Internet Culture - Publication Research

Internet Culture / Cyberculture

Cyberculture is a wide social and cultural movement closely linked to advanced information science and information technology, their emergence, development and rise to social and cultural prominence between the 1960s and the 1990s. Cyberculture was influenced at its genesis by those early users of the internet, frequently including the architects of the original project. These individuals were often guided in their actions by the hacker ethic. While early cyberculture was based on a small cultural sample, and its ideals, the modern cyberculture is a much more diverse group of users and the ideals that they espouse.

Panopicism in Cyberculture

Panopticism relys on teh fact that you are always being watched until you start to conform. At no other point in history have we ever been scrutinised as much.

- Google Maps & Street View (See Your House)

- Facebook

- Dating Websites

- Social Networking 

- MSN Messenger

- Trolls

- Online Relationships

- Myspace

- Spam Emails

- Cybersex

- Internet Memes

- Tumblr

- Twitter

- Hashtags

Things to look at:-

Catfish Documentary


Facebook & Twitter

Social media isn't doing you any favors, if you believe the results of a small survey conducted out of the University of Salford in the U.K. More than half of the 298 people polled in the study claimed their lives have changed for the worse since they started using sites like Facebook and Twitter: They feel depressed after comparing their achievements to their friends', they find it hard to relax and sleep, and -- despite the apparent negative side effects of social media -- feel stressed when they can't access it. "If you are predisposed to anxiety it seems that the pressures from technology act as a tipping point, making people feel more insecure and more overwhelmed," said Nicky Lidbetter, from the charity Anxiety UK. Luckily, the study supplied a simple solution to social media worries: Turn off your gadgets.

Internet Memes

An Internet meme is a concept that spreads via the Internet. The word meme was coined by Richard Dawkins for his 1976 book The Selfish Gene, although his concept refers to a much broader category of cultural information.

An Internet meme may take the form of an image, hyperlink, video, picture, website, or hashtag. It may be just a word or phrase, including intentionally misspelling the word “more” as “moar” or “the” as “teh.” These small movements tend to spread from person to person via social networks, blogs, direct email, or news sources. They may relate to various existing Internet cultures or subcultures, often based on sites like 4chan, tumblr, and numerous others.

Forever Alone (Tumblr Meme)

About

Forever Alone is an exploitable rage comic character that is used to express loneliness and disappointment with life. Creators of this variety of rage comic occasionally alter one word or both of the words “forever alone” for a more humorous effect (For example,Forever A Scone). On Memegenerator, Forever Alone is on the God Tier.

Origin

Forever Alone is considered one of the first major spin-off characters to evolve out of the popular Rage Guy comic series, which first sprang up on 4chan in 2009. According to various sources, the original comic was uploaded in a thread titled “April Fools” by FunnyJunk user Azuul on May 28th, 2010.

Viral Spread

In November 2011, Sony Ericsson launched a series of video advertisements prominently featuring the character of Forever Alone for its Xperiathon campaign dubbed “The Loneliest Marathon in the World.”

Voyerism & Cybersex

Cybersex, also called computer sex, Internet sex, netsex, mudsex, TinySex and, colloquially, cybering or conversex is a virtual sex encounter in which two or more persons connected remotely via computer network send each other sexually explicit messages describing a sexual experience. In one form, this fantasy sex is accomplished by the participants describing their actions and responding to their chat partners in a mostly written form designed to stimulate their own sexual feelings and fantasies.

Cybersex sometimes includes real life masturbation. The quality of a cybersex encounter typically depends upon the participants' abilities to evoke a vivid, visceral mental picture in the minds of their partners. Imagination and suspension of disbelief are also critically important. Cybersex can occur either within the context of existing or intimate relationships, e.g. among lovers who are geographically separated, or among individuals who have no prior knowledge of one another and meet in virtual spaces or cyberspaces and may even remain anonymous to one another. In some contexts cybersex is enhanced by the use of a webcam to transmit real-time video of the partners.

Channels used to initiate cybersex are not necessarily exclusively devoted to that subject, and participants in any Internet chat may suddenly receive a message with any possible variation of the text "Wanna cyber?", "Wanna cam?" or a request for "C2C"/"C4C" ("cam to cam" and "cam for cam", respectively).

Cybersex is commonly performed in Internet chat rooms (such as IRC, talkers or web chats) and on instant messaging systems. It can also be performed using webcams, voice chat systems like Skype, or online games and/or virtual worlds like Second Life. The exact definition of cybersex—specifically, whether real-life masturbation must be taking place for the online sex act to count as cybersex—is up for debate.

Second Life

Second Life is a 3D world where everyone you see is a real person and every place you visit is built by people just like you. Many people use this as a platform for cybersex.

Chat Roulette

Chat Roulette is one of the net’s latest crazes, growing in popularity at an exponential rate. And I can see why.

The way it works is simple. Hit the ‘new game’ button and you are randomly hooked up with another visitor to the site for a one-on-one chat. You see them, they see you. You chat or hit ‘new game’ to move on to the next random “chatee”.

It’s an ideal stage for voyeurs and exhibitionists so you get your fair share of nuffs-nuffs and circus freaks. You’re unlikely to go 5 ‘new games’ without seeing a snag or nudity of some kind. You may well be disgusted, you might be amused, you will probably find yourself wondering what motivates someone to want to do that over a webcam?

But like a car crash, while every fibre of your rational being is saying to you “move on…nothing to see here”, that little voyeur within can’t help but look.

And just like the internet itself which is 90% rubbish and 10% gold, amongst all the pointless, weird or downright disturbing encounters you’ll have on chatroulette, you might just come across something interesting or amusing. It’s also given rise to the unique talents of the Chat Roulette improv guy…

Interesting Article on Internet Voyeurism...

http://www.cio.com/article/30124/Internet_Voyeurism?page=2&taxonomyId=3154


Social Networking ruining Society?

Phantom Vibration Syndrome

Phantom Vibration Syndrome or Phantom ringing is the sensation and false belief that one can feel one's mobile phone vibrating or hear it ringing, when in fact the telephone is not doing so.

Other terms for this concept include ringxiety (a portmanteau of ring and anxiety), HypoVibroChondria (a mix of Hypochondria and Vibro) and fauxcellarm (a play on "false alarm").

Phantom ringing may be experienced while taking a shower, watching television, or using a noisy device. Humans are particularly sensitive to auditory tones between 1,000 and 6,000 hertz, and basic mobile phone ringers often fall within this range. This frequency range can generally be more difficult to locate spatially, thus allowing for potential confusion when heard from a distance. False vibrations are less well understood, however, and could have psychological or neurological sources.

Cyberpunk

Cyberpunk is a postmodern science fiction genre noted for its focus on "high tech and low life." The name was originally coined byBruce Bethke as the title of his short story "Cyberpunk," published in 1983.[3][4] It features advanced science, such as information technology and cybernetics, coupled with a degree of breakdown or radical change in the social order.

Cyberpunk plots often center on a conflict among hackers, artificial intelligences, and megacorporations, and tend to be set in a near-future Earth, rather than the far-future settings or galactic vistas found in novels such as Isaac Asimov's Foundation or Frank Herbert'sDune. The settings are usually post-industrial dystopias but tend to be marked by extraordinary cultural ferment and the use of technology in ways never anticipated by its creators ("the street finds its own uses for things"). Much of the genre's atmosphere echoes film noir, and written works in the genre often use techniques from detective fiction.


"Classic cyberpunk characters were marginalized, alienated loners who lived on the edge of society in generally dystopic futures where daily life was impacted by rapid technological change, an ubiquitous datasphere of computerized information, and invasive modification of the human body." – Lawrence Person

Books

http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=zmMLSZJPXoIC&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false