The Facebook-Loving Farmers of Myanmar
Metadata
Highlights
- We ask about data. It’s much cheaper now than a year ago, they say. The telcos operate on pre-paid systems. Nobody has a credit card. Everyone buys top-up from top-up shops, scratches off complex serial numbers printed in a small font, types them with special network codes into their phone dialers in a way that feels steampunkish, like they’re divining data. (View Highlight)
- The lead farmer mentions Facebook and the others fall in. Facebook! Yes yes! They use Facebook every day. They feel that spending data on Facebook is a worthwhile investment. In fact, check this out, says one nephew. He wants to show us a Facebook post. He’s thrilled. Earlier, he said to us, lelthamar asit—Like any real farmer, I know the land. And so we wonder: What will he show us? A new farming technique? News about the upcoming election? Analysis on its impact on farmers? He shows us: A cow with five legs. He laughs. Amazing, no? Have you ever seen such a thing? (View Highlight)
- Facebook is the most popular app, he says. Nine out of ten people who come into the shop want Facebook. Ten months ago SIM prices dropped, data prices dropped, interest in Facebook jumped. I take note. Only half the people who come into the shop already have a Facebook account. The other half don’t know how to make one. I do that for them, he says. I am the account maker. (View Highlight)
- Everyone is data sensitive he says and reiterates: Facebook. Nobody needs a special app for their interests. Just search for your interest on Facebook. Facebook is the Internet. (View Highlight)
- Everyone installs apps using Zapya, an app-sharing app. Makes a local network. Everyone nearby connects to it. Allows groups to send data—apps, videos, music—back and forth without using bandwidth. I take note: All apps hand copies of other apps. No official distribution channels in use. (View Highlight)
- And so there is no incumbent electric giant monopolizing rural areas to fight against solar, there is no incumbent bank which will lobby against bitcoin, there are no expectations about how a computer should work, how a digital book should feel. There is only hunger and curiosity. And so there is a wild and distinct freedom to the feeling of working in places like this. It is what intoxicates these consultants. You have seen and lived within a future, and believe—must believe—you can help bring some better version of it to light here. A place like Myanmar is a wireless mulligan. A chance to get things right in a way that we couldn’t or can’t now in our incumbent-laden latticeworks back home. (View Highlight)
- But Facebook is most popular? Yes. Everyone wants? Everyone. Do people have email addresses? No. He makes the email addresses. Has a stack of pre-made Facebook accounts at the ready. He pre-installs the app and pre-loads friends. Facebook is for news, he says. Popular now but maybe not popular in six months. But for now, he installs it on every phone. (View Highlight)
- The expectations for a Facebook experience are shaped by the cultural expectations brought to the table. No farmer we spoke to had explicit or calcified expectations—they had not joined Facebook ten years ago or five years ago or even two years ago. They had not been indoctrinated into whatever it is Facebook thinks it is. Or what Facebook wants us to think it is. For them, it is a malleable tool. And they have made it into what they want: Largely a news reader. A relatively bandwidth efficient way to read about topics that interest them (the weather, Buddhism, pretty girls in swimsuits). (View Highlight)
- The Farmers don’t use their real names (“I used my son’s name,” Farmer fourteen told us. Why? “Because it’s a good name!” he said smiling and patting his 1-year-old son on the head.) They don’t have email addresses and so often don’t know their logins. If they get logged out they have someone—often the village Facebook guru—make them a new account. “Friends” on Facebook are friends only because the application calls them friends in the interface. The language of our apps shapes our expectations of our apps, but when the language isn’t your own, isn’t localized, that authority is undermined. “Friends” become something else entirely—random avatars who share an affinity for news stories you happen to stumble across. There is a fluidity to the Myanmar Farmer Facebook experience, one that makes me a little jealous (View Highlight)
The Facebook-Loving Farmers of Myanmar
Metadata
Highlights
- We ask about data. It’s much cheaper now than a year ago, they say. The telcos operate on pre-paid systems. Nobody has a credit card. Everyone buys top-up from top-up shops, scratches off complex serial numbers printed in a small font, types them with special network codes into their phone dialers in a way that feels steampunkish, like they’re divining data. (View Highlight)
- The lead farmer mentions Facebook and the others fall in. Facebook! Yes yes! They use Facebook every day. They feel that spending data on Facebook is a worthwhile investment. In fact, check this out, says one nephew. He wants to show us a Facebook post. He’s thrilled. Earlier, he said to us, lelthamar asit—Like any real farmer, I know the land. And so we wonder: What will he show us? A new farming technique? News about the upcoming election? Analysis on its impact on farmers? He shows us: A cow with five legs. He laughs. Amazing, no? Have you ever seen such a thing? (View Highlight)
- Facebook is the most popular app, he says. Nine out of ten people who come into the shop want Facebook. Ten months ago SIM prices dropped, data prices dropped, interest in Facebook jumped. I take note. Only half the people who come into the shop already have a Facebook account. The other half don’t know how to make one. I do that for them, he says. I am the account maker. (View Highlight)
- Everyone is data sensitive he says and reiterates: Facebook. Nobody needs a special app for their interests. Just search for your interest on Facebook. Facebook is the Internet. (View Highlight)
- Everyone installs apps using Zapya, an app-sharing app. Makes a local network. Everyone nearby connects to it. Allows groups to send data—apps, videos, music—back and forth without using bandwidth. I take note: All apps hand copies of other apps. No official distribution channels in use. (View Highlight)
- And so there is no incumbent electric giant monopolizing rural areas to fight against solar, there is no incumbent bank which will lobby against bitcoin, there are no expectations about how a computer should work, how a digital book should feel. There is only hunger and curiosity. And so there is a wild and distinct freedom to the feeling of working in places like this. It is what intoxicates these consultants. You have seen and lived within a future, and believe—must believe—you can help bring some better version of it to light here. A place like Myanmar is a wireless mulligan. A chance to get things right in a way that we couldn’t or can’t now in our incumbent-laden latticeworks back home. (View Highlight)
- But Facebook is most popular? Yes. Everyone wants? Everyone. Do people have email addresses? No. He makes the email addresses. Has a stack of pre-made Facebook accounts at the ready. He pre-installs the app and pre-loads friends. Facebook is for news, he says. Popular now but maybe not popular in six months. But for now, he installs it on every phone. (View Highlight)
- The expectations for a Facebook experience are shaped by the cultural expectations brought to the table. No farmer we spoke to had explicit or calcified expectations—they had not joined Facebook ten years ago or five years ago or even two years ago. They had not been indoctrinated into whatever it is Facebook thinks it is. Or what Facebook wants us to think it is. For them, it is a malleable tool. And they have made it into what they want: Largely a news reader. A relatively bandwidth efficient way to read about topics that interest them (the weather, Buddhism, pretty girls in swimsuits). (View Highlight)
- The Farmers don’t use their real names (“I used my son’s name,” Farmer fourteen told us. Why? “Because it’s a good name!” he said smiling and patting his 1-year-old son on the head.) They don’t have email addresses and so often don’t know their logins. If they get logged out they have someone—often the village Facebook guru—make them a new account. “Friends” on Facebook are friends only because the application calls them friends in the interface. The language of our apps shapes our expectations of our apps, but when the language isn’t your own, isn’t localized, that authority is undermined. “Friends” become something else entirely—random avatars who share an affinity for news stories you happen to stumble across. There is a fluidity to the Myanmar Farmer Facebook experience, one that makes me a little jealous (View Highlight)