Update: OMG! Continuing on with how things just fall into place, Rachel Maddow just started out her show tonight with the subject of this diary ...
It's funny how things just fall into place sometimes. Last night before watching
The Rachel Maddow Show, I saw a post by Eric Erickson at Redstate which he titled,
Blowing Up the “Paul Ryan Will Turn Off Women” Meme. Right on cue, the second segment of Rachel's show, addressed Paul Ryan's record on abortion, birth control and in vitro fertilization. I wrote a diary about the segment:
Rachel Maddow: "Welcome Congressman Ultrasound [Ryan] to the Republican Ticket" as a response to Erickson's post. Within an hour of publishing that diary, I visited Facebook to catch up on what was going on with family and friends, when I saw this post from
Upworthy.com on my news feed:
When I clicked on the post, there were several examples of Tweets from "Paul Ryan Gosling," with this description.
Paul Ryan Gosling is a Twitter account run by some anonymous genius, whose satirical tweets are easily ten times more honest than Paul Ryan himself. Laugh to keep from crying, everyone. Laugh to keep from crying.
I found the
Paul Ryan Gosling is a Twitter account, and there were already over 28,000 followers. When I clicked on it just now, the number had swelled to 35,508. He also calls himself
The better Paul Ryan.
The Washington Post describes the quick assent of the account to such popularity to the fact that "the Internet wants what it wants, and right now, it wants a hybrid of sensitive hunk Ryan Gosling and VP-pick Paul Ryan, now in the form of two Paul Ryan Gosling memes."
Only, I don't think that Romney-Ryan team will look at this association favorably considering some of the tweets being generated by the anonymous owner of the account, that all start out with "Hey, Girl..."
I think it's time for Eric Erickson to start rethinking his chances of killing that “Paul Ryan Will Turn Off Women” meme. What do you think?
It goes without saying, if you use Twitter, please start following Paul Ryan Gosling and start retweeting. Let's help get the word out about the better Paul Ryan. Oh, and if you're on Facebook, be sure to LIKE Upworthy.com because they post several links a day that you will want to Like and Share. Like their most recent post:
Haven't heard of Upworthy? There's a great article at The New York Times that explains what they're all about.
What if this article began with a link to a chart on media consolidation? Would you click it?
What if, instead, this article began with a promise that it would tell you “The Real Reason They Still Play ‘Mrs. Robinson’ on the Radio.” Would you click that?
What if they were both the same thing?
Upworthy, a news aggregation site that began publishing on March 26, is serious news built for a spreadable age, with super clicky headlines and a visually oriented user interface. Eli Pariser, the former executive director of MoveOn.org, and Peter Koechley, a former managing editor of The Onion who also worked at MoveOn, noticed that much of the media that gets shared online is built on cute animals and dumb humans that are good for a laugh, but not much else.
With the backing of Chris Hughes, one of the founders of Facebook who recently bought The New Republic, the pair and a staff of 11 people in eight cities are promoting information and news that has serious dimensions, using the tendency of the social media world to share stories. “We want to give people the information and tools that help make them better, more aware citizens,” said Mr. Pariser. Their version of citizenry tilts left, or as Mr. Pariser put it, “people who believe global warming exists and gay people should be able to get married.”
Two Guys Made a Web Site, and This Is What They Got