N.R.G. Tyme!

"Trolling" is the art of pranking causing others annoyance for ones enjoyment.  Internet trolls have existed for as long as the internet has.   Trolling has taken over all types of webpages, social media, video games and virtual worlds.  Trolls do anything from commenting on posts to irk users, to preventing others from playing how they usually play.  Many players see these trolls as real people who have it out for them one reason or another, and they go along with the pointless bigotry and allow themselves to become victims.  I am here to tell you how to not fall victim to these trolling menace! A popular saying in the trolling community 1.  Take a step back and ask yourself "why?" You must realize that trolling is for the pure pleasure of the trolls and no one else.  Your annoyance, displeasure and resentment incites laughter within them.  Once you realize that, you will understand that no matter how racist, sexist, homophobic or ri...

Book of discussion by John Gulliom and Torin Monahan At one time, I thought my informational data was useless and I threw my email address around the web signing up for random free subscription.  Then I read the first three chapters of Supervision: An Introduction to the Surveillance Society by John Gilliom and Torin Monahan.  They explain that we are being watched through many different methods by cellphones, the internet and our shopping cards.  The internet may be the easiest way to get our information because it is fast and rewarding.  In their third chapter, the authors say "To entice us to participate, we're offered convenience, social belonging, discounts and a bunch of free apps.  So we 'opt in'. But this is too simplistic.  It implies that the choices we're given are real choices, meaning that we can say 'no, thank you', without any repercussions."  While online I throw around my spam email to get quick discounts or read information. ...

Before analyzing memes in class I always thought that they were pictures that people from the internet copied and put a funny caption on.  After reading Knobel and Lankshear's chapter in A New Literacies Sampler , I know that it is much more than that.  Memes can be popular tunes, catchphrases, fashion, actions, icons, jingles and anything else that can be uploaded.  They are "contagious patterns of 'cultural information' that get passed from mind to mind and directly generate and  shape the mindsets and significant forms of behavior and actions of a social group."  New memes pop up everyday and with social media like Facebook and Twitter, they are getting around faster than ever before.  Memes usually center around a specific person or group of people.  Knobel and Lankshear used the example of The Star Wars Kid to explain that many subjects of memes receive unwanted attention.  In the case of the Star Wars Kid, internet users put his name online ...

Facebook is one the most popular social networking sites.  Facebook is one of the most popular social media networks around the world.  It is used as a networking space on the internet to connect friends and family from all over.  You are able to share and "like" things that you see from the web.  This is Facebook as we know it, but Facebook has been criticized before for their unclear privacy policy.  Facebook allows much of its content to be public to different advertisers and companies.  This appeared to make many Facebook users upset, but it is still currently the most popular social network in the United States.  Different blogs and reports have come to light that Facebook and Google have been giving away data information to government agencies.  Although there was bickering, not many people left the network.  I cannot help but ask, how far can Facebook go before we change how we use it? Are people leaving Facebook? In Howard Rh...

In a chapter of Tom Boellstorff's Coming of Age in Second Life: An Anthropologist Explores the Virtually Human , Boellstorff explains how many residents behave in the virtual world of Second Life.  "Against views of online technology as inevitably alienating, virtual worlds can provide contexts for self-fashioning--techne in its most basic sense."  He explains that these sort of multi-user dimensional (MUDs) online games were capable of being more than "inevitably alienating" online games.  He goes on to explain how residents use Second Life as a way to be their true selves and not pretend.  Some residents explained how they felt they did more "role playing", and acting in the real world, than they did online.  They were able to use their avatars, or a screen name, and could be who ever they wanted, but Boellstorff argued that many chose to be their raw selves and self-fashion their identities.  Virtual worlds like Second Life were around to allow r...