Program scripts from week of April 15, 2013
My name is Jay Phillippi and I've spent my life in and around the media. TV, radio, the movies and more. I love them, and I hate them and I always have an opinion. Call this the View from the Phlipside.
On Netiquette
A couple of weeks ago a Facebook friend of mine made the comment “Netiquette is still under development”. Netiquette is that legendary set of shared behaviors that will allow us to get along on the World Wide Web. Oh, stop laughing. The hope has always been that someday we might find some social norms to that allows the best of life on the Web while restraining the worst.
What brought all of this to mind was an experience of my own. Unless you’ve got your Facebook Friends list really tightened down you have lots of “friends” that you really don’t know. I have 901 friends on Facebook. The vast majority I’ve never met in real life and a large percentage of them are in that broad category of “friends of friends”. It was one of the folks in that category that triggered this. This young man had begun posting a bunch of photos that I just found uncomfortable. Normally I would just hit “Hide” and move on but it became photo after photo after photo. So I sent him a private message and suggested that rather than blasting these photos out to everyone (I was not the only person to comment) but to use Facebook’s “Lists” function to target them. I was politely told to go away. Permanently. So I did and unfriended him.
In and of itself it was no big deal. But I started thinking about the netiquette aspects of it all. Effectively the other guy’s point of view said “This is my space, my living room and I can do what I want”. On the surface that would seem to be true. Except that it overlooks one critical fact. It’s you living room into which you have invited hundreds of people. Imagine doing this in real life, inviting all kinds of people into your house and then doing things that make some of them uncomfortable. When they comment on this you simply tell them to get lost.
In the end we need to remember that our social media is NOT the same as our personal living spaces. These are generally public forums and they are public because we have chosen to make them public. How we behave in public is often different than how we may chose to behave at home. When I was growing up it was called “company manners”. Your family and closest friends are usually willing to put up with personality quirks. Social settings work better when we try to ease the jagged edges a little.
But for the time being we’ll have to wait for Netiquette to make it out of development.
No Accident
There is no greater minefield in American culture than racism. Last week Country music star Brad Paisley didn’t just walk into it, he did a belly flop.
Right off the bat let me say that I think Paisley’s intent was good. The song was a reaction to a true story in his own life when an African American barista at Starbuck’s took exception to a t-shirt Paisley was wearing with the image of the Confederate Stars and Bars. Wanting to start a discussion on the subject of race using his high profile stardom is a good idea.
Sadly it didn’t go well from that point on. Let’s take a look at what, in my opinion, are two primary mistakes here.
First is the title of the song, “Accidental Racist”. I’m really rather surprised this got the nod. Let’s try a few other variants to demonstrate my point. Accidental Wife Beater, Accidental Serial Killer, Accidental Nazi. It’s just a dumb title that pretty much sets the song up to fail.
The second problem I see is focusing the song on the issue of the battle flag. Saying that wearing that flag is just a way of showing you’re a fan of southern rockers Lynyrd Skynyrd, by anyone but perhaps most especially by a southern man, is either astounding stupidity or appalling naivete. Paisley talks about the modern South (quoting the lyrics now) “...still paying for the mistakes that a bunch of folks made long before we came...”. Well here’s a suggestion - how about NOT wearing important symbols of the people who made those mistakes. How about not trying to paper over the profound evil that the culture of that time was built upon? If Brad Paisley had really wanted to advance the discussion he would have been better off writing a song about how he took that shirt home and burned it. Then vowed to never wear that flag again.
Music can be a powerful tool in advancing the cause of social change. Brad Paisley and LL Cool J (who contributed what sounds even to my ears as some pretty lame rapping to the song) had a solid idea in opening a discussion of race through popular music. Unfortunately they chose a very poor map to guide them through the minefield.
Crisis Management
It wasn’t bad enough that it was Monday. It was Monday AND Tax Day. That’s probably as much bad news as most of us really needed or wanted that day. Of course by mid-afternoon things took a very serious turn for the worse when news came out of Boston about explosions at the Boston Marathon.
As I write this Monday evening there are still many more questions than answers. That will probably be the way of it for a while yet as the authorities work to track down whoever is responsible.
There was a perfectly predictable immediate aftermath to the breaking news however. It was a near panic reaction from some people. It was 9/11 again, it was this, it was that. All of this based on virtually no actual factual information of any kind. That was followed by a wave of folks mourning the constant onslaught of bad news.
All the experts recommend that we have plans for dealing with emergencies. Selecting a location for the family to gather if we have to leave the house. Having emergency supplies in our cars if a blizzard is coming. It’s the practice of thinking things through BEFORE the bad stuff happens. I’d like to suggest we do the same thing with the media when there’s a catastrophe or emergency.
Call it your Emergency Media Management Plan.
The problem is that there are just too many outlets for what is usually a small load of information. When I came home Monday afternoon I actually was getting my updates from ESPN. They had as much media presence there as anyone. Trying to keep track of what all those outlets are saying is like trying to drink from a fire hose. Pick one and only one and stick to it. Any breaking news will break on your network within minutes of it showing up. The reality is that the vast majority of us don’t need instant access to the latest information. Then after you’ve watched or listened for a half an hour walk away from the media for at least that long.
Trust me, you’ll get the news you need while keeping your anxiety level at a manageable level. Days like Monday are bad enough on their own. Finding a way to manage our media inspired madness is a great way to fight back.
Call that the View From the Phlipside
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