Cybersubculture Report: Twitter

            Twitter is a social networking site and information stream that connects people who may or may not know one another personally, but who generally have mutual interests. Users post real-time updates (tweets) of 140 or fewer characters to announce to their friends (followers) what is going on in their lives at that very second.

            Twitter’s main feature is the immediate update of where people are and what they are doing (the main page asks, “What’s Happening?”), so many users are drawn in by the quick, thought-sharing side of it. Users can also add a location to their tweets, which is a perk for someone who is in a cool place and wants to awe his friends, or someone who just really likes where she lives. Due to this ease of use and quick updating, Twitter draws users of all age groups from everywhere in the world. Plus, Twitter can be connected to a wide variety of other social media sites, like Facebook, foursquare, or blogs, allowing users to update multiple sites at once.

            I use Twitter exclusively on the computer, but any mobile phone or internet-enabled device will also allow Twitter use. For the serious user, TweetDeck will pull all social media together in one Twitter-sponsored space, thus making a social desktop that streamlines the flow of information. Besides the various ways of accessing Twitter, most content producers like news sites or blogs have a “Tweet this!” option, allowing readers to do promotion for them by sharing articles with a click of a button.  This is good for the user if enough followers appreciate the stories being shared, since it enhances one’s reputation of being a savvy and discriminating source of information, and of course it benefits the original source by driving more eyes to the site to read the interesting article.

             Twitter’s “About” page describes their mission thusly: “Twitter is a real-time information network that connects you to the latest information about what you find interesting. Simply find the public streams you find most compelling and follow the conversations.” The site casts itself not merely as a social networking site, but also as a source of information. One way Twitter keeps users apprised of the latest news is through Trending Topics, ten or so links in the sidebar that are generated based on what most users are talking about.

RIP Typewriters.

            Many users do exactly what the “About” page suggests: they follow, and possibly join, any conversation in progress. This can lead to some trends in the sidebar that seem bizarre to those not participating, such as “RIP Typewriters” which, when clicked, leads to a discussion about the closure of the world’s last typewriter manufacturer: Some celebrate, some mourn, some dispute the facts, some mock the business for bothering to stay open this long. Just by choosing a trending topic, one can see an entire range of viewpoints. 

             Major news stories tend to hit Twitter pretty quickly because of so many users wanting to share their opinion. For example, before the president's  Bin Laden speech on Sunday night, Twitter was already ablaze in updates and various forms of "Osama Bin Laden" had already hit the Trending Topics list. The lag between the news arriving on Twitter and the president's speech was so long, in fact, that comments were divided between giving an opinion on Bin Laden and making jokes about what was taking the president so long. Generally speaking, the traditional news outlets lag behind regular users in releasing their stories on Twitter, since they have to verify sources and make sure their reports are professional, while the average Jane can say whatever she likes with far fewer repercussions.

            However, one drawback to news on Twitter is that the 140-character limit does not give a lot of space for information. If there is a link included in the tweet, then it’s easy to get to the story thus referenced; if not, then a user must often go to a regular search engine or news site to find out what all the fuss is about. The average Jane being able to freely share on Twitter does have a downside; since regular users need not verify information before sharing it, what comes up on Twitter may be largely inaccurate, as evidenced by the frequently-conflicting updates about any particular topic. This was evidenced by the "RIP Typewriters" trend, when many users only tweeted to say that the factory that had just closed down was actually not the last typewriter factory standing. Twitter makes a good starting point for news, but not a good finishing point if a user wants more information.

            Trending topics are customizable by region, and Twitter adds new cities fairly frequently: In just the past couple of weeks, Austin has made it on the list, as have Indianapolis, Indiana, and Glasgow, Scotland—three cities that I’ve lived in and am likely to click on to find out what local users are talking about. (The other city I’ve lived in—Lubbock—has yet to receive such a promotion.) Generally speaking, though, I keep my list of trends set to Worldwide, so I can see what everyone is talking about without any particular regional bias.

My avatar.

Twitter allows the user to customize the look of his or her page in a few ways: First, each user has an avatar. Rather than stick with the generic egg picture that everyone starts with, users generally post a picture of themselves, or their children, or a cartoon. Some use that space to promote a cause or a company; for example, I opted for a blacked-out picture for Earth Hour, as did many of my friends. In April, my avatar was a One Day Without Shoes poster, to promote an awareness campaign early in the month. For May, I've changed my avatar to the National Bike Month logo.

Sara Hall's page.

Users can also customize their background. Twitter has a few backgrounds available to choose from, but any user can instead upload a picture, a design, or anything else the user wants to share. Sara Hall, a professional runner and a philanthropist, has a yellow background with a design of blue and black crosses and Omegas across it, and her avatar is a picture of herself. Pauley Perrette, the actor who plays Abby on NCIS, has a plain white background with a picture of herself with duct tape over her mouth, wearing a dress that reads “NOH8”, presumably from an awareness campaign. Her avatar is a similar picture, with the duct tape in place and “NOH8” drawn on her cheek. 

Pauley Perrette's page.

Pauley’s avatar is a bit disturbing—after all, it’s hard to look at someone whose mouth has been duct taped shut—but that has not lessened her popularity, at 95,498 followers. Early in April, CBS ran a “tweet week” promotion, in which actors from various shows would answer questions on Twitter during that week’s episode. Pauley answered questions from fans and also pointed out important things in the episode for us to notice. During this live chat, I was also chatting with my real-life friend menieatrandom, and we were both delighted when Pauley answered our questions: I asked about a small toy in front of Abby’s computer in the lab on the set, and menieatrandom asked what Pauley studied in college. Pauley used to tweet infrequently, but ever since the chat session, her Twitter usage has increased: Perhaps she enjoyed interacting with her fans, or maybe she has found out, as so many others have, that Twitter can be addictive.

Answer to my question.

Answer to menieatrandom's
queston.

jefishere's avatar. Source: jefritz.

Chat with jefishere.

Non-celebrities can be just as creative with their backgrounds: One friend, jefishere, has a dark blue background with a seemingly-random pattern of black lines across it. Her avatar, on the other hand, is a Venn diagram that she made herself. We can find jefishere at the intersection of snark, irritation, and creativity.

Wisely, Twitter’s timeline portion remains white with black print for ease of reading. Each user’s avatar appears next to his or her latest tweet. Across from the timeline is the user’s (mine, unless I’m looking at someone else’s page) basic profile information, including total tweets, most recent update, followers, the list of Twitter trends, and a Twitter fact or event that the site wishes to highlight. Instead of the main timeline, one may choose to look at a specific search term or a hashtag: any word or phrase, when preceded with a #, turns into a link that is instantly searchable. For example, sometimes I will tag my tweets with #doinghomework and then click on the link thus produced to see a page with other #doinghomework tweets.

            Many Twitter users begin with only following people they know in real life, thus drawing offline and online relationships together. Over time, however, users generally end up with more online-only than real-life relationships on Twitter. It is certainly possible that people who meet on Twitter may eventually meet up in real life as well: During South by Southwest, for example, there were many users announcing their location and encouraging followers to come meet them there. This phenomenon is hardly limited to massive festivals in Austin; many events attract Twitter users to organize real-life meet-ups. Or, a real-life meet may come just because a user is traveling to another city for the weekend and announces his or her plans for the evening in the hopes that a follower may turn up.

            As with many message boards on the internet, identity on Twitter may or may not be someone’s actual identity. Celebrities and companies may have their identity verified by Twitter (and get a blue check mark by their name), to assure the fans that this particular account is truly the person the name says it is. For example, I follow Tom Hanks (actor), Reba McEntire (singer/actor), Andy Murray (tennis player), and Charity: Water (company), all of which are verified accounts. On the other hand, most of the professional runners I follow (among them Kara Goucher, Josh Cox, and Usain Bolt, all of whom have some degree of fame) are not verified—I don't know whether this is because Twitter doesn’t know they are celebrities, or if it's because the runners themselves haven’t bothered to become verified. Conversely, Paula Radcliffe, the current women’s marathon world record holder, does have a verified account. Runner’s World magazine, who also has a frequently-updated Twitter account, kindly provides fans with the Twitter usernames for professional runners, so that fans can be sure they are following the correct account.

            It is against Twitter policy for anyone to create an account in someone else’s name, and any user who does so risks suspension of his or her own account. This is probably not enough of a deterrent to prevent some from trying it anyway. On the other hand, Twitter does allow parody, commentary, or fan accounts, as long as the account is clearly marked as not being the actual person in question and the user is not attempting to deceive followers. Fictional characters fall into this category: a casual search reveals 20 accounts under Hermione Granger, for instance, while Emma Watson, the actor who plays Hermione, has a verified account. 

            I follow Lord_Voldemort7, whose real name is listed as “The Dark Lord”; I began following this fictional account because so many of my friends were retweeting (reposting) many of his quips, which are usually very funny. This user has over one million followers, mostly because he (presumably) mixes dark humor, current events, and snippets from the Harry Potter storyline in a way that draws in fans. For example, one recent tweet read, "Bellatrix Lestrange, Fred Weasley & Remus Lupin are all trending. Voldemort is banned from trending. Twitter knows not to speak my name," mixing Twitter trends with a reference to the Harry Potter books.

Garcia_BAU, better known as
Penelope.

            It’s possible that an actor may also tweet as his or her fictional character. Penelope Garcia, the computer analyst on Criminal Minds, live-tweets in character during each new episode. It is generally accepted by Penelope’s 19,319 followers that Kirsten Vangsness, the actor who plays Penelope, is the one responsible for her tweets.

            Penelope’s avatar is a picture of herself (in character, of course), with a background that Penelope’s fans can recognize as suiting her character perfectly: Lots of pastel images reflecting her various interests, such as horses, cars, bicycles, robots, and dice. This fits in with the multiple pictures and brightly-colored objects that cover Penelope’s office on the set.

            For non-actor, non-professional athlete, “normal” people who use Twitter, there is much less attention paid but no less potential duplicity. Any user may use his or her real name, or may choose not to. There are no restraints on image uploads (except size of the image), so the user’s picture may be him or herself, a neighbor, a cartoon character, or just the no-picture egg that is standard on new Twitter profiles. In other words, it is up to each user just how much he or she wants to make public on Twitter, or whether he or she would prefer to make up a new identity altogether.

            This possible level of anonymity on Twitter means that the only age, race, gender, or class markers are the ones the user chooses to display. Of course, one may always read between the lines: Does someone frequently post about their job? Their children? The awesome party he/she went to last night? Even for those who choose not to display their life conditions, many clues can be hidden in the most innocent of tweets.

            On the surface, Twitter appears to have no management apart from self-regulation: Users may say whatever they want, share whatever they want, as long as they remain below 140 characters per tweet. The self-regulatory part comes in when a user is offensive or annoying to others and so is ignored or unfollowed. However, this surface appearance of anarchy is not truly the case. Twitter has guidelines about how many accounts one user may open, and specifically prohibits threats, copyright infringement, impersonation, and breaches of other users’ privacy, among others. Twitter also takes spam seriously and has a constantly-evolving list of actions that are considered spamming and may result in a user’s account being permanently disabled. Any user may report spam to Twitter; in fact, doing so is likely to result in the dubious user being evicted sooner rather than later.

            Another area of control the Twitter headquarters has instituted is in the area of followers. Anyone may follow up to 2000 accounts, but above that number, the user has to have a certain following-to-followed ratio. This is another way that Twitter prevents spam, since spammers tend to follow large numbers of accounts in a short period of time. There are some words that seem to attract spam tweets (iTunes, for instance, as I discovered by accident), and some spam accounts that follow multiple users in an attempt to get a follow back. Because I do not follow someone back unless I find their tweets to be interesting, I tend to gain and lose followers quickly: Someone, presumably a spam user, will follow my account, only to unfollow within a few hours if I don’t begin following them in return. Twitter calls this behavior “follow churn”, and it is prohibited.

A fail whale page from over the weekend.

            In short, the only way for a user to be kicked out of Twitter is to engage in bothersome behavior that diminishes the quality of the site and the experience for other users. It is essentially the logical extension of the primary-school rule to keep one’s hands, feet, and objects to one’s self: Have fun, but not at the expense of other people’s fun. Other than acting as the traffic court, as it were, and responding to user complaints, the Twitter employees stay in the background, keeping the servers going and sorting out technical issues before they become full-blown “fail whale” moments (when a message reading, “Twitter is over capacity” appears on the screen, accompanied by an image of the Twitter birds air-lifting a whale over the ocean).

pj_hoover's response to my congratulatory message.

            Social status in the world of Twitter happens in much the same way as offline: Those who are both outgoing and interesting get the most attention. As previously mentioned, real-life celebrities bring their celebrated status online with them. As a social networking site, Twitter is a good way to get information in front of a lot of eyes, no matter what the person’s field. I belong to a community of writers, and we use Twitter as a way to get acquainted with one another, offer support, and also to find new writing and get our hands on new books as a member of the community is published. pj_hoover, an Austin-based author, has a new book coming out in May; since we follow one another on Twitter, I was able to send my congratulations via Tweet.

A particularly
persistent user
took advantage of
Finding Nemo
trending.

While fans mourn the
passing of Elisabeth
Sladen (actress), a few
spammers take their
chance to latch onto a
trending topic.

            At the other end of the spectrum, a great way to be ignored is to publish useless and/or offensive links, or repeat the same links multiple times. Another irritating habit that some users engage in is to add a trending topic to one’s update, in the hopes that anyone who clicks on the trending topic will also see the non-related tweet in the timeline. The Twitter community is aware of spam, and many users are not shy about using the “block” button to rid themselves of an annoying follower, or even to go so far as to report the abusive user to the Twitter Help Desk.

            New members need not remain new for long; it doesn’t take long to search for one’s friends and acquaintances as a starting point for followers. Another way to find accounts to follow is by looking for interests, such as “cycling” or “running” or “harry potter”, and following users who seem interesting. Many Twitter users will follow back if the follower has something interesting or useful to share, but those who follow many people just for the sake of getting more followers will usually find it to backfire. The Twitter guidelines page puts it very succinctly: “Twitter isn’t a race to get the most followers. If you follow users that you’re interested in, it’s more likely that legitimate users will find you and read your updates.”

            Word usage on Twitter runs the full gamut from complete, grammatical sentences with perfectly-spelled words to text speech that can be nearly incomprehensible to non-users. While Twitter does have its own language to some extent, with "tweets", "retweets", "hashtags", "following/unfollowing", or the "fail whale", the lingo is very easy to pick up, and new members need not learn the words before joining in. Due to the 140 character limit, tweets are short and usually to the point, although a user will occasionally continue a longer thought across several tweets. This tends to be irritating to other users, however, so it does not happen much. Plus, spreading out a thought over multiple posts decreases the likelihood that the entire thought will actually be read; with so many people updating at one time and the lull required between updates to type another tweet, there may be a large gap between the parts of the thought.

            Another potential pitfall for users is too much whining or complaining. If someone updates hourly about how horrible his or her life is, it’s not likely that followers will stick around for long. Sympathy turns to irritation just as quickly on Twitter as in real life. Nor does it help the user to then complain about people unfollowing him or her—this is another type of tweet that is likely to lose the user followers in a hurry. On Twitter, it is expected that the user will update with what they are doing, preferably something interesting they are doing, and not with the same sob story every time.

#bostonmarathon chat on April 18th.

            It is also expected that a user will learn how to use hashtags. This is particularly important when taking part in one of the various chats; for the session with Pauley Perrette, for example, she asked questioners to tag their posts with #NCIS so she could find them easily. Other chats that I frequently join in on are #runchat and #kidlitchat. Special events also get their own hashtags, like the Boston Marathon, but any user may invent a hashtag by putting a number sign in front of any word or phrase (although the phrases cannot contain spaces or punctuation if the whole thing is to be made into a link, such as #icantfindmyglasses).

            Twitter has around 200 million users, so there’s a good chance that any user can find what he or she is looking for. News, pop culture, sports, what the family is having for dinner tonight: It’s all available in the information stream. Twitter also provides a voice and a platform for people who have things to share, but that platform can only be enlarged by being consistently interesting and informative. It is a flexible enough space that it can be used by millions of people for many purposes, and shows no sign of getting old or tired, possibly because each user can find his or her tribe and shut out the extraneous voices, if need be. As the Twitter staff continues to add features and make it ever easier for people to connect, users will continue to come to Twitter for information, entertainment, and networking.

We Don't Talk This Much in Real Life

There's a young man on Twitter who I'm friends with in actual life. To be fair, I'm more friends with his parents, yada yada, you know how it goes. The short of it is, we've known him since he was about 9, he's a really sweet kid, but in public, he's very reserved. If I want to talk to him in person, I have to come armed with a list of questions that can't possibly be answered with a 'yes' or 'no'.

Not so on Twitter. We chat on Twitter pretty frequently, and he almost always initiates the conversation. Sometimes it's to tell me about his life events (like when he told me he's going to Boys State), sometimes it's to let me know his parents said hi, once it was him asking me how to connect his Twitter account to his Facebook account (and I gotta tell ya, it's a sign of the end of days when a 17-year-old asks me how to do something computer-related). This weekend, it was to talk about Scotland.

Somehow he's known me all these years without knowing about my obsession with Scotland, which is amazing enough in itself. The thing is, I wrote about Scotland on my blog on Saturday (my real blog, not this one), but didn't mention it anywhere else. So I'm thinking that either he read my blog Saturday or somehow the topic of me and Scotland came up in their house. Either way, I'm totally flattered, but also really amused that it takes the internet for us to have a conversation. On the other hand, given the short answers he usually gives in person, it may be that he's found his conversational niche with a 140-character update.

Trending Topics May Be the Enemy

I do some poking around Twitter beyond my own circle of people I'm following, but not a lot, because I tend to regret it if I were to, for instance, click on a trending topic. That's where all the pornography and swearing hangs out. (I wish I were making this up.) (And yes, I have innocent eyes.)

But two trends that come and go fairly regularly are "things black people say" and "things white people say". And when I have ventured to click and find out what's going on, there are inevitably a few things that I find:
1. A lot of the tweets are more along the lines of things parents say. It's like a little trip down memory lane for some people.
2. About half the tweets are correcting other tweets ("no, white people don't say that!").
3. And there are a handful of people complaining that the trending topic is racist.

Even when these topics aren't trending, they are still common enough hashtags to be searchable; I looked just now and found a page of each, all posted in the past couple of hours.

Boston on Twitter

Last year, when I had a regular job that required my 8-to-5 attention, I was reduced to surreptitiously checking the Boston Marathon updates on the Runner's World site. This year, from the relative comfort of the University Writing Center, I was instead able to follow the masses of #bostonmarathon tweets on Twitter. Much better system, in my mind.

I left Twitter open when I went out this morning, and
this is what I came home to.

It's nice that runners have this instantly-updatable forum-- not only were race updates shared, but also thoughts, excitement, and funny stuff: Corcorama said, "Wishing I was running #bostonmarathon but the donut I just ate helped me get over it. Maybe next year. #rwboston." Or, from davidzprice: "I've been training for this my whole life. I can't wait to run the #bostonmarathon next Monday." (Pity there isn't a sarcasm font.) And my personal favorite, from JennBarry13: "The person who won the #Bostonmarathon ran it in 2 hours. It takes me that long to motivate myself to get out of bed."

My UWC colleagues heard the race updates whether they wanted to or not as I "watched" the final miles count down-- an American woman came so close to winning for the first time in 20 years (but finished 2nd by two seconds), and the men's race ended in a world-record time. And I was "watching" when Joan Benoit Samuelson (winner of the first Olympic women's marathon in 1984, still running at age 53, and as a bonus, ran the Austin Half Marathon in February) finished in 2:41:39. Plus, as a side diversion, I was also logged on to the Boston Athletic Association site to track a friend who was running Boston for the first time (and running it really, really quickly--she got faster with each 5K split).

There were also some who didn't care about the marathon, and so to express their not-caring, tweeted to tell the world that they didn't care. Being of the "if I don't care, I won't bother mentioning it" persuasion myself, I always find it odd that people are able to summon enough caring to let us know they don't care. I suppose that's one of the wonders of Twitter.

Then there were those who used the occasion to post about their own issues: "#bostonmarathon Why so many people running? Oh, yeah,not allowed to carry a weapon (not even pepper spray) in MA: http://tinyurl.com/3wfn3hl" (from sqcomic). This tweet was at least mildly related to the hashtag attached to it, unlike the times when users attach a trending hashtag to their spam messages that have nothing to do with the topic at hand. Then there was this rather, um, interesting tweet: "Running a marathon is by far the least interesting way to have a midlife crisis. Grow up and get a hooker like a real man. #bostonmarathon" (from m_shea). Again, at least it's on topic.

For these kinds of massive events, Twitter is a good resource for updates and conversations. It's not just runners (and running fans) who use Twitter, of course, but we were definitely clogging the airways on Monday morning.

We're Willing to Risk Overexposure

I was at the Austin Bike Summit this weekend, and one of many things discussed was how to make cycling more mainstream, so that cycling is seen as normal behavior instead of as an aberration (the reasoning being that if cyclists are considered normal and acceptable on the road, drivers are less likely to engage in hostile behavior towards us, thus making cyclists safer). Among the ideas were examples of intentional advertising in cities with a successful cycling programs: bicycles are seen in advertisements for completely non-related products, for example, much as many adverts include cars regardless of what is being advertised, because cars are already a normal part of life. Then on Sunday morning I happened to see an ad for paint with a cyclist in it. Pretty cool, I think, although if I hadn't heard the previous day's discussion I'm sure I wouldn't have thought twice about it.

This fits in, I think, with what Edbauer says about rhetoric: "Rhetorical situations involve the amalgamation and mixture of many different events and happenings that are not properly segmented into audience, text, or rhetorician" (20). Was the paint ad designed to convince people to ride bicycles? No, the intention is to sell paint. The cyclist, along with other traffic pictured in the ad, contributes to the rhetorical situation of a busy city and thus the busy life of the woman (the paint in the ad is very pink, and only women are shown using it) who needs a hard-working paint. Was the cyclist a happy coincidence, or an intentional plant into this rhetorical framework? It could go many different ways: Perhaps the PR firm is trying to reach cyclists. Or city dwellers. Maybe they were greenwashing the paint, by subtly showing a green transportation at the beginning of the ad but not calling attention to it. Or someone responsible for the ad is a cyclist, and put in this little shout-out to him or herself.

To borrow what Edbauer says about "Keeping Austin Weird", the cycling message "is distributed across purposes and institutional spaces. It circulates in a wide ecology of rhetorics. To play off Shaviro's words, the force of 'messages,' as they accrete over time, determine the shape of public rhetorics" (19-20). For the cyclists gathered on Saturday, this would be the best possible outcome toward making cycling normal, visible, and accepted.

(By way of warning: If your comment is about how cyclists annoy you, then I will delete it. That's not the point of the post.)

M*A*S*H, 1984 and the Rhetorical Situation

Bitzer writes, "Rhetorical discourse is called into existence by situation; the situation which the rhetor perceives amounts to an invitation to create and present discourse" (9). Being a person who looks for the humorous or outrageous in pretty much every situation for my own amusement, I have to agree (at least in that sense). Generally speaking, when dumb things happen, I call it an invitation to make fun of something. My comments are generally not required and frequently not wanted, but as the rhetor, I see the situation and present my discourse. My siblings and I can have entire conversations this way-- we were trained early by watching endless episodes of M*A*S*H. We don't even think about it any more, since being smart alecks is our modus operandi, but others still do: One day my sister and I were in the car with our nephew, who interrupted our conversation to ask, "How do you guys do that?" We were confused and asked him to clarify, so he said, "You say funny stuff all the time." Clearly, our 11-year-old nephew is our niche audience.

Bitzer goes on a few paragraphs later, "Imagine a person spending his time writing eulogies of men and women who never existed" (9). Remember the scene in 1984 when Winston Smith had to do that very thing? He created a war hero, who immediately existed because the Party said he had existed. In this instance, as Bitzer says, "through the oddest of circumstances" the obituary "fit the situation" (9). Of course, in the context of the book, Smith isn't quite engaging in writing an obituary just to do it, as Bitzer is talking about; the Party creates a rhetorical situation that calls for fictional writing. And it doesn't seem odd to anyone that Smith should meet it.

I'm not entirely in line with Bitzer's claim that the situation always comes first; as discussed in class (and evidenced by the Party in 1984 deciding they needed a war hero to celebrate), sometimes the rhetor creates the situation. Even when it comes to my sister and I dazzling our nephew with our wisecracking skills, the situation is partly already in existence-- something happens or something is said that we can laugh about, plus we have an appreciative audience in our nephew-- and partly sustained and extended by whatever we say next. So, as with most other things in life, I have to say that it's both.

Crowdsourcing Grading

I like a lot of things about Davidson's idea of grading. I like making the student responsible. I like using her course as a practice ground of sorts for evaluating and judging discourse, as students will have to do for the rest of their lives. I like that the one doing the evaluating one week will be evaluated the next, which does diminish one of my concerns somewhat. And I definitely like blogging for class, since this semester has given us all a unique way to share our thoughts and see what everyone else is thinking.

My concern is that the grading could get vindictive, or-- as one commenter described-- that classmates might gang together in Survivor-type alliances to ensure good grades for members of the group, whether warranted or not. While the provision that revising earns full marks helps to alleviate this, the possibility that someone will be hurt by a classmate's needlessly-harsh comments still worries me. Learning to take criticism is important, but I don't see how conversation and mutual respect could be fostered in an environment where some students are being harsh.

The expertise of the reviewer also comes into play here. As much as I like and appreciate the peer review process, it tends to result in divergently different feedback. I see the benefit in having to evaluate the feedback. However, when it comes to peers who have similar levels of familiarity with the subject, the possibility arises that a reviewer will give bad advice that the writer will then accept, with the net result that the writer's finished product is actually worse than the original.

So, in theory, a lot of things are good about the idea. In practice, I would be really uncomfortable with it.

Project Proposal

Edited to write:

After I got started on my project, it definitely went a different direction than I originally anticipated. Plus, it turned out that both Komen and Livestrong had more than enough material by themselves to fill a project, so I chose to focus on only Komen. Here's the project I actually ended up doing:

I will analyze Komen for the Cure and their use of emotion on their website and at a Race for the Cure event. I will focus on how each of those tactics is discussed/explained in our readings for the semester.
I'll also look at the Komen trademarks: Pink, the running ribbon, and "for the Cure" as to how those each had emotion tied into them and the kinds of emotions they evoke in those who see them now.
I'll discuss the spread of Komen's message and influence: It began as a grassroots organization 30 years ago and now is a worldwide institution that opened the door for other charities to raise money in the same way.
I'll also explore ways in which Komen's rhetoric doesn't work for people.

=================================================
For my final project, I will apply Edbauer's concepts of rhetorical ecologies and apply them to charity campaigns. Specifically, I'll look at the Komen Foundation and Livestrong, and how their awareness campaigns have changed the way charities in the US do business.

For example:
Komen has taken pink as its signature colour, so that "Think Pink" is now a synonymous term with breast cancer awareness.
Livestrong has likewise taken yellow, giving rise to the "Yellow Mile" at the Austin Marathon and other events.
Other charities that have followed their lead, less successfully: ADA (red), Colin's Hope (blue)

Komen's signature event is their 5K series. They weren't the first running charity, nor the last, but they've been highly successful with equating running with fundraising for charity.
Livestrong's signature thing is the yellow bracelets, which has spawned an entire industry devoted to rubber bracelets for charity.
Other charities that have followed their lead: 26.2 for Donna, just about every charity out there

I will further consider what it is about these charities that brings them so much attention-- what pathetic appeals they use, how it works on their audience, and how it doesn't work. I've been to Komen and Livestrong events, so I'll also talk about the affect at work at those events. Specifically, a friend ran the Austin Half-Marathon this year only a few months after his sister lost her fight with cancer, and he shared his thoughts about what the Yellow Mile meant to him, so I will probably include some discussion not only of how he was affected, but also how I was affected when he told us about it.

A side note that I may/may not discuss (depending on whether it really relates to our study, once I have a closer look at it): Komen & Livestrong provide an outlet for people to give of money & time and feel like they are making a difference in the fight against cancer. While I don't dispute that they are helping, I do wonder if massive charities like these lead to complacency as much as activism.

Meet Penelope

I started following @Garcia_BAU because Penelope Garcia is probably my favorite character on Criminal Minds. (Okay, I'd be hard-pressed to come up with someone on Criminal Minds who isn't my favorite, but the rest of them don't seem to have Twitter accounts.)

At 18,701 followers (and only following 2), it's safe to say this is a pretty popular account. It helps that she live-tweets during every episode of both the original show and the new spinoff, and does so perfectly in character. It's generally accepted that Kirsten Vangsness, the actress who plays Penelope, is the one responsible for the tweets. And of course, since Penelope is the team's computer guru, it is appropriate the she, of all the team, is the one maintaining a Twitter account. It ties in with the show really well.

#Runchat

This week I was in the right place at the right time (that is, logged on and paying attention) to participate in two different "forums" on Twitter. The first was during the NCIS episode on Tuesday night: Pauley Perrette (Abby) live-tweeted throughout the episode, taking questions from fans and pointing out important things for us to notice. I definitely practiced some convergence during the episode: I was watching it unfold on TV, reading Pauley's tweets, and chatting with some real-life friends on Facebook, who were likewise watching and tweeting. Pauley answered my question and that of my Twitter and real-life friend Chamene, so we had a little self-congratulatory chat on Facebook.


The second event was one that takes place biweekly: #runchat. Two moderators, @RunningBecause and @iRunnerBlog, direct a conversation among runners every other Sunday. I stumbled across it by accident because someone else re-tweeted the notification that it was starting, so I decided to join in. The moderators asked five questions:
Q1: I missed this one because I came late to the party.
Q2: What are your running goals through the end of June?
Q3: If you run in the dark, what do you do to stay safe?
Q4: What is your "home" running route?
Q5: What wildlife have you seen on the run?


And my answers:
Q2: Gotten lazy lately, so my goal is to get back up to speed & shed the winter weight! Plus, training for my 1st tri. #runchat
Q3: Wear a headlamp & watch moving shadows-- those usually tell me when a car is coming. #runchat
Q3: Also look for houses with lights on, just in case-- don't think I'll ever need it, but it makes me feel safer! #runchat (someone responded to this one with "Good advice! Thanks!"-- I didn't even know it was advice!)
Q4: Just in my neighbourhood, but I like it! Sometimes I go to Town Lake to change it up. #runchat #Austin
Q5: Just dogs. And men who *appreciate* female runners. #runchat
Q5: Oh, and some geese that tried to have me for lunch one time. I swear they're trying to poo on me, too. #runchat


At the end of #runchat, I had two new followers, who apparently found my answers interesting. And in addition to following them back, I'm also now following the moderators. I'm definitely tuning in for the next #runchat on Easter Sunday.

Fear and Loathing in Northern Ireland

In reading Ahmed's description of the climate of fear created by William Hague and David Blunkett, I reflected that the United Kingdom, and especially Northern Ireland, hardly need immigrants or indeed their political leaders to create an environment of hate and fear: They've been inflicting it on each other for generations.

The Catholic/Protestant divide in Britain, while diminished from the riots in the 80s, still exists. When I lived in Scotland, I marveled that people who will only see the inside of any church three times in life-- at christening, marriage, and their funeral-- still allow the religion they are born into to dictate the rest of their life. In Glasgow, the name on the church you are christened in determines where you go to school, which soccer team you support, and which cemetery you will be buried in. In Northern Ireland, they tell me, it also determines what neighborhood you live in-- in Glasgow, Catholics and Protestants live next door to one another, but apparently in N. Ireland they keep separate-- or at least, they have done in past generations. When marching season comes, cities have to determine separate parade routes so that sectarian violence doesn't break out from one group catching sight of the other group's colors. I remember seeing on the news (in 1999) that Catholic groups were undermining Protestant parades by sitting across the preplanned Protestant parade route. Or perhaps it was the other way around? In either case, the offenders had to be bodily removed and hauled off to jail so the parade could continue without any fighting breaking out.

Not long before I moved home from Scotland, a boy in my neighborhood was killed after a soccer game. It seems that a brash Celtic (Catholic) supporter ran across some drunken Rangers (Protestant) fans. Words were exchanged, then blows, and at the end, two parents had to bury their teenage son. The tragedy was all the more heartbreaking because it was so avoidable-- a soccer team isn't worth giving your life over, after all-- and because it was so senseless. On the day of the funeral, I happend to be standing near the church waiting for a bus. I was impressed: Long lines of students came walking into the church from the Catholic and the Protestant schools, with no incident. In the face of tragedy, the teens in the neighborhood came together, set aside their differences, and mourned as one.

A culture of hate is so ingrained after centuries of conflict that it's silly to think this one incident will fix sectarian relations in Glasgow. But it's a step in the right direction for students of both sides to see the stupidity of killing over teams and names.

Joy/Sadness

Spinoza, Edbauer reports, said "the same man can be affected by one and the same object in different ways at different times" (10). When I read this, I'm tempted to mutter "story of my life" and move on. My most recent example: I'm not doing particularly well in a class that I'm not particularly interested in (it's a science class, but I'm a Rhetoric major for good reason). When I realized this past week that the grade I wanted is totally out of reach, I was simultaneously depressed (there goes my GPA) and relieved (now I can stop working so hard at it and try something else). I don't know which feeling I'll land on by the end of the semester.

But that's not really what I wanted to talk about. Edbauer is writing about a real person, a real president, which is all well and good. But I'm going to retreat to the safer world of TV politics: The West Wing.

In the opening episodes of the third season (2001), as President Bartlet is about to announce his reelection campaign, the staff hears that the FDA is about to approve the morning-after pill. This sends them into a dither: on the one hand, they've been wanting this announcement. On the other hand, this gives fodder to their political adversaries: The Bartlet adminstration doesn't share their values. The dual announcements give rise to the same level of bifurcation within the staff as the joy/sadness split can in the same person. Or, as Spinoza also said, "Different men can be affected in different ways by the one and the same object" (9-10). Just as Bush's dialect difficulties caused a different reactions in different people, so would this politically charged announcement.

In both cases, it seems the guy in charge can't win. So, would it be best to try to dampen the reaction as best as possible? (In the TWW episode, the staff suggests postponing the event.) Or just go for it and hope for the best, as both Bush and Bartlet did? Which would be more likely to convince 50% of the electorate?

Reality is Overrated

            eXistenZ, by David Cronenbery, is the story of a game. Allegra Geller is a world-famous game designer, the best in the world, and she testing her newest game, eXistenZ, with a focus group. Unfortunately, a member of the Realist Resistance is there to assassinate her. He manages to shoot her in the shoulder using a flesh-and-bone gun with teeth for bullets before he is taken down and Allegra escapes with Ted Pikul, a marketing trainee.  Worried about her game pod, Allegra tells Ted, “the only way I can tell if everything is OK is to play eXistenZ with someone friendly.” Being as no one else friendly is available, Ted, incapable of game play because he lacks the necessary bioport implanted in his spine, accepts a faulty bioport from gas station owner/bioport dispenser Gas so that he can play. Gas turns out to be not-so-friendly when he attempts to kill Allegra, only to be shot by a terrified Ted.

            After getting some repair work on the pod and a new, functional bioport for Ted from Allegra's friend Kiri, Allegra and Ted plug into the pod to begin play. Ted’s initial amazement at the game world—how it looks so much like the real world—begins to fade as his sense of what is real and what is not also slips away. He pauses the game to re-check in with reality, only to discover that what he thought was “real” also feels like a game now. At Allegra’s urging, they return to the game, where Ted finds the gun from the focus group in their lunch. He kills the Chinese waiter with it, eliciting praise from a fellow factory-worker (Nourish) who claims to be one of the Realist Resistance, but blame from a game store clerk (Hugo) who is also one of the realists. Hugo warns Ted and Allegra that Nourish is a double agent for the gaming company and not truly a member of the Realist Resistance, which seems to be true when Nourish tries to kill Allegra.

            Ted and Allegra wake up from the game to find out that Allegra’s pod is infected along with Ted’s bioport. As Allegra frantically tries to save her pod, which contains the only copy of eXistenZ, a gun-wielding Hugo bursts in: the resistance has begun and he has come to save Allegra. Ted realizes they are still in the game, and in the course of the confusion Hugo, Kiri, and Ted are all killed because they are agents of the gaming company.

            Ted and Allegra wake up again, this time in a focus group for Nourish’s new game, tranCendenZ: they’ve been playing someone else’s game all along, which Allegra won as the last person standing. But as Ted and Allegra leave, they kill Nourish because of the evils of his game. So, is the game really over?

            Reality in eXistenZ is shaky from beginning to end. After stepping into the game for the first time, Ted tells Allegra, “I feel really vulnerable. Disembodied,” and even when Allegra tries to reassure him that what he feels is part of the game-playing experience, he persists, “I feel a little disconnected from my real life.” While our modern-day games do not have the level of virtual reality that Allegra’s eXistenZ does, this feeling of disconnect can haunt those who spend a lot of time in front of screens, or even reading—it’s possible to get so lost in a story that reality fades away. Even when the gamer or reader puts away the controller or the book, there is still some fuzziness in the brain while it adjusts from story life to real life. That disconnect that Ted felt is exactly the point of playing a game or watching a movie: to escape, however temporarily, from real life and enjoy an alternate one for a while.

            Much like many real-life gamers, Allegra seems to prefer her alternate reality to her real one. After she has visited the game via her pod, Ted asks, “Where were you?” and Allegra replies, “eXistenZ. I like it there.” Considering that her actual reality at that moment consisted of people wanting to kill her and a “bodyguard” who had no weapon and no gaming experience, eXistenZ must have seemed a very friendly environment indeed. This also has parallels to our world: Some people are so locked into the games they play (or the movies they watch, or the books they read) that the real world seems boring, or possibly scary, by comparison. Even when present in the real world, these alternate-reality junkies are often thinking about their game, or book, or movie. Much like Case in Neuromancer, they are jacked into their alternate reality, and real life fades away; it's hard to interact with the gamer who is in this state of non-presence.

            The movie's end has another real-life parallel: a dream sequence in which the sleeper dreams of waking up, only to realize a few minutes later that she is still asleep. So she wakes up for real and starts her day, only to discover once again that she is still sleeping. This cycle may repeat itself a few times, as in eXistenZ, where the movie ends with characters still “dreaming”, or at least still playing a deadly game. The audience is left to wonder if Ted and Allegra are ever going to wake up.

Raising Awareness

Edbauer writes that "the intensity, force, and circulatory range of a rhetoric are always expanding through the mutations and new exposures attached to that given rhetoric, much like a virus" (13). Her example of the "Keep Austin Weird" phenomenon fits this very well, but while reading, I thought of another-- the proliferation of causes all clamoring to "raise awareness".

I do want to be clear that I have no objection to causes. Social inequalities, environmental issues, various illnesses, and so on will not be fixed by ignoring the problem, so I applaud those who join in and spend their time and effort on a cause in which they believe. However, some causes do take on a life of their own and the rhetoric spreads until, I fear, it does more harm than good.

The biggest one, to me, is breast cancer awareness. The Komen foundation and others have done a fabulous job of getting the word out, raising funds, finding corporate sponsors, and so on. They have met with tremendous success in raising awareness of the threat of breast cancer and steps every woman can-- and should-- take to avoid losing her life to this disease. All well and good.

However, the "think pink" campaign has taken on a life of its own. I was confronted last fall by a Facebook friend who wanted to know why I didn't turn my page pink for the cure. My answer-- that I'm already aware of breast cancer and didn't need to turn my FB page pink-- did not satisfy her. I tried explaining that no one but me could see the pink page, and that not only was I aware, but also all of my FB friends are likewise aware of breast cancer, before I finally gave up and let her think that I'm an unfeeling jerk.

And my jerkiness doesn't end there-- if anyone should dare suggest that perhaps we ought to move on from awareness and spend some of this energy and money on research, the "awareness" advocates might well be offended. I'm not convinced that the Komen foundation began so that we could all buy all-pink products once a year (in addition to running our pink 5Ks), but that's what it has become for most people. We're so "aware" that the message has lost its punch-- and in fact, it's been co-opted for Facebook memes like posting the color of one's bra or the resting place of one's purse or, most recently, various types of fruit, all in the name of "raising awareness".  Actually, it just raises annoyance in those whose news feeds are now cluttered with unexplained, random phrases.

"Raising awareness" has turned into Edbauer's virus, spreading from cause to cause and mutating as it goes, until the whole point of the awareness is lost: Once we're all aware, we're also meant to do something. As long as "raising awareness" remains a buzzword for charities, they are likely to be progressively more ignored, because this is one rhetoric that has so expanded its range as to be commonplace.

Edited to add: Yeah, I read the wrong PDF. That's why this makes no sense. Pretend like you traveled in time to three weeks from now.

eXistenZ: "Don't Be Ludicrous"

In the real-world setting that gave birth to the game eXistenZ, the bioports do not get infected, and when Ted asks Allegra about this, she laughs him off and opens her mouth as if to show that the bioport is hardly the only opening one has directly into the body.

Of course, in our world, one can be infected via the mouth, the nose, the eyes, an open wound: Germs are remarkably inventive at finding a way into the body. Hence the spread of Staph infections through hospitals, or the common cold through offices, homes, and classrooms. This is why even with all our fancy medical technology, doctors still scrub up throughly before and after surgery, or why TB patients still wear masks in public-- it's very easy to pass along an infection. Even an ear piercing, which Allegra compares the bioport to, can get infected if not looked after properly.

For this reason, I doubt that a bioport would be exempt from infection in our society. The best current-day analogy I can think of to the bioport is a central line, which patients who have to take an IV regimen can have placed in their chest (probably elsewhere, too, but my experience has only been with patients who have it in the chest) instead of getting a new IV stick every day. The central line is extremely susceptible to infection; it has to be flushed regularly, and the bandaging over it changed daily.

So, maybe in Allegra's world it's ludicrous to think that a bioport can get infected, but in ours, it's a real concern. When you add the medical complications to the other technical details that would need to be addressed before we could have game play attached to the nervous system, it sounds (blessedly) a long way off indeed. For which I am thankful; real life presents enough challenges for me without having to invite whole new ones in for the sake of gaming.