Let’s Pretend!

YouTube Australia is an odd creature. Because there are apparently so few people consistently creating video content in Australia there seems to be an expectation that those few people should become ‘best friends forever’ and sit around campfires together toasting marshmallows and singing Kum Ba Ya. You need not be an expert in human psychology to appreciate that human interaction just doesn’t work that way. You wouldn’t expect someone to follow and befriend (in the more tradition sense of the word) everyone in America producing videos on a semi-regular basis, would you? Of course not. That would be insane. Again the reason relates to quantity.

If you don’t believe me, check out my garden gnome’s channel. No, really. Its a video channel hosted by a garden gnome. It’s not a troll account, not a sock account, it’s a gnome account! This gnome with a whopping four subscribers has the following dubious honour:

#36 – Most Subscribed (This Month) – Gurus – Australia

I was happy, overjoyed even, that I got to hang out with a more select group of YouTube people recently. These people actually were my friends. But the point I really want to make here is that these relationships are meaningful because they are based around more than a shared nationality and a single hobby. Relationships are connections entrenched in familiarity, shared values, interests and dreams. Not merely demographics. That is the ‘old skool’ marketing view of the world – an expectation that all males 25-30 residing in Australia will all fall over themselves to snap up your product. My hope is that people have a more innate understanding that individuals are more than the raw data on their birth certificates.

@retrogrrl on Twitter brought this fascinating article from 43folders.com to my attention. The whole article is worthy of your consideration, however a single tweet encapsulated the central idea:

Apparently, you should pretend to like anyone who pretends to like you. This is called “networking,” and it’s why the web smells like feet.
- hotdogsladies

We know instinctively when people are being disingenuous. This is why we abhor the concept of Sub4Sub. Personally I realise now that I was trying too hard to ‘play nice’ and ‘fit in’ with certain people who were more acquaintances than friends. I had identified that Australia – in terms of video content creation, at least – was a very small place indeed and was wary of offending anyone. I humoured video collaboration requests I had no interest and was frankly disappointed by the results of. I gritted my teeth and accepted vexing Skype group chats that again I had no interest in. When eventually I had become so fed up of the experience that I did express these sentiments the other party was shocked. In hindsight I realise I was in part responsible for maintaining the illusion. When I dared to speak out about harrassment I received from one of the people in this ‘clique’ I was further shunned.

The concept of ‘community’ may contain some element of truth, but there is no one community rather a collection of communities, of social networks – or to abandon the jargon entirely, groups of friends. They form in organic ways and overlap with each other in ways that might seem counter-intuitive. I am frequently amazed at how often people know all the key players – but one – in a seeming social construct. Anyone who still maintains there is only one community is either confused or hopes to create one homogenus mass for reasons that beg considerable scrunity. One community with which to rule them, perhaps?

The true value of interaction – be it online, or otherwise – relates to the integrity of those conversations. While it might feel nice to have someone pay you lipservice, there is no real benefit to it. I don’t know about you, but frankly I lack the energy to maintain such facades. As I told the person who recently called me ‘pathetic’ I want my friendships to mean something.

Tagged as: Community, Social Networking, YouTube