To See If Something Is Good, Search for Messages From Your Friends on the Internet.
You hear about a certain TV show, podcast, or video game all the time. If you try it is for you, what’s his business ? You can watch the trailers and see the best bits, or read about him on Wikipedia and IMDb and find out nothing about what it really is like. Or you can check what your friends are saying about it online.
Writer and artist Austin Cleon recommends looking for tweets from people you follow. Search for your query on the Twitter home page, then under Search Filters on the results page, change From Anyone to People You Follow. (You may have to click Show to open the full menu.) You will get a lot of thoughts and opinions about a show, artist, or group from people whose thoughts and opinions you care about . And also from people whom you politely follow out of a sense of duty.
You can run a similar Facebook search. Search for a term, then select the “Messages” tab and by default you will see “Messages from Friends” first. Now you know what all your aunts think about something.
It is also useful for checking the prevailing winds before giving a strong opinion. For example, I think that some Netflix show that had the idea of Groundhog Day stolen was funny but ultimately mediocre. I know I am very brave. But I won’t admit it on Twitter, where it’s clear that the show meant a lot to people, and where I really don’t have to shout out my personal opinion. Perhaps the lesson is to never tweet! This. But I won’t stop tweeting, so I need this search technique.
A few tweets won’t tell you all about the entertainment, but they will fill in the blanks with more detailed but bloodless descriptions. They tell you what people think about it, how long they have known about it, how they fit it into the rest of the culture. Check out the tweets in this post. They’re not only about Old Town Road, but also Kidz Bop, violent country music, Baby Shark and Keanu Reeves, and the Internet’s ability to thrill you all and then crush your spirit.
So see what everyone has to say about your favorite things before they get canceled.