Over the course of the afternoon, I’ve had a really nice conversation with Carla Casilli on Twitter. It started out with Carla’s observation:
When will we stop calling media on the internet “new media”?
To which I replied:
Shortly after “new york” reverts to its rightful name, “york” ;)
After a few back and forths, Carla and I agreed that perhaps instead of “new media,” we should just say “mannahatta” — the original Lenape Indian term for New York.
After all, it makes just as much sense to use #mannahatta as a catch-all for media on the internet as it does to say “new media.” I worked for what would become HarperCollins’s “New Media” department over 20 years ago!
Thus, in the name of all that is Right and Just, I declare that henceforth, the term for media on the internet is #mannahatta. It’s obsolescence-proof since it doesn’t include the term “new.” Just think of all the old “new” things that just seem silly today. The literary school of new criticism was old by the late 1960s. New Coke died in the 1980s. My once-new Prius is now the shameful progeny of a dinosaur of a car company. So if you want to talk about online media, shun the new, and just say #mannahatta.
40 years from now, when people are talking about “new mannahatta,” you’ll be able to tell them you remember when…
Maybe we should ditch the term “new media,” or maybe not. How will we upstarts differentiate ourselves from “old media.” I kinda like referring to the old media as “old.”
That’s my point. All the stuff that gets labeled “new” just ends up sounding old. To really be new you have to come up with a completely different term.