“YOLO”
~ The Internet ~
My shoes were soaked as I hurried along a Boston sidewalk, wet with slush left over from the snow we had gotten last week—even though it was April. I was already twenty minutes late to meet Rob at Samurai, a hip sushi joint on Boylston Street. Oh, well, it’s not like I cared too much. This was a Tinder date, after all. Yes, I will admit it: I have used Tinder, and I am not ashamed! If you’re under thirty-five and you haven’t used it, you’re lying.
Anyway, I didn’t really know much about my date at this point. All I knew was that his name was Rob and he was an MBA student at the Sloan school at MIT. It seemed promising, but you never really know what you’re going to get with Tinder.
When I finally arrived, I was thirty minutes late. Rob had texted me earlier, saying he would be in a white shirt with a red tie. Scanning the room, I saw a bunch of trendy-looking couples, but no Rob. Then finally, in the back of the room, I spotted a man wearing a white shirt and a red tie—but that couldn’t be him. He looked… old.
Before I could look away and duck back outside, he waved me over. Crap! He saw me. As I got to the table, though, I don’t know if it was the dim light from the old-school incandescent bulbs, but he wasn’t necessarily bad looking. In fact, he was pretty sharp.
We ended up staying there for over four hours, until they closed. We talked about everything: our families, school, his obsession with rare coins, my passion for ending the Fed. You know, the usual. Rob turned out to be an interesting guy.
Surprisingly, it ended up being a pretty great date. Instead of ending in a blacked-out Uber ride home at 3 A.M. like I hear most Tinder dates end, we shared a quick kiss after dinner. I headed home, knowing that I wanted to see him again.
As soon as I got home, I called Bagels. Bagels is my best friend from high school, who got his nickname when he was caught stealing—yup, you guessed it—a bagel from the local grocery store in ninth grade. We all have our vices. Even though we ended up going to colleges in different cities, we still talked almost every day.
I told Bagels all about Rob and how much I liked him, and Bagels got right to work researching Rob on Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Instagram, Ancestry.com (standard procedure after all my dates). When I was really into a guy, there was nothing more pleasurable than obsessing over every post and picture he put up on social media—and analyzing it all with Bagels. (“He just posted a picture online with this weird girl. Who the hell is that bitch??? Oh wait… I just went to her profile… It’s his sister.” That kind of thing.)
We looked for Rob on Twitter but found nothing. It was a little odd, but I didn’t think much of it—maybe he just wasn’t that into Twitter. I knew he had a Facebook account—we were already Facebook friends. It was fairly inactive, though, with very few pictures or status updates. It had enough to keep us busy that night, but there was nothing really worthy of freaking out over.
As the week went on, I texted Rob several times, trying to initiate another date. His responses were always flirty, but he wouldn’t commit to another meet-up. Strange. If he was as interested in me as he had acted, why wouldn’t he want to go out again?
Then on the following Sunday, I saw that he posted a rare status update on Facebook, something to the effect of, I’m going to the Boston Common for the afternoon. Look forward to taking in the nice weather!
Of course I called Bagels immediately.
That was when Bagels came up with a genius idea: I would go hang out at the park, just to read or do tai chi or something, and “accidentally” run into Rob. What a coincidence that I was there, too! The plan was perfect. Besides, hundreds (probably thousands) of people go to the Boston Common every weekend, and this was the first nice Sunday we’d had since winter—so it wouldn’t seem odd at all that I would be there.
Long story short, I never spoke to Rob that day. When I got to the park I saw him from afar pushing a stroller. The woman with him—his wife, no doubt—appeared to be in her late thirties. I managed to leave the park, in shock, before he spotted me.
Later that evening, when reality set in that Rob was a creepy married man, I sent him a text, confronting him: I had seen him with his family, and he was an awful, awful person for going on a Tinder date with me. Three hours later, this is the exact text I received in response: Do not contact me again. I am 42 years old and never had an interest in you.
Of course I was mad as hell. There he was, a married man, trying to pick up girls half his age on Tinder. And I knew he looked old, but forty-two? Seriously?! Still, after catching Rob I also felt empowered in a way. I had literally caught a man trying to cheat on his wife, and it felt strangely powerful to call him out on it. To this day, Bagels and I still refer to him as Rob 42.
Now, I could have done without meeting Rob 42, but thanks to apps like Tinder, Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter, I’ve actually met and connected with lots of cool people. My old roommate and I had our first conversation on Twitter; one of my longest romantic relationships was with someone I met on Facebook; I am able to keep up with Bagels, and other old friends around the country, on Snapchat; and in the case of Rob 42, I have Tinder to thank for one of the best cocktail party stories of my life.
Recent rapid advances in technology have allowed us to connect in faster, more efficient ways than ever before. But it’s not just communication that has changed—it’s our entire way of life. Thanks to massive open online courses and other online resources, you can now get a great education from a top university—even MIT or Stanford—from the comfort of your own bed. Not to mention, you can do it while Facebook messaging your bestie and checking out cat memes on Reddit. How awesome is that?
These days, Americans are insanely good at multitasking and processing information—faster than we ever were before. Sure, a fair number of us have attention deficit disorder, but we don’t really need a long attention span when we can learn calculus in our underwear at home, and politicians are making their presidential announcements with no more than a tweet and a snappy YouTube video. Yes, what was unheard of only a few years ago is now standard, and we’re set to take full advantage of it.
You’ve heard me complain about how closed-minded and isolated some folks can be. Well, with high-speed Internet becoming the norm and traditional cell phones being phased out in favor of smartphones with data plans and social media preinstalled, we have the means to combat that. The Internet has made it possible for almost everyone to meet, learn, argue, debate, discuss—even idiots and lowlifes like Rob 42 and Clinton 45. There’s no arguing that we’re a connected society (and if you feel compelled to, just leave your thoughts in the “comment” section). Today, we can see, hear, and gossip about everything everyone else is doing. It has never been easier to be an informed citizen than it is today.
And politics has been altered forever by the rise of social media. Back in the day, political campaigns were simple: The more places that a candidate physically visited to give rousing speeches, the more people would be willing to vote for them. It was a total money game, and those who couldn’t ante up simply got flushed out. But now the tide has turned. Politicians with smaller budgets actually have a shot at winning elections by connecting directly with voters to spread their message (though if I get one more e-mail from a politician with the subject line “hey,” I may scream).
And as voters, we can easily push out the unqualified jokers—every election has them—by simply fact-checking them on Google. Hell, we don’t even need to watch the speeches live anymore. We can catch the videos on YouTube or Vimeo, on our computers while reading up on the candidate’s gun control policy, or even on our iPhones while waiting in line at the polling booths. There’s absolutely no excuse for us to be uninformed.
So listen up, folks: An Internet storm is brewing, and it’s the perfect time for us to change America. It’s up to us to harness technology to not just play the political game, but to take it over.
Fortunately for us, there’s still time to take the government by the balls and squeeze until the dysfunctional bureaucracy cries uncle. It’s not enough just to vote anymore. Don’t get me wrong—voting is vital to creating change. But your voice, your opinion, is just as important. And today, there are plenty of ways to make your voice heard and change the screwed-up system.
Think about it this way…
Aren’t we the lucky ones who get to support old people in the lap of luxury as they face mass extinction? Yep, just like the dinosaurs, but without the potential for a theme park (it’d be way too frightening to see a Hillary Clintonasaurus chasing after you in your car’s side-view mirror). Instead of paying for an amusement park, you’ll pay into Social Security for your entire working life and never see the benefit of it (if you have no clue what I’m talking about, you’d better go back and read chapter 2). Right now, you’re out there hustling in the workforce so that millions of old farts can spend the next twenty years playing golf in Florida and lounging on the beach in too-revealing swimwear.
Doesn’t that piss you off? Overexposed cellulite aside… it should! Get pissed and get loud. Use some of the same medicine that the boomers did back in the day when they were unwashed hippies and thought they could change the world, one peace march at a time. Fortunately there are better ways of telling our legislators that we’re sick of eating their bullshit sandwiches. If there’s a government program that reeks of entitlement or just plain stupidity, we need to let them know.
The reason we don’t have to despair is because it’s never been easier to use the tools our generation has created and developed to our advantage. We’ve been mocked and ridiculed for our use of technology. Now it’s time to show the world that we’re more than our Candy Crush scores.
If you’re over the age of ten, you’ve probably heard that the mainstream media is biased. That phrase shouldn’t be shocking. But do you understand the mechanics behind the expression? Traditionally, the type of people who gravitated toward journalism as a career came from educated, liberal backgrounds. And if a reporter came from a liberal East Coast family, how do you think she was going to frame a story? It would only be natural for that person to feel most comfortable in a position of servitude toward the politicians who mirrored her own principles.
Many journalists have admitted point-blank that they were coerced into slanting their stories in ways that were favorable to liberals, while also painting devil horns and a pitchfork on stories about conservatives.1 I mean, when you have a network nightly news anchor who starts telling baldfaced lies about his experiences as a reporter covering the war in Iraq, clearly, these folks are used to making stuff up. And feel quite comfortable doing it.
Do you know what finally brought the truth to light in the case of Brian Williams’s deceit? Interestingly enough, it was social media. The soldiers involved, the ones who actually put their lives on the line for Williams’s butt, spent many years unsuccessfully fighting the bogus story he was sharing publicly about coming under enemy fire. No one listened. These brave men were not heard until Facebook and Twitter were launched and the truth was given a voice.2 A voice that could not be ignored. Not even by the liberal media. The world, and by extension the world of social media, became ours for the taking.
It all happened not so long ago in a galaxy far, far away… called Harvard, where a nineteen-year-old student named Mark Zuckerberg started Facebook. Was it a completely new idea? Did he reinvent the wheel? Hell no. He was a college kid. There was beer to drink and girls to obsess over when they turned him down for dates.
But he did do something pretty extraordinary. He took an idea that already existed (a web-based school directory that was being used at most Boston-area colleges) and transformed it into the virtual place to be if you wanted to connect or be connected with.3 The coolest part is that Zuckerberg started it all from his dorm room in a hoodie and flip-flops.
He didn’t have to pretend to be an adult in an expensive suit with a mortgage and country club membership. Zuckerberg, before the age of twenty, started a networking revolution without ever leaving his dorm room. Even better, the dude made a fortune doing something he loved, and he is now worth an estimated $44 billion. He’s currently the seventh richest person in the entire world.4 He makes the blowhards on that old show Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous look like sad little hobbits.
Did I mention that Zuckerberg was a college dropout? You know someone else who dropped out and made a ton of money riding the tech train? Jack Dorsey, the guy who made us all into obsessive “Twits.” Dorsey left New York, where he was a student at NYU, to follow his passion for coding in California, where he founded Twitter. What Dorsey lacks in fortune (estimated at more than $2 billion) next to Zuckerberg, he more than makes up for in GQ cover boy points.5 The dude is smokin’ hot, with or without all the zeroes attached to his bank statement, and he proves that nerds have come a long way since the old pocket protector days. No longer marginalized for being different, techies are now ruling a universe of their own design.
What did you do this morning after breakfast?
My point isn’t to make you feel sad and pathetic that you’re still in college or have just graduated and haven’t founded a billion-dollar tech startup. Not everyone can kick it Zuckerberg style. Or else everyone would. Just like everyone can’t be a mad genius coder who looks like Channing Tatum.
The way to be heard in today’s world is through media, be it social or otherwise. That’s how we communicate and run our lives. Technology has brought us closer and also amped up the volume on our thoughts and opinions. So it makes total sense that social media, specifically, has become a powerful and essential tool in starting revolutions worldwide.
Gone are the days when Paul Revere had to bust his hump riding on horseback in the middle of the night to spread the word that the British were coming. And he wasn’t talking about One Direction getting their rocks off.
Revere was a complete and utter badass. So much so, that he was employed by our Founding Fathers as a messenger to deliver news on matters of life and death for the colonists. Fast and accurate information was essential to the vast network of farmers throughout New England. Sadly, Revere hasn’t had a TV show dedicated to him yet, but I do think he deserves more time in the spotlight.
Effective as Revere was at getting the word out that the king’s troops were coming, he only had to reach a small audience over a relatively short distance. What if he had had to reach millions of people across an entire country?
What would have been impossible in 1775 is the norm today. Through social media outlets, we can reach ridiculous numbers of people living at the ends of the earth. With a little typing, and the click of a mouse, we can let the world know our thoughts on the latest Kylie/Tyga fight, or share an Instagram snap of the sushi we had for dinner (as if anyone but us cares). Sure, a lot of the messages we send are silly and unimportant, but the power of social media can be harnessed to effect real social change, too.
When the Middle East began to implode five years ago, young people took to social media to bring worldwide attention to their cause. Demanding a better life with greater respect from their governing bodies, they knew the best way to communicate with each other and the outside world was through blogs, Facebook, and Twitter.
The so-called Arab Spring began in December 2010, when a Tunisian street vendor set himself on fire in protest for his mistreatment at the hands of the government.6 He was just a self-employed merchant who was harassed by the local police and denied assistance by higher authorities when he begged for help. That one act of protest was the start of large-scale civil unrest that quickly spread across the Middle East and North Africa.7 Citizens of countries like Egypt, Syria, and Yemen were fed up with living under autocratic regimes that clearly didn’t care about their well-being. They were tired of being silenced and forced to follow laws that they had no part in creating.
When they finally decided that they couldn’t take the abuse any longer and wanted their collective voice to be heard by the world, what did they do? They took to social media to spread the word on their revolution. Facebook, Twitter, and personal blogs provided not only an outlet for their anger but also a logistical tool for exchanging information and planning demonstrations. Facebook pages like “We are All Khaled Said” were created to generate support and organize demonstrations.8 For the first time in centuries, the voices of ordinary Arabs were heard.
Now you may be wondering what someone in Tunisia setting himself on fire has to do with you. You may be pissed off at American government policies, but you’re not looking for a Bic lighter to make your point. Fortunately for all of us born in the United States, we haven’t had to resort to such extreme acts.
Your greatest weapon is your voice. And with the help of social media, we can be heard more loudly than ever by the people in power. We can be so loud, in fact, that it’s impossible for them to say they didn’t hear us. We have a record of what we’ve written and when and how many likes or retweets we’ve received. Those numbers speak a language that politicians understand. We may not have the strength in financial numbers of the lobbyists and personal-interest groups who are taking over Washington, but we can more than make up for it in the numbers of like-minded people determined to be heard above all the noise. We’re lucky that despite the mainstream media’s ability to screw up the facts and circumnavigate the truth, we can still be heard.
In 2009, when Barack Obama was inaugurated, the Tea Party movement was born. It became wildly popular and very quickly spread through the use of social media. The movement started with the angry rants of three stay-at-home moms on their personal blog.9 They garnered a tremendous amount of support because they were able to bring together so many different people from vastly different walks of life all across the country. How’d they do it?
Technology was particularly helpful for a group that didn’t want to limit itself to a party platform and wanted to remain flexible about its future course. How else would businessmen in New Hampshire, college students in Colorado, and retired oilmen in Texas be able to form such a powerful coalition? The Internet connected them all.
And then there’s Twitter. I’ve had many great exchanges with politicians by simply tweeting about them or retweeting something they may have said along with my own response. You’d be amazed how quickly some very public figures will get back to you if they think you’ve made an interesting point or maybe said something that they want to add to (or if you’ve managed to piss them off enough to prompt a response).
Our government was founded on the principle that our leaders should represent us. They are supposed to be our proxy in the legislature. To do their job well, they must have their “doors” open to us when we want to talk.
Unfortunately, for a very long time, the bureaucracy of big government acted as a barrier between politicians and their constituents. If you wanted to be heard, you would have to write a letter and send it through the postal service, and who knew if it was ever received or read and, if it was, by whom? Maybe an intern in between coffee runs? Those poor kids work their butts off for a decent job reference, but they’re not exactly the audience you’re looking for to change policy.
Do you know how popular and widely accepted Twitter has become as a platform for publicity and accessibility? So popular that Barack Obama has finally conceded that maybe he should be doing some of his own tweets.
Back when Obama was running against Mitt Romney in the 2012 presidential election, the future president pretty much ate his opponent’s lunch by boasting 22.7 million Twitter followers over Romney’s measly 1.8 million.10 Obama also had 32.2 million likes on Facebook, while Romney could barely crawl to the finish line with 12.1 million. Did Obama win the election just because of a savvy social-media strategy? Probably not. But it certainly didn’t hurt his chances.
Throughout his presidency, Obama has harnessed new platforms to target messages to audiences that normally wouldn’t pay attention to politics. During his second term, he even compiled a fourteen-member staff for his White House Office of Digital Strategy (yeah, that’s a thing), which is larger than George W. Bush’s entire press secretary’s office was in 2005.11
And then there was Trump’s love affair with Twitter during (and after) the 2016 presidential campaign. Trump rightly complained about the bias of the mainstream media, but he was able to cut through the spin and speak directly to the voters using his own social media accounts.
Obama has been successful at building what’s called brand awareness. Just like Apple and Starbucks, our politicians require sophisticated marketing strategies.
Not everyone is so slick and manufactured, though. And thanks to social media, candidates who aren’t prepackaged with artificial sweetener can attract attention from a well-informed consumer. Ron Paul is a terrific example of a lesser-known political figure who has gained traction on Twitter. I mean, c’mon, it shouldn’t be too shocking that the president of the United States has the most followers of anyone in the political arena right now, with nearly 24 million currently.12 But Paul is true rock star for making it into the top ten list with more than half a million.
A medical doctor, now in his eighties, who served in the Air Force and National Guard, Paul entered politics as a congressman from Texas, all the while continuing to deliver babies. This guy is the real deal, and he also appears much more youthful and dialed into what our generation is looking for in a leader than many much younger politicians. Paul is exceptional in that he recognized very early on, while the Internet was in its infancy, how important it was to connect with younger generations. If a presidential candidate like Ron Paul, who is completely outside of the traditional two-party system, can cause such commotion on social media, what’s stopping you?
Freedom and democracy are constantly evolving. And just as the world continues to change as rapidly as the casting on the Real Housewives of Anywhere, our politicians have to keep up if they want to hold our interest. I’ve mentioned before that we are fantastic at multitasking. It’s given us almost superheroic powers of discernment, because we’re great at weeding out the bullshit. Politicians now have to make their ideology short and sweet and straight to the point. Because who has the time or interest to read a two-hundred-page dissertation on the true meaning of the Second Amendment?
According to a Pew Research Center survey leading up to the 2014 midterm election, 16 percent of registered voters follow candidates for office, political parties, or elected officials on a social networking site.13 That number may not seem super impressive at first glance, but keep in mind that it was a 10-percentage-point increase from the 2010 midterms, when only 6 percent of registered voters did so. One-quarter of registered voters now get political news on their cell phones.14 Millennials specifically are getting news about politics and government mostly from social media. Roughly 61 percent say they get their political news from Facebook.15
We’re better and more efficient at using that news in our daily lives. We would be chumps for not recognizing this and using it as leverage in public debate and discourse. Social media allows for what’s called a participatory democracy.16 That means we the people hold all the power in politics, because we spread the word to family and friends about candidates or positions we approve of or want to annihilate. Just as a friend may recommend a killer bar on Instagram or Facebook and you decide to check it out for yourself, word of mouth from those you trust will be the most persuasive sales pitch in the world.
There are several monumental decisions we all have to make at some point in our lives: where we choose to attend college, whom we marry, where we live, and whether or not we have the balls to start a blog. Yes, blogging is not for the faint of heart. And only the strongest will survive, but if you do, you could become legendary. I mean, let’s be real: Not everyone can score a sweet reality-TV gig. And truth be told, there are so many reality shows around now, what are the odds you would ever be noticed, anyway?
Blogs are different.
First of all, you have complete control over your image and expressed ideology. That rarely happens in a mainstream job. Usually you’re selling yourself by toeing the company line. They sign your paycheck and expect you to be a representative of their brand, not yours. But your own blog, or one that you start with friends, is completely proprietary, which is probably Latin for keep your hands off my shit. You’re totally free to go off on any rant or whim that strikes your fancy. It also allows for an in-depth expression of your personal ideology.
While social media is great for sending out short, witty sound bites or information, it it’s not effective for long-format discourse. To really get into the meat and potatoes of an argument or belief system, you’ll need to write more than 140 characters. And skip the hashtags in a blog, by the way. It’s like showing your thong at the opera. No one will be impressed.
But what if you’re not ready to go completely solo and develop your own site, you ask? Well, fortunately for you, there are dozens of ultrapopular, firmly established sites that are usually in desperate need of new material to publish. The Huffington Post, Breitbart, and Politico are just a few examples of reputable outlets that can enable you to get your opinions out there and make a name for yourself.
The great thing about having so many options is that there’s a blog for just about anyone having just about any belief system. Republican, Democrat, Libertarian, Green—or maybe you just feel superpassionate about cows having the right to graze on real grass. There’s probably a site for that. If there’s a blog dedicated to Ugly Renaissance Babies, I think you can find a niche fan group for that, too.17
Isn’t that what this country was founded on? That we’re all equal and free to believe what we want, including our right to view bad art? The real question is whether or not you are ready to truly put yourself out there and make a difference in the world. And if not you, then who? Zombies and power-hungry rednecks, er, I mean, the federal government and the people who run it. Doesn’t sound good any way we slice it, does it?
Anyway, by now it should be obvious that emerging platforms are changing our society, changing the political game as we know it, and presenting opportunities for marginalized voices to be heard. But simply understanding new technology isn’t enough—it’s critical to equip oneself with certain skills to thrive in this brave new world and make a truly significant impact on the political system.
Charisma is everything. I’m going to say that again. Charisma is everything. Because we live in a world in which people can rattle off the names of the entire Kardashian clan before they can name a single member of the Supreme Court, the cult of celebrity is not only thriving—it’s a multiheaded monster.
Our society has made it perfectly clear that we’re easily swayed by slick trickery. If you’re halfway good-looking, with a great smile, and can say a few words in front of a camera, you’re golden. And that has everything to do with the presence of a television in every living room in America.
When John Kennedy and Richard Nixon (two dead guys whose names should ring a bell) engaged in the first televised presidential debate in 1960, they forever changed the rules of campaigning.18 Kennedy was a dashing, young senator with All-American looks and a gorgeous, young wife on his arm. It was almost as if Brad Pitt was running for president with Angelina Jolie by his side. Nixon looked old, unattractive, and (even worse) like a total curmudgeon. Add in the fact that during the live debate, he began sweating, and then his stage makeup (which had been pancaked on) began dropping off his face. It was an epic fail for Nixon. Although, truth be told, he did make a comeback and went on to win the presidency twice, no doubt because of even less appealing opponents.
Now if Nixon had been running for office just a few decades earlier, his appearance and charm, or lack thereof, wouldn’t have mattered in the slightest. Back then few people met or saw candidates in person. Voters were completely at the mercy of the print media. Sure, there were drawings (in the early days of our country) and then eventually photos for people to match up with the names they were reading about, but personality and charisma had very little to do with how people voted. And while it’s great that we have more access to political candidates today through extensive multimedia coverage, it’s also created an entirely new set of problems, because we want everyone we see on TV to be a celebrity. We expect politicians to look and act like movie stars, because they appear on the same screens as real entertainers do. We’re far too easily swayed by glitz and glamour. Quite frankly, it’s embarrassing. We’re better than this, people. We’re adults. And, hopefully, educated and passionate about creating a better future for our country. We shouldn’t be making life-altering decisions based on whatever shiny object or talking bobblehead with bad hair captures our attention.
At the time of the first GOP debate of the 2016 presidential election, it was the most watched cable news telecast in history (only to later be outdone by the first presidential debate). Of the coveted viewing demographic (adults ages 25–54), it averaged nearly 8 million viewers, yet another cable news record. Why was this debate in particular so wildly popular, especially more than a year before the actual election, when the playing field included nearly twenty hopeful candidates?19
What attracts and repulses us in equal measure time and time again? Celebrity. We all tuned into the debate to watch what happens live (ideally with cosmos and our best gay pals), because Donald Trump had created a carnival sideshow that couldn’t be passed up. Some say he meticulously built his brand on buffoonery, because it got him lots of attention in a very crowded room. I say he’s a marketing genius who knows how to connect with voters in the modern world. After the first GOP debate, Trump dominated headlines worldwide. Why? He has that certain je ne sais quoi that the American public loves to watch, radiating strength through a powerful presence. Love Trump or hate Trump, you know who Trump is. He’s made himself one of the most famous men in the world, and it all comes down to charisma.
So, yeah, Trump is proof that politics is changing forever. Other candidates would be smart to learn from him. By harnessing creative showmanship, they can now get the attention of voters who normally wouldn’t listen. Imagine if a politician like Gary Johnson, former Libertarian Party candidate for president, had gotten across his message using the Trump method—libertarianism would probably spread like wildfire.
And make no mistake: Charisma isn’t just important for politicians. It’s also critical for us everyday folks who just want to make our voices heard. Let’s say you’re passionate about increasing access to birth control. Your cause will get a lot more attention if you parade around the streets with megasized condoms than it would if you stood on a corner with a tiny boring sign. Remember, it’s all about making people listen by getting their attention and making a bold statement.
The bottom line is that presentation and style are just as important as ideas these days. You may hate it (how you doin’, Jeb?), but that’s just the way it is.
It’s also easier than ever to educate yourself and call BS on what the mainstream media is hell-bent on forcing you to believe. Through the miracle of the Internet, you can do your own sleuthing to find out if a politician’s record matches his or her campaign platform. You can also keep informed on what new socialist-inspired program the government is introducing today and hoping you won’t notice. C’mon, use that search engine for something more than finding out what Taylor Swift song lyrics were written about which ex-boyfriend. Or to figure out how to get bong water stains out of the carpet. Again, it’s never been easier or comfier to learn everything you’ve ever wanted to know about government policy but were afraid to ask.
Make sure you’re following and “liking” candidates and programs on Twitter and Facebook that mirror your political slant. There is a nonstop deluge of information in my newsfeeds each day. Can I get to it all every day? Not likely. But it’s the best way I know to stumble on the truly significant.
There’s something so awesome about learning new things about topics I didn’t yet know interested me. The Internet can lead to many happy discoveries. And while I sometimes wish I could unsee a few things like genital warts (don’t ask) and a close-up of a spider’s eight eyes, I honestly feel I’ve come across some really cool things that have brought the world around me more into focus, with the benefit of only two eyes.
The simplicity and accessibility of social media has everything to do with innovators who wanted the same thing their entire generation wanted. The only difference was their genius ability to make it happen. People like Mark Zuckerberg and Jack Dorsey had us in mind as they worked on their ideas because they were us. Just as their finished products are like another appendage for our generation, because they were created by one of our own.
It was young kids in dorm rooms or living on the fringes of society who did these things. They didn’t cost a fortune to develop, and they weren’t the products of a dozen old white men sitting around a conference table with spreadsheets and drawing boards. And now the greatest power of social media is its intrinsic nature to be a great equalizer throughout society. College kids, stay-at-home moms, and celebrities are all on equal ground and can easily communicate with each other without any awkward social barriers.
Through the effective use of social media, entire totalitarian regimes have been toppled at the hands of angry citizens. Just how effective is this method of protest? It’s so effective that countries like China and Vietnam have either completely banned its usage or severely limited its availability.20 Other countries like Egypt and North Korea monitor it very closely. Clearly they feel threatened. These authoritarian states aren’t stupid. You don’t get to subjugate millions of people by accident. You have to be shrewd and manipulative, and you have to crush individual thought completely. The best way to keep people down in the modern world is to take away their voice and their ability to connect with others. By taking away access to social media and the Internet, governments are wiping out their greatest threat—an individual’s freedom to participate on the political stage.
Remember, you are only as free as you choose to be. If you decide to stand by while our government continues to decide what is best for you, then you’re really handing over your freedom.
We have the chance to become the truly greatest generation. We may not be fighting Nazis like our grandparents did, but we do have to take a stand against something just as sinister. We’re fighting zombies (the federal government) and power-hungry leaders (corrupt career politicians). Let’s seize the opportunities we have to exert our power over these dangerous foes!
“Your digital call-to-arms is inspiring, but how can one person change anything when half a billion people are oinking into cyberspace at once?”
You say: “Movements are always started by one person; you just have to cut through the static and make yourself heard. You’ll be surprised how much attention you get online if you make sense in a senseless world.”
“What if I’m not attractive and have no personal charisma? Should I just hide under the covers and cry?”
You say: “Just because you don’t look like ScarJo or have the slick oratory skills of Barry O doesn’t mean your voice can’t rattle some cages in the digital world. Remember, a beautiful mind can be a beautiful thing.”
“Isn’t it too late to change anything when the system is rigged to benefit the ones in power?”
You say: “Thankfully, our corrupt government is full of mortal old men who will retire or die one day. Our time will come, so get ready; you can be part of the solution if you get off your Xbox and give a damn!”
“I’ve got better things to do than vote.”
You say: “Like what? Play Cards Against Humanity while Rome burns? If you don’t care enough to vote, you have no right to complain about the government we have. Remember: No one is looking out for your best interests in this life, except you.”