Too Many Tweets...

Why Twitter's tween audience and their voting patterns leaves me fearing the worst...

Being a Reality Television fan as well as a regular attendee of television and media related forums I will almost inevitably find myself faced with a discussion topic which has become much more frequent in recent years, that topic in question being the power and influence of the 'tween vote' and the supposed mass onslaught that would subsequently come from fans using social media such as Twitter and Facebook. Whilst I have seen the 'tween vote' being utilised in reality television I find however that the power and influence largely depends on one key influence in particular, albeit one which makes me worry not only for the motives and workings of the younger television viewer but also for the future attitudes and ethics of Britain as a nation. 

Whilst a tween vote is to be expected for mass media programmes such as Reality Television what I have found from watching these shows is that the tween vote is only to be taken fully into account when the voting is in a negative guise, whilst in a positive guise the influence of the youth is rather lackluster and also calls into question issues of lethargy within the tween audience. The first two series of Big Brother saw Channel 5 introduce positive voting, encouraging it's audience to save housemates as opposed to the normal tradition of voting negatively to evict them. Whilst the later series of the show during the Channel 4 era had seen this tween vote out in force during these two Channel 5 series the influence of the vote swung away from the tweens and towards an older, more mature and arguably more avid show fan base. This was demonstrated with the voting trends during the show as the first two Channel 5 series, as Aaron Allard-Morgan, two contestants who appealed to the older voting demographic, proved victorious in their respective series, this being in spite of the tween vote's dislike of both and preference to more tween friendly contestants such as Jay McKray and the Insiders alliance in BB12 and BB13 respectively. Similarly another example of this was seen in last season's series of The X Factor in which contestant Christopher Maloney saw himself as a regular victim of abuse from twitter followers online, and yet for the first seven weeks dominated the phone voting to save by a large margin, whilst tween-friendly contestants such as Union J found themselves regularly within the bottom two, depsite being most ideally placed to pick up the twitter vote.

The evidence above obviously points to the tween vote proving more influential in a negative voting environment compared to a positive one, but this in turn also leaves me concerned with the way that television is perceived from a younger generation of viewers. Why is it that users of social media feel so comfortable demonstrating their passion for a television show in a negative manner and yet are so lethargic when it comes to expressing it in a positive manner. Yes Twitter is a media form designed around impulse but from my own explorations of the medium it seems largely devoid of positive input from it’s young users, even when Channel 5 were implementing the vote to save voting method the calls from this tween audience would be to get the designated villain of the week out despite the voting method making this an almost impossible task. The judgement of a younger generation when it comes to television has thanks to twitter and increasingly negative, cynical and at times verminous experience.

In the process this makes me question where Britain will stand in regards to our judgements within society in the future, thanks to Twitter is Britain now destined to be a nation devoid of demonstrating positive views on something? A nation where we judge based solely on negative traits and where ‘the best’ of something is in fact the least worst? These twitter tweens who judge solely on negativity could one day be the doctors and lawyers of our future, and if they judge based by the same aggressive and negatively orientated means that they do on Twitter Ido have worries for the work ethic and agenda of Britain in the future.