Social Media & Work: Working Hard or Hardly Working?

For as long as I have been using social media my Mother has been drilling into me the importance of social media with regards to my career and working life.  She floated anecdotes of employees being reprimanded, even fired, for over use of the internet in general, not to mention those employees who found themselves caught out for using social media inside and outside of work. The argument over social media and its place in the employment world has been waging for as long as the relationship between employees and social media has existed.

Facebook has over 800 million users worldwide it is reasonable to assume, given the demographics of social media users that a lot of these people are in the 18-29 age group, and are either working or looking for work. Much of the conversation regarding the use of social media and employees was focused on the impact all the Facebooking was having on productivity. In 2007 a study estimated that the time spent by workers on Facebook and it’s ilk, was costing businesses over £130m a day, a similar study was conducted in 2009 that estimated the loss to business as a result of employees using social media was £1.4bn. Firewalls were erected, employees were reprimanded for over use of social media and Facebook was solely confined to something you used at home to interact with friends.

If Facebook was being used for your actual social interaction, what was happening to your business interactions? LinkedIn, a social media for professionals, launched in 2003 (two years before Facebook opened itself to be used internationally). On LinkedIn you could connect with friends, old and new, under the banner of networking, you could follow companies, apply to jobs, upload your CV and accept job offers and network with CEO’s all from your living room, or desk. It added a new layer to how we use social media, and for the first time acknowledged that how we behaved, as users on certain sites, would not be the way we behaved on professional sites. Take my own friends; one, an ardent follower of the various cat picture reddits, called D and the other, known for her annoying habit of using text speak online, called A. On D’s Facebook you are subjected to meme after meme after meme, on his LinkedIn it’s nothing but insightful articles of how employees can work better in teams, how the financial crisis isn’t really the banking sectors fault (guess what field he’s in I dare you?), not a meme in sight. Similarly, A’s Facebook is a mash of ‘Wud lv 2 c u ltr’ and neon pink pictures with superimposed text like ‘He loved her more the less makeup she wore’, yet her LinkedIn account reads like its’ been written by an English graduate, not that that says much given the atrocious level of grammar and spelling on this English graduates blog, but it was certainly different to her private self.  The likes of LinkedIn changed employers relationship to social media, it’s no longer advantageous to ban employees from using all social media, especially when companies are using it themselves to attract clients, or new employees or investors.

As of 2012 confusion reigns in the business world as there is no format for how companies deal with social media. Some have relaxed previous bans on staff use, believing that if employees are given access to social media they will police themselves, a sort of honor code, but for Facebook. Some companies give employees a percentage of their workday to use for their own benefit, and naturally a lot of that benefit is taken up in Facebook credits. Yet, still some companies prefer to block out social media entirely, along with the rest of the Internet, to ensure employees remain focused on their work. This model is failing though, with the advent of smartphones the internet has become more accessible and now instead of trying to get around the company firewall employees are surreptitiously checking Facebook and Twitter under the table on their mobile phones.

Companies have realized by now that employees will not stop using social networking, even if they do reduce the actual amount of access on their work pcs, they will continue to check it at home, on the train/bus, in the canteen and if anything their productivity will reduce more due to the constant effort to try and get around the roadblocks companies put up to prevent it. So companies started accepting that we use Facebook, which may have had worse consequences for employees than simply denying the need for social media. This change started, for me at any rate, with the anecdotal evidence of people phoning in sick to work only to be pulled into the bosses office the next day and made look at their Facebook status for the previous day which instead of saying ‘Think I might die from flu’ says ‘OMG best day ever at the beach, hahahaha suckers.’ Needless to say these people are promptly shown the door. Now, I’m not going to pretend I’ve never thrown a sickie, or played up an illness to have an extra day at the weekend, but COME ON! If you post your nefarious activities online, I’m sorry but you deserve to be fired.

Little by little though privacy began to change and suddenly we weren’t just escaping exes, spam bots or advertisers, we were blocking our employers, making our pages so private that all you see is a landscape photo and the user name. We were closing ourselves off from potential and current employers, knowing that somewhere, no matter how far in the past, there was something we said or did that made us unemployable, and we’d be damned if they thought they were going to get our help in firing us! Now we live in world where every time we are looking for jobs we sanitize our Facebook page, ensure maximum privacy at all times, and do a Google search on our names just before an interview, to make sure that it returns nothing but embarrassing articles about winning merit awards in schools or some other nonsense you’re more then happy for potential employers to see.

Employers though, became wise to this cleaned up version employees were presenting, they knew, buried somewhere deep in those tagged pictures was a reason you wouldn’t get the job, only problem was they couldn’t access your page. A couple of months ago, the Internet was abuzz with the stories that employers were now routinely asking their potential and current employees for their Facebook passwords. Forget for a second that it’s a violation of Facebook’s TOS (not that you read them anyway) to hand out your password, the idea that an employer would have that level access not only to you, but to anyone who was stupid enough to be friends with you. Yet, for potential employees who refuse to give their Facebook passwords to future employers, it appears that such unwillingness to share personal information could be a roadblock to gaining employment.  Mashable (a sort of HuffPo but for social media) has an interesting article looking at how best to respond to employers asking for your Facebook login. The most interesting feature of the article for me is the line 'You represent your company, so keep your personal social networking about you and not about work.' This is what companies are afraid of, they're worried that you are badmouthing your company, sharing private customer information or treating them as fools as you phone in sick and brag about it. The last thing any company wants is your comments to go viral and cause the viral results to be returned when a potential customer or investor Google's the company.

Take the recent example here in Ireland of Vodafone. An employee posted a picture that s/he took in work that day, the photo available here (along with a rival companies own version) went viral after being picked up on twitter. The employee posted a picture of a conversation between them and another employee, abusing the customer (although not to her face). In the original picture the customer's face wasn't blurred, and the shop is easily identifiable by the view. Vodafone instantly jumped on top of the issue and suspended two employees pending an investigation. What followed was multiple discussions online between two types of people; Customer Service and Customers. Those who had worked or do work in customer service defended the actions of the employees, calling for anyone who had never given our about a customer behind their back to raise their hands, there were no takers. Then the customers, who were calling for heads to roll and fearing that they were being abused secretly by these customer service types.

Both were right and wrong. I worked in customer service, and not a day went by where a customer didn't get under my skin, it's a very hard job, and there is the need to blow off steam with coworkers (especially as saying it directly to the customer will get you fired) but that's where my sympathy ends. Like the earlier example of people who post on Facebook while pretending to be sick, I felt that these Vodafone staff members were too stupid to go unpunished. While there may have been no malice in it, and no one but the customer and the staff knows what went on directly before the picture was taken, but the fact of the matter is that they uploaded it ON THE INTERNET! Fools. Honestly. This is why employers want access to Facebook, but is this why they're not getting the access? I have always been very wary of posting up comments about work, when I worked in customer service the urge to display the level of stupidity shown by some customers, online was almost overwhelming, yet all I could think of was, 'What if someone sees this?' My Facebook profile is private, nothing I put up there can be seen by anyone I don't want to, but I acknowledged that it's in the public domain, and if I acknowledged that anything I put up online instantly becomes less mine than the internet's then how can I resist a company's attempt to look at something I don't consider private? I suppose I can't.


Leaving that aside I want to turn to an interesting example of these attempts at companies gaining access to private social networks. My better half (or so he says) has no Facebook. I'll pause here to let you understand that there are people in this world that don't have Facebook. Have you accepted it? No? Neither have I, and we've been together five years. I digress, when my better half (and his colleagues) were approached by their employer (or former employer in my better half's case) looking for details of their Facebook. Now, I'm sketchy on the details, but I don't think they were looking for login information, just links to their profiles. Some of the workers were adamant they would not submit such information, my better half had no interest in fighting the good fight and simply went to his HR manager and explained that he didn't have Facebook. Remember the consternation you felt when I told you that reader? Now, try and imagine you write my better half's paycheck. Needless to say they didn't believe him, they assumed he was lying and he went to great lengths to assure them that he didn't have one. They wanted him to create one, something to do with the potential for networking with other global company offices. He refused, giving (I'm sure) a speech about social networks and privacy that I have heard hundreds of times before, and it was dropped. It points to another facet of this conversation though, if employers are asking for Facebook logins and my better half goes for a job interview, do you think they will believe him when he says I don't have one? Probably not, even if they do, it's seen as a bit weird. Social media judgement has two faces for employees and their employers, damned if you do and damned if you don't. If you have one, you can be asked to provide information. If you don't have one, they will presume you do and that you're lying. If they accept you don't have one, it's still a bit weird. Can't win.

I fail to understand what exactly is to be gained from having access to employees Facebook. If we assume that by and large social media has evolved to the point that people are not stupid enough to endanger their professional lives with badmouthing the company. Isn't the question for login redundant then? Sure, the only way an employer ever truly know if the Facebook profile they see is the ‘complete’ one, or if it’s a heavily cleaned up version of the candidate. Surely though, this is exactly the person we put across in interviews, and yet that person gets the job. Ask yourself what your answer to ‘What is your biggest weakness?’ in a) A job interview and b) The bar with your friends. For me answer a) is ‘I’m too much of a perfectionist’ and b) is ‘Every time I hear a Cindi Lauper song I will immediately start belting it out no matter where I am or who I’m with.’ Unless I’m applying to be Cindi’s assistant, then that answer is not getting me the job. The idea of being honest with your employer is ridiculous, no employee has ever been fully honest with their potential or current employer and if you were then you got hired despite your honestly not because of your honesty.  Asking employees for their Facebook passwords is just removing the veil that exists between businesses you and personal you, a veil that has been keeping employees employed since the interview was invented. No one wants you to be the real you when you’re being the professional you, no one wants to see you do fifty shots of Jaeger at the company picnic, even if that is what you do on an ordinary weekend.

At the end of the day, there has always been a divide between our professional selves and our private selves. We have always held back portions of ourselves, be it because they're likely to get us in trouble, or just simply so you can segregate the work you from the home you. What's wrong with that? Nothing. Social media is just another facet of the double life most workers lead. By attempting to remove the veil that exists between professional and private, companies are not just throwing back the curtain and revealing Oz, their demanding Oz reveal the crying mess that is the personal Oz, as opposed to the all powerful, professional one.

Down the Pro-Ana Rabbit Hole

Anorexia is not new. It is not new to the internet and it is certainly not new to society. The cultural awareness of Anorexia had led to a situation where often when one hears the words Eating Disorder (ED) they think Anorexia. In fact there are many types of ED, the term itself leaves the definition open to any ‘abnormal’ eating patterns to be considered disordered. There has, however, always been what I like to call the ‘Golden Triumvirate’ of EDs, Anorexia, Bulimia and Compulsive (or Binge) Eating Disorder. Anorexia, in particular, has been publicly part of our culture since the late 1970’s to the early 1980’s. This is largely attributed to two things. Firstly, the move of Anorexia from solely a medical condition to the acknowledgement of something psychological, which is attributed to Hilde Bruch who published The Golden Cage: The Enigma of Anorexia Nervosa in 1978. Secondly, Karen Carpenter’s death in 1983 from heart failure attributed to her long term suffering of anorexia. Carpenter’s death was the first time someone in the public eye died from such a secretive, and largely (even now) misunderstood illness. Carpenter’s death was so significant to Anorexia that Wikipedia has a section on Carpenter’s death in it’s ‘History of Anorexia Nervosa’ page. As a result of Carpenter’s death Anorexia moved from a very private illness to a public cause. There now exists thousands of books (medical, psychological and personal memoirs) about the illness, there are support groups, ED units in hospitals and although it is not enough, and probably will never be enough, Anorexia has been in the public eye for many years and now (sadly) it has formed a part of our cultural history.

As the topic of Anorexia is in our society already, the conversation in the news and media on Anorexia ebbs and flows depending on what is happening in the world. The internet is no different in this regard. By 2001 newspapers and magazines were covering the disturbing trend of ‘Pro-Ana’ and ‘Pro-Mia’ websites. To contextualise the importance of 2001 for the internet’s history, it was the end of the ‘Dot-Com’ Bubble, it was early in the internet’s now rich history, but that year was to be the defining moment of the internet’s development.

It comes as no surprise now that the internet has always, and probably will always, be a haven for the dark, the dangerous and the unhealthy, the internet in its purest form is uncensored, and uncensored topics will always cover that which many people see as insidious. But by July 2001 the public outcry at what we now accept as ‘the darkside’ of internet culture was reaching fever pitch with Pro-Ana sites facing their first experience under the media microscope as journalists and experts condemned the effect that these sites would have on people already suffering from Anorexia and those that were at risk of developing Anorexia as a result of these sites. Yahoo! was the first battlefield, by July 30th 2001 Yahoo! had taken down over one-hundred Pro-Ana sites. Pro-Ana sites that survived the purge either by going under the radar or using different means of hosting and creating, began to carry warnings, telling users in advance what the content posted would be or they began to carry links to pro-recovery sites which resulted in some success. This was as a direct result of the media and political pressure on companies like Yahoo!.

By 2007, much like the real societal path of Anorexia, interest and outrage at Pro-Ana websites had ebbed and flowed. For some the lack of outcry meant that the methods were working and that the Pro-Ana websites were being systematically removed. They weren’t. Instead there was a second explosion of Pro-Ana blogs and social media pages. ‘Thinspo’ (images/videos/quotes that inspire viewers to stay thin) became trending hashtags, fan pages on Facebook were full of Thinspo content and the blogs grew and grew. The proliferation of blogs, in particular, allowed sufferers to be heard more, they bit back and spoke of getting ‘support’ or ‘understanding’ from fellow sufferers, all of which could be considered positive. I have no doubt that visitors to these sites gain comfort, the desire to know you are not alone is one of the main facets of the human condition. We are, by our very nature, social creatures. There was a certain AA mentality, the idea that they were sharing and helping each other. My problem was and is, is that an AA meeting is not held in a bar, it is held with alcoholics, but the leader of the group does not throw pictures of alcohol up onto large bulletin boards with quotes like ‘Nothing feels as good as being drunk’ because that would be counter-productive and unhealthy. Much like the support that is given and received on Pro-Ana sites.

The reason ‘Pro-Ana’ is back in the news has to do with the growth not only of social media but of unique sites like Tumblr and Pinterest. Pinterest is a fascinating site, essentially it’s online scrap-booking. The majority of Pinterest users are women, the most common boards are wedding boards, recipe boards and cute animal boards. It’s a lovely site and as a user myself I’ve found it very colorful, easy to use and creative. The flip side is it had an almost overwhelming amount of Pro-Ana content. Similarly to Yahoo! before it, when the media attention got too much Pinterest banned the use of self-harm including (but not limited to) Pro-Ana or Thinspo boards. It followed Tumblr who worked with the National Eating Disorders Association in the US to change Tumblr’s user policy to reflect that self-harm promotion was not permitted. Tumblr had followed Facebook who also worked with the NEDA to change it’s Terms of Service to stop the proliferation of Pro-Ana content.

I had hoped to end this blog here. I had hoped to say ‘Tra-lah-lah all is right with the world’ but no. Already, there is a move of Pro-Ana content away from places like Tumblr and Pinterest to Instagram, a photo sharing site. As with the first wave of Pro-Ana content that gained notoriety in 2001 we are now in the second phase. Censorship is considered the enemy of the internet. Yet, is what’s happening with Pinterest and Tumblr censorship? No. They are privately owned sites that can do whatever the hell they want as long as they make you aware they’re doing it. There might, however be a larger problem then internet censorship; by removing Pro-Ana content from well known sites the risk is that Pro-Ana will be pushed underground. This is no different to what happened during the first wave of Pro-Ana sites, or even what has happened for years in society itself. There is always an ebb and a flow. Interest wanes in the topic of Anorexia because society does not want to acknowledge the larger problem: that society is partly responsible. Thinness is considered the height of physical attraction, movie stars, television stars, models and musicians are pressured to stay thin or get thin and when someone breaks apart from the ‘norm’ in music or fashion it’s all anyone can talk about. Anorexia has reached the level of awareness in society not only because it is considered to be the most dangerous of ED’s but because it is the most visible, and let’s face it most understandable. The diet industry in the US alone is worth $59.7 billion, because people want to be thin, or thinner. Yet bulimia which is widely practiced skates under the radar. There are, as already mentioned Pro-Mia sites online, yet in researching this article, news and media coverage of them was limited to an aside or an ‘as well as Pro-Ana’. I won’t go into societies complete blindness when it comes to the very real issue of compulsive over-eating.

Pro-Ana sites and content will never fully disappear, especially not in a world where facebook status updates about what you had for dinner, or blogs that allow you to fully and anonymously express yourself exist. No one wants to shut the internet down, so what do we do? We start outside and work in. In the 29 years since Karen Carpenter has died progress has been made. Anorexia is no longer referred to as ‘the slimmers disease’ or considered ‘a diet gone too far’ yet society had stagnated. The discussion of EDs is cyclical, it is the same telling over and over again of the causes and effects of EDs. Fingers are pointed at the fashion industry or models or celebrities who are too thin. The internet is no different, there are over-reactions and there are under-reactions, there are never simply, reactions. I have no solution for the proliferation of Pro-Ana sites, or even EDs in general. There is no quick fix. There is no doubt though that the internet is a microcosm of global society and the path that the recent reaction to Pro-Ana sites has mirrored societies; outrage, action and finally amnesia. We forget that this is not just about food, not just about thinness it is about society, internet society and global society.

The internet was created to forge a new society, one where information could be gained and shared, there was and is, a utopic vision for the internet, the problem is we took all of societies bullshit with us.

Kony 2012: Saving the world one viral video at a time?

Following on from my piece on the rise and fall of Lana Del Rey (LDR) I now turn my attention to another ‘rise and fall’ story. Kony 2012 was, much in the same way as LDR, the very best and the very worst of the Internet. Kony 2012 became a cause celebre of the Internet with people sharing the video endlessly on social networks and extoling people to ‘DO THE RIGHT THING’. I must admit it was refreshing for me to see in amongst the cute cat pictures and ‘OMG’ status updates, people taking an interest in something other than themselves. I should have known it was too good to be true. 

If you’re sitting there, wondering who or what Kony is, then I will do my best to give you a very limited history lesson, although if you don’t know who he is I would be more concerned about the fact that you’ve clearly been living under a rock with mole people for the last month. Joseph Kony is the leader of the ‘Lord Resistance Army’ (LRA), which came to notice sometime around 1987. It is important to note that the creation of the LRA came following power struggles and wars between Milton Obote andIdi Amin following Uganda gaining it’s independence from Britain in 1962. The goal of the LRA is supposedly to overthrow the current Uganda government and establish a theocratic state based on the Judeo-Christian ‘Ten-Commandments’ and the Acholi tradition. Kony and the LRA aim to consistently undermine the government of Uganda and will use any methods to achieve this including but not limiting to the attacking of civilians, destroying homes and mutilating bodies.

Not that all of this isn’t horrific enough but what Kony is probably most well known for and what the Kony 2012 video focuses on is the creation of child soldiers. For the LRA these children are often made commit unspeakable acts against their families first and then throughout their time as child soldiers. There are many reasons why child soldiers are used (with just a few listed here). Child soldiers are not a new phenomenon they have been used predominantly in Central Africa for decades. Joseph Kony is not a new phenomenon either. For many people it was the first time hearing his name, but for the international community at large his name and the unspeakable horrors he has committed in Central Africa has been heard many times before. The International Criminal Court (ICC) investigated the situation in Uganda beginning in 1987, the investigation culminated in 2005 with the ICC issuingarrest warrants for Joseph Kony, Raska Lukwiya, Okot Odhiambo, Dominic Ongwen and Vincent Otti, all members of the LRA. 

That was 2005, now seven years ago. Despite the international profile of Kony, he still has not been caught. The Kony 2012 campaign sought to stop that. Its main goal was to spread the word about Kony and to hopefully use the power of people and social media to pressure international governments and organizations to catch Kony and bring him to justice. It was very noble. The video ended with a plea to spread the Kony 2012 message, to get involved, to change the world, to use social media for something other than cat pictures, to make a difference. 

Almost instantly the video went viral, released on March 5, 2012 as of today (April 2, 2012) it has 86,552,094 hits on YouTube. People tweeted, facebooked, Google+ (well a limited amount G+ it), generally they spread it around their friends, their followers, their families. The overwhelming point of the video was that we could change this. That simply by making other people more aware of Kony we could cause governments to push for his arrest, help the Ugandan people recover and most importantly help child soldiers. 

Almost as instantly the backlash occurred. For me, it began with a simple status update from one of my friends positing a map and asking all those who posted the Kony 2012 video to point out Uganda on a map. It was a fair point. For most people, twenty-seven minutes before they watched the Kony video they didn’t care about and had no idea where Uganda was. My immediate question was, why does it matter? Is it a case that unless you’ve been aware the whole time you cannot get involved at a later stage? Is that how revolutions work? Did the Arab Spring only begin and end with fifty people who had been involved from the beginning? Has any revolution ever worked like that? No. No it has not. I had to wonder why the backlash? Why is there never any outcry about the endless ‘Just had worst day ever’ statuses or ‘Oh it’s so sunny out, tanning FTW.’ Do people only get upset when people post stuff they don’t believe in? Or post stuff to be cool? That’s all social media is. That’s all Facebook is, Twitter is, Google+ is. Almost all the interactions that are deemed ‘social media’ can fall into one simple cry; ‘Look at me!’ That’s it. We all do it and I assure you I’m just as guilty as you are. 

The immediate backlash, the one that made meme’s of Carl Weathers (although some of them we’re pretty hilarious) is so typical of the cynicism available on the Internet. I understood the point some people were making, which was, until half an hour ago, you didn’t care, why do you care now? Or the, at that stage very quiet, protesting of human rights groups and organizations that the Kony 2012 campaign was taking something very complicated and reducing it into a viral video designed to pluck at people’s heart strings. It was blindsiding people with the directors cute innocent little boy and causing them not to ask the pertinent question like, ‘Why should we send foreign armies into countries they have no right to be in?’ and ‘What about the role of the Uganda government and the unqualified support that Kony 2012 was offering them?’ 

What followed the immediate backlash, one which I would call a knee-jerk reaction based on cynicism, followed an actual backlash based on real facts and worries, expressed here. The Visible Children tumblr dissected the group’s financials, its involvement with the Ugandan government and the wealth of incorrect information in the Kony 2012 video. This backlash attempted to point out the flaws in supporting Kony 2012 at the expensive of groups like Amnesty International, War Child and AMREF to name but a few. This is the type of backlash I can get behind. One that points out the glaring problems in the Kony 2012 campaign and the problems in the Invisible Children organization. A lot of the information out there was well reasoned, well researched and underlined that there are many organizations working in Uganda and elsewhere in Central Africa to stop Kony and his ilk, without the shadow of dubious practices that lingers over Invisible Children. 

What happened next in the Kony 2012 saga could not have been predicted by anyone. Jason Russell, the co-founder of Invisible Children and star of the Kony 2012 video suffered a very public melt down. I am not a doctor, so I will not comment on why or how, but according to the Invisible Children statement, the weeks following the release of the Kony 2012 video had taken a ‘severe emotional toll’ on Russell which manifested itself in his very public breakdown. There is a video of his breakdown available online**. Russell’s breakdown diverted attention away from Kony 2012 both the negative and the positive, and much of what has been said about Kony in recent weeks has been confined to discussing Russell’s breakdown and not Kony himself.

I compared the rise and fall of Kony to the rise and fall of Lana Del Rey earlier and I stand by this comparison. Although Del Rey’s fall from grace, for me, had nothing to do with Del Rey herself and everything to do with the Internet, Kony 2012 is slightly different. There was cause for the backlash, and only time will tell whether Invisible Children and the Kony 2012 campaign will recover. I would imagine it won’t. The lasting legacy of Kony 2012 will be deficiencies in Invisible Children as a charity and Russell’s breakdown. Lost amongst the shuffle is the child soldiers and the victims of horrific atrocities not only in Central Africa but all over the world. Kony 2012 has something else to offer though. Hopefully it will help the likes of Amnesty and other high-profile human rights organizations see how they can connect with a wider audience. It should not be the case that you need a flashy video to get people to care about other Human beings, but we live in the age of the internet, with so much content available online, charities and rights organizations need something to put them ahead of the curve, even if it is flash. It’s not just organizations though that can learn something from the Kony 2012 campaign. In Ireland, Eamon Gilmore (who is Ireland’s Minister for Foreign Affairs) announced that he and the Irish people strongly support bringing Joseph Kony to justice. I can assure you, he did not make the announcement without the Kony 2012 campaign, either by directly watching the video or simply by reading the endless emails and letters from constituents urging him to do something, after they themselves watched the video. 

This should be the lasting legacy of the Kony 2012. It is good to be aware of charities intentions, of their financials and their financial backers, it is absolutely necessary to ensure you give to only accredited charities that give your money directly to the people they and you want to help. Given the concerns raised about Invisible Children I myself would be reluctant to support the charity and that is fine given the concerns over how Invisible Children handles itself. What is not ok is to forget about the impact that one single twenty-seven minute video had on the internet. Yet, that is exactly what is happening, when was the last time you heard Kony mentioned without Russell’s breakdown or a meme being produced in the same sentence? It’s been a while for me. 

For those of you who watched the Kony 2012 campaign video and felt moved to action, then continue it. You do not need Invisible Children to highlight the atrocities committed by Joseph Kony. You do not need it to be popular in order to get involved in human rights or global politics. If you want to do something, then do something. For those who watched the Kony 2012 and felt moved to mockery and cynicism even without knowing of the problems with the Invisible Children organization then there’s nothing I can do for you. Continue to upload your memes, your facebook status void of anything worthwhile and continue to tweet insults to celebrities on twitter. Honestly, you have my blessing, the Internet is nothing without the freedom to do what you want. For those of you who are unsure now about Invisible Children and Kony because of what has come to light, I urge you to contact one of the many worthwhile organizations listed throughout this post and see what you can do to help. It’s important we remember the legacy of Kony 2012 not as one mans breakdown or one organization’s dubious dealing, but as a period of time where for once in the Western World social media was actually being used for what it was created for; change. 

The best and the worst of the internet still reminds me of the best and the worst of the human spirit, just funnier.  

**This blog will not link to something which is a very private breakdown happening in public, out of respect to all of those with mental health issues, so Google it if you must.

    

The problem with Lana Del Rey?

Lana Del Rey shot to fame following the release online of her single Video Games. Uploaded to Del Rey's Youtube in late 2011 it has 35,668,699 views. Del Rey's genre, which she dubs,'Hollywood Sad-Core' creates a sound not heard on the airways in a long time. It is an incredibly catchy, sad, beautiful and troubling song. Couple the beauty of the song with Del Rey's stunning looks and you have an internet phenomenon.

Video Games made Del Rey a star, but becoming an internet phenomenon is no longer enough, Justin Bieber changed the game. The evolution of the 'Biebs' has changed the way music works, it is not enough to have over 35million views on YouTube, now you have to translate that into actual record sales, which Del Rey did, her debut entered the top ten in several European charts and went to No. 1 in Germany. However, as the saying almost goes, 'The Internet gives and it takes away.' There was a backlash against Del Rey, not immediately, but there were rumblings of dissatisfaction from the internet right from the start.

In a pre-internet world, the most musicians and artists had to deal with was snotty reporters and reviewers complaining about them. Growing up a huge music fan, I bought NME, Hotpress (Ireland's attempt) and Rolling Stone (when I could afford it), I devoured articles about my favourite bands and musicians, glazed over the ones I had no interest in and patiently read my favorite reviewers views on new music. At all times I ignored anything I didn't like. The internet has changed all that, with the advent of blogs, social networking and the severe decline in 'print media' reviewers and journalists have lost their control on what we listen to, instead you become the reviewer, your opinion (the one you always believed was right anyway) now carries weight, no where is that more clear then Del Rey.

It began, the way it does for a lot of women in music, with her looks. When I read the numerous blog posts about her appearance, I had the distinct impression that people were saying 'She's too pretty to be sad' or questioning her place in the 'Indie' scene because of her looks. Then, as the internet began to delve into her past, it became about certain features on her face. 'Her lips are fake!' the blog-sphere cried! As if that was somehow the crime of the century. The uncovering of the theory that her lips might be fake led to people delving deeper and deeper into the life of the pre-Del Rey, Lizzy Grant. The internet discovered that Grant/Del Rey, had a previous music career. Shock, Horror, Oh the Humanity! Grant/Del Rey released Lana Del Ray a.k.a. Lizzy Grant in January 2010.

As if that wasn't enough scandal it was then said that Del Rey subsequently bought the rights to the album from her label in order to take it out of circulation. To me this means nothing. Ok, that's a lie it means something. At best it meant she didn't want her previous album following her around as she tried to recreate and re-brand her image and career. At worst, according to the blogosphere, it meant that she was created and manufactured in order to seem original and to give the illusion of undiscovered musical talent. Even if the worst scenario is true, so what? Del Rey, her manager, her label or whoever lied to us. Music exec's have been lying to the public since saying the Monkees were playing their own instruments.

Yet, this was the core complaint from 'indie' bloggers, that they had been tricked or used somehow to further this girls career. She hadn't paid her dues! She lied to us! Once again, I give you The Monkees. It seemed to me, following the Del Rey investigation, that the internet that had pulled her up to a star of moderate success now felt that she no longer deserved it.  Unfortunately, several lackluster performances, seemed to point to that being true. Maybe she didn't deserve it.

In the UK she preformed on Later with Jools Holland and The Johnathon Ross Show. I saw both performances as they were shown and felt that Del Rey was nervous. Very nervous. In addition I was keenly aware of how polished her sound is (that'll be post-production for you) and how that doesn't neccessarily translate over to a live performance. I didn't feel Del Rey did badly, just that she was nervous. I pondered how difficult it must be to go from relative obscurity (I didn't buy her first album, did you?) to phenomenon overnight. I won't go into the number of stars that a decent performance on Jools has created, or the fact that the last time I saw a relatively unknown singer on Johnathon Ross was Adele. These are big shows in the UK and Ireland and a decent performance on either or both will guarantee you radio play for months.

If that wasn't stressful enough, then came the now infamous SNL performance. I was reminded of the Ashley Simpson incident almost immediately after watching Del Rey. No one can deny that in terms of the audience that SNL brings in it was probably the most important performance of Del Rey's (early) career. Did she live up to the hype? Not really. Was it a global conspiracy to trick internet users? Unlikely. Once again she struck me as nervous, as someone who had faced incredible public scrutiny over such a short space of time. She struck me as someone who knew this moment would follow her for the rest of her career, for good or bad.

Similarly to the Ashlee Simpson incident, there was a backlash. Ashlee Simpson mimed, and covered it up, or tried to (and don't get me started on that harrowing 'ho down' she did). It was car crash television. Del Rey though, to me, not so much. Ok, I'll admit, she bombed it. There I said it! Are you happy now? Crave Online, in the tagline for their blog post called Del Rey's performance 'How a viral "sensation" confirmed an industry's deceitful desperation - with one terrible performance.' A bit harsh? I thought so, but it was practically calling her the next Madonna compared to some of the tweets and blogs out there. I reiterate that while the performance was not a great one, I don't think it deserved the backlash it got, including but not limited to, rumors floated around online, that the singers impending tour had been cancelled in order to give her some distance between the disaster (although management denied this to HuffPo).

The most interesting part of Del Rey story is not Del Rey. It is not even about Lizzy Grant, or her wealthy upbringing, her (rumored) plastic surgery or previous album releases, it was the internet and the power it's users now wield. People felt betrayed, they felt they had been sold something that wasn't real (but when is the music industry ever real?). The internet has created a world where the truth reigns free (or at least someone's opinion of the truth). People no longer rely on major news outlets, they get their news from Twitter, or blogs or sites like HuffPo or Daily Beast. User generated information, news, opinion and rumor now rule how we see the world. So, understandably people feel angry when they are 'lied' to, but what exactly did Del Rey do? She changed her appearance, changed her sound, may or may not have been created by the music industry purely to create viral buzz to increase downloads and sales. Is anyone actually surprised? Show me the crime in here? Show me where Del Rey deserves to be demonised? Nowhere.

In Ireland we're know as a nation of begrudgers. We hate success. Ask any Irish person on the street if they like U2 and they'll probably tell you that Bono is a giant male sex organ (or Prick as we'd say in the vernacular), yet when U2 play here they sell out. Who's buying the tickets if we hate the lead singer? We applaud our home grown talents, we encourage them, see them in small concert shows, but the minute you make it outside of Ireland, you're dead to us. Too big for your boots. As a friend is fond of saying about Bono 'It's far from sunglasses indoors that he was reared.' The reaction of the Internet to Del Rey, makes me wonder if it's entirely populated by Irish people, intent on building you up so they can tear you down.

At the end of the day, what could be more egomanical then tearing down the icon you helped create?