Sharing And Judging
This awesome response (set of responses) by Lindsay Zoladz to the Pitchfork list reminds me of something from work which I’m guessing may not surprise 12% some of you.
Most social media marketing/brand ”campaigns” - & the Peoples List is one, especially from Converse’s POV - involve asking people to do something and then share that something. But sharing is always opening yourself up to judgement, and the space brands are asking you to do that in may not be the space you’d have chosen yourself or feel happy in.
Tech-bros talking to other tech-bros often glide over this: sharing is awesome, social is awesome, active is better than passive, participate participate. Downsides to participation are always framed in terms like “information overload” (message: I’m too busy and in demand to deal with this shit). But when (mostly female) qualitative researchers I know started talking to (mostly female) young people about Facebook etc and why they weren’t so keen on talking on it about stuff they were 100% passionate about, this weariness with judgement came through very strongly.
