The e-riot
During my research at MICA on the 1984 Sikh riots, the most obvious property of a crowd kept popping up. The fact that crowds amplify sentiments. It’s only natural after all.
If one wants to be a part of the crowd or be heard in one, you have to be more extreme than them all.
The result is that your group turns into a group of extremists, really. All raging to out-do the other and yet show loyalty to the group’s thought and cause.
The online world isn’t much different if you ask me. These rules of the crowd apply just as much.
People tend to react in extremes in the online world. They either love you or they hate you. This may be common in today’s world but it’s accentuated by the fact that online you’re competing for popularity, page views, subscribers, followers with only your words to stand for you. And since CAPS is considered bad manners, you’ve only got biting words at your disposal.
A dislike for a brand’s campaign can suddenly spiral into a I-hate-brand-X campaign with bloggers sporting buttons and hacking you down on twitter. After all, the stronger my point of view, the more peopel are bound to take me seriously. Plus the stronger my words, the more likely you are to read on.
Reacting vs Responding
With such little time left for reflection
with 20 tweets a minute
with 10 feeds updates an hour
you really have such little time to process information you read. And the constant need to be a part of the conversation and be one with th group means we’re all often reacting rather than responding. (Amazon Fail)
Notice the sudden outrage at the Amazon story #AmazonFail
This is especially worrisome if you agree that ”If things are happening too fast, you may not ever fully experience emotions about other people’s psychological states” (Twitter and Facebook could harm moral values, scientists warn)
This reaction is often exaggerated by social media socialites and turns outrage into a true blue e-riot.
Show-you-your-place syndrome
Now this is where the power gets to your head. The 66 odd subscribers I have and how I can use them to show this person/company/brand that I can ’screw their happiness’.
Outrage is more justice seeking and serves as a good warning (in my humble opinion). While the second one is plain vindictive.
Coke did this campaign with bloggers some time back where they asked them
to give some of their home page to their new brand i9. In return they sent
them a cool usb-fridge. To say thank you ofcourse.
Now outrage would be saying coke shouldn’t have done this. why buy bloggers off. unfair. boo.
But what really happened is plain vindictive -
Bloggers who were not a aprt of the campaign starting trashing coke left right and centre. Perhaps they were jealous. Perhaps they hated the idea of bloggers being bought. But then they weren’t being bought, right? so why all the fuss?
April 14th, 2009 at 5:25 pm
I guess it’ll take the normal internet using, blog reading public some time to realise the power of social networks and blogs.
The bloggers know it and that is why are stupid (or intelligent) enough to use their powers and start riots, or e-riots, as you call them with a simple play of words.
After a while, though, what is going to happen is that people will learn to read through the words and understand that not everything on the Internet is true or fair.
And yes, the fact that one can respond on an issue without reading and understanding is what sets the web apart. In my opinion, it makes it easier to separate the wheat from the chaff – but yes, you need to condition your mind to question everything you read on the net
April 14th, 2009 at 5:52 pm
@Sharninder
Most junior bloggers will happily jump up and down in agreement with a senior blogger. it puts you in the same thought bubble, the same social media conversation, the same band… almost
And questioning everything you read, just makes social media less appealing. After all, we switched from paid TOI movie reviews to twitter movie reviews for a reason. Because we trust social media more.
But we forget that just like a TOI or a Coca Cola, a social media socialite might have an agenda too.
April 15th, 2009 at 10:59 am
@sonaljhuj
Well, actually as social media becomes more and more, well, social, it is bound to become more like the real world, or like you say, less appealing. And people are going to treat everything they read with a pinch of salt. That is how things work in the real world and that is how it’ll work in the virtual world.
The difference is the social graph is much larger here but the fact that you can’t trust everything remains. Would you trust, @HeMan more on twitter or @guykawasaki
HeMan probably can’t start an e-riot without atleast some people questioning whereas guy kawasaki can do so with virtually no effort, or a little effort .. virtually 
April 15th, 2009 at 11:03 am
@Sharninder I see your point. By the way, I wouldn’t trust a GuyKawasaki either. He ghost-twitters. I mean, sure i still follow him for access to cool links and info, but now I don’t know if I’d ever ‘follow’ his thinking or allow it to influence me.
April 21st, 2009 at 9:24 pm
The Reaction: Brilliant stuff here!
The Response: I think early adopters of social media, who are really powerful now, have reached the peak of their influence. I think you’re right that people will soon become wary of unquestioning acceptance of the pronouncements of e-socialites and begun to act more like they do in their real lives. Till that happens, I expect to see more of over-reactions, more of exaggerations and more hyper-sensitivity. So just sit back and enjoy the madness!
April 22nd, 2009 at 5:51 pm
@Arslan Aziz Hi Arslan. Thank you for the comment