Exploring Trolling

One of the greatest movements affecting the entirety of the media today is the gradual construction of a “digital media.” Although classical forms of media are still prevalent and readily available for a consumer’s use, there is something about this new digital media that truly sets it apart, not necessarily to a higher level, but on a different plane entirely: the fact that it is maintained by it’s own society. While one can consider that there are television fanatics and film critics who discuss the quality of films, and even committees which remove undesirable products from these mediums, these are still cause-and-effect type cases. Digital media is not created and then altered in accordance with a committee’s review; It’s lifeblood is the community that inhabits it. And, (not to sound cliche) as in all living beings, there exists the cells which exist for no reason and only cause harm. (The appendix, I guess?) In this case, I’m talking about the ‘troll.’

The troll is, according to wikipedia, “someone who posts inflammatory, extraneous, or off-topic messages in an online community, such as an online discussion forum, chat room or blog, with the primary intent of provoking other users into an emotional response^[1] or of otherwise disrupting normal on-topic discussion.” Although the term is becoming well-known, it is better known as the notorious “cyber-bullying.”  Now, there are plenty of people who cyber-bully if only because it’s a way to continue aggression when they’re at home. Many of these people are ready and willing to back up their inflammatory statements in person. However, for each one that is only using technology as a long distance extension of their own influence, there are several abusing the anonymity of the internet to blamelessly interrogate and abuse those with whom they find issues with. As is discussed in Langdon Winner’s article, “Do Artifacts Have Politics?” there are indeed politics behind this growing technology. However, political intervention is far more complex than it would seem.

Consider the following: An anonymous vandal is destroying neighborhood property in the middle of the night in a quiet cul-de-sac. After enough lawn ornaments have been shattered, enough cars keyed and enough brick walls spray-painted with phallic images, action is taken. Be it the alerting of the police of the formation of some kind of vigilante justice like a “Neighborhood Watch,” some form of action is taken until justice is wrought. However, the same cannot be done for bullying on the internet. And then, would that it could, would it really be worth it? There is, in my opinion, a significant difference between the destruction of someone’s property and someone’s online image. Taking action to stop something so ridiculous would only end in the hampering of the constitutional right of freedom of speech. If someone calls you something which offends you in person, do you report them to the proper authorities? What people need to understand is that online persona is not equivalent to property. If you cannot laugh at yourself, do not use the internet. This is not to say I support trolling, however, but I personally think people need to understand that as long as there is light, there is a shadow. Wherever there is good discussion, there is someone who only wishes to inflame the participants. There will always be bullies and clowns, and I don’t think they need to affect the politics of the internet any more than any other inflammatory groups. Not to use slang, but in my opinion, people just need to chill out! I hope this entry wasn’t too informal to be considered proper material for the assignment.

The Database!!

In The Database, professor Lev Manovich compares two forms of media, the narrative and the database. He claims that the database is slowly taking the place of the narrative in modern media, and soon the narrative will be obsolete as a whole. However, I can’t say I particularly agree with this. To allow me to go further into this point, let’s explore for a second what a “narrative” and a “database” really are.

When I think of the word narrative, I think of the dictionary’s definition: “A narrated account; A story.” This definition fulfills exactly what a narrative is in media as well. The narrative is what allows forms of media such as television and film to progress sensibly. It allows novels and stories to expand and do what they’re meant to do: convey what an artist or author is trying to weave. While narratives can be loose in structure and don’t necessary bind the entire media form to a certain style (see authors who use the stream of consciousness style of writing, which without exploration makes little to no sense) there will always be some sort of beginning and end, no matter how farfetched and unrelated, and in some way, they will always connect. It allows meaning to be found in series of words or frames, and ties everything together.

The database is exactly what it sounds like. It is a collection of items, factoids and exposures which have no set path, and are meant to be navigated in accordance with the consumer’s choices. An excellent example of this is a “Choose Your Own Adventure” book, where there are several feasible endings to the story, but the one you end up reading is based entirely on the choices you make for the characters. Without realizing it, we use this form of media every day, even if it’s something as simple as browsing your favorite website, clicking on links you’re interested in on Wikipedia or any other popular information site, or even just perusing Facebook or Myspace (does anyone still use Myspace?) to pass the time. There is structure to a database, but it is no no way rigid or strict. In fact, one could see the structure as 100% malleable to the consumers demands.

Is the database really replacing the narrative? I don’t think so. While the database form of media is very convenient, lending it’s malleability to whatever it needs to, I think that it’s in a whole other universe than the narrative. The narrative allows information to flow and make sense together. I personally see the database as more of something to ease the process of searching for desired information or entertainment. Before this form of media was possible, people would need to take a chance in reading an entire book to find what they were looking for, or view an entire documentary. Now, with the resources provided to us by databases, this is no longer necessary. However, in that vein, is the ease with which we can find documentation of information making us stupid? An example I can think of is in weight training: the debate of free weights vs. machines. Using machines, one can focus greatly on one muscle and lift progressively larger amounts with greater ease than would be possible with free weights. However, free weights allow the user to work out the smaller groups of muscles surrounding the primaries, thus giving you a more whole workout. The question is, is having these databases lending to the dumbing down of mankind? With Wikipedia at our fingertips, are humans three generations from now going to be able to do manual research in any way? At this rate, it would seem now. I myself always find myself edging towards googling something I want to know, rather than cracking open my ancient dusty texts. Even now, I feel myself thinking more and more that textbooks are obsolete and for use only by the oldest of sages and professors. Is this what the media wants to happen?

A little side note

Always a classic.

Am I really being sold culture???

“The Culture Industry: Enlightenment as Mass Deception” by Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer, the two describe their theory that mass audiences are being manipulated by the culture industry. Although they wrote this article some 66 years ago, it remains relevant today. Because this audience is being manipulated, they become numbed to what is the real world, and what is fabricated by an industry trying to sell them culture they can relate to. The key issue here is that are these people relating to these things because they truly have ties to them, or is it because the industry wants them to think they do? When one thinks of culture, they think of the things which they believe make them unique. Their sense of style, their taste in music, their favorite artist or TV show. However, what if these things are all being sold to us so well that we fall for it every time? What if each of us only believes we like some new band we heard in a car commercial because they’re similar to some other “indie” band we like. How can we be sure if we like a movie because of it’s content or because of the familiar name on it? This article really opened my eyes in that now I can see that culture isn’t something I’m inheriting from the world but rather from my television and radio. I never would have believed that culture was an industry before. Everyone hears terms like the music industry and the film industry, but I always associated those terms with the workers behind the production of said medium. Now, thanks to Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer, I understand that there really is an industry behind culture as a whole. This is enough to make one lose his faith in humanity, if you ask me.

Having made this realization, I see more and more that media like blogs and other two-way forms of culture are changing more and more to sell people what needs to be sold. When it comes to music, I will generally refer to some of my favorite blogs (both famous and unknown) for reviews of recent albums that have come out. If these sites do not give positive word to these albums, I will generally tend to ignore them for a while until I hear about them again. The same goes for video games, with sites like IGN and Gamespot. If these sites are actually industry controlled, this entire time, I, too, have been falling prey to them as well. Adorno and Horkheimer seem resolute on the fact that the culture industry revolves around standardization. Before reading this, i may not have agreed, but the more I think about it, the more i see it’s true. How can diversity and opinions flourish when the industry behind them are present everywhere? Have i been sold everything I’ve believed in. Frankly, this is shocking.

Response to “The Work of Art”

For this class, I had to read Walter Benjamin’s The Work of Art in the Age of Its Technical Reproducability. The Work of Art in the Age of Its Technical Reproducability is an article about how art has changed from what it once was. Benjamin writes about the shift in art from spiritual pieces to works meant for presentation and exhibition. He explains, with what I think may have been disdain, that art is becoming less and less what it once was, a work of magic and inspiration that is recognized in later years as potential art, and more and more becoming an action performed for an ulterior function, which is later coincidentally considered “art.” Benjamin wrote this over 70 years ago, but in my opinion, his hypothesis was correct. More and more, art is becoming a side project for people who are doing other things. Most workers in the cinema are merely trying to create a movie that will appeal to the widest audience possible to bring in the most revenue. Only when the film becomes critically acclaimed do they consider that perhaps they truly created a masterpiece. Modern photography by young people is generally used to portray a special trip they took, or an event they witnessed, rather than on composure and the more delicate intricacies of taking a photograph, but later when they receive positive review, it becomes worthy of submission to an art magazine or some equally relevant publication. A large majority of photographs taken in modern times are just to show friends on social networking sites. This plays very well into the recent focus on Machinima our study has taken lately. Is a video made using the graphics engine of a separate party’s game for the purpose of a fan-made music video or comedy sketch really applicable to the term art? While I can understand and respect how much time and effort go into creating a quality machinima, something about the concept of it being under the same categorization of “art” as paintings in the Metropolitan Museum of Art just doesn’t sit right with me. But then, everyone’s a critic. Does the dictionary’s definition of art, “the quality, production, expression, or realm, according to aesthetic principles, of what is beautiful, appealing, or of more than ordinary significance,” still apply to what modern consumers are calling art?

Hello again!

Sorry for the brief stint of absence, I was on a very hectic trip to Saratoga Springs to visit Skidmore College (a candidate for my transfer next year.) It was very nice, but I’m glad to say I’m back in action. Since I’ve posted, there’s been a written work I’ve been meaning to discuss on this blog, so I think I’ll get to that.

The first piece was Walter Benjamin’s The Work of Art in the Age of Its Technical Reproducability. Benjamin writes about the shift in art from spiritual pieces to works meant for presentation and exhibition. He explains, with what I think may have been disdain, that art is becoming less and less what it once was, a work of magic and inspiration that is recognized in later years as potential art, and more and more becoming an action performed for an ulterior function, which is later coincidentally considered “art.” Benjamin wrote this over 70 years ago, but in my opinion, his hypothesis was correct. More and more, art is becoming a side project for people who are doing other things. Most workers in the cinema are merely trying to create a movie that will appeal to the widest audience possible to bring in the most revenue. Only when the film becomes critically acclaimed do they consider that perhaps they truly created a masterpiece. Modern photography by young people is generally used to portray a special trip they took, or an event they witnessed, rather than on composure and the more delicate intricacies of taking a photograph, but later when they receive positive review, it becomes worthy of submission to an art magazine. This plays very well into the recent focus on Machinima our study has taken lately. Is a video made using the graphics engine of a separate party’s game for the purpose of a fan-made music video or comedy sketch really applicable to the term art? While I can understand and respect how much time and effort go into creating a quality machinima, something about the concept of it being under the same categorization of “art” as paintings in the Met just doesn’t sit right with me. But then, everyone’s a critic.

I think that this really plays into a concept that has confused me in the arts for a while. What truly defines something as “art?” The lines are far too blurred for me at one point. Could this be considered art?? If grainy blurs and ironic twists make some pieces art, why not this?? Also, I just wanted to post this because it’s hilarious.

Hello world!

Hello, world? This is my first post, and apparently I can edit or delete it. I’ll post something more relevant when the time comes, don’t you worry!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I wanted to upload the song that’s stuck in my head right now, but apparently I need to pay to do that so I’m gonna go ahead and get around that by posting a Youtube link to it instead:

It’s sort of interesting how even when the RIAA and whoever else are trying to prevent you from getting music off the internet without paying huge prices, you can always find the songs on Youtube if you search hard enough. This is kind of relevant to what we’re going to learn in class, I think?