If you haven’t already seen it, and you should, in her latest song and video with Beyonce’, the Lady (is) GaGa Telephone complains,
…
you knew that I was free.
And now you won’t stop calling me;
I’m kinda busy.Stop callin’, stop callin’,
I don’t wanna think anymore!
I left my hand and my heart on the dance floor.
Stop callin’, stop callin’,
I don’t wanna talk anymore!
I left my hand and my heart on the dance floorEh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh…
Stop telephonin’ me!
Eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh…
I’m busy!
Eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh…
Stop telephonin’ me!
Eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh…
One of the great hallmark of the wired-up-age is the ability to know when poeple are free and to connect in all manner of styles from flakey Facebook to laboured LinkedIn. We can join as many networks as we wish in the time it takes to put toast in the toaster and say ‘Lady GaGa’. It’s when the going gets tough – all that social noise – that things start to deteriorate.
Stop telephonin’ me!
Eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh…
Take heed though friends, there is a delicate social balance that needs to be weighed – as the Daily Shame reported this week when fears of ‘slippery patches’ caused by the greased wheels of invasive (Tory) politics threatened to grind to a halt the (I am perfect) mumsnet website.
What with the World, and the World’s political other half, tweeting and Facebooking by far the trickiest and most controversial series of social hoops to jump through this spring will be: Acceptable Avoidance (AA). The message being, when it comes to updates, should we as the e-elect audience even be listening?
e-politics – the political presence of parties, leaders, MPs, and, increasingly, their wives – is this elections potential hole in one in terms of drumming up interest. Or potential sink hole. Actually ‘hole’ doesn’t even begin to reveal half the various pitfalls that will swallow up some of the political treats in store when it comes to the run up to May. In that for every connected politician most of their constituent and voting public are not. They are off doing something much more interesting. AA you all.
It’s time for change. Does this extend to political engagement? Most of us have the networks and are already logged on in some form or other to Facebook, to Twitter… So why is there resistance to the attempts made by politicians to connect? ‘too forced’; ‘boring’. What do you mean they’re not really a friend on Facebook? And compared to other recent political feats – Obama’s electoral social media presence, for instance, has been herald as key to his success and the increased voting behaviour amongst the particularly hard to reach public quarters, which was taken up with gusto both in the States and worldwide – making ‘friends’ with our politicians is similarly undemanding.
So why recoil? – insert gagging sound here. e-politics has already captured the media hungry imagination. The e-election has been front page news for most of the press this week, with Wednesday’s Guardian’s G2 dedicating considerable pages to election domination, and Debrah Orr’s neatly observed column on Thursday that noted with dry and caustic wit the pinpointing of politics now more towards women voters with all that ‘sucking up to mumsnet’.
I suspect that already there may be a voters fatigue, bought about by lapses from half-buried memories of ‘new’ and ‘change’ already in the political vocabulary looooooooooong before the present situation. Rmember when voting, especially women’s right to vote, was a symbol of rebellion, liberation and erstwhile hope. And not to do with the possible tweeting from Twitter. Of course, the moment Mr Brown tweets ‘real answers for real issues’ I might pay attention.
So the potential for AA is something that is not entirely without its advantages. I cannot honestly propose a complete disconnect from all the political noise – surely that would be shooting myself in the foot – rather than political relief? With this in mind may I present some political trouble-shooting for our socially naïve MPs out there who may be proposing to tweet it:
- No self-congratulation please. With that level of smugness, the update you were hoping for as ‘off the cuff’ and ‘clever’ becomes obvious spin and I won’t follow you anymore.
- You need to contrast politically charged updates with something more personal. One should be, ‘blah this agenda *yawn*’ (and we should care for this update, even if it is boring), followed by another, ‘I like what such and such is wearing, that puts me in mind for debonair debate and raking out my moat’.
- Do not go with the temptation to tweet/update every political announcement. That’s not interesting, or informative, that’s annoying and doesn’t have the right impact. This will result in your being deleted from my feed.
- Take a leaf out of Boris Johnson’s (@MayorOfLondon) book and look for something visual to post: shaking hands with the good ol constituents; a moment of emotive engagement – if you can shed a tear then this will gain you at least five votes; an image from inside one of your home/s. Fancy.
- Finally, nothing semi-naked.
Oh, and don’t forget to vote, especially the NOMINATIONS SOUGHT FOR FUTURE LEADERS AWARD
We promise not to tweet it.
