http://www.sca.org/ca/
help me define our magazine, btw. you'll see.
Wednesday, November 11, 2009
Wednesday, November 4, 2009
HOT/NOT ... IN/OUT
Know how tabloid magazines have "What's Hot & What's Not" ? As a group, lets collect some. I'll design a little box and drop it in somewhere. Think about our theme; switching time periods might be funny/ironic if mixed in.
HOT
Bowler Hats
Snail Mail
NOT
Skinny Jeans
Social Networking
etc.
HOT
Bowler Hats
Snail Mail
NOT
Skinny Jeans
Social Networking
etc.
NOTES from Week 9
Layouts - Develop your article on a two page layout. I recommend looking at other magazines to choose quotes to pull-out and make larger, drop caps, titling. If you can't fit your article on your spread, there is a page for overflow text in the back. You will have a "Contiuned on page..." at the end.
Please bring your layout on a disk next week to give to me. I will take them and work them slightly to make the whole project congruent.
Art - We need ART! Block space with at least a sketch of what you are putting in. It has to be filled by Week 11! Sending to print at the convenience of the printer, before the holiday weekend. Best if all is original, but if there is something you found that applies to our subject and is high resolution, hand it over. We'll give credit. If you mention something in your article like a game console or animation or abigail williams :"), find a picture. Most importantly, I don't want a single page without playful type design, color, art or photography.
Fonts - By the end of class, you will have the font. Hoefler Type Foundry. Set at 10 pt regular for the body. Swash for drop caps. Consider titling and pop quotes.
Printing - The layout I have now is 5 tabloid sheets printed front and back (20 pages from cover to cover). I got quotes, and trust SoCal Graphics in Glendale to get this done on time, correctly and on our budget. The quoted $3 a sheet printed front/back for the inside and cover at $3.75 (thicker paper). I have to get samples of the matte and glossy. They'll do test prints no problem. They said they'd do all the cutting, stapling, and folding for $15 for 20 copies. Maybe we will end up printing less. Each of us need a copy, Rosetta, I thought it would be nice to have copies for each of the other class members to hold, and possibly if you'd like more than one copy. By the time we print, let me know how many you would like. With extra cost for the wrap band, estimated printing is $20 per copy. There are 9 of us in the group to split the cost. Group cost is estimated at $45 each.
You can write a check directly to SoCal graphics, I believe. I can ask.
PRESENTATION - Now to be on Week 13, December 2nd (No Class Wednesday Nov.25th, the day before Thanksgiving) Yipeeeee!!!
Please bring your layout on a disk next week to give to me. I will take them and work them slightly to make the whole project congruent.
Art - We need ART! Block space with at least a sketch of what you are putting in. It has to be filled by Week 11! Sending to print at the convenience of the printer, before the holiday weekend. Best if all is original, but if there is something you found that applies to our subject and is high resolution, hand it over. We'll give credit. If you mention something in your article like a game console or animation or abigail williams :"), find a picture. Most importantly, I don't want a single page without playful type design, color, art or photography.
Fonts - By the end of class, you will have the font. Hoefler Type Foundry. Set at 10 pt regular for the body. Swash for drop caps. Consider titling and pop quotes.
Printing - The layout I have now is 5 tabloid sheets printed front and back (20 pages from cover to cover). I got quotes, and trust SoCal Graphics in Glendale to get this done on time, correctly and on our budget. The quoted $3 a sheet printed front/back for the inside and cover at $3.75 (thicker paper). I have to get samples of the matte and glossy. They'll do test prints no problem. They said they'd do all the cutting, stapling, and folding for $15 for 20 copies. Maybe we will end up printing less. Each of us need a copy, Rosetta, I thought it would be nice to have copies for each of the other class members to hold, and possibly if you'd like more than one copy. By the time we print, let me know how many you would like. With extra cost for the wrap band, estimated printing is $20 per copy. There are 9 of us in the group to split the cost. Group cost is estimated at $45 each.
You can write a check directly to SoCal graphics, I believe. I can ask.
PRESENTATION - Now to be on Week 13, December 2nd (No Class Wednesday Nov.25th, the day before Thanksgiving) Yipeeeee!!!
Newest Draft (Robert Wilkins)
There are people who exist in this day and age who are opposed to the times. Are these people frightened by the prospect of exponential, technological progression? Are they, perhaps, codependent on what they grew up on back in the good ol’ days? I thought all of those people died out in the 90’s once everyone got an email account and carried a cell phone around in their pocket. I for one am glad that video killed the radio star, I’d much rather watch than simply listen most of the time, wouldn’t you?
To me it parallels the old saying… “Make new friends, but keep the old, one is silver, the other gold”. While I can concede a certain amount of caution, even aversion to new technologies (at first) in communication and networking can be healthy, how do people expect to get on in the world. Can they not see the benefits that Facebook, YouTube, the iPhone, and others to come will bring us?
What if, in the past, we voted “nay” to the radio, with only the theatre and symphony should rule supreme. What if we nixed the idea of the printing press and mass literature? I wonder… what would these very conservatives sound like in ancient times? Well, let’s find out as we join our faithful, Cro-Magnon columnist Oog, as he communicates his latest column in the Caveman Chronicle through the lost arts of gestures and grunting:
Big mighty news now! Don't know yet? That’s okay... I, mighty Oog, will swing hairy arms and stomp mighty legs to learn you of momentous news...
Strange noises have been heard, it not monster, it not spirits, either. Strange noises come from human mouth. I swear on the lives of my wives.
These new noise are magic. I swear on the life of all my wives. Nosies come from human mouths, and carry power of understanding! Where this come from, you want know? Some homos made it up, yes, homosapiens from the plain lands created it. Although it have no name in grunt or gesture, those who use it have been calling it "talk". And talk is powerful, I, Oog, witnessed one homo make magic mouth noise, while a second - across the field – hear it, and understand. NO MOVING AT ALL, OOG SWEAR IT BE TRUTH!
In a way it make Oog proud of homos everywhere. I lay awake at night and wonder about the greatness that will be future generations. But, Oog stop and think also, even though it hurt head when Oog do. Imagine many moons from now… will homos all use this invisible mouth-magic, all the time? What will happen to the good old days when Oog sit around fire with his many wives and friends and pass down the most important things? Will grunts and gestures be speared by mouth-magic's arrowhead?
Oog is simple caveman just like many of you. Oog make baby with one wife at one time and make candles with one piece of ear wax at one time. And likewise, if Oog need to communicate, then Oog get up, go over, and move Oog's body to explain like any normal homo do in our civilized time.
Oog have memory of Oog Sr. when he pass down art of charade to Oog. I, Oog, very proud of my skill. But what happen in many moon? Oog abhor the day I have to talk to get annoying children away. Oog think it more fun to backhand annoying children, agree?
Oog notice more homos not communicate with gesture anymore. Homos everywhere no need now get up to explain. Now just sit in cave and yell at wives for saber-leg and baby making. Homos now lazy, forget the teachings of ancestors, and now high cholesterol. What next, Oog think... tool to talk to far off village?
This is why I, Oog, tell you that new is bad thing. Cavemen need to forget new technology, it only distract in the end. New is never the answer if our goal is survival! Stay with old way, the old way never change.
Abigail Williams has sent you a friend request.
Hi, This is another version of my article. I'm taking this one to the writing lab and will have the finished draft posted asap. Let me know what you think. I think it may be the worst thing you will ever read. Actually, that's a promise.
Gabe
In his 1964 structuralist opus, Understanding Media, Marshall McLuhan writes that that “Mental breakdown of varying degrees is the very common result of uprooting and inundation with new information and endless new patterns of information.”McLuhan is writing to us from the sixties, so its often striking how much his talk on new media technology sounds like the internet. And if ‘mental breakdown’ is the result of information overload, then we’re screwed. In the same article, he describes the past as a time when “many actions could be taken without too much concern…” but how “today the action and the reaction occur almost at the same time.” Despite the density of his words, this much of the message is clear: New Media Technology has had, and will continue to have far reaching implications on the fundamental components of human life. Even our understanding of space and time is affected, or “we continue to think in the old fragmented space and time patterns of the pre-electric age.”
The tone of McLuhan’s passionate rant is fairly matter of fact but with an occasional glimmer of doom and urgency. Whatever the outcome of the changing world, McLuhan makes it clear that the difference between fascists and the new media is that “the threat of Hitler was external” while the “electric technology is within the gates and we are numb, deaf, blind…” This sounds very bad, but he reminds the reader that “today, when we want to get our bearing in our own culture and have need to stand aside from the bias and pressure exerted by any technical form of human expression, we have only to visit a society where that particular form has not been felt, or historical period in which it was unknown. It is with McLuhan’s recommendation that I delve into the following question. Social Networking Sites, the glamorous companion to internet technology of the last two decades, has wrought itself onto our lives and there are many questions about the ways in which it has changed us. Or has it changed us, really? Looking to the past to loosely understand the present, I ask myself what famous moments in history could have really benefitted from 24 hour internet access and a facebook, blogspot, or youtube? Since it is the harvest season with witches and ghouls and the brutalities of winter never far behind, the bizarre occurences in Salem Massachusetts feel ripe for an high-speed internet connection.
As the story goes, Salem was an incident in the not so distant past when fear, jealousy, and possibly halucenegenic contamination of grain stocks made for a couple of very wild weekends. Between 1692 and 1693, roughly 25 people died on the east coast as a result of imprisonment or hanging because they had been accused and convicted of witchcraft. The bulk of the drama occurred in Salem M.A. and since then, the story has served as an allegory for dangers that await all persons involved with or subjected to unchecked superstition, religious extremism and faulty judicial systems. Condensed nicely into a few weeks, Arthur Miller penned the version of the story which we are most familiar with, a tail of overworked girls forever being seen and never heard, and otherwise bored witless by the puritanicall moral code stacked against them and everyone else resideing in Salem at that time. The real life 12 year old Abigail Williams, the main instigator of the witchcraft accusations, became a buxom temptress in the play, and the popular mythology of the Salem trials being the games of dewy young girls on the verge of sexual fruition could easily have garnered all the internet headlines of the day.
Now, to make things interesting…lets endow Abigail Williams with some new vindictive implements. With her new age and sexuality, compliments of Arthur miller, we have the perfect MySpacer posting sexy photos of her self in freshly pressed aprons and scandalously hemmed work skirts. If you’re her friend, you get to look at the photos of her without her bonnet. Being the age group and roughly the socioeconomic ranks that patron MySpace more than any other group, Abigail, like present day farm girls in fiercely Christian hamlets all over the country would have found solace and the means of self expression in the sometimes tawdry realm downloadable layout designs. She would have opted for the yellow background with heart and star clip art wall- paper that had the twinkling and rotating affect. It wouldn’t matter that her friends computers would crash whenever they logged into her site, for she knew that as the head of the roost, they would persist until they could read her highly anticipated blog entry of the day.
On July 6th, 1692, Abbybabby16 wrote:
Tituba is a total bitch. You guys can’t hang out with her anymore. She was seriously trying to make me feel bad for not having done that Equinox thing with her, like I care. I hate her. Goody Parris was telling my mom that she’s even been slacking off on the housework and it’s probably because she’s so heart broken about us not being friends anymore.
The big news is that fat ass Sara Osbitch is threatening to tell Father about Proctor, who, for the record, is just as into me as I’m sort of into him, so I never wanted to be that person that Parris talks about at services. Still, I never thought I would be hanging out with Tituba either. Lol. Go figure. Anyway, I know I can trust you guys to not tell anyone because you know I’ll switch to your ugly little faces. One more thing, Biznitches, looks like we’re doing a midnight hike this Wednesday. Betty is bringing cider. It is there, that I, the uber sexy Abigail Williams, will unveil my master plan of destruction for the hoary hags of Salem that keep giving me shit.
The Sara Osbitch Abigail refers to is actually Sarah Osborn, one of the first three people to be accused of witchcraft by Abigail and her hysterical friends. Dorothy Good was one of the later victims of the accusations that spread like wildfire. Each of the accused could be cast in a restaging of the crucible by any member of the PTA from any street and from any network of adults that ever came into contact with the libidinous mayhem of teenagers. And what would have happened had the Abigail gang been granted access to social networking technologies of today. The question, however amusing it is to ponder, is admittedly ridiculous because the presence of internet technology assumes so many vast changes in the world that extremism, superstition and weak due-process probably wouldn’t have been as big a factor. At least one would assume so, because if McClurin’s assertion that the content of new media technology is never as impactful as the technology itself, then every fundamental fibre of 17th century Salem would have been radically different. Still, the inconquerable bad behavior of people everywhere never fails to rear its ugly head, and like porn and religion, pettiness finds vibrant new avenues of expansion with each new technological flourish.
As recently as 2006, conspiracy, intrigue, and the indominatable heart of human pettiness sent a friend request to Megan Meier, a 16- year- old girl living in O’fallon Missouri. The result was violent death for a girl who fell in love with an imaginary boy who’s MySpace profile had been created by the wrathful mother of one of Megan Meier’s classmates. As this story goes, the mother, a woman named Lori Drew, had heard that Miss Meier was spreading gossip about her daughter. Lori Drew flew into a rage and sought to punish the 16-year-old girl that had perpetrated slanderous rumors against her daughter. So, with her jilted daughter and several of the daughters friends, a fake MySpace profile was created in the form of a 16 year old boy named Josh. The only thing missing was a secret midnight meeting in the wilderness, complete with campfire. The creation of the fake profile, in light of its tragic outcome, takes on the quality of an evil conjuration by a literal suburban hag who’s behavior resulted in charges for three counts of accessing protected computers without authorization to obtain information, to inflict emotional distress and one count of criminal conspiracy. It was admitted in court that LoriDrew intended to use Meier’s e-mails with Josh to get information about her and later humiliate her. What ended up happening was Megan Meier fell in love with the imaginary Josh. Seeing an opportunity, Lorie and her conspirators lured Megan into a fake love trap and then finally slammed the coffin lid. The once affectionate ‘Josh’ became suddenly cruel and his final message to Megan read, “the world would be a better place without you.” With that, Megan Meier hung herself with a pink scarf in her bedroom closet. A few blocks away, paper mache witches hung in store windows for Halloween caught an updraft from the opening of bell chimed doors.
The event of Megan Meiers death, while hardly a parallel to the events in Salem, is more of a testament to the fundamental fibers of human cruelty and vindictiveness that do not change, no matter how massive the change of internet technology may be. But an interesting question posed by the Megan Meier events is the question of whether or not the simulated anonymity of social networking sites permitted Megan’s torment in a way that could only have been possible previously in a social environment as backwards as…say, Salem? But then, McLurin himself says “as electrically contracted, the globe is no more than a village.”
Along the lines of similar sentiment, McLurin also describes how despite the deterioration of tribal patterns of behavior in the face of technological advancement, it is that same advancement/ “speed up, such as occurs with electricity” that might “Serve to restore a tribal pattern of intense involvement…” If this restoration of tribal patterns can be associated with the rowdy behavior associated with tribal states of society, then maybe the circumstances that permitted a middle aged soccer mom to wreak havock on a 16 year old girl via the internet will appear again and again. Or maybe this is just a blip, or growing pain of a radically knew way of life. While this is not a guaranteed trend or outcome, the possibility of such disasters are never so far beneath the surface that we forget about them completely. For whenever we accept person a facebook friend request, we accept the possibility that we can be unfriended, stalked, publically humiliated, all with a click of a button. Lets pretend for a moment that the internet realm of today is sort of a continuation of a curse muttered by one of the convicted witches in 17th century Salem, and that this global village we click into regularly is capable of becoming the village in which everyone is feeling invisible enough that they will gladly cast stones.
Gabe
In his 1964 structuralist opus, Understanding Media, Marshall McLuhan writes that that “Mental breakdown of varying degrees is the very common result of uprooting and inundation with new information and endless new patterns of information.”McLuhan is writing to us from the sixties, so its often striking how much his talk on new media technology sounds like the internet. And if ‘mental breakdown’ is the result of information overload, then we’re screwed. In the same article, he describes the past as a time when “many actions could be taken without too much concern…” but how “today the action and the reaction occur almost at the same time.” Despite the density of his words, this much of the message is clear: New Media Technology has had, and will continue to have far reaching implications on the fundamental components of human life. Even our understanding of space and time is affected, or “we continue to think in the old fragmented space and time patterns of the pre-electric age.”
The tone of McLuhan’s passionate rant is fairly matter of fact but with an occasional glimmer of doom and urgency. Whatever the outcome of the changing world, McLuhan makes it clear that the difference between fascists and the new media is that “the threat of Hitler was external” while the “electric technology is within the gates and we are numb, deaf, blind…” This sounds very bad, but he reminds the reader that “today, when we want to get our bearing in our own culture and have need to stand aside from the bias and pressure exerted by any technical form of human expression, we have only to visit a society where that particular form has not been felt, or historical period in which it was unknown. It is with McLuhan’s recommendation that I delve into the following question. Social Networking Sites, the glamorous companion to internet technology of the last two decades, has wrought itself onto our lives and there are many questions about the ways in which it has changed us. Or has it changed us, really? Looking to the past to loosely understand the present, I ask myself what famous moments in history could have really benefitted from 24 hour internet access and a facebook, blogspot, or youtube? Since it is the harvest season with witches and ghouls and the brutalities of winter never far behind, the bizarre occurences in Salem Massachusetts feel ripe for an high-speed internet connection.
As the story goes, Salem was an incident in the not so distant past when fear, jealousy, and possibly halucenegenic contamination of grain stocks made for a couple of very wild weekends. Between 1692 and 1693, roughly 25 people died on the east coast as a result of imprisonment or hanging because they had been accused and convicted of witchcraft. The bulk of the drama occurred in Salem M.A. and since then, the story has served as an allegory for dangers that await all persons involved with or subjected to unchecked superstition, religious extremism and faulty judicial systems. Condensed nicely into a few weeks, Arthur Miller penned the version of the story which we are most familiar with, a tail of overworked girls forever being seen and never heard, and otherwise bored witless by the puritanicall moral code stacked against them and everyone else resideing in Salem at that time. The real life 12 year old Abigail Williams, the main instigator of the witchcraft accusations, became a buxom temptress in the play, and the popular mythology of the Salem trials being the games of dewy young girls on the verge of sexual fruition could easily have garnered all the internet headlines of the day.
Now, to make things interesting…lets endow Abigail Williams with some new vindictive implements. With her new age and sexuality, compliments of Arthur miller, we have the perfect MySpacer posting sexy photos of her self in freshly pressed aprons and scandalously hemmed work skirts. If you’re her friend, you get to look at the photos of her without her bonnet. Being the age group and roughly the socioeconomic ranks that patron MySpace more than any other group, Abigail, like present day farm girls in fiercely Christian hamlets all over the country would have found solace and the means of self expression in the sometimes tawdry realm downloadable layout designs. She would have opted for the yellow background with heart and star clip art wall- paper that had the twinkling and rotating affect. It wouldn’t matter that her friends computers would crash whenever they logged into her site, for she knew that as the head of the roost, they would persist until they could read her highly anticipated blog entry of the day.
On July 6th, 1692, Abbybabby16 wrote:
Tituba is a total bitch. You guys can’t hang out with her anymore. She was seriously trying to make me feel bad for not having done that Equinox thing with her, like I care. I hate her. Goody Parris was telling my mom that she’s even been slacking off on the housework and it’s probably because she’s so heart broken about us not being friends anymore.
The big news is that fat ass Sara Osbitch is threatening to tell Father about Proctor, who, for the record, is just as into me as I’m sort of into him, so I never wanted to be that person that Parris talks about at services. Still, I never thought I would be hanging out with Tituba either. Lol. Go figure. Anyway, I know I can trust you guys to not tell anyone because you know I’ll switch to your ugly little faces. One more thing, Biznitches, looks like we’re doing a midnight hike this Wednesday. Betty is bringing cider. It is there, that I, the uber sexy Abigail Williams, will unveil my master plan of destruction for the hoary hags of Salem that keep giving me shit.
The Sara Osbitch Abigail refers to is actually Sarah Osborn, one of the first three people to be accused of witchcraft by Abigail and her hysterical friends. Dorothy Good was one of the later victims of the accusations that spread like wildfire. Each of the accused could be cast in a restaging of the crucible by any member of the PTA from any street and from any network of adults that ever came into contact with the libidinous mayhem of teenagers. And what would have happened had the Abigail gang been granted access to social networking technologies of today. The question, however amusing it is to ponder, is admittedly ridiculous because the presence of internet technology assumes so many vast changes in the world that extremism, superstition and weak due-process probably wouldn’t have been as big a factor. At least one would assume so, because if McClurin’s assertion that the content of new media technology is never as impactful as the technology itself, then every fundamental fibre of 17th century Salem would have been radically different. Still, the inconquerable bad behavior of people everywhere never fails to rear its ugly head, and like porn and religion, pettiness finds vibrant new avenues of expansion with each new technological flourish.
As recently as 2006, conspiracy, intrigue, and the indominatable heart of human pettiness sent a friend request to Megan Meier, a 16- year- old girl living in O’fallon Missouri. The result was violent death for a girl who fell in love with an imaginary boy who’s MySpace profile had been created by the wrathful mother of one of Megan Meier’s classmates. As this story goes, the mother, a woman named Lori Drew, had heard that Miss Meier was spreading gossip about her daughter. Lori Drew flew into a rage and sought to punish the 16-year-old girl that had perpetrated slanderous rumors against her daughter. So, with her jilted daughter and several of the daughters friends, a fake MySpace profile was created in the form of a 16 year old boy named Josh. The only thing missing was a secret midnight meeting in the wilderness, complete with campfire. The creation of the fake profile, in light of its tragic outcome, takes on the quality of an evil conjuration by a literal suburban hag who’s behavior resulted in charges for three counts of accessing protected computers without authorization to obtain information, to inflict emotional distress and one count of criminal conspiracy. It was admitted in court that LoriDrew intended to use Meier’s e-mails with Josh to get information about her and later humiliate her. What ended up happening was Megan Meier fell in love with the imaginary Josh. Seeing an opportunity, Lorie and her conspirators lured Megan into a fake love trap and then finally slammed the coffin lid. The once affectionate ‘Josh’ became suddenly cruel and his final message to Megan read, “the world would be a better place without you.” With that, Megan Meier hung herself with a pink scarf in her bedroom closet. A few blocks away, paper mache witches hung in store windows for Halloween caught an updraft from the opening of bell chimed doors.
The event of Megan Meiers death, while hardly a parallel to the events in Salem, is more of a testament to the fundamental fibers of human cruelty and vindictiveness that do not change, no matter how massive the change of internet technology may be. But an interesting question posed by the Megan Meier events is the question of whether or not the simulated anonymity of social networking sites permitted Megan’s torment in a way that could only have been possible previously in a social environment as backwards as…say, Salem? But then, McLurin himself says “as electrically contracted, the globe is no more than a village.”
Along the lines of similar sentiment, McLurin also describes how despite the deterioration of tribal patterns of behavior in the face of technological advancement, it is that same advancement/ “speed up, such as occurs with electricity” that might “Serve to restore a tribal pattern of intense involvement…” If this restoration of tribal patterns can be associated with the rowdy behavior associated with tribal states of society, then maybe the circumstances that permitted a middle aged soccer mom to wreak havock on a 16 year old girl via the internet will appear again and again. Or maybe this is just a blip, or growing pain of a radically knew way of life. While this is not a guaranteed trend or outcome, the possibility of such disasters are never so far beneath the surface that we forget about them completely. For whenever we accept person a facebook friend request, we accept the possibility that we can be unfriended, stalked, publically humiliated, all with a click of a button. Lets pretend for a moment that the internet realm of today is sort of a continuation of a curse muttered by one of the convicted witches in 17th century Salem, and that this global village we click into regularly is capable of becoming the village in which everyone is feeling invisible enough that they will gladly cast stones.
Alejandro - illustration roughs
Hey Team.
I finished some illustration concepts to share in class today.
For the benefit of anyone who doesn't show up (including yours truly, haha) here they are in advance:
Just a quick idea for the cover (if not the official cover, it could be a sub-cover or "Coming Attractions" cover, etc.)
These three are specifically for my article. (I still need to give that essay its final tweaks, argh.)
Talk back soon.
I finished some illustration concepts to share in class today.
For the benefit of anyone who doesn't show up (including yours truly, haha) here they are in advance:
Just a quick idea for the cover (if not the official cover, it could be a sub-cover or "Coming Attractions" cover, etc.)
These three are specifically for my article. (I still need to give that essay its final tweaks, argh.)
Talk back soon.
Sunday, November 1, 2009
This is it
Had my article checked out. I am done, son. If anything is not italicized, it's because it's italicized in my Word doc, but not here.
++++++
Death of the Salesman
“you have your laptop in the *office*? eww gross lol”
“omg did you see that? That was crazy lol”
“idk my bff Rose”
Perhaps your friends are wittier than mine. However, the above characters are not jibberish, but phrases derived from the English language and used in actual text messages that I have received. These messages are not indicative of the fact that the median age of my social circle is 30 years of age or that the average number of children per family is 0.9---not to mention 1.3 dogs per capita.
Perhaps you became one of Ashton Kutcher’s followers when he engaged in a battle against the venerable media conglomerate, CNN, to be the first to garner a million followers on Twitter. If so, you may also remember that Kutcher was victorious in his virtual quest. Kutcher, 1. Mankind, 0.
Perhaps you remember tinny answering machines utilizing cassette tapes stating that the Smith family was not home right now, but would call you back as soon as they got home. Or perhaps you reminisce about dinner trays arranged around the television-on-wheels to watch “The Twilight Zone.” Maybe you can faintly remember when eight-track players were once luxuries in automobiles or when Apple’s original moniker was Macintosh. And, no, children, EasyMac is not the greatest invention since sliced bread.
As opposed to bridging the divide between strangers, technology has forced us to compartmentalize all of our thoughts into 140 character “tweets” and status updates on Facebook or drawing from a collection of “emoticons” to accurately express our emotions on MySpace. The primary issue at stake is not the incorporation of technology and its many benefits in our everyday lives, but the subversive act of shunning human interaction. The digital age in which we live has removed the need for the answering machine, handwritten letters and actual, physical---and heartfelt---human interaction. Our mailman, Jim, was a staple at our dinner table during major, non-religious holidays and always received $40 and two pairs of socks each year for Christmas. Sadly, his job has largely been replaced by the advent of emails and text messages. The Encyclopedia Brittanica was once sold door-to-door, but is now available online exclusively, as they continue to phase out production of books and DVDs. However, because the possibility remains that a compilation of “Greatest Hits” text messages may break onto the New York Times bestseller’s list, this possibility is exemplary of the degradation of human interaction in juxtaposition with media and its complex marriage with technology.
We live in a world where reality television show stars, such as Lauren Conrad of “Laguna Beach” and “The Hills” fame, can write a New York Times bestseller, L.A. Candy, which thereby taints the life’s work of the prestigious authors who preceded her. In addition, these authors before her would have been thrilled to have found singular success during the duration of their lives, even posthumously, let alone half of the cause celebre generated by Ms. Conrad. Her novel, the first of a series of three, tells the story of a 19-year-old teenager who moves to Hollywood and ends up as the star of her own reality show. As arduous and difficult a journey as it may have been to compose such a far-fetched story from her real life, the book remained on the bestseller’s list for two consecutive weeks. In my mind, there is no doubt that her popularity was derived from a reality television show and retained and expanded by blogs, Internet fan clubs, websites and word of mouth spread via various compact mass communicative devices, such as cell phones. On MySpace, Conrad’s friends currently total 314,144, with the youngest fan being my 2-year-old niece. Note: Babies which have not yet been conceived were not included in this polling.
The Internet provides a wealth of information, but it is up to the users of this technology to determine and disseminate its use and relevance, if any, of the content and context. As coined by PBS’ Frontline: Digital Nation weblog, there are two types of people living in our digital world: Digital Natives---those who have grown up in a digital culture and hyper connectivity---and Digital Immigrants, or those who are new to the changing technologies and are slow to adapt. Digital Natives, however, have been raised with the ideal that opposable thumbs were meant for texting, not sucking. Natives aged 13 to 17 average 1,742 text messages a month; 89 percent of 18- to 24-year-old Americans are online. In addition, Digital Natives aged 12 to 24 spend 4.5 hours a day viewing screen media (TV, Internet, Internet video, mobile video), excluding games.
My mother’s experience with texting and emailing exemplifies the daily technological struggles faced by Digital Immigrants. Having wrested with technology over the past six decades, lo and behold, my sexagenarian Internet has even begun learning to text. Similar to the angst she developed as the passenger when I was learning to drive, I feel a coronary developing as my Internet struggles to write a whopping 10-word text message, a feat which surely rivals man landing on the moon. Like the stereotypical teenager, she developed the need to text message due to the increasing technological mobility adapted by her social circle. Her afternoons are now filled with “lol” and “r u going tonite?” rather than a mere phone call, a shopping excursion or a conversation over coffee, as she did sporadically with her girlfriends in the past. There is hardly a need to verbally communicate with others outside of the home, when emails and text messages are deemed sufficient. However, at her age, where there is much alienation, perhaps even the smallest contact now carries with it a sense of meaning.
However, the elderly are not alone in their electronic communication woes. Arguably the most technologically advanced nation in the world, Japan is continually pushing the boundaries between technology, culture and lifestyle, despite the invasive nature of this interconnectivity¬––after all, the Japanese were the first to create robots, which could walk, talk and smile. The Japanese also coined the term hikikomori to describe socially withdrawn youth, who seclude themselves in their rooms and rely exclusively upon digital communication in order to avoid public interaction. The Internet provides anonymity to these Japanese teenagers, which, in turn, provides a sense of security, yet a mode of self-expression in a culture which values homogeneity highly. A majority of Japanese social networking sites, such as Mixi, are overflowing with nicknames, aliases and blurry photos. In addition to the growing social strain created by the interconnectivity between technology and our lives, the backs of children are straining more with the advent of modern technology. A 2007 study of children's computer use found that none of the participants used a safe posture. I, myself, am slowly developing a Cro-Magnon posture, following hours spent on the computer, both for recreation and profession.
Today, we live in an age of unprecedented technological freedom. However, this freedom has resulted in an equally dynamic oppression of human interaction and, at times, sensitivity. Whereas humans craved interaction and the warmth of company before, their days are now filled with smiley faces, with or without their tongues sticking out. I am, myself, an admitted former abuser of English––guilty as charged. However, I have discovered that there is no intimacy in a tweet or a text message or a status update. There is no romanticizing over the loss of grammar or the lack of punctuation in these text-based exchanges, which are supposed to provide others with a brief, albeit tightly controlled, glimpse into our lives. Are these online profiles an accurate portrayal of our true self? Where have the days of the milkmen and encyclopedia salesman gone?
@Reader, if you’re having your baby or getting married, I don’t want to find out on Facebook. TTYL.
Resources
“Frontline: Digital Nation: Living Faster: Digital Natives.” pbs.org. PBS. Web. n.d.
Kelts, R.N. “Japan’s Private Worlds.” Adbusters: Journal of the Mental Environment. 12 November 2009. Periodical.
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And, finally, the quote I'd like to blow up in my layout somewhere:
“This is not a foreign language. This is how they have grown up.” Secretary of Education, Arne Duncan
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Death of the Salesman
“you have your laptop in the *office*? eww gross lol”
“omg did you see that? That was crazy lol”
“idk my bff Rose”
Perhaps your friends are wittier than mine. However, the above characters are not jibberish, but phrases derived from the English language and used in actual text messages that I have received. These messages are not indicative of the fact that the median age of my social circle is 30 years of age or that the average number of children per family is 0.9---not to mention 1.3 dogs per capita.
Perhaps you became one of Ashton Kutcher’s followers when he engaged in a battle against the venerable media conglomerate, CNN, to be the first to garner a million followers on Twitter. If so, you may also remember that Kutcher was victorious in his virtual quest. Kutcher, 1. Mankind, 0.
Perhaps you remember tinny answering machines utilizing cassette tapes stating that the Smith family was not home right now, but would call you back as soon as they got home. Or perhaps you reminisce about dinner trays arranged around the television-on-wheels to watch “The Twilight Zone.” Maybe you can faintly remember when eight-track players were once luxuries in automobiles or when Apple’s original moniker was Macintosh. And, no, children, EasyMac is not the greatest invention since sliced bread.
As opposed to bridging the divide between strangers, technology has forced us to compartmentalize all of our thoughts into 140 character “tweets” and status updates on Facebook or drawing from a collection of “emoticons” to accurately express our emotions on MySpace. The primary issue at stake is not the incorporation of technology and its many benefits in our everyday lives, but the subversive act of shunning human interaction. The digital age in which we live has removed the need for the answering machine, handwritten letters and actual, physical---and heartfelt---human interaction. Our mailman, Jim, was a staple at our dinner table during major, non-religious holidays and always received $40 and two pairs of socks each year for Christmas. Sadly, his job has largely been replaced by the advent of emails and text messages. The Encyclopedia Brittanica was once sold door-to-door, but is now available online exclusively, as they continue to phase out production of books and DVDs. However, because the possibility remains that a compilation of “Greatest Hits” text messages may break onto the New York Times bestseller’s list, this possibility is exemplary of the degradation of human interaction in juxtaposition with media and its complex marriage with technology.
We live in a world where reality television show stars, such as Lauren Conrad of “Laguna Beach” and “The Hills” fame, can write a New York Times bestseller, L.A. Candy, which thereby taints the life’s work of the prestigious authors who preceded her. In addition, these authors before her would have been thrilled to have found singular success during the duration of their lives, even posthumously, let alone half of the cause celebre generated by Ms. Conrad. Her novel, the first of a series of three, tells the story of a 19-year-old teenager who moves to Hollywood and ends up as the star of her own reality show. As arduous and difficult a journey as it may have been to compose such a far-fetched story from her real life, the book remained on the bestseller’s list for two consecutive weeks. In my mind, there is no doubt that her popularity was derived from a reality television show and retained and expanded by blogs, Internet fan clubs, websites and word of mouth spread via various compact mass communicative devices, such as cell phones. On MySpace, Conrad’s friends currently total 314,144, with the youngest fan being my 2-year-old niece. Note: Babies which have not yet been conceived were not included in this polling.
The Internet provides a wealth of information, but it is up to the users of this technology to determine and disseminate its use and relevance, if any, of the content and context. As coined by PBS’ Frontline: Digital Nation weblog, there are two types of people living in our digital world: Digital Natives---those who have grown up in a digital culture and hyper connectivity---and Digital Immigrants, or those who are new to the changing technologies and are slow to adapt. Digital Natives, however, have been raised with the ideal that opposable thumbs were meant for texting, not sucking. Natives aged 13 to 17 average 1,742 text messages a month; 89 percent of 18- to 24-year-old Americans are online. In addition, Digital Natives aged 12 to 24 spend 4.5 hours a day viewing screen media (TV, Internet, Internet video, mobile video), excluding games.
My mother’s experience with texting and emailing exemplifies the daily technological struggles faced by Digital Immigrants. Having wrested with technology over the past six decades, lo and behold, my sexagenarian Internet has even begun learning to text. Similar to the angst she developed as the passenger when I was learning to drive, I feel a coronary developing as my Internet struggles to write a whopping 10-word text message, a feat which surely rivals man landing on the moon. Like the stereotypical teenager, she developed the need to text message due to the increasing technological mobility adapted by her social circle. Her afternoons are now filled with “lol” and “r u going tonite?” rather than a mere phone call, a shopping excursion or a conversation over coffee, as she did sporadically with her girlfriends in the past. There is hardly a need to verbally communicate with others outside of the home, when emails and text messages are deemed sufficient. However, at her age, where there is much alienation, perhaps even the smallest contact now carries with it a sense of meaning.
However, the elderly are not alone in their electronic communication woes. Arguably the most technologically advanced nation in the world, Japan is continually pushing the boundaries between technology, culture and lifestyle, despite the invasive nature of this interconnectivity¬––after all, the Japanese were the first to create robots, which could walk, talk and smile. The Japanese also coined the term hikikomori to describe socially withdrawn youth, who seclude themselves in their rooms and rely exclusively upon digital communication in order to avoid public interaction. The Internet provides anonymity to these Japanese teenagers, which, in turn, provides a sense of security, yet a mode of self-expression in a culture which values homogeneity highly. A majority of Japanese social networking sites, such as Mixi, are overflowing with nicknames, aliases and blurry photos. In addition to the growing social strain created by the interconnectivity between technology and our lives, the backs of children are straining more with the advent of modern technology. A 2007 study of children's computer use found that none of the participants used a safe posture. I, myself, am slowly developing a Cro-Magnon posture, following hours spent on the computer, both for recreation and profession.
Today, we live in an age of unprecedented technological freedom. However, this freedom has resulted in an equally dynamic oppression of human interaction and, at times, sensitivity. Whereas humans craved interaction and the warmth of company before, their days are now filled with smiley faces, with or without their tongues sticking out. I am, myself, an admitted former abuser of English––guilty as charged. However, I have discovered that there is no intimacy in a tweet or a text message or a status update. There is no romanticizing over the loss of grammar or the lack of punctuation in these text-based exchanges, which are supposed to provide others with a brief, albeit tightly controlled, glimpse into our lives. Are these online profiles an accurate portrayal of our true self? Where have the days of the milkmen and encyclopedia salesman gone?
@Reader, if you’re having your baby or getting married, I don’t want to find out on Facebook. TTYL.
Resources
“Frontline: Digital Nation: Living Faster: Digital Natives.” pbs.org. PBS. Web. n.d.
Kelts, R.N. “Japan’s Private Worlds.” Adbusters: Journal of the Mental Environment. 12 November 2009. Periodical.
+++
And, finally, the quote I'd like to blow up in my layout somewhere:
“This is not a foreign language. This is how they have grown up.” Secretary of Education, Arne Duncan
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