Capitalism is totally not cool atm, especially amongst educated subgroups. It seems a bit silly in Aoteroa/New Zealand to get all grumps about it and "hate on" WalMart or something BUT if you poke someone enough (within the right demographics - liberal minded educated bumpkins) you will probably receive some spiel about small businesses, branding and selling out and America will definitely pop up too.
Because this is a blog, and you have sought me out, essentially poking with me your mouse I'm gonna give you one of these rants but instead of listening (reading) I hope you will explore with me, as I begin to explore new technologies and discover how and why capitalism totally blows and what is the issue that causes such resentment towards people making paper.
I'm entering this blind, hopefully by the end of this blog I'll look back with full 20/20 hindsight and be able to see an abundance of ignorance and countless generalizations about the state of the world etc etc...blah blah blah... because as I said this a quest and I want to learn. My aim is to return a warrior hobbit like at the end of LOTR (the book dumby) and look at the shire folk with disdain because they haven't gone anywhere, let alone to Mount Doom and in turn saving the whole known world.
I'm packing my bags and heading off on my o.e...of the mind.
Fitting then I want to explore identity, because that is what is I find most striking about this paper Techno culture and New Media, is how identity can be created, expressed and reinforced by new technologies and various medias.
Im sitting here now, thinking about it and this goes deep man deep - and what I keep coming back to is money. Nothing is hard anymore with the internet. We know that, the internet is ours, we are the computer chair generation, the generation that watches whole seasons of Gossip Girl in bed on their laptops (guilty!), the ones who download recklessly getting Trojans on their home p.cs and crying next to the computer as their dad tries to fix the the mess we created (guilty!) we are the ones who blog, we are the ones who search and discover and find what we like and return again and again untill we become our hobbies, our likes, consequently creating markets and telling those we hate (fat cats) exactly what we want.
My Girlfirend (sorry ladies and bros) only has Freeview, which is all good go kiwiana and stuff, but that means my watching options are severely limited at her house, she was at work and I'd already watched like the whole new season of Americas Next Top Model (im obsessed with Tyra) so I got to flicking. I stumbled upon a media program and that has since been my inspiration for this topic of inquiry. Sorry no clips, but what was discussed was the thing we all need to remember, the internet is a business and we are the customers, things designed for our use despite how friendly and personal they are, are there to make money.
Why is this troubling? Because to me it defies the intuitions that things like Facebook have established, Facebook is for me and my friends, yet, some person far far away is exploiting our trust and making money of our discussions, our interests and opinions.
Not to long back Facebook renovated the whole approach to security, and it was tricky, the new options all seemed misleading and a lot of people changed their security options under the guise that their pages would be more secure than ever, however, this was not the case and many found that a lot of their information could now be viewed by strangers.
We have to ask why this changed occurred? I feel that it did so more personal information could be accessed by companies so that they can monitor and gather information about say, youth trends, whats hot and whats not, whose in and whose out. All of this is done to make popular commodity culture in the generalist sense more successful and appealing to the masses. As trends develops sites like Facebook give those who want it access to information to keep track of what we like. By using social networking sites we are creating a thick pool of information that can be monitored by companies so we can be sold, in some sense our own identities more successfully.
Something is wrong, I don't know what it is or why I have a problem with this...am I even right? who am I? Should I abandon technology, live like they do in Tomorrow When the War Began, except I'll be fighting things I kinda like using in the first place? Why do I have a problem with these new technologies making money off of us? Am I just whinging? Should I deal with it? Accept my fate and give in or should I...........
Because this is a blog, and you have sought me out, essentially poking with me your mouse I'm gonna give you one of these rants but instead of listening (reading) I hope you will explore with me, as I begin to explore new technologies and discover how and why capitalism totally blows and what is the issue that causes such resentment towards people making paper.
I'm entering this blind, hopefully by the end of this blog I'll look back with full 20/20 hindsight and be able to see an abundance of ignorance and countless generalizations about the state of the world etc etc...blah blah blah... because as I said this a quest and I want to learn. My aim is to return a warrior hobbit like at the end of LOTR (the book dumby) and look at the shire folk with disdain because they haven't gone anywhere, let alone to Mount Doom and in turn saving the whole known world.
I'm packing my bags and heading off on my o.e...of the mind.
Fitting then I want to explore identity, because that is what is I find most striking about this paper Techno culture and New Media, is how identity can be created, expressed and reinforced by new technologies and various medias.
Im sitting here now, thinking about it and this goes deep man deep - and what I keep coming back to is money. Nothing is hard anymore with the internet. We know that, the internet is ours, we are the computer chair generation, the generation that watches whole seasons of Gossip Girl in bed on their laptops (guilty!), the ones who download recklessly getting Trojans on their home p.cs and crying next to the computer as their dad tries to fix the the mess we created (guilty!) we are the ones who blog, we are the ones who search and discover and find what we like and return again and again untill we become our hobbies, our likes, consequently creating markets and telling those we hate (fat cats) exactly what we want.
My Girlfirend (sorry ladies and bros) only has Freeview, which is all good go kiwiana and stuff, but that means my watching options are severely limited at her house, she was at work and I'd already watched like the whole new season of Americas Next Top Model (im obsessed with Tyra) so I got to flicking. I stumbled upon a media program and that has since been my inspiration for this topic of inquiry. Sorry no clips, but what was discussed was the thing we all need to remember, the internet is a business and we are the customers, things designed for our use despite how friendly and personal they are, are there to make money.
Why is this troubling? Because to me it defies the intuitions that things like Facebook have established, Facebook is for me and my friends, yet, some person far far away is exploiting our trust and making money of our discussions, our interests and opinions.
Not to long back Facebook renovated the whole approach to security, and it was tricky, the new options all seemed misleading and a lot of people changed their security options under the guise that their pages would be more secure than ever, however, this was not the case and many found that a lot of their information could now be viewed by strangers.
We have to ask why this changed occurred? I feel that it did so more personal information could be accessed by companies so that they can monitor and gather information about say, youth trends, whats hot and whats not, whose in and whose out. All of this is done to make popular commodity culture in the generalist sense more successful and appealing to the masses. As trends develops sites like Facebook give those who want it access to information to keep track of what we like. By using social networking sites we are creating a thick pool of information that can be monitored by companies so we can be sold, in some sense our own identities more successfully.
Something is wrong, I don't know what it is or why I have a problem with this...am I even right? who am I? Should I abandon technology, live like they do in Tomorrow When the War Began, except I'll be fighting things I kinda like using in the first place? Why do I have a problem with these new technologies making money off of us? Am I just whinging? Should I deal with it? Accept my fate and give in or should I...........
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.