From social realism to social media

In his European Intellectual History Since 1789, Roland N. Stromberg writes on p. 258:

Among the curiosities of the 1930s “social realism” was the “Mass Observation poem” attempted in England, originating in those who wanted to be both surrealist and communist. Thousands of people all over the country were supposed to send in their literary reports on a single event, the coronation of George VI, from which a composite poem wold somehow be created. Predictably, the result was not impressive.

It will be much easier to do something similar at the next royal mega-event, with Twitter and all!