<nettime> made for TV, made for social media

[Felix Stalder <felix@openflows.com>]

I followed, like many others I presume, yesterday's events in Washington
on TV (cnn) and on social media at the same time. And it seems pretty
clear that this event was made on, through and for social media. The TV
cameras, few as there were, were literally outside, observing, clutching
their pearls, while a thousands social media cameras were inside, doing,
celebrating.

And from what I saw, it was an overwhelming success. What everyone said
was impossible, it happened. The certification was delayed. Protestors
-- some of them very well known figures -- walked, quite leisurely, into
the core of the democratic institutions to subvert its more fundamental
process (transfer of power) talking triumphant images, edged on by the
president (we love you!) and aided by the police who clearly had great
sympathies for the protestors, taking selfies with them and helping them
to disperse once all the pictures had been taken. And some of the
pictures are truly iconic, hard to unsee.

This was clearly not an accident, not by the protestors, not by the
police and not by the supportive politicians who more or less continued
afterwards as they did before. This is part of a strategy that has
consistently showed itself to be more resourceful, more versatile, more
popular and more audacious than outsiders imagined.

Yes, the certification is bound to be completed. Yes, the democrats also
have the slimmest of majorities in the senate. But the narrative of
Trump against the political elites just got even more convincing to the
indented audiences and it got more radicalized. With the tacit support
of the police, the right wing militias are growing, standing by as a
force of intimidation for everyone else.

But I'm far away, maybe miss-reading this entire thing.







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