about this?
As you all know (or don’t) Governor
Schwarzenegger is very active online. The socially savvy Governor has about 1
million followers on Twitter and has just started a new Twitter account
called MyIdea4CA.
But what interests us here is where this picture
was taken from, namely Twitpic and how people reacted to it.
Here are a
few comments you can find on that page:
-
Thats so cool Arnold!!
-
Make
the Conan King movie, show us the last fight of this sword. CROM!!!
- holy
shit arnie thats badass!
Have you noticed how “personal” these comments
are? Do not forget that they are addressed to a celebrity and one of the most
influential political figures in the USA. Even if “Arnie” doesn’t read all
these pieces of text, it doesn’t matter. This example shows that social media is
starting to have a strange influence on our behavior and the way we perceive
proximity.
Normally, when we meet a celebrity in the
street we shyly go ask for an autograph, conscious of the fact we may be
disturbing this person. But online, all these inhibitions disappear, leaving
space for “friendly” relationships.
While just a few years ago people used to hide
behind a nickname and a fake picture, today we all become pals whether we’re a
student, a CEO, a celebrity or the President of a country. And even if we’re
still using a nickname and an avatar, with all the social networks around and
the ‘About’ pages on blogs, it’s getting easier to know our interlocutor.
Now the big question:
if one feels pride when directly dealing with his favorite celebrity or
politician, how does the alter-ego feel? It is nice to see we are connected with people,
but do we feel any real connection?
One can have a populist view on the matter saying
that quantity is what matters but, as
we’ve recently noticed, many social media experts have started cleaning out their
“entourage”.
While in the past we used to be amazed when
facing his Highness the King, nowadays we call him by a somewhat irreverent diminutive
version of his first name. Does this mean that by creating a pretence of
proximity, easy and frequent exposure to the Internet actually encourages us to
adopt a blasé attitude?
What do you
think? Are we losing touch with reality? Or are we changing society by breaking
social strata that have no sense anymore?
