That is the seemingly counter intuitive metaphor BuzzFeed’s Eric Harris used to explain the shift in content consumption that has occurred with the emergence of
buzzy fews eeds like, you know, BuzzFeed, Facebook, whatever.
Specifically, Harris told OMMA Native attendees that contemporary news
consumption is more like “a Paris cafe” than, say, The New York Times.
He described the prototypical buzz feeder as an educated
Parisian sitting in a cafe reading a copy of Le Monde in the morning.
“If a cute puppy walks up to him, is he going to ignore the puppy,
because he’s a smart Frenchman reading Le Monde,” Harris queried, adding, “No, he’s going to bend down and pet the dog.”
Quaint analogy, I guess, but I’m really not sure it’s actually how people choose to consume news. Feeds are the way they consume feeds. Somewhere in those feeds there’s some
news. Some of that news may come from Le Monde, or maybe even your friend, relative, blogger, or even BuzzFeed’s new serious intrepid reporting staff -- as opposed to their cute pet photos
curation team. But chances are, you’re not getting it from a cute puppy -- yet.
Apologies if you think I’m a news feed curmudgeon, but I do
think there are ddistinctions between cute puppies and legit news. But maybe that’s just me.