Extra Blog: Andrews a Victim of the Internet

            Throughout the term we have talked about the power the internet has and how it has evolved because of a high percentage of active participation. The participatory culture is responsible for spreading news at a very high rate whether it is a video or news story. Much of the time social networking sites can even be a source to gain information. However, there are many instances when this active participation can cause derogatory things to spread at a high rate as well. Erin Andrews, who is a reporter for ESPN, was the victim of a video spreading at high rate that compromised her reputation forever.

            Andrews who is frequently on the road for her job at ESPN was stalked by Illinois man who followed her on three different occasions. He was able to obtain a peephole video in which Andrews is nude and posing in front of a mirror. The man took the video and posted it online while also trying to sell it to TMZ before he was caught and charged. An active participatory culture caused this video to spread at a high rate with a large number of people viewing it and publically embarrassing Andrews while also sending her into a somber state. The internet held a great hand in this video becoming such a hit and it is a true shame. However, this is another example of what the internet has become.

            The man involved in the case was given a two and a half year prison sentence, but Andrews did not feel this was a harsh enough punishment. Her public image was sabotaged due to the number of views the video received. She was violated by a sick human being and he was able to gain popularity via the internet. This was a truly sad example of how this participatory culture can operate, but this is the reality we live in now with the internet.  

Extra Blog: Tanney's Rise

            In class we have talked about how YouTube is an extremely effective tool for self expression and also can be an avenue for an artist to gain attention or get noticed. YouTube has blossomed into one of the top sites on the internet because of its free nature and different videos on all subjects. It just so happens that the idea of gaining attention as an artist can work the same way for an athlete. Playing football at Lawrence, you compete in the Midwest Conference which includes teams from Wisconsin, Illinois, and Iowa. We go up against some of the very best in Division 3 football in our own conference.

            Alex Tanney, a quarterback from Monmouth College, is one of the very best in the conference and the nation. He is regarded as a NFL draft prospect because of his big arm and great accuracy. It was due to YouTube that his popularity spread to the national scene. He made a video that included him making all kinds of different throws that seemed impossible. Whether he was throwing over the scoreboard at their stadium or out of his apartment, the throws were magnificent. His talent did not go unnoticed; ESPN caught wind of the video on YouTube and did different specials on him. However, being discovered by ESPN could make some players’ careers, he was not done. The History Channel saw the epic video and decided to a segment on one of their new shows which features individuals who have supernatural talents. This video truly took Tanney and Monmouth College to national prominence.

            The result of this video is not just increased popularity, but it also served as a springboard to Tanney gaining more attention from the NFL. His choice to make what seemed to be an innocent video could serve his checkbook large dividends down the road. As we talked in class about YouTube serving as an audition for artists, the same goes for athletes. This is especially true for Division 3 athletes, who are seldom talked about with Division 1 programs dominating the news.   

Smart Mobs

Smart mobs are groups of people that band together using different types of electronic media to conduct protests. They operate out of the governmental eye while planning their protests, quickly and easily spreading news throughout the population. Electronics, specifically applications like BlackBerry Messaging and sites like facebook, serve as a way to expediate the process of communication. In the London riots of 2011, people were able to avoid police intervention about their planned riots by spreading information on riots through blackberry messenger. When an issue arises that upsets the general population, they often use texting to spread the word about things. Anonymous is a group that does just that. They are an online army essentially, who enlist the public by announcing protests that they will hold. They use youtube videos and their website to gather people together, and by gaining the reputation they have as an internet power they are able to get even more attention on the internet. Apart from Anonymous, people can help organize protests by sending mass texts and creating a collective intelligence quickly so that they can band together to fight the issue that has upset them. There are other kinds of programs that help put people together for other reasons than protesting, such as Upoc which allows you to join different groups that have different interests. In the article Smart Mobs: Power of the Mobile Many, the author talks about his experience joining groups such as an New York City terrorist alert group, which “promised immediate messages in the case of a terrorist account.” (167, Smart Mobs) While groups like this are more serious and useful, there are also tons of groups for fans of musical artists to chat, and groups that people use to stalk celebrities by notifying the masses when a celebrity is spotted.
The Occupy wall street movement is a prime example of how media and technology can help band people together and organize groups. The movement started when people realized that 99% percent of the American public don’t have any power because they aren’t extremely wealthy. The only people that can have a real effect on Wall Street are the people who have the money to invest in the stock market, and that’s only 1% percent of the people living in the USA. The protests really took an intense turn when the police started physically assaulting protestors, which just angered people more. “During a demonstration in Lower Manhattan, 20-year-old Brandon Watts of Philadelphia grabbed a police officer's hat and was subsequently tackled and arrested, sustaining a gash to his forehead.”
http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/cutline/occupy-wall-street-finally-gets-face-bloody-153643148.html
This event has finally given a face to the Wall Street movement, and this picture is now circulating on the internet and being passed throughout all kinds of smart mobs. Apart from pictures being spread, protestors also carry webcams to they can record police brutality and incite even more intense protesting. Watts has become the bloody face of what is appearing more and more to be a war. The picture of his bloodied face will incite even angrier protesting because the Smart Mobs involved in the OWS movement will spread it as far as they can to give their movement more power. Tons of groups on facebook mention places where people should show up to protest. Facebook allows people to create groups that even show maps of where people should go, and provide links to the site where more knowledge can be learned about the subject. There are also pages that say nothing more than “Occupy Wall Street, September 17th,” these groups simply provide a date, and then hundreds of people comment on the page and organize further. This simple page got over 2500 “likes” and over a hundred people commenting on it saying things like “good job, keep it up everyone!” There are also people from other pages about the Occupy Wall Street movement that post on this page’s wall to provide vital information to everyone interested in the subject.
Link to facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Occupy-Wall-Street-September-17th/136981243051090
In this way a collective intelligence is created and the movement can grow stronger. It even incites more anger among the participants because people use the page to spread word of police brutality. Since the London riots began with a similar incident, these kinds of posts could start a snowball effect that could result in rioting similar to London.

Technology is essential to communication today, and is far improved from its counterparts in the past. It is much easier to covertly spread word of protests with mass texts and other programs, which means that police cant prepare themselves to deal with the mobs before they begin. This leads to much higher scale rioting than ever before, and allows information to be spread incredibly quickly. Rheingold speaks about all of the different mobile communication groups he was exposed to in New York City, and nowadays there are tons of twitter groups that do the same thing he was talking about except in reference to the OWS movement. Smart Mobs use their mobile computers to check twitter posts to see whats going on and to record police brutality and spread videos of it to the masses. People get minute by minute updates on happenings, even during a protest, which makes people far more organized than they ever have been. While protesting is a main use of Smart Mob technology, it’s used for things like dating and meeting people with similar interests as well. What makes it so easy for these programs and smart mobs to form is the fact that so many people have smart phones and are thus able to do almost everything a computer can do with their handhelds. This means that people can constantly be monitoring sites like facebook and twitter for updates on issues like OWS, and always have access to any other internet programs they would like to use.

Smart Mobs: How Smart Are They?

Smart mobs are an interesting creation of technological progression. Howard Rheingold’s definition of smart mobs defines the entity eloquently, “smart mobs consist of people who are able to act in concert even if they don’t know each other. The people who make up smart mobs cooperate in ways never before possible because they carry devices that possess both communication and computing capabilities.” These mobile devices have the power to people to create new forms of social power and foster new forms of interaction between social groups in new places. I really enjoyed Rheingold’s reading of smart mobs because the general tone of his writing offered a positive and forward-thinking theoretical analysis of what smart mobs of capable of accomplishing. At one point in his reading I felt like he was loosely referring to the issues we dealt with in discussing the repercussions of media convergence in this passage, “contradictory and simultaneous effects are likely: People might gain new powers at the same time we lose old freedoms. New public goods could become possible, and older public goods might disappear.”

The decentralized organizational structure, lack of hierarchy and dynamically self-organizing characteristics of smart mobs are, simultaneously, its best asset and worst enemy. For example, the Occupy Wall Street movement that has recently made waves in the headlines in the recent weeks (surprising, since it’s been going on for nearly two months) was organized by the power of the, to put in Rehingold’s archaic terminology, “personal handheld device.” However the biggest critique of the #OWS (Twitter hashtag reference!) movement is that its main political aims are not clear. The general consensus between the liberal student body of Lawrence University is that the movement isn’t achieving anything but slowing down the functionality of certain streets of New York. While I think that’s a bit of an over statement, a fair criticism of the movement is that collecting people with shared beliefs is the easy part—organizing action is another. This is an example of a smart mob initiative that reflects the effectiveness of technology in terms of gathering bodies to a physical location but doesn't reflect the potential for these groups to create change.  

Photo Credit: http://topics.gannett.com/wall+street+protests?template=argusleader&odyssey=mod%7Cdnmiss%7Cumbrella%7C4

Wikipedia

One of the main topics in class this week was Wikipedia. The question concerning wikipedia is how reliable the information is on the site. We read articles defending both sides: Shirky claiming it was great because people worked together to make the information correct as well as the grammar and other aspects. While Keen informed us that because it is not worked on by experts we cannot trust the information there. Keen argues that because a seven year old has as much authority as a scientist there is not a lot of validity in the information. Because we do not know who wrote the information, there is simply no way we can trust what we are reading. Shirky, however, argues that because so many people monitor wikipedia it is unlikely that any mistakes will last.
When I was in high school citing wikipedia was becoming a terrible thing to do. My teachers would often tell our class that we can not use wikipedia as a source. If we want to use wikipedia, scroll down to the bottom and use the sources the article cites because you might find something there. Basically, my school banned the use of wikipedia as a source. This is not uncommon; A New York Times article written in 2007 talks about how the history department banned citing wikipedia as a source when a significant number of students had misinformation for a quiz saying that the jesuits supported the shimabara rebellion. This information was wrong and when the teacher realized his students learned this information from wikipedia, he got it banned. This story is not uncommon with wikipedia, which is why it is not considered a creditable source in many schools throughout the country. I had an experience where I was looking up a type of fish and in the middle of the article someone had written poop. This shows that while there are people who inspect and look over wikipedia articles, they can not catch them all.
Wikipedia does, however, have some quality articles and it is true that people watch and inspect wikipedia for correctness and grammar. Wikipedia is a great place to start looking for basic information on a topic you do not know much about, but it is not a trusted source. I often look at wikipedia articles in my free time and I have learned a lot of good information, but I have also learned a lot of misinformation. So reading wikipedia is fine, especially for a basic knowledge, but it should not be considered a source encyclopedia to be used on research papers. The point is that both Shirky and Keen were correct: Wikipedia is a great website with lots of good information (this is what Shirky wrote) but it also is filled with misinformation (what Keen said) so it is important to remember this and take what you read on wikipedia with a grain of salt.

Identity and Self

In Sherry Turkle’s Aspect of Self, she discusses how identity and self is formed in a virtual world. There are many different ways to explore the identity and self in a virtual world, and Turkle argues that a common use is to explore parts of our identity or self that we cannot explore due to real world constrictions. She gives us an example of a man upset with his alcoholic father, and tries to be a perfect man in his virtual world (MUD). After some time, he realized that he is addicted to his MUD and his MUD character, and has a better understanding of what it means to be an addict to something. In another example, a high school student would start arguments in his MUD to blow off some steam to prepare for a test. MUDs have helped people to find themselves and to explore themselves in different ways because they are “an escape valve for anxiety and anger that felt too dangerous to exercise in real life” (Turkle 189).

When I was in middle school (junior high), I had a very interesting experience exploring identity through CMC (mainly Google Chat). I devolved a crush on another girl in my class, but she had a boyfriend. Her boyfriend, however, was mean to her and would break up with her about every month. I was always the shoulder that the woman would cry on (this sounds like a bad love story…lol). One day I confessed my feelings for her, and she admitted that she had similar feelings for me. She refused, however, to break up with her boyfriend, because she still loved him. I’m not sure exactly how it happened, but about a month after this event we both created other identities. Mine was called Tom and hers Angel. These identities would ‘come out’ when we were too stressed or too fed up with something in our lives and needed an escape from the real world. Tom and Angel also lived out an aspect of our lives that we could not in real life. After about a month of knowing each other, they got together. They went on hikes and dates and all sorts of other romantic adventures. They talked about their feelings for one another, which often was a way for us to communicate how we felt about each other, but they never met in real life. These personal identities allowed us to explore what it would be like for us to be together, without actually being together. Our freshman year of high school, her boyfriend cheated on her and their relationship was officially over. Tom, and myself, were there to comfort her throughout the entire thing. About a year later, we ended Tom and Angel because we did not need them. We were together in real life, and have been ever since =).

Turkle describes how MUDs can be used to explore aspects of the self we could not explore in real life. In my experience, although it was not a MUD, my girlfriend and I were able to do just that. We explored what it would be like if we were together, it gave me a chance to show the differences between dating me and her then current boyfriend, and it gave her a chance to compare between the two experiences. While it was easy to be more romantic than is normally possible in real life, the experiences we had allowed us to know more about the other person and understand how our relationship would be. Just as Turkle mentioned the student who used MUDs to be a perfect man, I used Google Chat to try to be the perfect boyfriend. 

Week 5 ARGHHHHH!!!

Piracy can be defined as the unauthorized taking of another person’s content. It has affected several industries, especially the music industry where illegal downloaders will copyright and steal songs from a musician and then share it on the internet. Although most people consider piracy a bad thing, there are some cases where piracy can be good. In Lawrence Lessig’s Free Culture, Lessig states, “Many kinds of piracy are useful and productive, to produce either new content or new ways of doing business.”

            According to the documentary we watched in class, one musician quotes, “most good musicians do not imitate, they steal.” Weird Al is a famous musician who is known for his humorous songs that parody what our society listens to today. Weird Al uses the same melody and background music but only changes the words to the songs, making fun of the artists. Weird Al’s Don’t Download This Song describes the perils of online music file sharing and references several court cases related to the RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America).  (Wikipedia)

            An album known as The Grey Album was created by the musician Danger Mouse. The album is a mashup that collaborates the rapper Jay-Z’s The Black Album with unauthorized instrumental samples from The Beatle’s The White Album. Despite that both Jay-Z and The Beatles said they were fine with the project, the album and its distributions came to a halt. According to the words from some wise individual from the documentary we watched in class, “if we had a more rational system this album would of made a lot of money.”

            In most of the scenarios, these musicians are not trying to be thieves, instead they just did not know. Nevertheless, I believe that if you are going to sample someone else’s music, you must have their permission first. Furthermore, I believe that sampling is good and leads to many great songs for the future. For example, the well-known MC Hammer’s “U Can’t Touch This” sampled Rick James “Super Freak.” The two are both GREAT songs!!!

            In the case of people who illegally download music on the internet: how harmful is sharing and downloading music for free on the internet? According to Lessig, “the RIAA estimates that 803 million CDs were sold, while 2.1 billion CDs were downloaded for free. Thus, although 2.6 times the total number of CDs sold were downloaded for free, sales revenue fell by just 6.7 percent.” How is this the case? Unfortunately, I do not have the answer to that, however, as we can see there is not a dramatic impact from downloading CDs online.

Week 4 Flickr Project

Our Flickr project depicts the lifestyle and environment at Lawrence University. Usually students leave their belongings unattended outside of Andrew Commons trusting that no one will take our stuff. In addition, students frequently prop their doors open assuming it will make it easier for our friends to come in. Our story tells about a student (Jon) who has a disturbing obsession with another student (Me). Our first slide shows Jon outside my window while I am asleep. The next few slides show Jon walking into Hiett and then into my room. Next, it shows the creepy stalker, Jon, standing over my bed while I am sound asleep. Finally, the last slide shows a group of students (Jon, Ariella, and Me) studying inside a meeting room in Hiett where I am oblivious to Jon staring at me as well as his strange fascination with me. Here is the Flickr Project Link. 

After we finished taking our photos we posted them onto Flickr. I was really surprised with how easy it was to post all the pictures onto Flickr. Flickr is a good tool for people to insert and share personal and memorable photographs. It is also a good tool for people to interact with each other by tagging people in photos and commenting on them. In one of the readings for our class, Rebecca quotes, “I don't know what tools could make it this easy for other kinds of journalists to assemble a compelling story in pieces, but clearly Flickr has made something possible for photographers that was not possible before.” In addition, many people like to upload their photos to Flickr then share them through Facebook, Twitter, email and blogs.

Overall, I had a lot of fun doing this project. It was pretty easy to do after our group met outside of the Warsch and organized how we were going to prepare and complete our project. We ended up deciding that we were going to do our project on a student that would creep into another student’s room while he was asleep and that we were going to meet later that night to finish the assignment. I think I learned a lot about Flickr and its importance to the internet community. In conclusion, Flickr was an easy and effective way for us to do our project.

Week 3: Politics

          Facebook, Twitter, ESPN, CNN, and other mainstream sites are what people think of when they want to sum up the world-wide web and what it is used for. The only problem with that conclusion is that it is ignorant to what the internet has become. An example of this is brought out by the question: how much was the Presidential election of 2008 decided by the internet? Well, the answer may be shocking, because the trend that Howard Dean started in 2004, using the internet as tool to jumpstart his campaign, has set the standard for future elections like this one.

            In Henry Jenkins’ article, “Photoshop for Democracy,” he says, “The 2004 campaign was a period of innovation and experimentation in the new use of media technologies and popular culture based strategies.” Jenkins goes on to say that these new strategies on the internet became integral in the 2004 election, because the plan to draw out new voters, was executed. This new culture set the standard for campaigns moving forward, and made a large impact in the most recent Presidential election. Without this new era it is likely history would not have been made in the 2008 election.

            Barack Obama made history as the first African American President of the United States in 2008, but if it wasn’t for the help of the newly discovered virtual politics he may not have even won the primary. More directly if it wasn’t for a pioneer like Howard Dean who paved in a way Jenkins describes, “Dean developed his initial following via the internet that brought him to visibility in broadcast and mass market media.” Obama’s campaign took some great notes on Dean’s campaign because that is exactly what they had in mind. Obama was able to organize his followers timelessly online and also gathered new support through free advertising provided on YouTube. Another tool that Obama’s campaign used to its advantage that I witnessed firsthand was they took over Facebook effectively. Their page on this social media juggernaut was so advanced that someone could simply enter their street address on this page and it would show them their polling location and provide directions to it. Obama’s effectiveness on these different sites also fit his motto “Change” perfectly, because it gave the idea that the President was more up on technology directly connecting with the youth, unlike his challenger John McCain. McCain was accused by Obama’s camp of being too “old” throughout the campaigning process. This argument was able to be looked at valid because of Obama’s stranglehold lead on the internet. However, Jenkins does say, “Candidates may build their base on the internet but they need television to win elections.”

            This idea fit President Obama’s campaign perfectly; because of regardless of your political affiliation, there is no denying the man can deliver great speeches. These speeches were extremely important in keeping the support he had gained online. His confidence and public spark that coupled with his virtual presence were ultimately what propelled him to victory in the election. This election proved to be a great example of what the internet has become in the political world and the positive effects it can have for a campaign. Without the resources the internet provides, history may have never been made.     

Week 4: Flickr

           This week dealt with the introduction of another great tool the internet has to offer, Flickr. The entire class seemed to be a bit anxious because of the lack of familiarity with this site, but by the end the results spoke for themselves. My group concluded with the story of love that turned murder. We choose this idea because of the closeness to Halloween. At the end I was very pleased with the way our story took shape.

            In the story, Max and Luke were together until Max reveals he has been cheating on Luke. Luke does not take the news lightly and quickly breaks things off with Max. On the rebound, Luke finds an extremely nice guy in Shawn and their relationship quickly takes off. However, Max has decided he can’t live with jealousy and guilt. He tells himself the only way is to kill Luke to repay her for finding another man so rapidly. While Shawn and Luke are building a heavenly duo, Max is watching their every move. He buys a murder weapon in a dark alley and waits for the right time. He catches Luke on her way to freshen up and murders her. Shawn returns with a bouquet of flowers to find his one true love dead on the ground in front of him with Max ready to claim his next victim.

            Although the story seems simplistic, there were many different tactics we had to use in order to give the story more meaning and ultimately take on the shape it did. First, we had to plan out how the story would take shape because of having to work with a limited amount of pictures. Once we had outlined the story, we had to figure out where we would have our story take place. The location was important because the different shots each needed a slightly different meaning. We were able to use different lighting venues to portray our story more effectively. We made different decisions on where to take our pictures based on where the climax was in the story. Once the pictures were all taken, I found Flickr was a very user friendly site. I did not have any issues uploading the photos or making our set. I really liked the simplicity the site employs for its operations. For the tagging, I kind of interpreted it like Facebook and just did the names of the people in each shot but now have realized the great things extensive tagging can do for a picture. Overall, the experience with Flickr was awesome and I think it is definitely a good avenue for creating user generated content. Also, like the reading pointed out, it has created the field of collaborative journalism.

            Flickr is proving to be a tool that will only expand in the future because of the things it can offer to people who use it. One major use it can have for the future is the field it created, collaborative journalism, which is defined as news reporting by a group of people. This is made easy by Flickr because you can upload photos that tell these stories like a celebrity sighting or car accident. After it is uploaded applying a tag to the photo can group it with other photos like it thus creating a story of its own. Flickr is also becoming another way people can be self-expressive.  Diyosa Carter is mentioned in the reading as a budding photographer, but is a working mom. She is able to explore her inner self by photography that she says she learned mostly from Flickr. Because this site is so user friendly people like Carter can still live their demanding life without interference. In the future, this site could become something similar to what YouTube has become for aspiring artists, a path to being famous for your photography without having to leave your everyday life. After doing this project and playing around the site, it is clear Flickr may just be the next big thing. 

"Drama" - teens' fear of adults' intervention,

In her writing The Drama! Teen Conflict, Gossip, and Bullying in Networked Publics, Danah Boyd argues that teens tend to beautify bullying by using the word “drama” because in doing so, “it lets them save face when confronted with adult-defined dynamics, which their peers see as childish and irrelevant”. In another word, it is a self-defense mechanism for teens to not feel inferior to the groups that bully them. Boyd also claims that such drama is “often performed for, in, and magnified by networked publics”.

While it is true that many teens try to save face by not admitting they are being bullied, Boyd misses the point that teens always attempt to free themselves from parents’ instructions, and such conflict is internal, not external. Boyd bases her argument on the assumption that teens defend themselves because the word bullying, which is defined by adults, is seen as childish among their peers. However, Boyd does not address the fact that teens are in a stage of internal conflict between their wish for personal freedom and their authoritative parents’ orders. Unlike what Boyd claims, teens are rebellious because they want to, not because other peers are. They may save face partially because they do not want to be labeled as a coward by their peers, but, more importantly, they save face because they do not want their parents to intervene their fight to obtain freedom.

Teens do not tell adults that they are being bullied because they know exactly how the network technology can escalate the incident. My junior high school was a newly founded international school that had less than twenty students in its first year of class. The school was trying its best to advertise its features mainly through the Internet. While the school slowly became more acknowledged by the public, it also meant that its small student bodies were under surveillance, especially of the parents. When I realized that there was a bullying happening inside our small class, I did not take any action. People may argue that I did not want everyone to think I was an instigator. That fear may have prevented me from doing anything, but my thinking was simpler: I knew that confessing this bullying would result in a total chaos. I knew that there were many anonymous BBS talking about how the school is run and it was not difficult to figure out that students’ parents were chatting on those BBS. Under such strict surveillance I did not want adults to exacerbate our problems by start posting our names on the BBS.

As Boyd points out herself in another paper, youth care much more about their online privacy than people used to assume. In the age of technology probably no one wants their parents to talk about them using their initials on a clearly non-anonymous BBS. The fact that their names are being mentioned by adults seems intruding. Frankly, teens do not want adults to be involved in their own world of adventure.

While peer pressure is a major problem in bullying, teens’ general distrust of adults is also an important element in considering why they do not ask for adults’ help. Boyd focused on how teens fear to lose their positions in the community they belong, but, more notably, they fear the intervention of adults. Thus, teens romanticize bullying or any complicated relationships as “drama” in order to minimize the conflict between them and adults.

LOL Cats and Other Memes

            While you surf the web, you may come across many random silly pictures. Many times they are with animals making funny faces, or cats with horrible spelling or a picture of a celebrity photo shopped into random situations. These are called Internet memes. A meme is a concept or idea that spreads person to person in a culture. So that means that an Internet meme is a concept or idea that spreads from person to person in the Internet culture.

            Internet memes often parody or mock something in society. Whether it is a video game reference or just a random dumb picture, there are thousands of memes on the Internet. Memes are normally spread through email, social networking or blogs. When captions are included they are often spelled wrong (as seen in LOL cats). For example, more will be come “moar” or like will be come “leik” or the becomes “teh”.

            The source for most Internet has been from 4chan. This is because it is a message board and often people’s reactions can be in the form of pictures. Other sites like Reddit or Tumblr are also places where memes are often born.  

            Many people look at Internet memes and shake their head at the stupidity of what they have just witnessed. I will be perfectly honestly, most if not all memes are completely dumb and honestly have no point. Yet they are still hilarious. I guess you could just say that it is born from our culture on the Internet. We often use memes as inside jokes with our friends it is great! Knowing memes can even help get people into new groups of friends or interests. For example take my friend Ted. He was familiar with the “u mad, bro?” meme and he and his friend often sent pictures of it to each other. One day Ted got a picture that had a pony on it that said u mad, bro? He looked up what the pony was from and ended up getting hooked on My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic (which also is huge in the meme world at the moment). 

            If you wish to find out more information about memes or memes and their origins you can visit the site Know Your Meme at here.

Citizen Journalism- The Next Generation?

As a reader of news, what do individuals want out of their stories? Is it a detailed description? A personal account? Live in depth coverage? Or audio and video footage? What if someone could report news with all of the above? Granted accuracy and legitimacy is always of high importance but what if it was the only available report, the only available on scene resource. This, friends, is citizen journalism. Having all of these abilities to contribute to mass media news is essential especially in today’s day and age. The resources to some may seem invalid, but in select scenarios the citizen journalist is quite beneficial. This is why Andrew Keen’s statement, in The Noble Amateur, that citizen journalists “simply don’t have resources to bring us reliable news,” and “access to information” is not entirely accurate.

            Matt Wisniewski, a citizen journalist, has a video that proves otherwise to Keen’s comments. Matt’s powerful 5 minute video chronicles the Budget Repair Protests at the Wisconsin Capital in Madison. Yes, the news teams can provide what was occurring throughout the day, but they could not provide the perspective that Matt shows inside the capital. This is merely only one example of the citizen journalist being effective. Others include Mr. Glenn Reynolds, the writer for Instapundt. His journalistic ability allowed him and his writings to gain much recognition post 9/11 and in 2004 he was awarded Web Technology’s Media and Journalism award, although he himself was not a news journalist. Citizen journalism has not stopped there. In some instances news stations ask the public for video, photo, or even audio accounts of key events that they want to report on. They accept these from the public; they accept these from the citizen journalist.

            Citizen journalists not only contribute to the daily TV news, radio news, newspapers, and web news. They go further, offering different perspectives that the public can relate to. They write on blogs such as Northwest Voice in Bakersfield, California. They send letters to the editor, possibly reinforcing a story, or even countering it. Citizen journalist’s role has changed over the year. Yes, some of their stories and input is not needed, but the citizen journalist is not a person who does not matter. They in select cases are essential in bringing news to the forefront. Sharing news to the public’s ear and eye.

Online Sharing Aids Musicians

No matter who you are, each person in our digital cultures class is a pirate. We ourselves have all contributed to “every important sector of big media today-film, records, radio, and cable TV”, each being born by so-called piracy (Lessig-Free Culture). So what exactly is piracy and how does it make individuals a pirate? Well friends, piracy occurs when an individual, without permission, uses another’s creative property. Now can we all honestly say that we have not done this? (No hands go up…) Exactly! When a song is heard on the Internet that catches the interest of one person, they in turn inform others, who then inform others. This, yet a case of piracy, is an example of how online sharing can benefit an artist. The Internet is a main catalyst for allowing the public to hear new independent artists. The exposure that the artists receive from online sharing of music is definitely beneficial towards them spreading their name and gaining them fame. Though in the eyes of the recording company, the online sharing may seem detrimental, in actually it is an advantage for the recording artists themselves.

            The truth is that the free downloading of music by no means “destroys sales” or “ruins the music industry” as recording labels may claim. In fact, it helps sales, maybe not immediately, but in the future. It can be thought about though personal experience. An individual may hear a song from an artist through a friend, causing them to get a free download. Gradually they inform others, while also listening to other songs from the artist. Soon they find the artist is touring and they go see a concert, paying for a ticket and also possibly purchasing memorabilia at the concert. This doesn’t even include the iTunes purchases, or CD purchases from gained popularity after individuals continue to spread artist’s notoriety. In fact, Janis Ian, the recording musician who authored the reading from class stated that she found “every time we make a few songs available on my website, sales of all CD’s go up. A lot,” further detailing that free downloading is a clear benefit to the artist.

            Ian added that the main way an artist can become successful is through one thing, exposure. As she details, “without exposure, no one comes to shows, no one buys CDs”. In her experience she said she has had several encounters with fans who said, “they came to a show because they’d downloaded a song and gotten curious”, yet another testament to the benefit of free downloading (Ian-Internet Piracy).

            Ian’s articles, as well as similar artists accounts, clearly reveals that they artists themselves are not the ones negatively affected by free online sharing. They in turn are positively affected allowing their name to gain recognition, and their music to catch on with fans for years to come.

Smart Mobs, more than just Political Movements

 

             In this weeks reading we took a look at the beginning of a phenomenon called “smart mobs” coined by Howard Rheingold. These mobs are able to coordinate quickly to participate in anything from political protests to meeting new people on the street.  The increased availability of mobile phones and the power of the technology allows for new ways for people to interact with each other.  While some of these smart mobs result in harmful situations, many of the mobs now are being coordinated for enjoyable activities.

            When examining smart mobs Rheingold saw that some of the technology was being used for violence but he also noted that, “any observer who focuses exclusively on the potential for violence would miss evidence of perhaps an even more profoundly disruptive potential— for beneficial as well as malign purposes—of smart mob technologies and techniques.”  Rheingold realized that the technology used by the military when he was writing the book would become more accessible to the public and we are currently seeing these ideas becoming a reality. Techniques such as “swarming” arose from the ability for people to instantly communicate through social media and text messaging which allows for people to organize and cooperate more quickly than ever before.

            For instance the organization Improv Everywhere sets up missions on their Facebook and Twitter pages.  These events , which are being called flash mobs, are usually pranks of silly nature such as riding the New York Subway without pants.  However, others are just fun ideas.  One of these smart mobs was coordinated through Facebook and text messaging telling people to download an mp3 file, and where to meet in New York City.  This message was spread through the networks and eventually the gathering grew to thousands of people.  At 8:30p.m. people were told to start listening to the downloaded mp3, this lead to an awesome spectacle of group participation. The video shows the “swarming” technique as people move quickly and converge on a single area once the idea is spread to the group.  This organization of people was caused by using cell phones and social networks to spread the word showing how Rheingold was right in his ideas. Smart mob technologies and techniques are being used to benefit the group rather than cause violence or protests. The ability for massive amounts of strangers to coordinate such an effort points to the power of smart mob technologies. It will be interesting to see how the ability for large amounts of people to seamlessly connect with one and other will further impact our world.

Cyberbullying, when does bullying become discrimination

In this weeks reading we examined some unfortunate stories that took place-involving cyberbullying.  Unfortunately, many of these cases take place with kids in their tweens who have not developed the self-esteem to handle ridicule broadcasted on social networks.  Danah Boyd’s research claims that it is difficult for teenagers, “To recognize oneself as a victim — or perpetrator — requires serious emotional, psychological and social support.” However, while this research may work well in the ages of middle and high school, how does it translate into an adult world?  Cyberbullying can evolve from teenage “drama” and at a later age become an invasion of private life and lead to discrimination.

The tragic story of Tyler Clementi shows the worst that cyberbullying has to offer. Instead of being some meaningless teenage “drama” Clementi’s privacy and freedom were stolen from him, when his roommate streamed online a sexual encounter of Clementi and another male student.  Because the Internet connects information to so many people the stream would have been able to be seen by multiple people.  This may have played into Clementi’s decision to jump to his death.  If Clementi had chosen to be labeled as a victim in the situation it varies greatly in a college situation as compared to high school.  Instead of just being harassed and called names Clementi’s personal life was brought to the forefront on the digital realm.  Had he sought help Clementi may have had a hard time to admit that he was being bullied as an adult, it would have required support that few universities in the nation are well equipped to provide.

Much like Clementi, Chris Armstrong, president of Michigan Student Assembly, was being harassed online due to his sexual orientation, however the bully wasn’t another student, but an adult.  That adult was assistant Michigan Attorney General Andrew Shrivell who had been releasing blog posts claiming that Armstrong was a gay Nazi and was participating in gay orgy parties in his dorm room.  Armstrong was fortunate and never had to seek support to getting the bullying to stop, had he have had to search for support it may have lead to a mental toll on the student.  Armstrong had many defendants without even asking for it as angry citizens posted frustrated messages about the discrimination of the student on Shirvell’s blog. Shirvell partakes in an interview shown on Jon Stewart’s The Daily Show, to make claims that he is the one that is being cyberbullied due to the harassment from the public, and that he is in the clear to say what he wants about Armstrong.  What ensues is a classic scene of someone in over their heads.  While this story may be ridiculous it does bring to attention the issues with cyberbullying, and how acceptance of being a bully, is as difficult for a 30-year-old man as it is for a teenager.  If he were able to accept how he is acting as being discriminatory to another individual perhaps he would be able to change his actions and possibly develop respect toward another human being.

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Deviantart and Fanart

            In the book Free Culture the Nature and Future of Creativity, Lawrene Lessig talks about how in our society there are some things that are free to copy while others are off limits. Lessig mentions how Disney rips off Brothers Grimm stories. Disney, however, puts their own spin on the stories. He goes to talk about doujinshis, which are spin off comics of Japanese manga. He goes on to explain what exactly a doujinshi is, “It is not doujinshi if it is just a copy; the artist must make a contribution to the art he copies, by transforming it either subtly or significantly” (Lessig). This may be strange to Americans because there is no way someone could create a knock-off of Batman, publish and sell it for profit without getting sued. Yet the Japanese don’t ban doujinshi because while they do not use original characters they have original story lines and sometimes their own art style.  

Deviantart is a very popular website that was launched in 2000. Their slogan is “where art meets application”. Here, many people post their own art they create. From traditional art (like drawing and painting), to digital art (like photo manipulated images or graphic design) to even artisan crafts and photography, you can find every form of art on this site. People can create an account and post their art. If a viewer likes your work, they may favorite pieces or comment on them. Much of Deviantart however is made up of fan art. Yet no one bats an eye unless an artist claims that the content of their art was their original idea. To a blatant copy issue, users generally get together and report the art to get it removed from the site. You can also find multiple doujinshis on Deviantart. Each one is very different and generally creative in it’s own way. Even I have copied someone else’s style of art and have drawn fan art so that I could learn how to draw better. 

            It’s not just the small artists who benefit from copying and collaborating with other artists. Even some big name artists are on Deviantart. Lauren Faust and Bryan Lee O'Malley are two examples of people whose work you may have heard of work. Lauren Faust has worked on shows such as the Power Puff Girls, Foster’s Home for Imaginary Friends and most recently My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic. On the other hand Bryan Lee O'Malley was the man who created the Scott Pilgrim vs. The World comics, which ended up being turned into a movie starring Michael Cera in 2010. Faust is one of the artists who actually looks at what her fans create. She has even kept a mistake character named “Derpy Hooves” in the show because the fandom loved it and created mass amounts of fan art around it. 

            So, not only can creating fan art help one's own art skills, it also can give artists new ideas so they can build on what they have already created. As long as artist do not blatantly copy other artists (take credit for their work) and give them credit where needed, collaboration should be allowed (and not considered piracy). 

Flickr Project

Our group had a couple main ideas before we decided on our final project. At first we wanted to show a story of a guy who gets sucked into a virtual world and he has to defeat a dragon or something of the sort. The only problem with that idea was that we learned that another group was using the dragon idea. So after some thought we decided we wanted to pretend that we were in a Grand Theft Auto game. Not only would we pretend to be in GTA, we decided to have me play a female gamer who is playing as a man in GTA. We decided that we would have our main character (Ryan) would play mimic the things the normal GTA character would do. For example, hijack a car or rob a bank. From here we decided that Dyllan would be the car driver (who ends up killed by Ryan) and Marc would be a fleeing passenger of the car, then have the final picture as my character leaving the game controller.

After our group decided what story we were going to tell, everything came together very nicely. I happened to have a nice camera, so we used that for our shooting. Our group got together during our regular class meeting time on Tuesday. We decided to do our GTA portion of the photo shoot in the daylight under the bridge by the Banta Bowl. We chose this location because it looked slightly sketchy. There was even some graffiti in that location but we ended up not using the pictures because they weren’t as good as we had hoped.

We then chose to take our “bank robbing” pictures outside of Chase. After those pictures were taken, we took the pictures with my character in Marc’s dorm later that night. We decided it would be better in the dark to give it a different atmosphere rather than one similar to our “game”. After we chose which pictures to use for our final project, I edited the GTA pictures to make them look similar to Grand Theft Auto 3 screen set up.

I had a friend help me create a crowbar icon for our photo because in GTA3, such an icon does not exist. We even made it so that the stars that appear in the game appeared in our pictures. Along with the stars, money also appears on a couple of occasions: once when Ryan mugs Dyllan and again when Ryan robs the bank. The time also changes as the story goes on.

            Our final project can be found HERE.

            I had a lot of fun working on this project with my group. I found that Flickr is easy enough to use after I got used to how the site worked. Our preparation for this project was simple. We set a time to meet and take pictures (during a meeting we held) and I brought my camera. When I had all of the pictures edited I found that Flickr was not that hard to use. It was pretty simple after I surfed the site for a little bit. Flickr makes it easy for users to share their photos with other people on the Internet. We tagged our photos as casual gaming and grand theft auto. The reason we chose these was because it basically described what was going on in the photos. In pictures where my character was playing video games, the tag read casual gaming. When the photos showed the GTA ones, the tags read grand theft auto. Tagging can be helpful because if you are looking for a certain topic or subject matter, you just type in what you are looking for and people who have tagged their pictures as such will appear in the search bar.

 

Week 1 Blog

             Over the past week I have realized some things about the growing virtual world and myself. Our AIM assignment forced me to view life through the eyes of someone different than myself. Leading on the idea that I was an African American drug-dealing thug, Emanuel Jenkins III, who outlived his time in NFL, I believe I embodied some of Sherry Turkle’s points in her article “Life on the Screen.” Turkle argued many interesting points that at first didn’t make me think twice, but after this assignment I can understand her views in a different light because of the first hand experience we were provided with in doing this assignment.

            First, she exclaims, “A MUD can become a context for discovering who one is and wishes to be.” This argument alone had me scratching my head at first because I didn’t believe an alternate persona could be such a powerful tool for expressing one’s true self. Secondly, she chronicles that MUDs can be an “escape valve” for anger in your real life. This concept was also something that was apparent in my AIM assignment. Lastly, Turkle’s argument that, “virtual worlds offer experiences that are hard to come by in real life,” had me rolling my eyes when I first browsed through the article. Dealing with the virtual for even a week has made me think “wow.” But little did I know, and the experience has been a true roller coaster of emotions that has left a lasting impression on me.  

            My alternate persona was someone that I do not wish to be, and took part in things that I don’t agree with. In the end however, I was asking myself why I enjoyed playing him out so much? Then I realized this exercise allowed me to express myself through the character even though he did not resemble me as a person or have any of character traits. My chatting partner, who had the identity of a “demon” asserted their views and appearance to me in the beginning; I personally did not agree with that they were saying. In a school setting I would have never spoke out against this type of thing to avoid conflict, but using the internet as an avenue of expression I became abrasive towards my AIM partner. I would not define myself as a confrontational person with strangers, but this experience would have been hard to come about in my every day routine. I openly questioned everything about this person’s life and the mere idea of being a “demon.” I poked fun of their lifestyle, harassed them, all while asserting my own views. It turned out to be a very empowering feeling, because I hit home with them on a personal level without having to take the repercussions directly. This whole experience on the AIM for me personally truly embodied some of Turkle’s key points.

            The assignment gave me a taste of what the virtual world has to offer to not just those looking to establish a new identity, but even those looking for an avenue of self expression. Eliminating the potential consequences of such conversations is what I believe gives you such an emotional rush that can be found in few place the real world. These chats really opened my eyes to the virtual world as a whole, and made me understand why it is becoming a national trend.

            

A World of Surveillance

What is privacy? In the United States, we feel as though our privacy is a part of our American privilege. With all new technology our privacy is deeply endangered. Your every move and information that you put on the Internet can be tracked, traced and stored without your knowledge. In Simson Garfinkel's book Privacy and the New Technology: What They Do Know Can Hurt You he say’s "It's a future in which what little privacy we now have will be gone. Some people call this a loss of privacy” (Garfinkel). We are slowly becoming a society that George Orwell predicted in his book 1984. A future where our every move is tracked or stored and what media we view is censored.  

Even Google has had a great impact on our Internet lives and privacy. Googlization is happening, even though it may not be as clear we would like. In Siva Vaidhaydanathan's book The Googlization of Everything: And Why We Should Worry Siva puts it best by saying "we are not Google's customers: we are it's product". Even though we many not like to think it, Google does affect different areas of our lives. Google affects our personal decisions like our political opinions or our moral ideas on subjects like abortion or gay rights. Google also has the power to control and survey almost the entire world. Almost everyone use’s Google and because of this, it’s power just keeps growing. Google keeps track of what you do on the Internet, your likes, dislikes, what your favorite food is and even your fetishes. They even show you advertisements based on your likes. If you are worried about Big Brother Google watching your moves you do have the option to change your privacy settings to make it harder for them to track you. But when that happens Google slows down your services. 

Google even stores everything about us. For example, during class we had three people go and Google their names. Nothing came up when the first boy searched his name. I was the one who searched my name second. But when I looked up my name nothing about me showed up. The third boy went up and videos and pictures and news articles popped up about him. This was because he had played juniors hockey and the almost everything that came up was about his hockey life. Even though nothing came up when I searched my name there is a lot of stuff on the Internet that I have posted or things that have been posted about me. If you look up my name and my old high schools name, lots of old athletic records and race times come up. On the other hand if you search my main Internet name, lots of things come up. I have a vast life on the Internet but I never use my real name, only my one username.

If there ever is a day where Google does decide to use our information, we have a lot at stake and in the open. It just goes to show that we need to be careful what we post on the Internet. You never know who will end up with your personal information in their hands.  

She loves me! She loves me not!

In the Flickr Project, the story that was decided in our group was called Murder & Deception at LU. The story is about a woman who was in love then gets heart broken and falls in love with another man. When the woman finds her new love, her old one becomes angry and wants to kill her as well as her new lover. The reason why this story was chosen between us was because it seemed like everyone, the class, would choose a horror story or a story that had something to do with Halloween, since it is near. We wanted to involve something to do with Halloween, but also a love story because our minds concluded that no one in the class would think about a love story. Although Flickr was not too difficult to use, this tool can be used to create false media online. This tool can also be used as the same concept as wikipedia, meaning that there can be some true information but yet again, people can tend to correct or add on false information. When we tagged each other in them, we tagged each other to tell the readers or watchers who was playing each part. When preparing for this project, we decided to make Luke Galle the female in this story, due to his long hair. We decided to take the pictures by the river to make it seem as if she had called her old lover to meet up with her by the river to make it seem like she was breaking up with him. The river symbolized the break up in this story. When she breaks up with him, she sees a new lover who is interested in her. Eventually, they hit it off well for the rest of the day, not knowing that her ex-boyfriend is stalking her and watching them as they are on their first date. So when they decide to go on another date later on in the day, they depart ways and plan on meeting each other later in the day, not knowing that her ex is planning on killing her. Her ex's plan to kill her was stabbing her with a corkscrew or some shape object. When Lukey and Shawn part ways, her ex follows her and kills her right before her and her new lover meet up again. Her new lover comes back with some flowers that may interest her even more but sees her dead body on the ground. When seeing her dead, Shawn is shocked and then her murderer, also her ex, follows behind Shawn to attempt to kill him too. We decided to not show her ex, Max, killing her new lover, Shawn, because we wanted to build suspence. We wanted our audience to assume what can happen or what can not happen, meaning that we wanted our audience to figure out the outcome for themselves. Maybe Shawn escaped and called the police or maybe he was murdered too? Experiencing Flickr for the first time, it seems interesting and can be a new way of telling stories. Instead of a typical story that is just told orally, Flickr can be a place where stories are told on internet. In the near future, perhaps, Flickr will become the new generation of story telling and telling stories orally around a bonfire will be diminished. The tagging in the Flickr project was interesting and it tells the viewer who was in it. Overall, the project was interesting and should be a great attribute in the future for storytelling. http://www.flickr.com/photos/68302494@N06/sets/72157627757779001/

Down fall of people.

This week we read our reading on writers Henry Jenkins and Clay Shriky. Both their reading are related to each other by the fact that they talks about the professions made in the virtual world, which can either build or can destroy a person’s professional life. This can mainly relate to political figures and celebrities who are constantly watched by the media world. The media world can be brutal to if they catch a mistake made by political figures or celebrities.

News has meant two different things, events that are newsworthy and events that are covered by the press. Identifying what is news was personal judgment. Though these days the internet blogs makes the news, which breaks the link between the two. Some news only makes it to the papers because people have talked about in on blogs and without the press weighing in. Oftentimes, the press picks the story up after it makes a big splash among people. The best example in the reading this week was the politician Howard Dean who ran for election in 2004 developed initial following via the Internet that brought him visibility in broadcast and mass-market media. He was able to raise large sums of money He was able to raise this large amount of money by creating blogs which created a more intimate relationship with citizens and meetup.com to quickly launch rallies. Dean’s campaign used it to rally by using Deanie Babies. Blogging bought him closer to the citizen because of citizen journalism, quick way to put content out there, free, and mobile information. Make no claim to objectivity and deal with rumors. When Dean made a large amount of money, which he used to for television advertising. The sad thing is that if the “internet made Dean’s candidacy, television unmade it.” This happened when he gave a speech in Iowa, which became a self-destructive act because during his speech he screamed at the end of the speech, which was used to reduce to soundbites on TV. When the broadcast media made him look really bad internet sharks hacked attacked him. The internet sharks started to post pictures of Dean with different violent acts, which made him loose the election since people who supported him and were going to elect him changed their minds.

A good example to the reading would be the celebrity Britney Spear when she was going through her depression and she broke hit her car with the umbrella it became a huge deal and it was broadcasted on television and newspaper. Right after it was broadcasted on television the internet sharks got to her and started making pictures and videos of her that showed a violent side and she became the talk of the news and internet. Every move she made it became the new talk on internet. Her performace were criticized. People started saying she wasn't fitted to be a parent and she needed help. Britney Spears’s image was being destroyed on internet and the magaize and the media never gave her a break. Though she had a rough time with the media she managed to pull herself together and come back as the image as people once remember her as the “girl next door”. The sad thing is that though she has regained her identity as the girl everyone remember as. The images the internet shark has of her online will always be there and it will always remind everyone what she had gone through and what had happened. There is no turning back of what had happened.

The conclusion of this week’s reading is that thought one can build a professional identity and success in the media world. The same media can destroy one’s professional life if one is not careful of the their action. Internet media does not favor anyone and can attack anyone that is weak. Though people like Britney Spear and Howard Dean is example of people who were attacked by internet shark. There are many more out there and it isn’t only happening in America but everywhere else in the world and some consequence to internet shark are worst such as suicide and depression.

Mutual Respect Piracy

           When we first mentioned the term “piracy” in class, the first thing that came to my mind was file sharing and as we know it, downloading free music.  Considering that the majority of our class has some sort of experience in downloading music online and file sharing, I thought it was an appropriate topic to discuss in this blog.  In Lawrence Lessig’s book, Free Culture, he defines piracy as “using the creative property of others without their permission”.  So necessarily, this term isn’t only directed at the illegal music downloaders, it is also directed at the artists themselves.  This includes industries of film, radio, cable TV, and probably the most prevalent industry of piracy we see today; recorded music.
In Lessig’s chapter titled, “Pirates”, he argues that “The Beatles have less control over their creative work than Grisham does.”  Time and time again we can see this exampled in the music industry today.  While authors of books have almost exclusive rights of their written work, recording artists face very limited rights to their music.  For example, the hit hip-hip song of last year “Black and yellow” by Wiz Khalifa. There were countless numbers of remakes to this song using the same beat and similar lyrics while none of the artists remaking the songs got permission from Wiz Khalifa (the recording artist) or Stargate (the producer).  Although Wiz had virtually no control over this, the remakes were being made faster than you could watch them.  However, even though these artists were using the same beat as the original “Black and yellow, they weren’t breaking the law because they weren’t making any profit.
  This is seen on a daily basis in the music industry, especially that of hip-hop.  This lack of control over your creative work in hip-hop can actually be viewed as a good thing.  It allows a gain of popularity of the specific song, artist, or producer.  I can guarantee if you ask Wiz Khalifa how he feels about all of the remakes of “Black and Yellow”, he would say it is a good thing.  “Black and Yellow” was his first big hit and now thanks to some of the remakes (Lil Wanye’s Packer remix) he has since became one of the biggest stars in the music industry.  artists seem to make the “your song gets popular, my song gets popular” approach. In essence, the lack of control over your songs has turned into what i like to call a ‘mutual respect piracy.’