Demographics vs. Common Interest Megan Heijjer

In this segment Johanna Blakely takes a very interesting approach to social media. One of her main points seems to be that women will take over the world of social media and therefore bring about an end to gender. Arguing that women will be hired in social media businesses more then men and their ideas will eventually take over those of social media. Although this proves to be statistically true we must also acknowledge that just because women may be taking over this field it does not mean that all social media we be centered on the interests of women.

            However an example of women’s increased use of social media and the Internet is new websites like Pinterest that are dedicated to all sorts of ideas that women love to discover. Pinterest is full of wedding ideas, home décor ideas, crafts, and photography that women use to embellish their daily lives and allows them share their ideas with friends and the world. This is clearly a supporting point of Blakely’s overall idea, that a large majority of social media sites are targeted towards women and their common interests. Clearly common interest has become a more unifying force then demographics from the earlier days.

This example corresponds perfectly to the point Blakely made about how social media is being shaped around group of users common interests rather then demographics like, race, age, and income. Some of these shared interests can be much more powerful then fundamental demographics. Something as simple as music has the power to bridge gaps between certain groups of people. Yes their feelings and experience when listening to a particular band or song may be different but the fact that it made such an impression on these groups of individuals creates great bonds between them. Furthermore, creating a fan page for a particular band unifies a whole group of people and now the only thing that matters about that particular person is that they all like the same band and old demographics fade away.

Above all the point that she is attempting to make is the age of demographics and fading away and all that matter now is that most of these people on the internet have common interests. Blakely also mentions how media sites follo users clicking patterns the social media sites can learn a lot about the individual and their interests. As scary as it is that somebody is following our activity on the internet we must acknowledge that this is now the way that social media is reaching out to us and adapting to the needs of the public. Above all this segment was very informative and revealed a new way to look at social media and all of the aspects that go into creating a website and what purposes it will serve.