I was just clicking around, trying to do something while my show was loading (Skins season 7 if you must know) and I realized that if I want to be a blogger (which I might), I should probably blog more than just once in a blue moon. Which is basically where I’m at now. Plus, every time I see something awesome on the internet, I add it to a favorites folder called “blogger fodder.” And that folder is getting full. So I thought I’d try to make some sense of a few of the links, try to find a theme.
This week’s theme is often stuff that exists about the internet, on the internet. I know, so meta, right? Here goes.
I’ve had a lot of conversations recently that discuss the fall of Facebook. When will it happen? What will replace it? We know that we didn’t have it before (say, 2008, if you’re me), so the chances of it hanging around til 2018 seem pretty slim. Websites (even crazy big ones) just don’t last that long. This article is saying that it’s not going away, it’s just changing demographics. And its changing what it wants to be. Though we see it as THE social network (hi Jesse Eisenberg) what I found most interesting about the article is that it shows how fb is actually more like TV– a place to waste time, and view a lot of commercials. Here’s the infographic, which I am using but claim no rights toward.
While we’re talking Facebook’s evolution, they add some new features now and again that we all complain about most of the time. But there’s something (that I now see that I added to my fodder long ago and is a tad outdated) which is that fb added new gender options, not just male and female anymore. An interesting fact from this article is that the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) did a survey which found that 10% of LGBT youths did not identify with the gender binary. Which could end up being 1% of the population, if as they say, 1 in 10 people is gay. It’s a rather significant portion, so I say good for fb for (finally) recognizing that. AU alumn and trans rights activist Sarah McBride posted on Facebook about the change, where she said that all of us cisgendered folk should not log on and change from merely “female” to “cisgendered female,” unless it’s your actual gender identity. Otherwise you may just be asserting your own privilege, and that perhaps status as trans or cis should be separate from status as man or woman. I honestly don’t know that to be true for sure, but I know as a cisgendered person (and as a white person, an able-bodied person, a hearing person, etc…), it’s important to check your privilege, and try to stay informed.
Let’s stop talking about facebook, shall we?
This image belongs to E.E. Buckels et al, and shows, yes, weirdly (or not so weirdly), that internet trolls are likely to be Machiavellian sadists. Trolling, for people who live in boxes (or for my parents) is when people comment rude or scandalous things just to annoy someone or send them on a wild goose chase or something… not nice, but not life-destroying. People who waste their time ruining other people’s time, basically. I’ve fallen victim to real-life trolling too. It definitely targets the serious and trusting, of which I am both. But it turns out, they psychologically are prone to have what the psychologists doing the study called “Dark Tetrad” traits. And there’s a correlation between time spent on the internet and the presence of the traits in general too. Though weirdly, not narcissism.
Which means, catch you later. I’m out– I don’t want that Dark Tetrad to catch on.
(Top photo credit to Dan Century via Flickr)
Scrambled EG's 