I've recently been having a discussion with some of the people in my life who are interested in talking about things. How the world works, how to make it better, what's coming in the future, what the world needs now. (It's love, sweet love, by the way).
My thoughts have been forming around stories shaping culture and the tools available these days that enable ANYONE, to shape the culture of the planet with new stories.
It has always been the story tellers that teach the "tribe" what to believe. It's the story tellers that shape the world view of the people who grow up and hear those stories around the fire. The stories we tell about each phase of life we encounter on our path from birth to death and even beyond. These stories, create beliefs and our beliefs manifest reality in the way we behave in the world.
Today, and I can only speak of my experience in the "western world", the storytellers that shape our behavior are the advertisers and the marketers. The stories they tell us are necessary to perpetuate the economic system we all live within at the moment. The big winners in this system have the resources and power to continue shaping these stories to their advantage. Their tight control on the media for such a long time made this a relatively easy task. Those with alternative stories were left out due to prohibitive costs, or the general inability to compete.
The internet has changed that. It's democratized communication, media and storytelling. Those with alternative views no longer have to be pushed aside, forced to tell their stories to limited audiences and not taken seriously. In some cases, it's true, maybe they shouldn't be taken seriously, but there are many who have beautiful, important stories to tell. The audience should decide and can recognize the truth when they see it. (Or enough evidence of it.)
So in the explosion of the last decade or so, people have been stumbling around trying to figure out how to deal with the internet. The "old guard", are trying hard to maintain their grasp on their dying mediums while attempting to control this new one, the way they eventually controlled the radio waves when that era was born. But the general public have realized they can have a voice. Some kid in his basement can speak to millions of people with nothing but a cheap computer and a web cam. Or even just a cheap iPod he can carry in his pocket wherever he goes.
If you're reading this, you know this already, but do you ever contemplate what that really means? What does it mean for the world? Facebook has more than twice the population of the United States. If it were a country it would have the 3rd largest population in the world. (over .8Billion, vs India 1.1B, China 1.3B). But this population has no geographical borders and it's growing. And facebook is only 1 "community". There are many others that connect users from all over the globe. The planet is looking at itself and learning new things.
So now that everyone has a voice and a better picture of what's going on, what can one do to shape the world around them? Tell better stories. Do we really believe the ones currently shaping the world are doing it all right? Do we think maybe they're doing many things very wrong? Stories create culture and culture creates behavior and behavior creates reality. If the stories are false, misleading, or just missing some facts, the culture will be shaped accordingly and perhaps our behavior won't represent the facts.
I think that those who wish to tell an important story in the world need to look at the techniques of the marketing and advertising masters that shape things currently. Especially online. There are ways to spread a message far and wide. A formula. Just like traditional story telling has a formula that will make it engaging. But because this medium is interactive, people can participate in the story. They can make the story and the shaping of the culture a living thing.
Think about the stories that shape your life and if you think you could/should have new ones. Maybe you want to share.