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Plus, your letters on virality and a new ambulance model

November 10, 2023

After yesterday’s post about the changing nature of virality, I started thinking again about the somewhat broken nature of social media — particularly, the sense that I no longer really feel like there’s that much of a place to kind of see the conversations about the city in a way that isn’t just me poking through a bunch of stuff and posting what I find here.

I did this before, back when I had far fewer readers than I have now, so I thought I would put out a feeler on how other folks are feeling about the social media landscape and whether there might be a reason to experiment to try and faciliate some form of discussion group/board connected loosely to this site. I don’t know for sure that it will lead to one, but if nothing else it let’s me get a sense of how you all are consuming information/feeling about the scope of things, too.

Letters to the editor

Speaking of yesterday’s post, I got a few bits of feedback I’d like to share.

First, furthering the theory that I am just old, Mackenzie Kerr pointed out I was wrong about what the most viral videos from Prince George on TikTok actually are, with several from local businesses hitting the more than 1 million views mark:

She’s going to write a future post for all of us explaining TikTok in a way that’s better than I understand it, so let’s all look forward to it!

I also got this from a reader, in relation to the video of a man yelling in a video that has had over 500K views.

The video with the man yelling in the hallway with red carpets went around about 8 months ago. I know the man's family and even though they are not in contact with him, the video being shared and going "viral" was incredibly distressing to them. It's one thing to post someone's lowest moment publicly for everyone to see, but we often forget the impact on that person's loved ones. Seeing this video again was a harsh reminder of the lack of empathy and compassion for those families. More and more tik Tok viral content is using people at their lowest — often seen in footage of the DTES as well. It is easy to forget that every one of these people have a story and have a family who is hurting.

I agree, and have regrets about linking to it in the first place. I do think it’s notable that in a more video-centric vision of the internet, capturing people at their lowest moments in public is apparently one of the lower-effort methods of going viral — which, of course, has been a concern in all previous iterations of the internet but maybe moreso now?

And, I got this from commenter 4streegrrrl:

Jordan Harbinger's podcast has quite a few episodes on social media, AI, and the overall internet's influence on society. It has really opened my eyes to the psychological tricks built into algorithms by social media companies, to keep us scrolling to make them richer and to eat away at our mental health and civility. I've moved more to Substack in the last few months, and away from FB and Insta (and avoided TikTok like the plague), after realizing how my own mental health was being played by certain content.

She also added, in relation to the post about the toaster from the Northern that is still working deades later:

My expensive, fancy, and what had believed to be sturdy, tea kettle of about two years old died yesterday. I'm mad that most things are built with planned obsolescence. The plan is to dismantle it to see what the issue is and try to fix it... so take that, Cuisinart! At least the backup, stove top kettle won't die (unless the new range dies).

To which Mandi responded:

Planned obsolescence makes me FURIOUS - thinking specifically of Apple, but so many other products and companies have implemented this too. Combined with advertising, I often feel helpless if I think about it too much. CBC's Under the Influence (https://www.cbc.ca/radio/undertheinfluence) really opened my eyes to this. I too try to fix as much as I can - I've repaired my 20-year-old headphones at least 4 times now - but it's hard to find parts for a lot of items.

New ambulance model just dropped

Under the new model, called 24/7 Alpha, 21 communities will have at least eight full-time paramedics, with staff on-duty 24 hours a day. 

There will also be a mix shift model, which will have eight regular part-time staff on-duty for 16 hours a day, with the remaining eight hours on-call.

The third new model is known as an on-call shift, which will have a full-time unit chief and on-call staff.

Quite a few communities around Prince George are switching over to the 24/7 model — among them, McBride, Mackenzie, Fraser Lake and, further afield, Tumbler Ridge. Bear Lake and Wells, meanwhile are moving to the on-call shift model.

What’s interesting about this to me — aside from the fact that it will hopefully improve outcomes in those communities — is the implications it could have for Prince George, as well. If Bear Lake and Mackenzie have more paramedics, that means it is less likely ambulances from Prince George will have to be diverted to those communities. And if ambulances from Prince George are less likely to be diverted out-of-town, then that should also mean improved outcomes here. You’ll recall the city is championing the call for the province to pay whenever local fire departments respond to medical calls, something fire departments are doing because there aren’t enough ambulances available. This may help alleviate that issue, as well, by making more ambulances available locally, more of the time. We shall see.

Quick news:

That’s it for the week. I’ll be taking the long weekend, which includes Remembrance Day and the start of Diwali. Talk on Tuesday.

Today’s song:

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