This morning i came across this article on the New York Times website and it kind of blew my mind. To give you a quick idea on what this article is about, it starts off discussing a man named Derrick Wiggins, 44, who is homeless in NYC and who is on twitter. He is one of the four homeless men from the streets of NY who were given prepaid cellphones so that they could create a Twitter, develop a following, and then document or tweet about their lives. This is part of a project by three college grads who intern at the BBH advertising agency in TriBeCa. They were given $1,000 and told “Do something good, famously.” The result was a website called UnderHeard in New York, and the goal is to “help homeless New Yorkers speak for themselves through Twitter.”
The article goes on to tell us about the going ons of Wiggins life documented on his twitter page @awitness2011, for his now around 4,500 followers which are from all over the world including Brazil, Italy, and Australia.
This article i think speaks about how universal twitter, and social networking in general is. It’s kind of amazing actually that through social networking we now have the opportunity to take a glimpse into the life of the homeless: the shelters, the subway rides, the job searches, and thats just Wiggins.
In class yesterday we discussed why people post on facebook (this is twitter, but the same action of posting is involved), and maybe for some it’s attention, but for Wiggins “just the fact that somebody is listening” helped him persevere. He said, “I’ve received what I need to keep going.” Sometimes that’s all that is. The need to share your story and know others care. You feel less alone in the world. Twitter has obviously helped Wiggins keep going just as much as it’s allowed us to view the world from his shoes.
