2013 In Review

This is my 52nd blog post on the Internet. I have regaled you, my captivated audience, for 52 weeks this Monday.

Oh boy, a meta-post!

Having blogged now for a full year, I'm ready to take a break on this project in order to focus on other things. So this is the last post that I'll be making on this blog (or at least, the last one on the usual once-a-week schedule).

I'd like to take this post as an opportunity to reflect on the past years' writings, where we started, and where we are now.

Race and the Internet

Let's talk about race.

Well, this'll be good.

The Internet is an arena where we are disconnected from defining physical characteristics. Things like race, gender, and other personal traits are only a part of your online identity if you want them to be. But of course, race still matters online despite being invisible.

How has the Internet impacted racial identity? How does race emerge on the Internet? As someone who couldn't possibly do the subject adequate justice, I will try to explore these questions.

Death and the Internet

A family member turned 50 a little while ago. I don't really keep track of family members' birthdays outside of those in my immediate family, so I happened to find out about my cousin's birthday on Facebook. It was a little unsettling to see, because this cousin also happens to be suffering from a very terminal stage of cancer. There is a chance that it would be the last opportunity for our family to wish him a happy birthday.

Not to start the blog post off on a low note or anything...

Facebook wouldn't know that he died right away, though. My family isn't particularly tech-savvy, so it's possible that his Facebook page would persist in its current form for a while. Around the same time next year, Facebook might tell me that my cousin, though possibly passed on, is celebrating his 51st birthday.

My cousin's situation is not the first of its kind. There is a diverse range of traditions around the world for dealing with mortality, and the Internet has begun developing traditions of its own. With so many of our life experiences cataloged online in various ways, it seems almost expected that these windows to our lives would also provide constructs for our deaths.

Film and the Internet

We've touched on various videos and video platforms over the course of these blog posts, so it seems almost criminal to ignore how motion picture has been changed by the Internet.

Please turn off your cell phone for the duration of this blog post.

Just like other media with previously established presence, film and television have had to find a way to adapt to the Internet. Its transition into the digital age has given us a healthy variety of  film services and community discourse, and may have spelled out the beginning of a long and slow change from below.

As Real as it Gets

In 1992, The Real World hit television screens nationwide, and sparked America's love affair with reality TV.

Though, it did not rekindle America's love for beatnik sweaters.

The appeal of the show - and other shows in the reality television genre - came from the unscripted, 'raw' element of the footage. People naturally find other people fascinating, so what kind of zany scenarios could we see if we throw a bunch of complete strangers in a house and film it?

The Internet has emerged as one of the fastest and easiest ways to transfer information, through text, images, and videos. It has become the ultimate reality show, giving us a new window into other people's lives and exposure to situations previously unimaginable.

Leaders of the Tribes

We live in a time where the concept of being an "online celebrity" has really taken flight. Of such Internet celebrities, Mark Zuckerberg might be one of the most widely known and celebrated.

He's only got a couple years on me. And a couple billion dollars.

This man has earned the status of being a household name and all-around cultural juggernaut. He is one of the wealthiest people in the world. He's had an academy award-winning film made about him. His Facebook page has over 18 million followers. All this, for being the man behind Facebook.

And there are others like him, too.

Digital Language

The Internet has given us a new symbol in our lexicon: The "like".

Not to be confused with "thumb war".

It is a staple of the Facebook experience. If you see content on Facebook that instills positive emotion in you, then the provided way to express that emotion is to hit the 'like' button. It streamlines the entire response process - you get to state your approval of something and everyone else gets to know it.

The symbol has since evolved to take on independent functions in online context. 'Liking' things on Facebook moves them up higher in the home feed, exposing it to more viewers. 'Like's on YouTube function as ratings, with high-liked content being recommended more often to other YouTube users.

Reddit's upvote/downvote system functions similarly to this, where users can vote content up and down if they personally approve of it. What's more, sometimes people on Reddit will physically post 'upvoted' or 'downvoted', so as to communicate their approval (or lack thereof). On bodybuilding.com, approval of individual users can be expressed by voting to increase their reputation, or 'repping' them. Just as in Reddit, people will often respond to things with 'repped' in order to make their approval known. On 4chan, posting 'sage' functions in a way so that the thread doesn't get brought up to the top of the page, and is used to express disapproval of a thread's content in the same way that saying you 'downvoted' something does.

This is the new language of the online. Abstract concepts and functions are becoming recognizable and commonplace terms.

What's the password?

When I was in college, I would regularly go to the gym to lift weights. I privately took some satisfaction in bucking the typical nerdy stereotypes - after all, what kind of internet shut-in can say that he benches more than 200 pounds, and not for the sake of sounding like a tough guy online?

It's the small victories in life, right?

After a while, I got to know some of the regulars at the gym - the other fitness junkies out on a personal journey to lift weights and get huge. Conversation usually revolved around proper dieting, lifting cycles, and the occasional story from one's personal life. A lot of these people were part of a school-wide bodybuilding club. They certainly weren't the sort that would spend a lot of time online, I thought. For a time I expected their online footprint to extend about as far as a Facebook page, and maybe an entry on the University's organization listings.

Then, one day, I saw a friend of mine - also an exercise enthusiast - talking to the president of the bodybuilding club. This was a pleasant surprise - after all, who doesn't like having mutual friends? Later, when I met up with my friend, I asked him how he knew the president.

He replied, "Oh, I noticed his shirt, walked up to him and asked, 'Are you aware?'"

I felt a little less special after that day.

The Youtube Frontier: The New Culture of YouTube

This is the 2nd article of a series on YouTube! Click here to see the first.

"Going viral" is no longer a foreign concept. It's a swiss army knife of brand promotion, mass entertainment, and individuals getting their 15 minutes of fame. The YouTube employees are aware of the viral videos on their website - they probably watch them just as we do. At the end of 2011, the website released a video highlighting all of the online trends from the previous year:

And, they did it again in 2012:

If you haven't watched these before, then take the time now to do so. You'll notice a very marked difference in presentation style between 2011's compilation video and 2012's. One that marks an important shift for YouTube.