“Give me liberty or give me death exclaimed,” Patrick Henry in the presence of our country’s for fathers Thomas Jefferson and George Washington March 23, 1775, at St. John's Church in Richmond, Virginia. Is it coincidence the social networking site Freindster.com founder, Jonathan Abrams also launched his social liberation brain child in March 2002 some 227 years after Patrick Henry’s historical call to arms?
There was a time in human history before 2002 when global media conglomerates spoon fed audiences programming and advertising straight into their living rooms. Not knowing better American’s gobbled up these visions of dreamy existence, perfect lives, shiny cars, and magical products.
Over time however the status quo tired of being told what to wear, to listen to and what to think.
Then came a new dawn, an era of interconnected intelligence and data; an intricate network of human consciousness; of free unbridled information. Over time these interconnected masses of stored knowledge were made accessible to billions worldwide. Friendster.com sent the call to arms against mass media and content control. The era of consumer generated media and content development was born!
The “information age” was born again after 2002 and human beings began claiming their stakes in a world where they would now dictate for themselves what was relevant, powerful, persuasive, interesting and meaningful.
But why is this need for individuality so strong in our nature. Why must we seek to be free, liberated, respected beings with purpose and creative agency to express ourselves?
Les Giblin once wrote…
“Whatever name you want to give it – “human dignity,” “personality,” or what-not—there is something deep in the heart of every man and woman that is important and demands respect. Every human being is a unique, individual personality, and the most powerful drive in any person is to maintain this individuality, to defend this important something against all enemies.
This is why you cannot treat people as machines, as numbers on a register, or as “masses,” and get by with it. Every effort that has been made to deprive human beings of this individual worth has failed. It is more powerful than armies and prison camps. It proved more powerful than the feudal lords who tried to turn people into serfs. It proved more powerful than Hitler’s armies. And it set the stage for our own “land of the free”; for the Declaration of Independence, if you read if carefully, is really a declaration of independence for the individual. It derives its power not because it sets out certain rights for a certain group of men, but from the fact that it proclaims certain inalienable rights for ‘all men.’”
Today we experience Friendster, FaceBook, LinkedIn, MySpace, YouTube, Second Life and hundreds of other ever proliferating niche social communities where community members are sharing,, chatting, blogging, linking, nudging, poking, thinking, growing the network by adding their personal perspective to every post, online relationship, image, video, article, story, twitter and flake. Social communities are independent and dynamic and so are the residual relationships that develop as interaction in these networks grows.
We sit today at the precipice of a new realization… The call to arms has sounded and you are beckoned to heed the call to join the revolution. Social communities give everyone the right to share their voice, their vision and their influence on what interconnected communications and technologies will be over time.
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”
Welcome to liberation! Enjoy your pursuit of happiness today!
Kenneth Knapp
Founder/CEO
SocialFIEND.com
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