The most interesting aspect of Sabine Niederer’s Networked images: visual methodologies for the digital age was this idea of  “digital cultures” (Niederer 2018, p.9), and while the idea of that term isn’t foreign to me, the term was until now.

When I think about a culture, I think about a collection of ideas, beliefs and people coming together to celebrate and connect. Cultures have their own religious beliefs, sense of humour, likes and dislikes; things that people can identify with.

The idea of a digital culture works the same way. Groups of like-minded individuals coming together on the web to embrace their similarities, whether that be on social media, forums or other areas of the internet. And within these cultures, internet or otherwise, comes a similar vernacular, often built within the community.

Niederer discusses how specific social media sites contain their own vernacular and language, such as how people who use Twitter operate within a ‘visual language’ of ‘in the moment’ conversations and quips (Niederer 2018, p. 23), and have invented and popularised terms such as Tweeting and Reposting. In our split class discussions, we pondered if the term tweet was intended to blow up by the creators of Twitter, or if the audience and users of Twitter embraced the term way beyond the expectations of the creators. A little off topic, but just something I found super interesting.

Now that I am familiar with the term, I feel like I’ve been heavily involved with digital cultures and their vernacular and language throughout my life. I vividly remember late nights at home playing Minecraft with friends over Skype when I was younger, and the terms we would use such as ‘no griefing zones’ and ‘mod ban’ that meant literally nothing to anyone but us and our server.  Or the group chats my friends and I have with nicknames and inside jokes that only we can make sense of because of a niche moment in our lives.

Digital culture and vernacular dominates our society, whether we consciously know it or not, and I think this idea of social media specific terms and phrases will be crucial in discussing the class prompt later on in the course.

References

Niederer, S 2018, Networked images: visual methodologies for the digital age. Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences, Amsterdam. (read pp.1-20)