Jimmy Fallon #MOMTEXTS

Every week on Jimmy Fallon's show he has a segment where he posts on Twitter a hash tag and then waits to receive people's responses. People submit their responses, and then Jimmy Fallon chooses the best or funniest responses. In this episode, the hash tag that he sent out was #MomTexts which led to some pretty fantastic responses about mothers and their lack of knowledge of technology.

One of the first responses was from a mom that did not know what a "less than three" meant when it formed a heart. The second mother texted the child saying that "Aunt Mary died. Lol." thinking that "LOL" stood for "lots of love" rather than "laugh out loud". Another of the responses stated that the child had "received 12 consecutive completely empty text bubbles from [her]  mom the other day. Apparently she was trying to unlock her phone." One of my personal favorites was the one that said, "my mom couldn't figure out punctuation so she would type it out: "how are you question mark," which is a perfect example of people of older generations trying to figure out technology that they are unused to.

This entire video made me think of our class and how even if someone isn't used to a form of technology, it is almost crucial to join so that they can stay connected with the rest of the world, and younger generations. It makes me think of all of the parents and grandparents joining Facebook and Twitter to stay connected.

My grandmother bought a laptop and a cellphone just because she wanted the new technologies, and she then got a Facebook, and she calls me and my siblings regularly trying to figure out how to comment on pictures, or to make a status. It is the most frustrating thing in the world trying to explain technology to her but I think her generation is trying to learn how to be youthful, and experience technology the way we are.

I think that this video was overall really entertaining, and really representative of the direction technology is heading with the older and younger generations.

Viacom International Inc. vs. Youtube Inc.

In 2007, the company Viacom International sued Google-owned company, YouTube, claiming that it engaged in extensive copyright infringement. They claimed that YouTube had allowed users to upload videos that were strictly owned by Viacom. There were over 150,000 clips taken from the Viacom website and published onto YouTube, and during the time that these clips were online at YouTube, they were collectively viewed over 1.5 billion times.

Viacom has a policy with copyrights, and they believed that YouTube deliberately breached this policy by "performing, displaying, and reproducing" the copyrighted works of Viacom. YouTube on the other hand claimed that it did not infringe on any of the copyright regulations of Viacom, and that they did nothing wrong.

The court case ended with Viacom winning, and because they did not seek any damages from Google, the judge warranted that the materials be returned back to Viacom, as well as the details on all of the people who had watched the videos, like the trafficking reports, which caused problems of its own. This court decision caused people to be concerned with the fact that the website could find direct individuals based on the IP addresses, as well as the time viewed, and the login name. Many criticized the ruling saying that it was a "setback to privacy rights" however the judge maintained the decision saying that Google was required to give all of the information. Eventually Viacom and YouTube came to the decision to keep the individual's privacy, and that YouTube would hand over materials anonymously.

Although the court case was very long and confusing, and is still somewhat in the news, it demonstrates that even very well-known companies can get into trouble through simple copyright issues. Stealing others' work is always judged harshly, and it is crucial that companies and individuals be careful when citing or attempting to use works of others. I thought this court case was interesting because it was with companies so well-known. As a viewer of this case, I would have thought that YouTube never would have wanted to deal with a copyright issue like this, however because they thought there was no issue with copyright infringement, they continued, but eventually did get into trouble and had to remove the clips from their website.

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.