Social Media and Special Effects

Posted on

July 16, 2008

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On the way to see “Wanted” last weekend, I ran into some friends. I mentioned I was going to see the movie and they shared that they had recently seen it. My friends didn’t really dig the movie, mainly because they thought it was more than a little plot stretch. (And it was - I loved the movie, in a suspend every bit of reality there is and just have good time sorta way)

When I walked out of the movie, I was struck by something my friends had said:

“The special effects were supposed to be fantastic, but I didn’t really think much of them.”

To be clear, Wanted had some amazing effects and some fantastic design style to it. So why did my friends not think much of them? Because as frequent moviegoers, they’ve seen the effects before. While they were great, well-done and relevant to the plot they were inventing a new Bullet Time or adding virtual Clone Troopers en masse, they were still very impressive.

The exchange reminded me of the conversation our echo chamber has been having about whether blog comments are dead or whether Twitter is uninteresting or any range of other “too cool for school” arguments.

More and more I’m seeing two things are true, whether in relation to special effects or social media adoption:

“Standard” happens faster than we think for some groups, slower for others. The key is not to get caught up only in our won personal context.
When new becomes standard, it’s more important to ensure you’re implementing these things in the best way possible rather than constantly chasing the shiny new thing of the week.

If you ever find yourself wondering if you are ahead of the curve (vs. normal users), you just answered your question.