I think I have unlocked the theoretical secret of frozen yoghurt.

I have stumbled across the secret to Melbourne’s FroYo Proliferation and particularly why gen y’s love it so much.

Of course there are a couple of markets for fro yo, perhaps primarily kids but the strength of the secondary group of gen ys, particularly chicks is pretty astounding. It is not uncommon for myself and a girlfriend to feel confronted by a group of rowdy prep kids and their mum, who have without warning parked themselves on the same table as us at Carlisle St’s Yo Chi on a crowded friday afternoon. Before we can glance at each other in bemusement, the fleeting thought that we in fact are the intruders here crosses our minds as we see the amount of tots here at a 7 year old birthday party.

For us, Fro Yo is an appointment eat. It is an activity to do with your friends that involves the majestic collision of icecream and DIY ingenuity. There are a number of chains that have sprung up, surpassing the classic Cacao Green and going up up and away until ‘to Yo-Chi’ becomes a verb.

‘Story in a Cup’, located in South Yarra, does a lot to help me explain why gen ys are so attracted to froyo. Its name taps into our incessant need for embedding the products we buy with our own stories- public tools we use to engage with things. Gen Ys have this fickle need for power in creating the products they consume and FroYo allows for an unprecedented amount of input. Thus, each product they eventually buy is tailored for them, by them and their own stories.

GENIUS. Now I want fro yo.

There was always one girl in my class who did it. The teacher wouldn’t have arrived for over 15 minutes and while the rest of my year 8 homeroom were celebrating by talking about Pete Wentz, this girl sat patiently at her desk, her conscience weighing down upon her like an unwanted piggyback.

This girl believed in protocol. She believed in standards governing our reaction to certain scenarios, like our teacher failing to turn up. Galloway agrees with her, and this is the main focus of this weeks second reading.

Galloway defines protocols as the “essential points necessary to enact upon an agreed standard of action”. That is, the standards dictating the implementation of specific technologies… be it standing still at the sight of the red man, then moving through space because he turns green, be it not trying on the roll on deoderant in the cosmetics aisle or even every ‘choking hazard’ sign on a McDonalds toy. They are all highly ingrained, highly coded protocols we live with day to day.

Galloway states that protocols come in handy when trying to control, or establish some sense of order in a hectic, heterogenous system or fluxical network. Honestly, nothing can exist conveniently and pragmatically without having something within it to counteract the crazy. Think of Cosmo and Wanda from Fairly Odd Parents… imagine if husband and wife were both exactly like Cosmo? There would be chaos. Thus, we need Wanda to tone things down a bit and keep a lid on everything, like we need protocols in heterogenous systems.

Galloway argues that just because new technologies are instigating the elimination of centralised control does not mean the world is witnessing the disappearance of control completely- it just exists under the guise of protocols. There is a misconception that the internet is this chaotic crazy beast who can’t be tamed like Miley circa 2010, however Galloway says it can be and is.

In a distributed network there are no central hubs and no satellite nodes, no trunks and no leaves. Like the rhizome, each node in a distributed network may establish direct communication with another node, without having to appeal to a hierarchical intermediary.

I like this thought because it appeals to my sense of democracy, or in fact communism if I think about it more deeply. The network becomes more democratised with the removal of the aforementioned hierarchical intermediaries, meaning there’s no real privileged node in a distributed network- perhaps the ‘dictator node’. As a result, the little things can exert the same amount of influence as the conventionally better connected/established intermediaries.

Every one is equal ala’ communism, but some nodes may be more equal than others.

Another way of modelling my thinking on this idea of a ‘distributed network’ could be thinking about a moshpit (like the photo in the reading). Earlier this year I had the pleasure of seeing Flume at Groove in the Moo. He seemed like a lovely, down to earth chap who was really good at spinning phat beats, I know because I was up the front of the pit and basically on speaking terms with the guy. The greatest thing about being short and female is the ease and agility you naturally feel when trying to get closer to the front at concerts, no one really cares if you go in front of them since it will not impact upon their line of vision. Anyway, summoning on this talent turned out quite bad for me because the front of a mosh pit is often the rowdiest and most rough, especially with an artist like Flume (sad because he was lovely). It only took one person to push someone for a whole row of people to fall to the ground, such was the very democratic network we all had going on in such close proximity. Yes, we fell like dominos. Not because there were 10 burly blokes with a thirst for moshing, conspiring against anyone there who just wanted to dance, but one male or even female audience member who for whatever reason thought it might be a laff to push. Flume was still great, but there are mega pitfalls to distributed networks, and I see its democratic features as one of them in some scenarios!

I usually like to begin my reading reflections with a speedy Margaret and Davidesque comment on how much I enjoyed the text. This one was a handy break from some of the abstract stuff we’ve come into contact with lately, setting out to define some key words in Media Theory like ‘Technology’, ‘Culture’ and ‘techniques’. However, as shady media academics so often do in an introduction (now that I’ve read a few tomes in my two years at uni), Murphy and Potts don’t offer alot of quaint, succinct definitions for us to sink our teeth into and whack on a cue card. It’s not because they are failing at the task they set out to do, they really are just trying to illustrate to the reader that these are concepts monumentally difficult to define in mere words. They are quite fluxical, their meaning dependent upon different historical and reception contexts among a myriad of other things the dudes will discuss later on in their book.

So sneaky, but so thought provoking.

Murphy and Potts are in favour of applying a wide range of theoretical perspectives to recent technological advancements. I quite like this eclectic approach to media theory, the guys aren’t participating in a process of academic ‘fetishization’, narrowing the rich tapestry of life down to a particular, idealised theory (probs of their own making)/fishnet stocking if you get my drift.

They analyse the cultural expression of technology in the sci fi genre, something we have more than sashayed into in Networked Media this semester. I’ve already discussed how interesting I find the genre commenting upon social and technological advancements, Blade Runner’s dystopian future over run by Eastern Culture stuns me each time I watch it in the full knowledge that our economic (at least) future is in the East and this piece of design fiction could easily exist when my Grand Kids are old enough to drink.

I can also think of another genre which loved to comment upon technology’s role in society. The reading brings up the Romantic artists definition of culture as the positive dimension of civilised societies, where the industrial revolutionary muck was seen as more dehumanising and uncouth. How funny though, this very industrial muck is technology itself. Here, the genre is seen to reject technology, labelling it the uncouth ‘man forged Manacles’ of Willliam Blake’s hallucinations/poems. However, Sci Fi appears to celebrate technology a bit more, glorifying it and using it as a source of a gazillion imaginative possibilities. I’m wondering if our current cultural expression of technology is a positive one?

Culture is a term so difficult to define that it’s conflicted nature revives continuous reincarnations of ‘subcultures’, who can be very interesting, entertaining if you are Rick Mayall and you decide to write a comedy series about 4 of them trying to live together and it is the early 80s (I was raised on the young ones) or hilarious (see furry fandom, one directioners or the bottom steps of flinders st station).

 

 

First off, I could not get the pitch perfect sound bite out of my mind as I read this reading…

In ‘The Seventh Link- Rich get Richer’  Barabasi explores the 2 fundamental laws of Network Evolution: Growth and Preferential Attachment.

The first law is explained thoughtfully through his assertion that the only thing all networks have in common is their constant, incremental growth through the addition of new nodes (which would be hard for Brittany Snow to do in Pitch Perfect as she has them removed). We cannot think of nodes as static, they are unpredictable, empowered parts of a whole. I love this idea but it is not new to me after what we have studied so far in this semester.

Preferential Attachment places the things in a network with most links to them as in prime, prominent position within the system. That is, the way something establishes prominence in the network is it’s ability to garner a heap of links, forming a ‘hub’ or a convergence of nodes.

This idea is especially true on sites like Pirate Bay. I’ve heard that the most popular torrents on the site (which I just heard of today) are the ones which have been ‘seeded’ the most number of times. There is apparently even a quick way of showing the most popular ones if you just press the ‘SE’ title of the seeder column. Thus, users participate in preferential attachment as the credibility of torrents are usually associated by a high number of ‘links’ or ‘seeds’ in this case. Of course, you wouldn’t always get dodgy content if you clicked on a link which had a low amount of seeders (though often you absolutley do, I’ve heard) but there are just too many advantages of going with the most popular option. Significantly, going with the most linked option ensures the most efficient and fast download too as there are so many others in the act of ‘torrenting’ in the swarm- making links in their own special way.

Hubs are simply more efficient and less likely to give you a weird virus.

 

 

Once again, what a crazy week.

Did my first ever piece of professional networking which involved an exchange of business cards with a guy from the ‘StigmaWatch’ independent body. As an comms intern on a mental health campaign, a cursory knowledge of the restrictions, stigma and regulation journos face on the reportage of mental health issues and suicide just won’t cut it. It’s a murky idea, selling ‘stories’ to as fodder for journos, if those stories are as personal and gut wrenching as the ones I have heard however the only way to get outlets interested is presenting a human vessel for the story- which is why I’m heading up our ‘Everyday Ambassador’ program.

Got obsessed with the Youtube series, ‘The Most Popular Girls in School’ in my down time. It is genius, and so so funny. I’m currently also rehearsing for a play where I play a robot attempting to impersonate an old woman. The robot chooses three references from popular culture and flits between them with every line they deliver. The present references are

Witchy Poo/The Hag (voiced as Rachel Tiece from The Most Popular Girls in School)

Maggie Smith in Downton Abbey

Sylvia Fine from The Nanny

These are of course limited by being the only impressions I’m really good at doing, and since getting into TMPGiS I am perfecting my Rachel Tice voice. I’m using this vid as a ref:

Thus, I am too busy this week to attend to the unlecture and I’m annoyed about it,but I must ensure I am still getting money to fund my Marvellous Creations habit

Barabasi’s 80/20 rule:

Four fifths/80% of something results in 20% of something else…. 80% of Italy’s land is owned by 20% of the population, 80% of profits are garnered by 20% of employees…..

Major take away ideas

1. From little things, big things grow

Kathy McGowan, Independent candidate for Indi has been using this as her mantra, an explanation of how a grass roots campaign against Sophie Mirabella, who has long held the seat, could possibly cause a huge upset… We’ll know by this afternoon who wins but it looks like McGowan will oust Mirabella.

2. Figures do not always reflect what seems logical

It would seem more logical if 80% effort translated to a more equal effect, ie. 80% of profit garnered by only 20% of workforce doesn’t seem to add up. It would be a more perfect world if a large proportion of something was represented somehow in an effect. This is why The Age ran with the headline ‘Afghanistan Cabinet has more women’ this morning. Though half the population is female, only 1 member of cabinet holds this title. How could this possibly mean the democratic value of ‘one vote one value’ was possibly upheld in this idiotic representation? Figures of course do not always reflect what seems the most logical reality, thus the 80/20 rule rings particularly true when we get unfavourable results like these.

 

For our transmedia wiki entry we thought the Week 5 Landow reading was pretty cool.

We loved Landlow’s discussion of the adaptation of Samuel Pepys 17th Century diaries into a blog entry, enabling his work to be more accessible and relevant to modern audiences. This is a great example of how texts can be adapted via blogging, and reminds me lots of the 2012 web series ‘The Lizzie Bennet Diaries’. I watched this religiously last year because I thought the diaries were a fantastic way for people who studied P & P in Year 10 Lit and kind of hated it to delve back in to an important text. This was certainly the case with me, I read P&P for school and was like ‘jesus Jane stop with your long dissertations on the weather at Pemberly’. I love literature, but I didn’t really get why this was such an important text, particularly to feminism. I thought Lydia was an idiot and Jane (Bennet) was boring as heck. In the end I just watched the BBC Mini Series and then Bridget Jones.

But the web series really made me think. Unfortunately, I realised, in this case I might be one of those silly gen Ys who can’t respect anything that isn’t made relevant to them! The series ingeniously threads together the story of P&P in a modern context. Lizzie does the videos as part of an integrated media Masters she is undertaking alongside Charlotte Liu, her asian bff who ends up becoming a ‘partner’ at Mr Collins’ digital media company ‘Collins & Collins’. Lydia is your average party animal, who like every teen gal makes dumb decisions and goes out with silly guys. The coolest part of it all was that you could follow all the characters online through twitter, facebook and instagram. Who could forget the moment Gigi (Georgiana) Darcy followed Lizzie on twitter, the pics Lizzie put up on instagram of her lunch date with Darcy and the moment Kitty Bennet debuted as a literal Cat.

The series absolutely blew up and birthed the ‘welcome to Sanditon’ (an unpublished Austen manucript) series which I believe is a more intricate social media adventure built around an app the creators built called ‘Domino’ and another series on ‘Emma’ is coming soon.

How exciting is the capacity to combat anachronism in literature by bringing disaffected ex lit students back into the literary fold through social media!

I might try it soon, I’ve already made a short film based on Oscar Wilde’s work called ‘Wilde Thing’, recontextualising his plays in a girls high school. Think Mean Girls vs. The Importance of Being Earnest to The Troggs.

Just imagine, twitter would have been perfect for Oscar whose epigrams would have definitely fit into 140 characters or less.

 

 

Ghetto Throney fabulous Sophie Turner, a girl who kept her character’s direwolf as a pet after its death on the show. Sophie, Versace look chain, husky puppy- what could be more beauteous?

As stated before, the intricacies of life being explained by science doesn’t always sit to well with me.

1) because I am not a science person at all and…

2) I’m a philosophy student constantly lectured about the short comings of predicting or representing the world through pure patterns and grids.

It’s interesting that Watts notes my second trepidation a bit in his discussion of the ‘holes’ in scientific research every grad student loves to stumble across. He says there are so many theories and studies of the impact of networks in all sorts of disciplines, but there is actually not a lot of research into how they really work and why such patterns do occur in the first place. It seems like it’s all more focused upon the effect, rather than the fundamental cause of things. His research seems to investigate whether it is really useful or justified to cordon life off into mathematically sound patterns, or are there some things so chaotic and ‘weird’ that we just can’t conclusively explain them using science as our secret weapon.

Watts asks very thought provoking questions in the reading about the nature of the composition of networks, such as…

If reducing the effect of damage to individual elements meant a global meltdown, how does individual behaviour aggregate to collective behaviour?

Honestly, in light of the election result there has got to be something in asking that. Might Australians have a governing queen bee telling them what to do? Or are their responses to political advertising merely unpredictable and totally independent of any other part of the system?

Depends on your personal feelings about the result I guess.

I love the discussion of how the parts making up the whole don’t sum up in any simple fashion, rather they interact with each other and in interacting, even quite simple components can generate bewildering effects.

The bewildering effect being Clive Palmer winning an LNP safe seat of 23 years (Fairfax)? Through his interaction with the pop culture reference of Miley Cyrus at the VMAs?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NuVgMLNhFuc

 

Unfortunately will not be able to make it to Unsymposium #4 tomorrow due to an interview.

As a side note, my god I am too busy for my own good.

My class was the one directing the questions this week, so it’s pretty annoying that I won’t get them answered. I like the idea of having preplanned questions in the unlectures, I made a few muddled suggestions in class last time which were collaboratively rephrased for the lecture tomorrow, so I think it’s great that we’ve got some clear concise zingers to ask. The QandA style of the unlectures is great, but I’d never want to duplicate the moments on the show where someone can’t quite furnish a question clearly and it’s awks for all involved (Tony has to step in and save the day).

I’m sure no one in the room would want to be in the same sich as the pastor was when K Rudd rolled him… so thought and consideration is key in formulating our questions I feel.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GHigpzXNqeA