Saturday, 5 March 2011
“It’s just a passing fad!!!…Discount the fawning techno-burble about virtual communities. Computers and networks isolate us from one another. A network chat is a limp substitute for meeting friends over coffee.” Clifford Stoll
“Baaaaaaaaa”….. that is what my friend said to me… “Baaaaaaaaa”. My friend thinks I’m a sheep. And why? Because I used Facebook and Twitter to invite people to an event. Apparently, I should have got off my derriere and gone out and post invitations in a letter box and to do so using social media means that I’m a sheep.” Baaaaaaaaa”.
This friend could not believe that I submitted to the social media fad. She thought I had ‘more about’ me. She could not believe that I think I am actually conversing with people when I use social media sites. She says with great pride that she has accounts on those sites (of course) but she NEVER really uses them… “ I check in with it every now and again to see if I’ve missed anything but really social media is just a trend… it’ll pass” And I was chastised for being taken in by fashion. To my friend I was guilty of being caught up in a fad.
Fads…. those fashionable trends that are taken up with great enthusiasm for a brief period of time. I suppose a great way of describing them is a ‘craze’. It is the ultimate display of sheep like behaviour in human beings.
… or should I say fish…being carried along with the flow. And to give respect where it is due it takes a lot of strength to swim against the current. People like my friend are very proud about not going along with a trend. And she’s not alone:
“Fads are the kiss of death. When the fad goes away, you go with it.”
Conway Twitty
He pointed out that submitting to a fad can make you seem with it while the fad is “in”, but like all fashions, by the very nature of a fad it will disappear leaving you looking like a fool. Far better to be the fish swimming against the current than one of the many left washed up on the shore.
So are they right to take this stance? Or are they just rebels without a clue?
“You see, the automobile was just a passing fad. It’s got to go.”
Lawrence Felinghetti
San Francisco’s first poet laureate once felt cars were really not going to contribute much to the future… after all humanity had got about quite happily and efficiently before some idiot showed one at a French Artillery show in 1769 and the first mass produced one rolled onto the streets in 1901. And he was right… humanity had managed to get about quite well without cars.
Fact: There are now approximately 806 million cars on the planet. Numbers are increasing rapidly (especially in China and India) and there is little sign of this particular transportation fad passing to date. Lawrence may have been secretly overjoyed that this fad lingered as his great and timeless masterpiece “Two Scavengers in a Truck” kind of depended on them.
“Movies are a fad. Audiences really want to see live actors on a stage”.
Charlie Chaplin
The South London Lad predicted movies would be just a fad. After all as a successful stage actor of many years he knew the relationship between the actor and the audience was one that was best developed live and could not be replicated by a flickering light in a darkened chamber. And he was right… actors have been performing live since the first play was performed around 2500-2600 BC in Egypt and still do.
FACT: The global film industry is at 2011 worth approximately £1.7 trillion. Filmed entertainment rises year on year by 2.9% with the fastest growing markets being Brazil, Russia, India and China. Charlie will be pleased to note that his prediction has been overridden by the fact that HE is now considered one of the greatest filmmakers in history, and HIS movies were and still are popular throughout the world. Although funny enough no one can quite recall any of his stage performances.
“Taking in and blowing out smoke? It got to be such a fad”.
James Coburn
The Magnificent Seven/In like Flint actor was alarmed to see the popularisation of smoking during the twentieth century, but he knew it was just a fad. After all inhaling a daily narcotic publically could hardly be viewed as glamorous. And he was right… there was no sign of glamour in the first report of a smoking Englishman (a sailor in Bristol in 1556) who was reported as looking like a dragon with “emitting smoke from his nostrils”.
FACT: Globally cigarettes alone are an industry worth £97 billion per year and remains the most common method of consuming tobacco. The active substances trigger chemical reactions in nerve endings, which heighten heart rate, memory, alertness and reaction time. Dopamine and later endorphins are released, which are often associated with pleasure. Despite currently living in an era of bans due to the health issues arising from this habit smoking is on the increase. Coincidentally non smoker James Coburn’s most famous characters all were smokers. For the 1.22 billion smokers globally the taking in and blowing out of smoke remains an evocative, sexy, macho, tough and irresistibly glamorous activity.
Emmmmmmmmmmmmm……. Not doing too good at proving that going along with a fad is a short term thing. Surely the OLD ways are the best ways? Like my friend said, social networking is just a silly fad, mankind has better established and more popular ways of communicating.
And she has some heavy weight support. After all, Clifford Stoll is an educated man – he gained a Ph.D. and is the author of multiple books as well as a slew of technology articles. So when he spoke of the future of social networks in 1995, the world listened:
“It’s just a passing fad!!!…Discount the fawning techno-burble about virtual communities. Computers networks isolate us from one another. A network chat is a limp substitute for meeting friends over coffee.” Clifford Stoll
Yep only a lonely loser would consider social networking! The two words together make the ultimate oxymoron when used in the context of computing!!! Sitting on your own, staring at a screen, fantasising that there is anyone out there who cares? My friend is right. I’m a sheep “Baaaaaaaaa”…..
Or am I?
FACT: If the social networking site ‘Facebook’ were a country it would be the third largest by population in the world. More people populate it than The USA, than Indonesia, than Brazil, than Pakistan, than Bangladesh… Only China and India have higher populations. Previous ‘passing fads’ that hit the magic 50million global users (the number that points to it being a trend that is here to stay) are:
Telephones (96 years to get there)
Radio (36 years to get there)
Television (13 years to get there)
Internet (4 years to get there)
No one is quite sure about Facebook at within its first year it hit 200 million global users. It has categorically proved that social networking is not a fad and is a fundamental shift in the way we communicate. And before you say it is just the kids doing it the fastest growing demographic on Facebook is 55-65 year olds! To be fair, Clifford Stoll DOES now have a Facebook page… but unfortunately at the time going to press it has only 273 likes. Maybe he’s out having a cup of coffee with ‘real people’.
Thing is its great taking a stand against new trends.
Most are in fact fads. And it is great to be superior and say you will not go with the flow. Like Conway Twitty, who I quoted in support of my friend’s take on fads. I guess the man stuck with his convictions and sang Country music the old way till he popped his clogs.
But to do so is also to take the risk of being utterly and completely proven wrong. The new ways will creep in… and get more popular. Before you know it they’ve hit the magic 50 million and you’ll be wondering how on earth you managed before.
But to get to that point you have to take the risk of being thought by your peers as subscribing to an idea that is just a passing fad.
Gershwin saw this and set it to music perfectly:
They all laughed at Christopher Columbus
When he said the world was round
They all laughed when Edison recorded sound
They all laughed at Wilbur and his brother
When they said that man could fly
They told Marconi
Wireless was a phony
It’s the same old cry
They laughed at me wanting you
Said I was reaching for the moon
But oh, you came through
Now they’ll have to change their tune
They all said we never could be happy
They laughed at us and how!
But ho, ho, ho!
Who’s got the last laugh now?
They all laughed at Rockefeller Centre
Now they’re fighting to get in
They all laughed at Whitney and his cotton gin
They all laughed at Fulton and his steamboat
Hershey and his chocolate bar
Ford and his Lizzie
Kept the laughers busy
That’s how people are
They laughed at me wanting you
Said it would be, “Hello, Goodbye.”
And oh, you came through
Now they’re eating humble pie
They all said we’d never get together
Darling, let’s take a bow
For ho, ho, ho!
Who’s got the last laugh?
Hee, hee, hee!
Let’s at the past laugh
Ha, ha, ha!
Who’s got the last laugh now?”
People are still singing that song 75 years after it was written. You can substitute any new idea for the ones he brought up… but the song stays relevant.
People will always laugh at new ways of doing things, new products, new movements… they will always call them fads…
But fellow sheep… have no fear… WE will have the last laugh.
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