The Rise of Social Media

      Today in my convergent media class we watched an interesting video made in 2009 by Henry Jenkins over the meteoric rise of social media, and how this revolution had placed more power into the hand of the user. However, there was a segment in this video that I found particularly interesting. The narrator discusses the use of social media by the Obama administration and how this allowed him to go from being an underwhelming candidate to the election front-runner. This is so interesting to me because I believe it was a true landmark of the social media era. When you think about modern times it would be silly to not publicize your business/administration all over the worldwide web, but back in those days, over ten years ago, that was unheard of. I think it goes to show the rapid progression of human involvement and interaction regarding social media. We as people have taken what started as an easy-access way to talk to people and turned into a worldwide phenomenon that is used by restaurants, celebrities, airlines, realtors, and almost anything else you could possibly think of. It stems back to simple idea that by the push of a couple buttons you can communicate your message to millions of people all over the country. Also, our class talked about the power individuals have with the power of a single phone, and how much that has changed from many years ago when only million dollar production companies had the capabilities to produce high quality entertainment. However, nowadays you can upload a high quality video using only your devices from your house. A great example I can think of regarding this is YouTube. I am of the generation that has watched a countless amount of YouTube videos which have consumed hundreds of hours of my time, and in my hundreds of hours of research I have found one thing to be true. It only takes one person to create a success story. All of those famous YouTube content creators who have millions of people tune into their channel everyday all started in a similar fashion. Typically, they recorded a video on their phone or small camera, edited it on their phone using the provided software, and uploaded the finished product onto their YouTube channel. Fast forward years later and they are millionaires. In summation, social media has taken over our lives as we know it, and can turn the average person, business, or idea into something catastrophically large in no time. In my opinion, that is pretty phenomenal.