Login to Twitter. Login to Facebook. What you see is a world that you’ve constructed. These are YOUR “Friends”, the people you’ve chosen to follow. Or at least the people you’ve been guilted into following. These people shape your experiences of social media. They speak about things that matter to you, either because you know them personally or because you like the way they think. They speak like you. Or, more accurately, you speak like them. Cuz even though you might think you’re speaking to your “audience,” your sense of norms is based on the content you read. So, really, you’re speaking to the people you follow, even though they might not be the ones who are actually listening. You aren’t speaking to your “audience” but to the people who you like to watch. Your sense of what people do with social media is highly dependent on what you consume, how you consume it, and why you’re there in the first place. So is mine. The world you live in online looks different than the world I live in. And it looks different than the world that an average teen lives in. And it looks different than the world Lady Gaga lives in. And it looks different than the world that people from different cultural backgrounds experience. Our worlds are different, even if the interface gives us the impression that they’re the same.
– Danah Boyd (via somethingchanged) (via notational) (via orphelinesauvage) Via L'ORPHELINE SAUVAGEAre we losing that sense of human connection?
Today we have all sorts of ways to keep contact with people that are in our lives both actively and passively that no longer require that sense of human touch. Email has gradually replaced letters sent via post. Instead of the 10-Year High School Reunion, now we have Facebook where people update what’s going on in their lives on a daily basis –from what they ate for breakfast to what their kid threw up to whether or not they’re 1)Single, 2)Married, or 3)Looking for Random Play. You may or may not want to know what the Prom Queen is doing with her life, but she can still look you up and request to be your friend now –even if she hated you back when you were 17. Your LinkedIn profile with its list of “Connections” somehow socially dictates whether you have been successful in business or not and sometimes it acts only as an online black book for all of your professional contacts. LinkedIn is essentially your Rolodex, but online and on steroids.
Notes passed around class were replaced with text messaging and now, text messaging is being replaced by Twitter, the ever-expanding ecosystem of Twitter, and the world of mobile device apps such as Foursquare, where you can let the whole world know how many times you’ve been to the Pink Elephant in NY, NY and if you’re there right now. Even voicemail, which replaced physical answering machines what seems to be a million years ago, has been edged out via software programs such as Google Voice & Phonetag –whereby your voicemail is transcribed and sent to your email. With the increase in communication methods, the simplification of communication that has birthed unnecessary, overcommunication in order to somehow make evident how small the world is becoming, to bridge the gap in communities and cultures, to decrease the digital divide that once cloaked parts of the world in darkness, I can’t help but wonder if we’ve lost sight of the whole pointed of being “connected”. If we merely spend all of our time in front of screens –whether they be our computer screens or mobile device screens- is that “I’m in like with you” lost in translation? If the only evidence of our existence is numbers and code lost in The Cloud, do we really exist at all?
Is it necessary to document every last minute of our lives? Do we really need any more proof of living that our own experience of it?
For this new generation born in the flood of new media and the change that is crushing old boundaries everyday, it should be their one mission to not only remain connected, but to do so in manners that are genuine, sincere, and meaningful. Productivity hacks and tools all have their place, but when bigger/faster/stronger/cheaper sacrifices the soul of any activity they are nothing short of modes for addiction… Of course, who’s to say that sending out mass holiday cards via Twitter or whatever platform is available in twenty years won’t be as fulfilling?
Given what we have today, the Internet could easily become Invisible High School, with a modicum of educational material in an ocean of narcissism and social obsessions. We could, however, also use it as an Invisible College, the communicative backbone of real intellectual and civic change, but to do this will require more than technology. It will require that we adopt norms of open sharing and participation, fit to a world where publishing has become the new literacy.
– Clay ShirkyOn and on we go as the world turns, as the world burns.
Come from Mount Zion and stay out of the whirlwind.
Move to the music, ‘cause the world don’t sit still.
In silence, we climb through blindness.
I opened up iTunes this morning and noticed a new list under Genius -Genius Mixes. What did I find, but a copycat design taken from We Are Hunted. Now, I know that you can buy tracks via iTunes from WAH, so one can’t be sure if this is flattery or just laziness or perhaps partnership.
Releasing Elliott Smith
For all the Elliott Smith fans, the Kill Rock Stars record label announced today the re-release of Smith’s first solo album and is giving away an mp3 of a previously unreleased single from 1997. See below for all the goodies.
“Kill Rock Stars is very excited to announce that on April 6th, 2010 we will be adding Elliott Smith’s Roman Candle and From a Basement on the Hill records to our catalog. Roman Candle is Elliott Smith’s first solo album and was originally released on Portland’s Cavity Search Records in 1994. Roman Candle has been remastered for the re-release by Larry Crane, editor of Tape Op Magazine and archivist for Elliott’s family.
We will also be releasing Roman Candle on vinyl for the first time in the U.S.
With the addition of these two records Kill Rock Stars is now the home for all of Elliott Smith’s independent releases: Roman Candle, Elliott Smith, Either/Or, From a Basement on the Hill, and New Moon.
To celebrate the addition of these amazing records we are giving away a free, previously unreleased song entitled “Cecilia/Amanda”. It was recorded at Jackpot! Recording Studio in 1997 by Larry Crane. An earlier version of this song was initially written and recorded by Elliott’s high school band, Stranger Than Fiction, and was known as “Time is Ours Now”. “Cecilia/Amanda” is a reworking of that song with almost completely different lyrics.”
Hammock - millionyoung
Perfect for the studio this afternoon.
About Me
Media and technology fanatic by trade. Filmmaker, writer, and traveler by heart. I'm currently working on my first novel and write about everything else here.
Email me: salamander@salchrist.com
Sal Christ
