Alex Lucas – 24th May 2011
What you learn when you get out there
I went to the Creative Social event at Juno on Shoreditch high street the other night with my creative partner, Jon. He’d booked the tickets in advance, not really knowing what to expect. We turned up five minutes before the talk was due to start and managed to bag one of the prime spots on the leather sofas at the front – 10 minutes later the place was rammed.
As everyone settled down, Flo Heiss took the mic and started to talk about how the Internet used to be fun. In the good old days… He showed us a very entertaining animated gif of David Hasselhoff emerging from his own pants, over and over again, which he proclaimed to be the ‘best animated gif ever made’… I can’t say that I agreed. He then showed us the Guinness Surfer ad and went on to say that he didn’t think anything had been done digitally that came close to it’s power and beauty. I think he may have a point.
One of my favourite digital campaigns ever is ‘Whopper Sacrifice’ for Burger King by Crispin Porter + Bogusky. Really simple: de-friend 10 people on Facebook and get a free Whopper. It was so successful Facebook shut it down. It doesn’t inspire the same awe as a beautifully shot ad with a script pinched from Moby Dick, but what it did do was stick two fingers up to Facebook and the way it has made friendship dirt cheap. Digital seems to me to be the maverick wild west of advertising, where the consumer can tear you a new one or welcome you into their hearts. Interesting choice…
There were some other great talks – by Chris Clarke and Laura JB from LBI and Nathan Cooper form Anomaly, to name but a few.
The talk that stood out most for me, though, was from Andy Sandoz. What I found really interesting (not to mention terrifying) was his suggestion that the Internet is slowly defining society, rather than society defining the net. This has all sorts of consequences: If the Internet does take over, where the hell are we? Excuse me, but I don’t want to be defined by a piece of Korean bloody plastic. And I don’t want to live my life through a digital avatar. I might as well not exist physically at all.
Another of Andy’s key points was that people are now living in a consequence-free world, where they can anonymously abuse their peers with little or no fear of retribution. This overrides some of the things that inhibit us from being mean and spiteful. There have been Facebook restraining orders on chavs after police have found evidence of online abuse — but this seems to be just the tip of the iceberg. There are websites where people can get their attractiveness rated. Maybe I am just against this because i’m a miserable bastard, but surely the people who use these sites are complete cowards?
Conscience is a frail thing when people, especially the young, gain momentum as a group. Your life can literally be destroyed on Facebook or Twitter or indeed any other kind of (anti?) social platform. Think of the Star Wars kid with 9 million views. It may be funny, but it’s also bullying on a global scale – and it’s becoming more and more acceptable.
Getting back to the idea that our basic instincts are being changed by the internet, Dave Birss recently interviewed Dave Trott for a podcast. His view is that no matter what happens in terms of digital and scientific evolution, human instinct remains exactly the same as it has been for thousands of years. We will always be ruled by it, according to Dave.
In light of the pace at which people are setting up their online lives, Dave might want to revise his view in 10, 5, 2 years, or even next week. The rest of the podcast is worth a listen. You can find it on iTunes or on www.getadditive.com.
During the evening, people were asked how old they were. If they were sub 25 then they were deemed to be digital natives i.e. people who have grown up with the Internet and computers. People older than 35 were seen as the ‘terrestrials’: this is my own made-up phrase but I think it does the job. The difference between these two groups is relevant as the sub 25 year olds plaster their lives across the digital world without any form of filtration. The post 35 year olds were much more guarded generally, having grown up with four channels (and the cold war). I think this split is a little unfair as I know people who are twice my 25 years and know more about the Internet and digital than anyone my age will ever know. Some people regardless of age seem to just understand how anything digital works.
The more you Tweet, Facebook and Youtube, the more of you there is out there. What’s even more terrifying is that you don’t own any of your information on Facebook. Facebook do. They can use it for whatever they want and share it with whomever they want. There have been countless stories about people who have slagged off their boss on Twitter or Facebook only to be found out. What’s the lesson? Don’t be mates with your boss. This is a word of warning to young creatives and anyone else really, be careful what you say, as there will probably be a record of it forever. Also, when you are going for a job, the person who is interviewing you will google you to check you’re not a murderer. You might not be one of those, but there’s always the chance they will find a picture or two of you snorting lines of cocaine off a prostitute’s tits in Vegas.
Chris Clark ended his talk with what might be the answer to why people think the Internet has lost it’s sense of fun. He said that if you lament the old days then you have probably just become a boring old bastard and should embrace one of the most amazing advances ever. Here I thought, is someone who loves his job.
The Internet and the digital world are to me a playground. There are games, bullies and pornography. Just remember to play safe. Stay classy.
Massive thanks to @CreativeSocial for the great evening they organised and also to the speakers who took their time to share their thoughts.
