The Twitch as Communication Atom
10th July 2011
Link me, like me, comment me, but . . . read me, understand me, appreciate me, compare and contrast me? Who’s got the time, the energy, the WATTage?
The Twitch Collectors like Facebook with their iGizmos have determined to wring out power and profit from the pennies of these intellectual and interpersonal exchanges. Understanding the economy of scale, Facebook thinks itself meaningful as it accumulates of the least people can give in any moment. Much of little makes Twitch Collectors big.
Realize the poverty of this like-grubbing activity. The Facebook like is Gertrude Stein’s Oakland – there is no there, there. The Facebook like is only a finger twitch on a visual icon, a momentary impulse of recognition, of familiarity, of OK! It encodes human activity and value in the simplest set of symbol and syntax. Point on an image and twitch.
Can there be anything less than this from human communication? The Social Web has discovered the smallest unit of meaning, an indivisible element of communication. A twitch is just a twitch and held to be as meaningful as . . .
Do you remember that big jar of pennies you collected as a kid? A jar so big and full you had trouble picking it up. You were rich.
The Social Web is just a big jar of pennies that adults collect then claim as a new wealth.
