The Great Bamboozle: A deeper look at the social media phenomenon

Much has been made over the past two to three years about how social media – social bookmarking, social networking, blogging, etc. – have empowered average, everyday people by placing in their hands simple, easy-to-use, and often free tools that level the playing field with traditional media. Social media, so the narrative goes, democratizes global society’s discourse, gives everyone the opportunity to fire off a jot heard ‘round the world. Lets the masses drive the conversation, instead of allowing a select few institutions to dictate what we read, what we know, and even what we think. You know what I’m talking about. You’ve heard it all a million times. And it’s true — as far as it goes. But it misses an important part of what’s really going on out there.

The worship of social media is best exemplified by Time Magazine’s Person of the Year in December 2006. According to Time, the person who had the biggest impact on the world in that year was, in big, bold letters: YOU. How did YOU shape world events, according to Time? By posting videos on YouTube, uploading photos on Flickr, stalking old high school acquaintances on Facebook, and updating everyone YOU know on all the mundane details of YOUR life on Twitter. YOU are in charge. YOU run the show.

Allow me to burst YOUR bubble. Do YOU feel in charge (OK, I’ll stop with the all-caps, it’s getting old) as you sit there and post your pet chihuahua’s endearing antics, inform the world that you are about go to scrub the shower curtains, and compare your movie tastes with those of 37 online friends? Do ya, punk? Because guess what. You’re not in charge.

You’re being used.

What we’re all doing is called community content, or collaborative content, or user-generated content. Whichever term you prefer, it is also what I like to call the GIB (Great Internet Bamboozle). Let’s stop and think about this.

Once upon a time, people who created content, whether it be artwork, photography, film, poetry or prose, liked to actually get paid for their work. Yeah, they were crazy like that. Heck, even if you send a joke to Reader’s Digest and they use it you expect to get paid five dollars. P-A-I-D, paid.

Granted, it was a lot more difficult in the ancient times to get your work out in front of the world. You had to convince someone who had the power to distribute content that your stuff was worth distributing. But the winnowing out process performed by those who did the paying meant that the rest of us were less likely to be inundated with crap. Now we’ve found ways to circumvent those traditional channels of content distribution. Anyone can start a blog. Anyone can be an “expert” and put out podcasts. Anyone can publish a book. This revolution, what Thomas Friedman calls the flattening of the world, is one of the best things that’s happened to humanity in a long time and I wouldn’t have it any other way.

But…

Let’s look at what really happens when you contribute to the vast and growing pile of material on social media sites. Let’s say you go to a popular video sharing web site like YouTube, DailyMotion, Metacafe or Liveleak . The site has, say, 5,236,425 videos on it already. You have your little collection of, say 50 cute little videos you’ve made, and you decide to upload that HIGH-larious one of you ghost-riding the whip. So you upload the video, either aware or unaware that according to the site’s terms of use, they now own the material you gave them. The result of this one-sided transaction: the web site now boasts 5,236,426 videos, and that number is constantly growing as other people like you generously add to its collection. And in return, you have… exactly what you had when you started.

You see, on a social media site, the power is not with the users. The power lies with the person who owns the platform. Social media site owners have discovered an amazing business model. All they have to do is create easy-to-use tools for you to add your content to their site, and then convince you and lots of other people to flock to this site instead of somebody else’s, because this one is more hip. More with it. More now. The winners of this popularity contest reap the profits from the advertising they place around the content you provided for free.

Contributors to social media sites are unpaid employees.  That’s right, YOU are making THEM rich, you rebellious, hip, media-savvy Internet user, you. Way to stick it to the man.

The more things change, the more they stay the same.

To be fair, we have to acknowledge that many of these sites have affiliate programs, in which some users share in the revenue from their ads. These sites can’t compete on quantity alone forever, because the audience becomes more discerning as this new phenomenon becomes less new every day. Let’s face it, the bulk of what we see and experience on social media sites is briefly entertaining but entirely forgettable and soon lost in the lightning-fast digital stream that now runs constantly through our lives. So sites really have to offer these affiliate programs to attract true talent and ensure they can compete on the quality of at least some of their offerings.

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There was a news story a few weeks back about a guy who was able to quit his job and now makes $100,000 a year off his funny YouTube videos. But for every person like that, there are 100,000 people contributing to sites across the Internet who are not being compensated for their creative work.

It may be the biggest collective rip-off in human history. And this doesn’t even begin to address what we surrender in terms of privacy as these sites monitor and record our every move, learn our behavior patterns, and map our networks of friends and associates.

But, you may counter, what about the fact that these tools help us to market our expertise and services at no or very low cost? Create our personal brand? Share our creations with the entire world? Enrich the human experience?

My answer: if you’re using social media tools wisely and accomplishing these things, bravo. More power to you. That’s exactly why this new phenomenon is so important, and so useful. That’s why I love the Internet. It’s inspiring, what can happen when these tools are used to their full potential.

But it’s up to you, the individual user, to make sure you’re getting something of value in return for your creations – whether it be payment, increased business, job offers, professional recognition, notoriety, or enhanced reputation.

Otherwise, you’re just working for free.