Friday, September 21, 2007

The Wall: Growing Up Behind the Iron Curtain

I'm pretty excited about a new graphic novel by Peter Sis, The Wall: Growing Up Behind the Iron Curtain. Sis tells his tale of being born Czechoslovakia during the cold war, growing up relatively happy, the tensions rising, and then "news from the West slowly filters into the country. Peter and his friends hear about blue jeans, Coca-Cola, beat poetry, rock 'n' roll,...and the Beatles!" (book flap). His world changed because of the media flowing into it, the messages that it contained, and the struggle to resist totalitarian control a second time. Much like Maus, this text uses the meduim to deliver a different message. Just like we've been talking about in class. How does that message change? Does it change?

Images from the book reproduced below. They are copyrighted, of course, and not to me. You can buy the book here.

Tuesday, September 18, 2007

MySpace/Facebook = Classist?


(a photo of dinah boyd "speaking le web," taken from her website)

dinah boyd (yes, the lowercase is intentional), a Ph.D. candidate at UC Berkeley, writes about her sociology work involving social-networking sites. dinah's work notes the origins of and differences between MySpace and Facebook and the users they attract. The main dividing line? Socio-economic class. According to boyd, MySpace tends to attract what she calls the "subaltern" while Facebook draws the "hememonic." Or, to put it in blunt Mean Girls clique-speak, Facebook is the domain of choice for college-bound jocks, preps, and queen bees, MySpace the one for immigrants, alternakids, and wannabes. Facebook is more like Target; MySpace, more like Wal-Mart.

boyd's fieldwork consisted mainly of talking to teenagers around the country. Her website can be viewed here, and the essay that talks specifically about the Myspace/Facebook research can be viewed here.

Tuesday, September 11, 2007

Confessions of a TV Junkie

I can admit that I'm not Britney Spear's biggest fan. I've seen her make mistakes and chronicled some of those mistakes in this blog. But I'm also more hesitant to admit that I watch what she does, who else is watching what she does, and what those other people think of what she does. And the VMAs was no different.

I didn't actually watch the awards show. I knew I wouldn't need to. Because the next morning when I woke up, the most important parts were being shown again and again on television stations, blogs, and youtube. And what were the most important parts? The parts that didn't belong. Specifically, only one part was being shown world-round again and again. That part? Britney's wastline.

The New York Post headline proclaims "Lard and Clear." Oh, there were plenty of other clever little sayings too. I bet you have one in your head right now. The entire show, it seems, was eclipsed by Britney's bulge in her belly and her somewhat off dance moves. I'm constantly amazed by our obssesion with Britney Spears, and the glee with we we push her off of her high horse and watch in amazement as the horse stomps her to death.

Let me add, here, that I am not above the fray. I saw this headline pasted on E! while I was at the gym on the treadmill. I watched as some twenty-odd college students stopped, mid-stride, to gape at the same video that they had already seen ten times before earlier in the day. I tried to figure out if she was fatter too.

But the question shouldn't be centered around Britney's center. As a society, why do we get our giggles from watching other people fail? I've got my own reasons for it. I think this has to do with our insanely competitive world, in which we covet what others have and hate we we've found ourselves stuck with. I do it too. But I don't know how to get past it. How can we stop salivating when we see someone who has it all go off the deep-end? I don't know if we can. Is it the media's fault? Is it our parent's fault? Is it just the way the world is now, with no one to blame (and, with nothing to blame, nothing to look to fixing)? Is it Britney's fault for getting up on stage in that tiny outfit when she knew that we'd be watching, and waiting, like wolves in the field? Can we stop the massacre on each other that we've been plotting all along? Do we even want to?

Who knows.

As an aside, Kanye West spoke out for Britney Spears, criticizing MTV's "explotation" of her at the VMAs. Then he went on to talk about how MTV robbed him of the center stage and made him play to a small room of fans instead of the mob out front. So Kanye hates MTV, loves Britney Spears, likes to rap about the way "he need Jesus," and hates to give up the spotlight. Oh Kanye, you must be my doppelganger in the hip-hop world.

Saturday, September 8, 2007

Exploring the Medium

Here's an awesome Flickr page, "Exploring the Medium."

From the page:

Experiments, Studies, and Explorations. Seeing binary — but importantly; what befalls the heroic exploits of our central character when he takes controls and rains up colour and light to this vacuous shallow pond of digital artistry.

Majority of works here were generated with the use of Flash. Enlisting the logic of code and a playful mind to create works that explore colour and compostion.[sic]


That's all just fancy speak to say that these pics are pretty mind-blowing.

From the page:

Saturday, September 1, 2007

So, the question seems too almost too basic to ask. But, I'm willing to ask it. Did Al Gore invent the internet?

...Seems like not so much. But, there are plenty or sites out there that might tell you otherwise.
Here's a site that seems to have a somewhat non-biased opinion on the internet; and doesn't base the crux of it's arguement on making fun of Gore.
Well...not much, at least.