I didn't really start to notice social media until about 2003. Back then, the biggest social media site was Xanga. After a year, everyone started moving over to myspace, and one year later everyone moved over to facebook. Afterwards, facebook just kind of merged with everything. Google, youtube, reddit, tumblr, and everything else started linking to everything else and other websites stated to copy facebook. Linkedin started as purely business networking but now it is just becoming facebook.
I care about pretty much none of these sites except for youtube. In its early years, the videos on youtube were limited and of very low quality. As it became more popular, it was flooded with content and everyone started using youtube. Your friends, businesses, celebrities, the president, and serial killers. That's right serial killers.
Last year, I checked my youtube feed and saw a video from Davis Aurini about Elliot Rodger. This guy went on a killing spree just because he couldn't get a girlfriend. The world is a crazy place and this sort of thing happens every couple of months so I didn't really pay it much attention at first. However, this incident was covered in great detail by the media. But I don't consume mainstream media so I got most of the coverage from Stefan Molyneux. What separates this incident from previous tragedies is how personal the incident was. Elliot wrote a manifesto of his sad miserable life and his eventual plans for destruction. This was done in the past by other criminals. The Virginia Tech shooter released a video of him explaining why he was going to commit his crimes. I'm not sure how the video was released, but I'm sure it was not on youtube.
Elliot's video was posted on youtube. Elliot's video is still on youtube. It was briefly taken down as his channel was shut down but it was restored sometime later. Other of his video logs are still present documenting his thoughts.
His videos are off putting and they are personal. He is usually just sitting in his car and talking about how he perceives the world to be cruel and unfair towards him. These are the thoughts of a person that is deeply disturbed and would eventually become a killer. But since he made his videos filming himself talking to some sort of audience, it kind of feels like you could be talking with this guy. Like he was sitting right next to you. Despite being a killer, this person was still human. He had thoughts, experienced joy, sadness, felt pain, and lived the same way that we do. The media will say whatever about a dead person but hearing the words directly from the guy is entirely different.
In a similar incident with the social media phenomenon, a girl named Amanda Todd committed suicide during October 2012. People kill themselves every day, however this girl displayed her sad miserable story and posted it on youtube. And it went viral. Her story was tragic but her video is still up along with her channel. Curious, I decided to check out her channel and see if any other videos were uploaded. There was one other video where Amanda was just singing a cover of a song. She seemed so happy. Even her viral video ended with some sort of hope.
In Metal Gear Solid 2, the La Lei Lu Li Lo stated that humans create an endless supply of digital information. Since humans are unable to think for themselves, it is the AI responsibility to filter through all the information and select the correct information to create context and shape public opinion.
These videos that were created, they will be online for as long as youtube keeps the servers up. Everything that we created. Our thoughts, pictures, and videos will outlast us as long as the servers stay up.
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