It’s a beautiful summer evening in Chicago and my wife and I are discussing which superhero movie to go and see. This time of the year there is an abundance of summer blockbuster to choose from, The Green Lantern, Thor, Xmen etc., I’m personally leaning towards Thor.
For those of you familiar with the heroes journey as a writing template, then you’ll recognize the point in every film where he/she is reluctant to take on the task at hand. The odds seem too overwhelming, the enemy too great, yet they must some how muster the strength to go on.
On any given day one can peruse the Twitter trending topics and find such gems as #howtopleaseahoodrat. For those of you not in the know, we’ll consult the urban dictionary for a proper definition:
hoodrat- A skank ass hoe that’s f@#$ed most of the men in the hood; A girl that gets around;hoe; A theme park( everyones had a ride up in that b@tch)
How can a demographic that arguably has the most influence over the leading news distribution platform in the world choose to use it for such madness, you ask? Advertiser are paying $120K a day to buy a trending topic, while Twitter’s urban demographic is throwing millions of dollars in potential ad revenue away. They are smart enough to collude on a trivial hashtag, but not plugged in enough to know how to monetize it.
I liken their current plight to the heroes journey, in that often the hero of the story doesn’t know the power they possess. The hero generally takes a beating throughout the first two acts of the adventure, only when defeat is imminent do they rise to the occasion and tap into the power within.
The question that begs to be asked is, what will it take to wake them up to their potential or in other words when will Neo realize he can defeat Agent Smith?
To whom much is given much is expected.
It shouldn’t take a disaster like the one in Haiti to make people tweet something of substance.
People of African decent make up 25% of Twitter’s user base, as a voting block they could sway any conversation across the platform. How many other groups would love to have those numbers?
Image credit: Tony Haex , Kevin Dooley
You can follow me here: @KevinMinott
