The Virtual Community

Rheingold's article The Virtual Community brought up a valid point that I had never thought of before. Rheingold talks about virtual communities in that they are used by some as a form of psychotherapy. He claims that many virtual community users spend hours upon hours pretending to be someone they're not which can be a way to get things off their chest or live someone else's life. Rheingold didn't go too much into detail about this as a form of psychotherapy but it made me think of the way I use Facebook. We discussed in class why some people use virtual communities and some freshmen stated that they used it before coming to IU to meet their future roommates or other people on their dorm floors. As a senior, I didn't know about Facebook until I got to IU and even then it wasn't as popular as it is now. To begin with, I was against Facebook because I didn't see the point in joining. However, over the years I have found that if I don't have anything else to do I get on Facebook and look at pictures of old friends, talk to recent friends or even rearrange my profile. It sounds kinda lame but, in a way, I use it as a form of psychotherapy. It makes me feel good to get online and communicate with friends of mine. Plus, looking at friends' pictures from our recent SB activities is always fun because you get to see where everyone went and how much fun they had. It is such a nice and relaxing (and convenient) way to share pictures and information to people that may go to a different school or live in a different state. Rheingold makes a good point that we use virtual communities this way and we may not even be aware of the ways in which we use this technology. I really hadn't ever thought of it in that way but after reading this article, it opened my eyes to a different way of thinking.
This, I also want to add, helps me appreciate and respect other people's taste and opinions of other virtual communities like Second Life. We discussed in class that people get on to talk to other friends and share problems with them. It seems odd to those of us who don't do that, but ask yourself this: is it really all that different than what I'm doing with Facebook? Yes, I've met these people in person, but some of my friends I met only once. If I meet someone at a party and they befriend me, does that count as really knowing them? For example, one guy met me at a party when I was visiting a friend at Purdue and I haven't seen him since. He has sent me a couple of messages and posts comments on my wall and on some pictures. As creepy as that sounds, we're actually pretty good 'virtual friends', just not 'personal interaction friends.' So, as I asked before, how different are Second Life and Facebook?

Andrew Keen

Andrew Keen's article The Cult of the Amateur is very interesting to me because I feel that I agree with him on some points but then disagree with him at the same time. I am constantly going back and forth about some of the issues he discusses. For instance, the clip of him on the Colbert Report we watched for class made him look a bit elitist but I kinda agree with a him (slighty). He claims that the internet is killing our culture because just about anyone who has the access to and knowledge of computers can post any type of "art" they want. I agree in that I wouldn't want to go online and see some average joe's artwork if I really wanted to be inspired or look at good art. However, this poses another problem in itself. Who is to say that this "amateur" art isn't good quality. Why couldn't someone want to look at this art or other information some average joe posted? Blogs are another exmaple of something anyone could post and write about their personal lives or opinions about an issue going on in the world today. My personal opinion wouldn't necessarily mean anything to some professor researching a topic I happen to write on in my own personal blog. In this example, Keen is making the statement that the internet is killing our culture because my (or someone else's) meaningless blog posts or artistic work is blasted all over the internet as if it isn't worth being there. At the same time, I kinda disagree with him because, like I said above, who is he to say that those blog posts aren't a mode of self expression and deserve to be there? He claims that the internet is for amateurs and amateurs don't actual creat great culture. How can he say something like that? It all goes back to personal taste. I agree with Colbert in that the green screen challenge is a type of art, even though it was created by amateurs. Now so called "stealing" a clip from the Colbert show and posting it on Youtube is a different issue at hand. I kinda agree with him on this but at the same time I don't think it is killing our culture, I think it is changing our culture. To prove my argument, I never watched the Colbert Report before, but after seeing clips from Youtube (and clips in class) I have a new found love for the show. I wouldn't have seen clips if not for Youtube (and this class of course).
This idea also relates to artists posting their artwork online and people stealing it for their own use. This poses a difficult problem when artists start losing money because everyone is stealing their work, so Keen says. Books can be an example of what Keen is talking about here. If an author has his/her book online and someone took a chunk of information out of it, then they wouldn't need to purchase the whole thing if they already got what they needed. Again, I agree with him but at the same time I think that it is convenient for me, as a college student, to search for an article online and not have to rent or purchase the entire book. So, again I'm not sure exactly how I feel about this article because he makes a good point but I think it would be better if he would make the statement that the internet is changing our culture, not killing it.