Interestingly, in recent years, commentators have taken a far more sanguine view of crowd behavior, and particularly of the kinds of group behavior that have emerged on the Internet. In 2004, James Surowiecki argued in his book The Wisdom of Crowds that groups are actually smarter than individuals. And group web-based projects like Wikipedia seem to support that position. However, I think we—most of us—still carry with us a subliminal distrust of the way crowds think, especially crowds of people who are scared. (Just consider that proverbial fellow shouting “Fire!” in a crowded theater.)
It was therefore with trepidation that I signed onto Twitter over the past weekend, searched for #swineflu, and began reading. What did I find? Well, jokes mostly. Apparently the main Internet response to fear is to tell as many rapid-fire jokes, puns, and punch lines as possible. “I’m hosting a global face-licking party!” one Twitterer quipped. “No more handshakes,” wrote another. “Elbow bumps only from now on!” And the comic hashtags proliferated: #aporkalypse, #hamdemic, #sowmonella, #smallporx, #epigdemic. “Bacon Lung,” someone sneered. Another asked, “When pigs fly? Who thought #swineflu?”
Apparently James Surowiecki was right. The Internet does make us smarter as a group. But what it makes us smarter at is telling an enormous quantity of bad jokes, as well as posting stupid and sometimes lurid comic photographs, and linking to funny or outrageous video clips on YouTube. Things got so bad at one point over the weekend that there was even a backlash against all the wisecracking, with the self-appointed Twitter Police upbraiding the merrymakers for using the #swineflu hashtag for yucks, when it was “supposed” to be a “serious” hashtag, they said, citing the CDC’s use of it for their Twittered advisories. And one plaintive voice came through while I was reading: “I’m from Mexico, and it really isn’t funny down here.”
So, where does this leave us? Is Twitter dangerous? From what I’ve seen over the weekend, probably not. The worst things I found were a couple of lame conspiracy theories and a “zombie” hoax that was quickly debunked and ridiculed. But I did learn this: Internet groupthink has the sensibility of an Ivy League fraternity party on a Saturday night, after all the boys have gotten drunk, ordered out for pizza, and started ranking on each other.
Article comments
1 - jon_e_7
Someone more politically corect than I might object to your bashing of MALE/Ivy League/frat members in one fell swoop but, having recently joined Twitter myself, I'll add another joke to the porcine mix: Texas, land of the longhorn, suffers first swine flu fatality in US.
2 - Matthew T. Sussman
Good thing you didn't search for panda AIDS.
3 - Mr. Dock Ellis
"given the long history of vigilantism, especially in this country"
Why is it when there's something bad in the world, the U.S. always has the worst of it?
Why is it when there's something good in the world, the U.S. is simply part of a group?
Another question: With twitter, are you using the technology or is it using you?
4 - jon_e_7
Good points, Mr.Doc, America is sooooo mis-understood by the rest of the wirld
5 - Kimberly Davis
On vigilantism: Back when I was in law school, I took a fascinating class on the unique US history with vigilantism, some of which has to do with the fact that historically we have been a large, rather sparsely populated country where we often had to enforce our own justice. This was completely understandable, but there were also some rather unfortunate consequences for our psyche and our justice system. There are some wonderful books and articles on this BTW. Kimberly Davis (author)
6 - Joanne Huspek
After trying to Tweet for weeks, I'm just not into it. So if it's corrupting the rest of society and causing pandemonium, I wouldn't even know.