Best And Worst Of 2010: Social Media
Posted by youth advisory board on 12-27-2010
Ed. Note: Our Year In Review coverage continues today with a look at the social media moments that made the biggest impact on youth.. or failed trying. Ypulse Youth Advisory Board members Dan Jubelirer and Collin Dever teamed up to share their best and worst picks. Feel free to add more in comments!
Best And Worst Of 2010: Social Media
Best
It Gets Better Project. Started by Dan Savage, this is possibly the most positive, touching, productive viral video series in the history of the web. The project started when Dan and his partner made a video describing how much better their lives got once they left high school. Since then, hundreds of others have followed suit, from Obama to the staff of Facebook. These videos are in response to the rise of suicides by young GLBT people. The core message: you are valuable, life gets better after high school, life gets awesome. Keep going, and it gets better. To see this in action take a look at the first It Get’s Better Project video and my personal favorite, the video put out by Facebook. This site goes to show that powerful, meaningful videos can go viral just like silly, entertaining ones.
Social Media-Powered Youth Activism. From young people writing on Facebook walls of senators in support of the DREAM act to dedicated activism sites for young people; this has been the year of using the power of social media as a force for change. The DREAM act, which ultimately failed in the Senate, got much further than anyone originally anticipated due mostly to young activists advocating for the bill with the help of social media. Numerous campaigns to write on Facebook walls and tweet to officials remained popular among the young and proactive.
This year we also saw sites like Change.org and Daily Kos along with more youth focused sites like Ashoka.org, DoSomething.org and Amplify continue to tap into the power of social media to enable users to make a difference. Some of these initiatives are focused on local communities, some focus on national and international issues, but all together show a great reach and diversity in issues. While there are a growing number of outlets out there (see Jumo below), the number of sites with an explicit youth focus like Amplify, where in full disclosure I have worked as a blogger since April 2009, stand out for a dedication to advancing the rights of young people and getting them involved in the process through online advocacy like blogging and video series as well as offline action.
Jumo. Facebook Co-founder Chris Hughes is applying his social media savvy to the online world of charitable giving. This year, Hughes launched Jumo, a social networking site developed around various issues like women’s rights, HIV/ AIDS, and homelessness. The site is meant to primarily encourage activism. The idea being the stronger your community around an issue, the stronger your efforts. Jumo’s real advantage is it offers levels of support, whether you support the issue through Facebook likes, or donating and volunteering, it’s all there. Jumo was launched November 30th, and in the online world it still has some growing up to do, but Jumo is certainly a social media site on the rise.
Betty White’s comeback. Octogenarian actress of “Golden Girls” fame Betty White owes a lot to Facebook this year, specifically the Facebook group Betty White to Host SNL (Please), which after growing to 500,000 members caught the attention of NBC who gave in to popular demand and did just that. This was just one measure of the love felt for White in 2010 with a Snickers commercial last Superbowl that was voted the most liked spot and the aforementioned Saturday Night Live hosting earning the show some of its highest ratings in years and White an Emmy for outstanding guest actress in a comedy series. White also was voted the AP Entertainer of the Year and during her opening monologue jokingly said “I didn’t know what Facebook was, and now that I do know what it is, I have to say I think it’s a huge waste of time.”
Worst
Facebook Privacy. Facebook has gone from being an exclusive website for college students to one of the most popular websites in the world with almost 600 million users. This year, there has been a raging debate over Facebook privacy. Facebook changed users’ default settings to make more things public. Previously private photos were suddenly made public, and status updates were automatically available to more people than before. Some argue that Facebook is a privately held company, and it is in the business of connecting people, not making everything ultra private. Users can also change privacy settings back to more restrictive settings, and Facebook has made this process a lot easier. However, Facebook privacy is on the worst list not only because of their actions, but because of how the issue of Facebook privacy is handled by broader society. Too few people understand who can see what on Facebook. Every year, kids get thrown out of school or get in trouble with parents because they didn’t realize that non-friends could see what they uploaded to the Internet. Even more serious are issues with cyberbullying or digital harassment. As we become an increasingly connected, online generation, we need to understand the seriousness of these privacy issues. And so far, we’ve been doing a bad job.
Keep a Child Alive Digital Death Campaign. Keep a Child Alive, a campaign co-founded by Alica Keys, marked World Aids Day this year with a Digital Death fundraising campaign. The idea was that celebrities would surrender posting to their Facebook and Twitter accounts until one million dollars in donations were reached. The campaign involved a slew of celebrities from the Kardashian sisters to Justin Timberlake. Unfortunately, no one considered how much people would actually care that celebrities stopped tweeting. The fundraiser failed to bring in money as fast as the celebrities would have liked and their social networking itch needed to be scratched. Usher, broke his pledge in order to send a special birthday wish from the grave. Ultimately, after seven days, billionaire Stewart Rahr revived the dead celebrities when he donated 500,000 dollars.
Kanye West’s Twitter Tirade. Love him or hate him, we can all agree that Kanye West speaks his mind. All the time. Often, these days, through Twitter. His tweets range from bizarre to hilarious to stupid, but overall I think they are just unnecessary. Twitter could be a place for people to share relevant, interesting details of their lives, but when pop stars take to the 160 character megaphone and blast things like ‘I feel very alone very used very tortured very forced very misunderstood very hollow very very very misused’ in response to his meltdown on “The Today Show,” it just gets to be a pain. After his appearance on the show, he issued a mere 19 angry tweets in one hour. In a redeeming twist, however, the good people at Bablefish have put together reenactments of some of his most outlandish tweets in hilarious sketches featuring little kids. A MUST watch.
Ping. Apple made a foray into social networking this year by creating Ping, a music community within iTunes. When Steve Jobs announced Ping it inspired some brief water cooler talk, but after that it quickly left my mind. I recently opened up iTunes and was concerned at what I saw. Ping works mostly on a feed of friends and musicians with appearance very similar to Facebook. I browsed around and chose about ten artist and groups to follow. The posts were mostly links to songs, albums, and videos… available for purchase through iTunes. The primary problem with this model is the free expression of ideas, critical to an online community, now comes with a price tag. Total cost for listening and watching everything suggested to me at first glance = $ 72.21.
About Dan
Dan Jubelirer is a high school senior from Durham, NC. He has worked as an activist for sexual and reproductive health and rights, blogged about politics and culture for three years, and enjoys volunteering for political campaigns. His interests range from social entrepreneurship to “Mad Men,” international relations to dance, and frozen yogurt at unbeatable prices, but he is often found just working to complete senior year (and applying to college!) He also plays mandolin and guitar, and does modern dance. You can find his blog posts not related to youth media on Dailykos at http://www.dailykos.com/user/TeenAdvocateDan and follow him on twitter @teenadvocatedan.
About Collin
Collin relocated to the Southern tip of the United States, for a refocus of priorities. He began attending Valencia Community College, and one day an epiphany came to him, do what you love. Collin began photographing for the school’s newspaper and has since developed his photography, writing, design, and journalistic skills. Along the way he landed an internship in the school’s Marketing Department. Now a part-time job Collin works as a photographer for school events, as well as assisting on various advertising projects and campaigns. He has begun to dabble in marketing, working on projects focused at reaching the student body. Collin’s passion above all things is storytelling using whatever medium possible. Dream job, photographer for National Geographic.
Categorized under: Youth Advisory Board