First, let me just nerd out and say that I am designing a D&D/Final Fantasy hybrid gaming system that allows you to play Final Fantasy style games at the tabletop. I know some others that exist out there (most notably, the Returners'), but I will do it better. Promise. 
Now, onto nerding out in a slightly different way.
What follows is a wordy cultural anthro take on the significance of the Internet not in tech or in style, but in culture, in human interaction and the bonds and structures that interaction forms. It is in response to Liante's question about the SG videos, and might read too much into things. But such is the nature of academia, ya dig?
The idea is that the videos decrease a level of the internet anonymity factor, which is both good and bad for certain reasons. I'll never begrudge any woman the right to her secrets, however thick those viels may be, but I'm a huge fan of the SG videos for reasons that have everything to do with humanity and nothing (well, not much) to do with titilation.
The videos reveal much about the SG it is of, more than the written word and pictures convey by themselves. Voice, mannerisms, inflections of personality and certain quirks...pictures are staged for beauty and journal posts are crafted to be interesting. And it's not that the videos are that different, it's just that they show things that everyone has trouble hiding. It's one small step closer to getting to know the person. And, for me, that's part of what SG is about -- dismantling the barrier between idol and audience, between image of beauty and beautiful person. Because these incredible women are real people. They exist. And through the magic of 1's and 0's, they touch thousands of real, existing other people.
It doesn't have to be much. The subtler the effects, the more powerful they can be. Even if they can't ever meet an SG in flesh and blood, they might find a smile, a pose, a shape to the lips or a color to the eyes here that strikes them later in the real world. The deepest things go unnoticed. The simplest things have far-reaching effects. I'm a big supporter of the idea that microcosm creates macrocosm. In some way, every flashed nipple on this site contributes to a growing culture, and through those nipples and that culture, they have a profoud effect on individuals that participate in that culture.
The videos, in their subtlety, in their revelation of personal quirks and personality, help further the goal of making idols into people. Not that they break the wall entirely, but you can become close friends with someone and never break that wall entirely. It helps, and that, to me, is very important.
See, the internet helps realize two ends of a continuum of human interaction. At one extreme sit the anonymous and the secretive. Cold and distant, the internet is a way for them to interact with the wider world without risking much. Because of that anonymity, their true self is protected. It's an act, it's an image, it's artificial, a creation. And through the Internet, not only can that creation reach more people, but the creator, through the creation, can interact with those people safely. They can do so without risking themselves, only their creation. At any moment, they can stop. They can block e-mails, they can create new screennames, they can disappear into the aether as if they never existed, and this power is a mighty defensive force. If things ever get risky for the creator, instead of the creation, they can run away and hide, forever if they need to. And if that never happens, then they can freely interact with all kinds of new and interesting people without actually risking reality for them. They can encounter what is, for them, exotic, different, interesting, innovative, and even challenging. And they can retreat from it at any time. Increased knowledge without increased risk! PERFECT!
The other extreme is the internet that brings people closer together. Niche communities bond over obsessive minutae or publically unacceptable acts. Organizations form memberships of thousands of disparate individuals. Conventions localize these forces, message boards allow them to communicate, and the internet gives anyone with a computer the ability to be considered on a level playing field with the rich and powerful, as long as they have talent. This democratizing effect, this warm fuzzy bonding of people who want to feel accepted and who want to meet like-minded people, is at the other extreme. It's not just the ability to interact with people miles away, it's the ability to care about people like you. It's not about finding difference, but about finding human similarity. For this extreme, the protective barrier is there, but is eagerly cast aside in certain situations, with certain people that have earned a kind of communitas, a shared environment regarding something (be it Furries, or making fun of Furries). Creating a persona is far less important to this extreme than finding a person. It's not intellectual curiostiy, but emotional openness (in whichever way the community sanctions it). The forming of these bonds tends to gravitate to sexuality, largely do to Western culture's demonization of sex, but it is not exclusive to it. Two people curious about, I dunno, Christianity, sitting in Germany and in Wyoming, can find each other and share that aspect of themselves. This is especially potent if that aspect is somehow hidden, but a simple common ground can form true friendships and real emotional bonds as solid as anything formed between two people looking at each other.
Perhaps it is because I have a...complex involvement with the concept of intimacy, or perhaps it's just the Anthropologist in me, but I'm much more interested in the second extreme. I'm interested in how people can form friendships, relationships, marriages, families, and communities by talking to each other. Meeting new people is fun, but the fun isn't in the meeting, it's in the PEOPLE, for me. I'm more interested in who people are than in what they are, you could say. And in what they identify as.
This means that, for me, the videos are a small step from still images, but a giant leap toward that second category. Yes, it's still artificial, it's still created, it's still, effectively, a product. But those little things...those turns of phrase, the way the lips move, where the eyes dart to, how they present themselves, the hint of an accent or an impediment...all these little intimate touches are of great value to me. It's a thing of modern beauty, a sign of the greatness of mankind, when the idol becomes a human being. It speaks to the mortality of symbols and to the infinity of mortals, to issues resonant since the cueniform words of Gilgamersh were etched into the wet clay of Ur.
All these incredible people are, incredibly, people. And anything that gets me closer to the individuals that live and breathe and want and need and hurt and laugh and grow and fuck and love and die...anything that gets me a small step closer to the essence of a person....is one of the greatest things in this jaded age of ours. The time for epics is long past. Plays and performances have had their heyday. The great works of art in the information age lay in the aether between you and me, and how we bridge that gap.
This isn't to say that everyone should absolutely do a video. People value different things. For a lot of people, there has to be a line in the sand between Self and Other that should not be crossed. Intimacy isn't easy, after all: power and pain and pulse are significant things, and dismantling the barriers can be a risky thing. Not everyone wants to take a risk like that, or will only take it so far ("I'll go on a roller coaster, but not on the Suicide Rocket!"). The reasons for this are hardly simple, but they boil down to simple human fear and tension. It's understandable and totally fair -- people want control over their own interactions, and people should do as much or as little with that as their own emotions dictate.
I like to take the risk, to dispel the fear, and to embrace the human on the other side, myself. I like to remember that the SG's are people, not simply pin-ups. Everything that enables the dissolution of that barrier is extra bonus from my position. I don't have naked pictures or videos up, but that's simply because I don't believe there would be much of an audience for them...if they're wanted, I'm ignorant of that fact.
Still, maybe it's because I like that side so much, the opposite intrigues me greatly. The known and close is warm and happy. The cool and vague is beautiful and enticing. I become friends with the known and close, but I develop massive boy-crushes on the cool and vague....
Of course, as always, I'm probably just over-thinking things. So I'll stop my speculation at the moment. Here's hoping I at least didn't come off as creepy, or pathetically fanboyish. I assure everyone who has read this that it's not so much obsession and worship as that I am easily excited like a puppy...you know, more intense than potential stalker material If that makes sense. Prolly not. Shutting up now.
Now, onto nerding out in a slightly different way.
What follows is a wordy cultural anthro take on the significance of the Internet not in tech or in style, but in culture, in human interaction and the bonds and structures that interaction forms. It is in response to Liante's question about the SG videos, and might read too much into things. But such is the nature of academia, ya dig?
The idea is that the videos decrease a level of the internet anonymity factor, which is both good and bad for certain reasons. I'll never begrudge any woman the right to her secrets, however thick those viels may be, but I'm a huge fan of the SG videos for reasons that have everything to do with humanity and nothing (well, not much) to do with titilation.
The videos reveal much about the SG it is of, more than the written word and pictures convey by themselves. Voice, mannerisms, inflections of personality and certain quirks...pictures are staged for beauty and journal posts are crafted to be interesting. And it's not that the videos are that different, it's just that they show things that everyone has trouble hiding. It's one small step closer to getting to know the person. And, for me, that's part of what SG is about -- dismantling the barrier between idol and audience, between image of beauty and beautiful person. Because these incredible women are real people. They exist. And through the magic of 1's and 0's, they touch thousands of real, existing other people.
It doesn't have to be much. The subtler the effects, the more powerful they can be. Even if they can't ever meet an SG in flesh and blood, they might find a smile, a pose, a shape to the lips or a color to the eyes here that strikes them later in the real world. The deepest things go unnoticed. The simplest things have far-reaching effects. I'm a big supporter of the idea that microcosm creates macrocosm. In some way, every flashed nipple on this site contributes to a growing culture, and through those nipples and that culture, they have a profoud effect on individuals that participate in that culture.
The videos, in their subtlety, in their revelation of personal quirks and personality, help further the goal of making idols into people. Not that they break the wall entirely, but you can become close friends with someone and never break that wall entirely. It helps, and that, to me, is very important.
See, the internet helps realize two ends of a continuum of human interaction. At one extreme sit the anonymous and the secretive. Cold and distant, the internet is a way for them to interact with the wider world without risking much. Because of that anonymity, their true self is protected. It's an act, it's an image, it's artificial, a creation. And through the Internet, not only can that creation reach more people, but the creator, through the creation, can interact with those people safely. They can do so without risking themselves, only their creation. At any moment, they can stop. They can block e-mails, they can create new screennames, they can disappear into the aether as if they never existed, and this power is a mighty defensive force. If things ever get risky for the creator, instead of the creation, they can run away and hide, forever if they need to. And if that never happens, then they can freely interact with all kinds of new and interesting people without actually risking reality for them. They can encounter what is, for them, exotic, different, interesting, innovative, and even challenging. And they can retreat from it at any time. Increased knowledge without increased risk! PERFECT!
The other extreme is the internet that brings people closer together. Niche communities bond over obsessive minutae or publically unacceptable acts. Organizations form memberships of thousands of disparate individuals. Conventions localize these forces, message boards allow them to communicate, and the internet gives anyone with a computer the ability to be considered on a level playing field with the rich and powerful, as long as they have talent. This democratizing effect, this warm fuzzy bonding of people who want to feel accepted and who want to meet like-minded people, is at the other extreme. It's not just the ability to interact with people miles away, it's the ability to care about people like you. It's not about finding difference, but about finding human similarity. For this extreme, the protective barrier is there, but is eagerly cast aside in certain situations, with certain people that have earned a kind of communitas, a shared environment regarding something (be it Furries, or making fun of Furries). Creating a persona is far less important to this extreme than finding a person. It's not intellectual curiostiy, but emotional openness (in whichever way the community sanctions it). The forming of these bonds tends to gravitate to sexuality, largely do to Western culture's demonization of sex, but it is not exclusive to it. Two people curious about, I dunno, Christianity, sitting in Germany and in Wyoming, can find each other and share that aspect of themselves. This is especially potent if that aspect is somehow hidden, but a simple common ground can form true friendships and real emotional bonds as solid as anything formed between two people looking at each other.
Perhaps it is because I have a...complex involvement with the concept of intimacy, or perhaps it's just the Anthropologist in me, but I'm much more interested in the second extreme. I'm interested in how people can form friendships, relationships, marriages, families, and communities by talking to each other. Meeting new people is fun, but the fun isn't in the meeting, it's in the PEOPLE, for me. I'm more interested in who people are than in what they are, you could say. And in what they identify as.
This means that, for me, the videos are a small step from still images, but a giant leap toward that second category. Yes, it's still artificial, it's still created, it's still, effectively, a product. But those little things...those turns of phrase, the way the lips move, where the eyes dart to, how they present themselves, the hint of an accent or an impediment...all these little intimate touches are of great value to me. It's a thing of modern beauty, a sign of the greatness of mankind, when the idol becomes a human being. It speaks to the mortality of symbols and to the infinity of mortals, to issues resonant since the cueniform words of Gilgamersh were etched into the wet clay of Ur.
All these incredible people are, incredibly, people. And anything that gets me closer to the individuals that live and breathe and want and need and hurt and laugh and grow and fuck and love and die...anything that gets me a small step closer to the essence of a person....is one of the greatest things in this jaded age of ours. The time for epics is long past. Plays and performances have had their heyday. The great works of art in the information age lay in the aether between you and me, and how we bridge that gap.
This isn't to say that everyone should absolutely do a video. People value different things. For a lot of people, there has to be a line in the sand between Self and Other that should not be crossed. Intimacy isn't easy, after all: power and pain and pulse are significant things, and dismantling the barriers can be a risky thing. Not everyone wants to take a risk like that, or will only take it so far ("I'll go on a roller coaster, but not on the Suicide Rocket!"). The reasons for this are hardly simple, but they boil down to simple human fear and tension. It's understandable and totally fair -- people want control over their own interactions, and people should do as much or as little with that as their own emotions dictate.
I like to take the risk, to dispel the fear, and to embrace the human on the other side, myself. I like to remember that the SG's are people, not simply pin-ups. Everything that enables the dissolution of that barrier is extra bonus from my position. I don't have naked pictures or videos up, but that's simply because I don't believe there would be much of an audience for them...if they're wanted, I'm ignorant of that fact.
Still, maybe it's because I like that side so much, the opposite intrigues me greatly. The known and close is warm and happy. The cool and vague is beautiful and enticing. I become friends with the known and close, but I develop massive boy-crushes on the cool and vague....
Of course, as always, I'm probably just over-thinking things. So I'll stop my speculation at the moment. Here's hoping I at least didn't come off as creepy, or pathetically fanboyish. I assure everyone who has read this that it's not so much obsession and worship as that I am easily excited like a puppy...you know, more intense than potential stalker material If that makes sense. Prolly not. Shutting up now.
Good show.
I guess my question is, do videos necessarily fall into either of your categories (anonymous vs. connective)? It is, essentially, a fixed performance. Of course you can write to the model afterward and interact that way, but it doesn't change the recorded performance on the video. Contrast that to, say, an interactive cam performance, where you can talk to the performer and see the changes in real time.
...I had a point but then I went off and did some readings and now I can't recall what it was. Bugger. Anyway, nice entry.