lovehatethings

This lovehate comes on the heels of the recent death of a 15 year old boy near Barrie, Ontario who ran away from home because his father took away his copy of Call of Duty 4 for the last time. The teen had been spending every waking hour with online friends playing the game and, after hearing his father's threat, left his family only to be found two weeks later. The event is tragic. The family's loss is indescribable. And when people look for the scapegoat, we all know what it's going to be - video games.

I don't know enough to say the behavior of either side in this specific case was flawed or not, but let's look at the facts. A boy spends countless hours engaged in an activity that has become completely normal for millions of teens around the world. The only X factor in the equation is the time spent. And if the only line crossed is that of time, why blame the game?

The push to censorship or restricting personal freedoms is never so at risk as when a child dies. While the tragedy is real, there should never be any occasion to blame a song, songwriter, singer, band, book, author, video game or website. Society has to stop blaming the painting done in dog feces at the modern art gallery for the gallery goer's discontent, blaming the Judas Priest song for the teen suicide, blaming the internet for the death of social intercourse. Society needs to take a strong look at itself and realize that redefinitions of cultural standards have been ever-evolving.

While parents and grandparents hearken back to a day when children would play stickball in the local sandlot or save up their money for a couple of grape kneehighs at the weekly box social, they have to remember that the social free time children have had over the past 150 years in Western culture were not the norm before that. We are not that far, historically-speaking from children working the land 16 hours a day in the summer and 8 hours a day while going to school. We are not that far from free time being a luxury only enjoyed by a small upper class. We are not that far from a child's worst indiscretion being a late night, blanket tent read of D.H. Lawrence. I daresay that if I had a child that wanted to spend their free time reading D.H. Lawrence today, I'd be a proud parent.

Indiscretions and social taboos are not static or sacrosanct. What does scare me, on a regular basis, is lobby groups that seek to ban, restrict or change things because users are too oblivious, obsessed or stupid to treat a hobby as enjoyment instead of entertainment.

Maybe, with the example of network gaming as our guide, instead of bemoaning the death childrens' relationships, we simply need to redefine them. Is there really something more pure to a 15 year old egging a house or sneaking a joint behind a local strip mall than using strategy in an online battle simulation? Is there an advantage to having teens bored out on stoops and corners looking for shit to disturb? Are there any real reasons teens are retreating to online relationships instead of braving the great outdoors? And lastly, are we getting close to that line where we can stop talking about "online" relationships and simply consider them relationships?

While I can't say that I love everything about moving all relationships to the constraints of broadband, I'm certainly not going to fight the future. Mail, games, music, movies, banking, shopping, and even work is done online from home, yet we are loathe to allow for this advancement with our children?

Sure, there are lines that should not be crossed with any technology or tool. Addiction, of any sort, is a real problem and something parents and all of us should be aware of, but the times are a-changin' folks. I foresee the teens of today maintaining over 90% of the relationships in their life though online networks. Teach them how to embrace technology, not fear it. Teach them restraint but not revulsion. Allow for your past to be YOUR past and their futures to be THEIR futures. And, above all, don't blame the technology based on its users.

The Blogger Manifesto, Ten Things Wrong With Halloween, Avatars - The Identity Benders

For years of online gaming the avatar has become a player's online manifestation that outstretched the simple handle. And although I'm not downplaying the rationale for such a creation within a gaming community, there now has become a growing affection for stylized avatars within social networking communities. Whether it was through people disguising their true image on MySpace or not wanting to get "tagged" in Facebook or simply thinking their Twitter icon looks cool as a zombie or anime character, avatars have taken on meme of the month status.

Within a Massively Multiplayer game experience, I can appreciate a need to be distinguished from the hundreds or thousands of other players who are all trying to decide which player to frag or cast a spell on. In fact, being someone who's absolutely useless with names, I can appreciate a unique avatar. When playing online poker, I rarely remember someone by their screen name, but I have a far easier time remembering someone who sucked out a river inside straight draw by their crop circle pic of Futrama's Bender... I hate you ironically-named MadSkillz69.

There is also a certain need for privacy with some people who want to use social networking sites and want to avoid a photorealistic representation for one reason or another. I find it hard to justify a constant shuffling of personal avatars on a weekly or daily basis. After all, isn't the purpose of an avatar for someone to be able to identify you when a real picture is unavailable?

While I'm not a player/user of Second Life, I would imagine that radically changing one's appearance on a regular basis would not only be counter productive to maintaining intergame relationships, but frustrating to any other players who would not want to persist in figuring out each person every time they logged on.

I'm not one of those Twitter users with thousands of people on my list, but even within the short list of people that I do follow, it seems there is constant change. Whether it's a manga, hobbit, alien, superhero or South Park character that you choose to represent you, I crave consistency for at least a short period of time.

And, just for the edification of those of you who participate in every avatar meme, allow me to let you in on the "down low" about a couple things. First, your dog, baby, or garden gnome is not you. As much as I appreciate you actually using a real photo as a representation, I'm not buying the miny sorcerer's hat and the rake. Also, yes your baby looks cute in the same way that all babies look cute when you have someone making face and bubbling out gibberish while popping two dozen pics on your Kodak C340, but I'm not social networking with your baby... unless of course they can type, "LOL, I can't believe how drunk we were!" after every picture that you post. At that point, they'll at least be on par with 75% of the rest of Facebook.

Next, appreciate the size of your avatar on most social network pages. To place family portrait in the space instead of a simple headshot pretty much just screams "Hey, I'm going to justify the time I spend online with friends as extended family networking time because it's not MY profile, it's a FAMILY profile. If you're going to have a picture that includes you as your avatar, how about JUST you. Also, for all you college guys who use a picture of a bikini model or your favorite emo singer as a pic that represents you, congratulations, you have now become a less than one-dimensional facade of a human being on a platform that only allows a single dimension.

I'm all for individualized expression on a medium that has moved from text to images to audio to video. I know that many of you like to express your inner values by changing your pic from laughing you to serious you to Macauley-Culkin-Shockface-in-Home-Alone you, but I beg you, please, stop.

I will cop to the fact that my avatars are always photoshopped to remove photorealistic aspects, but, anyone who knows me will always recognize my face and not that of a stuffed animal or a car. Also, I rarely, I repeat RARELY change any of my social network representations. I'm quite ready to admit that, from day to day, my macrolife doesn't change that much and, even though I could create some crazy avatar to pretend that my life is somehow more interesting or exciting than it is, I'm prepared to allow the static, consistent avatar choices I've made to be an indication of someone comfortable with who they are and not seeking trying to keep up with the meme of the month club.

While I've certainly had my obligatory lovehate on the Canadian and US elections, the self-perpetuating of election news cycles have allowed bloggers to be up front and on point with political snippets on a minute to minute basis. Whether it's bloggers that work for CNN, CNBC, Fox News, or some of the larger independent blog sites like Huffington and Drudge, people (including network news producers) are turning to blogs on a more frequent basis for information. Such a relationship has also reinforced the persistent echoing of Uncle Ben in Peter Parker's head: "With great power comes great responsibility." 

Any news agency that gets duped by a blog post cries foul over the blogger's resposibility. Any reader who gets deceived when they buy into a false fact or "opinion as fact" mopes and pouts about how blogs have done them wrong. But the simple truth of the matter is that bloggers don't owe anyone anything. If a news organization gets duped by a blog post, I say "Hell Yeah!" If CNN or Fox News can't do some fact checking before they run with something, their discredit serves them right. And, while I would admit that a casual reader is far more likely to buy into something they read on a blog, I offer up the bastardized consumer warning: "Reader Beware".

Producers of personal web content owe their readers nothing. If readers start to get what they don't expect, they will stop reading.  There are few to no examples of paid blogs these days, so no fiscal responsibility is at risk. I support the idea of writers inventing complete bullshit if that suits their fancy. If nothing else, it will start to hone readers' skills of detecting such crap, because, I guarantee you, 90% of what gets presented on respected news outlets on a daily basis is laced with bias, spin, and gatekeeping filters amuck.

I know it's a bit of a cliched cop out to shout "FREEDOM OF SPEECH" on the web, as pretty much anything that can be said, has, is, or will be said. And, that said, I'm a proponent of wild anarchy reigning webwide since all other major media outlets are constrained by advertising and the moral outrage of motivated minority groups.

The web needs to be the great frontier. The web needs to be the autobahn where we will allow participants to go as fast as they need to go because we believe that to restrict everybody for the sake of the idiotic few is anathema. The web needs to be the Wild West where all that is required to stake a claim is an idea, storage and bandwidth.

I have only one responsibility as a blogger - free expression. The blogger is the guerilla pamphleteer of days gone by: someone who threw a thousand pieces of paper up into the circling breezes of the town square to be consumed by anyone who had the inclination to pick one up. As soon as bloggers start to cede responsibility over their content to any other than their own sensibilities, freedom is lost. I'm not advocating bloggers enacting anything that will incite physical harm, but, that said, only someone with an entrenched credibility can move others to action anyway - and even the best orators cannot get people out to do something as simple as voting.

The community will self-regulate by ignoring anyone whose credibility is lost. For those who missed that: The community will self-regulate by ignoring anyone whose credibility is lost!

Deride anyone who seeks to encapsulate your ideas. Deny anyone's right to silence your voice.

Love your freedom of expression. Hate any rules that try to scare you from it.

We will stake our claims.
We will police ourselves.
We will express ourselves in every language, including objectionable.
We will post with abandon.
We will breach taboos.
We will cross every line.
We will not apologize.
We will not relent.

According to Mary Richert (I really don't know who she is, but she probably doesn't know who I am either) of guardian.co.uk, social networking sites are more popular than porn sites. In the article she asserts some criticisms about social networks that I agree with. Most importantly, she states that, in comparing social networks to the antisocial aspects of porn, "there's something similarly antisocial about social networking sites."

My immediate concern is that internet technology has been driven by porn since its inception. Broadband was developed simply as a way to get porn faster delivery times. Porn drove peer to peer applications for almost a decade... let's face it, while many people on Kazaa were downloading Britney Spears songs, other were looking for Britney Spears lookalikes in compromising positions. Bandwidth demands spiked for Pam Anderson and Tommy Lee and, a few years later, for A Night in Paris.

While, from a purely moral and sociological perspective I can appreciate the fall of porn from this pinnacle position, I fear the future without the omnipresent push of porn. I don't expect holographic technology is going to be demanded for people to talk to in-laws overseas, but 3-D porn? The movement that is going to bring the tactile/kinesthetic cyber interfaces of the future may be left in the cold if lonely education has to prompt change instead of porn.

We have reached a precipice my friends. As Trekkie Monster of Avenue Q sang: "Why you think the 'net was born? Porn. Porn. Porn."

Concerning how the web seems to know which advertising to push my way, how I occupy time in hotels, and how the game of diplomacy has too many rules.

Now I know that with a lovehate topic like web advertising someone is going to expect paragraphs about pop-ups, but really, with the browser technology available today does every really need to see a pop up again? I don't remember the last time I saw a pop up for a poker site or porn but it wasn't too long ago that my desktop would be beseiged by them. I will say that almost as annoying as pop-up ads are the banner or sidebar ads that make noise. Try scrolling through the torrent compiler mininova.org with a smiley banner droning out a constant "Hello?" or a sidebar ad that crackles with a plasma energy burst that sounds like the electric pulses from the Commodore 64's Impossible Mission.

Now that Google is perfecting its "Blog Search" technology, the site can, on a week by week basis, navigate the meme streets and provide the Adsense matrix engine fodder to figure out which ads to show me and when, privacy advocates will start to squirm, and surfers will seek out proxy servers, and the truly paranoid will shut off every cookie and manually fill out form fields every visit back to a site. But what's the real problem here? I've consigned myself to the fact that I'm not going to be able to exist on the web without advertising of some sort. That said, 99% of ads have become wallpaper to me.

So I ask myself, do I really care that Google or any other company is compiling data about me to better target advertising to my browser? And the answer is yes, I do care, but not for the reasons you might think.

I care because I remember the layers of porn popups upon visiting warez sites and ads that were simply reaching for a clickthrough by sheer numbers. I care because I once had to sacrificially frag a Bonzi Buddy in effigy to keep myself sane. I care because I would rather see an unobtrusive column of a few links and text that maybe, once out ten thousand times, should I choose to click it, will actually be about something that I may have a fleeting interest in instead of some peripheral perception of static cunieform.

Let ads line me up in crosshairs. Show me something from a tech store or a blogging service or a social networking site instead of some banal cartoonish test of skill that I'm supposed to strive for in a sidebar. Show me something about Guinness or Jack Daniels instead of St. Pauli's and Bacardi. Pitch me an HDTV or a torrent app instead of an instant messenger add-on that will allow me to send sparkly smileys. Try to tempt me with a some consumer electronics or gadgets instead of mutual funds or insurance. I'd rather at least hold up the facade that at least somewhere in a server wearhouse The Gibson is parsing an algorithm to learn something about me instead of just sitting there cranking out spam into a billion killfiles.

Make no mistake, if I could choose between surfing the web with or without ads, I'd definitely forgo banners and pop-ups and sidebars - oh my! But if I have to live with web ads, I'll take the enemy I know over the enemy I don't.

http://muppet.wikia.com/wiki/Muppet_Wiki

I cannot even add to the sheer brilliance by a catchy line or two... pass me the Snuffleupagus pills.

T.S. Eliot promoted the idea of the literary canon. The concept that there were works that should be read by an educated individual to create a standard template, and in order to claim the rank of "educated". Some of the more esoteric aspects of the canon theory implied the idea that works (in true Elaine Benis assurance) were either "canon-worthy" or not, even as they were being written. While I never believed that canon theory needed to be extended to ridiculous levels. There still seems to be a certain belief that literature contains a bunch of "must-reads", just as film contains its "must-sees" and music contains its "must-hears". And while I suppose the canon can be applied to just about subject where so-called expertise can be expressed, I'm starting to wonder if the concept (as it pertains to the leviathan-like stature of the worldwide web) should be cannonballed out of existence.

Is there a canon of websites? Places that anyone who considers themself a web afficionado must visit on a regular basis to be considered "webjucated"? Must my web travelling habits include occasional visits to The Onion, Rotten Tomatoes, You Tube, Wikipedia? Do I lose any web geek cred without regular trips to io9, Ars Technica, Cnet, Engadget, Lifehacker, 1up, Slashdot, Sourceforge, TechCrunch or Digg?

Is there any piece of the web that has outlasted the transitory nature of the medium? Novels, short stories and poetry and rather constant. I haven't yet seen a story on Digg concerning a press release for Finnegan's Wake 2.0 or rumors that Prufrock is finally coming out of beta. Is there a website that contains content that is always enjoyable to go back to and remains unchanged? Many people have the ability to devote hours, days and weeks to re-reading novels on repeated occasions and enjoy them in unique ways each time. Does a website contain this same quality? I'll admit, that even years later, I can return to some of the early homestarrunner and Strongbad shorts and laugh as much as ever at Fluffy Puff Marshmallows and Trogdor the Burninator, but, other than content created as sheer entertainment, it's hard for me to think of an non-updated site that I will go back to over and over. And even with this, I would argue we are increasingly engrossed in the web than any single novel in spite of its transitory and unfinished quality.

While I would not say that, with regards to the web, the dissolution of the canon concept is tragic, there is an aspect to a wide-ranging common experience that I see becoming lost. The blog has made it easy for anyone to publish. I wish I could say "even though most shouldn't", yet that wouldn't only be antithetical to my populist belief in the medium, but the nature of the medium itself. Where Eliot's canon came from a few hundred years of white male Euro-centric writers, the demographics of web creators have blown that parameter wide open. And with this acknowledgement I pose two questions: will we ever have another William Shakespeare? Does anyone care?

If Bill was competing with hundreds of millions of playwrights instead of a relative handful, would his work have shone through the rest or would it have drown in a sea of obscurity? Does the web, as a medium, have the ability to create a wordsmith superstar or a "canon-worthy" podcaster? While I love the web's diversity, I am often frustrated by it's magnitude. While I clamour for the fresh and new, I still find myself with an inexhaustible list of bookmarks.

It seems the "suggestion" phenomenon is the latest attempt at a solution to navigate through the ocean. By data and trend and mathematic formula StumbleUpon wants to suggest what sites I might like, Digg wants to tell me what everyone else thinks is cool, the Internet Movie Database wants to aggregate films by previous users preferences and Apple's Genuis wants to emulate Pandora's ability to recommend not only what music I may like, but how my existing music should be organized. While the power of suggestion can be a great tool in sifting the through the dreck, it does have an insidious limitation: how is one supposed to be shocked anymore? Can I find a song that blows my mind through suggestions of music I'm already used to? Will I pick up a film that offends my senses but makes me see the world in a new way if the suggestions come from what I'm already comfortable with? And how does one find the truly inventive on the web when the recommendations come from a social demographic that, while admittedly more diverse than Eliot's "educated" society, has become relatively narrow in its own focus. Bloggers of a feather flock together. I love that we are canon-free but mourn the loss of greatness found.