the unliqlo monsoon

Yesterday a lot of people tweeted about Uniqlo’s latest thing, Utweet. I was surprised so many people tweeted it having witnessed it pass through my brain without feeling stirred at all.

Anyway, I shared my surprise:

And some others sympathised:

And of course, there was the other side of the argument. Iain correctly said that “Not everything has to be big and complicated to be good.”

My brother retorted more dryly:

The debate itself is a bit boring – to me. That the debate happened is the interesting bit and Tim’s comment is a good starting point.

The people who expressed a like for the UTweet idea saw their proclamation as a momentary salute, hardly deserved of analysis. So why did I – and others – appear to see it as something else?

The reason is that the sheer volume of fleeting mentions created the illusion of loud and sustained praise. Unintentionally, the RTers – collectively – made a big deal of it, even though individually they barely said a word. Each tiny salute fused together into an army of praise that flooded my twitter stream.

This illustrates the power of the connected world to distort actions by accumulation – and it takes me back to one of my favourite references from Richard Dawkins. (I’ve mentioned this at least twice before):

“The universe is populated by stable things. A stable thing is a collection of atoms that is permanent enough or common enough to deserve a name. It may be a unique collection of atoms, such as the Matterhorn, [...] or it may be a class of entities, such as raindrops, that come into existence at a sufficiently high rate [...] even if any one of them is short-lived.” – Richard Dawkins

I like to simplify this comparison into ‘the mountain and the raindrop’.

Each fleeting mention of the U Tweet idea was a raindrop. So for those that spat one out, the idea that others could read their action as OTT praise seemed understandably bizarre. But people like me saw all the raindrops at once. I wasn’t amazed that a raindrop had fallen, I was amazed that there was a monsoon — a class of ‘mountain’ if you will.

It’s really important to understand the two sides to this dynamic, because it’s key to communication and culture beyond this case. And transforming raindrops into mountains/monsoons is something worth interrogating. Which is why I’m so interested in ‘slippy ideas’.

Whether the UTweet thing is good or worthwhile isn’t really the interesting part of the debate. The debate is a reminder that no one acts alone anymore. Everything we say and do is connected to other people’s actions, whether we like it or not. Which means context is not completely controllable. And context is what caused the debate.

The hive is alive. Small gestures will continue to be grouped ‘inadvertently’ into authorless super-statements in the eyes of others. Such is the propagation of memes and it’s not going to stop. That’s something to capitalise on if you’re a marketer – and something to be sympathetic to, if you’re a human.

http://www.charlesfrith.com Charles Frith

This is fair commentary on Uniqlo but it’s important to point out that Uniqlo have built a great reputation for repeatedly producing likeable digital raindrops. They have form and like Apple we like to keep an eye on them no?
http://www.monster-munch.com Nicky Gibson – Monster-Munch & Poke

Interesting thinking about this magnifying effect and how it people respond to it. Especially for things like the #DEBill and all the surrounding chatter. Seems there’s a fine line between a highly tweeted, interesting subject, and a massive bore :) The time period from interesting to annoying feels like it gets shorter all the time. Is that a reflection on my level of patience and concentration, or the volume of of ‘stuff’ out there to think about?

I get cause-commitment guilt :)
andy

@Charles
I don’t disagree with that. But this isn’t a commentary on Uniqlo at all, or a post about whether the Utweet thing is good or not. It’s about the elastic-significance of things when they can be both isolated and clustered at the same time.
http://www.crackunit.com Iain

I know how it feels when you feel an unjust monsoon of praise is brewing. And I’m no stranger to trying to weather the storm myself on occasion.

What’s perhaps most interesting to me is not the crowd / herd stuff. I’m more interested in YOU (slips on his psychoanalyst jacket). What was the moment when you decided you had to say something? I’m sure there’s many things you feel a bit ‘meh’ about. But you don’t choose to Tweet about all of them (perhaps you should?). Is it a feeling of injustice that something is being unfairly moonsoonized that motivates you?

The other interesting thing from an analytical point of view is the way you formed the question in your tweet. The only acceptable answer to your question is (as Nik wrote) ‘no’ (you are not the only person). Because obviously you aren’t the only person who thinks that given the population of Twitter. So were you really just seeking acceptance and yearning for a sense of belonging?

;-)
andy

@iain

yes

;)
http://www.no-mans-blog.com Asi

To follow up on Dr. Tait’s analysis, I would like, with your permission, to suggest a different angle:

Iain asked:

“Is it a feeling of injustice that something is being unfairly moonsoonized that motivates you?”

It might be this kind of so called ‘external motivation’ but i have another suggestion. In this culture of HERD, raindrops and monsoons, we have, occasionally, the need to stand out from the crowd. So perhaps, on some unconscious level you chose the Utweet monsoon to assert your individuality? Perhaps, when you realised that “no one acts alone anymore” the potential horrific anxiety in this realisation had to be offset by the natural defense mechanism – the act of searching and asserting your sense of complete, separate self. Therefore it wasn’t belonging or acceptance you sought, but quite the opposite – a separation from the crowd and a stronger sense of self.

;-)
andy

Asi, that made my morning, thank you. :)

I just did an LOL – which btw was a totally individual act. Everyone around me had stern looking faces.