Over the last few weeks in my Rhetorics and Politics class we have been redefining the idea of power and governance, and it’s control over our everyday life. Instantly the rhetorics of community came into discussion, with the ideas that an individual has the right and responsibility to rule over oneself so how should and is that challenged subconsciously. Stephan Baker’s (Baker, S. (2008) ‘Introduction’ in S. Baker, Numerati: How They’ll Get My Number and Yours, London, Jonathon Cape, pp.1-16.) idea of big data in media is that “once they have a bead on our data, they can decode our desires…. and sell us exactly what we’re hankering for”, illuminating the ways media companies – especially those involved in ‘big data’ analysis – can personalise our own computers, dress rehearsing consumerism with real life consumption.

An example of such is Apple, where millions of people fell in love with their product’s due to their ability to amplify personal taste and preference within the sleek framework of an aluminum skeleton. Being able to accessorise our phones, laptops, backgrounds, contacts, search bars, emails, the size of our font or what we want our own phone to actually refer to us as, delivers a sense of overall governance and access to a product that is exclusively your own, where you’re the only person that knows its vip passcodes. However, we were also aware that the world of Apple is a matrix of continuous products, and that all this personalisation which makes us feel ‘individual’ would would be collected, assessed, and used to ma general inquiries that would lead its direction for years to come. What does it mean that society would rather consume products that help affirm sets of self-esteem through the ability to personalise, then protect their own privacy. Why is our need for more and the new, and to redefine that which we previously had a constant  yet neglected thought, which is getting more and more ‘datafied’ as we’re churning bits of our lives into symbols. Weird or whatever?