Where have all the web grrrls gone?

Vist at least three of the websites discussed in this chapter. Then use de Certau's concept of tactics to talk about how these websites use images, words, and a combination of images and words to construct identity. (If you prefer, you can instead use other sites you think would be relevant to the chapter's content.)

It seems like most of the sites Armstrong references in the chapter are now defunct. Some are gone completely; many simply haven't been updated in years. Although two or three years isn't that long in the academic world, it's practically an eternity in web terms. They aren't all gone, but my feeling was that there are no longer scores of teenage and young adult punk girls (sorry -- grrrls) making rebellious e-zines.

But.

DisgruntledHousewife.com is still around. This site, maintained by Nikol Lohr, employs all of de Certeau's "tactics": mimesis, parody, irony, exaggeration, and critique. In what looks like an attempt to reclaim the term, Lohr talks about wanting to be slutty. "Slutty", in Lohr's world, appears to mean "Betty Page". Or thereabouts. Elsewhere on the site, Lohr talks about her obsession with "naked ladies" -- essentially 1950s porn. Her words and the imagery which accompany them make both obsessions sound curious but somehow wholesome. Sexuality, Lohr is saying, does not have to be dirty (as, she says, it is in much modern pornography) or degrading (although she admits she's "not sure why Betty Page stretched out with a ball gag in her mouth is more acceptable than Barely Legal"). Somewhere in the contradictions, though, she's saying she's comfortable with her own sexuality.

What she's less comfortable with, supposedly, is her role as a housewife. Armstrong references Lohr's parody of a recipe site (Meals Men Like) and the supposed bitter irony present there. While the parody is undeniable, and it is presenting itself as ironic -- there is a recipe for meatloaf. Somehow this misses "subversive" in my mind. Or, maybe, gets a little too close to actually feeling like it's trying to subvert feminism by repackaging the old ideals in a hip and cynical new way, thus just encouraging complacence.

...Moving on, Heartless Bitches International is another great example of mimesis. Unfortunately, most of the images are broken, so that's all it's a great example of. This site is being updated regularly, though. It also has an apparently active message board, but I can't comment on the discussion there as it's members only. I'm not quite ready to apply for membership, but I do approve of attempts to celebrate women who don't shy away from the traits commonly associated with the word "bitch".

gURL takes an entirely different approach, and I think, based mostly on my gut and not on any real research, is what's happened to young feminism on the web. As the web has matured, established and "mainstream" voices have emerged, eliminating the need for girls to create their own spaces. Instead, girls participate in very active message boards, discussing things like sexual orientation, fighting parents, and social divisions. The site also features "gURL guides" to such diverse things as: html, putting on a rock show, tennis, college, knitting, tattooing, thrifting, and...zine making. Whether because this site is directed at a younger audience or because it is trying to become part of an "establishment" (ultimately a better strategy, I think -- setting yourself up as a counterculture really just validates the existing culture), there's little use of de Certeau's tactics here. Instead, there's straightforward information presented in fun and catchy graphics. There is, however, one section that is the most clear cut example of mimesis I saw: label it... "Labels are for jeans and jars," says the intro page to this secion. "And they're used on people too... But what do they mean and why do we use them?" Etymology and usage is offered for each word (ranging from bitch to gay to wetback), along with information about ways in which the word is being reclaimed. Are you a dork?

Personal Identity Construction

Given what Cheung argues in the early part of his article is the emancipatory potential for identity construction and identity articulation on the web, and given his notion of the web as a “stage for strategic and elaborate self-presentation” (55-62), imagine that you are planning on constructing a personal website. Describe the elements of your identity you would want to include? How will you construct yourself? What kinds of complexities or contradictions, if any, would you like to include?

I spent many years creating and destroying personal homepages before anything I made was actually uploaded to the web. I loved the idea of having a web presence, but was uncomfortable with so publicly presenting an identity. In creating a personal homepage now, I would have the same problem.

What are the things that make up who I really am? I don't really believe that the music I listen to, the clothes I wear, or even the books I read make me who I am, but certainly they are the easiest things to talk about. I'm not even sure that the philosophers I like or things I think about have all that much to do with my identity. Ultimately, this is a question about the nature of identity.

I could identify myself in very concrete terms: I am a 24 year old woman. I am a student at McDaniel College.

I could go more abstract: In the language of Ken Wilber, I consider myself to be in the green/yellow meme. I believe that postmodernism is passe. I like poetry that serves to distill truth. I like honesty and integrity in human beings and in buildings.

Or somewhere in between: I like Louise Gluck and Tony Hoagland. I like Simon & Garfunkel and Counting Crows. I like Jane Austen and Isabel Allende.

I believe that there is a core "me" under all these things, but I believe that's what important is that it is. The rest isn't who I am. They're things I do, think about, or enjoy. They aren't my identity.

But because you asked, the five images I would include to represent myself are:
The Circle School logo, a pen and paper, a spiral representing the evolution of consciousness, an open road, and a tree.

Masculinities

The expansion of one's conception of masculinity -- or of a man's perceptions of himself as a man -- can take place offline or online. Or not. The web seems to offer a wide range of ideas about what masculinity is and what it means to be male, but the existence of these ideas doesn't necessarily mean that any individual is going to encounter or explore a space that will stretch their thinking. Representing three very different ideas about what it means to be a man are the Dull Men's Club, Bullz-eye.com, and Manhood Online.

The first, although tongue-in-cheek about it, conceptualizes masculinity (or at least dull masculinity) as loving stability and order. They are celebrating only the mundane, but in doing so are sometimes achieving a depth of knowledge not usually sought -- like what percentage of airport baggage carousels turn clockwise. These subjects are not all as dull as the site proclaims them to be -- but there's no adrenaline here. As the FAQ says, though, "Dull men don’t want to change." This site is unlikely to bring about "uncertainty and even anxiety" in anyone, and although it may help someone come to terms with being dull, it is more likely to be seen as a wholesome diversion than an identity catalyst.

Bullz-eye.com also seems more likely to reinforce a previously held conception of masculinity than to challenge a visitor in any meaningful way. The front page of the site is littered with images of models, cartoons, and TV shows, as well as ads for hair loss prevention products, The Ultimate Panty Remover (absinthe, that is), and various sports, dating, and product sites. It's fairly clear what image of masculinity the page's creators have, summed up on their FAQ with, "We like beautiful women, baseball, road trips, rock-n-roll, anything with a remote control, entertainment and ripping on each other." While some of their material might be offensive, there's nothing shocking or challenging here. This is a fairly mainstream view of masculinity, readily available in print and on television.

Manhood Online is the only one of these three sites to attempt to challenge visitors perceptions of manhood. There's talk here about differences in male and female experiences of the world, the impact of absent fathers on families, homophobia, and male touching. The idea here, as stated in their Editorial Platform, is the fostering of the emergence of "a more exuberant and loving kind of man". This space, unlike the two sites catering to men as they are, seems to be directed toward men who are growing. However, it seems unlikely that a man committed to the masculinity illustrated by Bullz-eye.com, or even a Dull Man, would be interested in exploring Manhood Online in any depth -- precisely because it might lead to the kind of discomfort Horsley discusses.

Certainly Manhood Online offers an anonymous way to explore issues many men may not feel comfortable exploring in their "real lives", and such exploration may eventually lead to "a greater level of self-awareness and personal freedom". It doesn't appear, though, that there is any reason to believe that all online constructions of masculinity will lead to this sort of growth or increased awareness. To the contrary, many sites simply reinforce the existing ideas.

Web as community

Most of the interactive sites I visited seem to be either creation of new community or extension of existing community – most have something that binds them, whether that's networking through friends, the promise of creating community in the outside world, a common interest, or in-community constructs to keep people interested.
There is significant overlap between these kinds of communities in many sites. Myspace.com and facebook.com, are good examples of this, where users network with existing friends, but also have the opportunity to form new connections with others outside their existing network through shared interests. In the sites mostly focused on common interests, like the various Yahoo! groups, that interest could be anything from anime to a general love for sharing information, or anywhere in between.

People within these communities have an opportunity to either express their identities as they see themselves, or to create alternative identities, or any combination of the two. Either way, repeated interaction with others and consistent portrayals of oneself as anything – whether that anything is an anime fan, a member of the opposite sex, a fan of a particular band or TV show, or alternative lifestyle, whether implicit or explicit – must result, to some degree, in increased identification as that thing. I would think that this could be either healing – if a person's online identity allows him to "practice" expressing himself in ways he's not comfortable with in the real world – or alienating and fragmenting if such expression leads to a greater identification with a "false" identity and generates frustration with the confines of "RL."

On the other hand, other kinds of sites, like postsecret.com and grouphug.us, allow users to contribute, but don't offer interaction between users and so don't involve the creation of an identity in the same way. The "community" that comes from sites like these is not so much an interactive one, but maybe a disconnected collection of voyeurs and exhibitionists, or, at least, people who want to share their secrets anonymously and people who, for whatever reason, want to read other people's secrets. In some sense, although these are the least "communal" of the community sites, I kind of feel like these could be the most important to some people, allowing some to confess anonymously, while others can read those confessions and, if they identify with them, know that they are not the only ones to have experienced or done whatever it is that they have experienced or done. Maybe these could be "gateway communities," allowing people who explore the idea of online interaction in a completely safe and anonymous way, before moving to the slightly less anonymous forum-based community.

The latter variety is one that could, and does, exist elsewhere, but the complete anonymity of postsecret.com and grouphug.us would be nearly impossible to replicate offline. Support and interest groups, though, can be found for nearly everything – the internet makes them accessible to people who don't have one near them, or who wouldn't want to risk running into someone they know at a meeting geographically near them, or don't have the time to participate in something that meets only on set days at set hours. It also allows groups in different geographic areas to communicate with each other more easily.

I think overall the internet in community-building and enriching for both individuals and existing communities. There might be drawbacks if people seek out online community in lieu of offline community, but it seems unlikely to me that the internet will, ultimately, rob anyone of personal connections.


I want to add that this was one of the hardest assignments I've ever had to complete because all of the "research" for it was what I would normally call "procrastination." It was hard to stay focused.

Navel-gazing

'Bloggers are navel-gazers, and they're about as interesting as friends who make you look at their scrap books. There's an overfascination here with self-expression, with opinion. This is opinion without expertise, without resources, without reporting' (Schachtman, 2002)

The question seems to be – Blogs: democratic or crappy? I say – why not both? One of the most important aspects of the web is that it is bidirectionally democratic. That is – anyone can create a website, certainly, but everyone else has the option to ignore that site. Maybe 90% of bloggers are navel-gazers posting self-indulgent boring drivel, but – who cares?

The blog as a phenomenon can’t be evaluated in the same terms that traditional media has been. Osder condemns bloggers on the grounds that they aren’t qualified to offer serious journalism or unparalleled expertise, but acknowledges neither the possibility those ends aren’t the goal of most bloggers nor that there might be an audience for more personal forms of expression. As John Dvorak points out, the most self-indulgent web form, the vanity page, seems to be dying (is probably dead by now) at least in part because there is no audience for these nearly content-free sites. Blogs have taken their place and found an audience.

Some blogs are boring scrapbooks. Don’t read them, unless you know the author or are a really hardcore voyeur. Some blogs offer uninformed opinion. Even the best informed opinions, though, are still opinions, and where there is no objective truth (as in those things where opinions are applicable) sometimes insights come from unlikely corners.

More than anything, Osder’s assertion displays an ignorance of the blogging phenomenon (or, given the year, perhaps just a lack of foresight). If blogs were as boring as friends’ scrapbooks, they would not have achieved the popularity they have today. Or maybe those scrapbooks aren’t as boring as Osder believes them to be. There is little room for the personal in today’s mass media, and even the one genre that comes close to showcasing the personal – reality TV – overshoots and winds up in the realm of the absurdly impersonal caricature. Blogs can fill this void, and provide some human essence in an increasingly impersonal world.

Maybe bloggers are navel-gazers, and maybe there is a fascination with self-expression and opinion. But if so, it looks like other people’s navels are interesting, and the fascination is not so disproportionate after all.

Technology Literacy Narrative

What is your earlist memory of using a computer, and what did you use it for?

There was always a computer in our home growing up (my father was, in those days, a self-employed programmer/consultant and bought an IBM XT in 1981), so I don't have a specific earliest memory. I do, however, remember being young -- maybe 4 or 5? -- and begging my dad to hook the TV up to the computer so I could play my games in color rather than in green monochrome. He would do that only occasionally, but when he did I would play with Delta Drawing and FaceMaker.

What is your earliest memory of using the internet to communicate with someone else? What was your intended purpose in that communication?

Very few people I knew had the internet when I first got access to it (1993ish), so my earliest communication memories involve things like IRC and talking to strangers. The main purpose was exploration of the new medium, but sometimes my best friend and I would go into a teenager chatroom and tell people we were thirteen (we were twelve).

How did who that person was (a friend, a relative, a teacher, etc.) shape the communication choices you made?

It was thrilling to think that we could represent ourselves any way we chose. Usually my choices were pretty tame -- like saying I was thirteen instead of twelve. I feel like my digital and "analog" identities have always been pretty integrated, and I'm not sure that my earliest communications had an effect on that either way.

What in your life (if anything) would change if you suddently were no longer able to communicate with others in digital ways?

I'd like to say something like, "I'd spend more time writing physical letters and talking on the phone," but I think the time spent on those things wouldn't increase proportionately, and my range of acquaintances would narrow. I also keep a blog and would miss it, both as an outlet for my random thoughts and a locus of community in my life.