When the trailer for The Social Network came out, I was completely blown away. I remember thinking, "This looks like an incredibly fascinating movie," and I ended up being right. But moreover, and trailer does a great job of getting to the core of what Facebook is about, and what Smith talks about in her article: "I want you to notice, when I'm not around," a choir sings, covering Radiohead's "Creep" - and that's really what Facebook is all about in the end. You want to share your world so people see it, because we all want to be seen. The trailer also brings the paradox of The Social Network into the foreground: in the beginning we see Facebook at work, photos of families, people in hospitals, comments about missing people, etc. - and then we get the movie, the story of betrayal, love, backstabbing, and getting left behind. Facebook presents a world full of objectivism, when the real story is a lot more complicated, much like the second half of that trailer - it's messy, it's quick, and there are no easy answers, not like on Facebook. It's not very often that I see a trailer that I love as much as the movie, or a movie I love as much as the trailer. But this one captures the movie, and its essence so perfectly, and I continue to watch it even though I've seen the movie multiple times now. And it has me listening to that cover of "Creep." What the hell am I doing here?

Give Me a Like.

I greatly enjoyed Zadie Smith's article "Generation Why?" - so much so that I kind of feel like deleting my Facebook, and even not being on Blogger right now (alas, homework permits it). Smith comes from a different kind of mindset: I've read her work in the New Yorker, and an essay about her appreciation for Joni Mitchell - and from the article it seems as though she worked at Harvard for some amount of time. To me, though, Smith represents the type of person I want to be, rather than the type of person that I am: although I like the idea of reading the New Yorker and listening to Joni Mitchell on vinyl, I'm a lot more likely to be on Tumblr listening to Pharrell. Thus, enter Facebook.

I've heard a lot of people say things like, "I hate Facebook," and I'm one of them - and I truly do hate Facebook. It's a device that forces you not only into a box, but forces you to construct that box as well: how do you want to be viewed? Recently, someone uploaded photos of me swimming a breaststroke race at our Conference Championships, and I had to hold myself back from removing the photos. First of all, breaststroke isn't exactly an attractive stroke, and any photos of you taken during it are of you with your mouth agape, suffering through the disastrous yardage. Second of all, it alerted old friends that I was swimming again, after years off from the sport - and I could only picture the wields of their minds turning, thinking about my now less-than-fit body working through the water and laughing about it - because people think about me that much. Finally, the pictures aren't taken very well.

This is only a small example of how Facebook forces you to think about yourself. The fact of the matter is, I'm proud that I'm swimming again, and even though I'm slower than I was, and have a bit more a tummy, I like telling people it - it's essentially saying, "Hey, I'm doing something active again." In my real life, I'm proud of it - and yet on Facebook, I'm horribly embarrassed. Just like in real life I like the Fast and Furious movies, and will talk about them with anyone who will listen, but on Facebook I have There Will Be Blood and The Royal Tenenbaums listed under my movies, because those make me sound smarter. But I don't want to come off too smart: I only have The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen (my favorite book) and David Sedaris listed under authors - when my true literary loves are D.H. Lawrence and Joyce and all the other modernist greats - but I don't want people to think I'm that pretentious.

Smith brings up an interesting idea: as of now, I can draw the line between my Facebook self and my real self - and I'm able to fully appreciate that my Facebook self is a construction based on my own insecurities and overall narcissism. But with that being said, will I always know that? And do other people know that? If I'm on Facebook for long enough, will I forget that that's not me? Smith also has an intriguing read on Zuckerburg: He's a boring dude, who in order to make himself seem liked, created a system in which you're judging based on your choices instead of your character - it doesn't matter if you can talk about something, but if you like Breaking Bad, you're probably an alright person. It's a sad realization, and you can see it in Zuckerburg when he talks. I always thought there was something off about his interviews, but Smith threw it into the light: the sweating, bland answers, and little laughs - he's putting on a show, and the message is that we should like him. And I guess we kind of do. We like him more than Steve Jobs, because he's not an outward dick to everyone. But on the other hand, I'd much rather hang out with Steve Jobs. Because he's not afraid of what people think about him - and Zuckerburg does belong to a generation of people who are desperately afraid of what people think of them.

So the final question is: why remain on Facebook? Why not quit? Is it futile anyway, considering they most likely hold onto your information anyway? Well, I tell myself that I stay on Facebook because I have a radio show, and other things going on, and I want to be able to tell people about it. Also, I don't like the idea of losing people, and never hearing about them again - even if it's people from grade school. But maybe there's something deeper. A fear of having to exist outside of a screen, and only outside of a screen. I don't know, maybe I'll quit. That'd be nice. Because I hate Facebook.

The Dreaded Self-Google.

There have been a lot of moments in my life where - the boredom that comes out of too much time spent on the internet - I've Googled myself. This is probably something everyone has done, either on their own, or with friends, to see what comes up. If you Google my dad, an article comes up that was in the Chicago Tribune about how a budget he'd submitted to the city council (he's an architect for a suburb of Chicago) was rejected - the picture has a caption that says "Raffel looks dejected." It's good for a laugh.

But there's more to be said about Google self-searches than simply "it's good for a laugh." It's a little scary as well. If you look above, you can find myself self-search, which features my Twitter account, my Vimeo account, a interview I did when I was published in a book in high school, and a Facebook page (a different Peter Raffel). If you go further, you find my Instagram, my Youtube account, my Tumblr, and even a podcast I uploaded in middle school that I attempted to do with my friends. That, in itself, is a little scary: when you put something on the web, there's an expectation that you're okay with everyone seeing it, but that's not necessarily the case. I'm pretty sure I wouldn't want people listening to that old podcast or looking at my old Youtube videos - they're probably both pretty embarrassing. This issue also comes up when applying for a job: all a company has to do is Google you and see what's out there - and if it's anything that they don't like, you're not getting that job. The immediate access we can have to anyone is something new within the last twenty years: even if you stay off the web, there's still a chance there's something about you on there. That might not be that big of a deal, but still - the idea that anyone can access you anytime is definitely something to consider. Especially when your mom finds your Twitter and sees that you use a lot more dirty language than she ever expected.

Doing A Bunch of Things, Kind of Well.

On Google's "philosophy" page, there's a statement that is pretty bold to make given their current situation: "It's best to do one thing really, really well." In class, it has been argued that Google's "one thing" is search: not only to search the internet for information, but to search for innovation as well - to search for answers in a larger sense. To me, though, this is kind of contradictory: sure, you could argue that products like Google Glass and the like are ways of giving us more "answers" and continuing this search, but on the other hand, it feels a little excessive. To me, Larry and Sergey seem to be guys who come from a background much different than the majority of well-established businessmen: they are interested in technology, in moving the world forward, and in making some awesome stuff. That's what a lot of the Silicon Valley start-ups are like - it's definitely what Steve Jobs would like. But with that mentality comes a lot more than simply doing one thing really, really well - it means that in success, there is the ability to try and fail, and try and fail, and then try and fail again. That kind of mentality comes from a company with means, that in the past did do one thing really well (a search engine) and now has the ability and the money to do pretty much anything they want.

I'm speaking, in a lot of ways, about the Glass Barge. It's been proposed that one day Google will have a store of its own - much like Apple eventually had stores - that would exist on a glass boat, which, to be honest, would be incredibly awesome. But when you really think about it, that sounds like an idea thought up by some mad scientist, bent on doing things just so that they can be done. I'm not necessarily against this, but if that is the way you want to run your company, don't say that you do one thing. Say that you do one thing well, and are trying to do some other stuff and you'll see what sticks. After all, that's how great ideas come about - trying things and seeing what sticks. Maybe I'm just being picky here (considering I said that no one reads the "about" page anyway), but it seems a little off for a company that claims to do one thing to also make glass boats.

Who Cares About The "Words"?

Douglas Edwards, in his book documenting the early days of Google, calls himself the "words guy," meaning that he gives Google a voice, whereas the rest of the company is essentially made up of programmers who lack the marketing and journalistic background that he has. But something has puzzled me about this, and other word guys: of the people using Google, or whatever other websites - who is actually reading these words. I use Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Instagram, Google, and host of other websites, but I don't think I've ever actually read the statements made by the website themselves. When I researched Twitter for my Community on the Internet project, that was the first time I'd ever looked at the "about" page on Twitter - and that's after using it for over five years. The same goes for the other websites, and especially Google: Google has never been a destination for me. In a lot of ways, it's like an airport: I don't necessarily like it, I want to get through there as quickly as possible, and I just want it to be easy and painless. Thus, it makes Google's message - and in turn, their word guy - not really important to me. I would think that other users would have a similar opinion about those "about" pages, and it makes the words that Edwards writes a lot less important than he claims them to be.

On the other hand, they're important to the company. I am intentionally rough on pages like that, but they are important to the employees who are wondering what, exactly, they're working towards. I hate to side with Douglas (because I've been pretty against the book and his writing up until this point) but a company with as much power and as much momentum (at least in the early days) that Google has needs to be asking those questions and looking at the big picture. Ideas of "Don't Be Evil" (which I'll discuss in another blog post) are incredibly important, and even if your consumers aren't necessarily reading your mission statement, you need to have it for yourself, and to keep the company on the right track in a financial, innovational, and moral sense.

I watched an interesting movie last week that I thought might be of interesting to anyone thinking about computers and their role in our lives. The movie is called Computer Chess, and is set in the late 70s at a hotel where a computer chess tournament is going on - a yearly event where programmers play against each other using their computers - some from high end companies, and some independent programmers. The idea is that whatever computer wins the tournament will eventually play a human being, and that eventually the computer will probably be able to beat that human - but not yet. The movie places itself at an interesting point in the technological revolution: computers aren't yet smarter than humans, but they surely will be soon (they are now, I'd say, especially with the internet). Also in the film is the plotline that one of the computers doesn't want to play against other computers anymore, and wants to play against humans - and has figured out how to know when playing a computer or playing a person. It's an interesting film that deals with the human psyche and the implications of technology in a world where it is so embraced, when perhaps we should be more wary of it than we are.

Google Gods.

For a while there, it seemed like there was genuinely a war between which search engine was going to win out the battle: I remember as a kid using Yahoo, Ask Jeeves, and Altavista probably just as much as I did Google. I mean, Ask Jeeves had a cool picture of a butler on their front page - and sometimes that butler had different clothes on depending on the weather outside, or if it was a holiday. Now, though, probably about ten or so years later, it seems like Google has become the predominant search engine - doesn't Ask Jeeves even still exist? If it does, I'm pretty sure they got rid of the butler, which is disappointing to say the least.

The problem with Google becoming the one and only search engine we all use is that it lends a certain amount of brand loyalty that customers aren't even aware of. If we draw a comparison, Google has essentially becoming the Kleenex of search engines. No one says tissue, really (at least where I'm from) - we all just say Kleenex. Even if we're not using Kleenex, we still say Kleenex - I'm pretty sure my mom buys Puffs. The thing about this, though, is that Kleenex kind of owns the tissue market - despite the fact that people might not be actually using their product. Google, on the other hand, has both: they've becoming part of the culture, and are used in a way that are different from tissues: no one says "I'll Google it" and then goes to Ask.com. We're all using Google - it's built into our web browsers (at least any web browser I use). Not only that, but it's become more than just a search engine - it's become a one-stop shop. Maps, news, pictures, videos, even social media are now all a part of Google (even though, admittedly, Google+ seems like kind of dud). I mean, even my blog is a part of Google - they own Blogger now too. It's the kind of large company that we don't necessarily think about though - a faceless company that seamlessly controls the internet without having to let you know they're controlling it. They're cool, but they don't have to tell you they're cool. They own Youtube, but not in a way that puts a gigantic Google banner on the top of youtube.com - in a way that subtlety puts a "Youtube" tab on their homepage, and keeps your Google account in the top right corner of Youtube.

My point is this: without competition, Google really can do whatever they want, and that might be a problem. Unlike Mac products, if you don't like Google, your choices are kind of limited. With a Mac, if you find yourself against it, there are other companies to go to. But with Google, sure, you can go to Bing, and maybe Vimeo, and The New York Times website and Hotmail and Mapquest, but that's going to take a lot of time as opposed to having it all within a click of your mouse on Google. And without that competition, it leaves Google in a particularly powerful position - they not only control each segment of the internet, but they're starting to control your entire internet experience. I only have one Google site bookmarked on my Mac (Gmail) but that's because through that I can access anything else I might need, and right next to it is a Google search bar that I use frequently.

Why is this a problem? Well, I guess it's not a huge problem, but it kind of puts Google in a position to play God. If they're controlling everything, they make the choices, and you have little say in them. If they decide, for instance, that a certain site isn't worth their users' time, they can simply not have it show up when searching it. It's that type of control that be kind of scary, especially when you consider the amount of information they hold on us - a scary amount. Moreover, I've said in the past that I trust Apple - I've looked at their products and what they have to say about them and decided they're for me. But I never really did that with Google. It was just there, and I used it. And I still use it. Without that kind of agency, you really don't know what you're using.

Twitter's Community from petermraffel

Here is my powerpoint related to the web community on Twitter, which I talked about a little bit in a blog post recently, but go into more detail on here. It uses screenshots from Twitter's About page, as well as screenshots from my own account. Enjoy!