Here's the thing. I read, a whole lot. And I'm not just talking about all the Google Reader and Gawker action I get into at work. I mean actual, hard-cover books, magazines, and piles of newspapers. I believe that I am single-handedly keeping the print industry alive.
I always want to tell people about these things that I read, but my A.D.D. (I'm convinced I have it) prevents me from doing so.
So, here you go. A first stab at a KVB book review.
Super Sad True Love Story, by Gary Shteyngart
Set in post-literate America, (with a beginning in Rome), this story follows sad old(er) man Lenny and the purported love of his life, 24-year-old boyish-bodied, shallow and retail-addicted Eunice. To be brief, it has elements of books like The Giver and Brave New World, but in a world that is much more familiar to us. Many things strike me as frightening in this book - but, knowing me, I'm probably not scared at the normal things.
What should frighten me is that, in this book, the United States is in the shitter. We're deeply in debt to China. The dollar is pegged to the yuan and therefore almost meaningless, the mashup of the Department of Homeland Security and TSA (here called the American Restorative Authority) is more invasive than ever, and there are massive Halliburton-like companies involved in intricate government conspiracies.
This should frighten me, but because the only political science class I took was the one that all the athletes took, it doesn't bother me as much as the other aspect of post-literate America depicted here.
Ready? Here it is. In this book, people communicate largely by apparat, small electronic devices that cool and trendy people wear around their necks. (Older, less hip people have more obsolete tablet-like models.) Their data streams (including credit scores and things like "Male Hotness" and "Fuckability" levels) are easily viewed by the people in their immediate vicinity, and comments made on these levels are instantly connected to your personal data stream. Lenny has a hard time dealing with all this, and would prefer to read actual books, but has to keep up appearances with all the young people at his office, so he tries very hard to read all the data he can. Everything you could ever need is on these apparat devices, from news to work alerts. (Start sounding familiar?) People broadcast their lives without paying attention to the people who are physically there. Young women ignore their friends and browse online shops all day. Everyone is consumed by their technology.
Terrifying, right? And I'm not even getting into the (truly a bit odd) love story bit.
What the NY Times Book Review said: "In recounting the story of Lenny and Eunice in his antic, supercaffeinated prose, Mr. Shteyngart gives us his most powerful and heartfelt novel yet — a novel that performs the delightful feat of mashing up an apocalyptic satire with a genuine supersad true love story."
What I say: It made me want to live without my iPhone, Facebook, Twitter, or a computer for a week. (Clearly didn't last very long, but you get my drift.)
Showing posts with label Social Media. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Social Media. Show all posts
Wednesday, January 19, 2011
Sunday, April 20, 2008
What? TV doesn't portray reality? No way...
I am experiencing a lull in my Netflix queue. Nothing's leaving and nothing new is getting to me. There is only one explanation for this: I currently have at home all 3 discs of the first season of Greek.
The ABC Family series, currently in the second part of its first season, follows the lives of a group of college students in different (fictional) fraternities and sororities at the fictional Cyprus-Rhodes University. Real-life Greek students seem to be split on the issue. At the outset, I was against the idea of a show about Greek life that uses a red keg cup as its logo. But one "maybe I'll just watch one episode to see how bad it is" viewing spurred more. And now I'm hooked.
But this is not a post about how the show misrepresents fraternities and sororities, as I could go on forever about details big and small that they get wrong--and, sometimes, right. The show is true to life in the sense that in any Greek community, there will be people that go to the extreme with the party lifestyle, and there will be people who live in moderation.
However. The show gets something wrong on not only in portraying Greeks, but simply in portraying modern college students.
Cell phones and texting are only minimally shown. Computers are only used in an academic sense. No one uses any form of instant messaging, or even vaguely references the Internet. Social media doesn't even seem to exist. And how realistic is that?!
From what I've seen, college students are always communicating in some form that does not necessarily include face-to-face contact. And sometimes, they are talking face-to-face AND communicating to someone else in another manner. They are connected to each other in dozens of ways, and Greek just doesn't ring true to me in that aspect. And if you ask me, the writers are missing out on some great potential plot twists. Why not have the dean find out about an illegal function via Twitter, or a ZBZ sister get dumped on Facebook? Situations like that happen in real collegiate and Greek life, so why not show it on TV?
Gotta go. The new episode is on.
The ABC Family series, currently in the second part of its first season, follows the lives of a group of college students in different (fictional) fraternities and sororities at the fictional Cyprus-Rhodes University. Real-life Greek students seem to be split on the issue. At the outset, I was against the idea of a show about Greek life that uses a red keg cup as its logo. But one "maybe I'll just watch one episode to see how bad it is" viewing spurred more. And now I'm hooked.
But this is not a post about how the show misrepresents fraternities and sororities, as I could go on forever about details big and small that they get wrong--and, sometimes, right. The show is true to life in the sense that in any Greek community, there will be people that go to the extreme with the party lifestyle, and there will be people who live in moderation.
However. The show gets something wrong on not only in portraying Greeks, but simply in portraying modern college students.
Cell phones and texting are only minimally shown. Computers are only used in an academic sense. No one uses any form of instant messaging, or even vaguely references the Internet. Social media doesn't even seem to exist. And how realistic is that?!
From what I've seen, college students are always communicating in some form that does not necessarily include face-to-face contact. And sometimes, they are talking face-to-face AND communicating to someone else in another manner. They are connected to each other in dozens of ways, and Greek just doesn't ring true to me in that aspect. And if you ask me, the writers are missing out on some great potential plot twists. Why not have the dean find out about an illegal function via Twitter, or a ZBZ sister get dumped on Facebook? Situations like that happen in real collegiate and Greek life, so why not show it on TV?
Gotta go. The new episode is on.
Monday, April 7, 2008
Do Social Media Make You Schizophrenic?
Right now on Facebook, I "had a perfect spring term weekend."
On AIM, I'm "finance project, then dinner out with ali"
On Twitter, I'm " Blogging about social media kind of feels like a form of existentialism. I think."
On LinkedIn, I'm struggling to find a job.
And I have an entirely different personality on Blogger, mainly because I'm allowed way more characters.
As social media continue to explode, we suddenly have dozens, sometimes even hundreds, of different ways to express who we are. I'm not even going to list all of the ways social networks allow today's consumer to display information, because there are just way too many. But as a student of social media, it is interesting to note the different ways people tweak their personalities depending on which social medium they are using.
For me, Facebook is strictly for my friends, and people in my immediate (in real life) social circle. My status frequently includes current song lyrics that reflect my mood or plans, details about what I'm doing that week/weekend, or shout-outs to friends on their birthdays. AIM is the same, just a free way to talk to many people at once. My buddy list is solely people I know and have reason to talk to on a regular basis. My away messages, then, are pretty similar to my Facebook statuses-- what I'm doing, when I'm doing it, and how I'm feeling.
But I conduct myself differently in different areas of the Internet. I just started using Twitter, and I've found it more interesting to "follow" people I don't actually know, but who share my interests. With only 140 characters to craft your statement, it feels less creepy to follow someone via Twitter than to follow them on Facebook, with its over-sharing capabilities. So my "tweets" generally have more to do with what's happening in my chosen industry than anything about my emotions. And on LinkedIn, I'm just trying to job hunt, so I limit myself to professional information.
Managing all this information about myself can be daunting, and it does feel as if I have multiple personalities. Does anyone else feel this way? Is there a way that companies could capitalize on this in any way? Definitely good questions for the Web 2.0 age.
On AIM, I'm "finance project, then dinner out with ali"
On Twitter, I'm " Blogging about social media kind of feels like a form of existentialism. I think."
On LinkedIn, I'm struggling to find a job.
And I have an entirely different personality on Blogger, mainly because I'm allowed way more characters.
As social media continue to explode, we suddenly have dozens, sometimes even hundreds, of different ways to express who we are. I'm not even going to list all of the ways social networks allow today's consumer to display information, because there are just way too many. But as a student of social media, it is interesting to note the different ways people tweak their personalities depending on which social medium they are using.
For me, Facebook is strictly for my friends, and people in my immediate (in real life) social circle. My status frequently includes current song lyrics that reflect my mood or plans, details about what I'm doing that week/weekend, or shout-outs to friends on their birthdays. AIM is the same, just a free way to talk to many people at once. My buddy list is solely people I know and have reason to talk to on a regular basis. My away messages, then, are pretty similar to my Facebook statuses-- what I'm doing, when I'm doing it, and how I'm feeling.
But I conduct myself differently in different areas of the Internet. I just started using Twitter, and I've found it more interesting to "follow" people I don't actually know, but who share my interests. With only 140 characters to craft your statement, it feels less creepy to follow someone via Twitter than to follow them on Facebook, with its over-sharing capabilities. So my "tweets" generally have more to do with what's happening in my chosen industry than anything about my emotions. And on LinkedIn, I'm just trying to job hunt, so I limit myself to professional information.
Managing all this information about myself can be daunting, and it does feel as if I have multiple personalities. Does anyone else feel this way? Is there a way that companies could capitalize on this in any way? Definitely good questions for the Web 2.0 age.
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