The World's First Social Media Star - Martin Luther

Right now for personally for me 2017 is still a good seven hours before the New Year begins, for someone reading this in Dubai this for them is my first post of 2018, for those who read this the moment it is published in North America, for them  this is my last post of 2017.  We get very caught up in these very minor semantics knowing that time is relative, but clearly something like the 500th anniversary of the Reformation which is what Martin Luther inspired is like a passing footnote, indeed there will be a lot of people who will not even have heard of Martin Luther (and maybe never will) and therefore have absolutely no identification with who Martin Luther was.

Some may actually think I am referring to Martin Luther King Jr. and even here it is surprising how many people in social media don't really have a handle on who he was either, after all it is social media and there is way too much information going around chasing too little attention, why should people even care about this, especially since even after sharing it, it will most probably be out of mind and sight in the attention span of a squirrel.  People who tout themselves as people who know social media, really don't know social media if they have never heard of Martin Luther.  Indeed none of us would have heard of Martin Luther without the first type of social media that was created, which was the printing press.  Those who have heard of Martin Luther King Jr. and celebrate him probably do not know that his name used to be Michael King Jr. until his dad Michael King Sr. changed his name to Martin Luther King Sr and thus Martin Luther King Jr.  That is a great man who was inspired by Luther.  Unfortunately due to one commentary about Jews, Adolf Hitler also co-opted Luther's legacy for his purposes.  Quite ironic that a man of good and a man of evil was inspired by Martin Luther.

The first starting point is why Martin Luther became the world's first social media star.  This documentary actually refers to him as a "rock star" but while Martin Luther did write hymns, his biggest contribution was what he published because of the rise of the printing press :

Now and only now will I say Happy New Year to all at beBee - but not before writing this buzz to say that 2017 is not complete without a gigantic head nod to the 500th Anniversary of the Reformation that Martin Luther so inspired.  In about 18 minutes it will be 2018 in London, England - the place of my birth, but yet I still have over 5 hours of 2017 to go and maybe less if I choose to be a right party-pooper and retire to bed early at 10pm.  If there is a good way for me to end 2017 it is not engaging in counting down the clock to 12pm, but in me celebrating the life of Martin Luther and what that actually meant in terms of 2017.  Happy New Year even if in writing this there is still bits of 2017 left for me to live and most importantly experience and even enjoy :-)