Cool for Summer Festival
Olympic Park Sports Centre
Sydney, AU
April 15, 2017
Ah, social media.
Rooted in the broader Web 2.0 landscape, it helped engineers, entrepreneurs, and everyday people reimagine the role that technology could play in information dissemination, community development, and communication.
While the technologies invoked by the phrase social media have a long history, what unfolded after the dot-com crash pretty much reconfigured socio-technical practices in significant ways and opened doorways to new worlds of interactivity, reflecting values and norms of the network and users who embrace the tools.
Cool For Summer is a festival for what is euphemistically referred to as “connected generation”, i.e. the youngster who cannot put away their mobiles.
Featured performances included American violinist, dancer, performance artist and composer Lindsey Stirling, BBC presenters Dan & Phil, internet personality Nash Grier & Friends, Australian YouTuber Tyde Levi and In Stereo, electronic music act Mashd N Kutcher, Vine alumni Hayes Grier, musical artist Mahogany LOX, vocalist and Viner Alec Bailey, composer and Emblem3 frontman Wesley Stromberg, YouTuber Tana Mongeau, Marcelo, teen boy band Kid Zr0 & Take Two plus local influencers.
Each artist had their own full set and it was an interesting spectacle especially since literally all protagonists had been unbeknownst to your humble narrator, which after exchanges with some of which did not prove to be a massive loss.
However, the target audience of the event, that being underaged enthusiasts most of which under the careful watch of their parents, were thrilled to meet their heroes in the third dimension, with reactions ranging from uncontrolled shrill screaming to their parasympathetic receptors being activated by the neurotransmitter acetylcholine and resulting in their lachrymal glands welling up, i.e. tears of joy were commonplace.
The event was both a celebration and testament to digital life having become an alternate universe with real life implications in everyday life and the reach blogebritiies and status internet personalities and their social media emissions have.
