I was reading an article this morning called “The rebirth of cool” by Carl Wilson who has written a book with the sub-title: “A Journey to the End of Taste” (yes, I confess, the FT snuck into our house again this weekend.) The best bit of the piece I must quote, it is so good: “In online commerce, it’s a given that your tastes define you and not the other way around – and in fact, you, as a person, are mostly a bothersome fleshy wedge between your demographically predictable predilections and your credit card number.” More of this later, but why couldn’t I think of that brilliant sentence, let alone get to publish the second edition of a book? Anyway, Carl’s book is a music critic’s attempt to understand Céline Dion's immense global popularity – along with the question of what drives personal taste and whether it is possible to change it. His new edition is subtitled “Why other people have such bad taste.”
All very of-the-moment and interesting, but, it was the mention of Céline Dion that reminded me of an amusing footnote I read some years ago in Mary Roach’s book Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers. This is an absorbing account, told with the skill of an investigative journalist, of what happens to human cadavers, their decay and much more - great gift for the medicine or forensic science enthusiast.
In the chapter about transplantation Roach refers to the fact that the ancient Mesopotamians believed that the heart was the seat of the intellect (not the brain) and the liver was the seat of affectivity – or the emotions. She points out the amusing fact that if we had held on to the Mesopotamians belief that the liver was the seat of love then Céline Dion’s version of “My heart belongs to you” would have been sung as “My liver belongs to you”. (Have to admit I stole this line for my speech at the 50th birthday party my liver-surgeon husband).
But back to ‘taste’ being the currency of social media - something to be bought and sold in big data to sell on to advertisers and marketers who are like the fleas of the internet – very hard to get rid of without a complete clean out. The only real solution being a complete removal of your self from the online world. I received an email recently from a gentleman called Ben (no last name) who presented himself as the manager of a business called Social-Media Likes. He assured me they had a database of individuals who were “searching for organisations like yours to caliberate with through your Facebook or Twitter pages”. Anyone out there know how to caliberate?
He was selling though (shall we call him an advertising flea?) Prices went as follows: £50 for 2,000 Facebook Likes; £50 for 6,000 Instagram followers; £45 for 7,000 Twitter followers; £50 for 30,000 YouTube Views. Gosh! I could buy ‘likes’ and ‘followers’! Did this mean I could sell them on? And could I sell them on for more than they had cost me and make a profit? Was there a futures market in this? Was getting an ‘unlike’ a way for me to get credit? Could you steal ‘likes’?
On doing the maths I find that Twitter is a reasonable 0.64 pence a follower. Facebook is a rather pricey option at 2.5 pence a ‘like’. But Youtube is definitely under-confident offering itself at only 0.16 pence a view.
So for the 99 people who have viewed my Youtube video, at the going rate you’re worth just over 50 pence each. Don’t worry – I don’t want to sell you. Yet.
5th May 2014, AH
All very of-the-moment and interesting, but, it was the mention of Céline Dion that reminded me of an amusing footnote I read some years ago in Mary Roach’s book Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers. This is an absorbing account, told with the skill of an investigative journalist, of what happens to human cadavers, their decay and much more - great gift for the medicine or forensic science enthusiast.
In the chapter about transplantation Roach refers to the fact that the ancient Mesopotamians believed that the heart was the seat of the intellect (not the brain) and the liver was the seat of affectivity – or the emotions. She points out the amusing fact that if we had held on to the Mesopotamians belief that the liver was the seat of love then Céline Dion’s version of “My heart belongs to you” would have been sung as “My liver belongs to you”. (Have to admit I stole this line for my speech at the 50th birthday party my liver-surgeon husband).
But back to ‘taste’ being the currency of social media - something to be bought and sold in big data to sell on to advertisers and marketers who are like the fleas of the internet – very hard to get rid of without a complete clean out. The only real solution being a complete removal of your self from the online world. I received an email recently from a gentleman called Ben (no last name) who presented himself as the manager of a business called Social-Media Likes. He assured me they had a database of individuals who were “searching for organisations like yours to caliberate with through your Facebook or Twitter pages”. Anyone out there know how to caliberate?
He was selling though (shall we call him an advertising flea?) Prices went as follows: £50 for 2,000 Facebook Likes; £50 for 6,000 Instagram followers; £45 for 7,000 Twitter followers; £50 for 30,000 YouTube Views. Gosh! I could buy ‘likes’ and ‘followers’! Did this mean I could sell them on? And could I sell them on for more than they had cost me and make a profit? Was there a futures market in this? Was getting an ‘unlike’ a way for me to get credit? Could you steal ‘likes’?
On doing the maths I find that Twitter is a reasonable 0.64 pence a follower. Facebook is a rather pricey option at 2.5 pence a ‘like’. But Youtube is definitely under-confident offering itself at only 0.16 pence a view.
So for the 99 people who have viewed my Youtube video, at the going rate you’re worth just over 50 pence each. Don’t worry – I don’t want to sell you. Yet.
5th May 2014, AH