Remember Kony 2012? Of course you do, how could anybody forget the biggest Internet campaign to ever happen which turned out to be an overhyped flash in the pan that essentially acheived nothing.

Well, actually not nothing. It gave an undying sense of self-satisfaction to everyone who was saintly enough to ‘like’ the page, making them feel like they’ve truly made a difference in the world. It was the biggest load of bullshit I’ve ever seen. Every sucker with internet connection became a preacher for the horrible Child Soldier issue in Africa. What makes it worse is that Kony was already in hiding from UN forces; so all this attention was focused in a completely pointless direction. People were asking me “WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO STOP KONY?!?!1!/1/1!?1?one!/1″

Hmm. I guess I did nothing. But what have you done? You’ve pressed one button and then assumed you were the god-sent solution to every problem in the world. In response:

“Thanks so much (insert stereotypically Western name here)!!! Your ‘like’ on Facebook actually brought my mother back to life, made the dictator warlords who abducted me and forced me to kill hundred of innocent civilians see the error in their ways, AND given me enough food, water and shelter to live another day in this hellhole!!!” – said no Child Soldier ever.

Sorry, that was a bit bitter and rude. But the Internet has undeniably injected a sense of ego in everyone; whether it be the ego to write whatever the hell you want on a blog (exhibit: this post) or the ego to feel informed about the issues we’ll never solve on the other sides of the world. This isn’t particularly always a negative thing, but an interesting observation. There’s an infinite amount of easily accessible information on the internet. With Kony 2012, the more naive of the viewers found the viral 30 minute video and after watching it, felt that they were completely informed about the issue and gained undeniably truthful information they could then preach to other people for the self-satisfaction of feeling ‘aware’ and ‘concerned.’ However, much of the controversy around the video was the irrelevant, outdated and over simplified information it presented that may have been detrimental to the cause. Did Invisible Children make it just because they had the technological means to and saw it as a way to cash in? Or were they exploiting the White Savior Complex which has also increased with the immediacy of the internet? These days, we can do anything online. Shopping, banking, communicating, bookings, research etc. So why can’t we end world hunger while we’re flicking between Facebook and ASOS? Privileged middle-upper class teens in the Western World are susceptible internet audiences who will believe a lot of what they read and react in whatever way will make them feel better about themselves. Therefore, when Kony 2012 rolled around, this 13-17 year old bracket became morally outraged after their online 30 minute history lesson (not learning from more reliable traditional news sources) and sprung into internet action, helping the video become the most viral video of all time.

“There’s this idea of rescuing the helpless African which goes back to 19th century missionary complex.” – Tavia Nyong’o, associate professor of performance studies at New York University told Colorlines. The ‘missionary’ idea has just absorbed and developed in response to growing new media; to the point that teenagers behind their computer feel they have the superiority and ‘sympathy’ to attempt to save Africa behind their computer screens.

With all due respect, a lot of people did donate to Invisible Children or buy products such as T-shirts, mugs, bracelets etc. To the point that the organisation’s revenue doubled the year the video came out. But, according to financial reports, 81.48 per cent on “media, mobilisation, protection and recovery” (Source here). In other words, international events, tours and more campaigns was where your T-shirt money went. In other words, it didn’t do anything.

Dr Tanya Lyons said on this article from The Punch: “They’re not heroes for clicking on a link. They’re just lazy. And giving money won’t help.”

Bye. ~rant over~

I saw a film last night. I won’t say it was a phenomenal film or an intellectually stimulating film, but it was very entertaining, very interesting and surprisingly very relevant. The World’s End is the latest instalment in the “The Flavours Cornetto Trilogy” written and directed by British comedic geniuses Simon Pegg and Edgar Wright.

It started off silly enough, with a bunch of friends attempting to re-live their childhood in a gruelling and infamous pub crawl known as the Golden Mile. When they all return to their childhood homes, they see that the town’s been replaced by spooky robot aliens or ‘blanks’ who are exact replicas of the townspeople but more robotalien-like.

Basically, the reason I’m blogging about it was that in the end, the giant boss who created and led the invasion was a giant light who called himself “THE NETWORK.” I know right?! Totally relevant! Anyway, in an interesting rant by The Network, it said things like “Have you noticed a drastic increase in communication technology?” claiming that it’s a brain control device by The Network to pull humans away from nature and their environment, becoming entirely dependent on technology to survive. For a silly British comedy, this was a pretty fascinating and deep concept.

After the heroes “stick it to the man,” The Network flips its shit and blows up the technological world. This was referred in the film as “when the lights went out,” catapulting humankind back into “the dark ages” with absolutely no technology. They once again relied on candles, fires and growing their own food.
It really made me think, how much longer can we burn through electricity and energy to cater to our technology-laden lives? Will there be a time where all the lights turn off? Will that be our apocalypse?

If I wanted to type all the opinions and thoughts I was thinking, I would type and type and type until my fingers fell off and my keyboard wore down to blank black buttons. Networked Media is the kind of subject that makes you think and consider. I’m good at that. Maybe too good. Or not good enough.. Anyway.
I’m finding it easier to express myself via pictures I find on the internet. So this is my thoughts about the Network this week.

My first impression of Networked Media:

If you’re not familiar with this episode of The Simpsons, basically Springfield Elementary attempts to create conformist robots out of its students by (shock horror…) GIVING THEM UNIFORMS. In America and this episode, this is seen as a complete restriction of freedom and individuality. Relating to my life, I feel like university is the first time you don’t have to wear uniform (both literally and figuratively); you can do what you like, dye your hair whatever colours, smoke on campus, leave campus for lunch etc. HOWEVER. What is the ‘grey uniform’ of RMIT? The education system itself I guess..
We get told: read this, write this, listen now, do this, turn up at this time, bring this, argue this, hand this in then etc. I’m not particularly complaining, because you do learn a lot this way. However in Networked Media, the rain comes down, and our grey uniforms become rainbow psychedelic and funkadelic get-ups, prompting us to strip naked, run free and do and learn how we like.
That was my first impression anyway. So I feel like Networked Media is allowing me to ‘rainbow’ up the ‘grey uniform’ that the education system can often provide. I am Martin Prince in this example, frolicking fearlessly and prancing in the world of the network after being let off my leash. Yay.
To my next picture… Here is the downside of this feel.

Do I have any grounds to post what I post? What expert am I? Just because I have the technology to be free and post my heart’s desires into the vast chasm of the internet… should I? My opinion is a fancy schmancy self-justified thought process that gets buried under the thousands of others out there on the web. I feel so intelligent and cool and mature typing all these interesting observations about everyday life, but should I? I’m just typing all this down because I have the means to. Internet has given us the extremities of freedom of speech; a downside of this is now everyone’s an expert.

This is how I feel my relationship with the Network is:

I’m sadly in the yellow…. the multi-faceted universe of Media and The Network is sadly in the blue. I love the media industry, I love blogging, I love the Network and I love being able to type this and post it as my own content into the world wide web.
But it doesn’t particularly love me… Just like Bec stated in the unlecture, my opinion is buried underneath the thousands of webcam superstars with 2 million hits around the web.
Adrian’s response to this was that we need to get experience, work hard and be able to produce high quality content in order to be that much better. And succeed. He discussed how the fact that nobody’s watching you dance or paint is absolutely no reason to not do these things. What I took from that is that giving up because people aren’t appreciating your work is so easily. But seriously, shouldn’t it be more about you, improving your skills and doing what you love? 

Also… what do you get out of having 6 million views on a Youtube video of you dancing to Lady GaGa’s latest Song?
The people who make these are merely content producers, and content is not king. (thanks Adrian!)
Unless you spend hours working on videos that are cleverly written, created and produced, YouTube views don’t accurately reflect talent and success…. The kids who make videos on Photobooth saying some 5 minute “comedic” rant and receive YouTube fame are essentially mere content producers who can see what people like on the net and mindlessly re-produce it. Like this:

What’s ‘trending’ becomes who you are and what you’re about. That’s not cool. It’s about being talented, working hard, keeping your individualism and not being content producers, but being knowledge creators. Deciding what content producers should produce.

IT ALL MAKES SENSE NOW. TUESDAY’S LECTURE NOW MAKES SENSE TO ME!

THANKS ADRIAN AND INTERNET PICTURES AND MY INCAPABILITY TO STOP TYPING! 675 words later…