William Jaconbson writes:
There is no social media dance floor. It’s more like a bunch of isolated dance floors which have their own character and audience.
via » There is no social media dance floor – Le·gal In·sur·rec·tion.
Jacobson is commenting on a WaPo piece by Melissa Bell which “examines” the gender dynamics of various social networking sites like … every single one you think of when you hear the term “social networking.” Bell’s thesis, that women are taking over social networking, may or may not be true – what is true is that these vehicles, every last one of them, are designed by men in order to get users to share as much about themselves as humanly possible. As the saying goes, if the service is free and you are providing information to make the service more attractive, you are not a customer.
It used to be called target-marketing, and it works.
The only thing that could be described as a social networking tool I use is Twitter, and of my currently whopping 21 followers, I know exactly two of them. I follow a couple of people I know, but I mainly follow people whose work or art is of interest to me.
Again: “Twitter has taught me to love people I don’t know, and Facebook taught me to hate people I’ve known my entire life.” Trudat.
A girlfriend of mine who is quite successful in advertising spent an afternoon with me explaining to me some different ways I could use social networks to market Free Love for Sale, and this was free advice that would’ve cost me a fortune if we weren’t friends. I took a little of her advice and didn’t follow the rest, not because it wasn’t good, but because I’m just not ambitious enough to dive into social networks on more than a lurk more/post less mentality – basically, z’GOC is where I post, and everywhere else I go I lurk, only occasionally commenting (the only place I’m even a moderately regular commenter is Big Hollywood, and I might comment three or four times a month there).
I hosted Xtina and Brella for dinner the other night, the former being one who is a number cruncher, the latter of whom works in media. They were talking about Pinterest, which I assumed had something to do with Lent/Easter/Catholicism, but it turns out its a social networking site dominated by women where they … talk … and post … and share … about … womynz … stuff … and things.
I was so curious about this I have yet to visit Pinterest, even though it’s referenced in the WaPo link above as well.
As a means of expression, I’ve always looked at social networks as a sword that only cuts the user – beyond having an outlet to say or share, there’s really very little good that comes from the way most people use it. I’ve told Xtina on numerous occasions that I’m happy as a clam Facebook wasn’t around when I was in high school or college, because I said more regrettable things in a typical day than most people do in a month, and I used to be a throw-caution-to-the-wind kind of guy. I’ve been off Facebook since August, and it’s not something I miss.
Jacobson is correct that there’s not a theoretical dance floor in social media – there are many of them. Although I find little of value offered by most women bloggers and writers on a number of topics, my favorite blog is written by a woman. So long as women and men interact online in a social media atmosphere, women will be judged first by whatever kinds of pictures they share, and second how much they embody the stereotypes about women sharing on the Internet – lurk more is a concept few women I’ve seen understand, and even fewer would abide by if they understood what it means or why it’s a good rule to follow.
What I do know is that Facebook in particular reinforces a number of bad habits in Beta males, or foists those bad habits upon men who are otherwise, what, lower Alphas perhaps (I was certainly guilty of this when I was on Facebook, especially for the first year I used it). My standing rule about social networks – which are feminine by design in their ease-of-overshare – is that for men, if you’re not sharing pictures of your family or using it specifically to enhance your career/business or what have you, you’re not using it correctly.
However, I’m not exactly Johnny Consultant on how to use social networking effectively, so there’s that. That women dominate it or don’t dominate it is of little interest to me – other than being a diversion and a catalog of poor choices, dominating something so meaningless isn’t exactly something to crow about.
Posted by godsowncrunk 
