Experiments with Social Discovery

I've been trying my hand at this whole social discovery thing -- basically using the Internet as a resource to find people interested in the same things as you are interested in and then trying to get them involved in your learning and research process. I'll preface this by saying that this has been something completely foreign to me, but I guess actually doing the hard things is what makes them easier and/or natural in the end. Anyway, I've been trying to reach out to people in different online social settings to try to get feedback on my research, and honestly, I've had a tough time getting people to respond. That is really making me think more and more about my research topic, though, and I am thinking more and more that I would like to make it a more argumentative topic, one where there are definite diametric stances and where some people, on reading my research, would want to jump in and state their view of the matter.

I started my attempts at social discovery on Google+, and I managed to find a lot of people generally interested in Objectivism but not really any that expressed acute interest in The Fountainhead. I can't say that this was entirely unexpected, as people generally focus more on Rand's monumental work, Atlas Shrugged, the sort of pumped-up-on-steroids version 2.0 of The Fountainhead, this time based around an aspiring railroad tycoon among others. I didn't get any response from people that I had contacted personally, and those that I added to my circles in hopes of receiving a reciprocal add remained silent. One day, sort of in desperation, I wrote a call-out to Objectivists, and a day or two later, I got my first response, from a young man named Alexander. He had been searching for info on Ayn Rand and had stumbled upon my blog. We exchanged messages a little bit, and he seemed to be open to talking. It was something little in terms of the grand scheme, but it was something big in my process of social discovery.

I guess really my first response, though, was really a little bit before that, from a musician whose song I found on Youtube and shared a couple of weeks ago. He (Joseph) responded to a message that I sent through Youtube, telling me that he had written the song based on Atlas Shrugged. I was excited to find out, as I had had suspicions that was the case. Anyway, it was neat to connect with him and to see that people are creating media content based on Rand's works.



I had sent a message to a young woman named Audrey in response to her book review of The Fountainhead, and she wrote back the next day, telling me of her story with regard to Rand's works. She said she had always had ideas similar to those in Rand's work, but it was only upon reading The Fountainhead that she really felt inspired to concretely define the morals that she wanted to uphold. I've come across a lot of other people with similar sentiments and have gotten to hear their stories through videos and blog posts.

I tried my hand at Twitter, and that gave me some success I guess. I found lots and lots of people talking about Objectivism (thousands!), but it seemed that most were interested more in Rand's political ideologies. I found a few people that I thought might be more specifically interested in the work I was doing, but none of them responded when I sent messages to them. I follow some Objectivist feeds now, though, so that, if not a source for social contact, has at least been an information source, a sort of river of ideas and connections to modern events, and that's been good for my research.

It was about at this time that I discovered an Objectivist dating service and online community, and while I haven't had the time to really delve into the resource that that represents, it has been neat to see how many people are so actively engaged (no pun intended) in Objectivism. There are tons of people on there posting about Objectivism, and the site gives access to some people's blogs and other resources. That's actually where I found Joseph's music, there on one of those blogs.

I've worked recently to get more people reading my blog and contributing, and while I've some trouble with the latter goal (perhaps owing to the fact that a lot of people haven't read The Fountainhead), I've been able to reach people through personal email, Facebook, and other resources. The other day, I sent out a mass message to all of my email contacts asking them about what inspires them to create and inviting them to read and comment on my blog, and I was pleasantly surprised to get four or five responses back within an hour's time. A couple of them gave me permission to share their thoughts:

So what inspires me to create and share is the possibility of having what I say and/or do be spread throughout the entire world. I mean that's why I have two blogs and two twitter accounts, because I feel that as an individual my voice matters... Because of the internet I don't feel like I have to run for public office or rub shoulders with journalists in order to let my voice be heard. I feel like through the merit of what I write and share, I can be noticed by those who can make it possible to share what I say in a more credible platform (newspaper, talk show, etc.)  -Brian

I really like the last line, and I think it sums up pretty well some of the ideas that have been going through my head recently as pertaining to digital media. Kehnin, another friend, responded to a query about the internet's potential to stimulate or stifle creativity with the following:

This is an interesting question because i think that all the information can support both ideas, with the same argument basicly. With social media we are able to experiance more and more new things, but as that happens the populous becomes more homogeneous.
So, perhaps on an individual level we become more creative, but as a race we become less creative. That is my take on it.

That idea of individual creativity is one that I've been investigating a lot in The Fountainhead, as it really emphasizes the idea of the Promethian creator, the single person who, by the virtue of his/her bravery and willingness to sacrifice, brings light to the masses, be it in the form of fire (as was the case with Prometheus) or some other thing. I'll close this post with one final quote, an interesting response to a Facebook shout-out that I made a few days ago. The first part especially really made me think:

I believe that new technologies have no power to change who people are at their core. If you could somehow objectively measure pure "creativity," I don't think the internet would change what's inside of people. However, the internet does make new sorts of creative work viable; for example, it encourages collaborative works, and gives more people access to more raw material. It also may inspire people to be creative who might not have been if it weren't so easy to share their creativity and partake of the creativity of others. It's a tool.  -Stella

Well, there's some food for thought, I guess. I've done some other social discovery with Prezi, Slideshare, Quora, and a number of Objectivist communities, but this post is getting to be really long, so I'll close now and post again on my other efforts and my most recent attempts to find scholarly social proof. But alas, that will have to wait until tomorrow. So, good night, and thanks for reading!