In Soviet Russia, Blog Updates You!

2006-12-10T17:18:00.000-05:00

With reguards to the Lanier article, I agree that we are approaching a "hive mind" with sites like Wikipedia and aggregators, but I would go further. Lanier mentions that "You can always tell at least a little about the character of the person who made a Myspace page." I would go so far as to suggest that Myspace is almost as hive minded as Wikipedia, though more subversively so. So many MySpace pages are pastiches of previous pages that it's often difficult for one to stand out as being original. As we discussed in class, one of the reasons people have Myspace is to express themselves, and if their essence, their "space," if you will, is comprised of media from someone else, how can they claim to be individuals? (Related note: I deleted my myspace yesterday)

Am I saying that everyone on MySpace is a mindless drone? While in light of the above parenthetical comment I'd like to say a firm "yes," I can't really say that. But consider the typical MySpace page (typical, not all):

1) A song by someone else. A usually popular band singing a song that the user identifies with. How many other spaces have this song? Probably a lot. How is the song obtained? Through a licensing agreement with the artist that allows their work to be promoted to consumers via free advertising.

2) Artwork, usually from another website, film, magazine, etc. I can't tell you how many MySpaces have the same Dolce and Gabana ad as their backgrounds. What does it say about the individual who identifies with a product or an advertisement enough to promote that for free?

3) A layout designed by someone else. There are a whole mess o' fun layouts that EVERYONE uses. They catch the eye, and the user wants his/her space to also catch the eye.

4) "Chain" comments. These are those comments that sound like chain letters written in horrible, raped English; the ones that say someone is sexy, and if they want to stay sexy, they have to pass along the comment to 10 other people. Such comments spread like viruses, and put their recipients in a hive minded like scenario, where the virus must be spread.

There are other factors as well, but you get the idea. Rather than making someone feel more individual, I believe MySpace makes people feel more the same. Such is the problem with networking sites, though; in order to be connected to more people, you have to surrender a bit of yourself.

2006-11-15T16:43:00.000-05:00

So my friend sent me this article about US soldiers raping a 14 year old Iraqi girl and killing her family. I think this is one of the most despicable things I've ever heard of, and a gruesome reminder of how terrible this war is. Fox News, on the other hand, thinks it ranks somewhere between a story about US Airways making a bid for Delta and the CEO of McDonald's announcing that healthier french fries are on the way. But it's not just Fox News. It's CNN too. Yes, the only place of the five news sites I check out (two of the others being the Washington Post and New York Times sites), only the BBC has this as its top story. THIS is News, people. I don't give a damn about the Senate clashing with Abizaid, or about Lott's election to minority whip. I care about the fact that our soldiers raped a fourteen year old girl and murdered her and her family. Say it out loud. Hear it. Listen to the inevitable pause between "soldiers" and "raped," as though your tongue is questioning what your brain is telling it. This story effects us more than either of the above mentioned top stories. Those stories are about theories, conjectures, words. This story is about actions. This story tells of how brutal the war is, and how talking about it does nothing. This story tells us that it must end, before more people die or worse, are reduced to beasts that rape and murder. Tell everyone you know about this. Right now, people across the globe get their news from the BBC won't know about Trent Lott or Abizad. They'll know that our soldiers committed acts worse than those they were put there to stop.

But somewhere, in the Midwest, the word "fries" will leap out on the Fox News site, and stubby fingers will move a mouse right past the word "rape."

2006-11-05T14:46:00.000-05:00

Concerning the Wal-Mart story, I can't believe people were surprised that bloggers covering a Wal-Mart road trip were working for Wal-Mart. I mean, it seems like blogging culture would be so against the very idea of a pro Wal-Mart anything that an entire blog devoted to such a notion would have to be paid for by the company.

In other news, if we're talking about humor, I wanted to plug My Dad's Blog, which is a collection of human interest stories collected by Reuters. Yes, this is his actual job. I think blogging and the internet in general have really shaped the world of humor in that not only is there now an outlet for the immediate telling of topical jokes, there's an entire subculture that's grown up online. Something Awful, for instance, is a place for a simply indescribable group of humorists to convene. The jokes and material on the site perpetuates jokes and references that, for many, are obsolete or incomprehensible. Yet for the few that appreciate them, there's a place to find such humor. More on this later.

2006-11-02T18:12:00.000-05:00

This is the best summation of why Bush is a bad president. Just read it.

2006-10-22T15:40:00.000-04:00

Because Colin uses the Deadwood analogy almost every class, I’ve started thinking of blogging in terms of the show, which is actually a show I really like. I don’t believe Colin has actually seen much of the show, but hopefully he will after reading the following, which connects Deadwood characters to their blogsphere counterparts.

Seth Bullock- Bullock, a former U.S. marshall, heads to Deadwood to start a hardware store with his partner Sol Starr. Bullock leaves his wife and stepson as well as the safety and power of his old life to attempt a new venture on the frontier. Due to the lawlessness of Deadwood, Bullock soon discovers that his old job means nothing out in South Dakota, and he is torn between his desire for order and his desire to begin anew. In the world of blogging, Bullock represents those to begin blogs to jump on the bandwagon of a burgeoning world where their old identities mean little. Yet these identities are still reflected in their blogs, and while they may change the way in which they express themselves, the basic expression is still the same. Robot Wisdom, for example, in Colin’s own words, “attempt to make order out of web chaos.” Such is Bullock’s role on Deadwood.

Al Swearengen- The foul mouthed owner of the Gem Saloon is Deadwood’s biggest mover and shaker. What makes Swearengen important is the fact that in a land where there is no established law, a man with no morals is the town’s unofficial leader. He manipulates the other occupants of Deadwood to get what he wants, even if blood must be shed to attain those goals. In blogging, Swearengen is embodied in the first bloggers, who laid down their own rules that subsequent bloggers were obliged to follow. Swearengen also resembles a blog aggregator—collecting information that will help him, and being all the more powerful for possessing all this knowledge.

E.B. Farnum- Farnum, the obsequies and duplicitous owner of a hotel in Deadwood, is essentially Swearengen’s lackey. He is more than willing to betray his guests and acquaintances if it means an advancement for himself. The way Farnum takes information from people and brings it to Swearengen reflects the spread of memes in blogs. If Swearengen is an aggregator, Farnum is that blogger who is thrilled to be linked to by the bigger blog. News spreads quickly around Deadwood thanks to Farnum, in the same manner a piece of information gets passed around from a particularly reliable blog.

Alma Garrett- “The Widow Garrett” arrived in Deadwood with her husband, who was murdered for the deeds to his gold claim. Alone and far from home, Alma nevertheless is able to start a new and successful life for herself, and becomes a celebrity around town due to her ability to succeed with the gold claim even in the face of Swearengen’s interests. In blogging, Alma is the celebrity blogger—that person who, until they started writing out their thoughts and opinions, was nothing. Alma’s strong will and support from others give her the fame she possesses in Deadwood by the end of the first season. By the same token, bloggers like Coffee Rhetoric use their innate talents and support from other bloggers to become overnight celebrities.

There are other connections (like Trixie the whore relating to internet whores, or the Reverend Smith representing the inability of religion to relate to a lawless land), but the above are the strongest. Watch Deadwood. See for yourself. You won’t regret it.

2006-10-15T13:24:00.000-04:00

So I just got out of an incredibly long radio station meeting that reminded me of Dante's Purgatory. Some goddamn hippie actually made it take longer by complaining that the meeting weren't "fun" any more. MAYBE IT'S BECAUSE PEOPLE LIKE YOU BRING UP RIDICULOUS POINTS LIKE THAT AND MAKE US WAIT EVEN LONGER UNTIL WE'RE BANGING OUR HEADS AGAINST THE WALL WONDERING WHY GOD HAS FORSAKEN US.

Noah's started a pretty fun Lost Appreciation Blog (don't click if you don't want the first two episodes of season 3 spoiled) that I thought people should look at. I want to talk about TV for a little bit. The fall season is in full swing, and I think it's about time to make some judg ment calls about the shows I've seen.

Heroes- It's a decent enough show, and I'm willing to stick with it for a while. Comic books have never really been my thing, so I wasn't as psyched about this show as everyone else. Also, the characters are either really interesting or really cliched. Hiro? Interesting. Isaac? Not. (slight tangent regarding Isaac- do TV writers just give characters heroin problems when they can't think of another arc? See: Charlie, Lost Jack Bauer, 24) The premise is pretty original, and I think this works the best of the Lost clones that have sprung up in the last year.

The Nine First off, I've seen two episodes of ths show and still have very little idea of who they're counting as the titular nine. Like, come on, ABC. Don't name a show after the number of people involved if it's impossible to figure out who, out of like 12 characters they've thrown at us, are the nine. They're also guilty of the false build up twist, wherein it is believed that a "big twist" is coming, only to reveal that the twist is really about as shocking as the end credits. This show gets one more episode to start being interesting, before I start forgetting its actual title and just refer to it as "the three hours of my life i wasted becoming invested in characters who weren't even in the nine."

Vanished This show sucks. Plain and simple. I don't know why I watched more than 2 episodes of it. Its one redeeming feature? They killed off the main character in episode 6. Ballsy, Vanished. Ballsy.

Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip- If you don't like Aaron Sorkin, you're pretty much proving the points he's made in The West Wing, Sports Night, and Studio 60: Americans are stupid. This show, in a national poll of TV critics about which new fall show was the best, received a whopping 60% of the votes. Why? It's clever, it's funny, and the cast is unbeatable. Its only problem is that the actual show within the show has yet to generate a single laugh. It's a travesty that this show may well be cancelled soon because nobody's watching it.

Dexter- A show about a serial killer who kills serial killers. He's also a forensics investigator. I mean, nuff said. Season pass, no questions asked.

And then of course, there are the old faves Lost and Veronica Mars. I think VM has really matured as a show, and I can already tell that this season may surpass even the genius of Season 1. Ok, Season 2 was good, but it had some flaws. But the new "multi-arc" idea, with there being 3 consecutive major mysteries rather than one stretching over the season sounds like it'll be great. And as much as I love Lost, I'm starting to feel like a battered housewife. It's the show that just keeps coming home drunk and slapping me, but I have to stay with it. To make another metaphor, Lost is like that kid in elementary school who'd give book reports on books he'd only read the back cover of. You know, the kid who'd just stand there and ask a whole bunch of open ended questions about the book ("But why do Huck and Jim use the raft? How do they escape their predicaments?") and, just when you thought he'd answer them, he'd sit down. Lost is kind of like that. So I'd like to end with an open letter to the show.

Dear Lost,

Stop teasing, and explain something about that goddamn island.

Love,
Chris

PS. I smelled the whiskey on your breath. I don't like it when you drink...

2006-10-04T01:01:00.000-04:00

Top Ten Lost Predictions for tomorrow.

By me.

10. The sexual tension will finally be broken, and Kate will finally hook up with Sun.
9. Hurley will get with Libby's corpse.
8. A new black character will enter the picture to replace Michael and maintain racial equilibrium.
7. The Dharma Initiative will be an offshoot of Ben & Jerry's. Swan Station Swirl and Creepy Polar Berry will be the top new flavors when they open their first franchise on the island.
6. Jack will glare off into the distance.
5. Charlie will tremble and sound English.
4. Sawyer will kick up his nicknames, whipping out "edgier" ones like "Chinky," "Bitch," and "Big Fucking Hispanic loserass."
3. Locke was never crippled. He was just faking for a law suit.
2. The mysterious "passenger in the can" will be revealed.
1. OH MY GOD! THE ISLAND IS MADE OF TAFFY!

2006-09-25T22:38:00.000-04:00

Aaron Sorkin's Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip just had a really funny monologue about blogs, and about how one blogger criticizing the "show within the show" is probably "sitting at home with a freezer full of Jenny Craig and five cats."

Just thought I'd throw that out there.

Also, this show is turning me on it's so good. Aaron Sorkin must be back on drugs.

2006-09-25T21:50:00.000-04:00

I miss the DC Metro.

Ding dong

Doors closing.

2006-09-25T17:06:00.000-04:00

So as much as I wanted to post a lot more this week, technology has prevented me from doing so. After an unfortunate incident earlier this week in which someone spilled beer on my computer, I was left sans laptop. But now I have Danika's old hp to last me until Christmas, when I can again revel in the awesome power of Macs. And of course, as memes tell us, Macs are easier to use and much better looking. Is that a meme? I guess the way I see memes are just very basic cultural concepts, like "stealing is bad" or "Where's the beef" that get passed along. Not to over analogize, what with memes depending on that gene analogy to exist at all, but I sort of see them as trading cards. You spend your whole life sharing them and collecting them, and at the end you pass them on to the next generation. But that generation might not necessarily want them, and may throw them out or try to hawk them on ebay...or something. Basically, memes freak me out because they mean that every complex idea is at heart composed of some basic factoid or notion. I'd be interested to see the "memetic make up" of something- say a speech, a movie, or a novel- to look at how memes combine and so on. And now for something completely different, that is clearly made up of memes.

2006-09-18T17:12:00.000-04:00

So, as put off as I was by the nutmeg grater's header of a pentegram with purple roses, I actually kind of enjoyed reading through her thoughts. After a while, I began to see her blog as a personalized newsfeed that focused on several issues:

1) How evilJoe Lieberman is (no real argument there)
2) How great Ned Lamont is
3) How much the war sucks
4) Third World Relief efforts
5) Bad spinach

Same with Ravings of a semi-sane madwoman (whose title sort of pisses me off- it's like saying "writings of a semiclothed nudist'), only with slight variations and a bit more focus on artistic food.

Now, here's what surprised me. Granted, while many of the issues above are important to me, most of them are readily accessed at CNN or Reuters or another site like that. Reading Jason Kottke's blog, I was surprised to see a number of rather obscure entertainment stories, including one about Season 5 of HBO's The Wire, which I hadn't known had been picked up for another season. While it might sound petty to focus on this feature rather than one of the human rights stories in Rose is Rose's or the Nutmeg Grater's blogs, the uses of blogs actually made a lot more sense when I saw a series of articles on things that I follow put together. While I think Jason Kottke is crazy for giving Serenity only 2.5 stars, it's clear his blog is one to watch for a variety of stories that I might not otherwise notice. Thus, the idea of a personalized news feed, as mentioned above. Jason Kottke isn't creating a blog for me, but because many of his interests sync up with mine, I will continue to check out his blog. It's like having your news served to you at a bar; the bartender makes conversation and commentary, and that's great, but ultimately, you're getting the drink you want. Does that make sense? Am I crazy?