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When thinking about what to discuss for today’s blog topic, I immediately thought about the media frenzy surrounding the death of legendary pop performer, Michael Jackson. But as my interactive cohort, Wyatt Wood, added to my thought late last week, “Everyone is already talking about how he changed the entertainment world and music videos as we know it.” Okay. So I won’t bore anyone with my childhood memories of watching Mr. Jackson moonwalk across my grandma’s television set on a new channel called MTV.
When I was watching the television coverage on Michael’s death on Thursday evening, my husband automatically thought it was a scam. His immediate reaction was that Michael was so crazy that he staged his own “death” and that he was going to re-appear for his now infamously plotted come-back in a series of concerts overseas. I’ll definitely agree that Michael, in his lifetime, was a magnet for gaining media coverage, even if he didn’t necessarily plan it. But plotting a media frenzy over his own “fake” death? Come on! However, I do wonder how he would have reacted if he knew that his death caused the largest surge in online usage around the world in a single day.
Michael Jackson has changed the internet. I watched a story on CBS Sunday Morning – “Jackson Story Shows Speed of Digital Age” (http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/06/27/eveningnews/main5118920.shtml%20?tag=contentMain;contentBody) and was amazed at all the statistics on social media usage on June 25th. Here’s the quick run down according to CBS:
• TMZ – 1,000 comments within minutes
• Google shut down
• 100 new “friends” on Jackson’s Myspace page every minute
• 65,000 cell phone texts per second (60% more than usual volume)
• 5,000 tweets per second on Twitter
This is the first time that we have ever had a single incident affect the way we communicate across the world. People did not go out and race to pick up a newspaper. They did not call into television stations. We went to our hand held devices and plugged into one medium – that transcended language, religion, and politics. For one moment, we were all online – talking about one thing.
What will this mean for the future? Will YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter melt into one mega-site for all communication purposes? Will the printed newspaper die faster than we expected? Will television only exist on video streaming web sites?
As a web designer – I found the surge fascinating. What disappointed me was that it took the death of a pop-star to show us the potential and power the internet has to offer all of us.
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June 29th, 2009 at 2:26 pm
Erin -
Disappointment was not what crossed my mind when reading your post. It was amazement at the power of a shared experience to enable, engage and express what the online social world can be. (Remind you of any corporate tag line?)
No pundit I, but here’s what occurs to me: for four decades, we had a compelling image of Michael Jackson, one that changed and metamorphed as his creativity, impact and media savvy did, one that was musically driven and yet transcended that medium to occupy all media. With such a widespread awareness, it was inevitable that the need to communicate about a momentous life event of this public figure would seek the line of least resistance.
In a world where powerful computers (PCs, PDAs, cell phones) occupy immediate presence on a pervasive worldwide distribution network (internet), where many of us spend hours a day attentive to the minute-by-minute reporting of legitimate and social news, the line of least resistence is to use the in-place proclamation tools of social media to rebroadcast this event that stuns and stirs us with its immediacy and force.
No, I wouldn’t be disappointed here. Instead, glad I was alert to see a confirmation, through the megaton-sized influence of Michaels Jackson’s demise, of the fundamental power and utility of community and communications that is today’s online social world.
June 29th, 2009 at 3:30 pm
Yikes, did Michael Jackson pass away?
June 29th, 2009 at 3:50 pm
Al, you are ridiculous.
Russell, don’t get me wrong. I do think that it is a new dawn, where folks are starting to understand how the web/social media can unite us all. But just like any good super-hero knows - with great power comes great responsibility. How will we establish reputible sources of information - for a few hours within the announcement of his death, most sites were not 100% sure how true the death rumors were. I also hope, now that we have confirmed the power of community the web offers - that we will start using it for good, and not just to talk about a pop icon or chat about which candidate got voted off of a talent show. Seems like Susan Boyle (who’s YouTube video has now reached over 69 million hits) and Michael Jackson are the top stories in new media for 2009 - just wish it had more to do with ending world hunger (which hit 1 billion in 2008) or world politics (like getting troops home safely from Iraq) or even finding a cure for cancer.