1239: Social Media

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Social Media

Title text: The social media reaction to this asteroid announcement has been sharply negative. Care to respond?

Explanation

This comic parodies how journalists tend to focus on social networking. Specifically in the case of revolutions, social media is given a lot of weight, even in countries with limited internet access. A direct parallel is made to the so-called Twitter Revolutions.

On Twitter you can send text messages with a maximum of 280 characters (140 at the time of writing). This means that there could not be much content in a single post, but often many people follow the people doing these tweets. People who are not on social media tend to react like Cueball and come to the conclusion that Twitter makes press coverage more stupid, just because those messages lack much detail. Cueball is also surprised about the stupidity of trying to link social media to the orbit of the asteroid — social media has no impact on the orbit of any space objects.^{[citation needed]}

The title text continues the joke. The negativity on Twitter concerning an Earth-bound asteroid has nothing to do with the press conference that announced it but rather with the negativity of wiping out life on earth in general. Again, journalists give undue weight to social media.

It's simply that "How has Twitter affected this" has become a standard question for journalists, posed in complete disregard of the actual event.

Transcript

[Cueball heads a press conference.]

Cueball: NASA has confirmed that the asteroid is heading directly for us.

Cueball: ...Yes, a question?

Reporter 1: What role has social media played in this asteroid's orbit?

Cueball: *sigh*

Reporter 2: Has Twitter changed the way we respond to asteroid threats?

Cueball: Well, it's made the press conference questions stupider.

Reporter 3: Fascinating!

Reporter 4: What about Facebook?

Trivia

• The comic may also parody an actual interview Is asteroid 2012_DA14 connected to global warming in which Bill Nye was asked if the approaching asteroid 2012_DA14 was a result of global warming.

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Discussion

So how have folks responded to this one on Twitter? 67.51.59.66 15:57, 17 July 2013 (UTC)

—girl look at that body. Greyson (talk) 17:09, 17 July 2013 (UTC)

This question might have initiated the comic: http://youtu.be/AdHGhSeYcq0?t=51m9s 91.46.145.123 20:07, 17 July 2013 (UTC)

Maybe, this Bill Gates video was released two days before this comic.--Dgbrt (talk) 21:22, 17 July 2013 (UTC)

It's somewhat ironic, that the first statement of Cueball is less than 140 characters long. Also, the whole situation seems similar to that in Earth Unaware by Orson Scott Card ... or maybe I should not tell the ending of the book. 78.8.147.90 20:47, 17 July 2013 (UTC) qbolec

I did edit your wiki link, it was broken.--Dgbrt (talk) 21:22, 17 July 2013 (UTC)

Not ironic, opening line less than 140 characters because social media?! Monteletourneau (talk) 05:21, 1 August 2013 (UTC)

Note that this is a press conference. All questions are made by professional journalists, not by simple Twitter users. Xhfz (talk) 22:57, 12 August 2013 (UTC)

Note that voting booths have only one character per message (sometimes only one bit), and nevertheless many people are interested in their outcome. I changed Twitter by "voting booth" and the following explanation becomes absurd.

On a voting booth you can send messages with exactly one character. This means that there could not be much content in a single vote, but often many people follow the people voting. People who are not on democracy tend to react like Cueball and come to the conclusion that voting booths make press coverage more stupid, just because those messages lack many detail.

Xhfz (talk) 14:15, 13 August 2013 (UTC)

I mean, SpaceX could decide a clockwise or Anti-clockwise oribt based on a social media poll. 141.101.99.184 20:34, 23 September 2021 (UTC)