iRobot

Individualism 2.0

Although we are still too close to the event—making it, unfortunately, still too early to tell—that hasn't seemed to stop people from making all sorts of projections, predictions, commendations and denouncements about what the Internet will mean for our "democracy" and for the world in general. Here's an interesting article about Facebook and other Web 2.0 interfaces and their implications for our Individuality and our future collective enterprises.

Also, below is a link for a book mentioned in the article about the impact of the Internet on Individuality and Society.

You Are Not a Gadget: A Manifesto
by Jaron Lanier

The Politics of Resignation

So, I keep seeing this commercial every time I watch an episode of The Daily Show on its website and I just don't get it. I mean, "I get it"—like I understand that she is suppose to be an Alt/Hip/Bobo 20-something (a typical Daily Show viewer)—but I don’t get the message Microsoft is trying to get across about their product.

From the girl’s reaction—to me—it seems as though she is completely under-whelmed by The Cloud, or, at least, the product really doesn’t impress her very much. I know she is not “allowed” to emote real feelings because a) the plastic world with which we are daily confronted is nothing but Simulacra and Simulations; b) all Corporate branded products must be approached with an indefatigable layer of Irony; c) feelings are passé—but I don’t see how this is suppose to make anyone want to buy this product.

And then there is the “joke” about what she chooses to watch: Celebrity Probation: Season Premier. Is this suppose to be a dig at modern American culture, or is it just suppose to be reflective of it? Is her under-whelmed reaction to the product or to the show? In an age where all recorded media from the last 100 years is available instantly, why would you chose to watch something that you are obviously not very excited about?

All Youth Culture is becoming based around this Self-satisfied language of perpetual winks: “I know, that you know, that we know, that you know.” It is this cooly ironic, self-mocking, phoniness exposé that if you are not hip to, then you may be rightfully looked down upon. It is The Simpsons multiplied and divided and blanketed across our entire cultural landscape, till all real sentiments and commitments and connections and feelings are exposed as the bald-faced lies that they truly are. But it is a tiresome pose, with little to no social rewards; it is a Self-defense mechanism, that treats the entire world as one’s enemy; it is a fulltime job, whose workload is infinite and whose payoff is lean.

Everyone might know that marketing is nothing but BS, but that doesn’t seem to help us figure out how to constructively deal with it, nor does it give us any alternative to it. This new Ironic Pose doesn’t just stop at advertising and has now come to take over our every interaction. The entire world has been unveiled and deconstructed, and our ability to have any sort of meaningful interaction with a person, place or thing has lost its grounding.

I would just like to take this moment to say, “It is not your fault.” You did not create the world that you were born into. You cannot necessarily be held culpable for resorting to what seems like the only way we have left to deal with it. However, we do create the world of the future and we can—and we will be—held responsible for the world we pass on to the next generation. This disconnected disillusionment may help you on an Individual basis to survive the day to day, but please try to remember that we are all part of a great continuum that, god-willing, will stretch on for eternity. Do we really want this to be our legacy?