Of 25 Things
Meme in the news!
I'm always amazed at people's amazement that things like this hit home. They go on and on about how our digital culture simultaneously isolates us and makes us more comfortable sharing personal information with strangers, and yet seem to have no actual concept of how this whole "online culture" thing works.
How are "25 Things" memes any different from classic games like "Truth or Dare?" or "I Never" (except, in the case of the latter, without the added social lubricant of alcohol or Pixie Stix)? People naturally want to know more about the people they associate with - and, yes, being "friends" on Facebook is a form of association (actually an increasingly important one, I guess).
People, especially young people, also want to stand out from the crowd. In today's society, being a little odd or having done something different from everyone else is a way of making oneself memorable. And how can you be memorable if no one knows all the weird things about you or cool things you've done?
Yet even while attempting to stand out, people want to fit in (the human conundrum, that), and seeing all the similarly weird or cool things about other people helps a lot with that. It's a kind of "We're all different together" mentality.
Everything else aside, how in the world is a "25 Things" meme stranger than teenagers playing "Spin the Bottle" or "7 Minutes of Heaven" at a party? That tidbit of American culture has always been incomprehensible to me.
Anyway. I could probably go on about this all day, but I thought I'd just share the link.
I'm always amazed at people's amazement that things like this hit home. They go on and on about how our digital culture simultaneously isolates us and makes us more comfortable sharing personal information with strangers, and yet seem to have no actual concept of how this whole "online culture" thing works.
How are "25 Things" memes any different from classic games like "Truth or Dare?" or "I Never" (except, in the case of the latter, without the added social lubricant of alcohol or Pixie Stix)? People naturally want to know more about the people they associate with - and, yes, being "friends" on Facebook is a form of association (actually an increasingly important one, I guess).
People, especially young people, also want to stand out from the crowd. In today's society, being a little odd or having done something different from everyone else is a way of making oneself memorable. And how can you be memorable if no one knows all the weird things about you or cool things you've done?
Yet even while attempting to stand out, people want to fit in (the human conundrum, that), and seeing all the similarly weird or cool things about other people helps a lot with that. It's a kind of "We're all different together" mentality.
Everything else aside, how in the world is a "25 Things" meme stranger than teenagers playing "Spin the Bottle" or "7 Minutes of Heaven" at a party? That tidbit of American culture has always been incomprehensible to me.
Anyway. I could probably go on about this all day, but I thought I'd just share the link.