Miss Tera Byte

A Few Thoughts On Why Ryan is Taking Over the Internet

2011-12-23T16:44:00.000-08:00

My very first Ryan Gosling meme (and the inspiration for my Silicon Valley Ryan) was Feminist Ryan Gosling. I found out after reading it there was an inspiration for it, though far less intellectually compelling.

I loved Feminist Ryan Gosling for three reasons. First, I'm a feminist. I'm a practicing academic feminist in fact; not only have I taught feminist theory at the undergraduate level, I've also published on it for academic books and journals. Second, it wasn't overtly sexual or sexualized, but it was sexy. Third, it was charming, clever, and turned the feminist theory I loved, cited, and taught into a wink and smile.

And then spawned countless others: Law School, Handmade, Literary, the list goes on.

But if we break all this down, it's more than just a sexy guy with a quote: it's a very carefully constructed fantasy. First, we have common interests- the hyperspecificity of each of these tumblrs reflects a world of experiences only the most familiar would understand. Second, we have an object of aesthetic desire that defines "projection" in his ability to reflect back anything wanted of him. Third, we have the language itself: idiosyncratic jargon that reflects not only expertise in the topic, but also the charm of a most cunning linguist. This triple threat means a lot more than just your average meme: people are truly invested in the Ryan of their choice.

As such, I will have more thoughts on my flavor du jour, Silicon Valley Ryan Gosling, coming soon.

Candy as "iconic characters?"

2011-11-30T16:35:00.000-08:00

Gamesradar reports that Capcom will soon be releasing their PC/console game "World Gone Sour" based on the adventures of, get this, SOUR PATCH KIDS!

Twitter is ablaze with skepticism and criticism, which I completely understand. It seems like cheap commodification, like pathetic pandering. But surely, you all remember a little gem called Candy Land- a game from 1945 based on moving through a magical land of sweets? So the site of inspiration isn't exactly new, but somehow, this seems worse than Candy Land. I'd like to offer up the following suggestion as to why this seems so annoying.

According to Sebastian Genesio, Sour Patch's Marketing Director, the game will show us there is "so much more to these iconic characters than just their sour exteriors and sweet interiors" (emphasis mine). Indeed, I've always thought that right up there with King Lear and Cleopatra are the #1 selling sour candies in the U.S.

But seriously, if "iconic" is meant to reference characters like Mario or Kirby, we are still talking about tying narrative to something we eat. So maybe it's the gravitas here, about a CANDY, that seems absolutely absurd.

Or is it? Don't we tie our own narratives to candy? Blow Pops immediately bring me back to my afterschool art program. Sno-caps are the first time I snuck into an R-rated movie. Rootbeer barrels are summers with my grandmother. As a person who has spent a considerable amount of my life studying narrative and our emotional connections to it, I know a Sour Patch Kid cannot possibly elicit the kind of connection I have to Yoshi or Batman.

But maybe it just has to elicit a tangy, fruity memory just strong enough to get me to swallow the tale.

What should we do if Siri is the Misogynist HAL 9000?

2011-11-30T03:43:00.000-08:00

"I'm sorry Dave, I'm afraid I can't do that."

The proof is mounting against Siri. She recognizes the word "rape" but will not direct a woman to the ER. She cannot suggest a pharmacy for Plan B, but can for Viagra. She cannot find an abortion clinic, but can find a strip club, a place to hide the body, an escort service, or the place to score some weed.

Clearly, Houston, we have a problem. These inequities are reprehensible and reveal a deeply disturbing misogyny. And so the bloggers rage over Siri and her programmers, their opponents claim it's only a first world problem, activists are writing Apple, and the cyberwagons are circling.

The very first argument made against Siri's misogynist "ignorance" is that a Google search will offer results that she cannot/will not offer herself. However, this has always been the case with iOS or any app-based operating system that privileges the app over the browser: the app will only ever show you precisely what it was programmed to show you, no matter how interactive "she" may appear. Apps, though seducing you into thinking otherwise through their ubiquity, are not web browsers that let you loose onto an endless frontier; they are information sandboxes where you can play until you hit your containment wall. But the longer you play in the sand, the less you remember about the frontier.

It is a terrible shame that Siri is so flawed, especially for those who rely on phones as their only way to access information. But while everyone doles out pieces of the responsibility pie, I would like to give a sticky Apple-filled slice to you, Savvy Technophile, who has given Siri more power than she deserves by devotedly listening to her flawed saccharine monologue. You have the power to check Google, to call information, to ask a friend, because you are not yet fully buried under the weight of all that damn sand. But still you choose to rely on Siri, and she knows this. The more you listen to Siri, the louder she will become, and eventually, she will drown out all the other voices.

In 2001: A Space Odyssey, once Dave and Frank realize they must disconnect a very flawed (and dangerous) HAL, it is already too late: lip-reading HAL bests them, eventually killing most of the crew.

It is not too late for us. We have a chance to reprogram this flawed Siri, and I sincerely hope we do. But frankly, we also need to reprogram our own flawed selves.

And if we are lucky, Siri can't read lips.

Yet.

Identities, like diamonds

2011-11-29T15:18:00.000-08:00

Originally written for enole.com

At the Web 2.0 Summit, Chris Poole suggested that "Google and Facebook would have you believe identity is like a mirror,” but he believes identities are more like “diamonds" - the difference being a mirror is a direct, "honest" reflection of the self, whereas a diamond is faceted, offering different perspectives based on the angles. I completely agree with Mr. Poole's assessment of identity, and find his critique of the "real-name policies of Facebook and Google" quite compelling.

However, interestingly enough, there was a point in Facebook's recent past which allowed for a more "diamond-like" representation of the self, and I'd like to address that flash-in-the-pan for a moment. Remember when everyone on Facebook was taking those absurd quizzes and all of a sudden we all had access to a number of imaginary and avatar-style modes of self-representation such as ninjas, vampires, werewolves, pin-up models, or Shakespeare characters? These quizzes and games went beyond the bare facts of a person's identity and appealed directly to the idiosyncratic or "faceted" aspects of identity.

Through these games and apps, Facebook users were allowed (and even expected) to create complex representations of their identities where portions of these personae were diffuse, paradoxical, and even completely in opposition to one another. A user could represent themselves simultaneously as, for example, both a zombie and a French philosopher, without any apparent conflict. (Of course, this doesn't speak to the pure indulgence, narcissism or clearly reductive nature of the quizzes, but, let's save that critique for another time).

This was a reasonably short-lived trend on the FB, but it was pretty informative and quite entertaining and I believe it approaches something of those diamond facets of which Mr. Poole speaks. Of course, the space is still contingent on my "real name" with my "real details," so I guess the question is, how do we collage, fracture, hybridize, graft, suture, or otherwise facet our online representations of ourselves if we must be tied to our "real names"?

My name is Lian, I have two Master's degrees, and I live in the Bay Area.
But for a short time, I was also a Cleopatra-Sartre-Bettie Page-Dr. Cox-Marx-Jacoby Ellsbury.
I think I prefer the latter.
Shine on.

I Am Meme

2011-11-29T15:15:00.000-08:00

Originally written for enole.com

I would like to propose that creating an internet meme (and by "creating" I mean adding text to an already designed image) is creating a micro-representation of identity or self that can act as commentary, confession or imagining. Yes, it is a lofty proposal for a poorly shopped animal or face pasted on top of a contrasting geometric background. However, when a person adds their two lines of text to that poorly shopped animal or face, they are shining a pinspot onto their own psyche.

The meme generator is an identity-repository, so next time you are visiting one, put on your psychoanalyst glasses and have a read. Crouched like an insane wolf behind the rock of anonymity, people use their two lines to tell the world what they wish they could actually get away with. Narrating these memes exorcises the painful experiences many of the authors have likely had to deal with themselves. Awkward personal moments become much less traumatizing when shared or confessed. And those questions, those paradoxes, those hypocrisies a person faces each day certainly warrant some reflection.

Of the thousands of memes out there, consider the memes you know the best- the ones you return to, or the ones that have stuck in your mind over the years. Aren't they in many ways, a slice of your own identity? Don't they fulfill something for you? Does that disgusting amphibian remind you of your last roommate? Does that arrogant bird sound like your sister's boyfriend? Now consider creating one of those beloved memes yourself: wouldn't you write what you know, what you wish you could say, what you wish you could do? Those two sentences are a chance to insert your experience, your unique perspective, into the archive. And those two lines are a tiny representation of who you are.

For me, claiming victory over road signs and cereal boxes gives me that sense of nostalgic superiority I need to get through the day.

Calling Bullshit

2011-11-29T15:11:00.000-08:00

Originally written for enole.com

In a recent article, Ian Bogost made the bold claim that:

“...gamification is marketing bullshit, invented by consultants as a means to capture the wild, coveted beast that is videogames and to domesticate it for use in the grey, hopeless wasteland of big business, where bullshit already reigns anyway.”

In the spirit of any good game, I’m going to call a little friendly “bullshit” of my own and point out that while gamification and video games are indeed different animals they certainly drink from the same watering hole, even if one happens to be a little less evolved, or perhaps more of a scavenger than the other; and I’d like to propose that perhaps there is room for everyone in our experiential ecosystem.

In the current corporate economy, a product must and always will be sold and that is, for better or for worse, the bottom line. “Gamification” means using game elements such as badges, tokens, leader boards, etc. to promote continued participation and loyalty. Bogost and other game design purists are critical that these gamified elements have replaced the magic of the game itself:

“…key game mechanics are the operational parts of games that produce an experience of interest, enlightenment, terror, fascination, hope, or any number of other sensations. Points and levels and the like are mere gestures that provide structure and measure progress within such a system.”

In other words, for the essentialists, gamification is a cheap, overly simplified representation of a game that isn’t truly a game, but rather a vehicle used to sell something. However, this critique misses one very important element present in both gamification and in games proper: the element of play. Using basic game elements to sell a product allows for an experience beyond the product itself, that is, the experience of play, specifically: competition. (For more on agon, the concept of competition as it occurs in play, see Caillois, Man, Play, and Games.) Furthermore, through play we have communication and interaction which promotes the exchange of social currency rather than only hard or soft currency. Caillois, Huizinga, Nachmanovitch, Rushkoff, Schechner, and countless more, all explain how necessary and intrinsic play is to human behavior, so it stands to reason that if I must be sold something, I’d rather be playing while it’s happening. Gamification, whether we like it or not, allows play to occur (however cheap it may be) by appealing to the very basic competition element of play. It may not be complex game mechanics, it may be a lowest common denominator, but competition, as part of play, is part of who we are as social human beings; and for some people, a little competition in the form of a leader board or status badges is all they need to add a little superficial fun to something they may or may not do anyway.

Bogost takes a rather hierarchical approach to games and proposes we use:

“”exploitationware’ as a more accurate name for gamification's true purpose, for those of us still interested in truth. Exploitationware captures gamifiers' real intentions: a grifter's game, pursued to capitalize on a cultural moment, through services about which they have questionable expertise, to bring about results meant to last only long enough to pad their bank accounts before the next bullshit trend comes along.”

It would seem the very same "grifter" criticism could be made about a day at the racetracks or an evening of carnival games. Take the cheap prizes you get from the money-pit carnival games where skill is almost useless, as the games are so stacked against you. Is the made-in-China-oversized-stuffed-with-styrofoam-puppy-holding-a-heart-your-girlfriend-carries-around-while-you-eat-funnel-cake any more or less valuable than a Status Badge you earned for your social contributions to a website? Is that stuffed animal actually representative of your love or is it just a cheap token of some time you spent on a date? The Status Badge you earn on a website, just like that crappy carnival prize, is not representative of your love of the site, or even, a meaningful contribution to your relationship with the site- it's just something fun to get while you're playing around.

Or how about your initials flashing on the Skee Ball machine that you spent hours trying to get up there; is that any different than a Leader Board on a website you are, for some reason, compelled to be at the top of? It's just basic competition, this basic element of play, to see one's name at the top of the list. It doesn't add serious value to the world, it doesn't make us "better" people, it's hardly "magical," it just adds some playful competition for the sake of fun. We don't (in theory) look down on those kinds of superficial competitions like the carnival game, so why the blanket devaluation of simple competition as an operating mechanic for gamified sites?

Let's get down to it: would we rather people passively consumed, or would we rather they hunt, fought, or competed to get that same thing? With so much social criticism of the trend of the former, is it so wrong to design experiences that allow for the latter, even if only superficially? Yes, many of these marketing-devices-packaged-as-gaming-experiences are cheap, easy, and offer little by way of meaningful narrative, complex problem-solving, imagination, or any of the other things those of us who design gaming experiences might strive for.

But, in the spirit of any curious, fun-seeking teenager, isn’t a little play better than none?