New media fosters creativity by opening opportunities for people to pursue interests or hobbies with other people online and to the next level. There are many examples of this online and can be found through social media sites like Twitter or sites specifically tailored to a specific interest.
For instance, young people who enjoy writing may expose their creativity and stories to like-minded communities by posting it on platforms that welcome written fanworks or original stories. They provide categories and tags on the site to make it easier for people to search for a written fanwork or "fanfiction" and use filters to specify what kind of genres, pairings, ratings, and other requirements they're looking for. Another fun example is, there are many entertainers on YouTube, often called "Youtubers" and often times, their fan base actually create fanworks of the entertainers! This can range from artwork to animations!
It helps people get acquainted with like-minded individuals and develop connections and cultivate creativity and new ideas. People are more likely to create something amazing in something they're passionate about compared to something they have zero interest or energy invested in.
In Claire Cain Miller's article "Twitter Serves Up Ideas From Its Followers," Miller talks about the way Twitter has handled updates or rather, upgrades to their site. They observe their users' trending behavior and try to implement it on their site. Things like @'ing other people's usernames on Twitter and hashtags (#) were actually proposed to by their user base. As the chief executive and founder of Twitter, Evan Williams said, "Most companies or services on the Web start with wrong assumptions about what they are and what they're for... Twitter struck an interesting balance of flexibility and malleability that allowed users to invent uses for it that weren't anticipated" (Miller).
Twitter Serves Up Ideas From Its Followers by CLAIRE CAIN MILLER, the New York Times, October 26, 2009. Available at:http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/26/technology/internet/26twitter.html
These platforms which foster creativity has definitely allowed people of similar interests to connect with each other. I can vouch for this since I met plenty of people on the internet who share the same music interest as me!
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