Memo29+--+Describing+Practices

Thomas Solley STSH 4980-01 Senior Thesis Costelloe-Kuehn 10/13/2014 10/15/2014

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__ Memo 29 -- Describing Practices __ " This memo should include a 200-400-word description of a practice that you have or may observe, during your research, leveraging the description for analytic insight. The practice you describe could be a communicative practice, a technical practice, a bodily practice, or some combination of different kinds of practice. You can flesh out your description imaginatively if you don’t yet have actual detail. For an example, see my “Biopolitics and the Informating of Environmentalism.” "

Practice; "snapchatting" with friends. The subject (or plural) seem to use this feature of "networking" for a particular type of data-sharing... Though the setting and task seems similar to those implemented by "social media" sites such as Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter, the purpose of Snapchats seems to explicitly focus on revealing "dirty little secrets" or thoughts that one has in one's environment. Stereotypically snapchats have been hyped for their nudist or suggestive themes -- perhaps a strong link to the "throwaway" / "party" culture -- but also seem to have created the "selfie" practice. This practice seems to involve the subject -- usually female, though occasonally male -- taking a picture of themselves in a "pleasing" environment. These "selfies" typically are structured by the takers to show the subjects "having a good time", or in a positive image (clothing, facial features, bodily pose, etc.) -- with the subjects focusing on an item in the background that is the source of their pleasure. Some "selfies" reflect an event or item in the backgroudn that the taker wishes to show -- such as a concert, skit, film, etc. -- while others' focus seems to be (in the "party culture") on the persons "behind the camera." Most "selfies" within the Snapchat-base focus the image on the takers' faces (where the taker is a part of the picture). The purpose of "selfies" seems to be in trying to show the viewers how "awesome" their life is at the time -- perhaps to engender jealousy, perhaps to enhance certain stereotypes of the public image that the user wishes to create or conform-to. This, however, shows to me that "selfies" are, in fact, usually "fake" -- the taker is structuring their body in the picture to appeal to a certain "image," which harkens-to a strong connection to "public image" or "fear of public opinion." Users seem to use "selfies" -- and snapchat -- to conform to certain stereotypes within "common public images" or memes, such as "party," "throwaway," "depression," "frustration," [the majority belonging to stereotypes / "profiles" within the media-generated/enforced (see "The Merchants of Cool") spectrum]. These stereotypes -- the "one night stand," "weekend or friday party," "end of the week," "work is hard," "life is against me," "relaxation," "throwback," "old-school," and "success" -- seem, to me, to have arisen in the years following the creation of smartphones; however, I cannot be certain of this, as I only became aware of these memes starting in middle-school. Thus my perspective of their "origin" is tainted by the natural "growing understanding" process which children have as they get older, experience hormones, and interact with wider-diversity groups. In particular, the memes of "teenagers" in this generation -- my generation -- seem tied to this theme. "Grinding," "planking," "selfies," "snapchatting,"... These have risen during my teenage years. Now, "snapchats"; these images -- structured by the taker -- dwell within the snapchat-mentality, which I tie to the "throwaway" culture of this generation's teenagers and young adults (though the "rush to nowhere" this exhibits comes from a much older theme). Images taken within this application are sent to recipients, however -- they do not last indefinately. The nature of "snapchats" seems to be in taking "explicit" or risky photographs, knowing that their image (or "impact on public image of the self") will not last forever. Users can control how long the images they take exist (there is a time-span in seconds)... Yet this seems to afford a sense of security, to promote persons using this app to engage in risky or sensual behavior, as a "tease" to their friends.

Not only do these phenomena -- grinding, selfies, snapchat, tindr, etc. -- appear to promote "risque" behavior, they appear to be self-enforcing the prevalence/"right-to-exist" of these phenomena... Which, in turn, reveal a growing dependence, perhaps, on conforming to "social memes" within this society (in America?). The existence of meme-photos, too, on the Internet seems to add weight to this claim -- where iconic moments in film are "twisted" or "re-purposed" to reflect certain "themes" that are "considered common" in society. Within networking sites such as Facebook, memes have gotten quite prevalent (they have existed before I was aware of them two years ago)(origin in 4Chan?), to the point where persons on this site have begun structuring themselves in photographs and comments to reflect some of these "memes." --> So, too, is there a "dependency towards a group-constructed image of what society as a whole thinks or believes"... (Which, perhaps, can be considered a "hive mind" of a sort -- though I see the emphasis being on that this "image" is a "hologram" or CONSTRUCT, that could be seperate from the actual truth of what "society" claims to think). --> Trying to claim "what society actually thinks" versus the "hype-image constructed and hinted-by extremist behaviors" is a difficult prospect at best. As per TMOC, extrmist-behaviors are industrially supported and fed back into society to self-prove their own validity. And in finding a source for "what society actually claims," too much diversity of opinion exists within th Internet-That-Links-Us-All (shades and ranges of opinon, on top of hypocrisy and paradox)... I don't know if an "unbiased" source exists, much less how to define an "unbiased source of social opinion"... -->>>>> When you think about it, all social views are constructs of group-feedback and collaborated experience. Thus all "social views" are "biased" towards their environment and users...

There is so much I could write about this, I should stop for now -- and not just because it is (the majority) my own "opinion."

Edits from in-class; - "how have networking technologies shaped social behaviors in the past 7 years"? (Current STQ?) --> could be more specific, or less-specific.... -

__Notes .__ The dining-hall example may be a good one for this too. Particularly the "headphones in, looking at screen while eating"?

Ideally the "texting while driving" would be interesting -- or texting while walking -- or "talking with one's hands" while talking over a cell-phone -- but these seem difficult to quantify without having actually observed them recently. - dangerous to observe the "texting while driving" thing -- THOUGH, I could I suppose talk of how drivers deal with communicating on-the-go. -->I've seen the "calling while driving" few times (driver calling, one hand on the wheel). --> Driver hands the phone to shotgunner, shotgunner handles the text-response. --> Driver delegates calling/texting of persons to the shotgunner (pre-emptive). ... Not yet seen the "driver texting while driving." --> Some technologies allow for the driver to respond to a call while driving and WITHOUT taking hands off the wheel -- such as Bluetooth Surround (?) or AUX-in/speakerphone.

It would be cool if I could comment on something to do with Google Glass, but that is both a technology I don't have access-to AND an implementation of "networking." --> how about... "selfies"? Certainly a new "phenomena." Snapchat is one "networking"-enabler which helps with this.

--->>> There is so much more I could write aboutthis, I should stop for now.