In today’s post I’m going to play out a situation that happened almost 20 years ago and I’d like you to tell me if you think it was an early example of social media.
In 1988 and 1989, DC Comics (the publisher of popular comic books about Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, the Flash, the Teen Titans, Green Lantern, and many other characters) ran a multi-part story in their Batman comic book called A Death In The Family. This story occurred several years after the original Robin, Dick Grayson, had adopted a new superhero identity while a boy named Jason Todd took over the Robin identity. This story, a mystery in which Jason attempted to find his birth mother, featured a number of classic Batman characters, including his nemesis the Joker.
DC Comics did something quite extraordinary for the times with this story. DC Comics editorial was aware that a number of comic book readers did not like the Jason Todd character, so they decided to put some decision making power in the hands of the readers. The penultimate chapter of the story was left as a cliffhanger, where Jason was placed in a situation where he could die. DC then set up two phone numbers that fans could call: one to spare Jason’s life, a second to lead to the character’s death.
As the story goes, after the votes were tallied, a slim majority of callers voted to kill off Jason Todd.
Jason Todd was killed in the final issue of the Batman story.
This was a clear example of getting reader input and reacting to it. The technology wasn’t Web enabled or housed on the Internet, but it had some similar characteristics.
My question to you: was the use of these phone numbers to kill off a character an example of social media in action? I’d really like to know what YOU think, including your arguments FOR or AGAINST the idea.
Good call bringing that idea back. Definitely an example of social media.
I voted to keep Jason, by the way.
I didn't vote on Jason Todd's fate as I wasn't reading many comics those days.
If I had, maybe I would have created a tie!
In my opinion this is a positive I.D. of early social media in act. Consumers/users/customers/community members/etc. weighing in on something that is important to them using a format (phone call) that is open.
Someone on Twitter mentioned that comic book readers didn't have a chance to communicate with each other using the phone numbers. That's a fair point.
Well, I guess you could consider this a form of social media, in the sense that the creators of a product are in direct contact with the consumers, who get to choose what's best for them. Actually the vote up, vote down stuff quite sounds like digg, errmm or rather reddit
I believe true social media is accessible and shareable. Of course, user-generated content is very much social media but I feel that, without an easy to way to share this information with other influencers, it is not completely so. Naturally, not all social media is viral but I would think you'd at least want to have tools in place for there to be such potential; after all, any social medium is only as good as the “legs” created to help people find it or bring it to the people (pull or push, sometimes both).
In those days, ads in a comic book got good response so this was definitely a buzz-generating device but, considering all the de-centralized platforms, this is more like interrupt marketing in the works than anything else. Now, if they made it so that folks could dial their friends right from the system and get them to vote and do the same, then it'd be a complete social medium. Connectivity, referral networking, shareability, and the like all make social media succeed or fail, me thinks. =o]
In any case, I love user-generated content and this was definitely an example of ideas that were ahead of their time.