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...

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.

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

Design is Cool

Design and appearance are the most potent cause and effect partnership since cheese and tomato found a jaffle machine.

mmmmmmmmmmmmmm

When I typed anti-design into Google, hoping for an easy definition to help me get my head around the meat of this post, this is what I got.

It’s a piece by Norwegian design agency Anti.  In a lot of ways you could say it is anti-design… traditional hierarchy, scale and focus of the piece are definitely distorted, as well as the function of owls digressing from their role in the eco-system. But let’s not dissect art; we’ll be here all day.

Anyway.

How anything is designed CREATES its appearance, which is the means by which it is distinguished, judged, and remembered.

The way things are designed (and thus the way they appear,) is paramount to the way we consume and categorize them, and feeds directly into how popular they are.

So that means on the Web, the way you design your page is not only a distinctive marker of yourself and your aesthetic preferences, but it categorizes your page in consumers’ minds, ( in turn shaped by trends and perceptions of what is ‘cool,’ and what isn’t,) and effectively determines how many hits you get.

Since you always want to get as many hits as possible, you want to design your page in accordance with these ‘cool’ criteria. Apparently, the way to make your page appear ‘cool’ is to be minimalistic.

Webpages that ‘suck’ are ones that are too busy, say Flanders and Willis. Busy with background images, mixed fonts, graphics, (i.e. Java, Javascript) all just suck. And they suck because they ignore both the ‘sans serif and white space minimalism.’

So minimalism= cool. If you design your page in accordance with this style, you and your page are marked as cool. You know the rules. You’re up with it. You’re not a web amateur.

But then there’s a problem. If everyone’s cool, and everyone’s minimalistic, then won’t cool become the norm? How will this help me sell my site? The answer, O Hallowed Bloggers, is anti-design.

Anti-design is a movement started in 1960s Italy, in response to ideas of commercially (i.e. conventional, i.e. what is cool) ‘good design.’ Playing with design elements and principles such as scale, tone, form, colour, balance, hierarchy etc., often the featured objects’ ‘fundamental value’ is undermined. These are Alan Liu’s Rules of Cool.

So by using principles of anti-design, you’re giving minimalism your own spin, helping your page stand out from the crowd. Marking your own identity as a producer by showcasing your aesthetic preferences, marking yourself as familiar with conventions of web design and what is required to make it stand out/ get hits, and thus not marking yourself as an amateur.

My niche, social commentary, I don’t feel has a specific design style that is really consistent. I think the individuality of the blogger’s voice is more important, and depending on their tone/ design constraints they might experience due to their hosting site etc, they might add personalized elements like widgets and custom headers.

I chose my theme based on the easy symmetry and contrast it provides. I figure maximum contrast via black on white gives the best readability.  Again, I went for minimalism- its cool so that makes it user-friendly on that fundamental level. To personalize my blog I added the page ‘Who Am I?’ in which I feature a picture that stylistically (and conveniently,) addresses anti-design style.  Also my choice of widgets and a custom header conveys a sense of my individuality.

So my goal is to first be marked as a blogger who knows about the rules of design-cool, and therefore is not a web amateur, who is also an individual and therefore whose written voice is interesting and unique and just makes you want to read everything I’ve ever written. Plus you guys get to know me a little. But I mean don’t get too excited, we’re not facebook friends just yet.

Workplace Banter

 

Being a uni student, typically you have a crap part-time job. Crap in the sense that you need zero qualifications, and don’t get paid a crazy amount. This is all part and parcel of the ‘poor student’ life, and so all you can really do is make friends with the people you work with to make the hours of your shift pass faster.

Now I consider myself a little bit lucky. I actually like my part-time job. I work in a cafe, and get along pretty well with everyone I work with. Since shifts are so long, (9.5 hours,) and we have only two people on at a time, a lot of conversation flies back and forth in a day. Thankfully, this is one of my stronger points. (Talking a lot, that is. SURPRISE! )

So it was just a normal day. I’m flipping eggs and taking orders. We’re not particularly busy, and my colleague is chatting to me about something or other. I can’t remember exactly what we were talking about, but he says,

‘You’d make a really good lesbian.’

Sorry… what?

Now I wasn’t offended in the least by this. Probably because this co-worker and I know each other fairly well, and also because I don’t think being called a lesbian is offensive. It’s the reasoning why he thinks so that hooks me. So I press on.

‘What makes you say that?’ He stops and earnestly thinks.
‘I don’t really know… I can’t explain it. I just think you would be,’ his eyes widen in horror as he considers how this may be read. ‘Not in a… GROSS, or anything way, like not that I’d….’ I can see what he means and re-assure him I’m not offended. Still curious, I bring up the subject with my neighbour that night.  To my surprise, he says he understands my colleague’s reasoning. At least, he tries to.

‘It’s hard to explain… it’s like… I don’t know it’s like… I don’t know… I mean like… well I guess… you’re kind of…like a boy… a bit…’

 I can see he’s struggling to explain what he means without sounding offensive. Again, I re-assure him. It’s no secret I’m a bit of a boy sometimes.

My confusion rests in my friends’ lack of ability to explain what they mean. Obviously there is some kind of lesbian stereotype that matches some kind of characteristic they also attribute to me, but can’t explain. I’m a little taken aback that their minds so automatically jump to judgement via stereotype. But hey, now we’re bordering thesis territory, so we’ll leave that there.

Although I wasn’t offended by what was said, I’d still say it was little awkward. Both my friends faltered self-consciously when I asked them to explain what they meant, and I think both realized they were playing straight into a stereotype they had never thought to question or explore properly. 

It’s awkward on that level but also an awkward question of what is ok to ask people about themselves. Slash, what it’s ok to comment on. But for me, it’s also kind of awkward because when I look at the scenario externally, I feel it should have been MORE awkward, if that makes sense. Like it should have struck me as stranger such stereotypes are so ingrained, and I should have been at least a little affronted at such a comment on my sexuality. But I wasn’t. And whatever kind of reflection that is of myself/society/media/whateveryouwishtoinsert I don’t really know. Which is also kind of awkward.

Niche me.

When interactive internet spaces i.e. user generated content creation sites… like YouTube, MySpace, Facebook, etc graced our screens, internet users evolved.

This new generation of users, (‘Generation C’ as PR industry watchdog Trendwatching called them,) have the skills, knowledge and enthusiasm to engage with user-generated spaces and cross the line between consumer and producer, so says Dr. Axel Bruns. Now ‘prosumers,’ ( PRO ducer + con SUMER ) the power to Create Content, ( Gen ‘C’)  i.e. produce is readily, if not instantaneously, accessible. So logically, with more and more producers out there, there’s going to be more and more products in the media marketplace.

With the internet marketplace approaching infinite size, the popularity of each product is similarly going to approach zero. Welcome to the Long Tail.

When it comes to blogging, we’re talking about the ultimate user-producer dichotomy. The whole idea behind blogging is that anyone, anywhere, with internet connection and literacy skills can become a publisher. And to blog, you must.

So the more blogs that are out there, the further we travel down the long tail.

With a virtually infinite choice of products, a demand for niche markets is created. How can we possibly make consumption decisions otherwise in such a gigantic marketplace? So niche blogging, in the era of the long tail, is positively essential if you’re hoping people will notice your blog. Appealing to smaller markets with more specific interests means you can cater for their demands more accurately, and subsequently the people in that group are more likely to ‘consume’ your blog. But because there are so many niches, each separate niche group becomes smaller as consumer demands are able to become more specific. Again, as number of products approaches infinity, popularity of each approaches zero.

Speaking of niches, let’s talk about mine. I’m a producer after all, and I want people to read my blog. So how am I going to make it stand out? The problem is that nearly everything has already been done so being unique is near impossible.

So I’m going to write about life and the awkwardness embedded in it. But not in a FML kind of way where I throw anecdotes at you and collect your laughter in my self-esteem vault. I’m going to DISCUSS awkwardness, and awkward things, in the sarcastic/honest/ cynical voice that so rings from my inner monologue. It’ll be a fun ( at times,)  little social commentary, if you will. Plus some media jibber jabber… this is the internet after all.

Two blogs that share my niche with me: (or rather, I share with them, I’m new,)

– Portage Digital Media

The thing about this blog is that it’s very structured. There are heaps of categories you can choose from and are offered specific social commentary on whichever you pick.  Although we share the same niche this voice is alot more intellectual then I can imagine mine being, and looks at society a little more critically.  Even though the niche we co-inhabit is social commentary, our written voices still differ. Perhaps we both represent niches within our niche?

–Dino Whore

Now I’d still call this a social commentary blog, but at the other end of the spectrum, which is why I wanted to profile it. These two blogs I’m profiling could not be more different in style, but both still offer social commentary. On different topics, yes. But under the same genre. Although this blogger doesn’t use proper English and this is obviously a bit of fun, I don’t feel that makes it any less relevant to the genre.