Digital Culture at the Demise of Osama bin Laden

The tweet that started it all.

I remember exactly where I was when the planes hit the Twin Towers on 9/11/01. I was 15 and a sophomore in the D.C. suburbs. The first plane hit when I was in biology. The second plane hit once I made it to chamber choir. The chilling waves of the Pentagon crash put us at a standstill, while simultaneously scrambling with panic and fear for one another’s parents as our school went into lockdown. A decade later, it still hits way too close to home. We couldn’t send a simple text. We were glued to the TV.

It not only blows my mind that our national tragedy occurred a decade ago, but as it was noted earlier this afternoon that none—none—of the following mass media channels we have come to know, love, and ultimately depend on had existed at the time. Ready?

• Facebook
• Twitter
• Tumblr
• iPads
• iPhones, Androids, Blackberries and other assorted smartphones
• Netbooks
• Data plans on our mobile devices
• Flip Cameras

10 years later, these channels are now breaking records, and breaking down the walls of how we experience world events. In as much as these platforms have significantly altered and fragmented our news flow in the last 10 years, they have changed the way we reach one another. Comparatively, social sharing mechanisms, meme culture and micro-communicative media channels are 2011′s explosive equivalent of your landline, your call-waiting button, and your family in the other room.

Public knowledge of the operation that successfully erased Osama bin Laden all started with a single vague Tweet, let alone a series of Tweets unbeknownst to said Tweeter. Details emerged across all of these once-nonexistent platforms as we waited rather impatiently for the President’s formal address.

If you were anything like me, you alternately spent that time craving a little bit of comic relief.

When world-changing events emerge from the darkness, laughter is still the best medicine to overcome their blues-inflected implications. I vouch for my fellow Internet enthusiasts far and wide, that we have no longer come to expect the news itself among these digital channels, but rather, we all cling to our computers eagerly awaiting now-standard instances of comedy in digital form. They are the alternate routes along the Information Superhighway that unite us under lighter pretense when serious shit is going down, and frankly, there is nothing wrong with that.

Contextual jabs in Helvetica and Impact:

The Animated GIF:

The Single-Serve Address—Is Osama Bin Laden Dead?—putting our fears to rest once and for all.

The emergence of new Twitter characters, most notably Osama bin Laden as he makes his way to the fiery underworld: Osama in Hell.

The Harvey Levin-Fueled Gossip-Mongering—complete with a poll!

And finally, of course, Fox News being Fox News:

In the age of social media however, there may little genuinely funnier than the obliviousness of others. There is a drinking game-worthy satisfaction that makes itself evident as soon as the one or two fools in your Interweb social circles inadvertently embarrass themselves on a public platform in the midst of a public uprising. Honestly, I must thank you over-sharers, for once, for telling me about your beach house plans, your Sunday supper food baby, and how hellacious your train trip back to the city was last night. You make me want to scream at the top of my lungs, but also hug you. You are both so stupid and so brilliant for this one precise moment in time. Cling to your flash of glory, seeing as no one is likely to ever give a shit about these things you share ever again.

I wasn’t the only one waiting for these oblivious blunders either.

Donald Glover, ask.

Paris Hilton, deliver. Right on time.

With respect to this historical mission, we are undoubtedly going to be discussing strategies, conspiracy theories, future presidential campaign implications, and celebrating heroism for many months to come.

However, let’s leave the majority of that to the professionals for now and remind ourselves, that potentially for the first time ever, we collectively had an active hand in writing history, too. Our conversations throughout these channels, while they feel small, are factually much larger hand in hand with our affection for the digital age.

Every 140 characters you wrote last night are going to be archived forever by the Library of Congress. Hope you made them count.