By a 24-year-old. The New York Observer reports that the Temple Mount is another “venue” to succumb to the mercy of four-square. Ariela Ross, editor of a geek culture website Walyou, has checked in to the Al Aqsa Mosque area the highest number of times, and has, therefore, been crowned Mayor of the what the Observer dubs “the most highly contested 324,000 square cubits on the face of the earth.” (Ross is also “Mayor of the Damascus Gate, the Christian Quarter, Dr. Calderon’s Dental Office and a number of local watering holes, including Jabotinsky, Egon, Madness and Paparazzi. She holds 43 mayorships in all.”)
Not to overextend a by-now cliché topic of discussion, but this issue really makes me marvel at how technology is affecting religious and/or political life. While this topic can relate to many issues — such as how electronic readers are affecting shomer shabbat reading — I find this use of four-square to be a real commentaryon or even dismissal of past political upheaval. A visit to the Temple Mount by Ariel Sharon even debatably sparked the second Intifada! And now, in a measure of obviously incomparable consequence (yet here I am comparing it), a 24-year-old social media fiend has become mayor of the site.
I am not suggesting that these historical and religious sites shouldn’t be options on four-square and I might be over-analyzing the power of the social media tool. That being said, I find myself stupefied by this recent modern-technological claim over a historical debate.
