Welcome to the social web, a wonderful world of pure democracy where you and I are in charge. ‘Bottom up’ organisations where it is us, the masses, that make decisions for those up top. Grassroots campaigns through which you can fight huge faceless corporations. The modern web empowers us like never before to air our grievances, fight for what we think is right, and to save chocolate bars from a bygone age. It’s so easy; All you need is a computer, a susceptible mind, and an easily jerked knee.

The problem is, internet activism is so much easier than ‘real’ activism. It takes barely any effort to tick a box and register your support to a campaign, or to ‘retweet’ someone else’s observation or damning statement. Yet we’re supposed to consider the huge amount of statistics these polls, lists and virtual signatures amass to as worthy as a traditional march or picketing would have been. In the olden times, people really had to make an effort to stand up for things. Would a modern day Emily Pankhurst have really won the vote for women from a Facebook Group? Would Martin Luther King have had as much success in his fight for civil rights with a particularly memorable hashtag for his Twitter campaign?

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Don’t worry, this isn’t another article triumphing The Wire. You don’t need another person pouring praise on the sprawling ‘dickensian’ crime drama and its dozens of intriguing characters ‘sharing a dark corner of the American experiment’. And no, this isn’t an opinion piece pointing out that the majority of folk enjoying this mostly-black gangster crime show are white middle class media workers. Well, it is, as that is true, but only just a bit. If you’ve not yet watched ‘The best thing on television since the invention of radio’ I’d recommend you read my friend Sameer’s 100% spoiler-free piece instead. What interests me is the method by which it became popularised in this country, and what it means for future groundbreaking programming.

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Videogames were rubbish when I was little. It didn’t matter though as I was a stupid child and blocky 2D was exciting enough. My dad had a BBC Micro, and me and my sisters would argue over who got to play it every day. Growing up in a village of limited social means I had new friends. Manic Miner. Repton. Chuckie Egg. Not that Jet Set Willy though, he was a dick.

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