Goodbye Yellow Brick Road - 2009

Jonathan has some other great pieces on his site. Check him out.

‪A quote from Clay Shirky I heard in an NPR interview the other day led me an interesting talk by Ethan Zuckerman about social media web apps and activism.‬

‪The quote, which is the title of this post, ‬comes from a 2008 talk Zuckerman gave at the O'Reilly Etech conference. Zuckerman points out that the widespread usage of certain internet applications for activities like sharing cute cat photos makes it harder for governments to shut down said applications when they're used for activist activities.  ‬Says Zuckerman:

With web 2.0, we’ve embraced the idea that people are going to share pictures of their cats, and now we build sophisticated tools to make that easier to do. As a result, we’re creating a wealth of tech that’s extremely helpful for activists. There are twin revolutions going on – the ease of creating content and the ease of sharing it with local and global audiences.

Shirkey reiterates the point in his interview: social media platforms and environments that are designed to allow citizens to share anything they like are better environments for political activism than tools that are specifically designed for political activism.
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Zuckerman also puts forth a formula that describes the effectiveness of social media platforms: if a platform isn't being used for porn, it doesn't work, and if it isn't being used for activism, it doesn't work well.

Porn is a weak test for the success of participatory media – it’s like tapping a mike and asking, “Is it on?” If you’re not getting porn in your system, it doesn’t work. Activism is a stronger test – if activists are using your tools, it’s a pretty good indication that your tools are useful and usable.

The whole article is worth a read.‬

Cabinet Magazine's most recent issue featured a series of paintings by the English artist Louis Wain, who painted thousands of pictures of cats. Wain was committed to a mental hospital in 1924 after showing signs of schizophrenia. Many psychologists believe the increasing severity of Wain's mental illness can be seen in his paintings, though others claim the paintings are just reflecting patterns from his mother's textiles. See for yourself:

All images copyright the Archives and Museum of Bethlem Royal Hospital.

H.G. Wells once said of Wain:

He has made the cat his own. He invented a cat style, a cat society, a whole cat world. English cats that do not look and live like Louis Wain cats are ashamed of themselves.

More on Wain can be found here, here, and here.

This post is in memory of my beloved family cat Mister Ham, who passed away yesterday.