A few days ago, I published a video that I made with my friend Pawl E. It was a thank you video for a Swedish man that we exchanged snacks with over parcel mail. Now of course, I announced my amateur video here and there, but nobody seemed to care except the people on r/snackexchange where we setup the exchange. These circumstancies reminded me that social dynamics work the same way wether you are talking face to face with a friend or talking via text online. The internet is composed of communities and therefore you are part of community’s conversation when you add to it. Nobody outside of r/SnackExchange understood our video because they weren’t aware of the video’s context nor the conversation it was a part of.
This is why I find these assigned internet posts for my UCI Digital Arts class to be empty gestures. Who am I writing for? Well myself cause that is what a blog is for, but also for the poor TA who has to read all this. Blogs succeed when they are part of a community and that is why tumblr has such rich conversations.
So far the cicLAvia project felt meaningful because it was part of a community and our posts went noticed. The next project involves vlogs, but for what community are we making this vlog for and what conversation are we apart of?
In my opinion, the next time this class is held, the students should be assigned to take part in an online community. That to me is a more meaningful assignment, like our cicLAvia project, than blindly making posts online.
