Tag Archives: Gen Y

Tumblr: a micro-blogging platform for the aesthetically-inclined

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Tumblr is a micro-blogging community that is designed to publish short, succinct posts for the discerning web user. Tumblelogs (as they have been christened in Tumblr-land) are usually extremely simplistic collections of images, videos or audio clips. If you are looking for an deep, insightful read about how the world works and why some clothes shrink when you’ve put them in the dryer, you’ve definitely come to the wrong place.

Tumblr users can opt to “follow” another, and this creates a sort of RSS-feed type of system that comes up on their “dashboard”. There is the option of “reblogging”. One would usually “reblog” interesting content. This feature specifically makes Tumblr a core medium for internet memes to breed.

Tumblr seems to attract a certain demographic. Young, aesthetically-inclined (i.e. creative or desperately-wanting-to-be creative types) with an eye for pretty things on the World Wide Web. Here is a deeply entertaining documentary/mockumentary about Tumblr that got me laughing for a good ten minutes:

Jokes aside, I personally find Tumblr a fantastic resource for creative inspiration. Users can easily grab media off the web and publish it on their Tumblelog. When the Tumblr community decides that it is worthy of a reblog, that bit of media will have the opportunity to be passed to to hundreds (maybe even thousands) of Tumblelogs, which in turn will be seen by hundreds/thousands of eyes.

One of the issues that I have with Tumblr though, is copyright. Tumblr users usually grab pictures off resources like Flickr and upload them without any credit. This behaviour is commonplace on Tumblr, and accepted by the majority. I personally do my best to include a line of credit on every post I make, whenever possible. While I haven’t heard of any copyright issues that has affected Tumblr, I do think that it is Tumblr’s responsibility to ensure that their users are aware that taking someone’s work and publishing it as their own is wrong and certainly against the law as far as I know.

That said, I still love Tumblr as a space for me to collect and share any media that inspires me on the web. And yes, this is my cue to shamelessly plug my Tumblr site. Do feel free to visit and be inspired!

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Splendour in the Grass 2010: Twitter ticket hunt

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I’m sure I’m not the only person who’s mad excited about this year’s Splendour in the Grass at Woodfordia, Queensland. The line-up is absolutely brilliant this year. My top picks: The Strokes, The Temper Trap, Mumford & Sons, Goldfrapp, Hot Chip, Fat Freddy’s Drop, Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, Delphic and Two Door Cinema Club. I hear that people are flying in to Australia just for the festival. Some are claiming that the line-up is bigger/better than this year’s Glastonbury. Imagine!

Tickets will be released in the next few days: 9AM, 6th May. I would expect that all 30,000 tickets will be sold out within the first couple of hours, no doubt. As with most big festivals, people will be camped out behind their computers half-an-hour before release time just to make sure they can get their grubby hands on a couple of those coveted $400 tickets.

Splendour just stirred things up by introducing a Twitter Ticket Hunt to the mix. They would be releasing location clues on @SITG on Twitter in the next few days. First person to figure out the clues and get to the location, wins a double pass! The first clue for Brisbane Splendour-ites was released just a couple of minutes ago:

Splendour in the Grass: Twitter Ticket Hunt

Splendour in the Grass: Twitter Ticket Hunt

Looks like it’s going to be harder than I thought. Still, I’m excited for the Twitter Ticket Hunt to find its way to Melbourne. You can be sure I’ll be putting my riddle-solving skills to the test. Fingers and toes crossed!

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I understands muh internetz moar than u

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I had to LOL at this article I came across a couple of days back: “Facebook speak: Teenagers create secret online language”. It’s the absolute truth! I do sometimes shamelessly participate in this “secret online language” within my circle of friends, just for kicks – I find it absolutely hilarious. I’m worried, though, that this makes me a “teenager”, as the article suggests? I shudder.

For me, it all started with I Can Has Cheezburger. Everything was misspelled on purpose, it drove me insane. It was all completely ridiculous, and ridiculous is funny. It’s no wonder these internet memes are flying around the Web faster than you can say “lolcats”!

Sorry if you don’t find it funny. I have a warped sense of humour. Damn you, lolcats for distracting me!

The article talks about youths creating new words to as code for sexual innuendos so that they won’t get called out by their parents/relatives/teachers/employers who might be their ‘friend’ on Facebook. I personally have not experienced this this – all my Facebook ‘friends’ are sensible enough to not share anything that’s worth code-naming on their walls. But sure, I won’t be surprise if it’s true. Youths seem to create new means of communicating with each other, especially on the internet. Perhaps they need it to that to create a boundary that separates them from other internet users that aren’t in-the-know? Perhaps by propagating the trend, it allows them to feel as though they are a part of this niche community that isn’t lost in the vastnet of the World Wide Web? I don’t think anyone can give a straight answer to that. Thoughts?

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Hipster marketing

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Young people are a difficult group to sell to. Trends and fads are changing every single time you turn around but one thing stays constant: young people are impressionable. They are the one group of people you would most expect to identify with a label and spend most of their time adapting and changing to ‘fit in’.

So how do you sell something to them? Pedestrian.tv is a great blog that I really love following to keep up to date with popular culture. They provide interesting up-to-date information about film, music and youth culture. Ash had written an amazing article (with some fantastic examples) about “Hipster Marketing”. For those who are not familiar with the term, I did a quick search and pulled this up off Wikipedia:

“Hipster is a slang term that first appeared in the 1940s, and was revived in the 1990s and 2000s often to describe types of young, recently-settled urban middle class adults and older teenagers with interests in non-mainstream fashion and culture, particularly alternative music, indie rock, independent film, magazines such as Vice and Clash, and websites like Pitchfork Media.[1] In some contexts, hipsters are also referred to as scenesters.[2]

“Hipster” has been used in sometimes contradictory ways, making it difficult to precisely define “hipster culture” because it is a “mutating, trans-Atlantic melting pot of styles, tastes and behavior[s].”[1] One commentator argues that “hipsterism fetishizes the authentic” elements of all of the “fringe movements of the postwar era—beat, hippie, punk, even grunge,” and draws on the “cultural stores of every unmelted ethnicity” and “gay style”, and “regurgitates it with a winking inauthenticity” and a sense of irony.[3] “

I personally understand hipsters to be urban youths with interests in ‘underground’ music, film and art.

The article does a great job in identifying this particular target market (one with spending power that smart businesses may certainly profit from), and provides some stellar examples to back it up.

From the article:

“I think the answer lies within the brand’s intent. If you try to engage Hipsters by mirroring their culture and imitating their ever-evolving aesthetics you’re bound to fail. There’s nothing more contrived than some middle aged marketers approximation of youth – it can result in some truly cringe-worthy shit.”

“Hipsters by definition are trend obsessed and materialistic (stereotypes again, sorry) … what was once considered a counter-culture built on individuality is now Planet Earth’s prevailing youth movement. Read any broadsheet critique on the entitled, lazy youth of today and Gen-Y is pretty much interchangeable with Hipster. It can be confusing sometimes.

But if the backlash to hipster posturing teaches us anything it’s this – you won’t woo the kids simply by turning up late to the party. You have to orchestrate the party.Take a leaf out of Apple’s book and create the culture first then let them come to you. Oh yeah, free drinks won’t hurt either.”

Some great examples that were featured:

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Social interaction and new media technologies

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I was just reading an article on The Huffington Post today about the prevalence of mobile phones today. From the article:

The frequency with which teens text has overtaken every other form of interaction, including instant messaging and talking face-to-face, according to a study released Tuesday by researchers at Pew Research Center and the University of Michigan.

Three-quarters of teens now own cell phones, up from 45 percent in 2004. Of those who own cell phones, 88 percent text, up from just over half in 2006.

I’m fascinated by how modes of communication have evolved from then and now: from carrier pigeons, to old-fashioned letters with their wax seals, to the telephone, to the Internet and e-mail, and to texting on a mobile phone.

There has been much discussion over the years about how new media technologies (like the Internet and the mobile phone) may affect communication and social interaction. There is a great discussion about this issue here, where the author says: “Many authors, particularly Robert Putnam, have discussed a large-scale social trend toward an increase in privatism, which is the tendency for people to spend time at home instead of outside in public spaces.” He writes about his personal observations of human interaction in a normal social setting, and concludes that in spite of the fact that new media technologies might place us all in our own little private bubbles with our iPods, iPads and smart phones, it makes up by connecting people in an fascinating manner we wouldn’t have even dreamed ten years ago.

I have to admit that I am one of those who tend to get caught up in my own little private bubble. While I am aware that it is probably quite unhealthy, I am connected on Blackberry Messenger (a instant messaging service for Blackberry users), WhatsApp (an instant messaging service for Blackberry and iPhone users), Twitter, Facebook and Gmail 24 hours a day. I check my Blackberry every few minutes for new texts or emails and I sleep with my Blackberry under my pillow – though, the vibrate mode is turned off when I go to sleep so I don’t wake up every time I get messages coming in from people in different timezones. I have turned into a news freak: I want/need updates about absolutely everything. And I’m not just talking about updates from my friends about what they are having for breakfast, lunch and dinner. I have begun to feel incomplete when I haven’t gotten my news fix for the day: which country has been devasted by what natural disaster, what new prototype is going to be left where for which tech blog to find, which bands are coming down for what festival that’s going to be held where.

The fact that I feel like my day will go to absolute shit if I have forgotten to charge up my Blackberry to full battery the night before is probably a sign that things are going a little too far for some. Sometimes I think, what the fuck, are you for real?! They are movies to be watched, people to meet, essays to write and footage to be edited, and all I’m worried about getting my news fix? I must be going crazy.

But then I think, where was I four years ago, before I owned a smart phone? I was never a newspaper reader. I was so out of touch with current affairs that I felt embarrassed to call myself a Mass Communication student. I was out of touch with friends that I called “sisters” in primary and secondary school; I had no clue what they were doing or whether they were still in the country to begin with. My Blackberry (and the iPhone I owned before this) turned that all that around. I can now spew random bits of trivia (thanks to OMGFacts on Twitter), am completely up-to-date with news back home in Singapore (thanks to TodayOnline’s daily that gets sent straight to my email), and am fully aware of new social media trends (thanks to Mashable’s RSS feeds). I find that this new-found knowledge – which some may/have called “information overload” – has opened a whole new world for me. I am more aware and educated. Best of all, I find that I have so much more to talk about, to friends and people I’ve only just met. Small talk doesn’t feel so difficult as it did before.

So do new media technologies affect social interaction? Sure they do. But in a bad way? Certainly not – or at least, that’s what I think. If anything, new media technologies has provided even more avenues for social interaction by connecting more people in unthinkable ways.

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