McLuhan as Wall-E?!!

While I’m sure most of us out there have our opinions about Disney and how they are laden with ideologies of patriarchy and Euro-centrism, did Disney (and Pixar) get it right with Wall-E?

Yikes, are we doomed?!

After thinking about my last post with Marshall McLuhan I couldn’t help but be slightly scared about what the future holds. Or possibly what might be lurking around the corners of our future. McLuhan speaks of technology becoming one with humans, numbing us into a suspended state of being. Once again, I call myself out on not being the most literate of philosophy, but here I make my attempt (I hope some kind soul who reads this might help me out in correcting and further educating me if I’m off). Is Wall-E a take of McLuhan like some existential and absurdist allegory of what’s to come? Should I start buying stocks in moving lazy-boy type chairs that connect me to the rest of the world via information communication technology?

As I make my connections with McLuhan and Wall-E, I can’t help but have a certain commercial play in a repeated loop in my head…

 

Something slightly alarmed me the first time I saw this commercial. Perhaps it’s the omniscient narrator, perhaps it’s the metaphoric parallels of McLuhan and Wall-E when the girl decides to walk into the TV…like she is accepting her fate of technology as her extension.

Computer, I know you are chanting “one of us, one of us…” as I type this. As you try to initiate me into your world, am I missing something? Why does a large part of the world seem happy and content with this and not be alarmed?

Sam 2, Computer 3

Ode to Marshall McLuhan

I have been dropping references to McLuhan here and there, so it is probably about time I ramble on my thoughts about him. As such, this post will look at The Playboy Interview and some of my readings from his book Understanding Media. Living in a post colonial, post industrial, globalized (the list can go on) country (and world) , what does that mean for me?

It was Marshall McLuhan who recognized the facets of technology and the nature of living in a “global village”. However, I can probably bet that when he coined the term “global village”, he wasn’t referring to the one that exists today. What McLuhan meant was that the world as we know it is shrinking. Where it may have at one point taken months to travel across “the pond”, our world became more globalized thanks to the advances in technology.

McLuhan also posited that three basic technological advances has forever reshaped the way we physically see things, thus understand, and ultimately interact: the invention of the phonetic alphabet, the movable type, and the telegraph. What he also warns is that although we are making human progress, we are also enslaving ourselves to it. Forever married in sickness and in health – technology becomes an extension of our bodies til death do us part.

Yet, going back to the notion of McLuhan’s “global village”, this certainly more than ever rings true today. Information communication technology and social media has now connected me to my next door neighbour, as well as my online neighbour who lives half way across the world. We literally are living in a GLOBAL VILLAGE as I participate with the online community, coming together, sharing my thoughts-rambles-feelings-emotions-ideas-frustrations and on and on. Just as my best friend can comment and give me suggestions on my choice outfits for a date, a stranger can also pipe in giving me his or her fashion advice. If I’m outraged about a service from a company, I can shout it out on an online discussion board sharing my feelings with others in the same boat in my surrounding city, but also worldwide. So yes, I live participating everyday connected whether I know it or not, with others around the world sharing ourselves to each other in our global village. In my opinion, this is awesomely scary.

McLuhan speaks of a de-tribalized man, and the decentralizing nature of technology making references of our central nervous system. As I make meaning of this, I realize that what he means is this. When the human body is attacked, the body autopilots to safeguard the core: the central nervous system. So, the computer works like a virus. Our body then works to fight off the intruder, not only leaving our outer extremities exposed, but leaves at risk our core an open target. Thus, de-centralizing our whole being and suspending us into a trance-like numbness: narcosis.

As we are closing ourselves off through the use of media and technology, I draw parallels to Karl Marx and his atheist belief and view in religion as he saw religion as “the opium of the people“. Opium as we know is used to relieve pain. But is also addictive. Like opium, religion and technology are like an addictive drug that disillusions its users. Technology is now moving instantaneously. While we were able to slowly adapt, understand, and see the patterns of newly introduced technology, the internet is so fast paced that we are swept up along with it, taking our understandings and the ability to fully grasp and comprehend its true form and nature. We haven’t had the time to settle down with it. While it may seem like our relationship with the internet and social media are very much like an old married couple, we are still in the “getting to know you honeymoon” stages.

“Subliminal and docile acceptance of media impact has made them prisons without walls for their human users” (20). Prisons Mr. McLuhan? So you’re saying media has a totalizing panoptic effect? Foucault and Goffman are rolling in their graves.

So it seems, technology as both blessing and a curse.

Lastly, what struck me from McLuhan was this: “The future of works consists of earning a living in the automation age” (346). Scary thought. That we will soon be seeking jobs that serve technology, rather than thinking technology as serving us. This is starting to sound like a sci-fi movie. While technology seemingly frees us up for more leisure time, we are spending it back into technology which then enslave and bind us to a vicious cycle.

Sambot

I’ve been feeling a lot lately like a robot. Like I am one with my cell phone and gadgets. Of course, this sense might have been heightened when this past week I’ve been lugging around a heart monitor that looks like a walk-man (does anyone even remember walk-mans?!) on my hip. Doctor’s orders are to wear for two weeks, and press a button that emits an obnoxious noise for 30 seconds every time my heart feels a little off.

Those 30 seconds of noise is perhaps the most uncomfortably self-consciously aware moment where I feel like I have “E”‘s written on both my eyes while I chant “error” on repeat.

Where am I going with this? Well, the week prior, I was at Rogers looking at upgrading my phone since my contract was nearing its completion. Ironically, this fiasco took a whole day and much to my dismay of a day wasted, I walked out with nothing new, upgraded or renewed. Turns out, Rogers seemed to be having technical connectivity issues where their server was down a couple of days.

No big deal? I actually felt a little bad for the customer service reps that were stuck working those technical difficulty days. They were inundated with antsy, aggressive, short-tempered, and irritated people who were left in a limbo that Rogers would give them a call as soon as they were able to get access to their information. They were doing the best they can, but as always, that’s never enough for the dissatisfied customer.

I don’t know the whole Rogers situation during that period, but what I did overhear from customers (and around town as my ears perked up) was that they had problems sending text messages, or frequent dropped calls, trouble connecting to the internet, or *gasp* the TV wasn’t working.

This brought me to the Surrealist painting by Robert Williams: “Symbiotic Mediocrity” as pictured above. We seem to have relinquished our own being over to telecommunicative technology.

Plugged in. Like the painting, McLuhan was right about technology as extensions of man.

But is being plugged in constantly more disturbing and creepy, or Williams’ Foucauldian and Goffman-like portrayal of how we are actively participating in watching each other? Add to that the notion of social media and how we watch and “follow” each other through that…

I grew up before cell phones had been full-fledged available to the masses. While I once remember sticking my finger in the proper number and moving the rotary dial ring, I can’t even muster and fathom what it was like before, and how I had got on without instantly texting someone to let them know I am running late.

Yes, I’ll admit, I have fallen to the luxuries of communication culture. Computer, you win again.

Sam 2, Computer 2

I’s be internetting ;)

Upon the birth of my blog, I established right out of the gates that I would encounter some problems. One of them being:

How do I assume my blog identity?

For starters, I have to be evaluated on this by a supervising professor. So do I present myself as Academic-Professional-Sam? Or do I assume to be my “normal” self as a cynical-pessimist-about-everything-Sam? And here I present the infamous rhetorical question: What IS normal?…because believe me, I am far from it (come to think of it, we all are far from it).

Ultimately, I decided that although a part of me should probably remain professional since this is tied to school and academia, I opted to go in the direction of being my usual self…to the best that I can. In order for me to express all that I wonder and question about social media and my research, I will have to be frank and as open as I can be (albeit hidden behind a computer screen as a faceless entity…Note to self: maybe a self-picture to add?). Having a blog as part of my evaluation is a bit of an unorthodox method in terms of course work, but it ironically fits into the scheme of things, and most likely is one of the very few (if at all) school-related times that I don’t have to speak and present myself in my best professional voice.

Annnnnd, return to my different identities and who I am. As I reflected and weighed my options on how to present my blog self, it dawned on me: why do I have and assume many identities? I have many disguises and faces: daughter, student, part-time worker, girl-friend, and friend Sam, to name a few. But even something like friend Sam has subcategories: close friends (for the mellow-whatever-rolls Sam), acquaintances (some formality required), cheerleading friends (the party-crazed-loud-everyone-look-at-me), school friends (let’s get down to business and study). All these are many identities I assume, and which I ask you to question: how many identities do you hold?

I pose this question because in all my identities, they are all ME. But, while they are all true forms of me, they are variations of how much I hold back or dish out of myself. I try, to uphold my end of the bargain of being a person, to be the most authentic and genuine self no matter what variation of my identity you come across. Yet, with social media and the notion of branding and marketing yourself, how does this affect one’s identity? Like deciding my blog self, which part of me do I largely portray online? This got me thinking about how much of our identities are tied into our online portrayal: do we base it on our actual real life self, or do we overcompensate our best selves online and then hope that everyone who sees us in real life is tricked by our online identity?

Take my blog identity however you want to, but I pray that I am not marked and graded on my grammar and formalities…cuz this blog ain’t have none of that! Move over MLA, APA and Chicago format. The hell with punctuations and grammar. I’m embracing internet speak. I CAN haz cake and eat it too.

Sam 2, Computer 0

Let the Games Begin…

Welcome to the first post of my blog! You may have figured out from my About Me and Readings pages, this blog was created for a directed research course that I get to choose a topic of interest and design. While this is not a response to a reading per se, it is more of a get-to-know-each-other post, and a sort of insight to my inspiration behind my topic and research.

As a previous university student, I remember the days when pagers came out and the professors’ protests and clear instructions to either turn them off during class or not bring them at all. Well, much has changed since then, and it seems that most professors these days urge students to not text, or even ban laptops and tablets. That aside, I sometimes catch myself feeling archaic in the fact that I can’t seem to just read my readings off a computer screen like most of my fellow (and much younger) students. I have to print everything (much to the chagrin of being environmentally friendly). And I much prefer taking notes by pen and paper rather than using my macbook or tablet.

Not that I have anything against the computer. In fact, I love the accessibility of being able to look up virtually (pun intended) everything via the internet. In fact, it has made my life as a born-again student easier. Ten-fold. My friends joke about my aversion and “allergy” to the library (don’t get me wrong, I LOVE books…just not the library), so you can imagine my thrill when I can pre-research through the internet.

And what of social media? While I may have a facebook profile I hardly go on it, and I can’t seem to bring myself to have a Twitter account. Yet, I find myself quite attached to Instagram. I get it, in order to be “with” everybody, I have to be connected. Yet, I find it eerie that I have to market my own self almost as if it’s its own product and entity. Yes, I am an entity, but a product? Of what? My parents? Ryerson? facebook? Coca-Cola? So…this means I have to think about branding myself as a product? McLuhan was onto something when he said that technology becomes an extension of the man. But to think of myself as a commodity (I could open a can of worms here my inserting a joke/comment about me being up for sale…I’ll leave that for you)?

I know, there is ironic value to having a blog for my research and criticisms on the internet and social media. But as I began setting up the site, I realized that not having Twitter or “creeping” through facebook 80 times a day really has left me a little out of touch with technology and by and large, what is going on around me. I actually struggled with creating my blog. I left it for a couple of days week, because I was scared and overwhelmed by all the features and buttons and things to click on. Hence the birth of my blog name: samvscomputer. Because admittedly, more often than not, I have moments with my computer.

Embarrassing as it may be, I had other terrible names for my blog before I finally came up with the genius one I have now:

*mythesisblog           and         *thesitewithnoname

I had several others, but they were unfortunately taken. The above runners-up were of the few that weren’t already taken. Hey, the creative process can be seriously stunted when you’re under pressure and overwhelmed. But I like to think that I won this round Computer.

Sam 1, Computer 0