I want to thank my global village for the support.
We live in a real world straddling a growing cybersphere of social media information that parallels reality, flowing in tandem with unfolding events. Social media shadows our corporeal bodies, leaving a trail along the ‘feed and a shimmering data afterglow. Twitter, Facebook, Foursquare, etc have changed the way we understand the news.
The Osama news was trending on Twitter before the television stations made the announcements. A Twitter account for @GhostOsama began circulating, chirping from “hell.” With only 8 tweets, the @GhostOsama Twitter account attracted over 16,000 people in less than 2 hours. And Obama hadn’t even addressed the country yet.
Immediately after CNN started to report the story, Mashable noted that people were checking in to a Post-Osama Bin Laden world via an “Osama Bin Laden Gonathon” on Foursquare (a moving target):
Soon after that, Mashable reported that Facebook group “Osama Bin Laden is Dead” went viral.
News came from
TechCrunch of a man (
@ReallyVirtual) relaxing in the mountains of Pakistan who broke the story of the Bin Laden raid accidentally on Twitter, complaining of unusual helicopters that he wanted to swat because they were ruining his vacation:
And then in true social media style, the new media Bin Laden coverage became a separate story (check out this article in AdWeek or this one from cnet). People marveled at the way the news was constantly unraveling, revealing itself on a ‘feed and going viral even before the networks could comment or the president could address the country. And of course, Tweet Jesus (@Jesus_M_Christ) went to town on this one:
News suddenly has people flocking to the Internet for a world-community commiseration that eerily resembles group therapy (with celebrities, friends, and strangers all over the world). And I'm thankful for that. Cyber-news participation changed my experience, hitting me with multiple perspectives and bits of data, bizarre commentary, comic relief, excitement, celebration, and a whole slew of folks who were uncomfortable or confused. Rather than being bombarded by exploitative information, I was finding myself immersed in a rich web of understanding.
Facebook and Twitter were exploding with complex emotions, becoming like a digital focus group for humanity, spreading awareness, information, cultivating perspectives from around the world – and in real-time. This enhanced my experience and amped up my emotional response to the news because I had an immediate community of people to share it with. The web brought the global village together to discuss the death of Osama Bin Laden. It’s still ringing in my ears, echoing like a surreal mashup of the Wizard of Oz, visions of the almost-viral hashtag #DingDongTheWitchIsDead, dancing through my consciousness and keeping me enthralled. I'm still not even sure how I feel about the whole thing, but I'm thankful to my global community for the easily accessible understanding and perspective.
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