Wednesday, 27 July 2011

No phone, no lights, no motor car…

The rise and rise of social media is a thoroughly documented phenomenon. There are hundreds of sites, being visited by millions upon millions of people for hours and hours a month. You’d have to be living on a deserted island to have not heard about it, or interacted with at least one social media tool.

Which got me thinking – if that deserted island was Gilligan’s Island and the Professor was able to string a computer together out of coconuts, a semiconductor that washed up on the beach and an excitable seagull, what social media tools would the castaways be drawn to if they were still marooned today?

Gilligan was a clutz. A lovable goofy guy who always had the best of intentions, and every time they came close to being rescued, he’d trip over, break or sink their only way off the island and ultimate success. Yep, Gilligan’s a MySpace kind of guy…

The Skipper, was always telling stories about his life at sea, apparently the greatest card player in the whole US Navy – his status was very important to him. Surely, Skipper would have his language set to English (Pirate) on Facebook.

Anyone familiar with the show would realise that the Professor was clever enough to build almost anything with stuff he found all over the island. He knew where he was, but not how to get home.   Without a doubt, the Professor is the island’s Foursquare Mayor.

Ginger, was a certified A-Lister.  Short on conversation, long on being admired from afar.  Ginger would be keeping her fans updated on island life through Twitter.

Thurston Howell III was all about the money. An Oil field here, a coconut plantation there, he was not short on business interests. It’s a pretty sure bet he’d have thousands of connections on LinkedIn.

Mrs Howell, with more money than sense, a stickler for correct etiquette, and a whole heap of socialite acquaintances - and little idea of what it’s like in the real world. She’d no doubt have been waiting for all of her friends to  join Google+.

Finally, Mary-Anne – baked a mean Coconut Cream Pie, was very wholesome and quite the girl next door. The Professor would probably have to build her a coconut camera so she’d be able to upload to her Flickr account too.

I’m sure that between the 7 of them, one of them would have been able to get the message out to the world, telling everyone they know about the problems on the island, how they’re desperate to get off and come home. But if their friends are anything like I am when I see yet another ‘I’m on a beautiful tropical island right now, and you should see the size of the coconuts’ status update, tweet or check-in – I’m sure they’d have as much luck getting rescued today as they did all those years ago…