A CYBER FLANUER?? ...MORE LIKE A CYBER SHOW-OFF
By Alice Carter
A flaneur on a social network means that a certain person doesn’t care what they put on the internet; Facebook especially…I mean have you seen some of the stuff people post? lordy lordy! According to the blog “Passage of the Cyber-Flanuer" by Gaylene Barnes (Otago University 1997), Debords concept of derive tells people about a method, which is relevant to people not caring what they put up on Facebook. An example of this is the community Facebook page, “Flaneurs about Town: society/culture website” (http://flaneursabouttown.tumblr.com/).
This culturally diverse page, is not only dedicated to those Facebook Flaneurs of our community, but represents different aspects of self. There are half dressed pictures (some in quite a crude fashion), of men who permit these images to go up on this page. This is clearly and symbolically showing a typical flanuer on cyber space, with their image of “self” being “carefree, spontaneous and out there”. In regards to being “spectacles of display”. Without being to disrespectful, I would just like to say that I have never seen guys expose this much, in the images shown on the Facebook page. Mark my words, this would be a “spectacle display” if ever I’ve seen it.
People who belong to the page, have been seen to heavily support these types of display’s; as if encouraging the type of influence these uploads would be having, no matter how much is seen in one picture. As seen in the Week 4 Lecture, (Kuttainen, V. Week 4 Lecture: Maps; LearnJCU, 2015) maps shape how we see the world, and act accordingly. Now, Facebook isn’t a map (far from it actually!); however the ideology that maps or social networks, have the potential to shape how we see the world, is very much the same.
REFERENCE LIST:
Barnes, V. Passage of the Cyber-Flanuer: Otago University, 1997 (accessed from http://www.raynbird.com/essays)
Kuttainen, V. Week 4 Lecture: Maps; LearnJCU, 2015
Picture accessed 21st of August (language.chinadaily.com.cm:2015)
Hi Ali. In your post I can see that you have been able to understand and define what a map is in today's world, whether it be a literal map, or if it is a virtual map such as Facebook. Even though I do agree with most of your points, especially the one pointing out how females that use Facebook show a lot of crude images of themselves to the people in their friend's list. I could not help but notice that some of your writing is very informal. I do understand that this is a blog and that it is here for you to express how you feel and to show your understanding, however I feel as though you should use more academic writing in your future posts. Here is a website that I found extremely helpful with writing my latest post https://blog.bufferapp.com/how-to-write-a-blog-post.
ReplyDeleteReference For post:
Lee, K. (2015). The time it takes to write a buffer blog post (And how we spend every minute). Retrieved from https://blog.bufferapp.com/how-to-write-a-blog-post