Using Social Media for Your Own Purposes.

I've been writing about Twitter lately, and I've noticed that a lot of times with social media sites, people don't necessarily use it the way it was intended to be used. For example, comedians will sometimes have conversations with each other that are clearly jokes, but are made to be seen as real conversations happening. Above is a prime example of this: two comedians, Tim Heidecker and Tom Scharpling talking on Twitter about a Hollywood meeting that isn't actually going to take place, but is purely for humorous purposes. By using the conversational aspect of Twitter, comedians and others are able to both make fun of the way the site is supposed to be used, and have a good time while at it. This is an animated video of the conversation they have on Twitter, which is clearly only for comedic purposes, but uses the site in a way that's different than how it's supposed to be intended. I think it's particularly interesting the way people end up using sites, compared to how they are supposed to be used. Another example of this is that there is a feature on Facebook that allows you to see when someone has read a message you've sent to them, but this is somewhat loaded in nature: if you can see that someone has read your message and they don't respond, you might take it to mean that they don't care or don't want to talk to you. Thus, people end up sometimes leaving their messages unread so that that "read" message doesn't show up and people aren't offended that they haven't responded yet, even though they've seen the message. It's interesting, because at times there seems to be a contradiction between what the creators of a site think people want and what they actually want: in this example, they think that people want to know when their message has been read, but really people probably don't like this feature because it makes them look like a jerk if they don't respond right away.

Twitter's Community.

Above: A screenshot taken from Twitter's "Discover" page, which also tells people to "express yourself" and "share openly."

I've been on Twitter for probably about five years now, and when I first started using it, I think I was just as confused as everyone else about what it's supposed to do. According to their "About" page, their mission is "to give everyone the power to create and share ideas and information instantly, without barriers." To me, that seems to be a pretty vague mission statement, considering what Twitter actually is: it's a platform that essentially lets you post 140 character quips and ideas to however many followers you can acquire, while at the same time reading the quips and ideas of the people you follow. The thing about Twitter, though, is that it serves multiple purposes by being very simple: unlike Facebook, which although complex is essentially a social site to be used amongst you and your friends, Twitter allows you to follow anybody (as long as they're not set to private). This can include your family, your friends, celebrities, politicians, or even people who you randomly stumble upon.

I make a point to use my Twitter mostly for comedic purposes and self promotion, which differs from other people. I tend to not follow friends, even though they follow me, because I don't really care about tweets like "Just did my homework" or "Tired :(" - that's kind of what Facebook is for. I don't need two sites to hear about that, so I use Twitter to post my own funny comments and read the tweets of comedians or people I deem funny. I follow a couple news sites as well, but I mostly use it for this purpose.

Relating this to Bellah, it's interesting because I'm essentially creating a community here, but not necessarily one I'm interacting with. Unlike Facebook, the people I follow on Twitter aren't friends of mine, and I don't really communicate with them other than reading their tweets. The people who follow me are at times friends, but also strangers who have stumbled upon my tweets - maybe because they've been retweeted by someone else, or because someone posted a tweet saying to follow me. There are a few friends who I connect with on Twitter, but for me it doesn't really serve as a real community - I would call it more of an Invisible Lifestyle Enclave. I am technically part of a community, but since I'm not really interacting with them, I don't think it necessarily counts as a community. Then again, if we're going based on what Twitter's mission statement is, they don't really say anything about community, only that they want you to be able to share whatever your thoughts and ideas are "without barriers." In a sort of individualistic way, that Bellah talks about, thus Twitter becomes a medium to share your ideas more than it is to hear the ideas of other people; even though Twitter ends up being used to both share and listen, that's not what the site claims itself to be for. It does, on other pages, tell you to "connect with people," however they say that these are "casual and spontaneous" and clearly this is not the main usage for the site. Connection seems to be important to Twitter, but not as much so as sharing your own ideas freely and openly.

Whenever I think about the internet, I'm reminded of this sketch comedy bit from Tim and Eric, who had a show on Adult Swim for a while. It's basically making fun of dumb infomercials, but for some reason it just makes me laugh and remember that the internet is kind of a ridiculous thing in general.

Success and Artistic Creation.

I've been thinking a lot recently about my own goals, mostly because we've been reading Habits of the Heart, and I desperately do not want to identify with any of the characters in the first chapter of the book. Every time I would read one and see a bit of myself in them, Bellah et al. would go on to talk about why the person wasn't fully realizing what they want in life, and are short sighted about their goals. I certainly don't want to be that way, and have been thinking about whether or not my goals and views are actually individualistic or whether I'm actually trying to be part of a larger community.

Maybe this isn't the best argument, but I've spent a lot of time talking with people close to me about the meaning of life (because we're liberal arts students, are what else are we going to do), and I think one of the conclusions that I've come to is that one of the meanings is to influence those around you in positive ways, and generally speaking help move the human race in a positive direction. This is a pretty general idea, as most "meaning of life" comments are, but I've narrowed it down a bit more - I particularly like creating art, in the form of writing or performing or what-have-you, and I know my life has been severely influenced by other works of art: different books and films and music, and I think that one of my goals is to do something similar - to create something that resonates with someone else out there, and will change their life. It's individualistic as well, but only in a certain way: yes, I'm doing it because of my own need to creatively express myself, which is inherently individualistic, but I'm also doing it because I want to give back to a society that has given me so much, and add into the pantheon of great works that have influenced and changed the world. I guess that's sort of a high goal, but that's something I've been thinking about when the topic of success comes up, and what you want to get out of your life. I guess I do want happiness, but more than that I want to gain knowledge and understanding, and I think a way of doing that is by creating art that expresses your experience and understanding to a wider public. But then again, I'm a 21 year old liberal arts student, and it's pretty easy to say all of these things now with a pretty solid meal plan.

Success of the Wolf.

If you've heard of Jordan Belfort, it's probably because of the new film by Martin Scorsese, The Wolf of Wall Street, which depicts his rise and fall in the stock market during the 90s - some of which was illegal, but all of which resonates with the ideas of indiviualism and success that are brought up with Habits of the Heart. The video above, which is one of the seminars Belfort now gives in order to make a living, is what he calls the "Straight Line Persuasion Webinar" - essentially if you go and see Belfort, he'll tell you how to get rich quick, and convince people to give you what you want. That's what The Wolf of Wall Street is about as well, however when I saw the movie, I left the theater feeling a little bit aimless: what did Belfort learn from his years at the top? Sure, he had everything and more: money, women, cars, yachts (which is incidentally crashed), and yet lost them all because he found himself being too greedy. To me, Belfort exemplifies the life that Brian talks about in the first chapter of Habits of the Heart: defining your success as the amount of money you make and how well you do professionally. Belfort had all that and more, and yet lost it without really learning what will truly bring him meaning, and now he seems to be passing along these messages to others who are hoping for the same thing.

In the video (which is long, and I admittedly did not watch all of), Belfort says that inside of us we all have the key to unlocking our own happiness and accomplishments, but what exactly those are, he's not very clear about. Judging by his topic, it's about business: persuading people to do what you want them to do. It's an inherently nihilistic view of humanity, and Wolf of Wall Street is a lot about that: conning people into giving you their money, essentially, and holding onto it as long as you can, even if it's illegal. He says that there's a force inside of us that we need to wake up - and the way to do that is convince yourself that "you're the shit," as he puts it. I suppose the one thing that can be said about Belfort is that there's no masking in his case: he's not tricking himself into thinking he's trying to do things for the good of society or his family - he's strictly doing it for himself. To me, he seems like the embodiment of the individualistic society in which we live: although a lot of us are horrified by what he has to say, it isn't too far off from what's in a lot of our heads anyway.

My New Religion.

One of the things I've been thinking about recently are the parallels between modern technology and religion, and my relation to both of these. I consider myself an agnostic, I suppose - which I've heard is a cop-out in some respects, but whatever - and generally find myself shaking my head at people who follow organized religion. I want to be someone who is respectful of all different beliefs, and part of me wishes I believed as well, if only so that I had some sort of stabilizing force in a world that provides little answers. But alas, I cannot seem to do anything but shake my head at religion, and I feel bad about that, particularly because it seems like a very Liberal Arts Upper Middle Class White Male thing to do.

I do, however, have a religion of some sorts, and that's technology. In the same way that people are drawn to religion, I seem to be drawn to technology, probably even more so than religion. I don't go to worship on Sundays, but I worship every few minutes, when I dig into my pocket and check my phone. Perhaps this comparison I'm drawing is not necessarily a good one, but sometimes it honestly does feel like this. Moreover, I seem to defend it the same way people have defended religion to me: it's about connection, about expressing oneself, etc. I don't know if you can call tweeting a witty remark about Breaking Bad "expression," but nowadays I think it's okay.

Maybe it seems like I'm calling both technology and religion vices, but I'm not. I'm saying that in moderation, both can enhance your life. It's when one begins to take over everything you do that there's a problem. I don't think it's healthy that people look to God to save their lives or to cancel school tomorrow, and I don't think it's healthy to check my phone every five minutes. But praying to something, or searching for answers, or generally being a good person because it's what your religion teaches you - those might not be so bad. And being able to tweet out to the world or text a friend or take a picture of something that interests you or listen to a song that moves you in an impossible way - those are probably good things too. Everything in moderation, I guess.

Whole Earth Catalogue: Here's To The Crazy Ones.

My first impressions of looking at the first issue of the Whole Earth Catalogue, dated Fall 1968, is that it seems - and perhaps this is not the best way to put it - the ramblings of a madman (or men, since the catalogue had multiple contributors). That's probably not the impression that the catalogue wants to give, but it linked me immediately to a lot of the comments that were usually made about Jobs' new ideas of endeavors: within Isaacson's autobiography, there are many times in which Jobs proposes an idea to his board of directors, to which they say, "You're crazy - that'll ruin Apple." The most recent example in my reading is that of the Apple Stores, which people said would surely be a failure in light of the Gateway Stores, which had been a disaster. But Jobs stuck with the idea and forced it through, and ended up revolutionizing the way consumers by computers, let alone anything. When I go to technology stores now, a lot of them end up mirroring Jobs' vision of a pristine, immaculate, minimalistic store. Anyway, this relates to my immediate ideas about the Whole Earth Catalogue, and makes me see an immediate comparison between Jobs and the magazine.

Looking inside, you get what seems to be a grab bag of ideas and "tools," as they would call them: pictures of different geographical settings from high above, a book about "Ideas and Integrities," some notes on the music of John Cage, and a section about Tantric Art. The catalogue seems to be about what the future might hold for people - moving into a new generation, as technology was beginning to burst, the catalogue seems to offer tools to become part of this movement, albeit in an somewhat scattered way. It seems like a catalogue designed for someone like Jobs: many small bits of information about many different things, all working towards on unified goal of progression and artistic achievement. The Whole Earth Catalogue provides so much information about so many things that it's really unlike any other magazine, which usually focuses on a subject matter - this magazine focuses on an idea, and that idea is giving you the necessary tools, which is what Jobs' product is all about.

If I had to relate that to religion, I would say that it follows that ideology of personal religion, and that you have the tools to become an individual contributing to society. Past religions seemed to be about communal ideology, not very much focused on the human, whereas modern religion and the Whole Earth Catalogue seem very involved with the individual - which is also what Jobs was all about. There seems to be an inexplicable link between the personal religion that now seems so prevalent, and the personal technology that has exploded ever since Apple came onto the scene - and the Whole Earth Catalogue serves as the foundation for the themes that Jobs would eventually try to develop in his company.

Steve Jobs at Stanford: Stay Hungry, Stay Foolish.

Watching Steve Jobs' speech at the Stanford Commencement in 2005 feels a bit like a religious experience in a way: you get chills listening to him speak, and something deep within you resonates with what he is saying. But there is also a deep-rooted feeling of uncertainty and of vagueness: Jobs says to live everyday as though it is your last, and never settle for something less than what you want, but what exactly does that mean? Sure, maybe he did this in his own life, but the sheer number of human beings on this planet basically dictates than not everyone can live out their dreams the way Jobs did - it's just not possible. I immediately see ties to religion within his speech - the idea of individuality comes up numerous times, as it does with modern day religion; speaking as someone who went to a Catholic high school, but am half-Jewish and half-Catholic - and essentially Agnostic in actuality - I found that one of the main messages that my Catholic school was trying to give me was that I was special: that God had a plan for me and all I had to do was open my ears and listen. Jobs doesn't necessarily say this, but he does say that you should keep searching until you find the thing that you want in life - and that's basically what a lot of religions suggest as well, they just throw in that God is the one who determines that. It's weird to think that in a sense Jobs and modern day Catholicism (or at least Jesuits) are saying the same thing, except that one party needs to use the concept of God and the other does. Either way, this idea of individuality and finding the right path are daunting, and yet both Jobs and religions make it seem possible, not only for a select few, but for everyone.

I guess the other thing to say that's interesting is that even though these ideologies line up, I doubt that most religions would want to associate themselves with Jobs - a selfish, rude, and at times simply mean person. The tenant of most religions, as far as I know, appears to be helping one another and living a pious life, and yet Jobs didn't necessarily do that. Sure, he maybe helped the masses, and changed millions of lives by bringing the personal computer to the person, but he cut people down and left people behind him in his way towards his goals. And yet, even though Jobs did this, it could be argued that he was simply doing what religion is telling us to do: find your meaning, find your reason, and do what you, individually, are meant to do in this world. Is it okay to do that if it's at the cost of others?