I chanced upon a private obscene short video that mistakenly got enrolled on a projector of a financial seminar that was taking place in real time and how this got captured on other peoples’ social media via their mobile devices within seconds.
I kept wondering how this could be explained in a way that would make sense, be acceptable and how this too would get the same viral exposure within seconds as well.
As I ruminated on it, all I came up with was communication.
As a matter of fact, I can factually and emphatically sum up the entire social media space as communication.
Communication is the exchange of information by speaking, writing or using some other medium.
Pictures or television, for instance, are effective means of communication.
Social media has really disrupted the regular business of our daily lives especially the way we communicate.
Gone are the days when you could say anything and get away with it.
Now, once it gets to the social media circles, it gets captured forever.
In fact, it is said that the internet never forgets.
More so there used to be what was termed as Paparazzi.
Paparazzi is a freelance photographer who pursued celebrities to get photographs of them.
Now, this type of work has been disrupted.
Instead of a celebrity waiting on the paparazzi to make a gain out of them, they themselves go on social media, upload their own photographs, talk about their lives and show some or in some instances majority of their lives on them.
You can choose to go off social media but it can’t be absolute, there is always going to be a fragment of it you will have to pull along with.
Those celebrities that are in their 50’s upwards may not want to deal with the social media at all but it has somehow existed in their lives just that they were largely in the form of print/paper magazines and the paparazzi.
The amazing thing was that with the print magazine module, the celebrities gave a consent as to which part of them could be used in them, unlike today’s social media at our disposal.
Social media on its own is not an issue per se but how we deal with the nuances of it.
Social media is only going to get bigger and bigger so one would have to learn the basic tools of how it works and use it to one’s own benefit.
This is where the art and act of communications can not be taken for granted.
Communication is actually now a king and a queen in this social media disruption as well as the almighty Artificial intelligence era.
Politicians, celebrities and the like need speech and written communicators as never before.
These speech and written communicators would have to act with the speed of light in reacting to issues.
And it is not just the reaction that is required but the appropriate response for the issue otherwise every great work that has been done gets to be thrown off. Why?
Because social media won’t allow you the second and space to address issues at your own pace by the time you realize, it has gone viral and all other means to salvage the damage prove futile.
For you to fit in this world of socialization, one has to do it with the light of speed of communication.
