America: Land of the Made for TV Movie Online Live in Social Media

By Guest 

usalargeAmerica’s influence in the world derives as much from movies, hamburgers and video games as military might. Entrepreneurs in South African slums rent time to refugees to play EA’s FIFA Sports 2015; the McDonald’s in Tblisi enjoys a brisk business in Big Macs; and Marvel’s The Avengers grosses $18m in Venezuela. These are all small snacks of love American-style.

America’s newfangled cultural vanguard emanates from Cable TV, YouTube, Ebay and Twitter. Like their forebears, these made-in-the-USA inventions were also incubated in Ray Croc’s home state of California. Collectively, they constitute a giant feed with teats into every wired person on the planet.

So, why on earth is America’s cultural influence losing ratings points?

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Rather than expanding its once-dominant cultural hegemony, America’s influence is actually flagging. The culprit is social media, and to a lesser extent, television in all its new forms. Social media is the antithesis of the studio system. Individuals – not media outlets, businesses, organizations or governments – now publish 94% of online content. In the face of this exponential proliferation of media, the power of any single message, country, or even medium, is invariably diluted. America created the plumbing to distribute media; the people firmly control the poop.

Of course, America itself is more diverse. In turn, its cultural export is commensurately less homogenous – pockmarked by homemade 6-second Vines and snaps of X-Pro II filtered Instagram photos as well as sat feeds of The Voice and illegal downloads of CSI: Crime Scene. The impact of social media is the self-organization of people everywhere into narrower and narrower affinities. People do not choose between rock and country anymore, because they boast access to every music genre through Spotify and iTunes. People are alternately defined by none of their media, and by all of it. They smoke; they are not smokers. They ride motorcycles; they are not bikers. They watch Star Trek; they are not Trekkies.

Worryingly, the more extreme the sensibility of the author in relation to the affinity, the more popular he/she is in social media. General affinities such as friendship, religion, politics and geography devolve into more extreme versions of themselves. In politics opposite sides of debates not only do not engage each other, they do not even use the same lexicon, hash tags or locations. In this vacuum extremists create content that is more compelling than anything the U.S. government can counter. Extremists now articulate compelling brand promises under iconic black flags and grabby name conventions.

It is time for America to re-establish itself as the cultural epicenter of the world. This can only be achieved through the mediums by which this dominance is threatened: social media and television. And it cannot be done by the U.S. government, because I do not know a single person who believes that the U.S. government can create original content as compelling as its adversaries.

As a citizen of the United States of America inspired by the moxie of CBS’ Madame Secretary, I recommend four groundbreaking programs to show the world that we are still in Charles-in-Charge of their media wallet):

1. Facebook.com/UnitedStatesofAmerica: How can America not have an official presence on Facebook? Russia has one for the love of Pyotr. I recommend a lottery system based on the Athenian model of democracy in which citizens are chosen at random to represent their country for the day. It is an honor and a duty. Each person is simply instructed to share America’s story from their unique individual perspective using any media produced in the USA. Jerry Bruckheimer of Top Gun fame would edit one month, David Remnick from The New Yorker the next. If selected, I promise to devote my turn exclusively to commentary on HBO’s The Wire.

2. Global Community Access: America creates its own version of Al-Jazeera; however, rather than a mash-up of MSNBC and FOX News clips, we pull-together the best of our Public Access TV programming, past and present. In a world of slick programming what better illustrates America’s authentic genius than contemporary programs such as The Chris Gethard Show on Manhattan Neighborhood Network or and Let’s Paint TV (Pasadena). We show the good in the re-airing of the wonderfully comic Beyond Vaudeville (Manhattan Neighborhood Network from 1987-1996) followed by the bad, the abhorrent, vulgarly racist and misogynist Jerry-Jer aka Tampon Man (Fairfield County). This is the real America, not that glossy YouTube version.

3. America the Beautiful Crowd-Source: Perhaps, America requires assistance from the private sector to tell our side of the story. So, let’s build a 21st century version of the Ad Council, but rather than advertising wonks, tap into the wisdom of the mad crowd. The government publicly and transparently funds the White Hat Hackers Meet-Up, You-Tube All-Stars and Tongal to create content around specific topics such as the “dangers of extremism” and “why the rights of women matter.” Jake Dobkins of The Gothamist fame would crush this assignment.

4. Lastly, there is always a difference between a people and its government. Governments fly drones and alter monetary policies. Americans barbeque and watch a strange kind of football. So, I recommend a global Confide account (a more professional version of Snapchat) by which global citizens can ask 311-like questions answered by volunteer American citizens. Pen Pals 2.0. We can use Match.com’s matching engine to connect people based on data from their social profiles, and the privacy of Confide keeps it all from going kablooey in public, when inevitably someone says something inflammatory. Anyone up for bringing back a sanitized version of Chat Roulette or Tinder the U.N. Edition?

As Justice Brandeis said, “Sunlight is the best disinfectant.” Let’s open a dialogue, and show our underbelly. Of course, this byline serves as my resume for the newly created job of United States Assistant to the Under-Secretary of Digital Propaganda, NY Branch. Never before have things in one seemingly remote corner of the world affected everyone everywhere. America is need of cultural ambassadorship, and my passport is up to date.

The author of this post is Curtis Hougland, founder and CEO of Attentionusa.com. He is a frequent writer on serious issues such as how social media destabilizes governments and lighter topics such as how Minecraft makes parenting more difficult. He is also a frequent blowhard at conferences such as Wired Disrupt. Follow him at linkedin.com/in/curtishougland or @curtis_hougland.

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