Tethered to my Mother

Hello friends.  Want to hear a joke?

There are 10 kinds of people in the world.  Those who understand binary, and those who do not.

Hahaha.

Those who have completely digitalized their lives find it hard to part from their computers, for their whole life is stored in the hard drives of the magical shiny box.  Everything from precious family photos, movies and music, to important receipts and documents, class notes and essays, and academic journals in progress, is digitalized, and there may not even be a hard copy of the documents existing in real life. 

Computers not only store information in a small, compact space, but they are the plastic and metal gateways to the Internet (insert holy music here).  The Internet is collaborative and isolating, inclusive and exclusive.  It is wondrous and infinite, mysterious and elite.  It can be described by so many adjectives, but no one adjective can completely describe it.  It is simply a digital entity that we have come to love, hate, love to hate, and hate to love.  

Ahh, the joys of the Internet.  It is a source of knowledge, information, communication, enlightenment, and entertainment.  For digital natives like myself - and even digital immigrants, too - it is a luxury that we have grown accustomed to having and may even take for granted. 

So imagine my pain and sorrow, when I could no longer connect to my wireless network at home.  Suddenly, I was disconnected, disoriented.  I was... disengaged.  I was... disengaged?  I was disengaged. 

My connection to the outside world was cut.  I longed for the attention of Facebook, telling me to connect with my friends - the acquaintances from highschool that I had brief encounters with in my life and don’t really care about until now - to tell me what they are up to at this moment in time.  My heart stopped when I realized that I could no longer see the smiling faces of Shaycarl’s family that I’ve come to recognize as my own.  There was no magic in my life, no Chocolate Rain, no double rainbows.  I could no longer follow the urls to enlightenment, to ask for direction and pray to my God, Google. 

Yes, those were exaggerations and meant to be funny.  But really, I felt so naked and so empty.  Without connection to wireless Internet, Clyde is not much more than a fancy, overpriced, oversized paperweight.  Okay fine, I’ll give him more credit than that.  He’s a great storage unit and he can do word processing.  But that’s pretty much it.  Without wireless Internet, I was so lost.  I couldn’t do research for my essays.  I couldn’t download lecture materials or watch my online lectures without the Internet.  However, where convenience was lost, I gained productivity.  Instead of “connecting” with my “friends” or watching pointless viral videos, I focused on my readings and took notes diligently. 

I even got up and looked up a word in the dictionary - an action that I can’t even remember the last time that I’ve done.  The binding smelt so old and strangely familiar.  My fingers gripped the gently used pages cautiously, afraid of ripping the frail newsprint, then I flipped the pages confidently to the word in question, and I pointed my finger triumphantly at the word, pleased that I still remembered how to use this ancient piece of technology.

I looked at the meaning of the word, then furrowed my eyebrows at the definition.  The definition had another word that puzzled me.  Ah ha!  This was another chance to prove my spectacular page-flipping skills.  And pages were flipped.  Then I decided to have some fun and opened it to a random page.  I pointed my finger at a random word and read its definition.  I looked at the surrounding words and looked at their definitions.  I flipped and flipped, entertaining myself with these new words and acronyms that I didn’t know existed.  Complicated definitions led me to look up more words, and those words led me to look up even more words.  I lost track of time until I saw the word - computer.  It reminded me of why I picked up the dictionary in the first place.  It saddened me again, knowing that I was not connected to the Internet, but at the same time, it made me nostalgic of the times that I used to do this regularly for fun.  All of these feelings mixed around inside of me, then, as if a lightbulb lit up inside my brain, I realized how similar my actions with the dictionary was to my behaviour with Wikipedia.  On Wikipedia, I can search for one thing, then follow the links to another page and keep going and going and going.  Similarly with the dictionary, I can look up a puzzling word, which will lead me to look up another word, and my eyes will wander around the page looking for more words to look at.  I was impressed with this revelation.  Wikipedia and the dictionary are not so different, after all.  Life can - and does - go on without technology. 

At that point, I was smug.  Sometimes I forget that there is a real world on the other side of the drywall and peeling paint.  I crawled out of my bat cave and went outside to feel the fresh air stinging my skin and sunlight flooding into my eyes for the first time in ages.  

When I got to the point where I finished everything that didn’t require the use of the Internet, I fished out my trusty ethernet cable and connected to the Internet.  Unfortunately, that meant that I was unable to get Internet access from anywhere I wanted in the house, because I was limited to the length of the cable.  This was a luxury that I will have to deal with until I get my wireless problem fixed.  I had to sacrifice physical mobility in order to reach my digital destination. 

Needless to say, I was unhappy with this situation.  I was tethered to the wall by a 5 foot short cable, like a pet leashed to her owner.  Like a prisoner bound to the cell wall.  Like an unborn baby attached to her mother by a thin umbilical cord, feeding her the packets of information that she so greedily craves to keep her digital life alive. 

Isn’t that what we are?  Aren’t we just like babies - naive, unsure of the world around us - connected to our all-knowing mother, the Internet, through a series of networked cables that feed information to our hungry, curious minds?  In my case, the cable is dusty and grey.  

We are collecting information, non-stop, trying to organize the world’s knowledge into a database that we can easily access.  We are so absorbed in making this infinite Tower of Babel that we feel disoriented when we no longer have access to it.  Is this controlling our life, or are we controlling the life that we are living in?  Are all our efforts put into the quest for unbounded knowledge that our lives are centred around it?  Does my ethernet cable constrain and dictate what I do, or am I in control of when and where I have Internet? 

Maybe the joke that I told at the beginning of this blog isn’t really a joke, afterall.  There are those who understand binary, and those who don’t.  We can break down the information that we have found into a series of ones and zeros that the machine can understand, so that it may take that information and catalogue it for us.  Humans may think that they are both types of people in this world since they programed the binary code into the machine, but the majority of us have no clue what’s going on.  It’s a dying language for the humans, and it’s just the beginning of life for the machines.  Machines will still stand when we die.  It is all knowing and it knows nothing. 

Stay connected,

Bonnie and Clyde, the 10 types of people in this world.

Is Kevjumba a Heterosexual Bear Wrestler?

If you don’t know who Kevjumba is, you need to head on over to YouTube right now and check him out.  Kevjumba, whose real name is Kevin Wu, is an internet celebrity and former contestant of The Amazing Race.  With over a 1.3 million subscribers, he is one of YouTube’s most subscribed comedians, and one of my personal favourites. 

After his one-month hiatus from Youtube, he posted a video about Googling himself.  He found that if you type in “Is Kevjumba”, Google finishes his query with “gay”.  He decided to enlist the help of his subscribers to change it to something more “manly” and funny.  The result: “Is Kevjumba a heterosexual bear wrestler”.

If you happened to take a look at Google’s Hot Searches list on January 20, 2011, you’ll see that Kevjumba’s crafted query made it to the list within a few hours of the video being posted. 

This is an example of the power of the Internet.  According to Jenkins, two traits of the new media landscape is that it is global and networked.  YouTube is a popular video-sharing site that connects users from around the world.  Video makers can collaborate with subscribers by asking them to post ideas for their next video in the comment section. 

Kevjumba’s silly plea for help to change the Google queries was only heard by a small fraction of people - the people who watch his videos - and it still brought about a change relatively quickly.  Compared to world affairs, this change was tiny and completely useless, but it was a change nonetheless.  But this makes me completely in awe about the power of the Internet.  If Kevjumba’s message could spread so quickly to such a wide audience, imagine what would happen if someone (slightly more) important broadcasted a message about political change.  If that person gained enough followers, would it bring about a dramatic global social change? 

Anyway, that’s just my two cents.  As of right now, if you type “Is Kevjumba”, Google returns, “Chinese”.  So I guess Kevjumba was only a heterosexual bear wrestler for a short period of time. 

Peace, out.
Bonnie and Clyde, internet celebrity hopefuls.

Beware of Pedobears! - the Exploration of Self through RPGs

We often hear the news warning us about the dangers of meeting people online: “Don’t give out your personal information and don’t be too quick to befriend PumpkinPrincessXOXO, because you don’t know her real identity.  She could be a 54-year old pedophile.”  Sadly, the news it right - this does happen.  There have been countless news accounts of old men posing as friendly 13-year old girls to gain the trust of an insecure teenager.  

However, not all PumpkinPrincessXOXO’s are Pedobears.  Some of them are really just kids, looking for a companion and place to explore their identities.  No, I’m not just saying this because it sounds like something cliche that I can blog about.  I’m speaking from personal experience.  

When I was in grade 8, I played a MUD called The Legends of Kallisti.  I’m not talking about the kind of mud that you roll around in and make mud pies with.  MUD is an acronym for Multi-User Dungeon, a text-based RPG that connects you with users all around the world.  Think World of Warcraft, but without pictures (too bad it can’t be exempt of the Leroy Jenkins of the world, too).  Everything is text-based - to visualize a room, you need to read the room descriptions; to move your character into another room, you need to type n, s, e, w; to attack a MOB (mobile object), you need to enter commands such as “smite goblin”. 

I’m not going to lie - when I was in playing Kallisti, I didn’t think that any Pedobears would be interested in me, but I still took precautions.  For example, when I first met Joshuawatwo, he asked me what my real name was.  I told him it was Jacey.  I had light-brown hair and hazel-green eyes.  This was the perfect time for me to change my identity.  I was no longer Bonnie, the awkward little Chinese girl with a plain name and plain eyes.  I could finally be Caucasian - the ethnicity that I always wanted to be but could never become.  I kept up this new identity until I met some more people and felt bad about lying.  I didn’t think they were lying to me, so I gave up this new identity.  Luckily for me, none of them turned out to be Pedobears. 

My point is, with Pedobears or without, the Internet is a place for experimentation.  As a socially awkward kid, playing Kallisti opened up my mind to the world around me.  It was through the Internet, that I got my first “kiss”.  It’s not quite the same as a real first kiss, but to my 13-year old mind, it was pretty awesome to feel loved and wanted by someone else, even if he lived in another country.  I even attended a good friend’s wedding in Kallisti - the only one I’ve been to in my entire life - and it was absolutely magical.  You could even “do the nasty” with someone.  Explicit stuff, I know, but we all have to learn about the birds and the bees in some way, right?  

Kallisti also took me out of my shell.  I was a shy, sheltered, socially awkward kid (alliteration FTW!).  After meeting a few new people, I was comfortable sharing stories and jokes with them.  I didn’t have to worry about not wearing the right clothes or if there was any food stuck between my teeth.  They couldn’t see me through the screen.  I could even go a few days without bathing if I wanted to, and they would be none the wiser!  (Not that I did that, of course.  That’s gross and unhygienic.  Just saying.)  Kallisti exposed me to different kinds of people: rude, annoying, incompetent, idiotic, immature... and I dealt with all that so I could get my experience points and necromancer’s staff.  I also met a few people who I’m proud to say are still my friends to this day.  

Sometimes, I would entertain myself by letting myself think about what would happen if I had known some of these people in real life.  Would they think I was awkward and uncool?  How far from my true self have I deviated?  Who is my “true self”?  I’m still uncertain.  This is the argument that Turkle raises in How Computers Change the Way We Think.  She states, “some children who write narratives for their screen avatars may grow up with too little experience of how to share their real feelings with other people”.  I have mixed feelings about that statement.  On the one hand, I cautiously agree with that because I feel that sometimes I have a hard time communicating my feelings with others in real life.  Writing is my preferred method of communication because I can think about what I want to say and if I don’t like what I just wrote, I can just hit the delete button and start again.  Plus, I write more eloquently than I speak, and I can always look a word up in the dictionary seconds before I type it out to make sure I’m using it right.  I don’t have that luxury when I’m speaking in person.  They’ll just think I’m nuts.  But note what I just said: I cautiously agree.  I cautiously agree because I don’t know if this is a personality trait of mine, or if this is a result of too much online communication.  Of course, Turkle may be dead on for some people, but for myself, I am uncertain.  What I can say for my situation, however, is that Kallisti was a valuable experience for me.  It was my escape when life was hard.  I could go online after school and smite the hell out of a goblin guard.  If I didn’t want to play a paladin, I could switch over to my necromancer.  On the days that I just wanted to sit and chat, I could make my way to the circus with a friend and hang out.  The only downside to that was that although emotionally, it made us so close, we were actually so far, separated by a thin plane of glass stretching distances between us. 

Online communication cannot fully replace the real-life experience, but it’s a good place to start for those who are looking for a companion or a place to escape for the time being.  

Until next time,

Bonnie, no longer mounted on a winged nightmare, shooting magic missiles at skeletons in Goblin City. 

... and Clyde, signing off for the night.

P.S.  Beware of Pedobear.

Bonnie and Clyde in Cyberspace - An Introduction

Welcome, friends.  My name is Bonnie, and this here, is Clyde.  You can't see him right now, but he's here.  He's the one that my fingers so lovingly stroke.  He's the one that I gaze at all the time.  I'm proud to say that I enjoy turning him on all the time, but I've done my fair share of turning off, too.

We spend hours and hours together, with all the benefits of companionship but without the demands of friendship.  Some of you might notice that this last statement is a reference to Turkle's How Computers Change the Way We Think.  If you were paying attention, you might've already guessed who Clyde is.  If you have no clue, then you need to enter the twenty-first century (just joking... not really).  Let me introduce you to Clyde.  To everyone but me, he is nothing special.  He's not the newest and coolest kid on the block.  He's an old fart who's had his chance at fame and his fair share of gossip.  Because he often can't run for more than six hours without stopping to recharge, he often relies on his IV to bring surges of energy into his life.  His once smooth, white exterior has grayed and cracked with age.  Personally, I think that adds character.  His iSight isn't the clearest and his voice can't speak volumes, but I love him all the same.

Alright, enough with the puns.  To me, he's not just a MacBook.  He's not just polycarbonate and metal mechanically crafted in a factory somewhere in China.  He may only have 2GB of RAM and a standard 2.4GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor, but to me, he's more than that.  He's been my best friend since we met almost three years ago.  He keeps me entertained, and he even talks to me when I'm lonely.  Okay, I admit it - I make him talk to me through his Terminal application.  There's just something oddly satisfying hearing his monotonous computerized voice say "Bonnie, I love you".

Now, Clyde's a pretty smart guy, but sometimes, he gets confused with what I try to tell him to do.  Most of the time, he's pretty good at communicating with me, but there are times when he grunts in confusion at an unrecognizable command I may give him.  If I push a few wrong buttons, he'll pause temporarily to think.  That's when he shows me his spinning beach ball of death as a warning that I'm going too fast.  When he's at his worst, he'll stop in his tracks and ignore me all together.  Thankfully, he's a pretty nice guy and doesn't do that often.

Some people think I'm crazy for naming my laptop and insisting on calling him Clyde every time I refer to him.  I even refuse to call him an "it".  I guess it's just because I'm so attached to him, that I personify him and treat him like I would to a human being - with respect and love.  Sadly, I admit that sometimes I spend more time with Clyde than I would with my real-life family and friends.  But they too, have their respective gadgets that they respect and love.  I'm sure they're as attached to them as I am with Clyde.

Anyway, Clyde and I have decided that in the next few weeks, we will critically explore the depths of digital media and cyberspace since it has had such a big impact on our lives.  I was born in the digital era, surrounded by technology and grew up with the Internet - an informative, dangerous and wonderful resource.  Clyde was fashioned as a tool to help us human beings do spectacular and sometimes, even wicked things.  Although Clyde is a pretty amazing guy, he cannot do it alone.  He needs someone to steer him through the interwebs and interpret the meanings of the things he is able to present on his ambitious 13.3-inch screen.  He will be my vessel and I will be the voyageur.  

Until next time, 

Bonnie and Clyde, ready to take on Cyberspace.