Remix Assignment

    To create my remix assignment, I used clips from lots of news shows, as well as a few short clips of stand-up comedy, to create a view on gay marriage.  The fair use law protects this because I only used small pieces of the original works and none of it is being used to hurt the commercial value of the original pieces. 
    I created a remix video out of existing material to make my statement because that was my assignment, and I would have failed the project if I'd just brought in a piece of paper with the words "YAY GAY MARRIAGE" scribbled on it.  But even if it hadn't been an assignment I would have tried it, because after spending five weeks hearing about remix culture, the advent of digital media and copyright law, read/write culture has become something that I believe in.  Society will become stagnant if we continue to stay a "read only" culture.  There's a whole generation of people with both a message and the means to get it out into the world like never before.  How can we try to censor those people, that creativity?  What might be lost if we get all hung up on "fair use" and "copyrights?"  This new wave of ultra-censorship is just as awful, just as limiting, as burning books.  We need to stop trying to control the past and just embrace this new form of art and all of its wonderful weirdness.

Ahhh!

I totally forgot to post my best discovery of the weekend in that last post, so here it is now.

YOU ARE NOT PREPARED.

Fun Stuff From The Internet!

Here's a couple of fun things I found while I was doing research for the latest project.

The greatest mash-up I've heard so far.

Brazilian Star Wars!

A whole bunch of pop songs from 2009 made into a single song.  Very cool.

Awesome Thing #2

I know this is a school blog and I'm getting pretty viciously off-topic, but I hope you enjoy this video of a small dog running around with a roman candle in its mouth.

Look How Cute This Seal Is!

WHERE ARE ITS LIMBS?

Freeeeedom!

Okay, so I have no idea what I'm going to do for this last project.

It's not that I haven't been thinking about it, because I have.  I'm just kind of freaked out by the amount of leeway we have on this project.  I know I'm an art school kid and therefore should be all excited about doing my own thing, but to be honest, having this much freedom on a school project kind of freaks me out.  I'm sure I'll figure something out eventually, but I'm having a hard time deciding where to even begin.  Maybe I'll just watch 30 hours of remixes and see if that inspires me.

Brainstorms:

• Ummm....
• Robots?
• Maybe something political?
• Gay marriage?  That seems like it's a thing at the moment.  Gotta stay relevant. 
• ...Bears? Something about bears?
• I don't know.

Don't call my name, don't call my name, Manifestoooooo.

"If remix is a crime, then we have a whole generation of criminals."

I loved this movie because it brought up a bunch of stuff that I'd only ever really been peripherally aware of before.  I'd heard vague things about how awful the RIAA is and how they were suing old people and kids for having songs illegally downloaded on their computers, but I'd never seen it all put out in the open before.  It made me feel all activist-y, like I wanted to start a fire or something. 

I know it sucks that people are stealing entire movies and albums and stuff, but I think it's ridiculous to counteract that by deleting millions of YouTube videos for copyright infringement just because they're using 30 seconds of a movie released 40 years ago.  Especially with the new-ish software that just scans and deletes videos for copyright infringement without being able to tell whether they're an entire movie or a clever remix.  Lots of really interesting, unique, wonderful stuff is being censored because these companies care more about money than art.  If thinking that's a ridiculous world to live in makes us criminals, then let us be criminals.

Random thoughts:

• Portuguese is a beautiful-sounding language even when they're talking about cannibalism.
• "You're a talented guy.  Why do you feel the need to take your pants off?"
• Cory Doctorow makes more than one reference to genitals in this video.
• I know the whole Napster thing happened like a decade ago, but I'm not done being disgusted by Lars Ulrich.  That ass.
• Girl Talk likes to crowd surf more than anyone I've ever seen. I guess when your entire act consists of hitting the "play" button on your laptop, you need to do something to fill the time.
• "We will send you a form and you can implicate your child." Good Lord.

Little Brother Book Review

There are a lot of things about Cory Doctorow's book Little Brother that I have trouble with.  The protagonist, for example.  Marcus Yallow is a whiny, entitled, l33t-speaking, snotty little high-schooler who creates his own problems and then gets all butthurt when he has to deal with the consequences of his actions.  I read the first several chapters excitedly, wondering when this guy was going to get his comeuppance, before it slowly dawned on me that this guy was the hero, the one we were supposed to be rooting for.  Without giving too much away, I will say that eventually you end up having to root for Marcus as the people he's fighting against descend further and further into the type of villainy that you normally only find in Saturday morning cartoons, but I held out as long as possible, hoping that someone more likable came along.
    Another issue is the pacing of the book.  Doctorow uses an unwieldy mix of fiction and fact, a technique that can yield impressive results when done correctly.  Unfortunately, it's not really done very well here, with the fictional story getting abruptly interrupted by pages and pages of marginally related technobabble.  It also makes me confused about who the target audience of the book is.  Most of the fictional stuff seems like it was written for high schoolers, but some of the technical stuff is dense and complicated enough that I just skipped over it after the third sentence that read something like "Just plug the QXF84 drives into the DIPHOS generator and then arphids!"  While Doctorow certainly provides thorough explanations of the technologies he uses in his book, as well as how to use them yourself, the descriptions he provides are probably too technical for the average high school student. 
    Despite all this, I didn't completely hate the book.  The first third of the story, which deals with a terrorist attack on San Francisco and a group of teenagers swept up by the overzealous security measures that follow, is actually pretty compelling.  There are still grey areas in this section, where it's still possible to rationalize the events of the story.  Doctorow has a tendency to get overexcited, though, so the characters get bigger and broader and less believable throughout the book until they're all practically just shrieking archetypes, the hero and the villain and the girlfriend and the parents becoming paint-by-numbers characters without leaving you much to remember them by. 
    If you are for some reason forced to read this book, it will not give you cancer.  It's not even going to be the worst thing you'll ever have to read, especially not if schools are still requiring you to read "The Pearl."  But all in all, my favorite thing about this book is that eventually it ended and then I didn't have to read it anymore.  Also, it's available for free on the internet (which is very cool, by the way.  10 points for Doctorow), so I didn't have to pay for it.  I guess it's kind of like a cake submerged in a swimming pool filled with fiberglass: it's got some interesting information and a good moral about protecting one's privacy, but you've got to wade through a lot of irritating things to get to it.

Little Draft

 Proposal:  I'd like to just write one extensive review, rather than trying to write several smaller reviews from different points of view.  However, I'd like my final draft to include more positive things about the book because the review I wrote turned out pretty overwhelmingly negative and there were things about the book that I didn't hate. Also, I'm going to add a little more about the book because I realized after finishing it that I don't really say anything at all about the story itself.  Ideally, the final product will be more polished and balanced.



     There are a lot of things about Cory Doctorow's book Little Brother that I have trouble with.  The protagonist, for example.  Marcus Yallow is a whiny, entitled, l33t-speaking, snotty little high-schooler who creates his own problems and then gets all butthurt when he has to deal with the consequences of his actions.  I read the first several chapters excitedly, wondering when this guy was going to get his comeuppance, before it slowly dawned on me that this guy was the hero, the one we were supposed to be rooting for.  Without giving too much away, I will say that eventually you end up having to root for Marcus as the people he's fighting against descend further and further into the type of villainy that you normally only find in Saturday morning cartoons, but I held out as long as possible.
    Another thing is the pacing of the book.  Doctorow uses an unwieldy mix of fiction and fact, a technique that can yield impressive results when done correctly.  Unfortunately, it's not really done very well here, with the fictional story getting abruptly interrupted by pages and pages of marginally related technobabble.  It also makes me confused about who the target audience of the book is.  Most of the fictional stuff seems like it was written for high schoolers, but some of the technical stuff is dense and complicated enough that I just skipped over it after the third sentence that read something like "Just plug the QXF84 drives into the DIPHOS generator and then arphids!"  While Doctorow certainly provides thorough explanations of the technologies he uses in his book, as well as how to use them yourself, the descriptions he provides are probably too technical for the average high school student. 
    All in all, my favorite thing about this book is that eventually it ended and then I didn't have to read it anymore.  Also, it's available for free on the internet, so I didn't have to pay for it.  Doctorow starts to craft what might have been an interesting story, but then he gets overexcited and takes away the grey zones that make the first third of the story compelling, and it's all downhill from there.
  

Look How Gross This Guy Is

Internet Debate

Dear Mr. Gladwell,

The problem I have with your argument is that you seem to discount the effectiveness of social media entirely.  Your argument seems to be that all social media is capable of forming is "weak ties" that don't allow for much serious activism to be effectively done, but what about the Egyptian revolution?  I realize that this didn't take place until after your article was written, and it's not technically fair to use what happens in the future against you, but I'm going to do it anyway.  Egypt shut down Facebook in order to keep revolutionaries from plotting against the government online, and then all hell broke loose.  You say the revolution will not be tweeted, but that's pretty much exactly what happened.

Also, Clay Shirky has an awesome name and looks like Tom Hanks and you should be nicer to him.   While I agree that his case that you bring up in your article is less revolution and more internet vigilantism, what about the way that Twitter was helping the Chinese rebel against their government?  When the country was hit with a massive earthquake, Twitter was the first to spread the word.  People were able to send donations and help to the victims specifically because people were putting stuff on Twitter more quickly than the Chinese government could suppress them.  How could the advent of digital media be seen as anything but a good thing?

While I agree that good, old-fashioned, take-to-the-streets activism will always have its place, I don't think you should be so quick to discount digital media as the future of getting people to stop being so miserable to one another.

Online Commerce

    The physical building that Airsplat operates out of doesn't look like much.  It's a warehouse, a small office, several rows of computers, and not much else.  But this unassuming building is the home of the largest supplier of Airsoft gear in the country, and an example of a company that could not flourish the way it does without the Internet.     Airsoft originated in Japan in the 1980s.  Guns were outlawed in Japan, but many people were still interested in them, so manufacturers started making realistic replicas of weapons that fired small, plastic BBs instead of bullets, creating a non-lethal weapon variant that looks and feels as much like the real thing as possible.  The guns were primarily either put on display, or else used in recreational combat simulations, similar to paintball.  Airsoft spread from Japan to other countries in Asia in the late 1980s, and by the early 90s it had arrived in North America.
    To me, however, the most interesting thing about Airsplat is the fact that it is an internet-based company.  To learn more, I talked to James Hedrick, a tech support employee.  Hedrick's job involves him writing and answering e-mails about the company, the airsoft guns and the general day-to-day activities of the staff and other workers, and it requires him to be at a computer all day, every day.
    "I don't think that this company could thrive the way it does without the online factor," Hedrick says.  "I mean, sure, you could publish catalogues and send them around the country, but being able to do everything through websites means that we can offer a much larger selection of things and get everything done much more quickly.  There's no waiting for the mail to come in every day with catalogue orders and support questions.  Everything is done instantaneously, and I think that that's what allowed this company to get as big as it is."
    Another way that Airsplat takes advantage of its online status is through advertising.  "The internet allows our ads to be seen by a much larger group of people than if we were just advertising in magazines or newspapers," explains Hedrick.  "We buy up banner space on websites as diverse as People Magazine, MSNBC, Cracked and Game Informer.  Whereas before it would be difficult to reach new people beyond the scopes of magazines like Guns and Ammo, now we can make sure to spread out our ads so that as many different people as possible learn about the website and the services we offer.  It's really opened up a lot of doors for us."
    Of course, there are drawbacks to working in an online environment, too.  "It's hard to sit in front of a computer all day.  My back gets sore, my eyes get strained, I have trouble sleeping at night because I don't get any exercise during the day.  I try to take breaks during the day to walk around and give my body a chance to stretch, but it's hard to find the right balance."  However, there are ways to work around that, and even some unexpected benefits. "I think I've actually gotten more active since I started working at a computer all day, because I'm more motivated to be away from the computer during my free hours.  I joined a gym, I started playing football on the weekends, I even spend more time walking when I get the chance.  When you're on a computer from 9 to 5 and then go home and try to be on the computer again until bedtime, it doesn't take long for your body to start protesting, and I think it's made me a healthier person overall.  I'm more conscious of my body now than I was before." 
    Overall, it seems like the benefits of working in an internet-intensive atmosphere outweigh the consequences.  Although it's true that it makes you more prone to sitting all day, it's hard to ignore the accessibility and ease of use that an internet commerce provides.  I think Hedrick sums it up best:  "Is it hard to work in a place where you sit practically motionless all day? Sometimes.  But the internet is getting more and more streamlined.  We're doing things effortlessly that people 10 years ago did mountains of work to try to achieve.   I think there's nowhere to go but up."

Rough, Sandpapery, Unpleasant Draft

The physical building that Airsplat operates out of doesn't look like much.  It's a warehouse, a small office, several rows of computers, and not much else.  But this unassuming building is the home of the largest supplier of Airsoft gear in the country, and an example of a company that could not flourish the way it does without the Internet.
    Airsoft originated in Japan in the 1980s.  Guns were outlawed in Japan, but many people were still interested in them, so manufacturers started making realistic replicas of weapons that fired small, plastic BBs instead of bullets, creating a non-lethal weapon variant that looks and feels as much like the real thing as possible.  The guns were primarily either put on display, or else used in recreational combat simulations, similar to paintball.  Airsoft spread from Japan to other countries in Asia in the late 1980s, and by the early 90s it had arrived in North America.
    To me, however, the most interesting thing about Airsplat is
   

Brainstorming!

Okay so here goes.

Topic 1:The Fall Of The Newspaper

For my first person, I would like to interview a friend of a friend who writes movie reviews and a weekly opinion column.  This guy used to write for newspapers, back when they were a thing, but now does all of his stuff exclusively online for a variety of movie and news websites.  I think it would be fascinating to pick his brain about what the transition from printed news to online news was like.

Topic 2: Online Commerce

For my second person, I would like to interview a friend of mine who works at a company called Airsplat.  They are one of the largest providers of Airsoft guns and gear in the country.  (Airsoft is like paintball, but with little white pellets instead of paintballs so that you get all of the pain of being shot at with none of the clothes-ruining of paint.)  This company runs exclusively online, and does not have any physical stores, making their success a product of the digital age.

Topic 3: YouTube Success (And How Anyone Can Get It)

For my third person, I'd like to interview a friend who runs a small movie company.  His production company runs and releases their stuff almost entirely online, and he was actually discovered for his current position when a YouTube video of him and his friend went viral and was seen by the head of his current company.  I would like to talk to him about how sites like YouTube have made it possible for anyone with talent, work ethic, and a fair amount of luck to get noticed.

So there you go!  I'm gonna close with a 30 Rock quote, because it is relevant and because 30 Rock is wonderful.

"We didn't know what to do for them, but then I had a brainstorm!  It was a bad one.  Jenna had to put my tongue-guard in."

Awesome Things and School, And Why They Should Always Have Been The Same Thing

The documentary we watched today made me want to get my childhood back so that I could have been enrolled in that video game school in New York as a kid.  My school career pre-college was pretty much uniformly awful, as I'm sure is the case for most of the kids now at art school.  I know I personally picked Cornish because it was physically far from my hometown and ideologically far from the terrible schooling I had to deal with growing up.  Seeing all those kids (even that awful pretentious one with the long hair and a last name with more consonants in it than this entire blog post so far) getting the chance to learn through activities and games and not just textbooks made me super jealous.  I would have loved to have enjoyed going to school as a kid.  I think the big difference was that the children had creative outlets.  In our school district there weren't any extracurricular activities to be had until we got into high school, at which point the part of our lives where we needed them most desperately had already passed.  Having the opportunity to express yourself and get all of your thoughts and emotions and ideas out into the world in a medium that you enjoy is a wonderful thing for a child to be able to have, and it's a shame more schools don't have programs like the ones at that school.

Anyway, enough bitching about my childhood.  I guess I should clarify that the parts that didn't involve school were perfectly wonderful and I'm not just some crazy bitter old man.  My biggest "Hmmm!" moment in this documentary so far came from the man who said that "Addiction is just a word that is used to police society."  I thought the examples he gave about certain things, such as spending a lot of time on Facebook or in World Of Warcraft, being symptoms of addiction, while spending an equal amount of time rehearsing for a play or reading a book being noteworthy and wonderful things was really interesting.  The part that resonated with me the most personally was when he suggested that certain things that are viewed as addictions might actually just be symptoms of depression.  I've never thought of it that way, but it made a lot of sense.  I'm excited to finish it tomorrow and see what they do to wrap up all the examples.

First!

My first insightful moment of the class so far is that I need to bring a laptop to take notes on in the future because I cannot read my own handwriting.  It's going to make the rest of this assignment all kinds of fun.

Legitimate "Hmmm" moment #1:  Clay Shirky is a kick-ass name.  Seriously.  He sounds like a cartoon wizard.  Like, "You will rue the day you crossed Clay Shirky!"  Awesome.

Aside from having a name that makes me quiver with envy, he actually brought up some really interesting points.  I especially liked his idea of digital media as a "Triathlon" consisting of equal parts consuming, producing and sharing, even though that seems like it's quite a ways off.  Consumption is still the easiest part of the process, after all, and easy things are great.

"Hmm!" moment #2:  A Second Industrial Revolution

I loved this analogy, especially since Clay used it to draw lines not only between the life-changing aspects of the Industrial and Digital Revolutions, but also how overwhelming the whole thing can be.  The internet is an amazing and useful tool, but it's also a staggering amount of information and videos and jokes and comics and articles and music at your fingertips.  It's easy to just get lost in it all.

"Hmm!" moment #3: The Read-Write Culture

This last moment that made me go "Hmm" was the second video's main theme of turning digital from a "Write-Only" culture into a "Read-Write" culture.  I thought it was interesting how much the two lecturers had in common when it came to themes and ideas.  The second guy's slant was a little more "Think of the children!" but they both brought up a lot of similar points about fair use and the contributory process.

Anyway, that's all I have to say about that.  Question time!

• How do you think digital media can be changed to put more of an emphasis on production and less on consumption? 
• What do you think of Second Guy's statement that "Extremism on one side creates extremism on all sides?"
• How can the copyright laws and the fair use laws be combined so as to create an environment that is the most favorable to hands-on production?

Also, final thought:  Clay Shirky pronounced Wikipedia "Wee-kee-pedia" and it never failed to make me laugh.