During my childhood, I heard about this concept of the world transforming into a global village. However, being a child, I was really confused as to how this world can turn into a global village. Well! I saw this concept turning into a reality with my own eyes when social media became a crucial part of our lives. A person sitting in New Zealand can easily converse with another one in Bangladesh just because of the social media. At first, technology just played the role of bringing people closer but with the passage of time, it started to make other contributions to human society.
Airbnb and Social Movement
Watching Airbnb’s advertisement leave a positive influence on our mind. It triggers some sort of emotional response that is unexplainable. The ad starts with a woman sitting on her couch in New York in 2012. She is watching news regarding the destruction caused by the Hurricane Sandy. She suddenly picks up her laptop and starts typing an email to Airbnb. She then introduces her idea to Airbnb. She writes that as thousands of people have lost their homes due to Hurricane Sandy, she is willing to list her apartment for free in order to help the effected people. She then sends this email. A girl from Airbnb in San Francisco reads this email and gets inspired. She adds one line to the email and then sends forwards it to the Airbnb headquarters. The line that girl from San Francisco adds demonstrates her eagerness to take the initiative as thousands of people were suffering at the moment. Later on, a couple knocks on the door of the very first woman who sent the email to Airbnb. They nervously look towards each other and wait. The woman, who actually initiated this social movement, opens the door and warmly welcomes them inside her home. This ad conveys the message that one inspiring idea creates a movement that is built by any single person. In this case, the first woman called “Shell” was the one to come up with the inspiring idea. This idea then spread like an epidemic and turned into a nationwide movement.
This advertisement makes it evident that digital economy not only transforms the ways of earning money but it transforms the entire society. I still remember when Covid-19 vaccine was introduced; Uber and Careem were offering free rides to people going for vaccination. In their article The California Ideology (1995), Barbrook and Cameron talked about the concept of “techno-utopianism”. It is mentioned in the article that “Unable to surrender wealth and power, the white people of California can instead find spiritual solace in their worship of technology”. In the Airbnb advertisement, the people are indeed finding spiritual solace through technology. One woman thought of using technology in order to do good for the society in the times of crises. She ignites a spark and soon her initiative spreads like fire throughout the nation. In Barbrook and Cameron’s article, there is a notion that technology will eventually turn this world into a utopia by eliminating all of its problems. Airbnb’s advertisement is one such example of this notion. The possibility of technology’s role in making this world a better place for future generations cannot be denied.
The Airbnb advertisement is more than a just a video. It gives serious message to the people around the world regarding the use of technology for humanitarian purpose. In the current age, people mostly use technology for connecting with each other, entertainment, or getting informed. However, this video makes us realize that technology can also be used to fulfill our social responsibility towards the people around us. Although we have entered into the era of machine, it doesn’t mean that we can’t remain human anymore.