tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-716509980377809016.post6710324356077703429..comments2024-03-11T10:20:01.582-07:00Comments on The Rehearsal Studio: The New AdultsStephen Smoliarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14689767135234237242noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-716509980377809016.post-35732479434215446222008-03-29T08:20:00.000-07:002008-03-29T08:20:00.000-07:00One theme I noticed in the sources you cited in yo...One theme I noticed in the sources you cited in your recent post<BR/><BR/>http://therehearsalstudio.blogspot.com/2008/03/new-adults.html<BR/><BR/>was a reliance by the authors on the metrics provided by social media as an indicator of different candidates' popularity: how many YouTube views, how many MySpace friends, and the like.<BR/><BR/>As a member of this younger generation suspicious of how the media manipulates the public, I couldn't help but notice the unusual use of capitalization when visiting (former Wisconsin governor / former Health and Human Services Secretary / former Republican presidential hopeful) Tommy Thompson's MySpace page:<BR/><BR/>http://www.myspace.com/tommythompson08<BR/><BR/>Compare the "About Me" profile text to the text of "user" comments. In this age of lowercase emails and Internet shorthand, I'm suspicious of the quite uniform use of Title Caps. It really looks like whoever filled out Tommy Thompson's MySpace profile also invented lots of pretend friends to make the candidate seem more popular.<BR/><BR/>The other day I heard a story on NPR about Obama re-creating a speech he gave in Chicago, and releasing video of the re-enactment on the Internet complete with canned audience reactions edited in:<BR/><BR/>http://noquarterusa.net/blog/2008/03/26/the-fake-iraq-war-speech-more-creative-embellishments/<BR/><BR/>Maybe all those campaign contributions buy an office full of people in India reloading YouTube videos all day to drive up the numbers.America Joneshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16002826549410509629noreply@blogger.com