Who Cares About Hair? Twitterers Do!
In which I pointlessly reply to Mathew Ingram’s piece: “Memo to Malcolm Gladwell: Nice Hair, But You Are Wrong” which is a reaction to Malcolm Gladwell’s New Yorker piece “Small Change: Why the revolution will not be tweeted.
Stone’s tweet proves Gladwell’s case. He reduced the argument to picking on Gladwell’s appearance. Your article amplifies that, going with a headline that Gladwell is “wrong” then somehow (correctly) conceding Gladwell’s main arguments on their face, but then claiming he still doesn’t get it because he failed to join in the chorus about how great social media is.
Re:Liu Xiaobo, you write “Has Twitter led to his release? No. But as Stone argues, it has given Chinese citizens a way of talking about him”
You understand this is in no way refutes Gladwell’s point, right? This is affirming Gladwell’s case that getting people “talking” is of limited real value. Why would you even mention this? This is exactly what Gladwell was talking about.
The response to Gladwell’s points has illustrated the true power of social media: TO mobilize a lot of reactionary “OMG NO HE DIDN’T” jibber-jabber without actually considering his points in a careful, rational way, and certainly without refuting them in any convincing way.
Can communication tools help? Yes? Are they a revolution in themselves? No. That has to come from us. When someone points this out, it behooves us to stop gleefully banding together to tear him down, and look for ways to incorporate his points into a stronger worldview.
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This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 19th, 2010 at 5:28 pm
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Nicely put, Mick.