From this class we've been talking about identity categorizing through the internet and I started to think about Facebook and the affects of what the website has come to be today. Oh, Facebook you say, that's an easy way out for a research paper. I think not. I'm interested in facebook and how its technology has made us lose identity, making us conformists, i.e. "If you don't have a facebook, you must be a loser and don't exist." You're considered "normal" if you have a Facebook - categorizing already. I have been a FACE on facebook for the past 6 years now. I can honestly say I don't remember what life without its distraction was truly like. Facebook has become an encyclopeida of objectifying people through groups and fans and "liking". How do these categories come to exist? How do people on facebook belong or do not belong to them? Surveillance, privacy - privacy, surveillance. How is surveillance and privacy linked to the social categories we make on Facebook? Facebook is a lack of face to face communication such as skype. How has facebook disembodied us? How has Facebook destroyed relationships - cause I know damn well that facebook made me go crazy when my boyfriend went off to college - facebook gave me information, not the individual. Facebook has destroyed friendships for me, ones I thought would last forever. Facebook has changed what the written word has always meant - facebook is monotone, facebook is emotionless.
I have found several books in the library and through other libraries addressing these questions. And I would like to interview facebook users, asking them how life was prior to using facebook. Will they even remember?
We are always being watched. And yet we know this about facebook, and we know how it shapes how we behave towards others, it has shaped our relationships. For my research paper, I'd like to argue all of these aspects; That through technology our relationships with other people on facebook has changed how we view the world, how we view people. What you see, is what you get.
Friday, October 22, 2010
Friday, October 15, 2010
No step in the right direction, ever hurt anyone
War. What is it good for? That's what I thought....absolutely nothing.
The World is at war. Burma has been at war since 1950. China is at war. India is at war. The Korean war is still in conflict. Israel is in conflict with Palestine. There's a civil war in Palestine. There is genocide happening. There is a drug war in Mexico. Thailand and Islam are in conflict. AIDS is running high in Africa. Russia is in conflict. Nepal is in conflict. Nigeria, Spain, Turkey - all places in conflict. The United States - in conflict with Afganistan, Iraq, Mexico, the Phillipines. There are thousands of children dying of starvation each day. The list goes on. The world is at war.
The World is at war. The world is at war through the internet. The world is at war through racism. The world is at war through sexism. The world is at war through hate. I can't remember...what are we fighting for again? Oh yea...Peace and Justice...I'm sorry but WTF?!
The World is at war. The People of the world are at War. The planet itself is now at war. War has led to the destruction of the most important individual to us all - the earth, our home. We live in a bubble people, we're not going anywhere, and if we can - who knows if we all can go.
I'm over it. I'm over the hoopla. I'm over the discrimination, I'm over oppression, I'm over poverty, I'm over affluation, I'm over the blunders of the internet, and I'm down right over war and violence. I want to live my life in a fairy-tale at this point. I'd rather be selfish and say "SCREW YOU CORPORATE AMERICA - I'M GOING TO THE MOON" or may discover the lost people of Atlantis or something. I'd rather spend my days and nights by the ocean, a fire, singing songs and listening to jams. But I can't - because I live in a reality that was created for me - a reality that literally doesn't exist. The only reality there is, is the earth. THAT will always be real. The trees, the plants, the animals, the fish, those will always be real. And yet what have the people of our earth decided to do with it over the centuries? Destroy it. Because all they saw was power. God gave them the power.
Seriously....some say God is the creator of the earth, then why would god EVER want you to destroy the land that was created for us? I'm a child of the earth. I may not be a "child" per say, but I am a creation of nature. My life has purpose now that I exist on this planet. We are the lucky ones. We can communicate, feel, run, jump, LOVE. We are a part of something much bigger than just being human. We are a part of a cycle that forever continues. Our souls make up this cycle, our souls lie in nature. Nature brought us all here. And nature will take us out if nature decides our people have lost what it takes to understand what it means to be a part of existence. Nature is not happy with what we are doing to our home and our neighboring plants and animals. If God made nature. Then nature is God. And we've destroyed God by putting emphasis on emotions like hate, greed and evil instead of emotions that lift us up and heal us, like love, compassion and hope.
REVOLUTION. EVOLUTION.
The World is at war. Burma has been at war since 1950. China is at war. India is at war. The Korean war is still in conflict. Israel is in conflict with Palestine. There's a civil war in Palestine. There is genocide happening. There is a drug war in Mexico. Thailand and Islam are in conflict. AIDS is running high in Africa. Russia is in conflict. Nepal is in conflict. Nigeria, Spain, Turkey - all places in conflict. The United States - in conflict with Afganistan, Iraq, Mexico, the Phillipines. There are thousands of children dying of starvation each day. The list goes on. The world is at war.
The World is at war. The world is at war through the internet. The world is at war through racism. The world is at war through sexism. The world is at war through hate. I can't remember...what are we fighting for again? Oh yea...Peace and Justice...I'm sorry but WTF?!
The World is at war. The People of the world are at War. The planet itself is now at war. War has led to the destruction of the most important individual to us all - the earth, our home. We live in a bubble people, we're not going anywhere, and if we can - who knows if we all can go.
I'm over it. I'm over the hoopla. I'm over the discrimination, I'm over oppression, I'm over poverty, I'm over affluation, I'm over the blunders of the internet, and I'm down right over war and violence. I want to live my life in a fairy-tale at this point. I'd rather be selfish and say "SCREW YOU CORPORATE AMERICA - I'M GOING TO THE MOON" or may discover the lost people of Atlantis or something. I'd rather spend my days and nights by the ocean, a fire, singing songs and listening to jams. But I can't - because I live in a reality that was created for me - a reality that literally doesn't exist. The only reality there is, is the earth. THAT will always be real. The trees, the plants, the animals, the fish, those will always be real. And yet what have the people of our earth decided to do with it over the centuries? Destroy it. Because all they saw was power. God gave them the power.
Seriously....some say God is the creator of the earth, then why would god EVER want you to destroy the land that was created for us? I'm a child of the earth. I may not be a "child" per say, but I am a creation of nature. My life has purpose now that I exist on this planet. We are the lucky ones. We can communicate, feel, run, jump, LOVE. We are a part of something much bigger than just being human. We are a part of a cycle that forever continues. Our souls make up this cycle, our souls lie in nature. Nature brought us all here. And nature will take us out if nature decides our people have lost what it takes to understand what it means to be a part of existence. Nature is not happy with what we are doing to our home and our neighboring plants and animals. If God made nature. Then nature is God. And we've destroyed God by putting emphasis on emotions like hate, greed and evil instead of emotions that lift us up and heal us, like love, compassion and hope.
REVOLUTION. EVOLUTION.
Friday, October 1, 2010
Virtual Reality
Virtual reality? Actual reality? I find that science fiction films have grown into something more than just about robots, space creatures and space ships. The Matrix, a more recent science fiction film, revealed a system of racist White supremacy alongside the idea of virtual reality, living a dream world kind of reality much like Alice in Wonderland. It took the idea of technology to a whole other level by taking away a human beings true sense of reality. Star Wars was an other movie and had a much more powerful message than viewers would notice. The Jedi was monastic, with practices rooted in Christianity, Hinduism and Buddhism. The Jedi stressed patience, humility, respect and believing in the power of the spiritual world over the physical. At the same time, you see in Star Wars the heros' are White, hetero-normative men out to, yes to save the people from evil, but also to save the white hetero-normative woman, with the bad guy dressed in all black (an "evil", dark color). In Star Wars, technology was observed as merely a tool that human beings could use or misuse. Their idea of technology was much different than the 21st century Matrix. Star Wars' technology had their artificial intelligence robots as being just as aware and valid as natural, human being intelligence. Star Trek was a movie that created an alternative reality through time travel. While their movie has moments of equality between species and other feeling creatures, it is still about the White, hetero-normative man saving all existence between the galaxies. Star Trek has the character Spock, half human and half Vulcan heritage who has been suppressed by the Evil so and so who has been planning to destroy the Vulcan culture completely.
Yes, it is wrong to continue these cycles of discrimination particularly through science fiction where "the other" is viewed as its americanized stereotype. Some of these movies from this genre create other human beings from a culture other than ours as "alien", which it is really when you define what alien means. Something different from what we know to be normal and real to us - such as different cultural ways of cooking, dining, etc. Still, I think science fiction films do show us the viewer that we are all victims of and providers to machines, technology, their systems, and the industries that provide them to us. It just goes to show that it is no longer a fantasy. We ARE in a virtual reality. We live through cyberspace daily. We, as an american culture, and now across our vast world, use and manipulate our lives through technology, through the internet. We've created identities for ourselves and essentially for others through our use of facebook, twitter, blogging, youtube, online avatars, chat rooms, and so on and so forth. There's no escaping it. It has been done, it exists and we are present in it. The only thing we can do is act like the Jedi. We should accept the destructive nature of anger and hate and the extreme lust for power as it will all only lead to suffering. It will lead to suffering of you the individual but to everyone you know and love around you, your community, your world, your mother earth, your planet.
We cannot break the recurring racialized representations of people of color in all genres of film until awareness can be brought to the majority about what these representations have done to our ecological system as a whole.
Yes, it is wrong to continue these cycles of discrimination particularly through science fiction where "the other" is viewed as its americanized stereotype. Some of these movies from this genre create other human beings from a culture other than ours as "alien", which it is really when you define what alien means. Something different from what we know to be normal and real to us - such as different cultural ways of cooking, dining, etc. Still, I think science fiction films do show us the viewer that we are all victims of and providers to machines, technology, their systems, and the industries that provide them to us. It just goes to show that it is no longer a fantasy. We ARE in a virtual reality. We live through cyberspace daily. We, as an american culture, and now across our vast world, use and manipulate our lives through technology, through the internet. We've created identities for ourselves and essentially for others through our use of facebook, twitter, blogging, youtube, online avatars, chat rooms, and so on and so forth. There's no escaping it. It has been done, it exists and we are present in it. The only thing we can do is act like the Jedi. We should accept the destructive nature of anger and hate and the extreme lust for power as it will all only lead to suffering. It will lead to suffering of you the individual but to everyone you know and love around you, your community, your world, your mother earth, your planet.
We cannot break the recurring racialized representations of people of color in all genres of film until awareness can be brought to the majority about what these representations have done to our ecological system as a whole.
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