Hamlet would have a cool dark gothic MySpace page today!
(Warning: stupid word creations ahead)
There is a lot of personal porn to be found on the blogosphere: death, breakups, terminal illness, angst, family affairs, war stories, fetishism, any kind of sexual encounter, romance or just plain everyday Weltschmerz.
Why this intensive openness and almost offensive sharing of pain? We has the web exploded with a gazillion video blogs, social bookmarking sites and even more cute baby pictures? Why do people pour their innermost secrets and feelings onto the blogosphere?
Writing as Therapy
Diaries are hardly a new invention. Blogs are evolved diaries. People have been writing their intimate thoughts literally for thousands of years. But diaries were always considered a private affairs, as personal reflection of life, emotions and ‘books of pain’ to cry into. My dear diary I feel like shit today …
I type, therefore I am.
But the age of personal intimacy is over. Overall society has opened up. With the ‘invention’ of psychology on one side and mass media on the other we much more understand how our psyche works. Writing is good! Sharing is even better! Crying is no longer only for girls and Britney Spears fans.
Expressing yourself to the global family is a good thing - no need to bottle it all up and keep not only a stiff upper lip. Let your emotions flow. Breath in, blog out!
The MeWe
But the desire ones own thoughts can hardly explain the incredible explosion of personal tidbits, video diaries, family blogs, instant messaging, social networking sites and all those nifty gadgets to share, collect, compare and publish the lifes of the ‘Always-On-Generation’?
Living in a box?
We actually face a total restructuring of our social fabric since the beginning of the industrial revolution. The classical family has been dissolving for almost 200 years.
But there is another important aspect to our modern society: the ‘tele-lifstyle’ has massivly changed our perception of life and speed of our socities.
The ‘Me’-Generation.
Since the start of the industrial age the ‘breeding collective’ is no longer necessary. It took only a short time to deconstruct the big family clan via the small modern family to arrive at the single parent. Today society takes much bigger part in raising children so woman can basically ‘breed’ by themselves. The big family clans support is no longer required for financial, legal, religious or moral reasons to get your clone up and running. No wonder we see such a huge explosions of single moms since the mid 80’s.
Old school family fantasies …
The result: most modern cities are filled up to 60% (or more) single people. Extreme individualism is no longer a choice, but the way kids grow up.
The ‘Me’-Generation has arrived.
More and more kids have no brothers, no sisters, no uncles, no aunties. They are grow up in a reduced family environment, while the social fabric is becoming ever more lose as well.
The Tele-Lifestyle
But also the way we experience and learn about our world has changed dramatically. We always had verbal communication and written reports to keep us informed, exchange ideas and archive knowledge to improve our chances for survival. But inventions like the telegram, telegraph, telephone, radio and most of all the television have radically changed our lifestyle and how we grow and connect as societies.
These new inventions enabled us to have a ‘tele-presence’ almost anywhere in real time on the globe. In contrast to the old slow days we can now experience live reports from the Hindenburg catastrophe, watch moon landings and the start of wars in shock and awe. We are ‘there’ without leaving here.
There is no longer a delay between events and the reports we receive. We can see and hear events as they unfolded - we are tele-present. The first time in human history you can participate in events far away from physical existence.
We loves our TV!
The television transports us within one news broadcast to a dozen places. Death in Iraq, a naked celebrity in Hollywood, a cute polar bear in Berlin. Been there, seen it, taped it.
With telephones and video conferences we can interact with people all over the world.
All these forms of communication are cheap and available to almost anyone these days. With cell phone armed with cameras and Internet access anyone can broadcast from anywhere. You can be everywhere without leaving home - you can establish a tele-presence with a mouse click, flipping on the TV or by dialing a simple number.
Amazing - especially when we remember that our grandparents just started with radio and the telegraph. No TV, no telephones, no computers, no cell phones, no Internet, no Google, no eMail, no video cameras.
The new ‘We’
But the new Tele-Presence had another effect. People shared mutual memories of events they haven’t been. A mass event without a crowd.
Billions of people watched the first moon landing or listened to it on the radio without being there. There was no crowd on the moon - but billions shared that moment with intense involvement.
These are the new virtual ‘We’-Moments.
We now have gazillions of shared memories, emotions and experiences although we have never made them together. This is the new collective memory, the new ‘We’.
When you talk with others about global ‘tele-events’ (like the moon landing) you share deep down images, emotions, associations. These are like emotional ‘bookmarks’ we can use to connect and link our lifes. And these bookmarks are global ingrained in the individual and collective memory.
Almost as good as being there yourself - only safer …
For example: the images of 9/11 were burned live into our collective memories. We all can recall these images, we all shared that moment.
But not only such sinister moments connect us. It is amazing how TV shows, movies and advertising have created a huge library of moments and associations in our global psyche. Captain Kirk is as much a modern ‘We’ moment as Sesame Street or using ‘The Force’ (TM).
We are all Waltons now.
TV shows like the Waltons, Friends and almost any other soap opera are our new surrogate families. We learn from their lives and share their experiences we often can no longer get from our own social networks and often non-existent families. Like in ancient times we model our behavior on our virtual gods and role models.
The new ‘We’ has many fathers, mothers, lovers, relationships, enemies, brothers and sisters. ‘We’ lives and feeds on real and virtual events. It doesn’t matter if JR, John Lennon or John F. Kennedy gets shot, it all influences the ‘We’ psyche.
Everyone is a broadcaster on the Intranets
If TV has taught us anything it is the mechanism of sharing moments and exposing yourself to an global audience.
The web finally gives us the tools to link our lifes into the global psyche. We add to the ‘noize’ of the human condition.
The ‘Me’ digitally melts with the ‘We’.
Our minds spent more and more hours each day in other people’s lifes - real ones and virtual ones.
Am I connected or what?!
We participate in ‘tele-lifes’, ‘tele-families’, ‘tele-news’ and ‘tele-gatherings’.
It is no surprise that new types of websites or functions have developed: the YouTube’s on one side and the MySpace’s on the others. They serve two important functions: collecting and sharing mutual ‘We’ moments - and establishing your own global ‘Me’ tele-presence. We peek into other people’s ‘Me’ and compare our ‘Me’ to them - to see how much ‘We’ there is.
Via blogs and sites like StumbleUpon as well as social networks or social bookmark collection we put out our ‘Me’s: these are the websites I like, these are the videos & moments that are part of me, these are the pictures I can identify with, this is how I date and mate, these are snapshot from my ‘real’ life, these are my buddies, this is how I vote, these mp3s are part of my life’s soundtrack.
I am a well connected diversified prosumer individualist …
Come here, click me, compare me, link me, read me, watch me, email me, IM me, bookmark me.
This ‘Me’ is part of our ‘We’.
Blogschmerz
So is it any surprise that you can read, hear and watch almost any aspect on the global ‘We’? How much of your ‘Me’ can be found there? How much time do you spend in your many ‘tele-lifes’, avatars and online nicks?
Ah the simple life: no windows updates, no spam, no config.sys and no Paris Hilton!
And remember: we are the Neanderthals of the global ‘We’ lifestyle. Our iPods, cell phones and laptops are pretty limited and primitive. Our Wikipedia’s, blogs, galleries and online footprints are not even one generation ‘deep’.
There is no firewall against ‘We’. ‘We’ are ‘We’.
PS: This post was inspired by my exchange with Judefa and Edosan - so it’s only logical I dedicate this posting to those great beings. So Judefa and Edosan this one is for you - thanks for your inspiration!
