{"id":21,"date":"2012-01-20T05:32:51","date_gmt":"2012-01-20T05:32:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.scu.edu\/graceogata\/?p=21"},"modified":"2012-01-20T21:00:54","modified_gmt":"2012-01-20T21:00:54","slug":"facebook-and-youtube-and-wordpress-oh-my","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.scu.edu\/graceogata\/2012\/01\/20\/facebook-and-youtube-and-wordpress-oh-my\/","title":{"rendered":"Facebook, and Youtube, and WordPress, OH MY!"},"content":{"rendered":"

Just the other day, I was talking to one of my friends about Xanga. I remember setting up my first Xanga page in 7th grade and thought that it was the coolest thing ever…I would be able to tell people about my life and post pictures. Flash forward to today: Facebook. In today’s world, social networking and self-expression via the Internet play a role in every day life. In fact, this blog entry itself is just that. In his novel The Cult of the Amateur: How Today’s Internet is Killing Our Culture<\/a>, <\/em>Andrew Keen critiques the world-wide fascination surrounding the digital world, from Youtube to Facebook to Blogs. Andrew Keen, despite his critiques, is a well-known presence on the Internet. He hosts his own Internet show, “Keen On,” where he comments and interviews about technology and culture. Most recently, he wrote\u00a0\u00a0\u201cDIGITAL VERTIGO: How Social Networks Are Destroying Our Privacy, Eroding Our Freedom and Distorting Our Identities\u201d<\/a>, <\/em>which will be released later this year.<\/p>\n

Many of us would like to believe that this new digital age, Web 2.0, is a good thing that promotes self-expression and democratization. Keen, however, strongly argues that this new age has a very dark side. According to Keen, web 2.0 has strongly undermined intellectual property because of file sharing sites that get millions of views per day. Keen also touches on how the internet, particularly through Youtube, rewards people for their stupidity. In fact, some of the most famous Youtube videos include people engaging in idiotic brawls or running over their foot while “Ghost-riding.”<\/p>\n

In his “Keen On” interview<\/a>\u00a0with Simon Reynolds, author of Retromania, Keen discusses how the internet has negatively affected the music industry. As Reynolds argues, today’s generation feels as if they don’t have to pay for music. While many of us may occasionally illegally download a song or two, many of us still do use iTunes or Rhapsody to purchase music. Earlier generations had no choice but to purchase a CD or a record in a store, but with technology today, it is much easier to get music other ways, sometimes without paying. Some artists may argue that the Internet is “hurting” them, but many others would gladly thank the Internet for their success. Through Twitter and other social networking sites, musicians are able to communicate with their fans and maintain a strong image. Even earlier this week when the SOPA blackout was happening, not very many artists supported the organization. In my opinion, just because an artist is not getting paid for all of his or her songs, it doesn’t mean that they are a failure.<\/p>\n

Although I think that Keen makes some interesting points, I think that his tone throughout the book is condescending toward those who use the Internet for the purposes that he criticizes, a group of people who include you and myself. In fact, at the end of the book, Keen goes on a rant about the immoral acts that he believes are promoted by the Internet, including pornography and gambling. And although there are a lot of Youtube videos that we might think to be dumb, there are also many that are brilliant and extremely entertaining. While the music industry has lost money because of file sharing, hundreds of artists, like Justin Bieber, have been discovered thanks to the Internet. We need to stop using money as a measure of success or failure. The Internet provides us an emotional outlet and ironically in most cases, hiding behind a computer allows us to be our true selves.<\/p>\n

_______________________________________________________________<\/p>\n

Click here<\/a> to visit Andrew Keen’s website.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Just the other day, I was talking to one of my friends about Xanga. I remember setting up my first Xanga page in 7th grade and thought that it was the coolest thing ever…I would be able to tell people … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":38,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"qubely_global_settings":"","qubely_interactions":"","kk_blocks_editor_width":"","_kiokenblocks_attr":"","_kiokenblocks_dimensions":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-21","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"gutentor_comment":1332,"qubely_featured_image_url":null,"qubely_author":{"display_name":"Grace","author_link":"https:\/\/blogs.scu.edu\/graceogata\/author\/graceogata\/"},"qubely_comment":1332,"qubely_category":"Uncategorized<\/a>","qubely_excerpt":"Just the other day, I was talking to one of my friends about Xanga. I remember setting up my first Xanga page in 7th grade and thought that it was the coolest thing ever…I would be able to tell people … Continue reading →","post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.scu.edu\/graceogata\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.scu.edu\/graceogata\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.scu.edu\/graceogata\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.scu.edu\/graceogata\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/38"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.scu.edu\/graceogata\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.scu.edu\/graceogata\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.scu.edu\/graceogata\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21\/revisions\/24"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.scu.edu\/graceogata\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.scu.edu\/graceogata\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.scu.edu\/graceogata\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}