the good, the bad, and the ugly. other places to be.

link haze; things i don't have time to comment on, since i'm actually doing work on a friday, like you should be, haha. ;)

THE GOOD
just some random funny stuff i found... Unplug Your Friends made me smile, and also made me look up Get Off the Internet by Le Tigre on songza. Listen here. and if you need to get out of a not-so-hot date tonight but don't have the balls, there's always the coward's way out: Get MOOH [get me out of here!]. oh, and lastly, am&a's Reverie Apparel is clearing inventory; 2for1 sale, check it out.

THE BAD
i am not at all touching on Palin's politics here, suffice to say i disagree; that's my prerogative, and you can have yours, that's cool. i don't care what it is so long as you VOTE. regardless. i am floored that, above all else, she wanted to ban books. 1984 anyone? oh, and while we're on the topic, Heart isn't so fond of Palin's... musical choices.

THE UGLY
as if you couldn't tell from my post about Twittad, i am tired of people hijacking some other people's stuff. for more blatant ripoff fun, check out You Thought We Wouldn't Notice, a fave blog of mine for some time.

in other news. google porn & edible wives.

two awkward situations:

yesterday in the middle of talking about annoying elitist social media arrogance, particularly surrounding those who specify just who should use plurk and how, David and i discovered that Google Doesn't Believe in Free Will (read: porn).



i think an image search with adult censors off will show that Google does, in fact, believe in porn. and yet, should i have wanted to send my big brother here some porn, he doesn't even get the option to receive my chat im. it simply isn't sent. i had to type out "x x x . com" to be able to explain what i'd found funny in my Gmail window. not that i'd be sending porn, since in fact i have some scruples, though it does make variable choices somewhat more difficult. must resort to yyy.com (which ironically results in a world trade site that isn't yet functional).

in other news, Italy believes in eating your wife--and not in the sexy way. Italian wine company Freschello released a campaign depicting variant meals (fish, steak, pork) in their animal form--in female wedding get-up. not only do i not want to consider the masculinization of a phallic wine bottle and how exactly it is "happily wedded" to my personified meal, i certainly don't want to consider eating a happily married cow--even if the adorable tramp is married to a wine bottle. uhm. this is just awkward. vegetarianism anyone?

revisiting facebook, jobs, millenials

in light of this post, i'm revisiting this post.

i wonder if this is going to change.

me, i am a brand. i embrace my inner brand and utilize it. i am the CEO of the brand of the girl Riot™. however, even CEOs get to go home. no one is Cheerios, or BMW, or Adidas all day long. even Adi, Adidas' founder, shares the responsibility with other well-titled folks. at one point, you go home. you sleep. you see friends. you connect with other people. you know... a la the point of social media: being social. and after hours, i'm sure they don't all sleep in Armani and talk jargon in their theta-state.

what gives you the right to inspect a person's private life for their job?

isn't that what applying is about? references, presentations, self-craft. now we're pushing away from that, toward transparency. "twit-pitch me. tell me what you're after and how you can help me--i'll do the background check. nevermind that you can't control what pictures other folks put up of you. nevermind that you can no longer access accounts to things you created, age 14. nevermind what exploration you did in your youth years that made you a good creative--i don't want to see it."

then how transparent are you, really? you want the real person--but only after they've covered their tracks? deleted their pics during those college years everyone had but everyone is supposed to deny? it's a shame facebook wasn't around when you Xers and Boomers were younger. are we handling this like 50s prudes asked to sit in on a sex addicts' meeting in a church basement? if you don't want the "full story" then why are you looking? keep it to the "legit" side of things. we craft those.

sure, check out their blog, their website, their portfolio, newspapers who reference them, other blogs who link to them. i'm not saying don't Google search. i'm saying to assess your digital detective choices--chances are you won't find that information solely on their facebook accounts. to me, that level of invasion borders on pervy. all 100+ pics of me on facebook? i haven't uploaded one. not one. i don't care if it's "personal and public"--it's discerned as a private space for friends (unlike, say, Twitter, which is searchable, Google tracked, and anyone can follow). just like your brand is not my friend, my employer is not my friend unless i invite you in. those spaces are not about you. they're about me.

and i'll be damned if you want me to censor my life to fit your desk job. you wanted a forward-thinking creative, you wanted experience and intellect--this shaped me. this is who i am. and yes, my stuff is on private. but then you're going to want to know why it's on private, aren't you? i'm supposed to connect with friends but not with employers. can i have a "only folks born 1986 or later can access this profile" option? why do i have to keep my personal life private if the whole reason of having the profile is to share?

moreover--will this disdain for (supposed) transparency change as more millenials enter the work space?

and if you think just cos i can do a keg-stand that i'm going to do one with your client, then i'm really concerned. my maturity isn't directly related to my flip cup abilities (which, mind you, are stellar). don't ask for transparency (look at personal sites) if you don't want it. my brand is excellently crafted. my personal life isn't. and if you can tell me how to control all aspects of your personal life, that's really a blog post worth writing.

so i return the question to you all:
how well do you expect someone to cover their tracks? what are you really looking to get out of trawling potential employees' facebooks and myspaces as opposed to their blogs, LinkedIns, websites? ...what are you really expecting? --and will those expectations change?

[post script & further transparency--i had a really engaging conversation with Jason Falls about his post; this is not an affront on his views: i actually highly value and understand them, and respect him, which is why i engaged in the conversation to begin with. after all, my facebook is on private. i'm just arguing that it shouldn't have to be.]

zappos rocks. facebook scares kittens.

i can't say it better than Marshall Kirkpatrick, who reports on Facebook's message censorship. good comments going on there, too. censorship makes Riots very, very cranky. you don't want a cranky Riot, let alone multiple cranky Riots. you really don't need to know me in my plural state. anyway. i only recently started getting heavy into Facebook again after a year or two of App Intimidation, but the Flair app has assuaged me. this might send me running yet again.

in other news, Zappos is still bloody brilliant and is paying their employees $1000 to quit after one week. you're jealous you didn't think of it first. it's okay: you can still do it. something about imitation and flattery, right? i'm still trying to figure out why, if i'm so in love with how zappos runs things, i've still not been able to find a pair of shoes on that site worthy of ordering... i do want to support. i'm trying?

and lastly, it seems i've also become a connoisseur of the lolcat, and so, compliments of @ckieff, i give you Cats For Obama dot com.

DigitalNext doesn't want your...

...anything.

in fact, don't comment.
if you're passionate and opinionated, give up.
after all, blogging doesn't matter, anyway.

certainly don't attempt to have a conversation.
adage, screw you. take that for personal and offensive.

i went out of my way to REGISTER just to bloody comment on this post, which i addressed in my blog here. i am one for conversing, as many of you know. why not close the gap, get feedback from the person who wrote it? but since i can't use a url on AdAge, i just gave my abbreviated thoughts.

which have been deleted and censored.
"Ad Age reserves the right to delete comments that are insulting or personal in nature."

i did not insult the writer in any fashion. nor was anything i said personal. i was addressing the fact that, perhaps, this was not the best method, and that, perhaps, when i go to a store i like to see a person. a la the post i wrote.

what the fuck, AdAge? communicate this.

digital natives and the elevator twitpitch

i read this plea to ban employers trawling Facebook some time ago via a link through danah's blog, and while yes, i agreed to an extent, i didn't really think long and hard about it until elevator (twit)pitches arose.

now, i do think twitpitches can be useful. i like the simplicity, the conciseness, the mandate for effectiveness and efficiency. it does not allow for fluff but instead lets the work (ie, a link) do the talking. this is, on the whole, a brilliant idea--especially when aimed toward those who know well enough to craft themselves online; those who know and expect their online 'persona' to affect their working world.

but what about the up-and-coming folks, the "digital natives" as the phrase goes? they were not considering the twitpitch (and all that follows) when they were journaling online at age 13, sneaking into frats at 16, or generally doing "self-exploration" that they may not later wish to admit to (especially when some sites, like Facebook, make it so hard to delete the tracks later on).

as the article i first link to states,
“A world where even a 14-year-old has to think twice before posting an adolescent poem suddenly looks very unappealing and increases the pressure on children and young people to conform to a set of tightly focused adult norms.” (excerpt)

i recently asked my twitter followers this question;
@luckthelady was nice enough to respond, saying that:
To a degree, certainly. I definitely wouldn't hold it against a girl if she got drunk at a frat party, but...
If she's considered to be dishonest, a repeated flake or someone with a bad reputation, it would definitely affect the offer.

do you agree? disagree?
what do you take into account in your employment decision when "e-searching" someone? how well do you expect them to "cover their tracks" (or do you expect at all)? do you think this is unfair to begin with and puts digital natives on an uneven playing field with their more-crafted, older brethren?

and, my question also: how do you determine if someone is a "repeated flake" (for example) online? ie, what if they simply don't check Facebook in particular a lot? or how to measure this over the span of 4 years on Facebook? at what point is social media, aimed at friends, no longer about personal facts but professional representation?

i have questions. i'd be interested in any answers.

urban scrawl, eh? try communication.

apparently NYC is getting pissy again--for the third (wave) time--with graffiti. as if there is nothing better to do with taxpayer money.

ironically, i studied graffiti in college. the movement, its relation to hip-hop, its socialization, and its spread. i don't profess to be an expert (i only took a semester, though it was a 400 level, to be fair) but these were some of the take-home messages i remember.

1: back in the day, it was partially a product of people unable to communicate about their surroundings. people were being subjected to, not involved with, their urban environment. with "benign neglect," these people were seen as unimportant, and so when their houses were levelled or burned for insurance profit, there began to be reactions. some of these reactions found their way to where it hurt: the heart of the city. messages on subways that went straight into Penn, were cushy suits had to face facts in bright, bold letters.

2: identity. people tagged because they had been robbed of sense of self. gaining fame by tagging the most outrageous places gave notoriety among people who had been cut off from the "main frame" and, often, from one another. tagging fostered community before there were online social medias in which to do it. artists formed groups. especially when they were caught and forced to do community service to "clean up" what they'd done--sure, they'd clean it, along with 20 other kids who'd also done it. they'd meet others like themselves, form a group, and retag.

3: and, of course, artistic expression. some graff was simple, able to be done by anyone, and in that way it was inclusive to all. others were better artists and painted great, beautiful scenes doing it like any other art form. after the second wave of the battle on graffiti, graff artists were embraced, and some even were asked to perform for NYC museums and have pieces accepted as well. it was this that started the mainstream acceptance of graffiti as a new style of art.

--
things like "It's not art - it's just scribble," he said.
have been echoed for 30 years now. no joke. and yet, it's still here.

i guarantee you that yes, while some might be doing it out of nostalgia and obvious street 'cool factor,' there is also evident in this a sense of digging into one's own roots and embracing one's own cultural past (be that of an area, like Brooklyn, or a heritage, like African American or Latino/a). moreover, if this is NOT an example of that, then perhaps it is time to look into why it is happening. take the suited-up complaints as a hint: who's being ignored now? why? can this be fixed? is there an avenue to support both needs (clean cars and art expression)?

this are the same issues that are dealt with once every decade since it's began.
in one way it's nice to know the conversation is still there.
on the other hand, it's sad to know that no one up "where it counts" is really having the conversation.

[if any of you care a lot about this, and where i'm getting this from, just comment. all of my references are in storage with my school notes, but i know i can name these off the top of my head: style wars (documentary), can't stop won't stop (book that functioned as our textbook). more? just ask. and here's to sean eversley-bradwell, who is a wicked awesome professor.]

anorexia and how it changes blogging.

curiouser and curiouser: the french.

according to new laws proposed, the french are going to jail and fine 45,000 euros bloggers (among others) who encourage anorexia. free speech what?

not that i'm "pro-ana" (the term they use) by any means... but i'm not going to tell you that you can't blog about your anorexia, or post your... "thinspiration" pictures. for once, i give kudos to Facebook and Myspace for resisting the request to remove such "pro-ana" statements/photographs.

with the state trying to legislate beauty aesthetics and media guidelines, many media kids are up in arms, from the fashion world out. there will be trials held to determine if your site is "pro-ana" and, if so, how detrimental it is.

The new offence is defined as "provoking a person to seek excessive thinness by encouraging prolonged restriction of nourishment" to the point of risking of death or damage to health. The maximum penalties are applied if the person dies. (Bremner)

some of this is excusable and even understandable, considering events like the "Miss Bimbo" website, which encouraged children as young as 9 to embrace plastic surgery and extreme dieting in the search for the perfect figure. The Miss Bimbo site invites users to create a virtual doll, keep it “waif thin” with diet pills and buy it breast implants and facelifts. The website attracted 1.2 million players in France.

now, i went to the Miss Bimbo site after reading this. it does seem rather odd, but so are a lot of humour sites. not that i'm outright defending it, but i'm not prosecuting it either. after all, it is named MISS BIMBO. how serious can it be? yes, it points out a poor represenation of women... i would think enough to point out that it's what you shouldn't be.

i am sad and somewhat anxious if 9 year olds are taking this site seriously. i don't think the site should not exist, but perhaps it should revisit its age limitations to an audience that can think critically. i know 13 is probably too generous, but other mainstream social media sites pick up there.

how young do you think is too young for exposure to that?
should states regulate this kind of thing in order to combat behavioral diseases?
do you think bloggers and other websites should be penalized for it?

for your consideration: meme cats.

upon further consideration of yesterday's mourning post, i have found one place where l33t speak is acceptable. only one.

that would be the difficult yet rewarding task of perfecting the meme cat, also sometimes known as "teh cheezburger cat," the "macro cat," or the "lolcat." if you haven't seen one of these, you live under a tiny rock.

i believe that part of the allure of the meme cat is, in fact, the l33t speak and the ability to engage with the paradox of language and translation in an increasingly global space (all your base are belong to us).

and in case you were wondering, this post does have another point, too.

the importance of meme cats to mass social media and censorship. no, i'm not kidding. there's a talk from the ETech conference on it that you should read.

---

excerpt: "With web 2.0, we’ve embraced the idea that people are going to share pictures of their cats, and now we build sophisticated tools to make that easier to do. As a result, we’re creating a wealth of tech that’s extremely helpful for activists. There are twin revolutions going on - the ease of creating content and the ease of sharing it with local and global audiences.
[...]
Blocking banal content on the internet is a self-defeating proposition. It teaches people how to become dissidents - they learn to find and use anonymous proxies, which happens to be a key first step in learning how to blog anonymously. Every time you force a government to block a web 2.0 site - cutting off people’s access to cute cats - you spend political capital. Our job as online advocates is to raise that cost of censorship as high as possible."

---

a parting gift, 11 of my current favourite meme cats:
ringu cat, schroedinger's cat, staplr cat, grail cat, godmother cat, copy cat, snozberry cat, dune cat, flavor cat, stick cat, and of course, base cat.

and 2 adaptive (meaning non-feline) advertising commentaries...
network and tactics.