Ooo. It’s been a while since I’ve blogged one out. I’m just going to have a shake down…limber up….stretch the ol’ literary muscles…open a tin…laugh at a brilliant radio advert that isn’t over-acted, isn’t conceptually defunct and isn’t at all embarrassing or patronising to the listening audience…draw a face on a mushroom and then leave it in the fridge for my beloved to find. She won’t find it even vaguely amusing, but it will tickle me.
That’s better. I am well limbered. I can feel the oxygen of creativity running through my veins. Actually, that’s probably caffeine. Hang on. Something missing. Talking of caffeine, I need a cup of the ol’ liquid brown to provide sustenance to my reflection….
…there. That’s better. Right. We can begin.
Picture, if you will, John Humphries. You are at a petrol station, filling up, and he has just pulled up to the adjacent pump. You didn’t think it was him at first, because he has arrived in a Vauxhall Corsa with lowered suspension and tinted windows. The booming bass of his drum and bass audio shakes the very foundations of the petrol station. Even more surprising, when Humphries steps out of the car, you see he is wearing a Nike baseball cap, a skin-tight pullover and jeans that do not even cover his rectal cushioning. You can see his boxer shorts, in to which his pullover is conscientiously tucked. He is wearing more bling than you think appropriate for a man of his years and dignity. A chain-link necklace adorns his chest and he has large gold rings on his fingers. He wears an earring in one ear and his hair has been shaved around the sides, leaving a wispy white plateau on the top of his head.
When Humphries flips open his petrol cap, he arrogantly leaves the car door open and the loud bass-driven music floods the forecourt of the petrol station. You can see Humphries’ “ho”sitting in the passenger seat. She is a pretty girl, but wears way too much make-up. Her hoop earings are massive and could be used as a makeshift harbour, were they laid horizontal. You are unimpressed by Humphries’ arrogance and his disregard for those around him. Your irritation mounts when he pulls out a mobile phone from his pocket, wihle filling up with petrol, and answers the phone thus: “Yiz, mah main man! Ah’ll be dere when ahz got me petrol, bro”. The manager of the petrol station comes on the tanoid and tells Humphries to put away his phone, to which Humphries returns his middle finger and calls the manager a name that, for the sake of modesty, we will say rhymes closely with the word runt.
So. What is wrong with this picture? Well, in short, Humphries is behaving like a teenager. His whole appearance, his manner, his attitude is incongruous with the years and status he has achieved. Humphries ought not to behave this way. We know it instinctively. We just wouldn’t expect it from him.
It is for this reason that I cringe every time I hear John Humphries tell me to go to the Radio 4 blog. And I cringe when he talks about Twitter. When news reporters refer, journalistically, to what we can learn from forums, and tweets and MySpaces and Facebook….I put my head in my hands. How many times, these days, does a news report end with the vox pop, as provided by a sample of Tweets? I actually heard a reporter the other day, in an interview with a politician, use the phrase: ‘fess up. Which means, to confess. A serious adult would say “confess”. A teenager would say, “fess up”. Politicians and journalists are now talking regularly about Twitter – too regularly. Like so many adults trying to be down with the kids, they think they have found the Philosopher’s Stone of hip culture. Talk about Twitter and you are there, man. It won’t be long before we hear John Humphreys using phrases like LOL, PMSL and FFS.
I don’t mind admitting, it embarrasses me. I work with the armoury of latest online technologies, every day. Due to the industry in which I work, I am part of the adult culture working to bring these technologies to young people, in order that they can fully these new media genres. But seriously – it doesn’t mean we need to embrace it, or engage with it. Young people understand these new media. In fact, it is more than that. Young people have grown up with interactive web technologies and they are native to this technological landscape. Great. Let’s make sure they have all they need to grow in this brave new world, and to make the most of it. But as adults have done through the years, something tells me we should allow these digital natives to colonise their world for themselves. You didn’t get adults trying to be part of the youth culture back in post-war Britain. Adults in the 60s did not scream and faint over the Beatles; there were not geriatric punk rockers in the 80s; it was uncommon (and was distinctly uncomfortable) to see grandparents blowing their whistle at raves in the 1990s. And yet the adult world of the twenty-first century has not been able to resist the pull of Twitterdom.
The thing is, the internet per se is great. It is democratic and there is space for everyone. But as with any media, different cultures can be pervasive in different areas. An analogy would be the 33rpm vinyl album. This was a technology available to everyone and yet different people enjoyed different aspects. So in 1964, on a basic level, a man in his forties may have had, in his collection, some Pat Boone and some classical music; while a child would have the latest Merseybeat offering. Same media – different cultures. By the same token, the internet offers a way for users to inhabit different rooms in the same house. We wouldn’t expect an 11 year old to access porn. And conversely, should we expect sophisticated adults to inhabit the linguistic landscape of the teenager? No. Why? Because it is theirs. Leave the poor bastards alone.
An argument levelled at this view, I know, is that the internet allows different cultures to come together in the same space. For adults to engage with young people, on their level, means that adults will understand young people. And vice versa. And so the internet facilitates cultural harmony. And this is the case not only for age groups, but for the sexes, for religion, for demographic cultures, for international understanding, etc. I don’t disagree with this. The internet does facilitate cultural harmony. That is what is so great about it. But in our enthusiasm for this, we forget that the exclusivity of culture is what makes it so special, and is what leads to such great cultural diversity. And cultural ownership, by natives to that culture, is key to this. The current trend of “serious” adults jumping on the cultural property of young people is seriously buggering up the young people’s ownership of their own culture. And it really isn’t fair.
Look at it this way. The social world in which I grew up was one without the internet. Without mobile phones. Without texting. Without online social networking. Because of this, I am comfortable writing at length, and picking up the phone and talking. To this day, I prefer communication to happen in one of two ways - through structured writing, or in face to face dialogue. The new modes of communication, while I see the benefits, are foreign to me. Young people, on the other hand, have grown up in a more diverse, more shorthand social environment. To a teenager now, texting is as natural as talking; adding to Facebook or Twitter is as unthinking an act, as it was for me and my mates to gather at the Tilehurst Triangle, as a way to meet and mingle. The thing is, I would not have expected loads of adults, when I was a child, to join me and my friends at the Tielhurst Triangle, in an attempt to engage with our culture. It would have pissed us off. It would have inhibited us. It would have caused us to look elsewhere for our own cultural space.
And this, to my mind, is what is happening. When John Humphries and the barrage of journalists and politicians start talking about Twitter as though they are part of that culture, they are invading the space of a new generation. They are Sid Vicious’s mum coming down to the local bus shelter, where the punks hang out. They are all of the members for the local school PTA deciding to head to a local rave, so that they can understand the kids better. They are dad standing in the middle of his daughter’s 18th birthday party, talking about who he would marry, snog and avoid.
It is often said that politicians and journalists are still learning how to harness new technologies. How are new technologies relevant to the way these bodies communicate? Well to my mind, they are not. Not really. The new Web 2.0 technologies will come in to their own when the new generations start to make their mark in their world. It will be an evolution. The young people that have grown up with these technologies know how to use them relevantly. When these people start to enter politics, take control of the banks, filter in to business, take over leadership of the education system…then the Twitteresque technologies will be used, organically, at the centre of culture. It won’t be thought out, planned, scoped. It will just happen, naturally.
Look at how TV filtered in to the popular culture. Early politicians did not know how to use it, because they hadn’t grown up with it. They tried to harness something they didn’t understand, to tap in to a culture to which they simply didn’t belong. Compare a video of Harold MacMillan talking to the camera, with a video of Tony Blair being interviewed. As time went on and politicians became men and women that had grown up with the TV culture, then we moved in to the slick TV-based PR culture of New Labour and new politics.
In the meantime, I suppose that the fuddy duddies of today – myself included – will continue to think we understand these new technologies, when in fact, we haven’t got a clue. And so we will continue to have news reports that end with what people have said about the news on Twitter. How trendy is that! Embedding Twitter in the news. How dynamic!! As if a day-old newspaper referring to some Twitter reports from yesterday is relevant…






