1239: Social Media

Social Media

|< < Prev #1239 (July 17, 2013) Next > >|

Title text: The social media reaction to this asteroid announcement has been sharply negative. Care to respond?

|< < Prev Random explanation Next > >|

Explanation

This is one of 69 incomplete explanations: Talk about the asteroid, maybe? Talk about the Asteriod itself You can help by editing the explanation!

A classic trope in disaster movies is the presence of an asteroid heading for Earth that will either wipe out all life on the planet or otherwise destroy human civilization as we know it. If this happened, the governments of many countries might hold a press conference in order to deliver the news. This comic parodies how journalists tend to over-focus on social networking and its impact on the situation, in this case to the extent of ignoring the civilization-threatening nature of the scenario. "How has Twitter affected this" has become a standard question for journalists, posed with complete disregard to its relevance. In the case of revolutions, social media is given a lot of weight, even in countries with limited internet access. An example of this is the so-called Twitter Revolutions.

Exasperated by the stupidity of attempting to connect Twitter to the situation, Cueball makes a dig at the journalist asking the question by implying that their press conference question is stupid, and that Twitter is the cause. The reporters seem not to understand that he is making fun of them, and go on to ask about Facebook instead, further demonstrating their stupidity.

In the title text, a journalist points out that people on social media are reacting negatively to the announcement, but appears to suggest that this is the fault of the announcement, rather than the fact that people are upset that a really bad thing (wiping out life on Earth in general) is about to happen. This mocks the tendency to evaluate everything by the social media response, rather than the relevant facts of what happens. The implication is that the person making the announcement should have made a better one, and that this would have led to a better outcome. This is not how asteroids work. The organization involved are not responsible for the asteroid and presumably do not want it to crash into the Earth either.

Transcript

[Cueball heads a press conference.]

Cueball: NASA has confirmed that the asteroid is heading directly for us.

Cueball: ...Yes, a question?

Reporter 1: What role has social media played in this asteroid's orbit?

Cueball: *sigh*

Reporter 2: Has Twitter changed the way we respond to asteroid threats?

Cueball: Well, it's made the press conference questions stupider.

Reporter 3: Fascinating!

Reporter 4: What about Facebook?

Trivia

• The comic may also parody an actual interview Is asteroid 2012_DA14 connected to global warming in which Bill Nye was asked if the approaching asteroid 2012_DA14 was a result of global warming.

  Add comment 

Discussion

So how have folks responded to this one on Twitter? 67.51.59.66 15:57, 17 July 2013 (UTC)

—girl look at that body. Greyson (talk) 17:09, 17 July 2013 (UTC)

This question might have initiated the comic: http://youtu.be/AdHGhSeYcq0?t=51m9s 91.46.145.123 20:07, 17 July 2013 (UTC)

Maybe, this Bill Gates video was released two days before this comic.--Dgbrt (talk) 21:22, 17 July 2013 (UTC)

It's somewhat ironic, that the first statement of Cueball is less than 140 characters long. Also, the whole situation seems similar to that in Earth Unaware by Orson Scott Card ... or maybe I should not tell the ending of the book. 78.8.147.90 20:47, 17 July 2013 (UTC) qbolec

I did edit your wiki link, it was broken.--Dgbrt (talk) 21:22, 17 July 2013 (UTC)

Not ironic, opening line less than 140 characters because social media?! Monteletourneau (talk) 05:21, 1 August 2013 (UTC)

Note that this is a press conference. All questions are made by professional journalists, not by simple Twitter users. Xhfz (talk) 22:57, 12 August 2013 (UTC)

Note that voting booths have only one character per message (sometimes only one bit), and nevertheless many people are interested in their outcome. I changed Twitter by "voting booth" and the following explanation becomes absurd.

On a voting booth you can send messages with exactly one character. This means that there could not be much content in a single vote, but often many people follow the people voting. People who are not on democracy tend to react like Cueball and come to the conclusion that voting booths make press coverage more stupid, just because those messages lack many detail.

Xhfz (talk) 14:15, 13 August 2013 (UTC)

I mean, SpaceX could decide a clockwise or Anti-clockwise oribt based on a social media poll. 141.101.99.184 20:34, 23 September 2021 (UTC)
        Add comment