young and dumb

Cacophony: a harsh discordant mixture of sounds

But why is this the word which came to mind when I heard Believer playing over top of each other? Because while the atmosphere was a chaotic jumble of tones and sounds, it didn’t really seem all that bad to listen to. It wasn’t particularly harsh so much as assertive, pushing itself into my consciousness. And it wasn’t unpleasant -- my cheeks were tight from the smile that pushed itself onto my face. I looked around, but no one seemed to delight from chaos this as much as I did. But dammit, it was so odd! What a wonderful mixture of sounds, never to be heard again. 

This exercise reminded me of the internet. While the content is at first jarring, you have to smile sometimes as the ridiculousness of it all. In what time or medium of media could you have the capacity to make an Earth sandwich, watch infomercials from 2004, or fundraise $55,000 to make some potato salad? 

Reading Charlie Warzel’s article, I contemplated what would happen if I was a victim of laser phishing -- as in someone is trying to impersonate me. 

Firstly, why would anyone want to steal my identity? To describe it generously, my clout is limited (online and off). The circumference of my social circle is in the single-digits, and I don’t get massive amounts of engagement like a local, B-list celebrity might. But I have also seen random older family members be the victims of Facebook hackings, so maybe these hackers are desperate for anyone. 

I don’t often post original content, so the AI’s data pool is limited. Even if it tried to aggregate data from multiple social media profiles, the voice I use on Twitter is different from the voice I use on Facebook is different from the voice I use on Reddit. So how realistic could it possibly be?

And yet, I can’t be too quick to dismiss it. In stark contrast to when I was a child and my parents told me to never post any personal identifying information, now I treat Twitter like my personal journal sometimes. It has my name and my Facebook and Instagram are linked to it. IF someone was interested, they could probably impersonate me pretty well. But would they be disappointed in what is created?

This question reminds me of S2E1 of Black Mirror, “Be Right Back.” In it, Ovadya’s description of “Human Puppets” is depicted when a young widow orders an android replica of her recently deceased husband. The body is easy enough to replicate, but the mind? That’s lifted from his texts, email, and social media accounts. But it isn’t enough for the widow, who slowly goes mad realizing that while someone -- something -- can look and sound like her deceased, one’s core character simply cannot be lifted from Facebook. 

I think about this because my own mother died in 2015. How many times have I thought, “What would she say? What would she do?” How many times have I looked at our messages and her Facebook profile, yearning for any small piece of her that’s left? Yet I think given the choice, I would not choose for her to be laser phished because the reality would be disappointing. It is not the same as her. It never would be or could be.

Hi to Dr. Cicci and anyone else reading this after I’ve been offline for 5 years. 

Because this class is about investigating how we use the digital world to interact with those around us, near and far, I’ve decided to resurrect one of the only forms of social media I’ve completely abandoned - my Tumblr. As I read the posts I tagged #about me, I wonder who exactly this is supposed to represent. While some of these items are certainly still very much “me” (relevant example), the majority are akin to old photographs and notes - yes, it features me, but not the same person who sits in front of the keyboard today, January 24, 2020. 

What surprises me most about my blog is the number of personal details I posted. From general likes and dislikes, to things happening in my daily life, to my deep inner thoughts, it seems I treated my Tumblr as my dumping ground. This is particularly striking for me because I do not do this on any of my other social media accounts. Could it have been teen angst and wanting someone in the world to hear me? Possibly, yes. But why did I choose Tumblr as my medium of expression? Is Tumblr a physical manifestation of Marshall McLuhan’s idea, “the media is the message”? I should not only investigate my posted content but how Tumblr created the platform that allowed me to express myself so vulnerably. 

After some thought, I believe are three elements at play: the degrees of anonymity, the mix of digital and physical relationships, and the content of the site. With Tumblr, you can remain as private or as public as you wish. With the ability to create a username and choose what information to publish, the user might feel some sense of control over their content. There is no private mode, but that means everyone’s content is public. You can drown in the sea of ideas and no one would be the wiser. Yet you can have personal interactions - I remember tagging my friends in posts and transferring jokes from the physical world to the digital world to keep the joke alive. While your anonymity protects you, you can still invite people to find your blog. This close-circle of followers from your physical life with all of the people from the digital world creates a blanket of safety. Combine that with an easy way to make posts of any format (including long-form text) and you have a recipe for Tumblr users to make the site their Digital Journals too.