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I tend to think that we all are really kind of failing to realize that there have always been suckers and people have always been duped. The only difference now is that we are able to see more people than ever who fail, or are foolish because of social media. I don't know if anything has really changed as much as had a light shined onto it. We can see everything now and whether it is real or fake, it's available. The net has both empowered and diminished. When Troy states that how marginalized people have become in a short amount of time, I say that people have become empowered. Those who are able to navigate social media are capable of accomplishing things they never could have had social media and certain forms of media didn't exist. I'm generalizing here, but I am basically using myself as an example. I have yet to promote my work as a writer. I recently redesigned my website and made a call for writers through social media and the response was not bad at all. I actually increased my website traffic in one month from 200 uniques to over a thousand without really posting much on the site at all until the final week of the month. I have also utilized Kickstarter (a form of social media) to jumpstart my shoe company. (Which would not exist without me utilizing social media and other tools). I think it's all in the way we approach it. The Black Business collective on Facebook that I joined has been able to list 184 Black owned businesses. When I joined this collective I actually sold shoes to black people. Up until this point I could honestly count on both hands the amount of Blacks who bought a shoe from a non athlete owned Black company named ARCH. More white people bought my shoes than Blacks. The same happened with Kickstarter, of the backers I had, 80% were White. I guess I write all of this to disagree with you Troy. Social Media has only revealed the stupidity that was already there. Do I think people are getting dumber? Not really because those same people can do ridiculously amazing things with technical devices. They may not be able to write code, but they are doing other things that are impressive with their phones. Are they doing things they would have never done without social media? Yes people have become emboldened in both negative and positive ways. I guess it's all in how you look at it all.

There is a difference between being dumb and being uninformed. Not having a broad scope of knowledge is what characterizes the Millenials. Being uninformed is no sin, but having an attitude that anything that doesn't engage you is "useless information" or that anything which happened before you were born is not relevant, is what makes this generation appear dumb to others. And why they appear even dumber than the preceding generation is because those who came before them had to find out things for themselves in order to do what the present generation relies on electronic devices to do. Experience is a great teacher but when substituting texting for conversation while avatars become cyber alter egos, what is experienced is shallow. Shallow people can make good fodder for exploitation. This contributes to a stratified population made up of the users and the used. So you literally have to get in where you fit in and figure out a way to sell yourself. You win some, you lose some. It is and always has been a dog eat dog world. ruff-ruff.

I. personally think the lesbians have every right to sue the sperm bank company. There was no excuse for the careless mistake they made. And this mistake certainly sentenced an innocent child to a complicated life that is will be compounded by having lesbians for parents. The same sex couple deserves financial compensation which will help in raising the child they claim to adore and have every intention of keeping in spite of the negative response from certain family members.

I do realize that people are getting dumber, but I also see a lot of creativity in a lot of kids now that wasn't there. I guess I'm looking at the total picture in relation to me, as I said, and I'm witnessing a lot of people who are accomplishing some pretty cool things. Now granted a lot of it is in fashion and design, but nonetheless things are happening. I can give examples. I had a student who helped me shoot a movie when I was teaching high school. All of the teachers there were saying the same things that you are saying in regard to social media and kids being dumber. I tend to think the kids and adults are waiting on better instructors. This kid with his classmates, wrote a script, then using editing tools they created a short film which is something I don't think our generation could have done or even would have attempted to do. Are they dumber possibly, but stats never tell the full story. Are the teachers worse? In my head yes. I'm not special or gifted, but I'm connected (was connected as an educator) so I was able to pull things out of my students that other teachers couldn't. But that's not the fault of social media. I've talked before about digital chunks in writing and that students now can't write without checking Facebook. This is not going to change. It is the evolution of our society, but I don't blame social media, I adjust and teach in a way that models the choppiness they are used to, and then I can create longer blocks of attention over time. Where you see stupidity is where I see a kid like Nick Conyers who parlayed social media into a viable source of income shooting video for people here in Memphis. While it is true that those platforms would have existed without social media, we all would have had to pay to play in some form to get people to our places of choice so that they could find us. The only thing different now is that social media outlets are garnering all of our money, but honestly some people are better off and some people aren't. Overall, I've never really had a lot of success as a writer, but I never, never really gave it the time it deserved and that's on me. I've already started planning out a strategy and we will definitely be able to tell if social media works in regard to books. I wrote some really strong articles about Facebook and it's ability to really garner business for small business people, but I recently wrote another report that almost contradicted everything I said negative about it. That's the way these things are. We see a rise in the amount of dumb things people promote because that's what is placed in front of us. It has always taken people going beyond to find information. We just have to take the time and go beyond a lot more now. In regard to the lending crisis, that had zero to do with social media. That had everything to do with greed and lack of knowledge by first generation homeowners. The system used ignorance to capitalize. The system has always done this. Our job as parents/educators is to tell the next generation how to be smarter and better and I have to be honest, we are not doing a very good job of educating the next generation and that's on us. You can't dumb down people when people actually take the time to share information as opposed to not sharing. I can only use a variety of examples to explain what I'm saying based on my experiences. We both know this is not a simple thing. But Black people have to learn how to share and support and that is something we have never been very good at.

Just to throw this in on the comic strip part, there are a lot of young Black artists who are publishing and creating some very good work. A couple to check out are: Mike Archie: http://perfectman.wordpress.com/ Quinn McGowan: http://www.quinnproart.com/comic-book.html Are two I recently discovered through a Black Business connection on Facebook. There are others attached to these two, but I see something from them daily. In regard to newspapers we have the Tri State Defender, locally, and to be honest I very rarely read our major newspaper or the Defender. I'm focused on developing my brand since my contract with my agent ends this month. I've been very focused on this and my shoe company for the last few months.