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Social Zombies: A look at Twitter and Zombie Genre By Nicholas Siu 200067360 Visualization 2 Assignment CMNS325 SPRING 2011 The Internet has allowed users to become more connected to each other in more ways than simple communication. We have developed social spheres such as Facebook, Twitter, Digg, MySpace, etc. These networks in it's early stages where non- commercialized sites of sharing, social connection, and plain old fun with others. Today corporations have used social media to allow users to farther identify what kind of brand they are. In the 2000's a genre of movie ʻinfectedʼ mainstream culture. Zombie Genre included, bands with a Zombie theme, Rob Zombie. Video Games: Resident Evil, CoD - Zombie Map, Left4Dead. Movies such as: Dawn of the Dead, Shaun of the dead, Day of the Dead, to name a few. Other cross-media zombie genre's are growing even into books, or fan fiction, and re-creations of Hollywood creations with a Zombie twist. City Zombie walks are also popular throughout North America 1 . In this graph we can see that the growth of Zombie movies has grown since the 1990ʼs. Information gathered from Wikipeadia shows us how this movie genre has grown in the last few decades. In the 2000ʼs there where 420 movies made with a Zombie theme, although not all of these are Hollywood quality, the statistics show the growth is apparent 2 . In Edward Tufte, Principel of Analytical Design, we need to show a comparison in good analytical design work (Tufte 2011). How does this all compare to Twitter? A study done by Nielsen Online revealed that in February 2008, Twitter had 475,000 unique visitors. In February 2009, that number ballooned to 7,038,000, a 1382% increase from the previous year. (Nielsen Online, 2009). From Twitter analytics, they found in 2008, their users were Tweeting 300,000 a day. In 2010, that number jumped to 50 million tweets per day. (Twitter Analytics, 2010). However, I believe that not only is the increase due to individual and non-commercial use but it maybe due to the combined individual and for commercial uses. From personal observation, one can now find nearly all businesses that have a website also have a Twitter account. Twitter and Zombie Genre has grown in popularity, thus I created the image Geoff the Social Zombie. I correlated the idea of the social pressures to join a growing social 1 Vancouver Zombie Walk 2011 http://www.facebook.com/group.php?v=wall&gid=2264763793 2 Wikipeadia Zombie Movie list: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_zombie_films

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Page 1: Social Zombies: A look at Twitter and Zombie Genre€¦ · Zombie Genre included, bands with a Zombie theme, Rob Zombie. Video Games: Resident Evil, CoD - Zombie Map, Left4Dead. Movies

Social Zombies: A look at Twitter and Zombie Genre

By Nicholas Siu 200067360 Visualization 2 Assignment CMNS325 SPRING 2011

The Internet has allowed users to become more connected to each other in more ways than simple communication. We have developed social spheres such as Facebook, Twitter, Digg, MySpace, etc. These networks in it's early stages where non-commercialized sites of sharing, social connection, and plain

old fun with others. Today corporations have used social media to allow users to farther identify what kind of brand they are. In the 2000's a genre of movie ʻinfectedʼ mainstream culture. Zombie Genre included, bands with a Zombie theme, Rob Zombie. Video Games: Resident Evil, CoD - Zombie Map, Left4Dead. Movies such as: Dawn of the Dead, Shaun of the dead, Day of the Dead, to name a few. Other cross-media zombie genre's are growing even into books, or fan fiction, and re-creations of Hollywood creations with a Zombie twist. City Zombie

walks are also popular throughout North America1. In this graph we can see that the growth of Zombie movies has grown since the 1990ʼs. Information gathered from Wikipeadia shows us how this movie genre has grown in the last few decades. In the 2000ʼs there where 420 movies made with a Zombie theme, although not all of these are Hollywood quality, the statistics show the growth is

apparent2. In Edward Tufte, Principel of Analytical Design, we need to show a comparison in good analytical design work (Tufte 2011). How does this all compare to Twitter? A study done by Nielsen Online revealed that in February 2008, Twitter had 475,000 unique visitors. In February 2009, that number ballooned to 7,038,000, a 1382% increase from the previous year. (Nielsen Online, 2009). From Twitter analytics, they found in 2008, their users were Tweeting 300,000 a day. In 2010, that number jumped to 50 million tweets per day. (Twitter Analytics, 2010). However, I believe that not only is the increase due to individual and non-commercial use but it maybe due to the combined individual and for commercial uses. From personal observation, one can now find nearly all businesses that have a website also have a Twitter account. Twitter and Zombie Genre has grown in popularity, thus I created the image Geoff the Social Zombie. I correlated the idea of the social pressures to join a growing social 1VancouverZombieWalk2011http://www.facebook.com/group.php?v=wall&gid=22647637932WikipeadiaZombieMovielist:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_zombie_films

Page 2: Social Zombies: A look at Twitter and Zombie Genre€¦ · Zombie Genre included, bands with a Zombie theme, Rob Zombie. Video Games: Resident Evil, CoD - Zombie Map, Left4Dead. Movies

media network to the growing Zombie genre in mainstream media. The basic fiction circulating in Zombie-genre is: if you are bitten by a zombie, you will eventually become a zombie. They crave brains and flesh to feed their hunger. From my personal observation Social Media has become mindless popularity contest, who is posting the coolest pictures, where are they visiting, are they clubbing, or are they out and about. I believe the things that are said and shared are much like a mindless zombie feeding off each other. I incorporated the scientific research done by Munz, et al., who created the Zombie infection rate formula and incorporated the Twitter criteria to correlate the idea. But how does this all work within images? The statistical data is there, there have been leaps and bounds made by the zombie genre and Twitter, linking them together and identifying a social conflict exists! Galison states "only pictures can develop within us the intuition needed to proceed farther towards abstraction." (Galison, p236). In my Visualization, I have touched on the issues of social conformation. Users of the internet are being socially forced into the usage of Social Media sites as more peers join in to be socially accepted into the internet circle. Moreover, the topics that are trending are mainly entertainment and celebrity related as you can see from the Twitter Trends of 2010. This poster was not created to stop people from joining Twitter and other Social Media, but hopefully have them think twice about how they express themselves or how the media affects them in their daily life. Image Creation: In my design I took the idea of a crazed sociologist who has come to the realization that Twitter and the Zombie Infection Rate may be correlated. I took a image off the web with a notebook background and started to use a handwritten type font for my statistics and hand written comments. Using multiple layers I created the classic notebook style as if it was hand written by a person. Finger prints, stains on the paper, scribbles, and highlights, are all part of creating an authentic aesthetic. For my drawn in Zombie, Geoff, I used a Wacom Tablet in CS5 to create the image and color him in. Works Cited: Galison, Peter (2002). Iconoclash: Beyond the Image Wars in Science, Religion, and Art. ZKM Center for Art and Media: Cambridge pp 300-323. Munz, Philip. Et, al. (2009) When Zombies Attack!: Mathamatical Modelling of an Outbreak of Zombie Infection. Department of Mathematics: University of Ottawa.Lastretrievedfrom:http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.159.6699&rep=rep1&type=pdf Nielsen Online (2009). Twitters Tweet Small of Success. Last Retrieved from: http://blog.nielsen.com/nielsenwire/online_mobile/twitters-tweet-smell-of-success/ Tufte, Edward (2011). Handout: The Fundamental Principles of Analytical Design. CMNS325-4 Handout. Jan Marontate, David Murphy & Erin Ashenhurst. (www.edwardtufte.com) Twitter (2009). Measuring Tweets. Last Retrieved from: http://blog.twitter.com/2010/02/measuring-tweets.html Wikipeadia (2011). Zombie Movie List. Last Retrieved from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_zombie_films

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Stats used in Visualization: When Zombies attack!: Mathematical Modelling of an outbreak of zombie infection. Last retrieved: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.159.6699&rep=rep1&type=pdf Exploring the Use of Twitter Around the World: Last Retrieved from: http://blog.sysomos.com/2010/01/14/exploring-the-use-of-twitter-around-the-world/ Measuring Tweets Last Retrieved from: http://blog.twitter.com/2010/02/measuring-tweets.html Trends 2010 Twitter: Last Retrieved from: http://yearinreview.twitter.com/trends/

I did an extra Visualization. A insparation from David Murphypresenation on pattern. This image is based on the Twitter user interface, Iʼve added a whole section of Twitter birds, and at the very bottom the lone Geoff the Zombie, moistens his lips.