ALT Escape

The different meet-ups that happened on World Social Media day showcased the wide range of experiences and expectations that people have from the different social media platforms and spaces that they occupy on a daily basis. Communities connected by causes on social networking systems like Facebook and Diaspora came together to meet online and offline and recognise the attributes of social media.

People who belong to various location based groups like FourSquare threw parties to celebrate these services. In the world of Twitter,#WSMday was trending globally as tweet-heads across the world showed their appreciation of the power of microblogging and social networking. Campaigns to support favourite charities and mobilise communities to make change in their environments were promoted across platforms. Testimonies and documentation of these events can be found in abundance over video-sharing sites like YouTube and blip.tv. All-in-all,it was a love-fest that announced the power of the individual,the strength of the alternative,and the joy of open spaces of conversation that social media has to offer.

In many ways,this celebration is relevant,given the significant role that social media has played in upheavals around the world. There is a re-emergence of the individual over the institutional and the corporate,that social media has prompted. Fun as this partying is,it is also necessary to take a critical distance and see if the rhetoric and practice of social media are actually in sync. Are we really witnessing the decentralisation of power and the rise of the unencumbered individual? Do social media actually offer the free and open spaces that they readily espouse? Is there any hold in the idea of the individual and the alternative that is so easily ascribed to this emerging space?

Some of these questions find their root in the fact that on the same day,the Guiness World Records announced the first ever Social Media Records which look at the greatest spaces in the world of social media. And the results speak for themselves. While Facebook might be used for new democratic processes and change,the page with the highest number of Likes on Facebook,is Facebook itself! It is followed closely by Zingas Texas Holdem Poker,an online gambling space. The other three spots in the top five go to celebrity pop stars Eminnem and Lady Gaga and to YouTube. The trend carries across other social media sites. On YouTube,the most watched and disliked video is Justin Beibers Baby. On Twitter,notorious Hollywood and TV star Charlie Sheen was the fastest to reach 10 lakh followers. Lady Gaga has the most followers on Twitter.

A quick glance at the honour rolls makes me wonder: Where are all the individual people that we are celebrating? Where are the causes? What is so alternative about the world of social media? I do not want to take away from the potentials and possibilities that social media offer to make changes in the world around us. But I want to remind us that these are still contained in small pockets. Instances like the Arab Spring or the Pink Chaddi Campaign,are exceptions rather than the rule. The world of social media reflects mainstream practices of people and follows trends that are easy to predict. Just because people are online and on social media does not necessarily mean that they are going to now become change-makers. Unless educated and made aware of the possibilities that are embedded in their everyday practices,the focus of social media will be affected by the larger mass media practices.

In its current state,social media has the power to bring together numerous people who,as we can see,are in a certain geography and are interested in specific things. The lessons we need to learn should focus on how we can harness the energies and interests of these people to effect change,and how we can connect with people on the fringes of technology,so that we can build inclusive and equal communities of change-makers using social media.

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