Just a few days ago, I stumbled upon a tweet from one of the biggest twitter users I am following…
Okay, quick refresh: Twitter is a real time social networking site where anyone talks to everyone, with post or tweet of less than 140 characters. And it’s all about following people you are interested in, and get followed in return.
In this micro-blogging world, there are famous people, meaning people who have tons of followers. They are the Twitterati – do you still follow me at this point?
An eminent person of the twitterati is Julia Roy . Julia is a young newyorker working in digital industry. This talented entrepreneur managed to get the most of twitter by getting a loyal 33 000 followers.
The US-based glossy magazine Vanity Fair decided to feature beautiful pictures of Julia and her fellow female successful twitter users to illustrate an article about the American female twitter success.
So far so good, Julia was all happy – it happens that the article was publish on the date of her birthday – and tweeted the great news to the world.
However, the joy did not last for too long as the nice pictures where hiding a pretty poorly documented article, patronising and reducing the ladies to some kind of digital sexual objects, having fun with the social media tool.
For example in this quote:
“they are nice girls—the Internet’s equivalent of a telephone chat line staffed by a bunch of cheerleaders”
Real time oblige, the feedback popped up very fast on the internet. First concerned, Felicia Day (Felicia is an actress made famous with the viral mini series The Guild broadcast on YouTube) expressed her disappointment on her blog:
“what really ENRAGED me what the general tone, which artfully made intelligent, articulate women sound vapid and superficial”
The movement was shortly followed by several websites (for example here and here), criticising the article for its poor understanding of Twitter interest and impact (and its excess of Twitterisation of most of the key words) and for the sexist and barely rewarding portrait of these powerful women. And obviously, the critic against Vanity Fair is now spreading around on Twitter and most of the digital/tech/geek websites.
Pretty bad move to cross the most influential women in the digital sphere!
What do you think of the Vanity Fair article? Are you using Twitter and what use do you make of it?
Marion
Not much. It’s depressing to see Day caught up in this. I’m in the ‘not much sympathy’ camp otherwise. They signed the releases. They say they are media savvy but did not stop to think of the oxymoron of glamour girl magazines and geek divas who say they want to be taken seriously. I can’t take the sexist complaint seriously.
Bad move? I really doubt it. These gals don’t have that kind of power and the more they use it the more they look like they need to get over themselves as some have suggested. Make a movement out of it? Why? It makes them look even more like attentivores in industries that exist for that sole purpose.
The best thing to do is let this one die. The only beneficiaries will be the new league of social media experts clambering on for the clicks. The talents such as Day will look more diva and less geek. It’s a loser for her.
Sexist? The article was written by a woman for a woman’s magazine that is essentially a gigglefest mag. No one expects a serious look at the work she’s done.
If there is a truly serious issue here, it’s found by reading the “Lolita Effect” by M. Gigi Durham and trying to understand why a piece like that not only thrives outside the rather narrow group you allude to in the ‘digital sphere’. We have really serious issues in the industry and all one can say from the piece is these ladies promote themselves by the same means by which they were demeaned, so No Contest. Context? Yes. Sexualization as a means to market is creating very real problems for women and men given how young it starts and how easily accepted it has become.
Digital Royalty? Get over yourselves. Get to the real work at hand. You were changing the world before the article. Now? You’re whining about the world not taking you seriously or Twitter when you flood the networks with trivia. Until you understand the baby in the bathwater that this article has pinned to you, you’ll be a part of the problem. The public gets it. You don’t.
Hi Len,
Thanks for giving us your opinion!
The point of this post was double: mention successful digital women, and
illustrate an interesting snowball effect on the web including Twitter.
I don’t think the women referred to in the initial article and in this post
are acting like divas or seeking more attention than any other public
figure/entrepreneur/individual participating on social networking sites.
They have been featured in an article, which has logically generated
feedback – including Twitter as part of the media sphere.
Regarding the Lolita effect you mentioned: we are talking about grown-up
ladies who totally assume their glamorous image. The sexism I refer to comes
from the fact that our society still has difficulties to accept that women
are into technology.
Nobody’s whining really, we’re just expressing a personal opinion in a
digital world where people are free to follow (or not to follow) everybody.
Fair enough. The term geek diva comes from the writings of other bloggers on the topic. I have to disagree that they are not seeking more attention than others because for some, that is their job. In fact, I’ve no objection to that whatsoever. Also I don’t think it’s hard to accept women are into technology. I’ve managed them and they are and they’re great.
The Lolita Effect is a more serious matter. Because we allow that in our society, the ages are getting younger and the effect lasts long beyond those years. It was a female correspondent who mentioned it to me on my blog because the episode frustrated her as she as others have interpreted it as a shameless play for attention on the parts of all involved. This one requires a lot more research and discussion than we can have here.
Then as I researched this, I ran across an article by the same author discussing the increasing focus on snark as a means to make money in the NY press. She even discusses the need to go mean as a corporate directive. It’s not sad; it sucks.
So if one looks around, it seems this really was a bushwhacking of the subjects and even if they naively walked into it (I think that the case for at least Day, probably others), I’m more of the point of view than I was when I first saw this that, yeah, there’s reason to object. It takes a bigger frame than feminism or sexism or glamour.
That they assume and take charge of their own glamour had never been in doubt and it is part of their success. And no, there is nothing wrong about that. If you go to my YouTube channel (yeah, everyone has one), you’ll see I put a light video up expressing my view of that part of the story. They may be geeks, they may be divas, but a lot of us are geeks and they are our divas. Free the VF6!
I’m not making light of the glamour as much as saying, use it and the gestalt to set up a much more attractive response. These women ARE attractive, ARE smart, ARE gifted and it won’t take much to show that. That will work better than shrill protest because as I’ve said elsewhere, you’ll get about as much sympathy for that as Bono gets for bitching about file sharing: not a lot outside the inner circle.
Have a great year and thanks for answering me with that tone!