SheGeeks

For the past week, a lot of my Twitter followers have noted that I’ve been M.I.A. (missing in action). And I have. To be honest, I’ve gotten a little bored with socializing online. That’s not to say I’m tired of talking to my friends online. I touched basis with Cyndy (a.k.a. the other Louis Gray) just last night. Last week, I had not one but two conversations with my sexy-man/partner in crime Chris Miller. However, all of these conversations took place offline.

Let me state beforehand that I find this post a little difficult to write. How can you elaborate on a sentence that explains it all: I’m sick of socializing online! It’s not the entire online social experience that I’m sick of though. It’s different elements that are starting to either bore me or annoy me.

This post was inspired by Is Social Over-Hyped?

Repetitive Conversations

A friend of mine once asked my why I kept posting about the same service over and over (Twitter was that service). I told her because there were various aspects of the service that I felt were unexplored that I could add some input to……and I needed something to post about. However, her question has been haunting me lately because our little bubble of web 2.0, silicon valley, and social media can get pretty repetitive.

I couldn’t write about a different service because there was nothing out that was of interest to me. On the other hand, there weren’t many meaningful discussions to contribute to either. Either I had nothing to say about the subject, or what I was thinking had already been said. There’s no point in rehashing a point just for the sake of saying something different. This is how I’ve been feeling lately.

Reading & Blogging Became A Chore

I’ve let my unread articles in Google Reader stack up to ridiculous amounts for the past few weeks. I’m sick of reading. It’s becoming a chore that I’d rather put off for various reason.

• There’s nothing new of interest.
• The conversations are all the same.
• I don’t feel like searching for new content.

I think I may be discovering that I’m one of those people that doesn’t like a lot of order. I like things to switch up every now and again. However, the section of the blogosphere that I’m interested in has a hit a plateau and in turn, so has my blogging. Once again, it’s all too repetitive to the point of tedium.

Plateau in Innovation and Creation

All the latest sites and services are all the same to me. Clones. Clones that do one feature better than the original. Clones that don’t have any of the features that the original has. Clones that are playing catch-up and clones that should have never seen the light of day because the original was a dumb idea to begin with. There’s nothing to talk about because there really isn’t any “real”" news. Innovation is at an all time low and we’re all suckers for it because something is better than nothing. Well, screw that!

A Hiatus on the Horizon?

No, I won’t be taking a hiatus. I still love this too much. However, content from SheGeeks will be on the slow side. I refuse to post just for the sake of posting. I want to add something new, if not original to the conversation. I want to discuss something different, something exciting, something….moving. That’s how FriendFeed and Twitter were when I first discovered them: exciting and moving. Where are the services, theories, and concepts that can accomplish that same feeling, while being of interest to me?

Popularity: 21% [?]

Last night, Wayne Sutton and I did a livestream Q&A via Yahoo! Live. Originally, we intended to do it via ustream.tv, however Wayne was have a few technical difficulties with the service only minutes before we were to go live. So, we made a switch to Yahoo! Live.

The conversation with Wayne was great, and initially so was the conversation with our supporters and some of our participants. However, as time wore on, anonymous users started to walk in and spew derogatory remarks all over the place. Louis Gray even caught a couple of screenshots of some of the comments. While it made it much harder for us to answer any questions our real audience might have had, Wayne just encouraged me to ignore them and try to stay focused on the conversation.

Why This Wasn’t Hard For Me

I grew up in an impoverished neighborhood and I’ve seen racism and discrimination in many forms. I’m black, a female, and also a lesbian. That’s 3 ways to discriminate against me and I’ve experienced all three forms before I hit high school and 2 of them before I hit middle school. I’ve seen family members and friends harassed and killed by racist cops in my neighborhood. What happened in the chatroom is better than most of what I’ve experienced.
    

Sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me.

A couple of hours after the livestream, Louis Gray and Cyndy Aleo-Carreira posted their thoughts on the situation and profusely apologized to both Wayne and I for having to endure that type of…hatred? Activity? I really don’t know what to call it. However I wish they wouldn’t apologize. I completely understand why they are apologizing and I’m honored and humbled by it. However, they weren’t the ones that caused this situation to happen.

Cyndy seems to feel guilty for not speaking up previously, however it’s not Cyndy’s duty to speak up. It’s nice, yes. However for me, it’s not necessary. You all came to the show, you sat through it with us till the very end and said numerous words of encouragement that I expressed my gratitude for in this video on Seesmic. That’s all I need. You shouldn’t apologize for the behavior of other people because they don’t reflect upon how I view you.

The Power Of Friends

Those people in the chatroom were more annoying than anything because it prevented you all from conversing with Wayne and I. However, they didn’t personally affect me. I really appreciate you all speaking out. I appreciate the support and knowing that you were more disgusted than I was. I guess I’m used to it and I’ve seen much worse in my life. Honestly, I was surprised to see your posts because I had no intentions of making a similar posting. Why? It’s just not a new phenomenon for me.

However, it’s friends and peers like you two that make everything worth it at the end of the day. Your posts have really touched me and I just wanted to say not to worry about how I feel about it personally. I have people like you two standing behind me and that’s more powerful than any word that was stated in that chatroom. The words of my peers and friends will forever ring louder in my mind than any derogatory comment.

Once again, I appreciate the support I truly do. However, I hope you two never apologize to me for someone else’s actions because they don’t reflect upon you for one second.

Popularity: 21% [?]

Sarah Perez recently wrote a fantastic article on Why Gen Y Is Going to Change the Web. She delves into the highlights of the generational shift in the overall status quo as to how things are done, how we will impact not only the web, but also the workplace, how marketing gets done and more. It’s an excellent piece that everyone should read if you haven’t already.

While I wholeheartedly support the article, it moved me to want to explore who is pushing the web today. Unfortunately, that push isn’t being made by Generation Y. In fact, we’re sorely lagging behind early adopters (generations before us) when it comes to pushing new web services to the forefront of the web.  

Sarah noted to me that:

Early adopters are a slice of the web that progresses it forward - in fact, they are a slice of the population that pushes *anything* forward. Early adopters of hybrid cars, color TVs, microwave ovens - some group is always trying out certain things first. It’s a given. Gen Y is a completely different slice of web users, whose behaviors can be recorded and contrasted with X, Boomers, etc. but not other cross sections - like types of users for example.

Gen Y Are Types of Users

Generation Y are the types of users that can help make new technologies more mainstream. One can even argue that to some extent, we make up the majority of mainstream. We’re the more narcissistic users. We’re the supposedly savvy users of the web. Yet, we’re also the ones who have yet to learn how to properly and effectively user new technologies. We’re the ones that depend on Wikipedia for our homework, yet do not know how to effectively use Google Scholar to our advantage. We have a million resources at our fingertips. We’re the ones that will pick one or two and not bother to explore the others. We just might be the laziest web users of all time.
   

Latest Gadgets Versus Latest Technologies

Generation Y is normally well informed of the latest gadgets. We switch cellphones every chance we get. We’re switching from PC’s to Linux and Macbooks. We have GPS in our cars and upgrade our stereo systems about as much as we change clothes. However, when it comes to technologies, most of us are at a loss.

Ask us about IMAP and we’ll give you the most confused look. Throw out a music codec outside of MP3 such as OGG Vorbis, or ask Gen Y what LAME is. Can you speak in plain English please? DataPortability, OpenID, OAuth, APML? RSS, OMPL? We’ll probably ask if that has anything to do with HTML. These are technologies that early adopters are pushing for our future on the web and we don’t know a damn thing about any of them.

It seems the perpetration of Generation Y being up on the latest technologies is a bit skewed. We’re more up on the latest gadgets (hardware). The technologies (software) that power the gadgets that we use, we honestly have no clue about them. While we may also be savvy at using these gadgets, ask any of us to troubleshoot it and that savvy facade will crumble worse than cake. Just because we’re on Facebook and Myspace doesn’t mean why know what the hell we’re doing.
   

Social Media, Social Networks, and The Social Web

Don’t ask any of us what these things mean. Don’t tell us that a social network is part of social media which is part of the social web. We most likely don’t even care, but we should! The social web is the wave that we’ll be riding in the future. We know brands like Facebook, Myspace and Bebo. However, we have no clue about Google’s OpenSocial. Hell, I barely have a clue to what exactly it’s supposed to be. We know about Youtube, but not Veoh, Vimeo, or Qik. Twitter? Barely a blip on our radar and I do mean barely! Everything we know about the Social Web, was over for early adopters in 2007, with the exception of Facebook. We can definitely claim that.

Our future is already here and wholeheartedly involves the use of these services and applications. Part of our ignorance could be due to that fact that we only see what’s popular, when it hits mainstream. We hop from network to network based on the recommendation of our friends. To some extent, early adopters do the exact same. However, while they’re bouncing from the latest to the next potential hit, Generation Y ping-pongs back and forth between a bubble of networks, which we rarely venture outside of.
   

Why Generation Y Is Lagging Behind

Laziness and pride put us behind more than anything else (except possibly games and sleep). If you look at the age of the early adopter crowd you’ll see that people like Scoble, Stowe Boyd, Dave Winer, Guy Kawasaki are not "young bucks". Hell, get off the  usual A-list train for a second. Those who are also pushing Friendfeed, Twitter, various RSS Readers, and social aggregators are over the age of 35 too.

I’m 20. My mom is 40. My dad is…over 40. The aforementioned folks that are old enough to be my parents. Their old enough to be my friend’s parents. Would you really want to learn about the web from your parents, who didn’t even grow up with the internet? What the hell do they know? That’s our mentality. That’s our pride. In our heads, the internet is our birthright. If my mom tries to show me anything on the internet you can bet your bottom dollar that I probably won’t listen. What does she know? If we’re taking the early adopter crowd into perspective, then apparently a lot more than I do!

On the other hand, future technologies and services are extremely complicated, time consuming, and not always productive. We’re way too lazy to want organize these things ourselves. We’re glad you guys are taking the time to do it because it would take us a lot longer to get it done. There’s so much to learn and explore. Yet, we just want whatever’s going to get things done the quickest. We don’t even mind if it’s dirty, as long as it’s done!
   

Stop The Perpetration

There’s way too much hype being placed on Generation Y. Sure we’re savvy, but we’re also clueless and most of us don’t care to do the research. We’re waiting for these things to come to us while early adopters are going to them. We’re weren’t the first on the web, though we pretend to be. Who invented the internet? Puh-leeze! That’s a pop quiz that this generational "wave" would drown in.

Since we feel that the internet was our birthright, I think we should start investing the time to learn the both the history and the future of it. We need to set aside our pride, clean up our rooms, and get just as involved on the web as we are in politics, economics, and the environment. One thing is definitely clear to me: Generation Y has no clue about the future of the web and the perpetration that we do needs to stop.

Popularity: 17% [?]