Posts tagged culture
Logging in to Log Off: Non-Mediated Nostalgia and the Point of No Return
As regular readers know, much of my writing circles around the awesomeness of being connected, like being able to work from anywhere and get access to all kinds of cool people and information – and the looming recognition- that being connected all the time warps our daily life into something which is characterized by being…
Din & Denial in the Digital Garden of Eden
Remember the days when a piercing was shocking? Or a tattoo? Nowadays, you have to implant ‘devil horns‘ under your skin, get eyeball jewelry or other forms of bodymodding to turn some heads. The practices applied range from splitting your tongue, permanently cutting your ears into elves-shape, to drilling holes into your skull! Who wouldn’t…
How Social Media Leads to “Social Crash”
We have seen the Financial Crisis. We got bailed out into a hypothetical state of stability. But how to bail out when social network relationships fail? Introduction The more our relationships of networking and nurturing are being outsourced to the Net, the more people seem to be befallen by a completely new brand of anxiety:…
Here’s Why Online Relationships are Mostly Misunderstood
Recently, I read an article called “The Social Media Bubble” by Umair Haque, Director of the Havas Media Lab on the Harvard Business Review Blog. Its hypothesis: The Net doesn’t increase connectivity and social change. In fact, it leans towards degeneration: The quantity of “friends” is rising, while the quality of relationships goes down. In his…
So-Called Canadian Culture
A Contradiction In Terms The problem with trying to write an article about Canadian culture is rather simple. As a Canadian, I am well placed to be fully aware that most Canadians have renounced any concept of a Canadian culture. There’s an awful lot of identity, and built upon that (or is that the other…
American Culture: The Imperfect Hero
Movie Logic In American television and film culture, or put another way, movie logic, we encounter, with overwhelming frequency, the flawed, imperfect action hero. The flaws in this hero are usually obvious. They are easy to see, and easy to understand. The hero may be, in fact, a quite despicable person in many respects; the…