And so it concludes.

So here we are. Curtain call. The end of this subject for yours truly. Which means the end of this blog.

Before you begin to cry shamelessly, let’s look back on the time we spent together; blogger and fellow bloggers, together in this world of zeros and ones.

Net Communications for me was challenging but I found as long as I stayed organized it wasn’t too hard to manage. Things became a lot easier after the essay was done and we started blogging, because I found it a lot easier to deal with assessment written informally where I’m also allowed, (nay, required,) to use my au natural sarcastic social observations for some kind of purpose. Whilst doing this I was also pushed to think critically in order to get my head around some of the tougher concepts in this subject- particularly the ones I found a bit drier. (The ‘We Hate Comic Sans’ reading was a standout.) Since for my core posts I needed to think and speak a little sharper, when writing all my other posts I found at times that voice translated. Sounding like you know what you’re talking about is a good thing.

Concepts I particularly enjoyed were the nihilist impulse, and the idea of the internet as this giant, wide, open marketplace, where everything from social media to Wikipedia is some kind of ‘product,’ and simply by logging on we are acting as prosumers in this unique media marketplace. Since all of these concepts are insanely huge and would take me more words then feasible to discuss properly, I’ll just say what particularly struck me about them in relation to blogs, and blogging.

Blogging was something new to me. And I really found it interesting. My niche is social commentary, and half my posts are just my own, subjective thoughts about things I think are awkward. These thoughts are not really ‘worth’ anything in a literal sense- just me rambling, really. The only reason I am producing them is purely for the sake of it. Bang, nihilist impulse.

By producing this nothingness I am de facto a producer, my blog de facto becomes MY product. And since what I say is so subjective I am my own product- much like my facebook profile page. And so my blog gets a social value. I receive an online social value. I’m expanding the market, and as the market grows the number of niches grows. (Ahem, longtail…)And then amount of bloggers increase and so the amount of nihilism out there rises accordingly. But then conversely so do the amount of ‘shares’ in the social value market, so it’s not really nihilism because it serves a value-exchange purpose, but then that purpose is achieved through nihilism…? Watch this space, I guess.

 I also really like the idea of participatory culture, even though as I have discussed previously I don’t think the internet is a rounded Habermasian-esque discussion sphere. But as far as ideas go, free and equal access to ‘culture’ (i.e. social value distribution) via the net is a nice one. And one I would be interested in exploring further and pinning down a bit more.

This idea also leads into what I’d call the most pertinent issue I encountered during this experience- against the advent of new media how your reputation online is really, really important. With the internet being a port of access to a plethora of other media, (music, art, radio, newspapers, journals, books etc,) the way your product i.e you is received really translates into your ‘real life’ identity. (I say ‘real life’ in inverted commas because the way things are going, the increasing importance of who you are on the net directly affects your day-to-day physical existence. So in a sense it is your ‘real life.’ Again, would like to push this idea further)

A strong example of this is all those people in the news recently getting in trouble for writing controversial things on twitter, particularly if they were somewhat of a personality in ‘real life.’ Look at Catherine Deveny. Sacked sacked sacked.

We can even take that idea further and look at Heather B. Armstrong of www.dooce.com. Sacked for what was written in her blog, but through being infamous was able to then make money off it. What is a market that typically trades in social value then translated into a traditional market that trades in cash. Again, it’s that idea of ‘real life.’

I can’t say for sure how I think I did because I’m new to the blogging game. I’m also new to the Net Communications game, so thinking about the internet and new media as critically as I was pushed to was something else entirely. But I don’t think I’d do anything differently.

I’ve never been one for goodbyes, but alas guys it’s time. Let’s not drag this out. It’s been fun. Thanks for reading. Thanks for commenting. I hope I’ve enriched your lives by at least 2%.

Arriverderci.

 

 

another Tarantino plug...

Some tea with your superiority complex?

So most of you reading this blog might not know me personally. The ones that do, chill for a sec, and let the rest of the class catch up before I launch into today’s awkward digression.

I think social skills are important. I think talking to people and making an effort to make friends are a compulsory part of happy human life. I think people that whine about how much they hate people are only saying so because they lack these skills that enable them to make friends. Slash they have some hopped-up superiority complex that make them think everyone is below them, causing them to either socialize with only other morsels that can meet their criteria or no-one at all.

...indeed

Ok. So considering the latter, you’ve guessed I’m talking about intellectual snobs. (I had another word in mind, but thought it a bit risqué…)  Yes. Seeing as most of my blogging audience hails from the same university as I, you know exactly what I mean. For all other fans, let me explain.

Our university has a bit of a stereotyped reputation as a bit snobby, because it’s not so easy to get in. So lots of people that do might, you know, play up on this a bit…i.e. ‘I’ll wear my oh so sharp INTELLECT as a medal on my chest because I’m clever and did you notice I’m carrying a leather-bound book by Foucault? Are YOU? Yeah… maybe you should go and watch the OC or something…’

For the record, I love the OC. And would reply to this with a defiant, ‘I would LOVE to. Which season? Because the third kind of dies in the arse…’ ( It really does. Johnny? … pun intended )

But alas, we have all encountered that person in the tutorial room who does not shut up. We have all been belittled by the person who asks a carefully placed question about politics you aren’t quite sure you feel safe answering. But why?

Why must these people so insist in reminding us of their intelligence? Why must the basic rules of social etiquette need to be ignored in order for them to reach this goal?

The answer I believe is impossible to pin down, because we can’t generalize for intellect-snobs in their entirety, despite the way they invite us to.  Perhaps it is a lack of social skills. Perhaps it’s a power thing. Either way, boy is it awkward when I encounter me one of these.

When meeting these people in social situations I struggle. Not only because they embody a trait I absolutely despite more than anything else, but because they just make the whole scenario incredibly awkward. Who wants to talk to someone that’s going to put everyone down?  And if it’s an event where everyone knows each other and they somehow scored an invite, how can you maintain social face/ social cohesion on both sides? A.k.a., how can you COVER the tracks of their awkwardness?

You can’t.

And that is the sad fable of the intellectual snob. They are invariably awkward. And, ironically, the fact they are so fixated on academic intelligence almost colours them un-intelligent, for ignoring all the other kinds of intelligence out there. You might be a prodigy at music but crap at history. You might be the friendliest person on Earth but algebra reads as Russian to you. Doesn’t give that snobby-mc-snob a right to pull out some dusty volume on you and make you feel small.

But the thing I really can’t get my head around is that specifically for me, anyone who is receiving a tertiary education ( let alone at Melbourne, because a lot of people including myself worked really hard to get in, ) has automatically proven they are of a certain intellectual calibre to get in in the first place. So at uni, of all places, intellectual snobbery theoretically should be obsolete. Alas, uni seems to be their hang of choice.  Awesome.

Keep your cooties to yourself!

So the other night my house was full of underagers.

Before your mind jumps to the affronted side of the gutter, let me explain myself.

The right side is obviously the affronted side

I have a younger sibling at perfect teen-adolescent high school age. And she had a little soirée the other night, when I happened to be at home, trying to catch up on sleep for an epic few days of work ahead.

Boy, did it bring back memories.

You could pretty much smell the hormones in the air. Girls squealing at decibels I thought were actually impossible for humans to reproduce, boys shuffling, making their little jokes and producing the cruiser or two they stole from their older sister or, if they are really cool, a 6-pack someone else bought for them.

ZOMG it TOTZ made my tongue BLUUEEE

I knew they would all be at least a little intimidated by me, purely because I have a car and can buy alcohol legally. Also because when I speak the tone of my voice is at least three octaves lower than any of theirs.

Even though they were all squealing and ‘pumping’ up their funky beats and seemingly having a good time, I couldn’t help feel awkward for them. I felt like they were all trying too hard to have fun. And then I thought… maybe that’s what we were all like. Maybe throughout all those little ‘gatherings’ and backyard parties we all genuienly thought Cruisers were a ticket to cool-dom and hooking up ( or as it used to be called in my day, ‘Getting,’ ) was a carefully planned operation in which friends from both sides would lodge enquiries with each other before the actual event took place, if it even did at all.

Maybe I’m just older now and look at their young faces (that are yet to sprout hairs, in the boy’s case,) and can’t help but wonder what form of joy they get from this. Pretending they aren’t nervous next to each other, nervously making jokes, nervously sipping fairy floss cruisers, ( but not too fast- don’t want to vomm that up too quick,) nervously hypothesising about who might want to hook up with who but not actually having the vaguest idea what they would do should the situation eventuate.

Thank God puberty ends.

But I mean, I guess adolesence really is a good place to start. Socially, I mean. Not that you really get much of a choice whether you go through it or not,  but where better to get all your social awkwardness out and learn what NOT to do whilst everyone around you is covered in acne and (if they are lucky, ) bum fluff?

So maybe its the hope that they are on their way to a life of succesful social interactions via this awkward pit-stop that makes them enjoy these awkward little gatherings. Or maybe its that whole high-school-esque obsession with social power that provides enough distraction to overcome the awkward, ‘almost’ hormone exchanges.

Let’s hope that by next soirée enough awkward has left their systems so that their squeals don’t permeate my Tarantino session.

Share..? But seriously let’s not

I have chosen to embed a Creative Commons license on my blog. More specifically, an Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.5 Australia License.  

What that means is people can’t use my work for commercial uses, and when they copy it they have to use it in its original form.

But they can still use my ideas and my work and things like that… as long as they say it’s mine.

As much as I hate being selfish, on the internet with creative property, covering your tail is more of a survival technique if you want to keep your work linked to you. With this license, I have a direct control over how my work is distributed, which effectively gives me more authorial control as I’m producing, which reflects back on the quality of the content itself.

I see the license I chose as kind of fence-sitting.

Apparently I'm also a small child.

On the one hand, I absolutely hate the idea that creativity, expressionism and ideas can be commodified. Call me a hippy. But I think ideas should be property of the universe, maaaaan.

Got tofu?

Apparently Jefferson agrees with me in his conspiracy to keep ideas safe- however, as Garcelon explains, the point of Creative Commons is not to entirely oppose the idea of copyright; what is essentially and perpetually ‘free’  can only be so if that’s what we choose. Enter copyleft, the idea of giving people moderated permission to copy.

Concepts of creativity are essentially immaterial, and once they are put behind glass cabinets as untouchable relics they take on roles of material things, casting work ipso facto as property. By allowing others to use my work, theoretically my ideas are given reign to flow through the internet and encourage the nice idea of the internet as an open discussion space where everyone has equal access to everything so long as they are plugged in. (Unless you live in China and are particularly fond of google… awkward.)

On the other hand, for reasons I have mentioned before, ( specifcially in my last core post Buy My Blog,) I don’t think the internet is a rounded discussion space.

And on that same token, because of the sheer mass of people lining up to consume and share all this content, not everyone can get a turn with everything. Lawrence Lessig explains this in a lovely metaphor that makes this whole thing simple:

‘Stuff in the commons is not necessarily free. The streets can be closed; or you might be required to get a permit to hold a protest before city hall. The parks might ban people in the evening. Public benches get full.’ 

It’s true. Anyone is allowed to walk on the pavement. But if the pavement is full then some people are going to miss out.

Web 2.0 can’t truthfully call itself a ‘free culture’ vehicle, either- the amount of advertising, moderation, ownership, slogans and concepts that saturate our browser windows contradicts its concurrent encouragement (alliteration, anyone?) of user-generated content. Chat to Armin Medosch  and he’ll say the same thing.

The final flaw in this Hippy ‘Ideas for all, maaaaaan,’ notion is that with creative content, the idea essentially IS the product. It’s all ways of expressing ideas in a way unique to you, which gives it the title ‘creative’ in the first place. If other people are able to copy it then they can’t really call it their own creative content. Because it isn’t. And even if you give them permission to use it, it still entirely defeats the purpose of them being unique and original and CREATING these things in the first place.

Having said all that, I still chose to embed the license. In the end, nothing is perfect. The internet is not a perfectly equal discussion space where ideas and frolic from browser to browser untainted. Like I said- I’m fence sitting. I belive ideas should be free and shared but also am a realist and understand that the internet is not a wondrously utopian share platform free of commercial interest.

So I see this as the closest I can get to encouraging a free flow of ideas whilst protecting myself against the evil commerciality that works for The Man, maaaaan.

EuroTastic

If ever there was a talent contest that parallels a kath-and-kim style leisure suit, it is Eurovision. And let me tell you, it’s beautiful.

Eurovision is not like anything else I think you can see on TV. It’s brilliant serious-meets-cringe-worthiness leaves American Idol and Neighbours for dead. These people are MASTERS of awkward. So good, in fact, they market and sell awkwardness as the content of their show… and it’s like crack to us.

Every theatrically possible way to create awkwardness is covered, or has been at some point in Eurovision’s illustrious past. Most importantly, the awkward cringe-factor. Glitter. Sequins. Spandex. “Sex Appeal”/ attempts to get there. Poorly translated English lyrics diced into other languages. Shameless eye sex. Hairless men that you wouldn’t want to meet in an alleyway. And it’s all so magical.

Then, the awkward thought that this might maybe be taken seriously in some places.  And the joy of imagining the where and when’s of these scenarios.

Then, the wonderfully awkward guilty pleasure of watching ethnic stereotypes being met a.la Borat. A standout of the latter for me was the wonderful wonderful contestant from Serbia, Milan Stanković.

There are five plastic, cross-sectioned tubes at the back of the stage. In two there are women who are wearing stylized, cut-up-once-wedding dresses, doing some form of dance movement. Two others house identically tanned men in blue jump suits. Ready and raring for action.

Milan Emerges from the central tube.

In an electric blue, glittery and not-quite-spandex TAILED coat, covering a top-and-jeans combo in xerox white. There are acrobatics. There is lots of vertical jumping on the spot. And towards the end, the wedding dress ladies descend from their tubes to the front of the stage, turn around, lift their arms up Beyoncé-style, and I believe try very honourably to get bootylicious. My little sister watches this display noiselessly, her mouth slightly ajar in awe. She turns to me and utters; ‘Zorba-rap-fusion.’ What a beautiful phrase. 

For some reason I’m unable to embed the video but you can watch the glory for yourselves here.

The thought this is actually, physically happening somewhere in the world I live in just warms my heart in ways you can’t imagine.

The last main awkward-factor of Eurovision, and at times the sweetest, is the poorly translated English interjections in songs otherwise of national tongue. Aside from the occasional contestants who just reek of sex, but this year I’m yet to come across one.  And this year, a treat from Macedonia with their accompanying RAPPER.  Joy, joy, joy, joy. Pure, unadultered joy. And you can have some of it right here.

(Underneath this wondrous video there is a bit of a comment war about whether Macedonians are Greeks or Turks or something or other.. anyway it gets quite heated. And in this sense took my focus off the Macedonian rapping. That’s the kind of thing I was talking about in my last core post Buy My Blog.)

In a fair dinkum sense, Belgium was terrific and I think should have won. 

It’s even more awkward that when you talk about Eurovision contestants and they are actually good, you need to stress the fair dinkum part.

Fence Sitting- Feral or Funny?

I hope you all enjoyed the alliteration of that title. 

Swapping drunken stories is a cornerstone activity of uni students. Witnessing drunken happenings before they become stories is an activity even more celebrated. 

 

And they are usually met with raucous laughter, even though you know and understand that both Jenny vomming in a bush and vomit itself are disgusting. 

But you laugh anyway. 

Because it’s hilarious. But why? 

It isn’t only drunken tales that are ironically funny. Today I was told a story about a particularly unusual breakup, in which the girl called the guy into her workplace to ‘talk,’ (i.e. to dump him, I assumed,) which then somehow turned into him ‘having his way with her’ ( at her place of work,) which then somehow allowed him to create the ‘opportune moment’ whilst ‘having his way with her,’ to say the words required to terminate their relationship. 

 

That story is really not funny. They did the dirty at work, which is just plain feral, (I think in a change room or something, this detail was brushed over,) then the girl was rejected whilst busy experiencing (well, presumably,) an emotion far on the other end of the spectrum. Horrible. 

But when I heard it I laughed like a banshee. And I’m giggling reliving the moment when I first heard it right now. 

Think about it- it’s awkward for the person who did the stupid thing because that’s embarrassing, awkward for the people laughing because they are laughing at another’s pain, and even more awkward that these lolz are being generated from the subject matter themselves- airing out their awkward laundry for the sake of our lollage. 

(Yes, I just used the word’ lollage’. And yes, I recieve tertiary education.) 

I think it’s the raw absurdity of these awkward tales that makes people laugh. But they are absurd because humor, ( the ultimate social lubricant,) well, this brand of humor specifically is rooted ironically in awkwardness- the cryptonite of social cohesion. Hows that for a paradox? (If you want to go further with this chicken-or-the-egg game, that fact this paradox exists is also pretty awkward…) 

Well, I’d rather tell myself that at night then ‘we are all horrible people that laugh at the misery of others out of pure evil.’ 

Eh Eh Ehhh

Buy My Blog

By publishing things that come out of your mind (i.e. THOUGHTS) on your blog, you are blogging. By blogging, you are producing something. Producers create content that they want to sell. (i.e. get page views and be popular.) Since your content is effectively your thoughts, or some reflection of them, your product in a sense is you.  So by leaving nasty or antagonistic comments under your name, you’re doing so in reflection of your product.

Presenting your product in that nasty, bad light decreases sales.

I can’t imagine anyone would start a blog with the sole purpose of fostering debate for that reason. But I’m not going to say they want to completely avoid it on their own page, and pages on others.

A comments thread I thought I could look at is one in response to Andrew Bolt’s blog on the Herald Sun website.

 

Despite it being very true that blogs create communities of like-minded people, the ability to comment does not necessarily allow for free-flowing discussion between these parties.

Firstly, all the comments you receive on your page need to be MODERATED by you before they appear. And why would you approve a comment that makes you look stupid, or takes the focus away from your point, or even pushes an online comment war, again removing focus from your work itself?

All the comments published more or less agree with Mr. Bolt’s argument.

This makes sense because as well as being a blogger, he’s somewhat of a personality. So the product he tries to sell, he’s really trying to sell in a literal sense. So I think we can argue calling this comments thread a ‘discussion space’ is a tad self-indulgent.

However, all bloggers are individuals armed with free will, so I can’t really generalize about the intentions of bloggers collectively.  But let’s look at this from a logical perspective.  Well, from the perspective of my logic.

Being Mr. Andrew Bolt, I can also imagine he doesn’t really have time to get into direct arguments with the general public.

According to Terry Flew, blogs are vehicles of social capital, and due to the widely accessible discussion space created, this kind of participation reinvigorates the democratic public sphere.

To argue with someone, you first need to engage with what they are saying, i.e. CONSUME their product. I’d say this is what most bloggers hope of their work. So for that reason, certain debates may be welcome upon certain pages. And this may well invigorate blogs as discussion spaces.  But each blogger still wants to save face in order to push their own product.  The two impulses are kind of grating.

So, I don’t think the blogging world is a completely rounded discussion sphere.

I say this because when you enter the blogosphere you do so primarily as a producer. As you troll around, viewing and commenting, you do so under your username, and so everything you say links back to your page and subsequently how others come to relate to it. You want to preserve your online face so that people will like you and continue to read.

So by posting a response on your own blog, you’re really sitting the fence. It’s a half discussion space. You’re indirectly replying, avoiding conflict yet still putting face time in for the participation element of being a blogger.  And as Geert Lovink so says, ‘The chance that someone will reply is almost zero.’ Bingo. Discussion over.

But like I said before, my logic can’t generalize for bloggers in their entirety.

Myself, any rude or terrible comments that really make me look bad I wouldn’t publish. I see it as the equivalent of putting a sticker on a box of something at the supermarket that says THIS IS OFF DON’T BUY IT.

I would reply to a comment if it was exceptionally thought-provoking, clever, and BETTER then my own post. That way I can include myself in the brilliance someone else’s mind and even though the focus is temporarily shifted from my written monologues, I’m more likely to get more hits. I say this because I’m just an average blogger like about 408743854086443987540587 other average bloggers out there, and so if I’m frank with myself I’ve got to sway slightly to the ‘any-press-is-good-press’ side if I’ve got any hope out there.

I hope people don’t take this as a challenge and start bombarding me with comments about the meaning of life…awkward