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Twitter Money

Stumbled upon a funny chirp the other day; equating twitter fame with monopoly money. Chuckle. It’s true. Obviously, some would disagree quite strongly with that sentiment- probably the same ones with a lot of hotels on Eloff Street?

Anyhow, shortly after that, Pussy Riot made headlines. Erm, ok. I ignored that (who on earth are Pussy Riot anyway?) till I read about the Kremlin’s interpretation of “free-speech” and their utter disregard for the entire Twitter-protest. I mean, even celebrities were tweeting! Shucks. Pussy Riot was trending.. somewhere. People were getting upset. And tweeting! Surely that would have made Putin think twice?

Apparently not.

Then I came to a frightening conclusion after a little extrapolation of online cultural behaviour: we’re going to tweet our demise and be left with a world burning behind us while we wonder #wtf?

Egypt worked because people actually *did* something and used a medium to communicate and co-ordinate their actions. It doesn’t mean Facebook and Twitter became all powerful and capable of toppling governments. If you believe that, you’re probably sitting on a stack of Get-Out-Of-Jail-Free cards and smuggly smiling to yourself.

No, Twitter is not powerful. Nor is Facebook or any other social medium. Fact is, you can organise a coup d’etat without any online social platform. Shock. Even more startling: you actually have to get off the network for a bit and *do* something in the real world to affect real change.

It’s much the same as a $1 re-tweet to help save children dying of hunger in Eritrea. How do you even know that’s *really* working? Or are you happy to just RT and put your conscience to sleep? What about closer to home: the homeless freezing their tails off but at least you look good by sparing them a thought online. As someone in my TL suggested: spare a blanket, not a thought! That would mean actually getting outside and doing something about it though…

Ok, enough of the holier-than-thouness. We’re all guilty of sitting cosy and looking good- trying to capitalize on events and circumstances and adding our thoughts. We’re good at being human. And as you will notice, most of the thoughts outlined here have purposely been chosen from those very same platforms- to illustrate a point. Conversations are great, but without action…

So going back to our little demise… Edmund Burke is quoted as saying: “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing”. I say: “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to keep busy tweeting about it”. Oh, and I would include women there as well as men.

Less virtual. More real.