I just wanted to take quick note of a survey (conducted by a company that stands to benefit, so take with a grain of salt) that indicates the LGBTs are particularly likely to use blogs and social networking for news. Well yes, obviously, we are always ahead of the curve, whether it is with hairstyles or news or something more risqué.
There’s two things that really catch my eye here — one is to wonder what all those straight people are doing. Why are you not getting your news on Facebook, you weirdos? And the other thing is to feel a little annoyed that newspapers and journalists are not taking more advantage of this phenomenon.
I mean, look at Grindr. Here’s a wildly popular mobile app that gay men use to find each other for sex. Now I’m not that old, but I do remember a time when people used newspaper for that. Remember? It seems crazy to say, but people used to put tiny little advertisements for themselves in the back of newspapers, and then they would scrutinize all the other peoples’ ads to try to find a match.
Why did our ancestors newspapers for this? Because newspapers are location-specific and widely distributed. These are things that the internet does even better than paper, so now people do it online. But there’s no reason that news organizations couldn’t still be doing it! It kills me that Grindr was invented by just some guy, and not by a newspaper.
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I'm a writer and photographer in San Francisco, curious about how people can get away with writing all day while also being able to afford to buy groceries. 