The BBC on Sodcasting - Music on Mobiles

Sodcasting, according to Pascale Wyse of The Guardian is "the act of playing music through the speaker on a mobile phone, usually on public transport. Commonly practiced by young people wearing polyester, branded sportswear with dubious musical taste." If you live in London and have ever ridden round on public transport before the chances are you've probably encountered 'sodcasting'. Whether you think it's rude and antisocial or it doesn't bother you that much, with more and more youths getting access to mobile phones 'sodcasting' is here to stay.

Read more about sodcasting in these interesting pieces from the BBC and The Guardian.

Kids & Britishness - Canvas8

Remember that quiet little weekend recently where a couple of kids got married? That weekend where we were bound by bunting and showed [in my mind] how brilliant the British can bloody well be? Well, the Royal Wedding showed up some other interesting insights, namely that the British Youth seemed, suddenly, vociferously patriotic [although, uh, it's not necessarily a word they know]... As my My latest article for Canvas8 shows:

"For a global generation, feeling part of a smaller picture – that of ‘Britishness’ - may not come easily, but tagging them all as ‘global youth’ is not wholly correct either. Yes, they’re perpetually connected, but ask a girl in Romford if she feels global, or even ‘European’, and you realise we have a tendency to falsely label a vast group of teens. How can brands build on perceptions of 'Britishness' to appeal to young people?..."

As standard, the article is only 'public' for a while, so have a read up and - if you don't have time now - sign up instead. We Ruby-rate Canvas8. Nice.

Kreayshawn: As seen by Super Duty Tough Work

You may or may not have come across Kreayshawn, the 21 year old 'cinematographer, editor and rap beast' who's latest music video 'Gucci Gucci' did the blog rounds last week. I must admit at first I wasn't sure what to think. All I saw was an eccentric looking hipster white girl rapping poorly over a stripped down instrumental. Although she looked fly-ish, appeared to be having lots of fun and I recognized a few of the guys from Odd Future in the video, the music did not impress me. It did however intrigue me; as artists such as Lil B and Soulja Boy have shown, nowadays talent and good songs are not necessarily a prerequisite for success. With nearly 1,500,000 hits in just over two weeks, Kreayshawn must be doing something. I'm just not quite sure what. Then I came across this post on SuperDutyToughWork which helped to explain the phenomena which is Kreayshawn. Rumoured to have just signed a $1 million deal with Sony, this won't be the last you hear of the Cali resident.

'Keisha The Sket' and other Facebook novels written and published online.

Previously on this blog we've written about websites such as Amazon, Booklending.com and Lendle.com where you can download books for free to read on your Kindle or phone. What I didn't know until last week was that quite a few young people are writing, publishing and distributing books online using the many facets and features of Facebook.

'Keisha The Sket' is a fictional account of a young girl from North London and her romantic escapades. Written in a colloquial dialect, 'Keisha The Sket' was orginally written and distributed via text message, which would explain the spelling and grammar:

" 'Yeh so wot u on?' Ramel allerted me. He was 1 peng boi dt i had been chatin 2 4 tym. "

'Keisha The Sket' and similar tales have inspired a host of other people to write their own online novels using Facebook's Notes application. Here are a few of the more popular ones:

Memoirs of a Mean Girl From London (Jezzies, Love, Rumours and Tragedy)

The Girl Who Cried Rape

Treshaun - My Life

Whilst traditional press circulation dwindles, it only makes sense that young people are finding new innovative ways to create and share stories, text messaging and Facebook being just two methods. For example a friend of mine Maletsatsi Monareng, a 24 year old poet from South London has just published her own paperback poetry book which is available to buy online.

You heard it here first, expect to see lots more creative writing distributed through social networking applications and other digital avenues, in the near future, coming to a screen near you.

By Nick Bamigboye