I Invented Social Media For TV (Then Social Media Ruined It For Everyone)
- Jack Simcock
- Dec 18
- 3 min read
Updated: 6 days ago
Don't scoff! This is an article about the past, present and future of perceived reality and, like many things these days, it's partially true. Let me take you back... way back... to a time when social media was a verdant pasture of hopes, dreams, and communities of people united and excited about watching, caring and sharing together…
It was a time when ‘roflcopter’ meant
roll-on-floor-laughing-so-much-you-turn-into-a-helicopter-and-take-off. Sounds joyfully fictional doesn't it? It’s 2009. The social media Gremlin is a cuddly little Mogwai.
Production companies and broadcasters are finding pockets of success with 'cross-platform' dramas like Skins (Channel 4) and Being Human (BBC Three). New projects are popping up as pioneers search for the model. I once heard gentleman and TV legend George Carey describe people hunting for 'the mythical beast'. What is this perfect ecosystem of impeccable TV and online content that grows delighted audiences on their iPhone 3s?
My creative accomplice Barry Pilling and I agree to build a business. Let’s use platform-specific content, to spark conversations and build communities for TV shows, channels and radio stations? Good idea. Soon we were in front of leadership teams.
Did the BBC know they had over 300 Facebook and Twitter accounts and no idea of who set them up, how many people they reached or how to control them? They did not. Social was a wildfire, we were the brigade. A new business model was emerging.
Within a year we were delivering strategy, creative and production all in house. We launched The Voice, we invented the first realtime live social media format with BBC Free Speech (Three’s version of Question Time), we ran social for BAFTA winning The Fades (starring a young Daniel Kaluuya, written by Jack Thorne) and launched Nick Grimshaw’s Radio 1 Breakfast show with a rap video featuring Hugh Jackman, One Direction, Jake Gyllenhaal, Nicole Scherzinger and many more.
Brands wanted in. Nike, Redbull and HP gave us great work. We created new workflows and live, online TV style series. The client list grew. The comments section was proof it worked, 1000s and 1000s of people expressed the cult of quirky joy, here’s one from a mockumentary we made about Grimmy’s Radio 1 launch, “I just died. Thank you, thank you for killing my insides with held back laughter.”
Back then, no one yet knew, or would have accepted, the now well known truth that if something is free, you are the product. By 2014 US tech had us all pinned. Facebook’s new three-level campaign structure (campaigns, ad sets, and ads), made it easier for advertisers to target audiences, optimise content, and measure results. Ad revenues rocketed. This was the tipping point. Audience segmentation.
You know how this goes… partitions to sell the right thing to the right people don’t just sell shoes, they have inadvertently re-engineered our perception of reality. Hyper-specific ad sets and algorithms have locked us into carefully optimised bubbles, feeding us our own interests and biases. As shared truths ebb away, friction ignites fires of difference and indignation that are today’s political battlegrounds. The "mythical beast" we had once hunted turned out to be a hideous gremlin-hydra-hybrid.
But it can, and will, be slain!
I’m going to start writing about the work I’m doing to try.
My work is at the intersection of audience-led strategy, creativity, tech transformation, and business growth. Though I am “just one man”, as my rarely re-installed Instagram app profile points out, I hope you’ll join me?