This week\u2019s discussed two different museum\u2019s use of new technologies and digital media to expand and enhance their collections. Both museums shared a similar end goal\u2014to excite audiences and extend their reach far beyond their walls. While the Brooklyn Museum ultimately decided not to continue with their efforts, the Met, on the other hand continues to do more social media activations to expand their reach. For example, to work around the setbacks that China\u2019s bans on Twitter and Facebook created, the Met used Weibo to get in contact with Chinese social media users.<\/p>\n
The work that the Met put into their social media accounts are incredibly impressive and it easy to see why they would win awards for it. It is interesting how they were able to achieve a strong balance of both education and scholarship, as well as the technology. They found that the general audiences want to see something raw and unrefined\u2014something they won\u2019t see at an exhibit, a “behind-the-scenes” look.<\/p>\n
This actually reminded me a lot of Youtube culture, especially the videos of beauty and lifestyle gurus. These Youtube content creators gain popularity because they give their fans a glimpse of their life. For example, Judy Travis, also known as \u201citsjudytime,\u201d \u201citsjudyslife,\u201d and \u201citsmommyslife,\u201d has millions of avid followers for her lifestyle and beauty channel. While she first started off as a beauty blogger, her channel expanded when she expanded her content to include more of her personal life. Recently, her pregnancy blogs and her daily vlogs with her husband, Benji (\u201cItsJudysLife\u201d) is watched by millions of fans from around the world. It goes to show how much society values organic content that showcases real life rather than cut and polished videos.<\/p>\n
Beyond ItsJudysLife, it is just incredible to see the Youtube culture expand and grow in such a way. If random people from Seattle or Kansas or Los Angeles are able to get their big break and have their reach expand to people they’ve never even met before, an institution as prestigious and large as the Met should be hopeful that they can too achieve the same goal.<\/p>\n
Here\u2019s a video from ItsJudysLife for reference:<\/p>\n