stupid dumb exam stupid Flashcards
>:(
critique
A critique is a sophisticated judgement of something. It is born of overlapping knowledge of multiple environments, such as the political climate or our own personal lives. All critique must come from a place of hope. In addition to pointing out the flaws, it must show where there is room for improvement. Critique must assume that that a better world is possible, as its intent should be to fight for that better world.
Dividual
In a society of control, people are no longer individuals, their own unique person, but instead dividuals. They are but one piece of the larger population. Because the population is always controlled, the dividual is always controlled. In a diciplinary society, individuals were policed only at certain times, which gave them more freedom than the dividual.
Natural barriers
A natural barrier is something unavoidable that prevents a capitalistic society from having constance access to our bodies and labor. Our 24/7 reading discussed the importance of sleep as a natural barrier. All humans need approximately 8 hours of sleep at night, non-negotiably. This natural barrier prevents society from expecting everyone to be available 24/7.
Communicative Capitalism
Communicative capitalism is the structure in which even our means of communication are mediated by private companies. This has benefits, such as giving people the freedom to choose between different platforms to suit their needs, but also has downsides, such as money-motivated companies making decisions that hurt their users (leaking data, paywalling communication, etc). Just like the competition between different communication platforms is fierce, so is the competition between users. Communicative capitalism commands users to enjoy their lives the most and express just how much they are enjoying their life by posting about it.
Symbolic Efficiency
Symbolic Efficiency is the degree to which a symbol/message holds its original meaning in different contexts. If a symbol is efficient, it easily conveys its message from person to person and remains unaltered by the context. The Internet has decreased symbolic efficiency overall. For example, a post written on a satirical website (such as an Onion article) may be read reposted on a website that is not satirical and misunderstood. Because there are differing rules on different parts of the internet, there is no common culture or shared symbols that make things always easy to interpret.
Digital Blackface
Digital Blackface is the use of black avatars, reaction images, profile pictures, emojis, or other forms of representation by nonblack people. In the case of reaction images, this oftentimes furthers the ‘sassy’ black woman stereotype. In more serious cases, racists will pretend to be black to enter discussions about racism or justice so that their opinions derail those discussions.
“The injuring of sleep is inseparable from the ongoing dismantling of social protections in other spheres. Just as universal access to clean drinking water has been programmatically devastated around the globe by pollution and privatization, with the accompanying monetization of bottled water, it is not difficult to see a similar construction of scarcity in relation to sleep.” author and explanation
Author: Crary (“it would be ‘crary’ if we could stay awake 24/7”)
Sleep is a natural barrier that has historically prevented capitalism from forcing everyone to function 24/7. As we move further into a control society, even sleep is being attacked through things such as energy drinks, purposeful sleep deprivation to finish tasks, and more. There are many tools that suggest they will help you sleep better, everything from sunrise alarm clocks to sleep masks. We need to beware this attack on our last natural barrier between us and complete control.
“First, I underscore the ways virtuality is not opposed to the real; virtuality refers to immanence, capacity, and potentiality. Second, I underscore the ways intimacy is already virtual in the ways it is made manifest through affective experience. “
Author: McGlotten. (“If this author had McGlotten laid, I doubt they’d be bitching about the loss of public sex.”)
The virtual refers to and contains every potential or hypothetical situation. It is everything that isn’t happening, but any of these possibilities could still realistically happen. For that reason, it is not opposed to the real. Intimacy, which McGlotten defines as a feeling of connection and sexual actions, can be virtual. This is because our feelings can be based on ‘what if’ scenarios, especially because we tend to make assumptions about a person based on how they choose to present themselves online.
“This emphasis on software repeats the founding gesture of the Internet: the Internet seeks to make irrelevant hardware differences—its protocol enables networks to communicate regardless of which network (IEEE 802.x) standard is being used. Yet software, at a fundamental level, does not exist. (18) Software produces users, and the term user, resonating with ‘‘drug user,’’ discloses every programmer’s dream: to create an addictive product.”
Author: Chun (“There’s not Chun of these control and freedom quotes, there’s two)
The internet is meant to be all about communication and virtual community. This, however, is not ‘real’, as in it cannot be touched or really sensed in any significant matter. People interact with this because it is so accessible. No matter what you are accessing the Internet on, you can feel like you belong. This feeling of belonging is what many programmers use to entice people to use their products. They hope that the user will continue using so they can make money off their work.
“Although ideologies and practices of freedom and control are not new, the coupling of these terms is uniquely tied to information technology and our current political situation. Control-freedom, which is intimately experienced as changes in sexuality and race, is a reaction to the increasing privatization of networks, public services and space, and to the corresponding encroachment of publicity and paranoia into everyday life. The end of the Cold War has not dispelled paranoia but rather spread it everywhere: invisibility and uncertainty—of the enemy, of technology—has invalidated deterrence and moved paranoia from the pathological to the logical. This twinning of control and freedom subverts the promise of freedom, turning it from a force that simultaneously breaks bonds and makes relation possible to the dream of a gated community writ large. “
The other Chun.
Control-freedom has increased wieth the prevalence of a control society. We are both controlled and free. We are free to make choices, but only within the controlled network of choices provided to us. This network is increasingly becoming privitized, much like everything else in our society. All of these privatized spaces are subject to intense monitoring as a result of post-Cold War paranoia. This paranoia is now seen as completely logical and justifies the total survielance that is now present in spaces that were previously seen as ‘free’.
“This “grey area,” caused by the unknown and unprovable nature of intentions and interpretations provides the very opening for a troller to exploit. For example, a troller may deliberately goad whilst claiming only to debate. At the same time, however, this grey area also means that an individual accused of trolling may be innocent of the charge. “
Trolls make life Hardaker
Because we can never be fully sure of someone’s intentions on the internet (due to lack of body language, lack of knowledge about their personality, etc), trolls can claim false innocence. They can get away with posting inflammatory content by pretending that they only mean to discuss a topic. On the other hand, a totally inoccuous poster could be falsely accused for the same cause, the ‘gray area’.
“The contemporary setting of electronically mediated subjectivity is one of infinite doubt, ultimate reflexivization. There’s always another option, link, opinion, nuance, or contingency that we haven’t taken into account, some particular experience of some other who could be potentially damaged or disenfranchised, a better deal, perhaps even a cure.”
“A better deal? more like a better Dean.”
Because there is such a vast wilderness of internet, there is no way of knowing 100% what another person means. This makes it difficult both for people critically examining media and the average person trying to understand a post on the internet. There are always other perspectives and possibilities that one must take into account. Wrongly interpreting something could, worst case scenario, offend an oppressed person or miss out on something important like a cure.
Compare and contrast disciplinary society and control society.
Both disciplinary and control societies seek to contain people and maintain order through control, though they do so in different ways. A disciplinary society pushes people through a clear path, such as going to school and graduating and then going to work. This is enforced through ‘disciplinary’ action and strict social rules, but beyond the basic expectations, people still had their freedoms. For example, a person had to work 9-5, but could do whatever they wanted afterwards. In a control society, people are no longer disciplined by direct forces, but controlled by societal expectations. Within this society, they have many choices, but only the choices that society offers them. In a control society, someone would be able to choose if they wanted to work a typical 9-5 job or if they wanted to do something more along the lines of freelancing, where all of their time was theirs but also dedicated to work at the same time.
Define “protocol” and provide an example of protocol in relation to a social media platform of your choice.
A protocol is a system of rules, or, when referring to computers and software, a system of suggestions. These can technically be broken, but this has consequences. For example, on TikTok the language is heavily censored. Users that post with certain words (such as swear words or heavy topics such as death, addiction, sex, etc) will have their posts either removed or have a much lower rate of being shown to other users. As a result, users either don’t post about these topics, or find ways to censor the words using special characters or emojis. [note- ill be using this in the exam pls dont use it]
Define the “death drive” (or what Lacan simply calls “drive”) and how it relates to users’ interactions with blogging or other social media. `
The death drive is the desire for the familiar. It’s a compulsion to repeat what they already know. This is what causes people to follow people that they like, because they know it’ll make the algorithm show them more content of that user, someone they are already familiar with.
