Social media and the Greek culture | Nathan Vineyard | TEDxBountiful

This talk was given at a local TEDx event, produced independently of the TED Conferences.
Lover of the classics and a passionate social media user, Nathan Vineyard has brought back the literary and artistic masters of the Ancient Greeks and Romans and has given them a new lease on life by liberating them from the caged library and introducing them into the wild of the new social media landscape.

I feel so special. I have my own mic here.

I am so happy to be here with you today.

I bring you wonderful
greetings from Park City.

We have our Sundance coming up.

I'll be going back up to Park City

to be on the radio station to talk about
all of the cool people we've talked to

the directors and filmmakers,
and it's a very fun place to be.

And, my role in that place up there
is to bring that content to everyone

through the wonderful new phenomenon
which we've called social media.

I'm going to throw out
one really cool stat for you,

and that is 80% of all Americans
use an online social network

and the most used website
in all of America is Facebook.

So being in social media
and being in news and information,

and having a very, very strong passion,
and a love of the classics,

I decided to combine the two.

I created this beautiful website
called ClassicCulture.org.

At ClassicCulture.org,
I bring about the best ideas.

The most beautiful artwork
and incredible stories

that we are all part of,
it's our heritage, it's our culture.

The Greek culture; the Romans.

And having that website,
and using social social media,

I combined the two, and now,
you can get everything on your phone,

and that's a big deal to me.

Gutenberg in the 1400s
created the printing press.

Through the printing press,

we're able to get all this information
and pass it along to each other.

It's old social media that they created.

And today Facebook, I would say,

is the most important invention
since that press machine,

that was invented in Germany,

and it allows for information
to pass on within the click of a button

to anywhere in the world.

Doing social media in Park City,
we can take information,

the interviews that we have,

and we can post them to the countries
the people come from,

Germany, Northern Europe.

And we post that immediately,
instantaneously, to where they are.

So I'm just going to feature

some of this cool stuff that is
on our Facebook page for ClassicCulture.

This is what Julius Caesar said:

"As a rule, men worry more
about what they can't see

than about what they can."

This is another really cool quote.

It was featured on a lot
on the graves in Greece and in Rome.

It said: "I was not. I have been.
I am not. I do not mind."

And so, through your phone,
you can access some of the best ideas.

They're not going to conform exactly
with the ideas that we have today,

and that's why you want to use them.

That's why you want
to bring them into your life.

It's because they give you
a completely different perspective

which will help you evaluate

what you're doing today,
and why you're doing it.

This is one of my favorite
ones from Plato:

"If a man wants to know
the origin of states and societies,

he should behold them
from the point of view of time.

Thousands of cities have come into being

and have passed away,
again and again, in infinite ages."

Being at this cultural hearth,

they were able to see
the Egyptians and the Romans

all these incredible, diverse cultures,

and they were there,
right in the thick of it.

They observed it all.

Greece is the founding civilization
of our entire society: democracy,

ethics, philosophy, mathematics.

If I can ask by a show of hands,
who studied Latin in K-12?

OK, three people.

Who studied Latin in college?

OK, one person.

So, for whatever reason,

the founding principles of our society,
and our civilization are gone.

They're inaccessible.

They're in the back
of university libraries

that no one touches, or no on accesses.

There was this Greek who founded Athens.
His name was Theseus.

He concurred the labyrinth in Crete.

He found his way,
and he found the minotaur.

He slayed the minotaur.

And, on his way back to Acropolis,
he declared "Aphrodite Pandemos,"

and that is "beauty for the people."

That's my mission and my idea
that I bring to you today.

Thank you.