Age Matters: Why Being the Youngest Lingers

Los Angeles, May 2010







My friend Lira (featured above, off of Santa Monica pier) mentions Gen X references in various conversations. Every time she does I think to myself, 'what the heck does she mean? Gen, what, the what?' My friend's cool. Timeless cool. There is a difference between cool and timeless cool. A lot of things I encounter are just cool. How a person smells to me currently is cool. Black nail polish against a kashmir sweater is cool now. A certain scent from a certain body wash is particularly cool now but I wonder for how long, and Jared Leto is cool. No doubt about that. And then there's Dante cool, Larry David cool, classic aesthetics cool, true friends cool, uhm, Mac cool, you know, proper cool.

I met Lira my first day in school. There we were. Both 14 and in a different environment. She was standing against a white wall, wearing pink shoes and tapping against the white wall, obsessively touching her hair and chewing her gum in an almost choreographed fashion. She became a favorite instantly. I mean, duh! On top of that, she liked Guns 'n Roses and Metallica and we were the only ones that gave a good damn about rock 'n roll and saw it for the thing of substance that it is: proper cool.

To me, Lira in connection to me exists outside of time. We're the same age, give or take a few months, we like a lot of the same stuff and time is always inconsequential when we relate. So, when she brings up time references I'm at a loss. What do you mean, there's younger people than us out there. So, what? We're just as with-it as they are. I mean, really, we've seen more, traveled more, been at more shows, and had more life than them. I mean, not to be too competitive, but come on! Yes, they're younger than us but only but a small number of years. We've only just embarked on a new decade, really. Count the years in one hand, that's hardly being removed from a whole generation, isn't it?

Being a word person, I tend to have some kind of reaction to most phrases I'm aware of. I know that I get irked when people resort to folk etymology and back formation and say things like, kitty-corner as opposed to cater-corner (I mean, try saying the latter, you'll get a good eye-rolling!) or "he must have saw, she must have went." You'll be happy you're not me. You're not I, to be accurate. You and I are both nominative, but who cares? (me, [I] for starters, but let's move on.)

I hear some say, "in our generation, people in my generation, we...." Wait, I think to myself, are they precluding me?! How dare you preclude me! "In your generation, you don't care about this and that, or your generation does things this way and that way?" I'm, what, 4 years older than you?
Or, sorry, yes, I'm antediluvian! I'm six years older than you. I couldn't possibly understand the existential dilemmas of Snookie and The Situation.
Mannaggia la miseria!

A few months ago, when we were about to see Bill Maher's Real Time live at the CBS sutdios on Fairfax Ave in Los Angeles and I was frantically trying to find a parking place so that we would not be late to get to the studio I distinctly remember getting mad at time. For moving so quickly. Or maybe I was mad at L.A.'s impossible traffic. Or both. Why does time have to move so fast?!

And then we're in the studio, siting in the second row. Dude, there's Salman Rushdie right there. And Sarah Silverman. There's Maher, a few steps away from us. Wait, how can it be over just now?! Didn't we just get here? Has it been an hour already?

I feel the way I feel after the first date with my person of choice. I'm acutely aware of time and I don't want it to move the way it tends to move in Bri-landia. I take in every single detail, the fabric of the shirt, the way the hair looks, the scent, the way the hands move when a photograph is being explained, and so forth. I want it to slow down so that I can remember it, a snapshot at a time. But then again I don't want to give the impression that I want to linger as I tend to take pride in the fact that I can always leave. Most expeditiously.

I didn't want the show to end. I wanted us to stay on longer. But we couldn't. We had to go, grab some Italian food, reminisce about what it meant to be in our 20's and I couldn't help but feel weird. I mean, dude, our 20's just happened. Good heavens, some of my clichéd indie outfits were purchased when I was in my 20's. I was just in my 20's. Being in the early 30's isn't so bad. I mean, think, we can travel more. We can say, "Yeah, let's meet up me in L.A., we'll go see Maher and then hang for a day. Or four."

I've given this some thought over the past few months. Thing is, I seem to have always had a rather particular relationship with time. I'm acutely aware of it on a small scale. Apparently, one of my high frequency phrases at home says, "I know what __AM/PM feels like." I do. I know what every minute of the day feels like. I have a clear relationship with time on this basic level. However, I do get rather confused, actually, I deeply resent, phrases like, 'it's a young person's thing, or old person's thing, or generation this and that thing.' What about, it's a human thing? Leave time out of it, people.
I think I know why I'm a bit testy about time.
I'm the youngest of three. My siblings are closer in age. I'm years behind. My whole life I was the late addition. I took time to come. And when I did come, my state kept being one of constant hurrying. And then my language contains phrases like, 'I was in haste when,' 'I seem to have fallen out of time,' 'Time's doing a number on me,' and on and on.

Being the youngest meant having the kinds of freedoms and access that the older siblings didn't get to have. I always did my thing and everything I wanted. When I wanted. Being the youngest also came wrapped up in a rather unique fabric of 'allowability' and accountability.

I don't know if it's my genetic makeup that primarily feeds my accountability. Some think it is. Maybe it is, maybe it is isn't. My allowability, however, i.e., allowing myself to jump, take any freedom I want to take, and experience things my own way and on my own terms (often without terms at all, I am told) is what renders my existence interesting to me. This, this 'allowability' thing, is what I find is utterly age-free. And it is utterly non-negotiable.

So, I wonder why I get so annoyed by phrases like, 'it's a young/old people thing. Our generation does this, you see?
Being the youngest of three and always being referred to as 'the young one' does play a role here. I've often factored age in my self-identity so I don't see why it should matter to me now.

I am proud of a few things I've accomplished at a younger age.
I was able to learn to function well when I was sent away to school at the age of 14. I did well in the new environment. I mastered it intellectually and socially. Then I was sent away to college. In an entirely different continent, which as luck would have it, also happened to be the one geography that ever spoke to me on a fundamentally honest level. I could just be in it.
Then, the achievements came.
Here I was.
28. With a doctorate. Dr. Ribaj, this and Dr. Ribaj, that.
And Dr. Ribaj took her and hers to rock shows with the same gusto she took them to see Verdi's Aida. She skipped while walking the way she would when roaming on a rocky beach.
Age does not matter.
I don't know why it bothers me. I mean, what does one mean when one says, "it's a generation thing, you see?"
No, I don't see. What, you get things better because in six years you'll be my age and I'll be embarking on a new decade all together? I mean, what? I move fast, faster than many more often than often, I've lived in different continents, I take active steps in 'changing it up,' I go from the business world to the academic world and back to the business world with the same effortless I go from Kings of Leon to Beethoven. I know 23-year-olds who are older than a 60-year-old and 60-year-olds that are, to quote a fellow 34-year-old, "hella cool!"
So, no, it's not a generation thing, it's a human thing.

Maybe being the youngest comes with a sense of entitlement.
I want attention but I demand anonymity and yet I've never not drawn attention to myself. Ever. In every setting. Whether I'm lecturing on Greek aesthetics and why Alexander was keen on Hephaestion or discussing the merits of The Killers 2004 album Hot Fuss. There's always going to be someone who will react positively to the words. And I'll always hear at home, "well, that's what you get for being "interesting." Because, of course, being interesting, it turns out, is more of liability (or maybe responsibility?) than anything. And it seems to an age-free one at that. Well, at least I have that. I'll have that.

So, no, age means nothing. I can relate to a 25-year-old the way I can relate to my best friend, a 34-year-old because I know what it means to me when it's 8:04AM and 9:07PM. I know exactly what time feels like, whether it's dawn or dusk. I get it. It doesn't do much to me. Yes, I started college when Nirvana was dominating the airwaves and I graduated when all the THE bands made it big, you know, The Hives, The Strokes, The Bravery, etc.

In sum, all the 'gen' talk is making me rather tired. And it's now 6:45AM and I know what that means to me. It means shower and hair straightening and driving up north and hoping that I don't get a ticket for wearing my seat belt underneath my arm as opposed to over the shoulder. But I digress.

I don't expect we'll get the cure to cancer over a person's Facebook update

Consider this scenario from the NY Times.
"Just Smell the Flowers

I was visiting a friend in the mountains who suggested picking wildflowers in a national forest. I told her that wasn’t right because it prevents the flowers from setting seed for the next year. We went for a walk, she picked her flowers, and I said nothing. Later, she posted on Facebook (and her blog) that she’d been out with the “Nature Police,” and encouraged others to follow her example. After my visit, I sent an e-mail saying I was hurt. We haven’t spoken since. Is this friendship over? Anonymous

It will be if the two of you don’t stop your passive-aggressive Internet foolishness. So far, you’ve taken to Facebook, blog spots, e-mail and advice columns. For the love of snapdragons, why not talk to each other?"

....
This bit in the Times made me think a little. I've been a fan of Web 2.0 and what it does for people since the very beginning. I see it as a tool to help one navigate the net with more efficacy. I don't see it as a family member and/or lover. Web 2.0 is simply a tool that we may use to learn more and facilitate our daily lives. Web 2.0, or in quotidian speech, sites like Facebook, Twitter, blogging sites et al., are not the answer to human interaction. They're there as a means to an end the end being juggling real and sort-of-real attachments with more ease.

Some examples of real attachments would be, expressing an interest in one's dear people's family vacation photos, a photo of their new haircut or a sort-of-funny (but not that funny) update. Sometimes, in the name of civility and true attachment, we have to show (or if we can't truly do it) feign an interest in the rather menial and mundane activities of those we love. It's a trade-ff. It's the price we pay for intimacy.

The unnecessary and menial does come with the good. Life, thankfully, is not just about crises and drama. Life is long and a lot of it is a sea of rather mundane get togethers that people have convinced themselves they need to have so that they keep the commitment (or a semblance thereof) to their attachments as active as they can. What sustains relationships, be they familial, amicable, or professional is going the distance. The distance of menial tasks, that is.

I've always had a hard time with what I ended up calling 'empty get-togethers.' I like to do things if there's attachment and substance to them. I use the same modus operandi in my own relationships. I do the ones that are worth my time and in whom I'm invested. I have never been able to fake interest and I'm not about to start now. I hierarchicalize. I like having specialty friends. have rock concert friends, winter sports friends, travel friends, and so forth. I have a hard time sitting still in gatherings that are purely ornomental. As I would always tell my shopping buddies, "during the time it takes you to decide on a dress, I wrote a whole piece over at Starbucks." If there is no purpose attached to my relationships then these relationships have no purpose.

And this is what I like about Web 2.0. It has created an arena where the seemingly inconsequential can occur without it infringing on my right to use my actual live time as I see fit. It's all it is. I don't expect we'll get the cure to cancer over a person's Facebook update so let's reserve some of the earnest interest that goes to these sites to things in life that actually matter. Like enjoyig actual nature, out and about, like this one:

 Subscribe to HetPer

 Subscribe to Gendering the Media Podcast

Neophilia and Tiger Woods-ing

Neophilia is a term I first heard used with reference to me years ago. I already knew I had it. I just hadn’t been officially diagnosed with it yet.
I suppose it was one of those things everyone knew to be true but never felt the need to address out loud.
She’s a neophiliac, you know? Or if she's not fully a neophiliac she has definite tendencies for neophilia. To me, the thing sounded almost like a chronic condition which, I have to admit, I found rather amusing.
So, what’s a neophiliac? According to Wikipedia, a neophiliac or neophile is an individual who is unusually accepting of new things and excited by novelty.
Accepting of new technology? Check.
Excited by technology? Mais oui. Check, please!
So the diagnosis was one I accepted fully.
A close friend noted the other day that he has yet to remember seeing me use old things. He suggested that we go vintage clothes shopping and before finishing the sentence he says, "Oh, yeah, I know. You don't do old or vintage."
I can’t use old things. I don’t get a kick out of going to vintage stores (I have tried. I did the legwork et al.), I don’t like used stuff, I literally feel like I’m breaking into hives the moment I try someone else’s clothes, for instance. I’m not a germophobe, though. It’s the fundamental craving for neophilia that creates this kind of discomfort with old things.

I’ll illustrate the point by bringing up a concrete example: the iPhone and my continuing love affair with it.

I wonder how it happened that a little gadget became more appealing to me than the most exciting and interesting person you’ve ever met who constantly carries on about some very exciting topic: how wonderful they think you are and blah, blah, blah. And yet, you have the need to check the New York Times App and see what new articles have been posted in the past few hours you haven’t checked or if iTunes has resolved that problem you had with your recent Entourage purchase.

Because, of course, you cannot check at a different time.

You’re out with the people you like very well. You’re having an enjoyable time, the topic of discussion are attention-grabbing and you're especially proud of the ensemble you put together, and, yet, in the middle of the night you have this strong need to reach down your purse/messenger bag and take out your iPhone. Meanwhile the other people are in the process of narrating. You find yourself following along even interjecting the usual ‘wow,’ ‘huh,’ ‘gripping’ and yet you do what you otherwise do not tolerate. And social multitasking vexes me. I generally find it a bad idea and I expressly comment against it. The double standard here is so strong that to address it I’d have to write another post and I’m not feeling particularly self-correcting at the moment so I’ll let it go for now.

I’ve managed to manage basically most of anything else but my craving for neophilia. If it’s a new notion, it’s aesthetically pleasing, and companies I respect created it, I feel I have to, at least, try it. I tried to explain just this to my party on a recent trip to Chicago that I had to stop at the Apple store just for a little bit. Translation: a two-hour stop. I think the answer was something like, "You know, some go to the Gap, others watch the Wendy Williams Show. My guilty pleasure is allowing my eyes to graze at the Apple store. Let it go. It's my thing."

I’ve tried not bringing the iPhone along and the experience wasn’t a pleasant one. I kept wondering if I was missing out on something. I was told I looked like I was hopped up on caffeine at 1:00 in the morning. So, not good. Naturally, I didn’t miss out on much. How much novelty can occur on a weekend night between 9:00pm-2:30am, after all? It turns out, not much at all. I excuse myself, go to another space, send a text to my other party saying, “Yeah. I have nothing of substance to say other than, I think I’m Tiger Woods-ing. Relax. The other party(ies) is the iPhone.”

I rarely go anywhere without my iPhone. I don’t do so because I have to know who’s calling, texting, or emaling. I do so because I’ve gotten accustomed to the feeling of comfort I get knowing that I won’t get lost somewhere in Southern California, Eastern Canada, or Central Ohio. The point is, I also bring the iPhone to social gatherings.

I've given this a whole lot of thought and the best thing I could say about such 'chronic conditions' as neophilia is to embrace them, work with them, and find productive ways to incorporate them in quotidianity. It turns out, neophilia is quite a little helper, actually.

So, today, my tip of the hat goes to my favorite chronic condition, neophilia.

 Subscribe to HetPer

 Subscribe to Gendering the Media Podcast

A Note on the Cohen/Port Case and Freedom of Speech

Words are rarely inconsequential. Language resides in the very heart of human life and sociality and while it can be most helpful when used correctly, it can also be most noxious when not.

Many people who choose to live their lives in a reason- and civility-informed fashion tend to believe that cyburbia much like suburbia, subscribes to certain rules of engagement apply. Or at least it should for without rules how can we all function properly?

In cyber space much as it is the case in real life, some people will deviate from generally established rules of decorum and decency and, more often than not, end up hurting a lot of other people in the process. Freedom is not free of the rules and regulations appended on the fine print, folks. And thank goodness, it isn't. When O'Henry said: "give me liberty of give me death," I very much doubt he had a kind of freedom in mind that was utterly free of personal responsibility. What kinds of free people can we be without common respect for one another?

I've recently thought about the Liskula Cohen and Rosemary Port case. Port's abominable online behavior has served as a vexing appetite suppressor on at least two occasions.

For those of you who don't know of this case (which cannot really be possible as I saw it featured on international papers as well while I was traveling this summer), do a Google-search on it and you'll learn much. Maureen Dowd observes:
"It began eight months ago when Liskula Cohen, a 37-year-old model and Australian Vogue cover girl, was surprised to find herself winning a “Skankiest in NYC” award from an anonymous blogger. The online tormentor put up noxious commentary on Google’s blogger.com, calling Cohen a “skank,” a “ho” and an “old hag” who “may have been hot 10 years ago.”

In a nutshell, the case involves an anonymous blogger who's now been revealed to be Rosemary Port and a model by the name of Liskula Cohen. Port started an anonymous website the sole mission of which apparently was to provide a hierarchy and ranking of the 'skankiest' people in New York. That's right. Skankiest. I'm not joking. Now, I'll be brutally honest here. I had no idea what the semantic and etymological nature of the word 'skank' was but thanks to the media coverage of this case I've learned much about it.

And, folks, 'skank' is not a good word. It's a vexing word. It vexes me, at least. There are so many great words that start with an 's' that one could use. So many. But Ms. Port was particularly fond of this one.

Now, I knew of Skank the Brazilian britpop band. But I can't say I'd ever had an opportunity to use 'skank' in a sentence. At least not the way Port was using it on her blog. Thank you, Mom and Dad, for teaching me that it's not OK to use bad language when talking to and about people without being prepared to face the consequences. I still remember the day I called my first-grade friend Aleksander 'stupid' on the playground. I still feel badly about it. And I called him 'stupid' in plain daylight. Aleksander heard me. I apologized and we continued being best friends. I was burdened with guilt for days, though. I remember thinking my bad behavior had caused rain in the summer and all sorts of other bad things. You've got to love guilt, though, right? It straightens you out and it purges so well. But as a seven-year-old I learned a valuable lesson. There are other ways to make a point when you feel you are being treated unjustly. You could take Aleksander aside and tell him that he shouldn't cheat when you're playing ball. But you shouldn't just call him 'stupid.' That won't solve anything.

What I find especially sickening about Ms. Port's behavior is that she still maintains that Google infringed upon her rights by revealing her true identity and that she has the right to express whatever she wants.
No, Ms Port.
Simply put, "No way!"
This is not quite how it works in Adult-landia, you know, the place where we have rules when we're on the playground? You see, when you defame somebody, you need to face the consequences. I know, it's odd that freedom isn't quite 'free' but it's how it is. Freedom is not free of consequences. It's not. You're close to 30 and if you haven't had an opportunity to find this out by now then I am sorry. Maybe all the current media attention will help elucidate this point for you.

Freedom, Ms. Port, comes with a lot of privileges but also a lot of duties and responsibilities. You can't just spew hate, anonymous hate, and then demand that the First Amendment come to your rescue when you encounter hard times.

I've never cared about anonymous comments. Granted, anonymity is a First Amendment right, among other things, but when should one have the right to stand up for one's good name when it is dragged through the mud in a cowardly fashion? I didn't know who Liskula Cohen was before this debacle but I can now say I'm on her team. This, to me, is one of those very rare instances in life where I see myself picking a team and sticking with it.

Anonymity when used to disperse malicious reports and damaging language is not only wrong. It is cruel. Are you hearing me, Rosemary Port? Spewing hate anonymously on the internet and in real life is cruel. Plain cruel.

I, Brikena Ribaj, of www.brikenaribaj.com, am publicly pronouncing my opinion here. As a long-time blogger and supporter of Web 2.0, I am ashamed of your actions. I hope you learn to rectify your mistakes and behave with more respect vis-a-vis people and language in the future.

Drop your 15 million suit to Google for violating your First Amendment right. Drop it. Instead, find ways to be a productive member of society, detox your system from the hate you seem to have so much of, and move on. It is easier to live without hate. And better. So much better.

 Subscribe to HetPer

 Subscribe to Gendering the Media Podcast

Of iPhones and Cultural Signaling

I'm writing this piece while riding the subway in a different country. Two Indian girls are sitting next to me looking over my left shoulder. Generally, I'd get annoyed but their curiosity is childhood-informed, innocent. In this setting, I don't mind that they have access, albeit limited, to my computer.

The democratization of the internet medium and the flourishing of Web 2.0 have turned online users into potential powerhouses. As my friend Polly noted to me a few days ago in a conversation we had over text messaging, Web 2.0 has enabled average users to a degree never before seen and the reason behind its boom is the immediacy factor. If you have an idea, you can publish it. Granted, some get more traffic than others, but anyone can publish if one so chooses. Naturally, it's also tough to find quality out there as a lot of qualitatively questionable material manages to creep in. Ergo, being able to discern quality is yet another sign of cognitive and experiential maturity.

Julian Sanches asks some interesting questions about the future of cultural signaling and how it informs/relates to sociality and privacy. Obviously, the lines between virtuality and reality are getting blurrier by the day and I'm not even sure that phrases like 'word of mouth' can quite manage to maintain the kind of literal meaning they once did. 'Word of mouth' in this day and age could easily be a text message, a news feed, a 'poke', forwarded email, a recommendation from an iPhone app user to another, and on and on.

Of course, information is out there for the taking and fabulous advancements in technology have expedited the birth of so many incredible applications. And I love so many of them. I rely on many of them daily. For instance, as an iPhone user, I find myself loudly praising its many applications which seem to do everything for me but the dishes and picking of the mail. However, I can't help but think of the private/public lines. I often talk about this in other projects of mine as well as my podcasts and the question I always ask is how do users know when enough information is enough/appropriate?

One of my closest friends sent me a gripping email in which he said that he had run across a personal site of one of his former college flames and despite his many temptations to read through it, out of respect for the person and their privacy, he chose not to.

"It was tough, dude. I really, really wanted to but then I didn't. Somehow, in hindsight, I feel more adult, though."- he writes. He continued to explain that he did so not because he is so much more self-controlled than most or because he suffered a hit of sainthood, (as I tend to say when joking about certain acts of kindness), but because he felt discomfort at the thought of other people out there potentially expressing an interest in his own life and routine when it's none of their business. He ended the email by saying, "...lurkers annoy the crap out of me so I wasn't about to turn into one myself."

Not being able to escape hints of condescension and a small dosage of self-righteousness I said what I've caught myself say a few other times: "There's a reason you're my pal."

Very soon Smart phone users will have access to fellow Smart phone users wherever they happen to find themselves and without knowing the first thing about them, they'll have access to their iPods selections, their most favorite apps and so forth. As much as I like technology, I find this access a tad privacy-evading. Of course, this does not mean that I don't wonder sometimes about what kinds of music people around me are listening to on their iPods, especially if I've already grown tired of my selections.

If I had a dime every time I've rolled my eyes when I hear things like, 'yeah, I know so-and-so, I friended them on MySpace and I read their blog.' Or, 'I know we'll hit it off. We have the same taste in music. I read it in your profile,' I'd have unlimited access to Starbucks. Online communication tends to render one's sight slightly off-focus when it comes to evaluating the true nature/essence of things. It is rather difficult to 'size one up' outside physical reality. As a result, intimacies based on delusion are more easily spawned in virtuality.

Consider what Sanches writes below. The question he raises at the very end is congruent with the questions I've been pondering as well.

"We’re at most a few years off from broad adoption of augmented reality applications in widely-used smartphones, which will have all of us radiating reams of data to anyone in our physical proximity who actually cares. Your Facebook profile will dog you like one of those floating Sims icons. You won’t just know what the girl sitting across the coffee shop is blasting on her iPod, you’ll be able to listen in. All the tech is actually here already, if not in quite the fancy form it’s implemented at the link above. All it would take is for someone to integrate the location-sensitive functions of an app like Loopt into the apps for Facebook or Last.fm, and you’ve got a point-and-profile system. The real question is whether people actually want to signal that much in the physical context. Some of us are chary of giving every stranger in ping-shot a pretext for striking up a conversation."

In sum, just because one has so much access to others' selections, doesn't mean that one place one's self in one's virtual space without being conscious of appropriate boundaries. Or, as a favorite reply sums it up:

"Yes, your iTunes library is comparable to mine and we both like Curtis Hanson, however, interest is still a missing ingredient."

 Subscribe to HetPer

 Subscribe to Gendering the Media Podcast

graph per brisbanetimes

Imogen Heap, Twitter, and Emily

I first learned of Imogen Heap's music back in 2004 via the release of Zach Braff's film Garden State. What I like about Heap's style is that evokes images and sensations of times past. I find her very a-la-English-Romantics-think-Emily Dickinson, if you catch my drift.

Having said that, I found this hypermodern picture of her, in all of her "times-past-hairstyle" glory promoting twitter, very, very funny.

Ah, Twitter. You truly democratic tool of humanity that's connecting ever-so-coherently the past to the modernity.

 Subscribe to HetPer

 Subscribe to Gendering the Media Podcast

graph per https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZh_bonrpgGFNVjq4JJMV05PTBDfzOVVO1COHecOGd8j0InhItIybdc4OsRHDGNWnFuBtGO-aabRp3eLOBFW8Xqp0JQJmONVw_TDnfbx_6qH_bXaw-wBHrP5dZUYsXpVq1ud53lDYdA_g/s1600-h/Imogen.gif

New Book Recommendations: Julia Angin and David Marsh

Julia Angwin, a journalist who writes for the Wall Street Journal, explains the history of MySpace.com in this solid and well-researched book entitled Stealing myspace. The author attempts a decoding of the appeal behind MySpace and what it is that the network represents. She also traces the history of its financial success, what Rupert Murdock saw in it and how it managed to reach so many people for a cornucopia of reasons.
What makes this book interesting and credible is that it is written by someone who translates her own savvy of business news to the rest of the reader market. It's cogently written which is something that I have yet to observe in books written by business journalists. I highly recommend this.
I recommend this.

The Euro by David Marsh.
The reason why I developed an interest in this book is because of the great reviews it received from both academics and business news specialists. The text is reported to be the first account of the Euro that is actually informed by sound history and socio-cultural research. Naturally, I had to give it a try.

Granted, a background in Business and European history will make one's understanding of the Euro more enjoyable. David Marsh thoughtfully explains why the historical relationship between France and Germany is relevant when making sense of the, at times, capricious behavior of the Euro. This is not the kind of book to speed read, however. I recommend this mostly out of history-informed reasons. It's not just about European currency but rather the current identity of the old world and why even its currency cannot be treated outside the realm of informed history. Tip of the hat to David Marsh for an impressively researched book. I did feel like the author actually gets Europe and European mentality. This is another text that shows that currency has much to do with history, cultural heritage, and national psychology.

 Subscribe to HetPer

 Subscribe to Gendering the Media Podcast

 Subscribe to HetPer

 Subscribe to Gendering the Media Podcast

"Fake Following" per Kotke

Jason Kotke hit it right.
"One of the new features of FriendFeed (a Twitter-like thingie) is "fake following". That means you can friend someone but you don't see their updates. That way, it appears that you're paying attention to them when you're really not. Just like everyone does all the time in real life to maintain their sanity. Rex calls it "most important feature in the history of social networks" and I'm inclined to agree. It's one of the few new social features I've seen that makes being online buddies with someone manageable and doesn't just make being social a game or competition."

Right.

via MR

He, She? Pick One Already!

Facebook is now enforcing gender definitions. The users have to comply and pick the gender box that applies to them.
Per Reuters, "Social network site Facebook will press members to declare whether they are male or female, seeking to end the grammatical device that leads the site to refer to individual users as "they" or "themself.""
I guess, there is hope for grammatical gender in the long run. Thanks to Facebook. Read full feature here.
graph per facebook

Dude, Where's Your Facebook?

I’m a fan of Web 2.0. I say so multiple times a day. I think it empowers the users in unprecedented ways.

I’m also fully cognizant of the fact that the creative class has been enabled like never before. Creatives all over the world know how to get in touch productively with one another, compare and contrast ideas, inspire one another and so forth. The creatives now have the opportunity to exchange ideas and new concepts like never before.

In that regard, I can say unequivocally that I am a genuine believer in the truly democratic power of the egalitarian power of Web 2.0. Unlike Andrew Keen, I don't think that writing is the prerogative of the officially trained person. Anyone who wants to, can. Consequently, the sea of web 2.0 users can decide together yet independently from one another what's good and what isn't. Just look at such uber-popular bloggers out there as Heather B. Armstrong's Dooce, a housewife who operates one of the most successful quotidianity-inspired sites. Oh, and I haven't mentioned Wikipedia yet....

Having expressed that, let me hop on to the topic du jour. Facebook.
You’ve heard of it. You’re perhaps in it. As for me, well:

VENI, VIDI, LEFT.

Here’s a little conversation I had per text message:

-Dude, you’re not on Facebook?!
-Nah, still have the same address though. Come round for some tea, ja?

I believe in the organic way relationships tend to develop and I find settings like myspace or facebook bizarre. For starters, friends, family members, co-workers, acquaintances, performers et al., see one version of you, the only version of you. We live in a world where we have to multi-task and juggle many responsibilities, sometimes contemporaneously, so presenting one’s self only one way is a tad constricting.
Actually, I find the whole setting a haven for affectation.

When it comes to communication, there exists more than one register. There is one appropriate way to communicate with one’s close friends, one way to talk to co-workers, family members, acquaintances, neighbors and so forth.
We reveal where we stand vis-à-vis those around us based on the register we pick.

I can say ‘dude’ around my closed ones, people my age, my music and travel crowd and so forth. However, I can’t employ the term with equal facility while presenting myself professionally. A sporadic ‘dude’ can may grace my rhetoric but it can’t pepper my sentences the way it could at a Muse or Stereophonics concert.

There is space in our relationships that allows for the ubiquitous ‘dude.’ I wouldn’t use lax speech when I’m giving a talk, speaking to people I don’t know, older folk and so forth. Must have something to do with the way I grew up. Or perhaps it’s just plain common sense. Who knows?

I’m sure services like Myspace and Facebook offer great things. Absolutely. I just don’t see the need to have one.

So, readers of mine, in my mind I don’t need to have a Myspace or a Facebook. Let’s see. I have gadgets galore and I know exactly who contacts me and when. Between BlackBerry-ing, texting, emailing, phoning, and oh, before I forget, that elusive face—to-face communication, I know how to reach and be reached.

So, yeah, dude, Facebook no more for me.
graph per facebook