Twitter: 2009's "Must Have" Item... (Are you serious?)

Twittering celebrities have been all the buzz lately, rumors that John Mayer’s incessant tweeting caused his break up with Jennifer Aniston and Seth Rogen’s Twitter impersonator have been popping up all over the news.

While Twitter may be the the new "must have" item these days, I'm having a hard time jumping on board.

1. I really don’t think my life is interesting enough for me to feel like a statement is worth making on a minute- by- minute basis.

2. I don’t want people to know what I’m thinking throughout the day, providing them with a falsified façade of who they think I might be.

3. I don’t have time to update my status on a regular basis and I don’t want people interpreting me as someone with no life, the exact judgments that I place on people who update their Facebook statuses way too much. It’s true that I’m on there enough to see them changing their statuses; I just don’t want anyone to know that.

4. I’m apprehensive to start tweeting because I’m not willing to allow myself to become addicted to another program; email, Facebook and MSN waste enough of my time.

The idea of the twittering celebrities is another movement that allows people to feel that much closer to their favorite celebrities as it is based on impulsive (no publicist filtering), minute- by- minute updates assumed to be posted directly by celebrities, unlike celebrity web pages and E! Daily interviews that are all prepared by their clan of publicists and marketers.

While flipping through channels the other day, I saw Seth Rogen (Superbad) on Regis and Kelly talking about his Twitter impersonator who acts like his online Fan Club president. The first thing that came to mind after hearing him joke about it was the fragility and lack of transparency with technologies like Twitter; anyone can be who they want to be and play whatever role they choose. We as consumers, must rely on our own judgments of people, judgments that we cannot accurately formulate with celebrities.

New technologies are closing the gap between celebrities and citizens. Blogging and YouTube especially, make it simple for citizens to taste fame, while celebrities have the chance to live an anonymous life.

Caught by the Mystical Facebook Referencer

It has been mentioned in the news several times in the past year, this idea of Facebook being used as a reference by employers. While reading through the blogs of fellow students who discussed the topic, I must say that I was on the same page. How could an employer really ever access my information without being a friend?

Well, that all changed when the theory was unexpectedly tested on me last night. I will be moving to Boston for the summer and in my attempt to find housing I finally found one that sounded perfect, a group of 4 photographers from MassArt. After responding to the post, I received a message from the owner asking me to send her my Facebook page since she wanted to make sure that she knew enough about me to ensure my compatibility with her roommates. While I felt pretty confident sending her my Facebook address, I started thinking about how well my page actually represents me and whether I should start changing things that I figured a group of art students just wouldn't find very cool, untagging drunk pictures of me by the pool, or my dorky family Christmas pics.

I always shied away from including any information about myself, no relationship status, no favourite movies/music/books..., nothing about my degree, ect... I always felt like all of that information was a way of constructing an image that did not accurately portray me, rather creating a stereotype based on my likes and dislikes. Well, my rejection of a superficial me smacked me across the face last night when I thought about rushing to my page and including all of the things about me that I thought a group of art students might find appealing, favourite bands, books and artists; you know, all of that cliche art stuff. I was a victim of my own judgments.

I decided against changing anything except for a somewhat offensive name of an album, since I realized that Facebook marks your changes as part of your status. I figured that it would look worst if she saw that I had rushed to change everything because of her.

And there it was, I became everything I ever criticized about Facebook in a blink of an eye. I realized just how important it is to make sure your Facebook isn't very offensive since employers won't need to crack into your profile, they will most likely just simply ask you for your contact information.

Last night changed my Facebook outlook for life, I started un- tagging my drunk pictures and started thinking about responsible things to say about myself, while I am against the idea of detailing yourself by your likes and dislikes as people are tempted to stereotype you, I realized that sometimes people need to be able to simplify their understanding of you in order for them to give you a chance.

Activism will prevail...in one form or another

The days of the physical movements may be slowly coming to an end as entities like the World Trade Organization are making more intelligent choices with regards to locations for their large summits (for example, the 2003 WTO Summit in Cancun Mexico) which has made it increasingly more difficult for activists from around the world to attend as protesters. Aside from their rigid access points, policing efforts have become more violent and oppressive towards peaceful movements, perpetuating unnecessary violence and abusing human rights while governments turn blind eyes.

While physical actions seem to be suffering, Internet activism has since become stronger and more imminent- allowing activism to shift ranks and take on a more connected global presence, therefore making activism especially anti- corporate globalization more relevant than ever before as groups of people from Canada to Africa, France to Brazil are able to unite through networks and increase their political weight. Not only has the World Wide Web allowed people to find others who share like-minded ideas, but it has destroyed the hierarchy within activist communities by leveling off the space of activists to speak, whether it be the 80 year- old anti- war grandmother or 26 year- old anti- corporate Globalizer, they both have the same amount of power when introduced through the Internet as image, persona and to a certain degree reputation are stripped away, leaving only the bare message that fulfills a grassroots cause.

Not only has the Internet provided a forum to people from around the world but it has also helped coalitions find one another to unite, as witnessed in the 2003 international the anti-war protests grew into millions of people as sub-groups of activists were able to find one another and fight for a single inclusive cause.

Actions will always exist, it is their message that may continue to lose momentum as media coverage is rarely forgiving of them, determined to portray them in the worst possible light. But with the Internet, actions will start to move forward by promoting independent media organizations like Indymedia, who are able to offer unbiased coverage of actions and by promoting an indiscriminate environment to anyone interested in the issues at hand . While actions are usually held with the right ideals in mind, not everyone feels comfortable partaking in public spectacles, the Internet provides everyone with a right to as much anonymity as they feel necessary.

Hacktivism= Future of ACTIVISM

Reading through hackbloc.org, it donned on me that hacktivism is the most powerful form of activism and possibly the most realistic approach to anarchy in the 21st century.

Our progress towards a more networked landscape, a world quite literally built around a network seems like an extremely ironic movement in terms of the type of environment our governments are tempted to construct.

Our dependency on the Internet is an ironic progression as it is the most difficult medium for governments and authorities to successfully police. With every security development and regulation put in place by authorities, a handful of hacktivist successes are quick to follow.

Hacktivism has quite literally given anyone who is willing to learn a chance to question and challenge the authoritative constructs of Western society; as our network dependency grows so does our power as citizens. While most of us may not use hacktivism as a form of free speech, many of us are able to use the web to network ourselves based on similar interests and ideologies, whether it be organizing a movement or challenging the words of a corporation, at the end of the day everyone on the Internet is held accountable.

Hackbloc.org is an interesting blog as it is able to appeal to everyone who may be interested in activism. My initial assumptions regarding the website were that the material would be ultimately directed to those already involved with hacktivism, therefore, lexicon and ideas only familiar to those who have already taken an initiative to learn about the movement. I was surprised to see that the website actually caters to an entire spectrum of people, everyone from those interested in getting started to those who are fully educated on the culture. Hackbloc does a great a job of attracting and holding interest regardless of the viewer’s background. I am an individual who is extremely interested in activism yet fairly new to the world of hactivism, I therefore found their content to be appealing and easy to digest as they covered everything from the current political landscape as it relates to a democratic Internet- scape to material very specific to hacktivism. It is clear that the community attracted to this website is likely interested in the specific hacktivism culture, but as activists I believe that everyone should be following the website.

I like that Hackbloc uses exerts directly from the news to legitimize their cause. Not only does this referencing empower the opinions expressed on the website but they kept me interested in the current affairs of our Internet.

Hacktivism is vital to activism. I believe that activists of all kind must take the time to educate themselves in hacktivism as I truly believe that it will be the last surviving form of activism. While aggressive policing efforts may lead to the end of physical movements, Internet movements are here to stay as the strength of hacktivists resides in their ability to stay one step ahead of government controls.

Technobesity

IPod of cell phone? Elliott Smith or my friend Amanda? Everyday I'm faced with the challenge of choosing one device or another, really just for the sake of passing the time of my five minute walk to school.

Not only has this battle of technology impeded my daily routine but to be quite frank it's really hurt my ability to think about the more important things in life like where I want to be when I'm finished school in a year. I almost feel like I have been abusing technology to help me think in the now as oppose to the more stressful and important things of the future. While Eckhart Tolle might tell me that this is a positive move towards inner peace, I might have to disagree since I can't even manage to think about future assignments or homework until quite literally the night before they are due...

Sitting in class and discussing this idea of technology snacking (having access to tidbits of information throughout the day to satisfy our hunger...) I thought about the consequences of the metaphor, obesity, sickness, etc... I realized that these consequences of the oral junk transcend the metaphor and do apply to our technology in terms of hurting our ability to focus.

Think of our attention spans as being our bodies and then think about education, literature and other mind pressing activities as our exercise and healthy food, then think about technology as being our junk food. The junk food slowly kills our ability to focus- affecting our attention spans, but in moderation we can continue to live healthy lives just like if we moderate our technology snacking we can manage to continue excelling in a focused environment.

Anyway, after blowing my mind with that metaphor I started thinking about how technology has killed the one thing I love, music. But not really the music itself, but the musician him/herself, as musicians can barely find the creativity they need to compete with the sea of other musicians occupying space on the World Wide Web. There is almost too much music content on the internet to hoard throughout the day that it is almost impossible for musicians to remain in our digestive systems for any longer than a few minutes in the context of the fame timeframe. Artists are entering our systems and being expelled like bad Indian food before we are able to really absorb any of their goodness, before we are able to really respect them as musicians and critically understand their creative offering.

Vampire Weekend may have hit the waves last year as one of the most progressive integrative bands to hit our waves, but today they have sadly been pushed into the mundane oblivion of have-been Indie rockstars. I mean, it's almost a curse to be named Indie- artist of the year these days- compare it to being told that you have one year to live.

My point is that however tempting and satisfying tid-bits of technology may be in the short-run, we must be aware of the harmful long-term effects of tehnobesity as our addiction to the now may lead us to the dead-end of creative appreciation.

War of the Words

My new focus as a fourth year Communication/ Global Studies student has been to dissect the idea of rederick as a weapon of mass destruction. Language is our connection to one another; we use our words in an attempt to express our feelings and emotions, to understand the depths of our surroundings. Our dialogue represents our individuality and while it is our most expressive form of communication we often forget the power and weight of our words.

Since the war on Afghanistan was waged and as the war along the border dividing Gaza from Israel persists, our dependence on the mass media for information has become intensified. We rely on the news to offer us factual information that paints the picture of current conflicts. But, what most people fail to understand is that the words used by our media outlets, the words which describe certain situations always carry with themm the biases of the media establishment; biases that not only reshape the context of conflict but which influence the general public to absorb these biases as truths. The result is an extremely fractured society that is lead to understand conflicts as two- dimensional, good versus evil.

Using the current conflict between Hamas and Israeli forces as an example, we can see how traitorous and inflicting the word "terrorist" has been. Israel has gained credibility for their waged war as Hamas while Hamas also regarded as a terrorist orgazinization has been discredited and dehumanized in the public spherem in much part because this label connotates a specific image for the general public- ruthless fundamental killers with empty intentions. Is this definition truly representative of a supported party that is fighting against oppression? Violence is never justified but withing the context of war can there truly ever be a justified party?

The word “terrorist” carries with it a very clear message and description as the media has characterized it very specifically by regurgitating a terrorist ideology. This is the danger of our words, terrorism attempts to generalize a form of war that is in reality very unique to every situation. But, since we are only familiar with the terrorist as being evil, the media can use this label to induce a public biase and credit/ discredit active parties fighting for their rights; Hamas has been labelled as a terrorist party and therefore have no right to fight off the oppression being imposed by Israeli forces.