It is based on the premises that if people work hard engough, if people are good enough and if people's ideas are strong enough, people will be successful.
Well, the whole culture behind social media in terms of things going viral (or people succeeding) conforms to the American Dream as it suggests that if enough people can relate to something, then that thing become valuable.
In that way, if something is important enough, or enough people believe in it, or enough people want it, the paradigm leads us to think that it will go viral, that we will all hear about it.
But the American Dream ignores the fact that some people just cannot or do not know how to participate.
Maybe their cultures will not allow (like in China), or they do not belong to a Western culture and value social media types of communication (like in Tibet), or they simply do not have the means to be involved (like the indigenous people of Canada).
But nonetheless are these different cultures less significant, less insightful or less successful.
Maybe people should stop relying on the things the media, whether from their friends or national broadcasts, tell them to talk and think about.
Instead, we should be reaching out to different ideas through other media rather than sustaining our one culture alone by only regurgitating what we recieve from other people which, if you read my previous posts, I believe are just reinforcing the status-quo, not giving people a voice.
It is not because it is viral that it is important, or that it is not viral that it should be ignored.
There are various reasons why some things recieve more attention than others, and those reasons are not necessarily based on what society needs.
Success and progress comes from looking at multiple pespectives. We must not rely on social media to tell us something is important. We must be proactive and find different ways to listen to everyone.
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