Category Archives: Networked Media

For the Love of Blog

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As I slowly begin to question the purpose and meaning of a blog, so does the fabric that holds this subject together in my mind begin to fray.

Over a week ago I broke a few rules I’d set for myself in regards to this blog: I let it get personal. I swore. I let some stuff come to light. If you are really curious, give it a read. You’d probably be wise not to.

Anyway, does this compromise the goals of Networked Media? Or is this the goal of Networked Media? I just don’t know. Does anyone else reach this point in a time frame in which the factors that dictate what that time frame is and where it starts and ends and why it’s there stop making sense? It might just be the vagueness of a ‘blog’ as a record of participation. Yes, this is about Networked Media, but how much is it about Networked Media?

Essentially, you could replace the phrase with anything – Laplace Transform, for example – and you have a completely different subject matter that still makes sense. It just doesn’t make sense! Why do we blog? I thought it was an obvious way of showing that we are taking part in this subject, actively, outside of labs and unlectures. Yet, I’ve put up some uber-depressing post about intensely personal stuff, and is that still relevant? Have I broken some rules that weren’t my own? Am I allowed to do this?

You say we have free reign over the content of our blogs, but we don’t. What we do will be commented upon and judged, sometimes moderated. I can fill a post with racial slurs and homophobic threats, not that I would want to. But doesn’t that make this as reductive as any other form of media?

I’m so tired right now. I’ve been editing for like four hours and my brain is very, very dead.

253

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Ew. I’ve glanced at ‘253’ by Geoff Ryman, and I admit I’m intrigued.

I needed a real hypertext, and though the layout is simplistic, the point comes across. There are 253 people on this train, each with a present and a past, all heading to the same future (if you skip ahead). It’s surprisingly good to read, and certainly evocative. I certainly didn’t expect that kind of ending, though really I should have.

I was taken by how… over-the-top it is. There is so much drama on one train, so many stories in the lives of its passengers. It’s pretty tragic, and pretty… well, pretty.

But it’s not as enthralling as it wants to be. Sadly, I only read a handful of the entries, and I guess that’s the doom of this story. Oddly enough, I’m somewhat sure it was the point of the story as well, the ability to jump from person to person at will, from the snippet of the train journey we see to the catastrophic end and back again, but once the ending is apparent, once the story has an its conclusion the middle doesn’t seem as important. Sadly, in a story like this that culminates in one major event because of one major failure, the lives of those affected are not overly relevant. One character caused this, and yet we get 252 others to look at.

Yes, I realise we must acknowledge those who suffer because of the one, but we are unfortunately given the choice, and right now I just don’t feel like it. Does that make me a bad person?

Yeah, I guess so. Unfortunately, this narrative has also made me see that perhaps my own hypertext story is a bit stupid. I don’t really like them, why should I try and create my own?

For those who want to give it a go, the story begins here: http://www.ryman-novel.com/

I Cross The Desert

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I’m oft-described as an over-dramatic little sod. Seriously, like my entire life I’ve condescended into procedural episodes akin to a horrible television show that’s been on for far too many seasons. And yet, nothing’s really happened.

This season – 2013 – so far has been like season six of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. It’s trying to be funny, but it’s weighed down by all the depressing crap and by the fact that the main character is devoid of any passion or drive. Really, it’s gone. I just want to crawl into a hole and die sometimes, but for the most part I’d find that boring, and I don’t like boring.

The bane of my existence right now is EVERYTHING, but to keep it relevant to this subject it’s NETWORKED MEDIA. THIS BLOG. My God, this blog, I loved the idea a few weeks ago, but now this subject has thrown a few handfuls of sand in my face and still wants me to play ball with it. I’m so tired, though. I just don’t care.

Back to the TV metaphor, if Networked Media was a story arc, I’d say I was now in the middle of it, drudging through foreign, barren lands trying to find something, anything, that will bring back my ability to give a damn. Maybe a giant space leech will attack me, and I’ll over power it with my telekinesis or something, and then I’ll be able to rise above the space leech’s carcass with a surge of power and strength, that extra burst of self confidence and self assurance that will get me to the end of the semester. I need an epiphany, something that reminds why this blog matters. Why this subject matters. Why this degree matters.

It doesn’t make me happy. Should it?

There’s always a dilemma, something that gets an arc going. One of my favourite books is Atonement, because it deconstructs the way that a story unfolds by featuring a young girl – Briony – who turns her everyday life into an over-dramatic story, describing the world in bold, emotional words and making the smallest of interactions grand, romantic gestures. I’m like that. Ok, I’m not a little English girl, but I dramatise. The easiest way to understand the world is to see it like a television character. Some people say ‘what would Jesus do?’, I say ‘What would Buffy do?’, or maybe Ben Linus, Michael Bluth, Veronica Mars or Malcolm Reynolds. You know, people that aren’t real. They are who really matter.

Row, row, row your boat

Gently down the stream

Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily

Life is but a dream

I don’t feel any better. I’m just… tired. Anxious. Bored. Lethargic. A bit patronized. Conceited. Stupid. Patronizing, I’m told. Angry. Always, angry.

But if the world wasn’t always so dreary I wouldn’t have to be angry.

CHEER UP, WORLD, GODDAMN IT.