Illustrator Image

It's the "fail whale" displayed on twitter when the servers are over capacity.

Digital Nation partner

i will be reading Jill's paper and posting a response.

The Mob

Ever since people have interacted, people have disagreed. Until recently, though, it was something that took place face to face and with verbal confrontations. If things elevated too far, it could be taken care of physically. In the age of technology, this has completely changed. The concept of anonymity and connectivity on the internet has seemed to lead to many outpours of unbridled rage. Through the use of social networking sites, internet message boards, and general anonymity on the Internet, people online seem to have a lot more confidence than if they were talking face to face.

Rage is one of the basic human functions. Different people show their anger and rage in different ways. In the days of the internet and technology, people are trending more towards the internet to unleash their rage.  The anonymity is a perfect way to be angry: nobody knows who you are and even if they found out, you could always say that you’re someone else and nobody would question it. Although, it is very easy to find personal information on the internet.

An internet site called 4chan is notorious for this. 4chan is an image-based message board system where users post only as anonymous, and are practically untraceable. There is a section of the board specifically devoted to harassment. People can go on the board and post something such as “hey, this person did this to me, harass them” along with an email address or link to a facebook and literally thousands of people will descend on the person without even knowing them. Many of these invasions have lead to somewhat of an Internet fame, sprouting many popular Youtube videos and sometimes even making the national news.

We see the articles in the news all the time, using buzzwords such as "cyber bullying" to define online abuse. Because it's so easy to create a different identity on the internet, it's also very easy to take advantage of someone else. For instance, in one case, teenager Megan Meier apparently met the boy of her dreams on Myspace. She began to chat with the boy, and started to develop an interest in him. After some time, she began to fall in love with the boy and agreed to meet him in person. As it turns out, the "boy" online was really a girl in Megan’s school's mother posing as someone else online. Apparently, Megan had done something to the daughter of the woman that was impersonating, and the mother wanted to get back at Megan. So, the mother made a fake Myspace account and filled it with pictures she found on Google – a prime example of real life rage channeled through the Internet. One day, the mother sent Megan a message from the fake account that read: "Everybody in O'Fallon knows how you are. You are a bad person and everybody hates you. Have a shitty rest of your life. The world would be a better place without you." After receiving this message, Megan responded with “You’re the kind of boy a girl would kill herself over”.  A day after the mother “broke up” with Megan, she was found hanged in her closet. All this happened over what was supposed to be an internet prank. Now, the obvious question is: does the mother get punished? For the longest time, this was quite a dilemma in the court system. Was what the mother did legally wrong?  In 2008, the courts said yes and the mother was convicted for the death of Megan. A year later though, the mother was aquitted. As of now, a few states have laws against cyber aggression to prevent these cases from happening again.  This continues to happen though, as recent as this week a gay Rutgers student killed himself because his roommate was taping the student and his boyfriend and putting it on the internet. Word of the videos spread and the gay student was humiliated to the point of suicide.

The Internet itself may also help to fuel the rage that is channeled through it.  Because you can post pretty much anything on the internet and get away with it, there is a lot more out there that people can get mad about. Whether it be a controversial blog post or an online game, people will get mad about it. Myself,  I play games on Xbox live every once in a while. It seems like no matter how well I’m playing or how terribly I’m playing, someone is always on the other end of the microphone telling me that I suck and calling me a faggot. What’s even more troubling than that this is happening at all is that 90% of the time the person who’s saying this sounds no older than 12 years old. Will the upcoming generation of technologically inclined kids be angrier than the current generation? I think so. As kids start to use the internet, they’re still in the phase where they think it’s cool to be mean to people. So when kids are learning to be on the internet effectively at 8-10 years old, they’re learning how to be abusive at an even younger age. Will this translate into a much angrier group of people when they grow up? I guess we’ll just have to wait and see.

            Anger and rage on the internet is a problem that nobody seems to be doing anything about. Although, it’s only going to get worse. There’s really not much that we can do. The anonymity and connectivity of the internet only fuels the urge to be angry and abusive over the Internet.

9/21/10 Transparency in Social Media

1. I think that the whole "low budget and production values in advertising" thing is mostly a trend. In the past few years, Youtube has become huge. But as Youtube evolves - including adding HD content - the "amateur" look will be just that - amateur. If a big company makes a worse looking video than some 12 year old with a webcam, how will that make the company look? So in short, I think that user-generated content will definitely increase over time as HD recording devices get cheaper and more accessible.

2. I find myself using Facebook the most, becuase it's the cleanest design-wise and is very easy to understand. There's always something new going on and there's millions of pictures to look at. I find that it's better than myspace because it's not as cluttered. These days, myspace has pretty much transformed into a giant cluster of nonsense from trying to be like all the other social networking sites. This, in my opinion, led to its downfall. I think Facebook will continue to be used, but there is only so much you can do before it becomes a "big brother" sort of entity.

3. Transparency is so important in the online and social network world because if someone is being sponsored to say something, it may not be what the person themself would say. This leads to the public having a different opinion on the person than the person would want them to have, which in a way defeats the whole reasoning behind social networking. Social networking is supposed to be a way to connect directly to your fans / friends / etc with no filter whatsoever. If someone is getting paid to say something on facebook, the transparency between the person and their followers is destroyed.

Apple

I chose to represent Apple's domination in the world of computers and technology. Apple has always been and will always be an innovator, like it or not. Apple also has a large group of very devoted followers that will go out the day that something is released and buy it. When they come out with a new product, everyone else in the industry follows and scrambles to come up with something similar. For instance, Windows 7 and its "revolutionary" snap feature is something that has been on Mac OS for quite some time. The image shows the sort of "dictatorship" that Steve Jobs has over the market and the influence that Apple has on the computer world. The russian behind Jobs' head is completely satirical and translates as such:

Steve Jobs

Glorious Leader!

Bow down to the power

of the glorious fruit.

Photoshop

If anyone needs help with Photoshop, let me know, i'd be happy to help. Find me on facebook (ha).

This image is a combination of everything that Facebook is - the good and the bad. In the background, there is words and phrases such as "invasion of privacy" and "digital abuse", which stands for the shady activity that goes on behind the facade of fun on Facebook. Along the right side are various Facebook icons for things you can do while on the site, including joining groups, requesting new friends and communicating within each other. The main focus, besides the huge Facebook logo, is the posterized picture of McLuhan colored in the Facebook blue colors. He looks as if he is unsure about the whole new media craze that is Facebook, and has a "comment" icon above his head. This makes us think: what would he have to say, if he could say anything? At the very bottom, sort of to tie everything together, there is the infamous "Like" post signifying that even though all this stuff goes on, we still "like" everything about it.

Facebook

Since its inception, Facebook has quickly become one of the biggest media corporations in the world. Even though on the surface it's a social networking website where you can look at pictures and see what your friends are doing, it goes much deeper than that.
Facebook contains many different aspects that can be considered "content" in the McLuhan diagram. There is text, video, picture, and sometimes audio communication as well as targeted advertising and direct marketing. The messages conveyed are as follows:
1. Facebook wants to connect everyone in the world with everyone else. Nobody will feel like they're alone with anything anymore.
2. Most people won't admit it, but facebook is addicting. Almost every new technology device has some form of Facebook connectivity built in.
3. Advertising: Facebook uses your personal information and interests to custom tailor suggestions to what you want to see.
4. Privacy is always an issue with Facebook and other social sites - even Facebook states that anything you post on their site is their property and they can do whatever they want with it.