Summary Of The Naked Crowd By Jeffery Rosen

In "The Naked Crowd," Jeffery Rosen describes how the 1000 plus people depicted in profiles published in the New York Times’ Portraits of Greif, were viewed by many as failed attempts at capturing the personalities of these people. At around 200 words, each these profiles were filled with a couple hobbies or quirks in an effort to sum up each person’s life into memorable snippets of information, but at the same time removed any complexity of personality from that individual. Rosen then goes on to compare these tributes with social media websites, and how we create our own simplified versions of ourselves based on what we want other people to see. When you compare these profiles with the actual person, there is no comparison. This behavior is
the product of trying to create a sense of intimacy with the crowd. Rosen says we feel pressured to expose details of our personal lives in order to gain trust in a community and to give strangers an impression of who we are. However; the most important details that make up the fabric of our personalities are learned from individual intimacy.
Rosen’s passage proves to his audience how greedy and prideful our society was raised up to be. He kept bringing up the fact that people are so obsessed with the image of themselves in other’s eyes, that if they do not share their whole hearts with strangers then they can’t be trusted. He says that we are at an “age of individualism rather than individuality,” saying that we are more worried about being an important individual then being ourselves and not caring what others think. “This means that everyone who is subject to the scrutiny of the crowd—from celebrities to political candidates to the families of terrorists’ victims—will feel pressure to parcel out bits of personal information in order to allow unseen strangers to experience a sense of vicarious identification” (Rosen ). By explaining how the naked crowd works as a whole, Rosen shows you how people might be reluctant to post certain things, or be pressured into revealing information about themselves while on social media.
In Susan Tardanico’s article, “Is Social Media Sabotaging Real Communication?” she states that as human beings, our only real method of connection is through authentic communication.
In fact, studies show only 7% of communication between people is based on written or verbal word. With this 93% of our communication context taken away, we are attempting to construct relationships based on phrases, abbreviations, snippets, and emoticons. By providing this information, the author expects you to think about how this kind of restricted communicating can potentially create unhealthy socializing habits. This relates to Rosen’s explanation of how harm can come to the people who are venting their thoughts and emotions into a void, hoping for a reassuring response from the audience. “For example, a nationwide study of psychological responses to 9/11 found that those who sought social support and vented their anxieties without receiving positive reinforcement were more likely to feel greater distress during the six months after the attack than those who engaged in more social coping activities such as giving blood or attending memorial services”(Rosen). When Rosen examines the emotional state of people affected by 9/11 and how they coped with that tragedy, I think he is really trying to ask his audience who they would prefer to be helped by when faced with a problem like this: someone with which you spend time with on a regular basis, or any random person to stumble upon your Facebook
post.
“In an ironic twist social media has the potential to make us less social; a surrogate for the real thing.
For it to be a truly effective communication vehicle, all parties bear a responsibility to be genuine, accurate, and not allow it to replace human contact” (Tardanico).This quote shows that social media has the potential to do good, but because individuals are constantly urged to market themselves to a world full of strangers via the Internet and its numerous social networking sites, they instinctively create a personal image that is seen as consistent and memorable. “Awash in technology, anyone can hide behind the text, the e-mail, the Facebook post or the tweet, projecting any image they want and creating an illusion of their choosing”(Tardanico). More and more people in today’s society have no problem disclosing intimate details to strangers. Some even create false images of themselves to appeal to others as trustworthy and intelligent. Rosen brings up the idea of “personal branding,” in which individuals present the best version of themselves in order to establish and maintain emotional connections with strangers. These personal branders thrive upon approval from the public, hoping to become more successful in their careers as online entities. Rosen touches on this subject to get his audience to think about how they are personal branders themselves in their own way, maybe not as extreme, but are still guilty of selective
posting.
In a New York Times article, “Antisocial Networking, Hilary Stout explains that without crucial childhood relationships in which kids share personal experiences and secrets, today’s youth might be missing out on experiences that help them develop empathy, and read social cues like facial expressions and body language. “The question on researchers’ minds is whether all that texting, instant messaging and online social networking allows children to become more connected and supportive of their friends — or whether the quality of their interactions is being diminished without the intimacy and emotional give and take of regular, extended face-to-face time” (Stout). This author is giving rise to the same argument as Rosen by examining a current problem like he does when talking about the portraits of grief. “They aspired to give all Americans the illusion of identifying with the victims, and therefore allowing them to feel that they themselves had been touched by the horrific event. What was flattened out in this juggernaut of democratic connection was the individuality of the victims themselves” (Rosen). Rosen is conveying his purpose to the audience by comparing the loss of individuality of victims portrayed in the portraits of grief, while Stout is depicting hers by explaining how developing youth might be adversely affected by social media networking.
Even though these articles have slightly different subjects and purposes, they all have similar main claims made toward the subject of social media. And while each author has similar and dissimilar rhetorical techniques, they all focus to get the readers train of thought going in the right direction. In “The Naked Crowd,” the last rhetorical move Rosen seems to make is switching to first person in the last couple paragraphs, saying we are both spectators and actors in the naked crowd, and are too willing to trade our own privacy for a sense of belonging to a crowd. By making the switch to first person he includes himself in the naked crowd to show how we are all a part of the crowd weather we want to be or not.