Your space or Mine? (I couldn't resist)

For quite some time I managed to avoid having a Myspace page. "Avoid" seems a strange word to use, but considering the amount of pressure that was put on me to get one, it is suprisingly- perhaps even alarmingly- apt. Many of my friends jumped on the Myspace bandwagon around 2004, but I didn't really have any concept of what it actually was, until 2006 when one of my housemates began playing the 'get a Myspace game', which involved weekly dares/bets/missions, in which the stakes were always the same - I chicken out/lose/fail, i get a Myspace. Although he never technically won, I did eventually get a Myspace...
I quickly became somewhat addicted to my brightly coloured testament to online teenage narcissism, but there was one thing that I could never quite get my head around- the 'top friends' feature. I have always wondered what would happen if I began handing out numbers to my friends in real life, and explaining to them what they could do to improve their ranking. I plan to try it one day. Even stranger is that I know people who have had actual fights over top friend rankings. The mind boggles.
The popularity of Myspace becomes obvious when out in pubs or clubs, as phrases such as "MYSPACE PHOTO!!!" and "hey...I'm pretty sure I've seen you on Myspace" are heard so often that they have led to the invention of the Myspace drinking game (simple rules- hear the word 'Myspace', drink. repeat.) To Myspace's credit this is not a game for the Cadburies (read: glass and a half).
I deleted my Myspace after about six months, having realised i was not, in fact, using it as a way to keep in touch with friends I didn't see often, but rather to procrastinate by leaving random comments for people I saw several times a week. They didn't want to let me go, but after 6 requests for my profile to be deleted I resorted to 'reporting' my own profile. It worked a treat. Having since returned to Myspace for class purposes I feel like a person that has suddenly realised they are too old for night clubs- the flashing lights are overwhelming, the music is too loud, and the girls aren't wearing nearly enough clothing.
next up: Facebook- the trendy liscensed restaurant of social networking...

getting blogosophical...

Blogging has always seemed to be a bit of a strange concept to me, but I admit that I probably haven't paid all that much attention to it. For a long time I had a misconception of blogs, considering them to be limited to online diaries or journals, mostly used by sixteen year olds to cry about how much they hate their families/friends/lives to people they've never met, in the hope that another sixteen year old that hates their family/friends/life will validate their feelings and share their pain. Although I'm sure I could produce more than a few examples of these types of blogs I am slowly beginning to realise that blogging is a much more diverse practice, and there are plenty of interesting people out there writing about interesting topics.
Another reason for me not blogging or reading blogs is that I always tell myself that I don't really have the time, but I've recently asked myself - why books but not blogs? I have access to so many talented writers over the Internet, and the best part is I don't have to rely on a publisher to decide what is good for me.
My one attempt at blogging (up until now) resulted in two anonymous and very uninteresting posts that I wrote as a way of procrastination...I have since discovered the joys of social networking sites and these posts have thankfully been lost in cyber-space. In terms of blogging for class work- it is getting easier as I pretend more and more that absolutely nobody will read my posts.
I have a friend that has been a regular blogger for at least 5 years now and developed a "blogging circle" in which she now writes very personal entries which may only be read by a group of about 5 people that she does not know in an offline setting. She recently did meet one offline, though, and they see each other fairly regularly. To me this is a sort of backwards friendship- starting by sharing very personal thoughts and ideas, and progressing to occassionally hanging out together. Its odd but it seems to work for them- just another way in which the Internet is drastically changing our social practices.

Log in:

It has taken me a long time to get started on this blog, mostly because I couldn't really decide what to write about. I'm not a great fan of blogging, particularly when I need to write on a specific topic- I'm also very bad at making decisions in general so that doesn't help. I was going to write on a topic like music but thought that writing about new media communication would be much more relevant- and being such a broad topic will allow me to go off on tangents about personal interests (tangents are what I do best). I also plan to do a bit of meta-blogging (I intend for that to mean blogging about blogging, in a similar way that metacognition works with thinking).
I plan to write my posts about topics we have explored in class and look at things such as social networking and video posting referring to the readings and my personal experiences both in and out of class. I'm also going to try and make my blog a bit more interesting by adding pictures, videos, links, etc...if I can. It will be an amazing blogging adventure...
next post: blogging