Ah the Internet.
A wretched hive of scum and villainy.
And also home to the best network of human communication available in our day in age. If the internet as a whole is representative as a collective consciousness, it says quite a bit about the seediness of society.
But I'm being pessimistic.
Lets focus on the awesome parts of the internet, and what that says about society.
1) fmylife.com
Life sucks. Wouldn't it be great to anonymously post the worst thing that happened to you all day. Now you can compete with others to brag about how miserable you are. Ob Fmylife, users rate others based on how "f-ed" up their day was. You can either choose "Your life is f'd," or you can choose "you deserved that."
If you want to know what this has to do with collective conciousness, the rating system at fmylife brings to light some interesting things. The most supported submissions are about girlfriends dumping boyfriends, etc, while the most unpopular ones are about cheating on spouses or significant others. If you want to be popular at Fmylife its not recomended you spill the beans about your failed attempt to sleep with your wife's friend.
2) Digg.com
Digg is king of internet collective conciousness in my opinion. On Digg, users submit news articles, videos, pictures, blogs and just about any other media you can think of. Then, other users will bump bad stories off the front page, or make sure they hit the top 10 stories list.
Interestingly enough, stories have taken a pattern at digg. It seems the community realizes exactly what it wants, so you always see stories about Ron Paul, LOLcats or Apple on the front page of Digg. Digg has created a few memes in the process of becoming the community driven portal it is.
3) Wikipedia
Wikipedia gets a lot of flak from academia because anyone can edit an article. But in my mind, the ability for community to upkeep a website together is an accomplishment. The editors are usually quick to catch many of the large mistakes, and the users all tend to cooperate.
Plus its really fun to see how you can get to Jesus from other articles. I got 6 with Kevin Bacon. Scary!
Very Interesting! I like how you sectioned the internet into parts and described what these parts say about society! I learned a lot from your blog!
ReplyDeleteThe way you approached the explanation of collective consciousness using a few prominent and wild websites is neat. I agree with you statement about the legitimacy of Wikipedia and the vast accomplishments it has made.
ReplyDeleteCollective Consciousness via the internet can be regarded as positive and negative and you have given examples of each outlook. Creative job with this blog, I am happy to have read it.
it is wonderful how one can travel from the savior of Christianity to Friday the thirteenth actor, Kevin bacon.
ReplyDeleteI say Digg was responsible for the Portal Meme, but alas what does it matter the cake after all is a lie
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed reading your blog :-) Very interesting and gave good insight to how us as a collective conscious think. And I agree about Wikipedia...it's an awesome site and usually the best place to find general information on just about anything. It also seems more professors and teachers are beginning to except it as a credible source so yay!
ReplyDeleteI love how you gave hands on examples of collective consciousness. It was nice to see you apply it many popular sites that I may not have initially started with when thinking about collective consciousness but they all work. As for you're section on Wikipedia I think it's a great way for people to share what they feel is common knowledge to them with others find it not so common.
ReplyDeleteGreat Blog creative format and fun to read.
There is actually a website where people dictate if your life is doomed to fail or not? I know that there are many sites where peers can tell you what they really think about you, but so blatantly? Wow...I had no idea. So much for productive collective consciousness - let's all just go to the social websites and see who's life is more screwed than the other, shall we?
ReplyDeleteLoved the blog, by the way.
I would also like to add that on Wikipedia they do have a panel of people that look at what is posted or added to make sure that it is accurate. If it is inaccurate then the posts are remove. It make take some time for them to catch the error or garbage that has been posted. I really like the way you presented your information. I didn't know about those sites and I think that it is pretty cool. I agree that those sites are collective because the community votes and the majority's opinion is what effects what is displayed on the page.
ReplyDeleteLovely use of a variety of website examples to exemplify collective consciousness. wikipedia is definatly the foremost example on the web (that comes to my mind) of a group effort of collecting and tranmitting knowledge.
ReplyDeleteI'm not so familiar with Digg, not at all with Fmylife.com. But next real bad day I have, I'll be sure to remember.
F*Mylife has a certain primal appeal, it taps into the most primitive depths of the human psyche. Our almost animalistic obsession with reveling the the despair and misfortune of others. Oh well humans didn't get to where they are today by always being the better mammal.
ReplyDeleteHahaha!! I don't think there is any better way to explain collective consciousness through the eyes of a college student than by the example and precedence of these three websites.
ReplyDeleteBut really, these are prime examples! And to be honest, I appreciate these sites. I mean, let's take Fmylife for example. I feel like it's the most ridiculous stuff being shared but it's so human; stuff like this happens all the time! At least people can be somewhat consoled by either the fact that 1) they can be thankful it wasn't them or 2) someone else experienced something just as bad as you have.
And then there's our dear Wikipedia: perfect example of collective consciousness. It's a collective approach to filing information about anything and everything!
Bravo!