Nathan Jurgenson’s The Social Photo: Jurgenson describes social photography as photos people take/share of their everyday life (i.e. selfies, food pics, etc.) in order to communicate. It started with point-and-shoots, but has since changed to smartphone cameras… I swear I have witnessed ‘amateurs’ turning more and more professional on social media… After reading this, I now know ‘pics or it didn’t happen’ was first coined by Emile Zola in 1901. Ah 1800s photography, takes me back to high school when I took an old-school/dark-room/black and white film photography class. I’ve never heard of Hipstamatic, but obviously I know about Instagram. And yes, ‘vintage’ things kept making a comeback in the 2010s. Maybe it will still continue in the 2020s… I’m kind of reeling from the fact that I’ve never thought twice about why we use the terms/metaphors ‘file’ or ‘folder’ on the computer… The idea that the gentrification of inner cities demonstrates middle/upper-middle class white people’s desperate search to find authenticity outside of the fakeness of the suburbs/Disney/McDonald’s troubles me.
- Can you be nostalgic for a time you never lived during or a place you’ve never been?
- Do you think the fascination with vintage looks is caused by nostalgia or a need for authenticity? Both? Neither?
- Do you see yourself as taking photos of experiences rather than objects?
Jill Walker Rettberg’s What can’t we measure in a quantified world?: Walker begins her talk explaining her activity in Fitbit graphs and then segues into describing this more recent phenomenon of being able to ‘measure’ yourself (via geolocation or residual data on phones/’wearables’). Walker considers automation to be a human dream since it seems anything humans do can now be measured by machines. For children, it’s tracking their schooling based on how much discipline they received and/or time they spend on homework (reminiscent of the SpotterEDU attendance app). For babies, it’s monitoring their milk intake, weight, and/or sleep (with an ankle bracelet?). I do firmly believe that humans desperately try to find patterns where there are none. Walker debunks the idea of Dataism, a belief that data is always true, by suggesting the steps her Fitbit counts is not definitive because the device might be moving without her feet. This talk reminded me of my boyfriend who downloaded a sleep app and has been showing me his graphs. Of course me and a dog are also sleeping in the same bed, so it’s probably finicky at best. Side note, I did like seeing Johanna Drucker’s subjective visualization which acknowledged gender as not rigidly binary.
- Do you think social media has made you a post-industrious citizen?
- Would you use a sex tracker which measures bed movements and noise? Why? I guess if you wanted to obfuscate it you could just play a bunch of porn…
What do Metrics Want? How Quantification Prescribes Social Interaction on FB: A future where quantity matters more than quality depresses me… Recently I have been a lot more passive than active on Facebook. I don’t write posts, like, or comment all that much. I think high numbers and the ‘more, more, MORE’ mentality overwhelm me (I should really be using the Facebook Demetricator). I mostly go online to see what others are doing; it’s kind of like living through others’ posts (which may not be super healthy, but I can’t help that I’m a hardcore escapist). I can’t argue that capitalism thrives on us wanting more. I’m not surprised Facebook will use metrics to manipulate people into clicking an ad. Clearly this article is slightly dated, since it only talks about likes, I’m curious how Facebook views the emotional responses? If I’m sad or angry about a post are they less inclined to show me similar posts? I never thought the number of friends you have on Facebook could correlate to social capital, but yeah, these days it feels like there’s more of an emphasis on social networking now than ever before. I don’t like the thought of me being ‘homogenized’ by a system. I do think it’s funny that someone would have anxiety over liking something unpopular.