So the "Net" is outraged by Facebook’s shitty privacy settings and many possibilities for data leaks?!

I find this pretty predictable and boring – here is why:

1. Facebook is one big Beta program. Facebook’s size and traffic has broken new records in terms of complexity and amount. So it’s pretty obvious that Facebook’s infrastructure and systems are pretty stressed and unique. Nobody built something like this before. And it doesn’t help that a group of genius youngsters is at the helm – you need young brains to break new grounds. But it also means that they are obviously not as concerned and conservative about privacy and user’s rights.

2. Facebook is free – and you are free to use it. Nobody forces you to use it. It’s YOUR decision to post your life’s details on it. You get what you pay for in this case: no real rights and no real leverage to demand better service …

3. Your privacy is your responsibility and not Facebook’s. It’s a simply and very old rule: if you want to keep something private, don’t tell anyone you don’t trust. The old quote "Data wants to be free" should be adapted to "Data will break free – if you want it or not". Once it’s on a server – secure or not – it can be much easier copied, leaked and spread. All these idiotic mottos like "Sharing is caring" etc. are "data traps". Don’t share your private data, just because you can. Share only data online that you are willing to share with your worst enemies.

4. If you are unable to organize your social life without a "social tool" (apart from meeting friends in person, calling them and maybe sending them the occasional PERSONAL letter/email) – don’t blame your dependency on such services like Facebook.

5. Social Networks are based on the wrong definition of friendship. In that context: "Sharing is caring" is the wrong attitude – only "caring is actually caring". Emotional support, attention, love and openness are building blocks for friendship – not which movies you like or how popular you are on Social Networks.

6. The Ego Trip called "Your Profile" is Facebook’s business model. Endless forms and lists are just collections of data they don’t say anything about you who you really are. Collecting all that data is just mouseturbating on your own ego. But this kind of data is a gold mine for marketers. So your own vanity and egoism makes you are bigger target for advertisers. And harvesting these "gold mines" is Facebook’s business. So don’t complain if they do what they do.

Today’s netbased social interaction is getting lazier and lazier. Writing long eMails to you friends? Nope. Send a nice eCard with a personal note? Nope. Chat with them for hours via IM? Nope. Write a blog entry or comment on a posting? Nope. Write a Tweet (max 140 keys to press)? Nope.

We are now just down to one click to "connect" to your friends and tell them you are "with them".

Less and less context and "social stickiness" is created with these tools. It’s more like "rating" relationships and friends instead of creating your mutual "carpet of friendship" by creating unique actions and interaction.

Click image for the full size of my Twitter penis.

Finally a web tool that will help some people to really measure if their public efforts have penetrated the blogosphere.

I think this site is brilliant: http://www.epenis.nl/

PS: I especially love the function of measuring other people’s penis and immediately twittering the result.

PPS: How to make friends and influence their penis length.

Let’s stomp out these ugly reports comrades …

It is easy to blame only the evil communist in China for all the censorship and blatant disregard for Tibet’s Freedom.

But Chinese Nationalism is as rampant as the state controlled suppression of the Tibetans. One only needs to remember the extreme rage against the Japanese during the last years. Japan has a lot to apologize for to China and Korea – and never has done so – so some of the outrage was “just”. But it was mostly insanely angry and fueled by Nationalism instead by a call for justice.

Chinese people – like the Russians, Iranians and North Koreans – live in a mental vacuum. They have no real news, only glints of reality and they don’t really know what’s going on in the world. Freedom of speech, public discourse and social experiments are absolutely limited and controlled by the state.

That is why many Chinese people defend their countries “actions” in Tibet as “just” and “fair” on the intranets. They are simply blind and ignorant. Patriotism is an ugly political disease, doesn’t matter if you scream “China! China!”, “USA! USA!” or “Heil Hitler!”.

Stage6.com has been killed. It was the best video site so far, because it over high-quality viewing (based on the great DIVX codec) and – let’s be honest – tons of excellent pirated stuff.

What attracted me was the fore mentioned quality and many great user groups full with documentaries and arty stuff. It’s all gone now. So I have to do some housekeeping and delete the video links on my blog as well.

Goodbye Stage6 – you will be missed.

PS: I am pretty sure all that stuff will come back on another site.

Another excellent documentation from Frontline (which you can view online). This time about the first generation (of Americans) who grew up with the Internet, cell phones and computer games.

It covers all important topics: the ‘Always-on’ generation, ego surfing with MySpace and other sites, the new global ‘we’, web slutism, stalking and cyber bullying.

Highly recommended – even if you don’t have kids – because it gives you a better understanding in the psyche of the coming generation and the impact of technology on our society.

Homemade video, talking … or rather singing to youself and the world. Perfect! Geo’s song "The Assumption" from the album Interrobang.

Thanks Edosan.

It is amazing how much Kitsch animations like that are on the web. I can understand when a little girl likes such crap, but when so called grown up woman indulges in such little dream worlds it becomes a case for a therapist.

Still waiting for your knight in shining armor too?

After many years if waiting and technical development video is finally sweeping the Internets. It’s not just download little bits here and there, but massive streaming, downloading complete movies and ‘blogcasting’. We are used to get small video clips in our emails or watch important as well as ‘funny’ stuff via Websites like Crooks & Liars as well as YouTube.

The BlogCasting is a sort of Clip-O-Mania which has also grabbed the mainstream media’s attention: news shows include Internet clips as well as those many funny video shows. Videos of people torturing each other were cell phone videos, a lot of ‘funny’ stuff is from cheap camcorders. The video revolution is in full swing.

Since the medium is still part of the message those short clips will only ‘deepen’ the short attention deficit disorder of modern people. Since the introduction of mass media in form of TV and radio the speed and visual presentation of ‘content’ has increased. If you watch a newscast or report from the 1960’s you be surprised how slow and static it is. Today’s presentation hardly leaves any space for thinking. Everything is presented in ever faster image sequences, booming voices and action music. This is no longer just the stupid idea of edutainment, but actiontainment.

The faster, the more impressive and the shorter – the better.

A new generation of clones taking over the world!

Similar to the inability of many modern students to understand or write complex texts this will Clip-O-Mania will contribute to the ignorance of complexity. Contrary to popular believe I say that modern youngsters are NOT stupid, but they simply lack the training and challenges to train their brains to ’solve’ complex mental tasks as well to train patience.

As much as I like gaming myself almost ALL digital adventures only train a very limited set of challenges, which only get harder with every level but not more diversified or complex. The effects of hours of videogaming are very similar to brainwashing, because the same mental paths / messages are hammered deeper and deeper into the brain. Playing is meant to explore different approaches and experiment with different combinations. Videogames lack the variety – they present a very limited set of elements and solutions – under a huge pressure to proceed and win. Similar to the speedculture of actiontainment and videoclubs there is little time and mental space left to develop your own ideas and grow at your own pace.

Slowness has it’s own merits as well as patience and complexity.

Newspapers have a hard time in the digital age. The readership numbers are sinking while the Internet sucks away their audience. Will they die?

TV and Radio already were serious competitions – why didn’t these inventions kill off the Newspapers a long time ago? Because there was still some space left for newspapers to fill.

But the real killer of Newspaper is their own ignorance. They – like the Recording Industry – ignored all the predictions and than trends way too long. Instead of going with the changed market they tried to fight it.

Today the they are all online: New York Times, Telegraph, L.A. Times, International Herald Tribune and The Independent. Most of these online editions are brilliant – constantly experimenting with new ways to report and engage the readers – something that was long forgotten in the print editions.

But competing with the information overkill on the net is hard. Buying several international newspapers is cumbersome and sometimes hard to do. But on the web the they all compete just a mouse click away from each other.

I often prefer newspaper website over other news sites like from TV channels (like CNN or MSNBC – and even the BBC). Their reporting is often deeper, their writers provide smarter and better commentaries. I would only compare Keith Olbermann as the only TV journalist able to write and perform longer commentaries that can match most print essayists.

The Revolution of the Bloggers has shown that people want good writers on the net. But they also want interaction and community style feedback loops. If newspapers can find their way back to their audiences they should survive in the 21st century …

The Internet is Dante’s new inferno – a Hell Hole without escape. We will never be able to watch all videos on YouTube, click all Stumbles, dig all links on Digg and enjoy all the Billion image on Flickr … not to speak of terabytes of terabytes of links that haven’t been officially classified as cool.

So is your thirst for more only a hunger for entertainment, stimulation for your own thoughts or simply boredom?

Overall a dedicated surfer will encounter the same topics, meme and styles again and again. How many cute dogs will really touch you? How many times do you want to read that George Bush is a disaster? How many times do you want to see mad people filming themselves doing funny, but stupid things?

Are we all became pavlovian Dogs – reacting with the right reflexes? With a nice ‘Awwww’ for the nice doggy. With a ‘Buuuh’ for stupid politicians. With a ‘Cooooool, Dude!’ when people try to kill themselves in a entertaining way.

You are not what you click, you are what you do.

Do something real.

The Internet is all about communication. It’s first great breakthroughs were eMail, Chats and Newsgroups – places and mechanism for people to talk to each other, share stories and moments. The Web – with it’s rich multimedia mix of text, images, animations videos and loads of interaction came later.

The first Internet years were pure ‘Text’ – no fancy graphics, no weird interfaces, no flash movies. It was a writers paradise – and boy did people work that keyboard. That is why all those handy acronyms were invented in the first place – because they were used a lot and people got sick and tired of typing it all out. It was intended to speed up the conversation and develop some simple forms of ‘communication blocks and codes’ to ritualize reoccurring situations like ‘ROFL’ or ‘ttyl’.

eMail and chats were already different from formal letters and meeting in the office. But people tried to keep grammar, expression and context intact. It was fascinating to exchange loads of text & context in real time or almost instantly. eMail was like a speed drug for communication and brainstorming. Communication processes that often took days and weeks could be shortened to seconds, minutes or just a few hours. Brains were on fire.

This trend was pushed even further with the cell phone revolution and the invention of the web – which brought texting and web surfing to the masses. Further down the road broadband and multimedia transformed the pure ‘text-only’ online cosmos into a ‘disney-compatible consumer experience’.

Happiness is more then just an emoticon …

Websurfers and companies alike tried to make it short and sweet. Online portals developed the art of content management and squeezing as much tiny headlines and articles on their homepages. Instant messaging and texting on cell phones was the next craze – conversations were chopped up into even smaller bits. The old text emoticons were immediately translated into graphical ones – and a flood of new acronyms and Internet ‘talk’ took over the world.

The use of acronyms and rituals become even deeper entrenched in Internet communication – and it swapped over into the mainstream. Suddenly you could see web URLs in advertising and Internet slang jumped into ‘meatspace’.

But it also ritualized the always on lifestyle and communication even further. Sending jokes, images, videos, URLs or short blurbs became a substitute for describing yourself, your emotions or what you had experienced in YOUR OWN WORDS. Instead of self expression we used ‘blocks of code’ or ‘canned emotions’ to reflect ourselves – but not EXPRESSING our own state of mind.

I love your pixelation!

Instead of encouraging someone with a personal note – we send a picture of a cute doggy. Instead of saying how we feel about a sad moment with some nuances we send a sad emoticon. Instead of describing our vacation to our friends we send them a link of our Flickr gallery of snaps without context.

In all these cases we get shorter and shorter in our self expression. By breaking up complex situations or moments into simple symbols or unrelated bits we loose the complexity. The complexity of what has happened. The complexity of what we think and feel about it. And the complexity of different layers of self expression. Instead of many colour we mix ourselves with words, sentences, long expression – we use static rubberstamps of self expression. Easy and simple to use – but limited in their emotional and mental range – and shallow compared what really might be inside of you.

When you are on MySpace Google will make sure you have no privacy … 

Especially the new world of social networking is ‘shrtr’. Instead of messages you send ‘funny’ games or emoticons. Instead of telling a person you like them or you ignore them you ‘rate’ them by giving them stars or declaring them your friend. Symbolism over true friendly dedication or exchange. Instead of socializing we extend our social networks by inviting the highest ranking and rated members of the database. Instead of getting to know someone and exchanging personal stories we explore their personal links, lists of favorite websites and online galleries – plus we Google their names and see if something nasty comes up.

It is no longer about what you have to say and what you are – it’s all about the right links, ranking and cool ‘statement blocks’ others can recognize as greatness. You link the right political articles on your blog or stumble, you know the funniest videos, one big celebrity is your friend on MySpace.

I have friends – therefore I am! 

The art and exploration of yourself through self expression and deep thoughts has been substituted by the cleverness of self linking and self promoting. The Google PageRank of your homepage, profile or profile has become a social indicator.

The art of making friends with your personality and what you have to say and stand for. Instead of exploring one’s own inner world and building it by thinking and expressing it – we only reflect only tiny aspects of our self via links, phrases and other people’s work like videos and images.

The modern phrase and lifestyle statement ‘express yourself’ – which can be seen in so many commercials and new age books – is a challenge. It is hard work and it is a personal and social effort to express yourself, to understand yourself, to think for yourself and define yourself.

A complex personality and emotional depth can only come from complex self expression. You are the builder of your self …

Dedicated to Judefa – who inspired me to write this.

Here Americans can leave an apology for the rest of the world. Some of these statements may break your heart or boil your blood with anger. Most of the time I want to give these people a hug and tell them it’s all just a bad dream – but it isn’t.

I only hope that this mousetivism will result in some political action as well?

More? www.sorryaboutourpresident.com

Ppostsecret.blogspot.com is now an established fixture of the globally shared net psyche. It is amazing – it opened the floodgates for endless confessions. Lurkers come to read emotional porn, dark and funny secrets of others – while the ‘sinners’ try to lighten their burden by sharing some secrets of their existence.

Good thing it has already turned in a book – so the makers can rip off so money from the social porn. Secrets are no secret today – not for the media exhibitionists and web heads all around us.

Thanks to RichM for sending this one.

Most companies just want to create a caring, green and socially responsible image. But FreeRice.com is so much better: it’s basically a word game to win something for the poor.

For each word you guess correct they donate 10 grains of rice. Doesn’t sound much – but so far it has been enough to feed 50.000 people for one day (see totals so far here).

I also like the educational effect for the ‘rich’ people. You get to train your brain and expand your vocabulary. Excellent!

Companies should support more ideas like that. And donating has hardly been more easier and fun than this …

When you visit this gallery – it might freak you out in some ways. It is simply strange to a western mind to which extend Japanese fans and otakus jump into your fantasies and passions. Dressing up as a Manga character is a strange thing indeed, especially if guys are doing this.

But masks and masquerades have strong traditions in many societies. Also gender changes are nothing unusual in Carnival and Fasching.

Also androgynous looks and behavior have become mainstream since the early 1980’s – and also trends like the metrosexual guys are blurring traditional lines.

So yes, it new and strange – but it’s also an old thing and not unusual.

More? Sabrina.jp

I am a proud polit-blogger, listen to me …

Thanks to blogging finally everybody has it’s little media outlet. Media democracy at least – so it seems. Time to celebrate? Nope. Overall you just find more of the same instead of a greater variety of ideas, reflections and inspiration.

Tribalism

First and all people love to form tribes and hordes – the liberal bloggers, the conservative bloggers, the gay bloggers, the farting bloggers. Stickers and links are the new medals and flags of the blogosphere.

Conformists

It is amazing how conform each tribe reports and argues it’s cases. It’s like the Reagan’s trickle down economy in the blogosphere. The A-list bloggers and media outlets fill the pot and it all trickles down to the lower sites. With each report, trackback and linkback the actual facts get more and more distorted – and more and more blabla added.

Hate

Even more amazing is the spiral of hate and anger that seems to drive the battle. Comments and actual postings are often full of profanity as well as insults and personal attacks. I can understand this confronting political figures – which one can’t touch. But how about some respect for your fellow blogger? So much about civilized discussions and cooperation.

Aimless

Polit bloggers are way to willing to continue dogmas and phrases. Instead of controlling and checking political agendas and programs they loose track of their own interests as voters. Instead of a war of ideas any society should concentrate on finding the best solution. So what happened to common sense and consensus?

Nothing is left alive …

Overall polit bloggers remind me of several different ant armies – aggressively devouring anything in their way down to the bones. Very short sighted, very selfish, very hysterical. Therefore they fulfil a role in the political ecosystem: to ‘check’ for errors and take away the garbage.

But so far I have only seen a few blogs of ‘enlightenment’, who add something to the process apart from word wrestling and dogmatic masturbation.

Image: The great Eadweard Muybridge

Real kids should have real campfires. It’s much more fun. And real geeks will always prefer staying at home.

Just in case you can’t show off your muscular body or titties or penis or butt … there is always your Turban – groar!

RateMyTurban.com – endless ours of fun.

Is this a joke? Sadly it isn’t.

I already find the concept of real life speed dating pretty horrid: you meet in a big crowd in a restaurant and each person gets a few minute to introduce themselves to the next person. Then the guys rotate to another place and the next round of speedy first impressions starts …

Now you’ll do it all over the net or just leave a video resume via webcam. I presume having sex and splitting up is also done via a cool web interface?

I am no stranger to Internet dating myself, but I am afraid that people get more excited about all the tech and the huge ‘selection’ of partners – instead of really getting into making new friends and dedicating some time to getting to know someone better.

Friendship takes time. Relationships even longer. There is no such thing as speed as for good love or lovemaking. Only mental mouseturbation works well with speed …

I am so glad that these CompuServe Avatars never set the standard for all future chat programs.

I think mass media rightfully portrays the net as full of pr0n. Usually the discussion centers around porn mongers, porn sellers, porn buyers, pedophiles and sexual predators – mostly male and eager to get the easy kick.

But who talks of webbased sluttism like ‘flickr’s finest females‘, suicidegirls.com and those many webcam whores? These – often very young girls and woman – are not forced by pimps or poverty to sell themselves. Many do it for personal kicks and some extra luxury money.

All the old concepts of pornography and prostitution fail when confronted with webbased slutism: there is no physical contact involved, the woman do it themselves, there is a lot of technology involved and so much of it is for free or very little money for the buyers. Most interesting of all is the female networking: woman recommending other ’slut friends’ or running whole networks all by themselves.

As much as I am for a liberated sexuality and female empowerment but often unlimited ‘hotness’ smells of stupidity and a very egoistic, greedy or even obsessed mindset. And you hardly can call that liberated, but rather a case for serious therapy.

Everybody can be famous with a good ‘leaked’ porn video.

I also have noticed a growing social pressure for web exhibitionism for young people (MySpace.com is only the current tip of the iceberg). Many online communities and single sites over the years have developed into ‘hot zones’ instead of ‘just’ social meeting places. I guess ‘leaked’ videos by big stars like Pamela Anderson, Paris Hilton and absolute nobodies like ‘Tammy‘.

I guess the sexual revolution is not eating it’s children, but well connected grandchildren. The pressure to public slutism, to look cool and sexy and do horny stuff has risen to new levels. Slutism on the web or mass media are hard to ignore, neither are the gazillion of young girls who get plastic surgery at an alarmingly early age.

Sexuality should be explored, but it should be a personal and intimate thing. Especially when you are young. So ladies go and explore yourself and your talents, but don’t ‘bless’ the rest of the web with it.

More? Love the spoof Paris Hilton Video

I use Wikipedia on a daily basis – so I donated €50 today to keep this brilliant source of shared knowledge working. I think this is one of the few web projects that appeals to everyone – so I ask you humbly to donate some of your hard earned cash to keep it running as well.

Wikipedia is an open and very international effort with a huge infrastructure behind it (servers that eat a lot of bandwidth). Although many companies support Wikipedia as well – it’s still down to us mere mortals to keep the torch of knowledge burning, either by participation or donation.

Bitte donate some of your money as well! 

Vielen Dank my friends.

Since 2000 there has been an explosion of good pixels on the intranet. Thank you cheap DSL and digital cameras! JPG Magazine is a peer made topical collection of excellent images from all over the world. You can participate with your own artwork, download all them as PDF or simply watch all old issues online.

Or you can simply support the project by subscribing to a proper printed edition.

Love art? Go and knock yourself out: www.artdaily.org. But bring some time with you – this website has some depth!

Sometimes sketches are better than fine art. Go and look into artists sketchbooks at the Moleskin Project.

Go forth creepy wizard and conjure your own nightmare here!

And don’t forget to name it properly!

*thanks to edosan for another total timewaster*

Tribal symbols and kanji characters seem all the rage with some people. So they get tattooed with letters and symbols which they can’t decipher. This great blog by Tian actually analyses photos of tattoos and tries to explain what they mean (hanzismatter.com)

Many times the tattoo artists got the Chinese characters wrong or simply wrote stupid stuff on people’s backs, arms and legs. I love it! Some people are really doing anything stupid just to be cool. This is a truly original blog!

Just updated my Blogroll and included some of my StumbleFriends.

In which neighborhood in cyberspace do you hang out?

Blogsville?
Pr0natella?
News-Junction?
Home-Makers-Place?
Single-Square?
EyeCady-Heaven?

So many places, so little bandwidth and even less time.

Over at Lifehacker.com there is a nice round of geeky exhibitionism. People show their stuff. Another fine example of social porn on the intranets.

So – how much does your bag tell us about you?

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!

The intranets provide a cute safety net if you feel stressed out, unloved or empty. Just click for something cute – and your day brightens up. So the net becomes an emotional one-click-pony: Click-Cute-and-Relax!

We humans have the great ability to empathize: we can feel what we see. We feel the cuddly moments and gentleness of such sweet snaps. We become the picture we watch – we become the little fluffy being being cared for. For an instant we are without weight, memory and pain.

The emotional rush is better than chocolate, caffeine and Prozac. Escape the harshness of your life with a cute instant gratification.

Transform Mousetivism into Activism and browse Pledgebank. It’s a website to start your own little revolution or activism to change this to a better world. I like it’s idea and simple social mechanism: I’ll try to better myself – if other people join me. Excellent! This is how society should work – from the ground up to promote ideas and action – instead of top down.

When do you make your pledge?

More and more people find their favorite websites blocked by corporate firewalls. Also email filters clamp down on stupid attachments like the newest ‘funny’ video or porn.

Actually I can only recommend to anyone working in a big company not to visits websites you like in private, nor use the companies email address for mailing your friends and family. Most admin’s don’t care about your stuff – but looking at your mails and surfing habits is a gold mine for any middle management asshole to find a reason to kick your butt.

So get yourself at least a private webmail account that supports secure transmission and is hopefully not blocked by your corporate admin. Don’t surf any pr0n, funny or dating websites during work – not even during lunch break. It will be recorded – and used against you …

For years now the ‘war’ between the mainstream media and Bloggers has been raging. A new form of media is storming in scene and shifting the balance of the old media market. This is nothing new: movie theatres complained about TV for everyone – which took away most of their eyeballs. The original press people sneered first at radio and later TV reporters as well. Every form of mass communication has to proof it’s worth and develop it’s style.

As much as I applaud the new citizen journalist I don’t think we / they have taken over the world, nor deeply influence the rich and powerful. Plus the number of Bloggers who actually contribute NEW information and reports is very small.

One of the big difference between Bloggers and journalists is, that the later ones go out and report directly from wars, press conferences and events – while most Bloggers simply recycle these reporting’s. Sure – there are Bloggers in the field, but they are few and not ‘organized’. Big news corps like Reuters and BBC News have offices all over the world and they provide a continuity that is very different from the more sporadic blogosphere.

When life was simple – only those Viking terrorists and your soul to worry about

Although I don’t think that an unorganized and unstructured reporting is a bad thing (because I believe that chaos is always a self organizing affair), it is also important and highly valuable to have news providers and archives from either state funded news organizations (like many European TV stations) and commercial ones.

But most important aspect of all is that news consumption has changed – not just the reporting. The media explosion in the 80’s (actually pushed by the likes of Rupert Murdoch) and the later web revolution has changed the viewer / reader as well. Once people read / watched only a few sources and usually never questioned it’s content. That has greatly changed for good. Equally important is that news consumers started searching for their own truths. Thanks to search engines news and fact finding is no longer a domain of the professionals.

Hey, I know how to solve your problems – trust me!

But sure as hell the extra work and the extra confusion is making life more complicated and less understandable for many. No surprise that populism also has risen strongly in the last few decades. Simple and strong messages always were a part of politics – but in confusing and harsh times there are more people willing to listen to them. Instead of working and coping with a more complex reality many people prefer a simplification of (their) problems.

So in a strange twist the more noise the old school media and Bloggers make – the less they actually support the public. They actually create more confusion and ‘white noise’. And splitting the ‘truth atom’ into even more bit doesn’t create ‘more truth or a better version of reality. But on the other side a big public discussion is better then none or a truly state organized affair like under the Nazi regime or Stalinist Russia.

Life is complex, it sucks and still we have to deal with it.

More? A BBC opinion piece about the return of the citizen journalist.

I have been using skype since it’s start. Today it’s the only Instant Messaging program I use. I also do many conference calls and all my text messaging to cell phones with it. It’s cheap (to call land lines and cell phones), free (to download and call other computers) easy to use and works fine most of the time.

Highly recommended for all digital human beings. Delete your ICQ, AOL, Yahoo!, MSN or whatever IMs – this is the future.

Here is one amazing art blog by Mr. H. – go and enjoy it. He covers many aspects of art in great detail, with knowledge, insight and detail. One of the rare gems in the blogosphere!

Thanks to some recent successes in uncovering some political and media lies the armchair pundits called ‘bloggers’ consider themselves a new political force.

What they don’t understand that they are the bottom of the information food chain. They only reexamine scraps dropped down to them, checking inconsistencies of the overall news feed produced by the alliance of international big media and mostly American big politics.

Political deals and money powered lobbyism happens between real people, real bank accounts and real backrooms. Places you can’t google. Place you can’t hyperlink to.

The culture of fear and the terror of the media can’t be stopped with a mouse click, but by an active democratic culture on the ballot and on the streets. Mouse pointers won’t stop tanks nor political subversion.

One professor called this generation once screenies:

We work all day in front of a screen.
We relax in front of a screen.
We educate ourselves with screens.
We socialize via our screens.
We pick out our next date on a screen.

I think he is right.