and I’m here to talk to you about social
media and the human condition and I’m
talking about what it means to be human
on the Internet
scroll it’s girl I’m sure a lot of you
guys this morning probably scroll the
news instead of reading a newspaper or
you scroll to Instagram you scrolled
Facebook we had a cup of laughs scrolled
Twitter you scrolled the hashtag and
then if you think about this this is a
human behavior that people didn’t use to
do five years ago ten years ago and
something totally new and if you think
about how ingrained that is in our lives
how often you pull out your phone to
scroll there’s an app for that to track
it but I’m sure if you started counting
there’s probably a lot of times that you
do that and that action is something
that we didn’t used to do social media
is a game changer if you think about the
way that we interact with technology and
the way that we interact with our phones
this is something totally new and over
ten years ago I started a blog called
Casey Stewart this is my life I it’s a
digital diary and a way for me to keep a
record of what I’m doing I started
writing about people places things and
thoughts as a way to keep more memories
god forbid I ever lose my memory I can
scroll back and read about the last ten
years of things I’ve done places I’ve
traveled to people I’ve met outfits I
wore and keep track of all that and I
thought that that was something really
important but at the time there wasn’t
social media wasn’t a thing there was
actually no social media there was no
there was no Instagram Facebook was only
for students if you think that ten years
ago and think about how much you use
those platforms out and the ten years
ago they didn’t even exist LinkedIn at
the time was just getting started it
wasn’t really that popular you had to
make a resume you know a lot of times
for things now what I found I haven’t
had a
resume in six years because people look
at my LinkedIn but that in itself is an
entirely new behavior this is a little
look at what my blog looked at looked
like on blogspot which is now owned
blogger which is now owned by Google and
this is a photo that I took with a
point-and-shoot camera back when it was
just called a photo of yourself now it’s
called selfie that also wasn’t a thing
when I started my blog just something
totally new and I would document you
know things that I was doing this is at
my condo
I had recent tweets I had a whole bunch
of photos of myself that’s just sort of
what I used to document my life but
because a lot of people weren’t on
Twitter yet I in 2009 for example Ashton
Kutcher and CNN had a race to a million
followers a lot of you guys probably
won’t remember this because you maybe
were too young a lot of your students or
you weren’t on the internet you think
about that now in 2009 someone got a
million followers on Twitter it was
Ashton Kutcher
but now Justin Bieber has 43 million
which is just crazy and that’s only in a
couple years so in order to get people
to know my blog because they weren’t on
social media on Twitter I made this
which doesn’t look like a great design
document because I’m not a designer and
it’s actually an Avery label I worked at
a software company and I used to stay
after work
Avery labels because I didn’t have a lot
of money and I couldn’t you know I
didn’t have a lot of business cards so
on the Avery labels I put that same
strip of photos selfies from my blog I
put my URL and my Twitter handle and
when I went out to events I would stick
them on people and I would stick them on
everything they were in bathroom stalls
in Toronto forever I put them on the
subway I put them all kinds of places
and people would go and comment on my
blog saying I found your sticker oh my
god hi and it was really funny and you
know what I thought if you’re going to
an event and you give someone your
business card there’s a good chance that
they’re gonna lose it
there you know it’ll end up in a pile
somewhere but if you stick a sticker on
someone nice to meet you hey and they
wake up or they have a great night and
they look at their shirts like that girl
she was cool I’m gonna go check out her
blog or check this out and I had that
happen a lot and I also had a friend
that would do Street posting you know
like with a wheat paste and he him and I
sort of got creative and he did posters
of me on Queen Street in Toronto with my
face to my Twitter handle just so that
people would kind of maybe walk by and
see who’s that on the chance that maybe
they would go to the Internet and check
it out so I was trying to get people off
line to do something online the chains a
bit of their behavior to get to know me
in 2009 I got my first social media job
I worked at much music and MTV as the
first person they hired to do social
media
I ran much music MTV and much more and
three different voices at the same time
it’s pretty kind of bit of a crazy sort
of job to do because there wasn’t
scheduling tools so I couldn’t you know
program things to go out and I also
didn’t have analytics to track
everything so I was writing let’s say
Lady Gaga bedroom romance came out but
each station talked about it differently
so I was playing these different
characters and I was really really
excited to work at MuchMusic it’s the
coolest job ever one of the things to
remember is when you go to work for a
really big company it’s still a really
big company and I love innovation and
things changing in technology and they
weren’t moving as fast as I was so I
moved on and along around this time
Millennials are sort of getting a bad
rap you know I’m sure that you’ve heard
it before a lot of you guys Millennials
the me me me generation don’t want to
work hard you know people saying all
this stuff about us well it’s not true
we love creating things and building
things and working hard and making
things that we can be proud of and tell
people so some friends and I started a
group called Gen Y tio Generation Y
Toronto
and I brought together the PR tech and
startup community so that we could you
know build relationships with people who
were like-minded and this was all
centered around a hashtag now there
would have not been a way for me to meet
all these people given there wasn’t
social media and a hashtag so that
people with like interests you get to
know each other and before like this is
a way that social media has changed the
way that we interact and that was really
neat because we did charity events once
a month ranging anywhere from 40 people
to 400 people and we donated things to
different charities so we did something
for Japan quake and when things happened
in Haiti and it was really cool because
we were trying to change the impression
that older people had of our generation
one of the other really cool things
about social media is we have the
opportunity to curate everything around
us curate your news feed see first
unfollow you know and that and Instagram
Facebook and Twitter
and curate all the news that you see you
can also curate the version of yourself
that you have online for example you’re
not gonna see I didn’t post a selfie
when I woke up this morning post a
selfie when I got here you know and
you’re not gonna see that outfit maybe
someone’s wearing for a five hour
Netflix marathon but they might tweet
what they’re watching but there’s
certain things that we don’t share
online and certain things that we do but
I think that that’s kind of a good thing
it’s pretty cool that we can we can
control everything that we’re seeing and
keep out things we don’t want to see
social media has also allowed us to have
some really cool experiences experience
things that different like that we
haven’t before it was second screen and
third screen or having all kinds of
events that are maybe are organized
around a hashtag where people want to
get in touch with Millennials and people
like us a lot of us in this room to do
things that maybe didn’t exist before
for example jobs where it may be a best
job in the world
that was arranged around a hashtag and
gives someone an opportunity
to use social media to do something they
couldn’t do before I’ve had some pretty
cool experiences being on sponsored
trips to England Thailand Costa Rica
Mexico in 2009 I mean in 2010 I went to
major YouTube contests it was hosted by
Richard Branson Branson
when Virgin America came to Canada they
were looking for someone to represent
the world’s loudest and sexiest airline
well I was their girl I made a YouTube
video and like ten thousand people
entered and I ended up winning and I got
to travel back and forth to LA and San
Francisco I helped them launch service
in Dallas which is really cool by the
way if you ever witnessed that because
when a new airline starts at a new
location they do a water cannon that
goes right over the plane and it’s a
pretty neat thing on that plane we’re
all kinds of media people from the hills
which is a great show and also Modern
Family and it was really cool because I
got to do all this stuff that before
without social media I probably wouldn’t
have had that opportunity I also went to
Disneyland with LA tourism and Disney
doing a little duck face with my best
friends with Donald Duck and these are
all things that they invited me because
of what I had built using social media
and some of the other things I got to do
I was written about in The Wall Street
Journal this is a photo of me that was
cartoon in the walrus magazine on TV
Global CTV all kinds of news articles
with people saying hey this person’s you
know grown is social media now just
getting to do all these things we want
to talk to her and if you think about
all this the way the technology is
innovating is so fast and so rapid that
it’s always moving on to the next thing
all the world that I live in and all the
technology that I’m using and the
software didn’t exist
or ten years ago so if you think about
it you’re in school right now the stuff
that you’re learning and the things that
you’re working on there’s a good chance
that you’re gonna be working in a job
that doesn’t even exist yet so that’s
something to keep in mind because
remember a couple years ago Google glass
was like such a hot thing and it’s not
even around anymore and that’s how
quickly things are changing so you
really need to always be innovating one
of the things that I constantly keep my
mind is innovate or die because if
you’re not constantly innovating what
you’re doing whether you’re a brand or a
business or a person you’re gonna get
left behind
if you think about all kinds of for
example before Twitter had photos there
was a service called Twitpic some of you
may know some of you may not know
because when Twitter started having the
ability to upload photos no one wanted
to use to a pic anymore
and then before Instagram had video
there was a service called vidi vidi was
the Instagram of video because you could
add a filter and you could edit your
videos within the app whoa this was kind
of a revolutionary thing a couple months
maybe a year later Instagram added video
and no one needed to use video anymore
so it didn’t matter if you were the most
popular person on that platform because
people jump ship because technology was
innovating so fast that it doesn’t
really matter
maybe Instagram now you’re super
Instagram famous but there could be
something new that comes along in a year
in a couple months it changes all that
so you can’t get too caught up on the
numbers you just need to constantly be
innovating now we’ve got influencer
culture where there’s all kinds of
people like me who are getting to do
awesome things because of what they have
created on the internet and in a couple
years ago I spoke at South by Southwest
and my talk with a psychology of
narcissism and how it affects brands and
why our brands want to
working with these people who have
created is following and does it breed
narcissism Wow
maybe I was in a film called it’s all
about me and I was the Tokido narcissist
because I write a blog about my life and
I think that that’s pretty cool but some
people are older than me think that
maybe that’s not as cool because they
don’t understand the way that social
media works in this whole new generation
of things that we’re creating recently
this week there was something that
happened in social media and you guys
might relate to this there’s a girl a
team from Australia Instagram model who
decides she hates social media she hates
it it’s fake she doesn’t want to be on
it anymore
and this sort of brings up an
interesting point because was it fake
was all the things that she was posting
on Instagram she didn’t want to do that
anymore so that’s not the real me but
it’s not that social media created that
for her it’s that she created that false
reality about her life and made people
kind of follow along with that but with
social media does come some pressure now
sometimes I feel like I don’t feel like
vlogging if you go to my blog you’ll
read wow she looks like such a happy
person and there’s a lot of bright
colors a lot of fun things but sometimes
I don’t feel like it and I have over ten
posts with the exact same title saying
that sometimes I don’t feel like it and
social media can be overwhelming and
sometimes you’re put an edit on a photo
and you post something and you might
know this kind of feeling
nobody’s liking my photos do I suck what
is going on here and this kind of a
thing that sometimes people go through
that just maybe that they never had
before and that’s just the way that
technology has changed and the way our
behavior has changed the thing is we all
need to make sure that we remain human
we’re looking at technology is
constantly innovating and social media
is constantly innovating we need to
maintain that human side of us when it
comes to the purse
that you’re curating online you don’t
want to create something that is not the
real you because chances are you’re
gonna go back and you’re not gonna be
happy with yourself for me I started a
diary I put my life and all the things
happen there yes they are a bit of a
curated version you don’t see everything
but you see most of things and I’m
sharing something that I can look back
and be proud of the other thing is you
don’t always know what’s going on around
you might follow someone be like every
time they have lunch it looks so good
you’re like why do all their photos look
so good and their outfits are always on
point or maybe their travel photos are
just so amazing but something to keep in
mind is maybe there’s a lot of other
things going on that you don’t know
about that they choose not to share with
you and that’s something to keep in mind
so don’t ever feel bad if your photos
aren’t you know the same because
sometimes there’s a lot other things
going on and to build a following and to
build something like that where you have
Instagram photos that you want to share
with people that are really great it
takes work you don’t just all of a
sudden go to 10,000 followers or 5,000
or half-a-million everyone starts at
zero so if you’re just starting out
don’t feel bad and get down on yourself
if you don’t have all the likes and all
the friends and all the people following
you if you take a look at the way that
we interact and the way that you
interact with social media and your
phone and Technology this is all new and
it’s going to keep changing and it’s
going to keep it keep innovating and
that’s something that you want to stay
on top of because you guys are all
students I mean a lot of you are
students and you’re in school right now
and you’re going to be working on things
when you’re done school that don’t even
exist yet
and that’s something to keep in mind and
it’s also something that’s really
exciting if you have a vision keep that
in mind because if you have a passion
and something that you’re really excited
about or that you really love
follow that because there might be
people who may think that you’re crazy
or may not understand but it’s because
your vision is so far ahead that they
just can’t see it yet and that was me
I took marketing in school and
international business I was really into
the internet but ten years ago I didn’t
really know that social media would become a thing and now this is my