Scattered Thoughts on Ambience

A few notes on online intimacy inspired by Clive Thompson's article, "Web Ushers In Age of Ambient Intimacy":

Throughout this project so far, the invisible cloud of weak-linked relationships has become more and more noticeable to me. The way my peers and I keep track of one another in short bursts of detail (from Facebook status to Twitter) simply makes sense at the current pace of university life. Considering this, I decided to format this update of my research as a bullet list of observations rather than an essay, partly in hopes of keeping your attention, and partly because said pace only gives me so much time to think on coherence.

Thompson's article basically serves as a sociological overview of the changing dynamics of webs of relationships due to online social networking. I've often heard the saying, "Social life, good grades, enough sleep. Welcome to college, you can only pick two!" The mastery of all three apparently defies the laws of physics, but many of us seem to have acheived it. Thomson does well to explain how.

-"The ambient information becomes like 'a type of ESP,' as Haley described it to me, an invisible dimension floating over everyday life." This is the basis for the "invisible cloud" comment above. And it's very true. Though I'm currently sitting in my kitchen at 3:30 in the afternoon, I'm just as aware that my best friend is in her fiction writing class as I am that my friend in Chicago is listening to the Wicked soundtrack. I feel connected to them in a way I might not otherwise.

And this is a very good thing: with all of the studying I have to do today, I could get restless and lonely very easily. My ambient web of intimacy pulls me out of that so quickly! I'm able to feed off of others' awareness of what I'm doing. Every project is a group project. (A friend just texted me, "Hey, howz ur researching?")

Thompson says that this, "just sort of lets people know you're aware of them" and that "ambient intimacy becomes a way to 'feel less alone,' as more than one Facebook and Twitter user told me." My point exactly!

On the other hand, as Dr. Wesch has mentioned several times, this forces us all to become our own personal publicists.

"She needs to stay on Facebook just to monitor what's being said about her."

If the world is getting smaller and smaller, we're now down to village size. Everyone can know your business if they just use the right tools.

"So we're going back to a more normal place, historically."

This commentary sent my thoughts to my 1950s film class last semester. Though we idolize that time period and being happy and healthy, further investigation in that class revealed quite the opposite. I'm arguing now that the 1950s were the beginning of this hyperindividualization and increased anonymity that we're now pulling out of via online social networking. (On that subject, watch this.)
Moving on to the '60s, we see the increased popularity of having a personal therapist. The ambient intimacy we experience now may have booted the need for one in terms of self-evaluation.

"Having an audience can make the self-reflection even more acute, since, as my interviewees noted, they're trying to describe their activities in a way that is not only accurate but also interesting to others: the status update as a literary form. [...] In an age of awareness, perhaps the person you see most clearly is yourself."

And surely by now, you have asked, "Katie, what does any of this have to do with your research? Aren't you looking at PostSecret?"

Here is the connection: as Thompson has outlined the effects of ambient intimacy to conclude that we are more self-aware, I believe I have found an answer to one of my initial questions.

Q: What are people willing to reveal about themselves behind a cloak of anonymity?
A: All of the things they have discovered about themselves that would have negative consequences within their social network.

In becoming so aware of ourselves, we have found frightening/regretful/shameful/incriminating things that we fear others will be come aware of too. That is where PostSecret has found its niche in these online social networks. The guaranteed anonymity removes all fear of persecution from those we know, while giving us a common ground assurance that someone understands. It relieves the stress of hiding while we remain hidden.

The anonymous side of this invisible cloud of relationships is sort of omnipresent. While sitting alone in our kitchens, we can maintain a feeling or acknowledgement that "someone" or "people" know, care, and understand what we do not want to reveal. And this is all while making sure that those things are intentionally absent from our Facebook profiles.

This complex view of the "self" would make Polonius second-guess his own advice. On the basis of such a deep self-awareness, I'm now wondering if our unwillingess to share our darkest secrests with those closest to us is a result of what Thompson has described. Are we so drowned in self-presentation that we consider our overall reputation more valuable that honesty with a friend?

This is now tying into the microcelebrity bit we have discussed. I think Emily is looking at that.

Consider it as ironic as you'd like that I toggled tabs between Facebook and Thompson's article while writing this. The deep accuracy of his observations of my generation have already been mentioned on my Twitter.

-Katie

Neil Whitehead is slightly crazy.

Perhaps my title is too colloquial for a research blog, but it is in no way insulting to Whitehead and his article "Post-Human Anthropology". What other reaction would be appropriate for someone who formed a Goth band in order to do an ethnographic study of sexuality and violence?

Clearly, he is not what one might consider a typical anthropologist. Yet his argument is exactly for that: that none of us should continue with typical anthropology. Our focus instead should be on a field, "in which the human subject is no longer the exclusive center of attention."

While this may seem counter-intuitive to a field that is by name and nature completely people-focused, our own research can greatly benefit from his ideas. With many of the anonymous communities online, mainly Anonymous itself, we are dealing with ideas devoid of identity, interaction without relationship. Community without humanity?

This is where my focus on PostSecret works as a bright-sided contrast. In a way, it is reinjecting raw humanity into these otherwise post-human interactions. Yet at the same time, it is still more of a mirror than a window. It connects with disconnection; anonymity still plays a huge role. In doing so, it more deeply connects people with themselves or parts of themselves that were previously unknown.

This comes back to the question I posed in my previous post: how can we be sure of authenticity if there are things we don't know about ourselves? In Whitehead's article, he mentions "partible persons (i.e. material beings whose identities are not fixed but dependent on the forms of sociality in which they are engaged)." Though I believe this is in reference to people groups who do not give each individual a fixed name, elements of this are definitely seen in online interaction.

In fact, I would argue that this is one of the reasons that PostSecret has the effect it does. The endless options provided by online communities to re/mis/define oneself allow anyone to not only be anyone, but to be anyones: multiple, distinctive identites depending on the network in use. In the presentation and maintenance of all of these facets of the self, it is no wonder that there are things we might not know about ourselves.

That may be why many people experience emotional distress in recognizing such a thing on PostSecret: that recognition is a violence to the part of the self that does not want that secret to be true, or has been living as if it is not true. Perhaps this is very different from the sort of violence that Whitehead and the members of Blood Jewel have been examining, but there may be a loose connection.

I hate to end this with a cliff-hanger (if you are even so enthralled to consider it one), but I haven't quite developed my idea beyond this.

So more on this later...

-Katie

Readings and Things: On Virtual Ethnography and the PS Effect

Assigned readings for this week include Christine Hine's article "Virtual Ethnography". She discusses the challenges involved with research such as ours, as well as those of ethnographic study in general.

In thinking on how PostSecret fits into the larger discussion of the Anonymity Project, I found Hine's comments on authenticity to be particularly relevant:

"The question remains then whether interactions in electronic space should be considered authentic, since the ethnographer cannot readily confirm details that the informants tell them about their offline selves. Posing the problem in this way, however, assumes a particular idea of what a person is (and what authenticity is). Authenticity, in this formulation, means correspondence between the identity performed in interactions with the ethnographer and that performed elsewhere both online and offline."

Authenticity proves to be a unique issue in the PostSecret community. In the FAQ section of the main site, one of the questions addressed is whether all of the secrets posted are true or not. Warren responds:

"I think this question is more complicated than it might appear on the surface. Of course, no one could claim that all 200,000 secrets are "true" in the strictest sense or the word.

But I think of each postcard as a work of art. And as art, secrets can have different layers of truth. Some can be both true and false, others can become true over time depending on our choices."

The "layers of truth" to which he refers here apply to the secret-teller and the secret-reader. As these postcards are the only element of an anonymous stranger's identity we see (and thus the only thing upon which to base any assumptions), the relevance of its authenticity may lie only in the secret-reader's perception of, reaction to, or connection with that secret.

Think of Evey's comment in V for Vendetta: "My father used to say that artists use lies to tell the truth, while politicians use them to cover the truth up."

So the question of authenticity here seems to be more concerned with what Warren calls "the secrets we keep from ourselves." In many instances, members of the PS community have said that they did not recognize one of their own deepest secrets until they saw it in a stranger's handwriting.

How, then, might we determine the authenticity of interactions if there are things we might not know about ourselves?

This definitely ties into Hine's later discussion of the boundaries of ethnographic research. The most difficult thing about this project is that we are so deeply within the boundaries of what we are looking into. It is cause for much reflection. We cannot be removed completely.

More on this later...

-Katie

Trailer and Proposal: Final Edition

*After quite the adventure of learning the basics of Final Cut Pro, the final version of my trailer (which I am much happier with) is finished. Again, YouTube is far superior.*




With an increasing awareness of the internet as a new medium for culture and relationships, many have noted the increasing individualism, and disconnectedness that seem to characterize our lives.

Although the very fact that we have so many "concepts of self" may be considered proof of our newly individualized nature, I would like to argue that online anonymous communities are providing us with a way to seek out deep, meaningful connections to other people--a most basic human need.

These profound and real connections can be seen daily in the PostSecret community. With a foundation of anonymity, perfect strangers no longer fear judgment or embarrassment at sharing their most shameful secrets with one another. In doing so, they seem to have transcended the anomie, disconnection, and insignificance that threaten our increasingly technological existence.

Of course, the nature of these connections is very different from those in a face-to-face community. In a tribal community, for example, the network of relationships might be described as "one inch wide, but one mile deep." There are few people, but they are very intimately connected. Online, by contrast, produces relationships that are "one mile wide, but one inch deep."

Despite the ephemeral nature of these anonymous online relationships, the connections are very real and very significant. Many people even claim that the PostSecret site has saved their lives in making them feel less alone. Others say that it has restored their faith in humanity. In examining the PostSecret community (and others like it that form intimacy among anonymous strangers), I hope to uncover further insight about the transcendent potential of online anonymous communities.

Take 2: Trailer is up!

Have a look at my *new* trailer!

This did affect how much attention I paid to the Super Bowl, but I did catch the good commercials.

For a better look, watch it on YouTube.




-Katie