Something is rotten in the state of Digital Media
Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears! I intend to pass playful judgement upon the inner workings of and interaction with Web 2.0 and other related sites and applications especially with respect to hidden practices behind the front end interaction with digital media that go largely unnoticed. How will I do it? With a new collection of memes I've dubbed "Google Shakespeare," which takes classic quotes from Shakespeare's plays and sonnets and reworks them to include modern day digital media elements in order to incite conversation about them.
Google Shakespeare, in its most basic incarnation, is a meme. In this case, a meme is an established method of placing text, usually with a predetermined pattern, onto an image that then represents a certain critique or idea. They are digital media's version of Eisenstein's montage: the collision of two or more objects to create a new idea. Alone, the painting of Shakespeare represents what the Bard or, very possibly, what one of his incarnations may have looked like. With the added twist or collision of giving Shakespeare Google Chrome symbols for pupils, a new idea is formed. This Shakespeare is a new Shakespeare, one in communion with modern digital culture. His Chrome pupils, though small, speak subtly of the back end of digital media silently watching the front end of users of Web 2.0, which becomes relevant after the incited dialogue begins (Scholz 242). The additional collision of the specific text on the image leads to an entirely new idea, that of this meme's purpose.
On this more important tier of meaning, Google Shakespeare represents "a method of propaganda which allows commodities and symbols to exceed and "break free" of the spectacle's constraints [...] to experience new ways of using commodities and symbols in opposition to the meanings and usages intended by the spectacle" (Vejby and Wittkower 104). In other words, Google Shakespeare is a meme intended to problematize digital media objects by colliding them with Shakespeare quotes to put them in a new context outside of their traditional usage. This creates opportunity for unbiased dialogue about the subjects and the activities behind them. We become, as Vejby and Wittkower suggest, "active agents rather than passive recipients" when we create or allow memes like Google Shakespeare to alter our perception of the digital media we intake enough for us to see how the digital media uses us and what effect it has on our society rather than how we utilize digital media (105).
Take the first meme as a prime example of this troubling for questions' sake. Instead of thinking about what one can do while operating online, one is free, thanks to the collisions within the meme, to think, unbiased, about what it means to operate online and what results from doing so. Can a follower on Twitter truly lend you an ear, listen to you in the traditional sense? What does this say about communication in digital media? Are our 140 characters on Twitter, or trolls' inane comments, or the images we browse on Imgur, especially memes, like traditional communication at all? They certainly aren't direct dialogue, as in a conversation or a letter, but perhaps they ascend to a more universal level of communication that attempts to escape the barriers of traditional language, like film has seemed to. Others may argue that digital media is causing communication to devolve into a "language" of slang, acronyms, and emoticons that try to pack as much meaning into as little space as possible yielding an overly simplified version of communication unworthy of pursuit. Without Google Shakespeare or some other derailing to come along and bump these digital media objects and their casual users out of their comfort zones, such dialogue is difficult to imagine (Vejby and Wittkower 105). Since they are probably part of the "cohort who is always-on," casual internet users rarely stop to think about the tool they are using to tell the world they're about to hop into bed #naptime #beautysleep (Boyd 71). If they were allowed to step back and analyze, as using Google Shakespeare intends to encourage, perhaps they'd become a bit more cautious about what they share, maybe they'd gain a new sense of understanding about the larger lexicon they're contributing to, or possibly they'd grasp how their online interaction might shape future communication.
These conclusions are a bit far fetched, but relevant. As Vejby and Wittkower say, "this kind of play may be silly, but it is significant," which is why memes like Google Shakespeare are such useful tools, especially in a digital environment that understands and accepts sarcasm as a valid form of expression to the same extent that Shakespeare's audiences comprehended his subtly sarcastic humor (105). Using a meme to interrupt Spectacle 2.0 for a brief moment is in no way a completely honest call to action against Web 2.0. Instead, it is merely comedy - often sarcastic in order to point out the insanity of some users - to cause momentary diversion for the sake of starting conversations. Take Google Shakespeare's (and just like that, the meme becomes embodied) commentary on Google itself. Certainly, Google is a piece of work, of code, of algorithms beyond the comprehension of many, but noble in reason? Naturally, this is sarcasm. Nobility cannot be found in code that effectively grants you access to the exact part of the Web you require at a given instant, if you're feeling lucky. Instead, the sarcastic text in the bottom half of the meme calls out the top half. Google really is a piece of work, in the affronting sense. Google may have the algorithm to find that exact .gif you were searching for, but you provide the algorithm with information that helps it to find that .gif again in the future for someone else. The user is doing some of the work without any compensation beyond more ad viewing time. The nerve of Web 2.0! And it doesn't stop at Google.
Facebook is another perpetrator of back end corporate shenanigans. Users supply their own content to the front end structure established by the back end governing body that then detect patterns in users' activity, effectively mining social interactions to gauge what ads to show, to understand economic and political patterns, etc, which can then be sold to third parties (Scholz 242-243). They profit on user interaction. Are we truly free to use Facebook, then? Are we free to use any website? Are we, as Scholz puts it in his chapter entitled "Facebook as Factory and Playground," trapped on Facebook because of our established social connections, however insignificant they may be, outweigh the moral implications of supplying free information to the corporate back end (246-247)? The casual social network user is mostly oblivious to this digital objectification, though when Google Shakespeare is allowed to open the casual user's mind to a reality where all is not as it seems (with the help of some additional reading, mind you; no meme is perfect), one can begin to realize what role they play in the digital realm and make conscious choices about how to react.
Altogether, Google Shakespeare agrees with Scholz's final point, to a point. We should do "something glorious with these social spaces," that we inhabit online (Scholz 252). Realizing that we desire acknowledgement from these spaces and cannot outright leave them, we must merely change our ways (Scholz 249). Rather than following like lemmings, mindlessly presenting information to social networking sites, we should do as Vejby and Wittkower suggest and "carry out acts of subversion and create various situations" (106). We should do as Google Shakespeare meme does somewhat successfully and subvert the traditional hierarchy of back end corporations lording over simple users by creating a diversion in order to set our minds on a new plane of reason in order to address the hidden practices of digital media that unwittingly employ us.
Works Cited
Boyd, Danah. "Participating in the Always-On Lifestyle." The Social Media Reader. Ed. Michael Mandiberg. New York: New York University Press, 2012. 71-76.
Scholz, Trebor. "Facebook as Playground and Factory." Facebook and Philosophy: What's on Your Mind? Ed. D. E. Wittkower. Chicago: Open Court Publishing, 2010. 241-252.
Vejby, Rune and D. E. Wittkower. "Spectacle 2.0?" Facebook and Philosophy: What's on Your Mind? Ed. D. E. Wittkower. Chicago: Open Court Publishing, 2010. 97-108.
Google Shakespeare, in its most basic incarnation, is a meme. In this case, a meme is an established method of placing text, usually with a predetermined pattern, onto an image that then represents a certain critique or idea. They are digital media's version of Eisenstein's montage: the collision of two or more objects to create a new idea. Alone, the painting of Shakespeare represents what the Bard or, very possibly, what one of his incarnations may have looked like. With the added twist or collision of giving Shakespeare Google Chrome symbols for pupils, a new idea is formed. This Shakespeare is a new Shakespeare, one in communion with modern digital culture. His Chrome pupils, though small, speak subtly of the back end of digital media silently watching the front end of users of Web 2.0, which becomes relevant after the incited dialogue begins (Scholz 242). The additional collision of the specific text on the image leads to an entirely new idea, that of this meme's purpose.
On this more important tier of meaning, Google Shakespeare represents "a method of propaganda which allows commodities and symbols to exceed and "break free" of the spectacle's constraints [...] to experience new ways of using commodities and symbols in opposition to the meanings and usages intended by the spectacle" (Vejby and Wittkower 104). In other words, Google Shakespeare is a meme intended to problematize digital media objects by colliding them with Shakespeare quotes to put them in a new context outside of their traditional usage. This creates opportunity for unbiased dialogue about the subjects and the activities behind them. We become, as Vejby and Wittkower suggest, "active agents rather than passive recipients" when we create or allow memes like Google Shakespeare to alter our perception of the digital media we intake enough for us to see how the digital media uses us and what effect it has on our society rather than how we utilize digital media (105).
Take the first meme as a prime example of this troubling for questions' sake. Instead of thinking about what one can do while operating online, one is free, thanks to the collisions within the meme, to think, unbiased, about what it means to operate online and what results from doing so. Can a follower on Twitter truly lend you an ear, listen to you in the traditional sense? What does this say about communication in digital media? Are our 140 characters on Twitter, or trolls' inane comments, or the images we browse on Imgur, especially memes, like traditional communication at all? They certainly aren't direct dialogue, as in a conversation or a letter, but perhaps they ascend to a more universal level of communication that attempts to escape the barriers of traditional language, like film has seemed to. Others may argue that digital media is causing communication to devolve into a "language" of slang, acronyms, and emoticons that try to pack as much meaning into as little space as possible yielding an overly simplified version of communication unworthy of pursuit. Without Google Shakespeare or some other derailing to come along and bump these digital media objects and their casual users out of their comfort zones, such dialogue is difficult to imagine (Vejby and Wittkower 105). Since they are probably part of the "cohort who is always-on," casual internet users rarely stop to think about the tool they are using to tell the world they're about to hop into bed #naptime #beautysleep (Boyd 71). If they were allowed to step back and analyze, as using Google Shakespeare intends to encourage, perhaps they'd become a bit more cautious about what they share, maybe they'd gain a new sense of understanding about the larger lexicon they're contributing to, or possibly they'd grasp how their online interaction might shape future communication.
These conclusions are a bit far fetched, but relevant. As Vejby and Wittkower say, "this kind of play may be silly, but it is significant," which is why memes like Google Shakespeare are such useful tools, especially in a digital environment that understands and accepts sarcasm as a valid form of expression to the same extent that Shakespeare's audiences comprehended his subtly sarcastic humor (105). Using a meme to interrupt Spectacle 2.0 for a brief moment is in no way a completely honest call to action against Web 2.0. Instead, it is merely comedy - often sarcastic in order to point out the insanity of some users - to cause momentary diversion for the sake of starting conversations. Take Google Shakespeare's (and just like that, the meme becomes embodied) commentary on Google itself. Certainly, Google is a piece of work, of code, of algorithms beyond the comprehension of many, but noble in reason? Naturally, this is sarcasm. Nobility cannot be found in code that effectively grants you access to the exact part of the Web you require at a given instant, if you're feeling lucky. Instead, the sarcastic text in the bottom half of the meme calls out the top half. Google really is a piece of work, in the affronting sense. Google may have the algorithm to find that exact .gif you were searching for, but you provide the algorithm with information that helps it to find that .gif again in the future for someone else. The user is doing some of the work without any compensation beyond more ad viewing time. The nerve of Web 2.0! And it doesn't stop at Google.
Facebook is another perpetrator of back end corporate shenanigans. Users supply their own content to the front end structure established by the back end governing body that then detect patterns in users' activity, effectively mining social interactions to gauge what ads to show, to understand economic and political patterns, etc, which can then be sold to third parties (Scholz 242-243). They profit on user interaction. Are we truly free to use Facebook, then? Are we free to use any website? Are we, as Scholz puts it in his chapter entitled "Facebook as Factory and Playground," trapped on Facebook because of our established social connections, however insignificant they may be, outweigh the moral implications of supplying free information to the corporate back end (246-247)? The casual social network user is mostly oblivious to this digital objectification, though when Google Shakespeare is allowed to open the casual user's mind to a reality where all is not as it seems (with the help of some additional reading, mind you; no meme is perfect), one can begin to realize what role they play in the digital realm and make conscious choices about how to react.
Altogether, Google Shakespeare agrees with Scholz's final point, to a point. We should do "something glorious with these social spaces," that we inhabit online (Scholz 252). Realizing that we desire acknowledgement from these spaces and cannot outright leave them, we must merely change our ways (Scholz 249). Rather than following like lemmings, mindlessly presenting information to social networking sites, we should do as Vejby and Wittkower suggest and "carry out acts of subversion and create various situations" (106). We should do as Google Shakespeare meme does somewhat successfully and subvert the traditional hierarchy of back end corporations lording over simple users by creating a diversion in order to set our minds on a new plane of reason in order to address the hidden practices of digital media that unwittingly employ us.
Works Cited
Boyd, Danah. "Participating in the Always-On Lifestyle." The Social Media Reader. Ed. Michael Mandiberg. New York: New York University Press, 2012. 71-76.
Scholz, Trebor. "Facebook as Playground and Factory." Facebook and Philosophy: What's on Your Mind? Ed. D. E. Wittkower. Chicago: Open Court Publishing, 2010. 241-252.
Vejby, Rune and D. E. Wittkower. "Spectacle 2.0?" Facebook and Philosophy: What's on Your Mind? Ed. D. E. Wittkower. Chicago: Open Court Publishing, 2010. 97-108.