Got Biscuits?
Taken at Loveless Cafe and Motel
Charmingly pretentious, left-wing misfit. Wannabe detective. Nice Jewish girl, agnostic variety. Cinephile. Tweeter. Lover of all things nerdy.
Taken at Loveless Cafe and Motel
Taken at Charcoal Oven Restaurant
Taken at Chicago History Museum
I spend a lot of time indoors. Between my desk job and my obsession with social media, I don't get outside as much as I probably should. But every once in while, the future Mr. Detective gets me to out somewhere awesome. This weekend, we went to Devil's Lake State Park and, as my title suggests, climbed a fucking mountain. And it was pretty beautiful, and I felt pretty badass for doing it. Of course, when we got to the bottom, I logged into Tumblr. But hey, I'll take what I can get.
Okay, I apologize for the philosophical tone of what I'm about to write, but I've been thinking a lot lately about internet communities and the issue of celebritization. Before I go any further, let me be clear that I'm not saying that celebritization is a negative (in fact, it may be awesome). But I suppose its led to some confusion on my part about how to interact with people.
Firstly, let's consider the definition of a celebrity. Celebrities are made when we as a society forge a relationship between ourselves and a public persona. We don't actually know them, but we care about them as though we do, and we seek out personal details to further maintain that connection. It becomes a perpetuating cycle, in that they are famous because we know about them, and we know about them because they are famous. This phenomenon can apply to all societies and communities, be it an entire nation or the student population of the local middle school. Internet communities are no exception to this rule. In fact, sites like Twitter and Tumblr are prime for this sort of social hierarchy, because they rely on the concept of "following" rather than "friending."
Of course, just because these sites aren't centered around making and maintaining friendships, doesn't mean that they don't foster communities and relationships. Really, just the opposite. But then how do we reconcile personal friendships and our connections to celebrities within the same social strata? For example, I recently friended a small handful of Twitter people on Facebook, which has led to many automated friend suggestions of other Tweeters on my Facebook page. But more often then not, I see somebody's page and think "Oh, look, User X. I know User X" only to realize that, in fact, my relationship with User X is completely one-sided, because I follow them but they do not reciprocate (which is fine with me, I'm not advocating anything regarding following etiquette). And this leaves me feeling a bit strange, because here is somebody who to me is a celebrity within our community, but to my other friends, is merely, well, another friend. And for some reason, I feel weird about that. I feel like I shouldn't be regarding normal, albeit very witty, people as famous entities, especially when our degrees of separation are so completely minimal.
And then there is the element of group behavior. Say, for example, that User X is having a birthday. Everybody else within my community is wishing him/her a happy birthday. I like and admire User X, but because User X likely doesn't know who I am, or has chosen not acknowledge me, where does that leave me? Should I still wish User X a happy birthday in an effort to show my admiration and be polite? Or should I remove myself from the group in this instance? I know none of this really matters, but sometimes I can't help but think about it for probably longer than I should.
