The human narrative consists of each individual human beings
life history, each seemingly insignificant event, each detail in each life, has
contributed to the narrative of the human race. Yet, once more, this narrative
is changing. Evolving. Adapting.
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| Image from: http://highroaddigital.com/ |
In our modern society the Internet has become
a significant part of our own personal narratives, particularly through the
World Wide Web; social media sites, like Tumblr, online banking, and online
shopping are all utilised every day, leaving traces of our online presence. Our
online selves are constructed through these traces that we leave as we navigate
through virtual reality, yet the concept of self, or the online “I” is not a
completely trustworthy one. McNeill (2012) highlights this concern, emphasising
the questionable “I”, as she states that “initial considerations of virtual
reality focused on the potential disruption of that stability, imagining the
Internet as a realm for Dionysian excess of identity play, where selves could
be put on and off with a few key strokes.” And so, we must question this
concept of the virtual “I”, as in the modern online space anyone has the
ability to shape or reshape any piece of information that is uploaded into the
vast reaches of the Internet, essentially changing both personal narratives and historical.
McNeill's reference to ‘Dionysian excess’ has never been more relational to our online
selves, as we often use the Internet in an irrational, undisciplined manner,
where it be to present ourselves as another or to ogle at cat videos, once more, creating history through each Internet search. Van Luyn
(2015) argues that “telling narratives is a social, networked activity”, so it
makes sense that each keystroke, or each Goggle search, is contributing to a
larger network within virtual reality, to an online system that not only allows
us to create ourselves but also the narrative of the human race, as ultimately,
each insignificant detail contributes to a whole. Ultimately, human narrative is formed not only through our actions in reality, but also through the traces we leave in virtual reality, all adding up to form one large, extended history which is ever expanding. Well, Rome wasn't built in a day, was it?
References:
Apollonian and Dionysian. (2015). In Wikipedia . Retrieved September 3rd, 2015, from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollonian_and_Dionysian.
McNeill, L. (2012). There is no "I" in network: Social networking sites and post human auto/biography. Biography, Vol 35, No 1. pp. 65-82. DOI: 10.1353/bio.2012.0009.
Van Luyn, A. (2015). BA1002: Our space: Networks, narratives, and the making of place, Lecture 6: Networked narratives: Intertextuality. [PowerPoint slides]. Retrieved from: http://learnjcu.edu.au.
Image References:
High Road Digital. (n.d.). Internet usage. [Image]. Retrieved from: http://highroaddigital.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/internet-usage.jpg.
I love that McNeill (2012) discusses the philosophy of Dionysian in a virtual space. You mentioned that we often use the Internet in an irrational, undisciplined manner in a legal context. It could be argued that McNeill’s (2012) “Dionysian excess” could be related to using the internet in an illegal manner. According to The Australian Institute of Criminology (2013) “cybercrime ranges from fraud, hacking, money laundering and theft, through to cyberstalking, cyberbullying, identity theft” and the list goes on.The World Wide Web “questions what identity entails online have implications for rethinking the limits of the human in and through auto/biographical” (McNeill, 2012). The mentioned cybercrimes affect the offender’s personal narrative in an autobiography sense, as opposed to the victims then biographical narrative. Online narrative has been represented in a more positive or ‘rational’ way that allows the user to use technology noted by McNeill, to facilitate the internet for banking shopping, blogging, etcetera rather than the negative or irrational, undisciplined way.
ReplyDeleteReference:
Australian Institute of Criminology. (2013). Cybercrime: Cybercrime in focus. Retrieved from http://www.aic.gov.au/
McNeill, L. (2012). There is no "I" in network: Social networking sites and post human auto/biography. Biography, Vol 35, No 1. pp. 65-82. DOI: 10.1353/bio.2012.0009.