So, considering this is a blog about culture and how I often focus on the connections and references inherent in culture, a TED talk on memetics is something I just couldn't pass up. Susan Blackmore's talk is stunning and it will really make you think about culture and why exactly certain things have come about. When I think of a meme, I think about things that propagate the internet. I think of images and inside jokes and references that only a select few understand. But really, memes are all around us. Every culture is built on mimicry. No wonder I've managed to be so prolific at simply spotting these imitations!
Alice in popular culture sighting no. 57: In a scene in This is England where the gang take a football from some Asian kids, Combo refers to two of them as "Tweedledum and Tweedledee".
Showing posts with label culture. Show all posts
Showing posts with label culture. Show all posts
Wednesday, June 04, 2008
Tuesday, January 15, 2008
I'll be finding them in my shoes next...
I seem to be becoming a bit of an "Alice magnet". In preparation for the essay I'm writing for my Digital Cultures module on anonymity and identity on the internet, I picked up a few books from the library. Some of them I picked up randomly by going to the section where another book I wanted was and then looking around to see what else grabbed my attention. I started reading one of those books today. I looked at the contents and flipped to a chapter that seemed relevant and got this from the second paragraph:
Alice in popular culture sighting no. 22: In chapter 7 of Technoromanticism by Richard Coyne; "Schizophrenia and Suspicion", the second paragraph contains this:
Note: I have previously not included any texts I have read for Digital Cultures in these sightings. This was because those texts were prescribed for me to read, whereas as this book was simply a random one I picked off the shelf because I liked the title.
"The mirror provides a potent metaphor in the surrealist concept of the image, featuring prominently in the absurd (Alice Through The Looking Glass) and surrealist iconography [...] For IT commentators such as Chaplin, Alice's looking glass is a precursor to cyberspace in which the fundamental laws of physics, logic and language are inverted."
Tuesday, November 27, 2007
Alice is Quite Interesting
Alice in popular culture sighting no. 7: Episode 11 of QI ("Endings", shown on BBC4 on Friday, to be repeated on BBC2 this coming Friday), finishes with a quote from Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. The King of Hearts to the White Rabbit: "Begin at the beginning, and go on till you come to the end: then stop."
Monday, November 19, 2007
Rule 15
This is rule 15 (though this may change, it was rule 16 last time I checked). A simple statement intended to express the (seemingly) male-dominated nature of the internet. However, the internet is not "male-dominated", not in the slightest. While the majority of internet users may be male (I apologise for the lack of statistics to back this up), female users, being (or at least considered) a rarity, will often be put upon some sort of pedestal (refer to my first link for examples).
Of course, this is most often seen in places that make up a sort of "low" internet. Communities where things like codes of conduct are irrelevant (at its most extreme, somewhere like /b/).
On the internet, everyone is reduced to text. The ultimate in a death of context. While certain signifiers will be available (avatars, signatures, personal profiles, etc), these are subject to the whims of the user and can be manipulated and mis-represented. Also, how you appear on the internet, is largely reliant on how a reader interprets these signifiers. Ergo, your identity on the internet is very different from your "real life" identity (it is also very definitely multiple). This relates back to my look into the different names I use.
This then brings up the question of gender. Of course, gender and sex are different. Sex is binary and a "real life" constraint, while gender can be seen as a nuanced spectrum relating to various things and that can be viewed very differently with regards to context, etc. For an example, take a look at The Gender Genie, which attempts to "guess" the gender of the writer of a certain piece of text. Most of my writing comes out as female.
This means that gender becomes an individual trait on the internet. Something dependent on both writer and reader. It depends on the writer's manipulation of the signifiers they use and the reader's interpretation of the signifiers they encounter. A "male" writer could be interpreted as "female" and vice versa. Writing without signifiers becomes androgynous. If all writing is androgynous and all users are reduced to text, then all users are androgynous. With a lack of signifiers, things other than gender can also be disregarded (age, race, etc).
When there are signifiers, what they are is unimportant. Whether they relate to the sex of the writer or the "culture" of where their writing is encountered (compare /b/ to Harmony Central), it still comes down to the writer and the reader. This is a culture of two. A discourse between individuals and should be treated as such. This creates a culture of individuals, judged on individual attributes.
These individuals can of course be multiple individuals on the internet, while being singular in "real life" (referring once again to "Who am I?"). This multiplicity obviously becomes more complicated when you bring in the different interpretations of readers. The internet is a meritocracy populated with anonymous and androgynous individuals, defined by signifiers as understood by other individuals. How do you be a feminist without females?
Upon reading Luce Irigaray and Rosi Braidotti, the theme that struck me was not the empowerment of women or the de-powering of men, but the definition of identity and the individual. I decided to take these ideas and apply my own experiences with regards to interaction as part of a digital or "cyber" culture. With the internet, we have the opportunity to be whoever we wish to be, male, female, androgyne, or otherwise. This opportunity gives us the ability to really be individuals and to create our own (new) cultures (more on that at a later date). This also gives the chance for equality. Not "true" equality, as individuals are different, but a sort of "pure" equality.
Of course, this is most often seen in places that make up a sort of "low" internet. Communities where things like codes of conduct are irrelevant (at its most extreme, somewhere like /b/).
On the internet, everyone is reduced to text. The ultimate in a death of context. While certain signifiers will be available (avatars, signatures, personal profiles, etc), these are subject to the whims of the user and can be manipulated and mis-represented. Also, how you appear on the internet, is largely reliant on how a reader interprets these signifiers. Ergo, your identity on the internet is very different from your "real life" identity (it is also very definitely multiple). This relates back to my look into the different names I use.
This then brings up the question of gender. Of course, gender and sex are different. Sex is binary and a "real life" constraint, while gender can be seen as a nuanced spectrum relating to various things and that can be viewed very differently with regards to context, etc. For an example, take a look at The Gender Genie, which attempts to "guess" the gender of the writer of a certain piece of text. Most of my writing comes out as female.
This means that gender becomes an individual trait on the internet. Something dependent on both writer and reader. It depends on the writer's manipulation of the signifiers they use and the reader's interpretation of the signifiers they encounter. A "male" writer could be interpreted as "female" and vice versa. Writing without signifiers becomes androgynous. If all writing is androgynous and all users are reduced to text, then all users are androgynous. With a lack of signifiers, things other than gender can also be disregarded (age, race, etc).
When there are signifiers, what they are is unimportant. Whether they relate to the sex of the writer or the "culture" of where their writing is encountered (compare /b/ to Harmony Central), it still comes down to the writer and the reader. This is a culture of two. A discourse between individuals and should be treated as such. This creates a culture of individuals, judged on individual attributes.
These individuals can of course be multiple individuals on the internet, while being singular in "real life" (referring once again to "Who am I?"). This multiplicity obviously becomes more complicated when you bring in the different interpretations of readers. The internet is a meritocracy populated with anonymous and androgynous individuals, defined by signifiers as understood by other individuals. How do you be a feminist without females?
Upon reading Luce Irigaray and Rosi Braidotti, the theme that struck me was not the empowerment of women or the de-powering of men, but the definition of identity and the individual. I decided to take these ideas and apply my own experiences with regards to interaction as part of a digital or "cyber" culture. With the internet, we have the opportunity to be whoever we wish to be, male, female, androgyne, or otherwise. This opportunity gives us the ability to really be individuals and to create our own (new) cultures (more on that at a later date). This also gives the chance for equality. Not "true" equality, as individuals are different, but a sort of "pure" equality.
"I'm sure I can't be Mabel, for I know all sorts of things, and she, oh, she knows such a very little! Besides, she's she, and I'm I"
-Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
Alice in popular culture sighting no. 5: There is one hiding right here in the Blogger software! If you click the little "help" icon next to where you turn comment moderation on or off, one of the example pictures is this:
-Alice
-Alice
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