We're all publishers now

Well, you are one if you have a Facebook or Twitter account. When it comes to social networking online there are two kinds of people: those that get it and those that don’t. Those that get it act like a publisher. Those that don’t, don’t.



Either wittingly, or through instinct alone, those that get it think about their audience for a second or two before updating their Facebook status or posting a tweet. They may not be making money and their audience might be counted on the fingers of one hand, but they have addressed the question that all publishers ask: why would anyone want to read this? Sadly such people are the minority.

Pray tell me, why I should give a rats’ arse that you’re having your hair cut? Okay, if you’ve had long hair for years and getting it all shaved off that might be worthy of note. Better still if you attach ‘before’ and ‘after’ photos. But if you are telling the world that you are having a trim to your bog-standard short-back-and-sides why the hell should I care? Exactly. SO PLEASE DON’T TELL ME.

The best tweets tend to bring a specific factoid to the attention of the reader – often in the form of a comment on a referenced webpage. When there’s something worthy of note going on, fine, do a tweet. But please don’t tell me that you’re visiting gran in York, going to the supermarket or otherwise engaged in the routine drudgery of life. Such activities in and of themselves just aren’t interesting. Or entertaining.

Let’ take a look at that cute Vlogetta on YouTube. She has a million clips. She’s just – like - you know – talking about her life. Now let’s take a look at the comments appearing under her latest post. (Posting a comment is an act of publishing too, after all). Two types of comment dominate.

The first goes like this: “You’re gorgeous!!!! I wanna bang you.” Well, thanks for that Spotty Teenage Boy, wherever you may be. In what way does this comment make sense to the reader? Do I need to be told Vlogetta is gorgeous, or am I allowed to make my own mind up about that? And if I want to bang her, why should I care that you do? Perhaps Teenage Boy isn’t interested in me. Perhaps he only wants to communicate his sensitive feelings to the object of his desire. Okay, so Vlogetta now thinks you’re a rude jerk and possibly dangerous. If you doorstep Vlogetta, revealing yourself as crazyloon69, she will scream and run.

Then there are the sensitive types. “You’re wonderful. I just loved the way you blah blah blah”. These comments are just as bad. At the end of the day Sensitive Teenage Boy just wants to bang her too. But in some sort of hormone-fuelled delusion believes his sensitive, nay debonair, approach might just work. Even the absurd inner workings of a teenage boy mind can’t escape the harsh truth that a raging crush on Hannah Montana is unlikely to be consummated. But Vlogetta is sooo much more down to earth. Just look at the shaky video and the titillating sight of her boudoir. My God, she could almost be the girl next door. Maybe, just maybe, she will be wooed by your admiring comments. NO SHE BLOODY WON’T. She thinks you’re a total sap. Leave off and get a life.

There are plenty of other types of YouTube videos to comment on. So why don’t you just say that the previous commenter was a jerk. “You calling me a jerk! You’re the jerk”….”No, no, you’re jerk”….”Well then, you’re a double-jerk with knobs on”….”In that case you’re a triple jerk with an extra helping of cheese”….and so it goes on.

The nirvana promised by the IT revolution is being buried under a mountainside of pointless drivel. It wouldn’t be so bad if such comments could all be ignored, but the piles of chaff are so huge that it is increasingly difficult to dig out the grains of wheat lurking within.

Nor have Vlogetta and her friends thought about the afterlife of material they publish. It can escape their control, linger for decades and come back to haunt them. But they aren’t thinking like publishers. Nor are the multitudes of adults who get caught out by Facebook gaffes. The wife of MI6’s head-honcho presumably wasn’t when she happily posted her address.

I’m not saying social networking is a bad thing. I am just pleading for people to think of their audience and the consequences before publishing stuff. If I am your friend - or business contact – what would I be interested in? Maybe you’ve just had a baby? Great – show me a picture. Maybe you just finished the best book you’ve read in years. Okay, tell me. Tell me about significant changes and turning points. Just don’t tell me about the trivia. I have more than enough of that in my own life and I really, really don’t need to know about yours.

All this tweeting and Facebooking and blogging and posting thousands of pictures on Flickr. Is it all just a mildly pathetic attempt to give permanence and meaning to our lives? These online traces of ourselves scream: “Yes I do exist. Yes I do matter!” But you don’t. Or at least you don’t matter any more or less than you did before. Don’t judge a Facebook by its cover. The only thing that matters is the sum of your real life achievement. Not how many friends you have on Facebook. And filling the airwaves with clutter does not count as an achievement.

It's no surprise that people aren’t clued up on this score. Why? Because the publishing and broadcasting industries are themselves committing the same errors. In theory, the media should be feeding us content made by people who actually have something to say. But with increasing bandwidth (ie: more TV channels and cheaper book publishing) there is a hell of a lot of space to fill. The temptation has been to pad out the cultural airways with cheap and easy-to-churn-out junk. This junk has served to obscure the genuinely valuable nuggets, which get lost in the clutter.

I just moved to a bigger flat and was shocked how quickly and seemlessly all the extra space got gobbled up with furniture, piles of papers…and whatever else. There is a real danger that infinite bandwidth will mean infinite clutter. Bad news for my flat. Bad news for culture too?