Once I had to sit through an hour and a half lecture on the merits of social media and how to effectively social network. It was seriously a dude talking about how to make your tweets look nice for an hour and a half. AN HOUR AND A HALF. I'm never going to get that hour and a half of my life back. I could have been feeding the homeless. Or making money, I could be spending money. Hell, I could be doing anything and it would have been more stimulating than that hour and a half talking about how neat twitter is. Then I go to parties and bars and I ask what someone does and they say "Oh, I'm in social media." What does that even mean? Is twitter and facebook that much of a mystery that companies have to hire other people to do them for it. These self-proclaimed social media whiz kids. Is it really that much of an accomplishment that you are capable of using the internet? I'm sorry, not the internet, facebook. I think the internet has strayed from it's original purpose- illegally downloading and porn.
Let's talk about the internet for the second. I love the internet. The internet has saved me hundreds of thousands of dollars over the years by essentially replacing human beings. I can check the news, sports scores, research my Philosophy paper, get cliff notes, chat with my friends, watch TV but mainly the internet is important for one thing and one thing only. Looking at fucked up shit. Yep. Fucked up shit. I could spend five minutes looking at facebook at some viral marketing scheme the social media experts have cooked up or I can read a first person account of how a man had sex with a dolphin. Don't get up on your moral high horses and tell me you never once google image searched "weird boobs." That's what the internet is really about. When people ask me what I do for a living I'm going to say I'm an expert at looking at fucked up shit on the internet. Another great thing about the internet is that it is full of things that would normally cost money but are now free! Yippee! The internet is a great place and it could be greater if it wasn't burdened by all these social media sites. Let's talk about a few of them and how to make them better.
Foursquare- What the fuck kind of program is this? Why would I want to check in to every place I go? What do I get out of that? I don't care where other people go and why would people care where I go? Oh, Kate Shapiro's at CVS Pharmacy. How riveting. Bah. Then in order to create incentive you can be the mayor of a place. Guess what you get for being the mayor of a place? That's right. Nothing.
The way to improve Foursquare: The only way this can be good if people really start divulging personal details "Kate Shapiro was at Planned Parenthood." Ooh! What was Kate Shapiro doing at planned parenthood? Did she get an abortion? Does she have syphilis! I bet she has syphilis! That's the kind of social media I can appreciate, the kind that really infringes on your privacy. Bringing the fucked up-ness of the internet to social media.
Microsoft Tag: Why should I take a picture of a symbol with my phone, process it in an App, just so Best Buy can tell me I can save 10% on the Blu Ray release of the latest Kristin Bell movie. Just use English. This is marketing at it's absolute worst.
How to Improve Microsoft Tag: Take a picture of the symbol, show it to your friend, say "Hey! Look at this, you might save 10% on that new Kristin Bell movie." They're like "Sure!" and then a series of pictures flash by the screen so fast it hypnotizes your friend into doing whatever you say.
So, hey, next time you hand me your business card with the words "Social Media Expert" on them I'll hand it back to you and say "Go back to party planning and living off your parents, twenty-five year-old white hipster."
wow, i thought i was just aimless and had no idea what my major would be. i had no idea i could be a social media expert. that's like my other dream job, television supervisor.
ReplyDeletethanks for informing me of my true ambition.