Social 46
So I told you in my last entry, that I had a bit of exciting news for you. I have been chosen as one of 46 people to represent Indianapolis and social media during the Super Bowl. It is a program called Social46. You can find most of us on twitter under #social46.
At first I was genuinely excited and nervous. As I get older I get shyer. By the time I am 40, more than likely I’ll be in a corner shaking. I was nervous because, even though I have talked to some of the people in the program on twitter, I’ve never actually met any of them. I get there and take my seat. I get kind of uneasy because I’ve just noticed something. Let me get the picture of the group so you can see:
Yeah.. Not really diverse is it?
Let me back up a little bit. Here are some quotes that can better tell you what the Social 46 is and what it is trying to accomplish:
The Social 46 is a group of 46 top influencers in Social Media selected by the Super Bowl Host Committee to promote Indianapolis and the Super Bowl through Social Media. Our group includes local celebrities social media leaders, bloggers members of the media, and other community leaders.
Our goal is to galvanize the Indy community and drive them toward social media as a way of keeping everyone involved with the Super Bowl connected. Those of us in Social 46 are serving as ambassadors to welcome people to Indianapolis and to share what Indy has to offer. We tweet with the hashtag #social46. Our hope is to make this the most talked about Super Bowl experience in history.
During our meeting, it was brought up that this is the most urban Super Bowl ever. I took a quick unofficial poll on my personal Facebook page because no one really responded on the Tale of Going Natural. The comments and thoughts I got about it varied greatly:
My friends are nutcases, in case you couldn’t figure that out on your own accord.
Anyway, their thoughts on my page got me to thinking about myself, what I believe, what I think urban is.
Urban to me is a large diverse group of people located in an area.
I could get into details about the area they are located in, and the types of things that are around, but this is my bare bones definition of urban. There is hardly anything in this group that to me represents diversity, nor shows all of the neat ethnic backgrounds that we have here in Indianapolis.
I am initially from a small town here in Indiana. When I was a little girl, there were a total of three other black kids in my entire school. It was stressed over and over to me by my mother, my grandparents, and pretty much everyone else in my family, that I needed to doubly mind my p’s and q’s, because I am setting an example for everyone. I used to get angry. Why does it always have to be me? Why am I the one who always has to set an example for everyone else? As got older I realized the answer. Because you are the only one Leslie. You are the only reference on culture and race in that particular school. People generalize. That is just how a lot (not all) of people operate. Being the only person means that people are going to take your actions and generalize them for a whole group of people.
Now, from the picture, it looks as if I am the only minority. I’m not. I counted 3 other people, which still adds up to 8.6% (my math may be wrong though I do not think so) of the 46 people.
With a percentage that small, some things may get overlooked about the Super Bowl and Indianapolis. Things that, maybe if you weren’t a minority, you wouldn’t know where to go (weave, ethnic groceries, ethnic hair care). So that will be my contribution to the social46. My goal is to bring as much diversity as one person can. I’ll be using my blog to accomplish this goal. I will also be reporting on the different events around the city. Stay tuned for what is probably going to be an interesting ride.
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