What can a dead Russian writer Gogol teach us about social media? Marina Gorbis on Boing-boing has a brilliant post on how the current frenzy of collecting souls on Twitter, FriendFeed, Facebook etc was prefigured in Gogol’s novel Dead Souls more than 150 years ago. Money quote
So every time I see another article or an ad about how to acquire more followers on twitter, friends on Facebook, or otherwise collect more “souls” for money, fame, or reputation, I start thinking about Chichikov. He did come to an ignominous end, finally fleeing town. Makes me wonder.
Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose
