Whenever there’s a national or global tragedy, I’m interested in seeing how the world reacts.  But I’m even more fascinated by the ways people don’t react — and why they choose to do so.

For every Iran or Haiti that tops Twitter’s trending topics, there are a million #whyyouinchurch or #PantsOnTheGround just waiting in the wings, providing distraction and empowerment for the people who can’t be bothered to care about life’s larger landscape.  This dividing line between caring and ignorance used to bother me, until I realized that what we choose to care about is entirely subjective — even when it comes to epic disaster.

One Person’s Fiery Death Is Another Person’s Reminder to Mute Her Blackberry

A few years ago, I was in a Pittsburgh restaurant (an Eat ‘n Park, unsurprisingly), overhearing the conversations happening around me.  A college student and her mother were eating at a table nearby, and somehow the conversation turned to September 11.

“I remember you called me that morning,” the daughter said,” and I let the machine get it, and you were all like, ‘Turn on your TV, a  plane just hit the World Trade Center and  people are jumping out the windows!’  And I just turned the machine off and went back to bed, because I’m thinking, ‘Why are you telling me this?  I don’t even live in New York City!’”  (laughs)

Choosing to Care (And Why We Do… Or Don’t)

The truth is, everything you do is a value judgment.  Which headlines you read, whom you invest your time in, which obligations you allow yourself to believe you’re beholden to.  None of these interests or beliefs are pre-coded in your DNA.  They’re the product of your personality + environment + culture + immediate reality.  And all of those aspects combine to form the value system through which you process all incoming information, deciding what matters to you and what doesn’t.

The truth is, we’re all wild animals.  We only adhere to social norms as a way of streamlining the feeding and mating processes, and because living in a mutually-beneficial society has its benefits when compared to a life of anarchy.  But if the pros of being a part of a society ever cease to outweigh the cons, the only thing stopping us from checking out is the law.  (Jailers and hangmen are always the last line of defense against people who decide they’d rather not play along with our constructed normality.)

The truth is, you don’t need to care about your family, or about the next iPhone, or about Haiti.  Doing so doesn’t make you a better person; it just makes you feel better about being a person.  It also makes you more civil, which your fellow humans appreciate because it gives them a positive example to follow while simultaneously alerting them that you’re “normal” enough for them to not have to worry about (or defend against).

Caring also provides your life with something it would otherwise be missing: context.

I Am What I Laugh (or Cry) About

Maybe caring about a cause gives you something to feel good (or bad) about, and this helps you frame your choices.

Maybe championing a cause leads you to believe you have an externally-imposed purpose.

Or maybe you just enjoy feeling like the only person who cares about something no one else cares about, which reinforces your outsider status by way of empathizing with your fellow underdogs.

The people and ideals we choose to invest our time and emotions in are what defines us, both to ourselves and to the people who observe us.  Our causes are signals to others, and so is the degree of effort we ascribe to them — whether we profess to believe something in passing or whether we’re willing to stand up and take action when the need to defend our beliefs arises.

Whatever you choose to care about, or whether you choose to care about nothing at all, remember one thing: nobody can make you care.  Except you.  And that makes caring the only true freedom we have.

Yesterday, someone started a Twitter game called #uncertainmovies, in which people alter the titles of films to make them sound more vague or less definitive.  (Examples: “Some Like It Lukewarm” or “Split Decision at Nuremberg“.)  Since I’m both a film buff and a compulsive personality, this is the kind of meme that can simultaneously eat up my whole afternoon while alienating most of my followers, who become alarmed when I get too prolific.

Considering I came up with nearly 30 of these yesterday, followed by another 20 while I was out running errands, I figure it’s better to spare my followers the hassle and just post the ones I still find personally amusing here:

• The Mediocre Life Coach of Oz
• The Bourne Ultimatum… Unless You Want to Talk About It
• The Good, the Bad and the Ones With Great Personalities
• The Last of the Mohicans Who Bothered to Fill Out a Census
• Disinterestedly Seeking Susan While This File Uploads
• Any Given Sunday That We Aren’t Having Dinner at Your Mother’s
• Not In the Hallway, Lola, Not In the Hallway
• That Thing You Occasionally Do
• A River Runs Through It on Some Maps That Have Yet to Be Cached by Google
• It’s Not a Bad Life, Although “Wonderful” Might Be Pushing It
• Star Trek 2: The Heretofore Unseen Peevishness of Khan
• The Lion, the Witch & the Family Heirloom Most Likely to Be Undervalued on Antiques Roadshow
• The Greatest Story Ever Told, If You’re Into That Sort of Thing
• She’d Like to Have It But, Honestly, She’ll Take What She Can Get
• Yeller, Who’s Getting Up in Years But Still Has an Occasional Burst of Speed
• A Clockwork Fruit Genetically Engineered by Monsanto
• Gone with the Slight Breeze That’s Unavoidable Because the Fucking Yankees Burned the Whole Goddamn House Down
• Moderately Attractive Woman (If You Like Horses)
• Hang ‘Em High, But Not So High That Joe Can’t See ‘Em Because He Forgot His Glaucoma Medication
• Boyz N That Section of Town We Usually Try to Drive Around
• Willy Wonka and the Gluten-Free Carob Factory That Meets LEED Standards
• The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas That Doesn’t Involve Toll Roads
• Arthritic Tiger, Hidden Gecko

Ahem.

Now, here’s hoping I’m not gripped by another spurt of arbitrary inspiration until my real-life deadlines have passed.

No news travels faster than bad news, unless it’s celebrity death news.  And ever since the trifecta of Ed McMahon, Farrah Fawcett and Michael Jackson passed away in mid-2009, regular Twitter users have feared the worst whenever a celebrity’s name graces that service’s Trending Topics.  (Just ask Jeff Goldblum‘s PR team.)

As soon as a media outlet reports the death of someone recognizable, that news sweeps across the social media sites — and Twitter in particular — like wildfire.  Why?  Easy:

• It’s celebrity news, so everyone already has a frame of reference
• It’s emotional (in some capacity)
• It’s non-controversial — death is death; no interpretation required
• It’s an easily-retweetable headline; just copy and paste
• It’s not even news you need to read (or verify) in order to pass along

Example:  When Patrick Swayze died last night, his name raced to the top of Twitter’s Trending Topics.  A search of “RIP Patrick Swayze” on Twitter brought up 20 mentions in under 30 seconds, and another 25 were posted in the time it took me to scroll down the page.  A significant portion of Twitter users, it seems, care enough about an actor primarily famous for melodramatic ’80s movies that they felt a 140-character eulogy was in order.

So the next time you’re hoping your own news goes “viral” on Twitter, ask yourself:  Is what I’m about to say as momentarily relevant to people as the death of a famous person they’ve never met but are vaguely familiar with?  And if not, how can you bridge that obituary gap?

Yesterday, Twitter was abuzz with the news that Chicago-based Horizon Realty was suing one of its tenants for $50,000 over a single tweet (sent by that tenant to her audience of 20).  Regardless of what you think of the lawsuit’s claim*, here’s the really interesting part (from a social media POV):

• News of the lawsuit seems to have been first reported on Monday, July 27
• The story got picked up by Chicago-based Twitterers around 1 AM Tuesday, July 28
• By 11 AM Tuesday, social media-focused Twitterers had discovered the story
• By 3 PM Tuesday, “Horizon Realty” was a Trending Topic

In English, what this means is that a story which initially only affected one person became a “mainstream” (at least in terms of Twitter awareness) issue less than 24 hours after it happened.  Not bad for a story that doesn’t feature a dead celebrity.

Of course, this was also the perfect storm of Trending Topic-friendly content, in that it was:

• a story about an underdog being sued by a corporation
• in an American metropolis
• because of Twitter

In fact, I suspect that if the story had been picked up by Chicagoland tweeters around 8 AM (instead of 1 AM, when the bulk of the Twitter audience is drifting to sleep), it would have trended much earlier in the day.  That overnight lag delayed Horizon Realty’s momentary spike of ignominity.

The lesson?  Unless you’re a dead celebrity or a meaningless hashtag, your fastest way to become famous on Twitter is to sue someone *because* of Twitter.  (Or, more practically: it takes less than 24 hours for seemingly insignificant news items to become mainstream Twitter talking points, as long as social media is involved.)

* Side note: for my two cents on the actual Horizon Realty lawsuit, go here.