I have not taken a course in philosophy before. This Spring semester will include my first.
high adventure, fearless cooking, insight and humor accumulated throughout a 27-year journey...
22 January 2015
19 January 2015
The Gradual Commercialisation of the Internet
Today, I logged on to my Twitter account. It took me quite a bit of scrolling to come across a post from an actual person. I think I've become disenchanted with the Internet itself.
Reminiscing about the good old days, I do recall when the Internet was fresh, exciting, and new. I was in junior high, and the anonymity offered by AIM and Yahoo chat rooms made so exhilarating the chance to pick one's own username. My friends and I discovered a place to create our own, simple webpages for free; this proved to be a place to learn a bit of basic HTML. We'd impress each other with cool fonts, glorious color schemes, and GIFs of dancing hamsters and bananas.
In high school, the focus turned to LiveJournal and Xanga, the old-school venues for blogging. Anyone online could post jokes, stories, or plain ol' accounts of fun in real life. Friends all shared these sites with each other, but we were anonymous to the rest of the world.
In college, Facebook appeared. Its novelty was found in the disappearance of the former anonymity of Internet users. We connected with people taking the same classes as us, and posted photos of the ridiculous things we did the night before (which, by the way, required using a USB cord to download the photos off one's camera ...remember those?). Facebook was the exciting, new social media for anyone with a .edu email address.
Then, high schoolers appeared on Facebook, and it became less cool. Then, our parents appeared on Facebook, and it lost any "cool" appeal whatsoever. Then, companies appeared on Facebook, and it became a sea of advertisements and news articles.
As a "millennial" who grew up with the Internet, I find myself scrolling and scrolling through Facebook every few days, hoping to see something interesting - but there is nothing! It's become so boring recently. It's all re-postings of Buzzfeed articles, viral videos (of people I don't know), commercials, and ridiculousness. "Social media" has lost all that once was "social." It used to be about sharing stories with friends through written word. Now, our "feeds" feed us commericalism (which we consume enough of when we watch television).
The landscape of the US has been marred by the ugliness of billboards and advertisements (I so prefer driving in remote areas where no company would bother to put up a sign). We see brand marketing everywhere, from our TV and computer screens to the tiny computers in our pockets to the trash on the side of the road (even there, those McDonald's and Starbucks logos stand out plainly).
I won't tirade against capitalism, but I am tired of companies trying to get me to buy stuff everywhere I look. Marketing has its place, and gone are the days when companies just had a choice of what size newspaper ad to purchase. But trust me, dear corporations of the world, I will never buy a new car; I will never purchase a "diet system"; I do not eat fast food; I have no interest in purchasing clothing online.
I still remember the days when I'd sit down at the desk, fire up the computer, and wait for the monitor to warm up to see what new excitement awaited me. "Going on-line" was a former pastime of mine; and I'll probably continue to remember the "Hamster Dance" fondly.
However, all the noise of the new Internet does give good reason to keep investing in and spending time in books (paper books with ink on pages!); and to spend time playing outside. < / rant >
Reminiscing about the good old days, I do recall when the Internet was fresh, exciting, and new. I was in junior high, and the anonymity offered by AIM and Yahoo chat rooms made so exhilarating the chance to pick one's own username. My friends and I discovered a place to create our own, simple webpages for free; this proved to be a place to learn a bit of basic HTML. We'd impress each other with cool fonts, glorious color schemes, and GIFs of dancing hamsters and bananas.
In high school, the focus turned to LiveJournal and Xanga, the old-school venues for blogging. Anyone online could post jokes, stories, or plain ol' accounts of fun in real life. Friends all shared these sites with each other, but we were anonymous to the rest of the world.
In college, Facebook appeared. Its novelty was found in the disappearance of the former anonymity of Internet users. We connected with people taking the same classes as us, and posted photos of the ridiculous things we did the night before (which, by the way, required using a USB cord to download the photos off one's camera ...remember those?). Facebook was the exciting, new social media for anyone with a .edu email address.
Then, high schoolers appeared on Facebook, and it became less cool. Then, our parents appeared on Facebook, and it lost any "cool" appeal whatsoever. Then, companies appeared on Facebook, and it became a sea of advertisements and news articles.
As a "millennial" who grew up with the Internet, I find myself scrolling and scrolling through Facebook every few days, hoping to see something interesting - but there is nothing! It's become so boring recently. It's all re-postings of Buzzfeed articles, viral videos (of people I don't know), commercials, and ridiculousness. "Social media" has lost all that once was "social." It used to be about sharing stories with friends through written word. Now, our "feeds" feed us commericalism (which we consume enough of when we watch television).
The landscape of the US has been marred by the ugliness of billboards and advertisements (I so prefer driving in remote areas where no company would bother to put up a sign). We see brand marketing everywhere, from our TV and computer screens to the tiny computers in our pockets to the trash on the side of the road (even there, those McDonald's and Starbucks logos stand out plainly).
I won't tirade against capitalism, but I am tired of companies trying to get me to buy stuff everywhere I look. Marketing has its place, and gone are the days when companies just had a choice of what size newspaper ad to purchase. But trust me, dear corporations of the world, I will never buy a new car; I will never purchase a "diet system"; I do not eat fast food; I have no interest in purchasing clothing online.
I still remember the days when I'd sit down at the desk, fire up the computer, and wait for the monitor to warm up to see what new excitement awaited me. "Going on-line" was a former pastime of mine; and I'll probably continue to remember the "Hamster Dance" fondly.
However, all the noise of the new Internet does give good reason to keep investing in and spending time in books (paper books with ink on pages!); and to spend time playing outside. < / rant >
05 January 2015
2015
Must be time for my annual blog post! Apparently, January is the only month in which I have enough time to consider doing so.
Nearing one year here in Charlotte. We travelled to Pennsylvania for five days of Christmas, only to experience mostly 50-degree days. Funny: on the day the temp was in the thirties, Greg put on his winter coat and found in its pocket the rental agreement from our moving truck! The last time we experienced cold was the day we moved to Charlotte... bahahahaha....
Nearing one year here in Charlotte. We travelled to Pennsylvania for five days of Christmas, only to experience mostly 50-degree days. Funny: on the day the temp was in the thirties, Greg put on his winter coat and found in its pocket the rental agreement from our moving truck! The last time we experienced cold was the day we moved to Charlotte... bahahahaha....
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