Literacy on Last.fm

Read any of my posts about Last.fm, and it doesn't take long to realize that this site is intricate and has complex features. As a member, I've encountered multiple literacies, on forums, profile pages, and other places around the site.

Profiles, wiki articles, songs, events and other pages have shoutboxes at the bottom where members can post comments or messages. There is an imposed limit of 1000 characters (pretty long for a "shout" if you ask me), but there is almost an unspoken rule that NO ONE should write so much. In fact, usually shouts are only a few quick lines. Artist and song pages often act as catch-all spaces for intense fandom or dislike (which makes sense because, like a lot of online opinion polls, involvement on these pages is voluntary and attracts polarized ideologies). For example, on the Radiohead wiki page Peppeworld writes,"I will kill someone in order to see them live." Zheinerovich clearly does not relate and replies, "Then you're one retarded motherfucker." MathIsUniversal and whiteclef1 are also less than enthusiastic about this group, chiming in with "shit band" and "shit album" (respectively).

Lengthier shouts are not as uncommon on profile pages, however. User shoutboxes are analogous to Facebook Friend walls, so that anyone can read the shouts and it's not quite as annoying if messages are longer. On FatShade's profile, for example, lamma-assassina writes a long comment amongst a series of short shouts:

"I'm flattered, thanks! Well, I was taking a look at your library... Regina, Laura Marling, Tori Amos, Sarah Blasko, Fiona Apple... Sarah Slean is definitely missing! She's a singer-songwriter and pianist, her voice is just haunting and lyrics, pure beauty. I truly recommend this acoustic version of "Out in the park": [YouTube link] and her album "The Baroness". Oh, and she's a writer too. I haven't read her book yet, I must check it out, hm. Please let me know if you liked her! And if you have any recommendations, too, leave me a message:D I just got into Tori Amos, I'm totally loving her...how could I ignore her music for so long?"

All the same, post length on profiles trends towards the curt end of the spectrum. Even Marrajjj and jamesssxD (from my last post), who are obviously good Last.fm friends, keep interchanges fairly short. The pattern alters quite a bit, though, with regard to forum participation.

My focus is on the "General Discussion" and "In The News" forums, which exhibit stark contrasts in writing convention. Forum threads still display variability in posting literacy, but the manifestations are much broader here. Literacy flip flops from thread to thread, even post to post. For instance, one long-running thread titled “chatting on forums is a good way to make friends !! ;D” harbors posts that are random, even unpredictable, and any subject is up for game. The user iamstellar offers another forum poster tips on beating alcohol and drug addiction:

"Addicts are always seeking to fill their void constantly. So they will use what they can to fill it. If it isn't drugs and alcohol, it is sex… recover on your own and on your own terms. If you don't you will only seek to ‘fill that void’ with other shit you shouldn't be doing.”

In the same thread, the user annihilatethem shares dating advice and explains, “I've come to learn, ‘once a cheater, always a cheater’. Girl's have given me a HUGE reason not to trust them anymore.” Later, annihilatethem brings up totally different topic in the same thread: “So has anyone heard about the particle accelerator experiment they're working on in Switzerland… Black holes? Anti-Matter? Don't sound too good to me.” Where this thread renders subject-jumping with posts not only acceptable but also a crucial part of  interesting dialogue, many of the "In The News" threads exhibit posts of long discussions, immaculate grammar, honed in debating and serious ethical/philosophical issues.

For instance, a thread about India's exploding population – now at 1.21 billion, according to the 2011 census (article) – elicits a conversation about overpopulation and population control. Chab0's comment seems almost Malthusian: "This insane population boom is what's keeping the poverty stricken areas of India from developing. The more people, the less resources... Only time can cure overpopulation!" Later, sgath92 and Verslie each post diatribes of four or more paragraphs (thread). Verslie goes as far as calling Indians "uneducated, irresponsible people continuously churning out more and more children for stupid reasons," claiming "they can't be bothered with contraception, they want state benefits, they want an excuse to not work, they want to give their life some sort of meaning because their own miserable existence isn't enough for them." Verslie asserts that "[h]aving children is not a 'right'" and agrees with sgath92 that "[l]icensing is definitely the way forward." According to him/her:

"The majority of these children born in places like India, are likely born into incredibly poor families, where their only future is to live in poverty whilst working ridiculously long hours with ridiculously low pay just so they can afford to pay for their small amount of food in order to survive. What kind of life is that? It's better not to create life in the first place."

Aside from the ugly rhetoric and banter (see for yourself), this thread shows that Last.fm makes room for a spectrum of literacies. Interestingly, the context set by the forum & thread in conjunction with the tone established by users works to cue which literacy is appropriate. (Basically monkey see, monkey do.)

Last.fm: gender-bending (and anything else you want) welcome

In my search for gender issues on Last.fm, I came across a trend of male-identifying users with very feminine online personas (some examples: BEST_FICTION, jordi_89, Blitzsims, Ruh_St). Last class I inexplicably claimed that I would assume a male is gay if he listens to female-dominated music, i.e. Lady GaGa. I am so, SO sorry if I offended anyone; that is not what I think or even meant to say. I crassly misspoke but didn't see another opportunity in class to elaborate, and I totally misrepresented myself (and embarrassed myself while I was at it). Hopefully this post does a better job of conveying what I've discovered from my research. To provide some context, the Last.fm community is truly global in its extent (albeit seemingly limited to countries with available Internet access). With a music database to suit even the most particular tastes, this recommendation service attracts and welcomes a wide variety of people and thereby personalities. Furthermore, there are many avenues for interaction or involvement with both the site and other users. These components collide to create a diverse, tolerant, anything-goes atmosphere in which members can engage with each other. With this backdrop in mind, I focused in on conversation between two male users in an attempt to uncover some of the social dynamics at play (specifically with regard to gender-bending).

Marrajjj

jamesssxD

Marrajjj, a 16-year-old male from the US, and jamesssxD, an 18-year-old male living in the UK, joined Last.fm last year. Marrajjj and jamesssxD have 1,091 and 2,532 shouts (comments) respectively. After switching back and forth between both of their shoutboxes, I would venture to guess that most of those shouts are to each other. They message one other multiple times a day, and have done so almost every day since January of this year. Their online friendship began through shared music interest, as they are both avid fans of Beyonce ("Bey"), Britney Spears, Rihanna, and – most of all – Nicki Minaj, whose photo serves as an avatar for both users.

This dialogue soon evolved into a fun, joking relationship. They humorously refer to each other as "barb"  – one of Nicki Minaj's catch phrases (see video at bottom). They often make candid or flirty comments to one another. For instance, Marrajjj pokes fun at jamesssxD bad habits, alleging "lmaooo barb! you is always stashin them coke cans in ya gucci bag. A MESS." JamesssxD jokingly responds saying, "cola? nigga there best be vodka in dat cola or #imdone #bye #ontothenextone." At another time,  jamesssxD posts this animation declaring, "my gewdies my gewdies i know u want ma gewdies!!" Marrajjj provokingly answers him, claiming "i bet you can gimme somethin waay better than dem goodies." The two users also frequently comment on new music from their favorite artists. JamesssxD, for example, asserts that the "whole sasha feirce album bored me but this single is back to old Bey, it's so different to such an anthem!! i wanna put on some 9 inch heels n wallk down the street strutting," to which Marrajjj responds encouragingly "get you[r] grind on girl." Eventually, the pair shared photos of themselves. JamesssxD explains, "i got reddish/brown hair n freckles deaaad im a total scottish steroetype barb... [link to photo] a mess, black on the inside though." Marrajjj reciprocates with a link to his photo and writes, "omggg is scottland the same as ireland? XD lmaoo and im from massachusetts... im like from a little country farm town lmao.... :X." This comes to jamesssxD's surprise who "thot [Marrajjj would be] a black ghetto boy ," but flatteringly admits "[Marrajjj looks] real barbalicious tho xD." Marrajjj assures jamesssxD that he's "black on the inside like [him] of course" and "very barbaliciouss and ghetto!" Regardless of their sexual orientation, clearly both jamesssxD and Marrajjj are very comfortable expressing themselves on Last.fm with no reservations about cultural or social reprisal.

Last.fm, what at first appears to be a Pandora wannabe (just another music recommending service), is in reality a playground for manifesting identity. Some users employ their profiles to outright announce their individuality front and center, such as jordi_89 who initially used "The queerest of the queer" on his profile in place of a real website URL (now he lists his Facebook). This speaks volumes about the kind of community Last.fm represents. As described in my last post, people can illustrate their identities to varying degrees, and there is no agreed-upon limit for how seriously individuals get involved. They can represent themselves with only the music they like – by scrobbling their listening history or adding photos of favorite artists to their profile pages, for example – or go further and fill in details about personal identity – by including more personal information, choosing emblematic avatars, participating in forums, posting shouts around the site, connecting or friending musical neighbors and more. Whether the aforementioned accounts are true expressions of sexuality or merely playful gender-bending experiments, Last.fm is a nonetheless a uniting force for these users and many others. Many of the self-identified male users with feminine Last.fm personas that I encountered are friends with each other. Similarly, I have come across other social circles that have connected based on different traits.

Last.fm's community guidelines concretize this value of tolerance and acceptance:

Be respectful to each other. Do not vent your frustrations at other members, whether through your comments or material you post on the site. There is zero tolerance for predatory behaviour, disparaging or defamatory comments, threats, harassment, illegal activities, invading privacy, propaganda, racial hatred, offensive cultural behaviour, vulgar or obscene content, or other inappropriate behaviour or the revealing of other members' personal information.

Though users are not forced to encounter the "other," or people different from themselves, there is an implicit, uncontroversial expectation within the community that this will probably happen. In other words, if you're not welcoming of the "other," you're not welcome on Last.fm (at least its social networking aspects).

Nicki Minaj explains the phrase "Harajuku Barbie"

Constructing identity on Last.fm

Last.fm, the subject of my report, is an expansive music recommendation site with mature social networking features. Becoming involved in the community seems, at first glance, a simple task: listen to radio stations, find and chat with your Last.fm neighbors (people with similar taste), and/or post on the forums. However, the inner-workings of the site are much more complex. The atmosphere is lax and opportunities for engagement are many, so that users display varying degrees of involvement. This results in an interesting mosaic of a unique identities.

Profiles stand as the primary stage for presenting identity on Last.fm. The first clue to a user's personality is their avatar – the image displayed next to their activity all across the site – which sits at the top of the profile page. This image can be realistic (1), humorous (2), sarcastic (3), or anything else the user pleases (4).

 Recently listened tracks, a preview of the person's library, top tracks and top artists lie below; a user's song taste serves as another patent, authentic indicator of sociality, given that Last.fm is inspired by music listening and discovery. The page sidebar has additional information: recent site activity, Last.fm friends, events the user is attending, and groups (not unlike Facebook Fan Pages). Groups in particular serve almost as identity badges, conveying individual opinions and personalities. There are few limits on what a group can be about, with titles such as "Classic Rock," "I Hate Hip-Hop," "I play too many damn forum games," "The Canadian Rock League," "I Still Buy CDs," "Introverted Lonely and Over-Sensitive," and "People with no social lives that listen to more music than is healthy who are slightly scared of spiders and can never seem to find a pen" to name a few.

Finally, the most personalized bit of screen real estate is the customizable portion of the sidebar near the top of the profile page. Where some users leave this blank or insert a short snippet of text, others create lengthy catalogues of photos, illustrations, animated images, dynamic infographics (i.e. top artists in the last 3 months, tag clouds), visitor counters, links to videos or other websites, lyrics, favorite bands, quotes, and more (example, another example). I think this portion of the profile directly speaks to the user's identity. This is the proverbial "blank canvas" of Last.fm, where individuals are free to express themselves. The representations of identity are incredibly diverse, so that some users put a great deal of thought into what they include. Profile embellishment does not necessarily correlate with community engagement however. The user Odessius, for instance, has only added a single button link to his profile page, but exhibits very high activity with 206 shouts and 1,323 forum posts. This provides just a glimpse of the complex nature of how users construct identity on Last.fm.

Prof + p2p grading = learning at its best

`I really appreciated Cathy Davidson's points on the arbitrary, outdated nature of traditional grading. She explains grade assignment as a "meaningless, superficial, cynical way to evaluate learning in a class." Rather than fostering a lifelong curiosity among students, grades turn learning into a "crass competition" according to Davidson. She describes a new system whereby students accrue points based on peer-to-peer and instructor evaluation and point totals correspond to different letter grades. If an assignment is deemed unsatisfactory by one's peers, s/he can choose to revise the work for full points. This informs class participants from the get-go how grading works and what class expectations are. Davidson legitimizes her plan, citing that "every study of peer review among students shows that students perform at a higher level, and with more care, when they know they are being evaluated by their peers than when they know only the teacher and the TA will be grading." She believes this system will promote responsibility, credibility, judgment, and honesty among her students, as well as preparing them to offer and receive thoughtful criticism.

Personally, I can fall victim to shooting for a good grade more than shooting for a good understanding of the subject. I create so much anxiety for myself trying to decipher what "high performance" in a class means, when I should be learning and growing from my course experience. I know this bad habit stems from my K-12 years of public education, where it seemed like all of my efforts should be geared towards getting into college. Since an admissions office can't see me and mainly sees my grades, many of us were taught to aim for the highest grade possible, cross our fingers, and make the best of what we got. Previously, my perception of college was more as a means to an end (aka a job) than a worthwhile opportunity for growth. Even now, a lot of students mindlessly attend lectures, begrudgingly complete assignments, and resentfully write papers and/or study for tests. Grades are "received" not earned, and each task is merely a cumbersome, stressful chore instead of an educational opportunity. Davidson's model, on the other hand,  allows a student to truly "make" their grade by allowing them to revisit/redo past assignments based on feedback. This model gives students the freedom to make mistakes and learn from them – a tried-and-true method for growth, if you ask me – so that grades are not simply judgments but more faithful representations of understanding. This forces each student to view the flaws of their work and find a way to improve, which inadvertently inspires reflection and genuine interest for class subjects (instead of stress and frustration). I suppose, in a few words, Davidson's grading model appeals to me because it grants students the agency to define how they engage with and what they get out of a class.

S/R 3: eXistenZ

In his film, eXistenZ, David Cronenburg explores the blurred lines between meat and machine as well as virtuality and reality in a futuristic world where anti-game realists come into conflict with game advocates. The story revolves around Allegra Geller, the world’s greatest game designer, and Ted Pikul, a supposed marketing intern for Antenna Research, a premier gaming company. To initiate the test launch of her newest game, eXistenZ, Allegra plugs into her metaflesh game pod – a convulsing, organ-like unit made of mutated amphibian tissue. The meat-machine theme continues when a realist assassin attempts to shoot Allegra with a gun made of bones with human teeth for ammunition. Allegra and Ted escape, but she worries her pod, which contains the sole copy of eXistenZ, has been damaged during the accident. To check the pod, she must jack into the game with a friendly partner. Allegra urges Ted to “break out of [his] cage,” and go beyond his body via the game world. Pikul, lacking the requisite biological socket for linking to the pod, relents and agrees to have a bio-port installed. When Geller and Pikul finally port into the pod, Ted is surprised by the lifelike experience of eXistenZ exclaiming, “I feel like me.” This faithful version of virtual reality soon fades when Ted senses involuntary urges as the game forces actions to establish the plot and characters. Ted feels vulnerable and disembodied, worried about his real self. He pauses the game and is extremely alarmed, finding it difficult to distinguish the virtual world from the real world. Pikul complains that free will is obviously not a major factor of the game, to which Allegra replies “It’s like real life, there's just enough to make it interesting.” Having returned to eXistenZ, Allegra tries jacking into a diseased pod which erupts, releasing a swarm of spores. The pair awakens outside of the game but, in another twist, is stunned to see the disease has travelled back with them infecting Ted’s bio-port and Allegra’s pod. Ted suddenly reveals he is a realist and the confusion intensifies when Allegra kills him. She and Ted wake up in a circle of other gamers – characters in eXistenZ – fitted with normal, electronic gaming units. Participating in the test run of another game, transCendenZ, Allegra and Ted had apparently planned to kill its creator, acclaimed game designer Yevgeny Nourish, for “the harm he has done… to the human race” in creating the “most effective deforming of reality.” With the real and the virtual nearly indivisible, they murder Nourish and as one participant begs to be spared, he innocently asks if they are still in the game. The catch-22 is that, even at this stage, there is no definitive way to tell if the game has ended and real life has begun. This concretizes Cronenburg’s message that virtual reality – with its limited free will, diverse characters, randomness, and ambiguous ends – represents a metonym for actuality.

The intense draw of virtual reality games in eXistenZ is, to me, unnerving and unhealthy at best. For instance, while within transCendenZ, game fans are gathered in what looks like a church and hail Allegra like a religious idol. At the fuel station, Gas prostrates himself at Geller’s feet professing that she has “changed [his] life.” He admits that he still operates a gas station but only on “the most pathetic level of reality,” claiming that Allegra’s games “liberated [him].” As a former Everquest addict myself, I can relate to the escapist, almost worship-worthy nature of games that Gas expresses. However, fantasy games, which usually involve fictional species, creatures, and geographies, represent a complete departure from reality. Even games such as The Sims, which closely resembles normal life, maintain the player as a controlling figure rather than injecting them into the plot. In Cronenburg’s world where virtual gaming is indistinguishable from real life, eXistenZ and transCendenZ are merely fake reproductions of reality where societal rules do not apply. What attraction do such games possess other than to allow individuals to indulge their basest urges with no consequence? Cronenburg exposes this ethical issue through his film. While in the eXistenZ game, for example, Ted and Allegra are compelled (supposedly) by the game to become intimate in order to “heighten the emotional tension of the next game sequence.” Also, when Ted shows apprehension at the prospect of killing the Chinese waiter, Allegra casually responds that “[he] wont be able to help it so [he] might as well enjoy it.” Furthermore, Allera shoots her close friend and mentor without hestitation, merely because she felt he was toying with her mind. Is Allegra, or Yevgeny for that matter, really worthy of praise when these virtual realities enable such sadistic behavior? Even today, the negative effects of games are palpable. Lack of sleep, decreased academic performance, disrupted real-life socializing, and a decline in health are common symptoms of the avid gamer. Graver situations also occur, where last year a South Korean couple spent so much time caring for a virtual girl in a role-playing game that they neglected their three-month-old baby and she died of starvation. Ethical issues aside, real world achievements have permanence, so that the never-ending “game” of reality is infinitely more satisfying and worthwhile than the temporary, escapist draw of virtual games.

The New Digital Divide

Marcia Stepanek, in her article "The New Digital Divide," discusses the changing nature of technological division from an issue of access to one of ideological polarization. She explains that major web services, including Google and Facebook, employ algorithms to tailor content based on a user's past activity. Stepanek describes how these data-personalization and self-aggregating functions display content that attempts to fit in with the individual's existing viewpoints, and neglect to include differing ideas. She mentions the case of Eli Pariser – a cofounder and former Executive Director of MoveOn.org – who "tried hard to add conservative friends to his own Facebook feed but their link and feeds [kept] getting blocked by Facebook's personalization algorithms." Stepanek, after detailing how data filtering is highly personalized, takes place unannounced, and is set by the computer not the user, dispels the myth that computer code is unbiased.

Stepanek addresses other issues of digital divisions on the Web. She points out that racial segregation takes place on the Internet, in common places like Twitter. Stepanek mentions that, rather than using social media as a tool for connecting with like-minded people, individuals could take advantage of it to solve problems. She acknowledges that in order to bring about social change, "we must work harder to break out of these self-imposed (or machine-imposed) comfort zones." Stepanek points out that certain conversations  are only possible because of social media, including Deanna Zandt's discussion of discrimination with others on Twitter, but they only occur when people step out of their bubble of familiarity. She suggests that lack of media education maintains the status quo, where "most people still don't know how to use this Web power to organize and affect social change." Concerned that many assume civic engagement will take place Online on its own, she cites James Fishkin, the director of the Center for Deliberative Democracy at Stanford University, who believes "the best way to boost public deliberation online is to create it." Fishkin formulated a five-step deliberative polling process to help foster civic engagement where it is needed as part of a structured system. Stepanek ends on a hopeful note that the Web is a potent force for civic engagement, particularly in places that have historically lacked public political involvement, where the Internet creates a public space that would otherwise not be possible in closed societies.

I can understand the motivation behind data personalization. It makes sense to show an individual content that is pertinent to them, but I find it a bit infuriating that this process goes on without notifying the user. I posted a comment about privacy policies in the United States versus Europe, but I think it's relevant to hash out the details here. In 1995, the European Union passed a directive regarding processing of personal data. This established mandatory guidelines for data processing whether it occurs automatically or not. Under these regulations, personal data cannot be handled unless it meets three conditions: transparency, legitimate purpose and proportionality. For example, achieving transparency involves several criteria, where the controller must relay the purpose of the data processing, outline who will receive the data, and obtain consent from the data subject among other steps. (Wiki article). Rather than clearly upholding the right to privacy like Europe, the U.S. has largely neglected protecting its citizens' rights to control information about themselves.

Also, Stepanek reveals a lot of serious social problems happening on the Internet, but I don't think it's enough to tell people they need to "work harder" to bring about change. Call me a cynic, but I have no faith when it comes to asking people to pursue things they don't really want to. A person might know they should step out of their comfort zone and join in a conversation on Twitter, but why when they can just get on Facebook and talk to their friends? In my opinion, before people can even be taught how to use social media to cause social change they need to instill a genuine interest for civic discourse in themselves. Until individuals starting caring about civic engagement for its own sake, I think people will continue getting online just to talk to others with similar ideas.