'25 Things' Meme Shows People, Press Never Tire of Chain Letters

from the i-still-don't-care-how-craaaaaaazy-you-were-in-college dept

You've probably heard of this "25 Random Things About Me" note craze that's going around Facebook: somebody writes a note containing 25 facts about themselves, then tags 25 people who are supposed to do the same. It's pretty much the same as any other similar chain letter-type of thing that's bounced around the internet since the heydays of AOL and Prodigy, except perhaps for the fact that it doesn't ask you to send a sick kid a postcard at the end. It's hard to decide what's more striking about the craze: people's continued fascination with this sort of thing and their willingness to participate, or the media's obsession with them. It's hard to tell just how many people have taken part on Facebook thus far, but traffic to the site's Notes is four times higher than usual, according to one estimate, with 28 percent of Facebook's US users checking out a note at some point in January. As for the media, check out the "mystery" over who originated the 25 Things meme (short answer: nobody has any idea). Maybe the most interesting thing here is how the 25 Things meme plays into the ideal of social currency. For some people, they see the list as a way to enhance their social currency within a community by sharing info that will make others view them more positively. But then there's those of us who have been "tagged" 50 times already, and see any more tags as a way for people to devalue their social currency even further.

Carlo Longino is an expert at the Insight Community. To get insight and analysis from Carlo Longino and other experts on challenges your company faces, click here.

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McNamara's Syndrome: Being Late To The Game On An Internet Meme

from the what,-you-hadn't-heard-of-it? dept

Last week, Network World columnist Paul McNamara had an amusing post about some jittery Circuit City execs who had demanded that all stores destroy copies of Mad Magazine, after it made fun of Circuit City. While, Circuit City actually showed it had a pretty decent sense of humor in apologizing for the trigger happy exec who demanded the destruction of the magazines, the situation gave McNamara a chance to mention The Streisand Effect -- the phrase I jokingly coined years back, which has recently become a somewhat commonly used phrase.

McNamara, though, hadn't heard of it before -- which isn't really that surprising. While the phrase is used here and there, it's still mostly known among a rather small group of folks. But, McNamara wanted to know if there was a similar phrase for not knowing an internet meme until after everyone else seemed to know about it. I sent him an email suggesting that he use his own name as part of it because, for example, Mike Godwin gets a lot more attention for Godwin's Law than I'll ever get for The Streisand Effect (and not least of which is because Godwin's Law is a lot more interesting). McNamara seems to have taken my suggestion, and declared that being late to the game on an internet meme should henceforth be called McNamara's Syndrome. I'm all for it. Now, if only Paul were to send a cease-and-desist letter to Techdirt for mentioning his name in this manner, then he'd be sure to get some attention for the phrase.

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