User-Created Content
by onder on 27/07/07 at 7:49 am
Graffiti and Web 2.0
by Onder Skall
On my way home there’s this tunnel I pass through. It periodically fills with graffiti and then gets wiped clean. The really good graffiti doesn’t appear here. The good stuff ends up on a wall between two lanes of the highway that few but the most stalwart urban explorers ever see. The tunnel kind of serves as a clearing house for the city’s more amateur artists.
Today as I entered the tunnel I noticed that the city workers had been back, applying paint-thinner to all of the swear words and tags and additions of people’s initials “4evr”. They did a bad job this time around. While you couldn’t make anything out, there was still paint everywhere. The only thing they left alone was the pumpkin I took a picture of.
You know, I always did like that pumpkin. It’s pretty cool that they made the decision to leave it.
All of the excitement about user-created content that the Web 2.0 boom is bringing with it makes a lot of sense when I look at this picture. If we spend time somewhere, we want to leave our mark. It mostly leaves a mess, but sometimes it gives everybody a little shared moment. Who cares why, or whether that’s a good thing, it just is. We’ll break the law to do it if we have to.
It’s our compulsion.
I think a lot of what we’re seeing in the information revolution is the general acceptance of what our compulsions are. We want to kill, thus killing became the norm in video games. We want sex, and so there’s porn three clicks away from every page on the Internet. We want to tell everybody that we exist, and get recognition for it. Youtube.
Never mind if that’s good or bad, it’s what is. I think we’re starting to get that as a society and find new ways of coping with that beyond general repression. It’s not happening by design, but it is happening.
I really do like that pumpkin.
Lisae Boucher
Jul 27th, 2007
No, I disagree. It’s not that we want to kill, or have sex, or want to exist. It’s that our friends seem to think it’s cool to kill, have sex and exist. Many people play violent games because others play violent games. Many have sex because others have sex. Many blog, because others blog. No one wants to be left behind. It’s the power of peer pressure that forces people into certain kinds of actions. People are no individuals. We’re a huge herd and we all tend to move into the same direction, with the occasional sharp turn and quite regularly someone else in front.
Those who wander off are food for predators, who are always waiting for a fresh meal.
The pumpkin is a fine example. Someone liked it and therefore left it in place. So others see it and they like it too, because someone left it in place to be admired.
Onder Skall
Jul 27th, 2007
Er… wrong picture. I can’t change it, unfortunately, so we’ll be waiting until Pixeleen is available. If you want to see it, here’s the link:
http://www.calebbooker.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2007/06/dsc00622.JPG
Walker Spaight
Jul 27th, 2007
pic fixed
FlipperPA Peregrine
Jul 27th, 2007
The Wii is far outselling the competition, and has far less violent content that the other options out there.
OMG Thats retarded
Jul 27th, 2007
‘No, I disagree. It’s not that we want to kill, or have sex, or want to exist. It’s that our friends seem to think it’s cool to kill, have sex and exist. Many people play violent games because others play violent games. Many have sex because others have sex. Many blog, because others blog. No one wants to be left behind. It’s the power of peer pressure that forces people into certain kinds of actions. People are no individuals. We’re a huge herd and we all tend to move into the same direction, with the occasional sharp turn and quite regularly someone else in front.
Those who wander off are food for predators, who are always waiting for a fresh meal.
The pumpkin is a fine example. Someone liked it and therefore left it in place. So others see it and they like it too, because someone left it in place to be admired.’
The above quote is completely retarded. It reeks of your typical parent or old person that is incapable of understanding their children or even having fun. This person likely spends their time blaming all of there children’s problems on ‘peer pressure’, because they can’t accept the fact that their child chose to smoke crack. Get over it. People really do not have the time to excercise that much power over others trying to sway them and control their every thought. If you’re that weak minded then you should keep it to yourself. People like me enjoy messing with the minds of weaklings. The number 1 reason people do things is because either they have to, or they enjoy them. People do drugs because they like being high, people play violent video games because they enjoy them. I would bet you are one of those people that say that violent games make little boys and girls into murderers too. Boy are you nieve. You have alot of growing left to do. Be objective and learn to take responsibility for your actions and accept others actions and being a result of their own choices. No one can make you do anything. I can’t stand the whole ‘I’m always the victim’ crap that people that think like this always spout or imply.
SqueezeOne Pow
Jul 27th, 2007
I don’t know where you’re getting that from, Lisae. We seek out forms of killing because it is in our instincts to be hunters and collectors of land through any means neccessary. We have sex because it’s in our instincts to procreate and it’s also really fun when done right!
These are instincts that we were given naturally so that we would survive. They are apparent throughout history and throughout nature. To ignore our instincts is to lie to ourselves and others. Repressing your instincts leads to trouble somewhere down the line.
Look at how sex is treated in the U.S. There’s still a general taboo and shame to it. “Fuck you” is a negative term. A lot of people are still embarassed to buy condoms out in the open! Look at the average porn shop. Most have covered windows and secret parking so no one will know you are shopping there if they happen to drive by! Your attitudes towards sex are a variation on this theme and this theme has helped the spread of STDs and unwanted pregnancies.
Look at how guns are looked upon in most European countries and a few US states. “You simply can’t have one because you aren’t responsible enough to have one” says the government. And yet the people that ACTUALLY have a lack of responsibility are able to get guns just fine…criminals.
If we’re going to restrain ourselves from actively using our instincts we need to have an outlet for them. If your theory was true then there would be no paintball or Quake I through XII or whatever. And yet here we are.
I agree with this article. We’re a sea of anonymous faces that all want to be remembered somehow. Fame is the closest we have to immortality. That’s why celebrities are worshipped and their occupations coveted. Everyone wants to be a leader but most are just going to be followers.
The only followers remembered in history were all killed at once.
Onder Skall
Jul 27th, 2007
Lisae – While I won’t deny that peer pressure influences people and group mentality does exist, I honestly don’t think that it’s nearly the driving force of human existence you’re making it out to be.
The pumpkin is likeable because it’s likeable, not because somebody declared their admiration for it.
The declaration of admiration (leaving it up) only enabled us to have the CHOICE to like it or not… but just as many people are walking through that tunnel pissed off at how lazy the city workers are.
shockwave yareach
Jul 27th, 2007
I play games if they are fun. If it’s not fun, I stop playing it. My entertainment time is not ruled by peer pressure or desire to conform. My playtime is mine and I do what I want with it. If I want to have pixel sex, I find someone equally skilled and have pixel sex. If I want to work on my scripting, I sit in my lair and work on my scripting. If the group wants to throw a party, I may attend or I may not depending on how sociable I’m feeling at the moment or what other things I’m doing.
It’s about enjoyment, plain and simple. I’m on SL to have fun. I also build expensive machines in RL for the same reason – it’s fun. No philosophy or neuropsychowatsit will change the basic reason that I play a game or have a hobby is because I get enjoyment out of it. Any financial benefit or bragging rights are secondary.
Loloz Oh
Jul 27th, 2007
I felt compelled to post a comment because everyone else was posting comments…dur dur dur
Lisae Boucher
Jul 27th, 2007
Well, I do think people will do something just by their own but I also know that when groups of people are coming together, they can be pushing each other into doing things they normally would never do. We see it here with the soccer hooligans. They go to a game together, challenge the opposite hooligans, get into a fight together and it always tend to end up with several arrests and lots of destructions. Yet those same hooligans can be very nice and normal people when they’re not in the group. They could be colleagues, they could be your dentist. They could be doing ballet even. Yet when the next game starts, they put on their shawls and clubs and start making a lot of a mess.
Well, my friends have accepted that, although they were a bit surprised about it.
And sex? Well, for years I did feel a bit of pressure to start dating guys simply because all my friends also did that. And when I was still single while most of my friends already had a first, second and more dates, my friends even decided to play matchmaker for me. They’ve introduced me to plenty of guys but in the end, I fell for another girl.
And games? Games are also often done in groups and people just ask each other to come over and have some fun. It’s a way how people interact with one another. At one point, some herd leader decides that a game needs to be played and invites others. And it’s always so hard to say no to the herd leader.
Humans are hunters and gatherers. But humans are also herd animals. We do things as a group. We share things as a group. And sometimes two groups are in a conflict with one another and fights break out. When you think about it, our society is very strongly focused on groups of people, not individuals. Whenever something happens, it’s always a whole group is blamed for those actions, not the person who did the bad thing. And even on the Internet we do things in groups, even though we’ve never even seen the other members of these groups.
ugh
Jul 27th, 2007
I’m going to succumb to peer pressure and jump on the “disagree with Lisae” bandwagon here. In addition to the points about instinct regarding sex and violence, seeking recognition and fame is nothing new- I hardly think the sagas of beowulf heroes started because “all the cool vikings were doing it.” Humans have always wanted to leave their mark, and the net gives them a new medium across which to do it. Beats cave paintings and stonehenge, imho.
Revolutionary
Jul 27th, 2007
yeah. I enjoy crashig sims and spamming textures and just generally harrassing retards for the lulz. No peer pressure, just lulz.
Nik
Jul 27th, 2007
Uh, excuse me — you forgot to write an article. Instead you farted, caught it in a jar, and put it on the Internet. Which is, coincidentally, why 98% of user created content is mocked. It takes real effort and time and talent to make something worthwhile. Most people have no attention span, no patience, no sense of craft.
The guy who made that pumpkin you like so much? He did it in five seconds. Your article? Probably took you about 15 minutes, if that.
Thank the non-existent lord for those 2% of users who make a real effort. Some people understand that content — good content — takes time.
Tenshi Vielle
Jul 28th, 2007
What exactly does this have to do with web 2.0? I’m confused.