Re-write Blog 2: Broadcast This

            In Jean Burgess’ and Joshua Green’s YouTube: How YouTube Matters, the success of YouTube is portrayed throughout the reading.  One will soon realize that these numbers are most often impressively staggering.  However, YouTube did not achieve this status single-handedly.  As a matter of fact this website actually depends on ‘big media’-related events which contributes greatly to YouTube’s successful rise (3).  YouTube’s 2005 ‘About Us’ page vaguely puts it as “Show off your favorite videos to the world” combined with its slogan “Broadcast Yourself”, users have the freedom to share any video they would like.  Although, some times these videos that are uploaded may generate so many hits that the original producers of the short-clip will demand that they be brought down under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (3).

            I have a personal experience with this as one of my favorite clips to watch on YouTube was taken down once ESPN noticed the hits it had been generating on YouTube.  It was a documentary film titled Four Days in October on the Boston Red Sox historical 2004 World Series Championship baseball season.  The film was about an hour long, separated into six 10-minute parts.  Since this was an ESPN “30 for 30” special, the film would be developed and sold to fans.  One fan decided to do what it said in YouTube’s ‘About Us’ section in 2005 as he showed off his favorite video to the world.   Whenever I search for the film on YouTube on our Apple TV back home, a disappointed-looking face pops up with the text “Sorry, this video was removed for Copyright reasons.”  So, this goes completely against what YouTube said its users would be able to do.  The ‘About Us’ page in 2005 told its users to post whatever they wanted, but they never once in that page state anything about your videos being at risk of disobeying the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.  So, the ‘big-media’ that YouTube thrives on basically gave them a slap on the wrist.  However, as far as I am concerned, this only affects YouTube as they lose the video that produces hits for them.  The person who uploaded the whole film was either able to convince ESPN “30 for 30” to allow him to upload the introduction to the film, or they just don’t know about it.  To see the introduction video, follow the link below.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jVyobFoH0-E

Re-wrtie Blog 1: But seriously, who are you?

            In Sherry Turkle’s Life on the Screen: Aspects of the Self she often reinforces the idea throughout the reading of everyday Internet users having the ability to create multiple identities.  For the public, this freedom to make up a personality without having to face any consequences that may come up if they were to do this in real life is growing wildly popular.  As Turkle puts it, “The Internet has become a significant social laboratory for experimenting with the constructions and reconstructions of self that characterize postmodern life.  In its virtual reality, we self-fashion and self-create” (180).  Examples of this particular action are echoed all over the Internet in things like Multi-User Dungeons, or otherwise known as Multi-User Domains (MUD’s).

            To test this with ourselves for the first-hand experience, Professor Bakioglu assigned us all with the task to create a fake AIM profile in which anything goes.  The assignment was made even more intriguing once she had us draw names of the fake identities of our fellow classmates without us knowing who they are in reality.  We had to stay in character and talk to each other for over a week.  My AIM chat buddy’s name was Dale Billy Bob Burris.  I was immediately able to tell that Dale took on the “hick” or “redneck” personality for this assignment.  Dale was born and raised in southern Mobile, Alabama.  He took over the car shop after his father died in 2006.  He loves Jesus and hates liberals.  Whoever this was, they did a good job of keeping character because after doing these chats for a while in which we both had to keep character, I started to actually feel like I was speaking with an authentic person named Dale Billy Bob Burris.

            This happens all the time on the Internet through video games, chat rooms, and social networking systems.  Some people have far better reasons than others for there are Internet frauds using the Internet for illegal activities such as seducing purposes, sometimes regardless of the person’s age.  On the other hand, law enforcement institutions also create false identities to catch these certain people in the act.  With that said, the majority of people create false personalities, because they are at the liberty to do so and they simply enjoy being someone they aren’t everyday.

How Personable Are You?

            Technologies such as cell phones and new social networking websites through the Internet have completely restructured the way people communicate and socialize in the last decade alone.  One of the most interesting and perhaps important questions brought up in Howard Rheingold’s Smart Mobs: The Next Social Revolution is, “How will mobile communications affect family and societal life?” (introduction).

            In the New York Times Hilary Stout wrote an article entitled “Antisocial Networking?” which analyzed and deciphered the standard pre-teen conversation between a boy and girl via Facebook, which is very similar to text messaging between mobile devices.  More specifically what she studied was not the conversation itself, but in fact how the words were typed, certain acronyms they used, and also how they expressed emotions with “emoticons” such as colons combined with a parenthesis to make a smiley face.  Instead of actually conversing in person or even over a telephone, kids and teens have resorted to the quick and easy instant message or text message disregarding everything they learned in English class.  With that said, the quick and easy messaging systems do have their drawbacks due to kids and teens also use these technologies for cyber-bullying (a seriously growing issue) and also texting sexually (sexting).  Although these are issues that both need to be addressed more often, psychologists like Jeffrey G. Parker of the University of Alabama who is very concerned about how “…technology is affecting the closeness properties of friendship” (Parker, 2).  Parker has been studying this problem but states it is still too early to know the answer.  His main goal is to decode whether these new ways of conversing with technology is either beneficial in that it allows children to be either more connected to their friends or diminished without physical interactions.  So far, the signs are telling us that kids are not really developing true friendships compared to what older generations had growing up.  Many, including myself find this fact to be problematic as far as necessary socialization goes for children during their childhood.  For the article, follow the link below:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/02/fashion/02BEST.html?pagewanted=all

Roles of Parents in Preventing Cyber-Bullying and Cyber-Mobbing

            Cyber-bullying is becoming a hotter topic day by day.  From computers, to lap tops, to cell phones, becoming a victim to cyber-bullying is now easier than it has ever been.  As a matter of fact, these innovative technologies have contributed to the far worse and fresh term cyber-mobbing.

            The analysis in Danah Boyd’s article “Overprotective parenting and bullying: Who is to blame for the suicide of Megan Meier?” one is able to decide for their self what they believe should be done in both bullying and cyber-bullying situations.  In this case, Lori Drew claims she bullies this thirteen year-old girl because her daughter states that Megan has bullied her at school.  “What we learn is that Lori viewed her acts as protective of her child who she believed was the victim of Megan’s dark side” (1, Drew).  Maybe the unanswered question for parents is not how protective they should be of their children, but rather in what ways and to what extent.  In an interview, CBS News sponsors the idea of parents monitoring and the like what their own children do and experience on-line.  A 15 year-old girl named Phoebe Prince committed suicide back in January of 2010 due to what experts call cyber-mobbing.  At first the bullying of this young girl was started in the school simply for being the new girl (she and her family had just moved to America from Ireland in the summer of 2009) and for also being pretty.  As quoted by one of her best friends, “They were just jealous” (CBS News video).  As the bullying progressed, more girls became involved and due to the help of innovative technology, the bullying turned into mobbing through a social networking system.  Countless girls, relentlessly calling Phoebe names out of jealousy finally got to the new girl.  She didn’t feel welcome, she felt she had nobody to turn to, and tragically committed suicide.

            If only all parents were able to track what was going on with their kids’ lives via the web, many suicides would be preventable.  This may be hard for parents but giving bullies a “taste of their own medicine” is absolutely not the way to deal with teenagers on this particular subject (refer to the Megan Meiers case).  Unfortunately, it does not seem as though Phoebes’ friends and family were involved with and monitoring her on-line life and experiences.  These are two cyber-bullying cases with the same outcome, but a somewhat different path to the tragedy.  One mother was involved too much, while the other wasn’t involved enough.  For the video on the Phoebe Prince case, follow the link below.

http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=6146214n

Googlization: A New Synonym for Bullying?

            In Siva Vaidhyanathan’s “The Googlization of Everything (And Why We Should Worry)”, he introduces and explains the five major “privacy interfaces.”  These domains are essentially what we can control what others know about us, and “each of these interfaces offers varying levels of control and surveillance” (94).  I am going to decipher the fifth major privacy interface, which Vaidhyanathan calls “person to public.”

            As Vaidhyanathan explains it, the “person to public” interface “…is now located largely online” and also that “…people have found their lives exposed, their names and faces ridiculed, and their well-being harmed immeasurably by the rapid proliferation of images, the asocial nature of much ostensibly “social” Web behavior, and the permanence of the digital record” (94).  For example:  A YouTube user named Dylan Weigle uploaded a video of a red-haired kid defending himself along with his other pale-skinned, freckle-faced friends.  The video of this (most commonly known as ginger-kid) was intended for South Park creators to hear and see.  South Park is a very popular, crude, and humorous cartoon on global television, that previously made episodes in which these red-haired, pale-skin, and freckle-covered people are relentlessly picked on and treated differently only because of their physical appearance.  The show actually started the whole joke that gave these kids a nickname, “gingers,” and also stated that they have no souls.  This joke spread like wildfire across the nation and is actually used amongst everyday people like you and I.  After South Park saw this kid’s response video to their jokes about soulless, red-haired kids, they took it to a whole other level—they had one of the main characters, Eric Cartman, pose as this specific “ginger-kid” as they re-made his whole video, heavily mocking him in the process.  Everything I have just mentioned about the red-haired kid, and also South Park, has streamed across the Internet.  It is now one of the top searches on Google and YouTube when one types in “ginger-kid” in the search engine tool-bar.  This kid will forever be associated with this joke put on by South Park as the hits on YouTube (many different uploads pertaining to the same video) reach several million as a whole.  As Vaidhyanathan puts it, this kid’s face has now been publicly ridiculed and that ridicule will continue with the permanence of the digital record (94).  To watch the video on YouTube, follow the link.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RxocjZ01f2I&feature=related

Arghh, That Be Mine!

            Piracy can come in many different forms than what we are accustomed to seeing in the movies.  In fact, it occurs often in the very industry that brought you movies like Pirates of the Caribbean and others.  The record industry, however, “…was born of another kind of piracy, though to see how requires a bit of detail about the way the law regulates music” (Lessig, Free Culture, Pirates).

            According to the documentary film we watched in class about piracy in the record industry, the term to describe this action that was most common amongst those interviewed was sampling.  These rap stars, hip-hop artists, and undaunted DJ’s consider what they do ‘legal’ because although they may be taking the idea of someone else’s work, the final product is completely their own interpretation.

One music artist/comedian, who goes by the name of Weird Al, has made his name popular by sampling other famous rap artist’s songs and making parodies of them all.  What Weird Al does is take the same beat and rhyme scheme, but makes up his own story making it funny.  For example:  Chamillionaire’s “Ridin’ Dirty” was a very popular song that debuted in 2006.  Weird Al took the song’s rhythm and beat and wrote a completely new, catchy song.  The reason as to why Weird Al hasn’t been prosecuted for copyright is because the U.S. Supreme Court passed the copyright law that states ”…one does not need permission to record a parody” (http://copyright.gov/title17/ ).  Even though he isn't required to, Weird Al always asks the original artist for permission to record his parodies first.  As a matter of fact, most artists consider it a badge of honor when Weird Al asks to turn one of their songs into a parody (Wikipedia).  Both songs can be found on the following links.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CtwJvgPJ9xw Chamillionaire's Ridin' Dirty

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N9qYF9DZPdw Weird Al's White and Nerdy

Flickr Works

Grand Theft Auto: Midwest City begins with Sydney looking for ways to avoid her homework and playing video games instead.  In an attempt to fill a void in life (not being a gangster), Sydney plays the new Grand Theft Auto game.  Sydney is controlling the character named Ryan.  Ryan’s current objective is to search for a car to hijack.  He stumbles upon a black Chevy and goes for it.  First, he pulls the driver, Dyllan, out of the car and then repeatedly beats him in the head with a crow bar until he kills him.  After driving for about 25 yards, Ryan kicks the passenger, Marc, out of the car giving him severe road rash.  Once he finally gets rid of the civilians, Ryan proceeds to Chase Bank.  He robs the bank with ease and leaves as a millionaire.  Satisfied with her progress in the game, Sydney puts down the controller and decides to get back to her homework.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/68302494@N06/sets/72157627758673235/show/

When we first received this assignment, my initial reaction was this is going to be long and difficult.  Turns out that I was totally wrong.  I was only nervous for I had never done anything quite like this before (you have a knack for that, Professor).  And that’s based solely on the fact that it was just a fun project to take part in.   

            There are two quotes from two different readings that I would like to talk about because one defends the other.  “That success is at least as much a product of Flickr itself as it is a product of the contributing photographers” (Rebecca Blood, Web blog).  The next quote makes a strong case for this statement.  “…Flickr user Laretta Houston uploaded her first image onto the service… She describes the progression from amateur to pro in a series of milestones” (Jennifer Marderazo, article).  In a matter of eight months, Houston went from buying her first camera (which was extremely) to setting up her very own studio and is now a professional photographer.  This just happens to be only one of many cases.  For instance, a photographer on Flickr who goes by the name of “Miss_M” experienced similar success.  Miss_M posted a photo in response to an advertisement through Flickr which asks others on the website to post and describe the story behind the photo that made them popular.  Miss_M posted this photo knowing it was not her best work, but surprisingly she received an offer from the editor of the “Everything” magazine.  She sold the photo and it was used in a story within the magazine.  On the Flickr website, Miss_M is known as a “pro” photographer.  I do not know how long it took her to reach that status.  However, she still had a photo, which she considered “not that good” sold and published in a magazine.  This is another prime of example of a person who went from “unpopular” to a “pro” on Flickr with a published photo in the professional media industry.  Follow this link for Miss_M’s picture:

http://www.flickr.com/groups/the_world_through_my_eyes/discuss/72157594459605789/page2/