Social Media and the Three Kinds of Storytellers
The below is an excerpt of the book “Digital Storytelling: The Rise of User-Generated Content” set to publish May 2021.
With the rise of user-generated content (UGC) and social media, storytelling has become the most powerful weapon we have. It influences everything around us. From who we elect to office to how we get jobs. And it can be used for good — or evil.
That’s what my book, “Digital Storytelling: The Rise of User-Generated Content,” is about: the distinct rise of UGC and the personal narrative approach to storytelling that affects our lives and the world around us. How do the powers that be in politics, business, and culture use content as an instrument to serve their own needs?
We’re in uncertain and even dangerous times. As bad actors like President Trump utilize UGC to lie and manipulate, we are realizing just how easy it is to trust a good storyteller.
We’re also coming to terms with our overabundance of empathy, which politicians, corporations, and those in leadership positions often exploit.
After nine years of working in marketing, from consulting for The Pentagon to writing for IBM, I’ve learned a lot. The chase for clicks and money has blurred the line between nonfiction and fiction. I’ve seen firsthand how the drive for power and influence has corrupted good people into telling lies through stories. And I’ve also been witness to the power of authentic storytelling to influence positive change.
Storytelling tools have evolved so dramatically over the past two decades that many of us are racing to figure out how and when to tell our stories. The flood of noisy trend-based content on Twitter and Instagram are just a few examples of this.
I wrote this book to explain why we’re seeing so a boom in content across media types. If we understand the power personal narrative storytelling can have over us, my hope is that we can be more conscious and purposeful when telling our own stories.
To accomplish this, I break down today’s digital content creator into three segments: Socially Conscious Storytellers, Nefarious Storytellers, and Self-Infatuated Storytellers.
Socially Conscious Storytellers can benefit the most from the democratization of storytelling tools as they can use stories to drive social change and often do not have the same access to resources as those in power.
Nefarious Storytellers aim to use the rise of new media technology to gaslight, manipulate, lie, and corrupt reality.
Self-Infatuated Storytellers are the majority of users on the Internet who use personal narratives to escape reality, pass the time, earn money or satisfy narcissistic desires. This segment, which includes big tech brands, does not necessarily have altruistic goals, but they don’t have ill intent either.
I hope by providing some much-needed context around the current state of digital storytelling, my book will serve as a helpful guide for those entering rapidly changing creative marketing professions like content strategists, brand strategists, designers, writers, or directors. And even if you’re not in marketing, I hope this book will give you a glimpse behind the curtain of how stories are told. Hopefully, it will help you feel like a more informed consumer of content as the information we consume from brands, politicians, and news media increasingly influences so much of our own thinking and decision-making.
In this “Digital Storytelling: The Rise of User-Generated Content,” we’ll go back in time and look at the Bible, one of the first and most widely known uses of story as a tool to influence people. Then, I’ll fast forward to movies like Star Wars and Indiana Jones and analyze our recent obsession with the stories from tech brands like Google and Facebook. And of course, I’ll take a look into the more recent rise of reality TV celebrities.
By providing present and historical context I will create awareness around the tool of UGC. And, hopefully, I will show you how to use it ethically and authentically.
