Slaves of the Internet Article

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/27/opinion/sunday/slaves-of-the-internet-unite.html?_r=0

This article is about a journalist who is 46 years old and is still asked to write articles making no money, literally zero dollars, something that he believes should have ended while he was still in his 20's. The article explains that all jobs require work, time, effort, etc. and that it is demoralizing when someone suggests that your work is worth nothing at all.

The article continues explaining that the Internet "seems like capitalism's ultimate feat of self-destructive genius, an economic doomsday device rendering it impossible for anyone to ever make a profit off anything again," because access to the Internet is primarily free of charge, and easy to achieve. He claims that he is making the exact same or less money than he was making in the 1980's, which does not seem fair.

The Internet provides so many people with so much information, which is an unbelievable and helpful accomplishment, however it does hinder so many people that need to make their living through the Internet. Even when he accomplished great success with one of the articles he wrote, he made little to no money even though the article was reblogged, reposted, and shared throughout countless social media websites. While I appreciate the Internet, and cannot imagine research or the simple act of learning random information without the Internet, it seems unfair that those producing the information are getting paid virtually nothing for their knowledge. Everything on the Internet is so easily accessible that making money for journalists is extremely difficult, and it almost seems unfair that these people have lost the capability of providing information while making a substantial living from it.

2013 Internet Cat Video Film Festival

http://www.buzzfeed.com/travisrandg/things-i-learned-at-the-2013-internet-cat-video-film-festiva

I kid you not, this is real. This is a one hundred percent legitimate festival in Minnesota, the second annual to be exact. Over thirteen thousand people attended this event, applauding the various cat videos that have been created over the Internet. This article depicts this festival as "the Superbowl of cat videos, crossed with the Oscars," and explains that the purpose of the event is to take the online experience offline, where people can meet others with the same interests in this cat genre.

The article is filled with cat puns, and different pictures and videos of the highlights of the entire festival. I knew that this was a genre, and that there were tons of cat videos filtered throughout the Internet, but never did I ever think the genre was this broad, with so many followers. The pictures I saw in this article were so surprising to me. I literally felt like I was in a different world, and I had absolutely no idea that this existed, or that so many people would be so completely interested.

There was a butter statue of a cat. There were men wearing leopard print leggings. There were cat slippers. As far as cat video events go, I'd say that this one was pretty successful. I certainly learned a lot from this article alone that I had never known before.

You Be You, Not The Computer

Through the Internet, the format of relationships has drastically changed. Rather than having face-to-face conversations, going on dates, and having long distance and lengthy telephone calls, the internet, and social media websites specifically have allowed for society to become lazy. Typing words into a screen, where there is no legitimate human interaction makes it easy for relationships to become more distant, and not as raw and natural as real-life relationships.

As a member of the generation that uses the Internet as a daily necessity, I appreciate all that social media has to offer me. Because I am from New Hampshire, without social media it would be extremely difficult for me to keep in contact with my friends and family from back home. This is beneficial for all of my friends who have different class schedules, my parents who have different work schedules, and people that I want to stay connected to from all over the country. Making telephone calls to every person I want to talk to would be impossible, so this creates a function ability that I could not imagine my life without. For this purpose the social media is an exceptional tool that mediates my relationships for pure purposes. There is a difference in my opinion however of maintaining preexisting relationships, and creating and developing new ones.

When I meet someone new, it is almost guaranteed that I will be awkward, shy, and will indubitably walk away from the conversation regretting something that I said. While I appreciate the fact that social media would help me prevent some of the inevitable embarrassment, the internet helps me be someone I’m not rather than propelling the person that I am. Part of what makes me so unique is the fact that when I am with a group of people I say exactly what I want, with no filter. Whether I realize I shouldn’t be saying it or not, it comes out in my speech, and people are either accepting of it or they are not, but in that moment, they know exactly who I am. If I use social media to have a conversation, I will stare at the chat box and run through countless possible scenarios. I will try to be witty, or intelligent. I will use the backspace button time and time again because I want whatever I say to be perfect, but in the real world, this is not possible.

Just recently, I met someone new and after our in-person conversation that surprisingly went very well, we added each other on Facebook. When he sent me a message later that day, I became anxious, nervous, and I instantly had to message another one of my friends to live stream me advice through the entire conversation. Rather than saying the first statement that would come to my mind, I would ask my friend, we would analyze the situation, and we would reshape what I was thinking to make it sound better. Hopefully the boy never realized why it took me several minutes to come up with such simple messages.

Although the interactions have been continuing both in person and through social media, the boy directly told me that I sound different when we talk online than when we talk in person. I realized that this is probably by no means a compliment. No one wants to talk to someone who is so different in different situations. I realized that I use social media as a crutch to ease my stress of actual conversation. Social media allows me to stop thinking for myself, and to use others, and to use time and strategy to have a conversation, rather than having an authentic interaction with another human being. Typing into a computer screen should not cause as much stress as it does, and it should not inhibit on my true identity and character the way that it does when I talk to someone new.

The Internet and social media helps us create false identities. Whether we realize it or not, we put on a façade, and the social media websites help us to do so. People post photos of themselves that have been edited; they add information that makes them sound intelligent, or funny, or any characteristics that they deem acceptable for the world to see. People show the world the person that they want to be, or how they see themselves rather than who they truly are. It is unhealthy to base relationships based on these false or exaggerated accounts of ourselves rather than being human, and being our own odd, individualized selves. Baym confronts the issue of identity, in his essay, and while I do not believe that everyone intentionally edits their online version of themselves, it is inevitable to morph your identity to be more attractive to the Internet world. Baym believes that the different windows on our computers allow people to be “thinking about the self as a multiple, distributed system,” rather than a single entity (Personal Connections in the Digital Age).

Although the Internet and social media provide great strengths in maintaining relationships and having simple interactions, it limits and even prohibits growing and fostering new relationships where personal identity can become lost in translation. It is important to acknowledge that different identities are impossible to eliminate while performing versatile tasks on the Internet, but to stay true to your identity when handling relationships. Relationships with other human beings are essential, and having conversations through social media is a barrier that can only be avoided by communicating in person rather than through a screen. Your personal identity is the only thing that is truly yours, so it is important to not let the social media or the Internet take that power and morph your personality into that of anyone else, or of a different, untrue version of yourself. 

Internet Explorer Advertisement

While on the topic of Internet Explorer advertisements, I decided to share this commercial as well. It consists of a boy sitting in his room commenting on blogs and tweeting about Internet Explorer and how it sucks (similar to what we've been talking about with people leaving hateful comments to get reactions and conversations started).

I like how Internet Explorer makes their ads, acknowledging that they have a reputation attached to their name. They even show the boy typing "Internet Exploder". They use wit and humor to let the audience that they know how they are perceived in the world, but how this perception should now be altered since they have made so many changes to the website over the past few years.

By the end of the commercial, after the other bloggers continuously post about the benefits that Internet Explorer has, he changes his mind and blogs that "IE sucks...less." Then the screen flashes to the symbol of Internet Explorer and the words say, "Progress. Comebacks come in many shapes and sizes," proving that it will take some time for people to make adjustments, and for Internet Explorer to make a comeback and be a competition to all of the other internet browsers with better reputations.

Reconnect with the NEW Internet Explorer

I saw this Internet Explorer advertisement in my Advertising class last week and instantly thought of our Internet Studies class.

The video demonstrates many of the things that all of us kids from the 90's can relate to, referencing snap bracelets, YoYos, floppy disks, The Oregon Trail video game, Gigapets, troll dolls, Hungry Hungry hippos, Lunchables, portable cassette players, water guns, high top shoes, bowl haircuts, and chains on our pants.

The advertisement is very reminiscent of our childhood, and the music playing in the background makes the viewer root for Internet Explorer to make a comeback. Internet Explorer does a good job acknowledging the fact that when it was introduced back in the 90's it was a child just like us, and now that time has passed, it has changed and matured, and we should be willing to give it another chance.

At the very end of the ad, it says, "You grew up, so did we." and then the words, "Reconnect with the NEW Internet Explorer" pop onto the screen. I thought this was a very powerful ad because it really does tug at the heart strings of us who grew up alongside Internet Explorer in the 90's. I even downloaded Internet Explorer onto my computer because after viewing this commercial, I felt the need to at least give the site another chance.