Is Rey Luke’s daughter? Is Kylo Ren actually Luke Skywalker? Is Snoke actually Jar Jar Binks? Lions, tigers and bears oh my. Since the first trailer for Star Wars the Force Awakens was shown, the online world has been flooded with conspiracies, investigations and discussions about the movie before the movie ever came out. In fact, even engineers get into breaking down the Star Wars technology.
This is just one example where analyzing a single topic starts to take life within the social stream. There’s the Syrian refugee crisis, the Golden Globes, Making A Murderer, the Presidential debates, and even videos gone viral will be broken apart and discussed much like a a piece of art.
When you notice these and any others that appear to be posted and reposted in any social channel then it’s considered a micro-singularity. According to cyborg anthropologist Amber Case, a micro-singularity is defined as an instant event that “happens when the world’s social internet channels momentarily focus their awareness around a single phenomena, while it’s still happening.”
I chose Star Wars as a perfect example of an ongoing micro-singularity because of its popularity and mystique as a modern age fantasy opera. Fans young and old immediately start to form social groups under this topic. At times it gets emotional, humorous and even argumentative among the fans of the films and books. In fact, you will find that the movie trailer and music composition has been dissected in order to solve the entire trilogy. I find this event very interesting as it gets online communities creatively involved.
Now can this be done within social media marketing standards, of course! Companies and agencies can build campaigns that can build up a micro-singularity all its own. It’s a matter of research, creativity and of course putting together analytic data to see how its faring.
