FINAL MIDTERM

Note to reader: While this ‘essay’ provides a variety of ways of reading (i.e. you don’t have to read it top to bottom) I, as the author, ask you read as if this were a print text. That is, the links all provide support for statements and claims that are directly related to the ideas present before and after. I believe reading it ‘top to bottom’ and 'left to right' would be beneficial to you. It is in this nature this ‘essay’ still adheres to modernist practices and linear nature. In order for me to feel like my ideas have been addressed, fully, please click a link and then resume where you left. You can feel free to jump from paragraph to paragraph and partake in the [ironic parody] "the labyrinth" of postmodern dis-cohesion after reading it through once. As the writer, I hope my italicized notes help guide you and give you direction.

(huh??)

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Alienation Shown Through Weblogs in Modern Day Society

The computer screen blankly stares. The white nothingness taunts and laugh, prods and pierces my eyes. My hands sit, idle. There is no soft rhythmic tapping of keys and no thoughts expressed through Times New Roman (aptly sized twelve point). Instead my pen scribbles flowing, barely legible cursive on cream pages. As my progression of thoughts nears completion, I set the paper down, the lines running parallel to rectangular keys. Here, I decipher the cursive and give them ‘proper’ typed form. This interaction between textual and digital aesthetic is nothing compellingly new or uncommon in the last decade due to the rise in technology and use of computers. In fact, it fully supports the notion of digital text conflicting with practice of printed text. However, it is within this very conflict problems arise. Not only does it change the linear nature of text in terms of space and time, it also, more importantly is adding to modern society's struggle with alienation. It is clear that computers and blogging are a literal and physical barrier between Real social interaction.


One such example of this change (or shift) in writing is found in the form of weblogs. Recently I began my own form of a blog. To backtrack momentarily I would like to pretext my ideology; I write and I thoroughly enjoy the act of writing. I also adhere to Derridian notions about consciousness expressed through language.
(http://dafunkmastameowmeow.blogspot.com/2008/02/derrida.html) So, in this sense, if writing is believed to be an expression of our consciousness then, logistically, if blogs are a form of writing, they should be an expression of consciousness. [It is a simple logistical equation Consciousness=Language then Language: Writing] In putting those two thoughts together, I realize that my writing should be an expression of my thoughts and I should, after writing, feel a certain physical closeness to the words. That is they are my expression and it should be understood that directly correlated to my thoughts. That stated, I thoroughly disliked my blogging experience. Upon my first entry, I wrote:

http://dafunkmastameowmeow.blogspot.com/2008/01/rambleramblephoto.html


Did I grow as a writer? No. I steadily found myself at distance from the computer screen, and thus, the words on the computer screen, and even more so, the thoughts that the very words were meant to express. I felt a type of cognitive distance rather than an attachment to the very blogs I created. The machine was a literal and physical barrier. I did not feel like I could interact with the text or that the thoughts upon the blog were mine.I believe this was due to the fact that a lot of the objects posted were a not a direct expression of me, they were ‘youtube’ videos or photographs I had taken with my 35mm film camera. Even now, I still feel a distance between my posts and my thoughts, more so than I normally do when I write. Perhaps this distance, was, in part, due to no one commenting or interacting with my blog. I went in with expectation of difference between the ‘normal’ (as defined by Modernists) printed writing I partake in and the newly discovered blog I was interacting with.

My blog writing was put in the "public sphere", in accordance to what Miller and Shepherd argue. http://blog.lib.umn.edu/blogosphere/blogging_as_social_action_a_genre_analysis_of_the_weblog.htmland I had "hopes" of people reading it. However, with no one commenting it began to have a facade of being private. I began to think I was writing for myself and no one else. The clear, binary categorization of public vs. private was upheld and since I believed it was private, it did not correlate to alienation and false interaction of a social blogging network.

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Blogs, instead of unifying people are slowly tearing apart the very instilled social fabric. “[A] classification [of blogs]into two “styles,” based largely on content: an original filter-style, where the blogger is primarily an editor and annotator of links, and a later, more personal “blog-style” weblog, where bloggers engage in “an outbreak of self-expression” (Miller). In this sense, perhaps blogging does give the individual expression, but the same principle cannot be applied to the larger, societal whole. Overall, it is causing lingering feelings of alienation and blogging is filling the place of social, "Real" interaction.

With my experience with blogging, I concluded that blogging can creates a feeling of alienation and a false reality of social interaction. As Sherry Turkle stated in her essay, Virtuality and its Discontents: Searching for Community in Cyberspace, “Searching for an easy fix, we are eager to believe that the internet will provide an effective substitute for face to face interaction. But the move to virtuality tends to skew our experience in several ways” (504-505). (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sherry_Turkle) Computer interaction is not Real and is not a substitute or place holder for face to face, three dimensional, which I deem real interaction.

(note:while these two paragraphs appear redundant reading one before the other changes perspective of the rest of the paper. Instead of combining them into a large paragraph, try reading one before the other and vice versa)

It is clear that machines foster interaction on some levels, but it is no substitute for Real interaction. For an example of this, I am going to use Myspace.com. Since Myspace is public domain, I am going to do a type of case study of the Myspace persona "Rooskie".

Here, Rooskie states that she is a twenty five year old female, an owner of a dog and recently heartbroken from her breakup. Her headline reads, "I must admit, you brought in RELIGION… for I never believed in HELL TIL I MET YOU." Already, we get a sense of the image or appearance she is trying to convey to those who visit her page. Blogging is even farther removed from reality because it is, (adhering to a Neo-Platonic sense) farther removed from reality of ideas in it's hierarchical form.[http://www.anselm.edu/homepage/dbanach/platform.htm] It ventures into the realm of appearances.

Here is one such example of an apperance and a blog posted by "Rooskie"
http://blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&friendID=77607038&blogID=120736540

(note: please also read the comment that was left on her blog)

What I found most compelling about this blog is the informal nature (as if it were a casual conversation) and the emotive voice of the author. While writing could be an expression of emotion, reading her blog and looking at her site, I realized she in a way is socially distant from many. She does not have a slew of friends, only 60 total (opposed to the hundreds of "friends" other people have on Myspace) and is now single from her boyfriend/husband she described in 2006. Her purpose of Myspace seems to be social interaction and meeting people via internet. However, she appears to be somewhat alone in "Real" life. (note: not that I believe there is anything wrong with being alone in real life. Lest not judge and over-generalize without ever having met this person, I am merely stating her appearance, not her substance. I believe judging her substance would be counter-productive to my overall ideology addressed in this blog/paper/writing)

What should be noted here is the interesting fusion of private and public domains. Much like the analysis provided by Miller and Shepherd (see above link for actual article). Rooskie has a private life that is being placed on a public domain. The once clear binary categorization of private/ public has now fused into indistinguishable type of togetherness. Her blogs, informal and conversationilist in style fuse together private and public and, in doing so, show the type of alienation that is a bi-product for many bloggers on a larger scale. It is because blogging relies heavily on appearance and not actual representation of reality or any real interaction that it fosters alienation.

I would argue that the computer is a literal barrier between people and it adds to the alienation of modern society.
While I am not advocating alienation and modern society in a completely negative light, (lest not be hasty) I do foresee a change or alteration that will be expressed in attitudes of social interaction. Blogs will have their proper place they just have to get there.

(Note: I am not going to make rash elementary theories as to where blogs belong. I have too heavy of modernist baggage to carry...)

Since blogs are an outlet and a form of communication that incorporate video, text, and photo in one medium, they allow for a new type of interaction. Blogging is a literal block of computer and technological mediation that furthers ideas about reality and interaction in a Neo-Platonic sense producing something to this effect-



Well, not literally, in the form of Man as duck, of course, as evolutionary theory [ http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/EVOLUT.html ] tends to think otherwise. But if we're in a world of contradiction and lack of cohesive value of both social and cultural norms. The internet, and more importantly, blogging is hastily speeding up this lack of cohesion. Oh, and lest not forget, Karios jogging alongside, almost out of breath. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kairos It is this combination that is fostering the natural progression and lack of cohesive value and alienation.

Where this shift in blogging and social interaction is headed is vastly unknown. With exponential technological increase, we might, as Duckman bleakly states, "have to drag our butts off the Sealy http://www.sealy.com/ every morning." Hopefully clad without the feathers and beak.

Or in a rather jovially, maybe there will be no butts at all to drag off the bed,01010101010010101010101010000000011111101110001010101010101010010