4: White Flight in Networked Publics?

“Neither social media nor its users are colorblind simply because technology is present. The internet mirrors and magnifies everyday life, making visible many of the issues we hoped would disappear, including race and class-based social divisions in American society,” concludes danah boyd, eccentric scholar and author of White Flight in Networked Publics? How Race and Class Shaped American Teen Engagement with MySpace and Facebook. No doubt about it, that’s a powerful and quasi-disturbing thought, especially considering we are only in the very early stages of a burgeoning academic study of the Internet and our interactions on it.

Those of us born in the 1990s have lived with a semi-modern form of the Internet since the moment we’ve been capable of using it (back when dial-up still made that neat noise, that sounded like a transmission from an alien civilization), and yet I’d posit that we take for granted how impacted our lives are. I certainly still think of it as a supplement to 21st century life, something that facilitates most of our daily transgressions, and often even a plaything, void of serious implications or consequences. Already, I see that perspective may be antiquated, since I find myself among those who hold the “techno-utopian belief that the Internet will once and for all eradicate inequality and social divisions,” (boyd 36) as boyd puts it.

A patchwork of references and supporting examples litter boyd’s main argument, which hinges on the migration of MySpace users to Facebook as a modern analogue to white flight from the cities to the suburbs in the post-World War II era. Facebook users are perceived as the sleek, educated, cultured crowd, whereas MySpace users are perceived as blingy and gaudy. boyd reserves little in exploring pervasive stereotypes by way of a number of quips derived from interviews with teenagers, illuminating language used to disparage MySpace as full of racial and class-referential undertones.

To some extent, I believe her argument holds water because she restricts it to social media. I stated earlier that I fit into a group that believes in “techno-utopia”; that’s likely because I’m a part of the discussion forum and online gaming micro-generation, where anonymity was just a matter of being able to write properly. Before social media profiles, improper grammar and poor spelling were perceived as a function of carelessness, or possibly, stupidity. But transparency was limited — forums allowed the use of a number of proprietary avatars rather than webcam photos as part of one’s profile, for example. For the most part, there was no interest in maintaining any kind of image or upholding a reputation, rather it was just a matter of conversation. The foundation of boyd’s argument doesn’t rest well on turn-of-the-century style web activity, which is probably the source of the techno-utopian viewpoint.

The typical user profile has changed drastically since the early 2000s, though. Even on discussion forums that used to adhere to anonymity as a general principle, there is far greater encouragement to share personal information. It’s easy to fall victim to stereotypes when a poorly-worded status update, coupled with a profile photo of a cute girl with a fake tan or a guy slouching under the weight of the gold chains draped around his neck apparently validates our suspicions. In that case, not only do I agree with boyd, but it seems…obvious? That said, I doubt many techno-utopians would stick by their guns in 2012, since social media has totally redefined the purposes of the Internet. As our online presence becomes more closely allied with our material persona, the inherent social problems we don’t yet credit web society with will likely become more apparent because they depend on that material persona. We’re not reinventing anything except the geographic nature of problems of racism or class.