Playfulness
The Internet is so weird. In some ways, it’s frustrating in how banal it is. How, when we’re exposed, when the lowest common denominator is revealed, how incredibly common and unimportant most of our thoughts are. You can see that with Twitter’s trending topics. Most people’s thoughts really are nearly mindless. Noise. Or at least many people’s.
But, and now, on the other hand. There is something so playful about the Internet. And that playfulness is a wonderful lesson for all of us. The things that spread virally, that spread like, as they say, wildfire, are, often, so whimsical and so silly. And yet, in their own way, life-affirming.
So Bob saw the wedding dance video featuring Chris Brown’s ‘Forever’. And it’s striking how quickly that thing spread around the Internet just like that video of that old British lady singing the opera and, for my part, I watched both videos and I loved them both and while the mob and the crowd still seems to me as basically unwise and ridiculous and not something I’d put a lot of trust in, the lesson that embracing a spirit of whimsy is not such a terrible thing all the time is probably a good lesson.
Bob writes:
The key is to leave your mark online. And you do that via sheer creativity.
And that’s true and to be remembered. And it’s something I think about. And the point is that you’ve got to have some fun and you’ve got to try some weird new ways of doing things and you’ve got to be somewhat willing to fail because your idea kind of missed and didn’t exactly work. But if you retain that sense of exploration. If you tinker with things and if you use the word “weinus” and if you are willing to make a fool of yourself but in a good way not in a way where you’re whoring yourself out then I think you’ve retained an important sense of wonder and whimsy about life. And I think it works specifically on the Internet.
Fred Wilson, in fact, writes that:
Our “six words to live by on the Internet” are open, global, mobile, social, playful, and intelligent.
And that resonates with me. Has anyone ever told you The Legend of the Danat?
