Technically Incorrect offers a slightly twisted take on the tech that’s taken over our lives.
He needs Twitter because he can ask the fans what they want. All of them.
Kevin Mazur
When you think of Twitter, do you think of the whole world bantering along together?
Or do you see it as a place where people scream at those they don’t like and only like those who agree with them?
Twitter leans toward the former. On Monday, it launched a new campaign that claimed, well, the high ground.
An ad featuring Chance the Rapper shows the star going about his daily business, which includes taking to Twitter and asking everyone out there what he should sing in his show later that evening.
Naturally, his fans, so-called influencers and other artists, argue about which are the right songs. Because Twitter is about instant expression of opinions. Even ’60s great David Crosby pops up to suggest “any song with real instruments.” Now that’s really taking a chance.
Meanwhile, Chance is looking at all these suggestions because he wants to give the people what they want. Or because he needs a good laugh, of course.
The hashtag for this campaign is fascinating. It’s #SeeEverySide. In a blog post, the company’s Chief Marketing Officer Leslie Berland explained that it had asked its users what they thought Twitter was. There came but one simple answer: “What we’ve always been.”
The home of world bickering and nastiness? It seems not. Instead, it was “Twitter is what’s happening and what people are talking about all over the world.”
The company went one step further by asking those who are its most “passionate” users. Ah, the real bickerers and nasty people then? Their response, according to Berland: “Twitter lets me see what’s happening from every point of view, all perspectives, every side.”
Well, yes. If you bother to look. Somehow, I fear that Twitter too often involves like minds coalescing in order to toss verbal Molotovs over their barricades.
For the company, though, whether it’s sports or music, news or entertainment, Twitter is where you go to see it all. It’s a little like Fox News’ recently discarded “Fair and Balanced” motto. Twitter doesn’t just give you one side. It presents views from every angle. You just have to grit your teeth and duck a lot.
I cannot confirm the president has been approached to appear in one of these ads.
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