New Media is often thought of as being a new thing in today’s
world. Instead new media can actually be dated back to the time of the creation
of the alphabet. We have come a long way since this creation. In fact new media
today can be defined by all of our technologies and how we use them to
communicate, both directly and indirectly. People can talk directly to each
other through text messages, Facebook messages, Instagram’s direct messaging,
Snap Chats etc. We are able to communicate indirectly through the thing that we
post whether that is updating a Facebook status, a tweet, a posted picture on
your Instagram or snap story. All these communications have grown so much that
they consume our daily lives from early in the morning to late at night. What is
the first thing someone does when they wake up? Well for many they check all of
their social network to see what is going on in the world, what is everybody
doing? They go through the entire day doing that same thing, commenting on a
picture, liking someone’s status, and watching videos. Then they stay up all
night doing the very same thing and wake up to do it all over again. Because today’s
new media consumes such a major part in many of our lives, it has allowed many
people to make careers because of it.
Vine is a fairly new type of social network that has grown
in popularity over the years. It was founded by Dom Hofmann, Rus Yusupov, and
Colin Kroll in June of 2012 and was bought by Twitter for $30 million. It was
officially launched on January 24, 2013. Vine is a social network that allows
people to share short videos with one another. This social network allows
videos to be separated into specific areas such as comedy, music, sports, news,
food, etc. comedy being the most popular.
Through vine many people have been able to create careers
from the videos that they post. As of March 2015 the vine user KingBach is the
most followed user with over 11 million followers. That’s pretty popular if you
ask me. Other well-known and largely followed users include: Curtis Lepopre,
Logan Paul, Christian DelGrosso, Rudy Mancuso, Jerry Purpdrank and DeStorm Power.
Focusing on KingBach, otherwise known as Andrew B. Bachelor, his job is to come
up with new ideas for videos that will make people laugh. With over 11 million
follower he is very successful with that. Vine has become his career. He get
paid monthly based on the amount of followers he has and the amounts of vines
he creates. He reportedly said in an interview, “I have my rate that I charge,
which is $1,000 per 100,000 followers. So if I had 1 million followers, that’s
$10,000 per vine.” With 11 million followers that is a lot of money. But it is
because of us as the views that he makes so much. Because of his success on
vine he has signed with UTA (United Talent Agency) and has earned a role in the
tv show House of Lies. He has also
become one of the members of the TV show Wild
‘n Out. This is just more money to add to what he already makes with vine.
Many people just like KingBach have made careers
like this because we are so consumed in all of what new media offers. This is
not necessarily a bad thing, it is just how new media has evolved. However
there may be some negative aspects like: the way it effects our lives in
certain aspects, and how is it fair that someone can get paid so much when
others have to work so much harder.