Cheryl

It’s interesting to see that 4chan was based off of a Japanese site, especially when you consider the type of culture that is predominate in most Asian countries (Dibbell, 2010). Japan is a very high context culture, what constitutes proper behavior changes, sometimes dramatically, from one situation to another. Things like who you are with, who else is around, the location you’re in, what part of the world you are from, all of these and probably a lot more are taken into account to decide what is ‘correct’ and what isn’t. This sort of environment can confuse the hell out of Westerners, we consider it two-faced or false to change how we act from situation to situation. The base for 4chan was built with that high context cultural influence, and I think you can see that in aspects of 4chan. Looking at high context, when a person shifts from one event to another, it’s like a reset, a clean slate. 4chan’s no pseudonym anonymous rule has the same effect. The ability to put an idea, opinion, or observation out in public, and have it exist only for a few minutes is a way for Westerners to have that new environment where they can completely change behavior without having their sense of self judged or questioned. Whether the 4chan universe is more valuable as a social steam valve, or a sub-culture creative forum is up for debate, but it’s not something the internet population can do without.

The use of social media to draw in what would usually be fringe groups, like the techno fans Wasik mentions in the #Riot article, is bringing a new method of communicating for idiocultures (Wasik, 2011). Small groups that identity through something fairly specific are usually confined to geographical location, but with the hashtag movement the way of sharing in-group symbols, language, and rituals lets these groups stay relatively small while spreading across the globe. In the past idiocultures haven’t had a huge impact on society at large, and in my opinion, that’s due to limited communication methods. Now that the reach for niche groups is widespread, the standard definition of idioculture may need to be reexamined.

Cote and Pybus used a term that struck me as particularly vibrant; cognitive capital. Discussions about the import and export of expertise and innovation, as opposed to physical products, have been used in the past, and this new phrase, to me at least, does a better job encompassing not only corporate innovations and scientific theories, but cultural creative products as well. Digital art, poetry, fan works, as well random repurposed items that show up in life hacks list, all fall outside of the old definitions of ‘labor’-- some sort of physical activity, and ‘product’-- some sort of tangible touchable item. The way that the capital is traded, tagging, sharing, re-blogging, etc., makes it much more cooperative than it has been in the past. The type of community effort to create is so widespread due to the connections we can make through social media is reminiscent of the commune movement from the Sixties. Adding corporate entities to the mix is where it gets messy, though. The interactivity that’s touted as something fun and unique is extremely appealing to our tendency towards self-branding, as well as giving us a way for our efforts to be recognized, and fuel that desire for acknowledgement. Advertising companies are taking the ‘fun’ part of being involved with creating, and the fulfilling part of creating with a community and coopting it. Doing that strips, at least some, the value away from the individual’s creative production. It’s very glossy and fun, and it’s doing a good job of turning the spending part of these interactions into a secondary component. Until people see that the business practice of ‘cutting through the clutter’ (Andrejevic, 2007) isn’t used to make a better product but to increase the bottom line the creations we are making won’t be truly ours.

(Chess, ‘Open-sourcing Horror’)

 What exactly creates/created that stigma though? And why are we still buying into it? The worrisome part is that it’s not just movies or extreme porn where the thrill gets fed. Cultural or societal framing that we do turns news reports into a ‘valid’ way to see images of tragedy for some sort of higher purpose. It’s so thinly veiled though, that I’ve always been angered/disgusted by it to the point where I wouldn’t let my kids watch the news when they were young. I would let them play Manhunt though, a fairly violent video game for the time period. The notion that it’s okay to lie to ourselves about the internal emotions or reactions to horror worry me, and I’d love to see unbiased studies done on why.

Phillipov’s paper from 2007 starts with the quote about a child turning into an Emo, creating a separate cultural group, and fairly quickly links the cause of turning into an Emo to social media. The subculture is described as dangerous and bizarre, and forgive me for repeating myself but adults/parents do not like the parts of teens lives that they have no control over. I think that’s reinforced by the lack of connections between the emo culture and the suicides he discusses. Adults in positions of authority want full disclosure from their teens, but only for them, not anyone else. Sharing details of their lives on MySpace is looked at as a risk and a Bad Thing, regardless of the outcome of that sharing. If you look specifically at a depressed teen who is considering suicide, how importance is that need for them to talk to you specifically? If they can talk to a stranger from thousands of miles away who gives them even the smallest spark of help, is the parent still going to be upset about the amount of info disclosed? That’s a classic example of moral panic obfuscating the real goal.

As soon as she mentions post-feminism and indicates that the videos are empowering the girls, it falls apart though. The commenting and the video creator’s responses to those comments show a culture still attached to wanting others to see us as ‘pretty’ like we saw in Murray’s piece ‘Am I Ugly?’ Every comment that says yes is going to impact the teen, and because of the anonymity the net it’s easier for comments to get vicious, and to be trolled. The teen who posted is torn down, not empowered.

Becoming Internet-famous is a gold mine for some, a nightmare for others. The world of memes can pit free speech against the desire for privacy. And laws generally aren’t keeping up, an expert says.

According to Clark in ‘Dating on the Net’, fantasy and fun are two of the things that draw both teens and adults to internet chat, and I’m always baffled by the ever popular idea that teens are supposed to be motivated by something less intimate or sexual than adults. Last I checked teenagers were pretty much raging balls of hormones that can find something sexual in the blandest casual comment. I want to stop right there though, and point out something that parents seem to want no matter what, and that’s some sort of regulatory measure to keep kids ‘safe’. In my (not so) humble opinion that’s called parenting and it needs to be one when movies/games/chat areas enter the front door, not when the item is being created or sold. The idea that the net is some new place for teens to be ruined in one way or another is buying in to the concept of technological determinism and ignoring the huge amount of societal and cultural influences that have shaped the net.

...will now treat Internet service providers as carriers under Title II of the Telecommunications Act, which regulates services as public utilities."

Revolutionary!

talk about flattening relationships... this is the FB info for my kid. It seems I didn't like her until a few years ago. Shh don't tell her.  

Boyd mentions that conversations and interactions that begin in person don’t necessarily have to end when people separate, but can be continued through social media, and what hit me about that was that because of that the amount of time you have to put into a friendship has increased. Add in the fact that you can have multiple private conversations at a time, be it through texting or net use, and you get an even bigger increase of time to (virtually) spend with people. That makes a strong argument against Bloor’s concerns that people aren’t building authentic friendships because they take time to create. Personally, I think Bloor is right, it does take time to build a friendship, and using social media as well as other tech gives us that time. We’re on the phone with a Bluetooth while we’re doing laundry. We’re sitting at home texting instead of driving over to someone’s house to speak to them face to face. So, is the concern that the sheer speed of creating and building a friendship, with the aid of social media, somehow makes it inauthentic? Is there an amount of downtime that needs to happen in between interactions in order to make it real? I don’t think so, and as of yet I haven’t seen anything to change my mind.