Blog #2 Rewrite: Wikipedia

            Two men named Larry Sanger and Jimmy Wales created Wikipedia “the Free Encyclopedia” in 2001. Wikipedia was an online free encyclopedia because in the past encyclopedias like the Britannica Encyclopedia were only available and you had to pay to use them. Wikipedia works by having anyone create or add information onto a page. So thousands of people edit and create pages every day. This is the main concern a lot of people share when it comes to Wikipedia. Is it really that reliable? There have been instances in the past where information has been downright wrong so why should someone trust it? There are committees of people who go onto all of the pages and edit them to make sure they are right. These people are often called noble amateurs.

            In his article The Nobel Amateur, Andrew Keens talks a lot about how he feel about these so-called “noble amateurs”. He describes them as "A hobbyist, knowledgeable or otherwise someone who does not make a living from his or her field of interest". Keen feels as though since these people are not professionals that they have no right to share information told as fact on the Internet.

Wikipedia really isn’t all junk. If you go to the bottom of basically all the Wikipedia pages you can see list of references that the page was quoted or built off of. So if you don’t believe Wikipedia you can check out what that page has to say about your topic of Internet. Because it has been around for so long, pages have been built upon and built upon over the past ten years. That means that the probability that there is an error in the page has become very, very, very slim. This is probably why Wikipedia is 17^th most visited site, while Encyclopedia Britannica is 5,128^th (Andrew Keen). I know for a fact that I have seen a Wikipedia page vandalized. Only about ten minutes later, it was quickly fixed and that was probably seven years ago when I last saw a majorly vandalized page. Wikipedia is no longer vandalized as much as it used to be because people are starting to respect Wikipedia as a more credible source of information.

I think that Wikipedia is a good resource for students and anyone looking for research. While it does have some flaws, over time they will be most likely smoothed out. And without those noble amateurs we would not have access to a vast amount of free information. If we didn’t have Wikipedia, we all probably would have to pay for Britannica Encyclopedia at one point or another.

Extra Blog: How I Gained Internet Recognition

            If there is one thing that you should know about me, it’s that I love the Internet. Yet up until this year, I was a nobody on the web. Yet somehow my Internet popularity seems to have grown on Tumblr, Deviantart and Youtube.

            One of the main reasons for my rise in views were the friends I made earlier this year. For example, I had had a Youtube account and a Deviant account since I was in middle school and they hardly got any page views. I posted things, yet they never seemed to get popular, usually only gaining about one hundred views if that. What happens is that make some new friends at an anime convention that I go to.  Now, when I try to find them on Deviantart I realize that they are super popular (I am talking thousands of page views and hundreds of followers). Never the less I wasn’t surprised when I saw their art, which far suppressed mine. One of them convinced me to get a Tumblr. At first I hesitated because I didn’t even know what a Tumblr was. Finally I caved in and created one. Not only were my friends popular and well known on Deviantart but they also happened to be well known on Tumblr!

            I cosplayed (which is basically dressing up as characters from anime, manga, cartoons, video games etc) with these friends a lot and we even had a couple of photo shoots. Now when my friends would edit the photos and upload them to Deviantart or Tumblr, they would label who was in the photo with our accounts (Tumblr and Deviantart). Suddenly I would have a mass amount of page views, favorites/reblogs and followers/watchers appeared on both my Deviantart and Tumblr. I also created a handful of Youtube videos that contained my cosplays. I would post my videos on my Tumblr and my friends would reblog them. Suddenly I would get a slew of notifications about how people were reblogging and liking my videos. Soon my Youtube videos gained a lot of views.

            Another way that I gained a lot of followers is to get into fandoms right before their peak of popularity. At the moment I have been into Homestuck for a while and my friends and I were into it before it hit its peak of popularity. I was into Homestuck and cosplaying it this spring and its popularity peaked this summer. So when people went to search for Homestuck things, they often came across my friends’ (and some of mine) stuff (art, videos, cosplay ect).

            While I am still obviously not the most popular person on the Internet I have still definitely raised in my Internet ranks over the past year. So these are a few tips I can give to people who want to get some Internet popularity.

Extra Blog: MSPaint Adventures (Homestuck)

             A topic that I have often Tweeted about on Twitter is Homestuck. But what is Homestuck? Many people have no idea what Homestuck is. Homestuck is an online (and intereactive) webcomic created by a guy named Andrew Hussie. He has been creating webcomics for years (all on his website MSPaint Adventures) and Homestuck is his current ongoing comic creation. But why would I blog about a webcomic on my digital cultures blog?

            An online webcomic is a comic that is published online. What makes Homestuck so special is the fact that it mixes not only writing and art (all of which created in Microsoft Paint) but also flash animation and original music (which you can listen to and download here). There are even some parts in the comic where you can play as certain characters and move them around the screen. It combines many different art forms to create an amazing story with interesting characters and complex plots. It has a massive fandom that constantly reads Homestuck. I know I have friends that have an app on their phones that alerts them to when an update has been posted.

            The fandom of Homestuck is awesome. There have been multiple original and parody songs created about Homestuck (many of which you can listen too/download on this site ). Not only music and videos are created but also fanart and fan fiction. You can find Homestuck related things on almost every website including Facebook, Youtube, Twitter, Tumblr, Fanfiction.net, Deviantart ect.  The Homestuck fandom is so large and prominent on the Internet that on the night of a large flash update, the fandom shut down Newgrounds. Newgrounds was not ready for the flood of users accessing the site to view the flash at once that the bandwidth was exceeded. I even gained a large group of friends because we all shared the similar interest in Homestuck this past summer.

            I highly recommend Homestuck to basically anyone who wants an interesting story with awesome art and an interesting plot. Click here to go to MSPaint Adventures home page.

Extra Blog: Tumblr

            Everyday when I go onto my computer in the morning I check four websites, Facebook, Youtube, Deviantart and Tumblr. Now, basically everyone has heard of Facebook and Youtube, the other two are slightly lesser known (at least to many people I know). It was only earlier this year that I got into Tumblr and I love using it.

            David Karp created Tumblr in 2007. Currently, Tumblr is the 10^th largest social network site with 6.81 million visits a week. It is a social blogger (it is also called a micro blogger) site that allows users to post text, images, videos, links, quotes and audio to their personal blogs. You can like posts made by other people. You can even follow users or tag groups and view what they post on your dashboard feed. Your dashboard is updated when you or people you follow post new things. Users also have the option to reblog or like other posts.

            I got my Tumblr account back in April. A couple of friends that I met at an anime convention convinced me to finally get one. At first I had no idea how to work the site and I thought it was silly. I never thought that I would have fun using Tumblr, I was wrong. I find so many funny memes on Tumblr and it is a great way to intact with my friends and new people I meet from my posts. Many people (including friends of mine) post music that they have created, videos or works of art. It is great to see what other people are doing and what new things people are creating. I also use Tumblr as a place to find out more information about news stories. I knew about occupy Wallstreet and the London riots because of Tumblr. I even found out about the new bill that will shut down sites that contains copyrighted information (Tumblr would be shut down if this bill was passed).

            I personally am very glad that I got a Tumblr and I think that many people could benefit from getting one.

Extra Blog: LOL Cats and Other Memes

            While you surf the web, you may come across many random silly pictures. Many times they are with animals making funny faces, or cats with horrible spelling or a picture of a celebrity photo shopped into random situations. These are called Internet memes. A meme is a concept or idea that spreads person to person in a culture. So that means that an Internet meme is a concept or idea that spreads from person to person in the Internet culture.

            Internet memes often parody or mock something in society. Whether it is a video game reference or just a random dumb picture, there are thousands of memes on the Internet. Memes are normally spread through email, social networking or blogs. When captions are included they are often spelled wrong (as seen in LOL cats). For example, more will be come “moar” or like will be come “leik” or the becomes “teh”.

            The source for most Internet has been from 4chan. This is because it is a message board and often people’s reactions can be in the form of pictures. Other sites like Reddit or Tumblr are also places where memes are often born.  

            Many people look at Internet memes and shake their head at the stupidity of what they have just witnessed. I will be perfectly honestly, most if not all memes are completely dumb and honestly have no point. Yet they are still hilarious. I guess you could just say that it is born from our culture on the Internet. We often use memes as inside jokes with our friends it is great! Knowing memes can even help get people into new groups of friends or interests. For example take my friend Ted. He was familiar with the “u mad, bro?” meme and he and his friend often sent pictures of it to each other. One day Ted got a picture that had a pony on it that said u mad, bro? He looked up what the pony was from and ended up getting hooked on My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic (which also is huge in the meme world at the moment). 

            If you wish to find out more information about memes or memes and their origins you can visit the site Know Your Meme at here.

Blog Eight: Smart Mobs

            During this week’s class, we read two segments from Howard Rheingold’s book Smart Mobs: The Next Social Revolution. Rheingold tells us that he first noticed the use of smart mobs in Japan when Japanese teens would text each other to meet. Smart mobs primarily use handheld devices, like phones instead of computers to send their messages. This is because the cost of a phone is a lot less than that of a computer. This makes it accessible to more people. An example of this would be the smart mob that happened in the Philippines in 2001. Large groups of people were assembled via text message to protest President Joseph Estrada. It was a peaceful protest and ended up being quite successful. And without cell phones, this smart mob wouldn’t have even existed because the Philippines are a poor country. But that is not the only way that smart mobs can work. They also can be used to creep on your favorite celebrities or find a love interest.  

            Yet smart mobs can be good. Often people are afraid of what can happen when smart mobs “go bad”. Like the London riots that got out of control and that can scare people. But most smart mobs are peaceful and have a good message. Like the hacker group Anonymous in operation BART fought for the people with their smart mob. After BART authorities disabled the cell phone signals, Anonymous thought it was unfair and decided to take action. They created a Youtube video and called the people of BART and surrounding areas to show up at the subway station to protest. Another example of a peaceful but meaningful smart mob would be Operation: Drop Dead done by some students of the University of Maryland. At a set time on October 17^th a few students suddenly fell to the floor unmoving while a couple other students placed signs next to them. The objective of the mob was to give North Koreans a voice.

Smart mobs have also helped create flash mobs, which are a fun, entertaining sudden group of people who assemble in one place. Sometimes it’s just for fun, like the group Improv Everywhere. They are a group that gets people together to do funny improv flash mobs in big cities like New York City. For example, they have done multiple mp3 flash mobs. This is a group of people download an mp3 file and listen to it at the instructed time and general area. From there a voice directs them through funny activities until they all meet in the end.  This is only one example of how a flash mob can be a fun and peaceful.

Blog Seven (REVISED): Cyber Bullying

In the past few years, the Internet has grown in use and importance in our daily lives. We rely heavily on it for doing many things nowadays like shopping or paying bills. While many things have become a great deal easier for us, a new problem has arisen mainly in the younger generation. Cyber bullying has become a great issue in the past few years. Cyber bullying is harassment through electronic means. Facebook, Formspring, Myspace, Twitter, Youtube and even instant messaging are different Internet mediums that have often been used for cyber bullying. It is a big problem that our society overlooks cyber bullying and does not take it seriously. Often we brush off cyber bullying and label it as “drama.” Danah Boyd in her article, The Drama! Teen Conflict, Gossip, and Bullying in Networked Publics, says this is why “For teens, sites like Facebook allow for similar performances in front of engaged audiences.” Not only is bullying on the Internet often very public, but it allows people to say things they normally would not because they do not have to say it to the person’s face. 

We read an article in class about a boy named Tyler Clementi. Tyler Clementi is an example of when cyber bullying can go to far. Clementi was an 18-year-old student at Rutgers University who committed suicide after a classmate live streamed a video of him engaging in sexual acts with another man. This story really shows how the Internet can be used to slander other people’s names where the entire public can see it with such damning evidence as video. Without the Internet stories like that of Clementi’s could not have happened. Clementi even wrote his goodbye on his Facebook wall, “Jumping off the gw bridge sorry."

Unfortunately Clementi’s case is not the first and is not the last. Just recently, another gay teen committed suicide due to cyber bullying. Jamie Hubley was bullied because of his sexuality. The fact that he was being cyber bullied only increased the severity of his depression. Jamie began to drink and cut himself because of his bullying, he would write about his problems on his blog. Jamie kept an ongoing blog on Tumblr (titled "You can't break...when you're already broken") where he wrote about his feelings. Often the posts he posted were depressing or just sad blurbs. On the Friday before his death he wrote on his Tumblr, “It’s so hard, I’m sorry, I can’t take it anymore.” He was found dead on Saturday.

What would have happened in this situation if Jamie’s parents had known about his Tumblr posts? Also if Jamie’s friends had seen these posts why did they not do anything about them? Often kids who are depressed try to seek help and are often ignored. Jamie obviously wanted someone to reach out to him, yet seemingly no one did. As Danah Boyd says in her article Overprotective parenting and bullying: Who is to blame for the suicide of Megan Meier? in today’s society “parenting today seems to require the absolute believe that you’re child is the best child ever”. Often parents will write off what could be cries for help from kids as normal teen drama. Yet in Jamie’s case, it would have been beneficial for someone to read his posts on Tumblr, and his parents could have been the ones to check in on him from time to time.

There are multiple different cases just like Clementi and Hubley’s. Cyber bullying is an issue that needs to be taken more seriously. It is harmful and kids need to be taught how to handle situations where cyber bullying is taking place. No one should have to suffer and pass what is really bullying off as drama. Parents need to take part in their children’s lives without being a helicopter over everything they do. Cyber bullying is a real issue that needs to be taken seriously.