Mar 11, 2015

Wombat poop and other social media phenomena

A friend of mine posted a picture in Facebook.



Well, shared it from "I fucking love science".

So, what happened next? I, of course, being the self-taught sceptic that I am (read: manage to question some stuff but buy into other stuff when I forget to be alert), googled it. I would never have even thought to google wombat, let alone wombat poop without the pic. I mean, they don't exactly live in our neighborhood. I knew they exist, but seriously, they're not cute like pandas or koalas or fun like kangaroos.

What caught me totally off guard was Google. Google was already one step ahead of me! I started to type wom - which could've been the beginning for, say, woman, women, womb or a huge many other words. But what did Google suggest?



Yes, of course. Wombat poop had already become a worldwide phenomenon way before the cubic poop photo reached me. And it's Google's job to keep on top of those. For people like me. So Google saved me the trouble of typing more than three letters and on top of that, offered some reliable looking search results. Like International Business Times explaining to the world why the cubic poop is so convenient for wombats.

Wait, what?! What's the Business Times got to do with wombats?

That's how these social media phenomena go. Everyone and their dog wants their share of clicks using black and blue (actually it was gold and white ;) ) dresses of celebs (who was it again?) and wombat poop and whatever "sells". It's all about the money (that the advertisement brings in). And we, consumers, swallow the bait, over and over again.

So, what did I learn today? That I'm still not sure the wombat cubic poop is not a hoax and that everyone is only after my clicks. Oh, go ahead and say it. I'm riding on wombat poop too. But hey, you got it for free - no advertisement included!

[Afternote. Thank you, Wikipedia. No, it is not cubic. You know what tipped me off? The "it's".]

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