The Social Media Revolution

According to Wikipedia, Ernesto “Che” Guevara was so appalled at the endemic poverty he saw when he travelled through Latin America that it led him to conclude that the region’s inequalities were a direct result of monopoly capitalism, neo-colonialism and imperialism, and the only remedy for this was a worldwide revolution.

Later while living in Mexico City, he met and joined Raul and Fidel Castro’s 26^th of July Movement whose aim was to overthrow the U.S. backed Dictator Fulgenicio Batista, which the movement achieved after two years of guerrilla warfare.

Following the Cuban Revolution, Guevara performed a number of key roles in the new Government until he left in 1965 to kick start guerrilla operations in the Congo-Kinshasa and later Bolivia, where he was captured by the CIA-assisted Bolivian forces and executed.

It took Guevara 17 years from the time he travelled through Argentina on his motorcycle to when he was captured and executed in La Higuera at the age of 39 to achieve his goals. In other words he spent nearly half his life fighting for his beliefs.

While conflicts and miniwars continue across the globe today, I wonder which media a revolutionary like Guevara would use to spread his message. If he were to follow in Obama’s footsteps, Twitter would be a prime media channel. Although there are a growing number of U.S. citizens who say that his tweets are becoming boring now that he’s the head honcho.

But then again Che is a reformer and you could argue that like Obama he needs to sell and market his revolutionary platform to the masses. Most importantly, he could tweet on the run as long as he could regularly recharge the battery in his iPHONE.

Email? It’s been around for a while now. But would a leftist who’s planning an ambush “cc” his troops the exact time and location? Not sure that’d be a smart move.

Having a community mindset and being a natural leader – Che would definitely have his CV on Linkedin giving his future employers and counter-revolutionaries the opportunity to check his medical credentials and warfare skills.

Facebook. Definitely the right demographic! His profile and leftist mates would all be there too – maybe even a few of his old CIA enemies.

MySpace? Possibly a bit young for a freedom fighter but as they say, it’s best to get ‘em young and train them up.

What about a blog? Great for developing and spreading thoughts but I wonder if a freedom fighter would have the necessary resources to blog regularly while on patrol in the middle of the Bolivian jungle?

Another perfect fit for a visionary and anarchist is YouTube. Imagine the propaganda he could upload. And how interesting would it be to read the comments from his followers. “Geez Che, Fidel’s looking a bit old and tired.”

What other media choices would a modern day freedom fighter who’s committed to a cause consider? Free to air TV? Pay TV? Press? Magazines? Radio? DM?

Nope, I think the suite of Social Media platforms available today is all a future leader needs to start a successful revolution.

You can follow me: twitter@bayer12