'“Authenticity” is another metric in the attention economy, measuring how believable one is to oneself in the process of broadcasting oneself. I’d expect that soon “authenticity” will be a literal metric, measuring the data trail one produces at one point of time with some earlier point to detect the degree of drift. ...a networked self could have some solidity that renders the performative nature of identity operate beyond questions of genuineness or authenticity. ...adopters can take solace in sending out their “Profile” to perform our cemented identity within various social networks. Once you accept that Facebook’s data collection roots you, you are “free” to be absent from social rituals but be present nonetheless. Welcome to the new intimacy. -- In Alone Together, Turkle fuses a section about sociable robots with a section about social media usage to basically argue this: social media accustom us to instrumentalized friendship, and once we are used to that, we are open to crypto-relationships with robots (the “new intimacies”), since they offer nothing more than instrumental value. Since we don’t want the “drama” of reciprocal real-time sociality anyway, there is basically no difference from our point of view between relating to another person and a robot. They are both merely mirrors for ourselves anyway. To a narcissist, every other person is always already a robot.'

"The human organism is attempting to evolve to the next level of awareness. And brands have no place in that conversation—I'm not saying products don't, services don't—brands don't." -- "Now you're dealing with a multi-dimensional, non-fiction conversation between people who are conversing expressly for the purpose of connecting on higher levels of organization." -- "The real problem [with the idea of 'real' social media conversations] is that there's frightfully very little real going on." -- "The reason they want to have the brand conversation is because that's all they are: brand" -- "Social media exists to help people create and exchange value directly with one another." -- "If the company doesn't have the most qualified, the most enthusiastic, people doing the thing that that company does, then nobody is going to care what that company or anyone in it is saying. And if [companies] do ... all you have to do is let them speak and the marketing part will take care of itself."

'Really h8 this modern era of self-important documentaries [via the post-Michael Moore / Morgan Spurlock era]. Just like ‘gonna make a movie where I turn myself into a character that proves a point and call it a ‘documentary’ even though I just look like a bro with a stick up my butt the whole movie. Do u think some people should just ‘strip naked’ and look at themselves in the mirror forever instead of using a video camera to capture ‘the essence of their lives’? What the eff is an effing hipster yall? Am I a hipstar?'

'Nobody likes hipsters, not even hipsters. ...any people who legitimately enjoy all the trappings on hipsterhood must psychologically distance themselves from the demographic group of which they are so clearly a part. And so their subconscious brains have to work double time so that they can convince themselves that the things they buy do not reflect on their true character. The deeper irony is that those who try to assert their independence from the commodification of identity wind up tapping into another marketplace myth, what the authors call "the myth of consumer sovereignty." This is the idea that by assiduously selecting from all the identity markers available for purchase, a person can assemble one that authentically reflects their true self independent of the marketplace.'

'Did this unique artistic project transcend society? Do yall feel ‘inspired’ by this project? Was it ‘brilliant’? Do u h8 society/consumerism? Do people and tweens only care about money? Should they have ‘manned up’ and put $100 bills in the tree? Should they have done this in a black neighborhood? Is some ‘generic white neighborhood in Chicago’ representative of humanity/society? Do u think black people were arrested if they took a dollar from this money tree?'

'Not sure what the New York Times is trying to do. I guess create ‘compelling cultural content’ that is sharable + can ‘drive mad hits.’ Anyways, they made another zany article about ‘hipsters in Brooklyn’ have ‘started to’ ‘dumpster dive’ behind high-end grocery stores. Not sure if this writing is ‘real.’ Maybe NYTimes is now just some sort of complex art piece/satirical commentary on modern journalistic techniques. Let's 'remix' dumpster food. Do u ‘call bullshit’ on this event/trend? Should I shop at Target, Walmart, or just dumpster dive? Does ‘trash’ belong 2 no1, or is it the owner’s right as an American to know that their garbage wasn’t re-used or recycled in any format?'

'First of all, being ‘black’ makes him more rugged & organic than all white people. But his skin condition makes him ‘post-back’, achieving a tone whiter than most white people. He comes with [FULLY LOADED] with ‘all of the pain and suffering’ of a descendant of Africa, but represents a ‘white light’, encouraging us to look at more than race, and instead to look inside of ourselves. In addition, being a ‘blipster’ gives him an alt perspective on the stereotypical ‘black’ way of life. Really feel like we are ‘witnessing history’/'transcendent beauty’ when we watch this albino model blipster bro. Seems post-human... -- Do u feel like ur personal brand is bottle necked by your genetic brand? Want 2 be ‘more than just another alt dunce dressed in retail... Want 2 have the most authentic personal brand in the entire universe [via aliens vs predators]'

'USABROS have been searching for other USABROS since after the 1994 World Cup in the United States. After that local World Cup, USA bros gained a ‘global perspective’, understanding that there was a ‘whole nother world out there’, beyond the traditional ‘trapped in their lives’ Americans who watched mainstream/weekend sports... The USABRO is just looking for a ‘breakout’ opportunity every 4 years. Every World Cup since 1990, USABROS have been growing. USABROS are searching for justification with their lives’: WHY did they play soccer all those years? Was it because they were athletically inferior to the African Americans who ran them off the football/basketball teams in high school? Was it because their parents wanted them to bond in a team/group environment? Was it because their parents had expendable income to pay for an overpriced trainer who wasn’t really qualified, but had a sweet foreign accent? Was it because they were a part of ’something bigger than themselves’?'

'As consumers, we try so hard to ‘manage our personal brands’, and make educated decisions about relevant bands. We try to predict trends. We do our best to invest in buzzbands before they are mainstream bands. We ask ‘Why?’ We feel entitled to know ‘How?’ When a buzzband ‘breaks thru’, we want to understand the flow of data + information from band –> blog –> consumer, and how that creates a sustainable business model. We need to stop asking ‘why?’ and learn to trust Mother Indie again. There is no explanation for the natural wonders of the buzzosphere. I feel scared. I feel like some1 is going to cause an oil spill into chill waters. It will be some sort of ‘man-made’ force, trying too hard to create a new trend/band. Maybe a blog oil spill, leaking an album before it is in high quality format. Maybe a mainstream indie band buzz tanker will ’spill’, contaminating the chill waters. Maybe a business that is ‘trying too hard’ to reach alts will cause a Mountain Dew/soda/liquor/oil spill'

'In a disconnected world, the costs of evil are minimal. In a hyperconnected world, the costs of evil explode. Cheap information lays the foundations for more collective action. It's less costly to punish those who are evil. Equally important, it's less costly to reward those who are good. With better collective action comes an enhanced incentive for competitors to provide what incumbents can't; to do good where there's evil.'

'in reply to @virtualista RE: Personal Brands. A #contextcollapse multiple public 'masks' problem. Some ppl deal with it by always wearing the same one.'

'Reflexively defiant consumers are just the avant-garde producers of new consumerist meanings within the code. The sovereignty they convince themselves that they have earned by pseudoresistance is actually more bound up than ever with consumerism. “Authenticity” becomes nothing but a marketing concept; it can no longer serve an an orienting ideal. It is “becoming extinct.” Worse, we confront sovereignty inflation: "To feel sovereign, postmodern consumers must adopt a never-ending project to create an individuated identity through consumption. ...we are in the midst of a widespread inflation in the symbolic work required to achieve what is perceived as real sovereignty." -- ...the contrivance of pseudo-authenticity is limitless, and the absorption of millions of new mini-brand managers on social networks and the like serves to manufacture new ruses at an inexhaustible rate. We have become the brainstorming consultants for corporations, only they don’t have to pay us for the labor.'

Every vote is against your own interest. As for the healthcare discussion, the words "appear to be" and "seem to be" particularly stand out. -- '...authenticity has replaced economics as the driving force of modern politics. The authentic politicians are the ones who sound like they are speaking from the gut, not the cerebral cortex. Of course, they might be faking it, but it is no joke to say that in contemporary politics, if you can fake sincerity, you have got it made. This is a culture war but it is not simply being driven by differences over abortion, or religion, or patriotism. And it is not simply Red states vs. Blue states any more. It is a war on the entire political culture, on the arrogance of politicians, on their slipperiness and lack of principle, on their endless deal making and compromises. And when the politicians say to the people protesting: 'But we're doing this for you', that just makes it worse. In fact, that seems to be what makes them angriest of all.'

"We want to be known."

'Helps ppl understand that u r transcendent. U r not a fan of 1 band. U r a a fan of ‘good/relevant’ music.'

'Baudrillard: “Just as exchange value is not a substantial aspect of the product, but a form that expresses a social relation, so use value can no longer be viewed as an innate function of the object but as a social determination.” One can’t pursue authenticity through that route—by using only generic objects that we “need”—anymore than one can by acquiring authentic luxury items. What is “real” about a given object’s provenance is open to constant reevaluation; the emphasis can be shifted to suit the needs of those questioning reality at various junctures. -- But why not use fake luxury goods for other reasons? They function as a kind of social sabotage, a direct attack on distinction that forces those invested in positional goods to become uncomfortable and shift their ground.'

'#44. We will find ourselves with a lot less energy to pretend we’re someone we aren’t, and a lot less money to keep up that illusion.'

Beneath the shutter shades, the fixed-gear bicycle! -- 'The revolution wasn’t supposed to be televised. The idea was that we would all unplug from all the administered culture that stupefied us and transform the world with spontaneous justice and generalized, self-evident righteousness. But instead of eschewing pop culture to wage political battles, many young people, as it turned out, delved ever deeper into it, convinced that it was their culture and they were, in some obscure way, guiding it. The route to power was not via opposition to the existing power structure but through mastery of the minutiae of art and music scenes. Everyday life would be changed by making it *cooler*.' -- 'Unfortunately for radical revolution, political and counter-cultural activists open-source innovators were most likely the sort of people the Invisible Committee were expecting to mount the insurrection [b]ut the Committee fail to grasp that entertainment and labor have been merged...'

'#4. It teaches you to offer kindness and compassion without expectations. It’s not too difficult to offer someone compassion when they’ve treated you with respect and kindness. What’s more valuable for your development as a person, and to mankind as whole, is the ability to do what’s right because it’s right—not because you’ll get something in return.'

“I’m searching for who the fuck I am.” -- I. Know. You're. From The Twat Farm.

'Maslow said the fully realized man does not identify with the local group. When I saw that I thought: bingo! I do not identify with the local group, I do not feel a part of it. I really have never felt like a participant, I’ve always felt like an observer. Always. I only identified this in retrospect, way after the fact, that I have been on the outside, and I don’t like being on the inside. I don’t like being in their world. I’ve never felt comfortable there; I don’t belong to that. ...things where you sacrifice your individual identity for the sake of a group, for the sake of the group mind. I’ve always felt different and outside. I think I have found an ideal emotional detachment from the American experience and culture and the human experience and culture and human choices. ...they say if you scratch a cynic, you find a disappointed idealist—that’s what’s underneath. I’m not an angry person, just very disappointed and contemptuous of my fellow humans’ choices.' -- ;^)

'Web 2.0 platforms want to tell us what we want before we know we want it... Because these predictive systems aren't openly disclosed, we can't know if the ways in which they prescribe our identity are benign, in our best interests, or if they are producing subjects (and subjectivities) suitable for a system engineered to exploit them. -- "...there is no contradiction anymore between the marketing of user information and the subjective enrichment of users..." -- ...all transactions are deeply personalized and specific, and thus seem identity-validating. ...consumerism is now the inverse, hyperpersonal identity mongering, with the "unique identity" as the perpetual product being sold and resold to the same individual subject. Web 2.0 is letting us sell out before our authentic self even exists. Selling out becomes the prerequisite for having an authentic seeming self, validated by the predictive systems online and fixed in illusory flux of social networks.'

'In order for consumption to be meaningful ... it must be publicized in some way. -- Kozinets notes that though Burning Man “has many similarities to a Disney theme park,” he found that — unlike at Disneyland, I would venture to say — “people indicated that they were constantly judging others in terms of the degree of their participation in the event” in order to identify outsiders to be derided as inauthentic. Of course, these poseur “tourists” serve to structure the authenticity of these self-appointed judges’ own participation, and by extension, their identity. Kozinets suggests that Burning Man participants’ “use of these passive, isolated consumer-as-dupe comparisons may point to the higher cultural capital” denoting the festival goers’ belonging to an “educated intelligentsia.” They engage in “building strong communal ties and using the ancient practice of vilifying the outsider.” Communal relations are indeed reestablished, by the palpable and immediate threat of exclusion.'

'Just don’t know what belongs to who, and what type of ‘intellectual design property’ can really be owned. I feel like the Font Industry and the Music Industry are really similar. I think I expect to utilize fonts for free, much like I expect to listen to music for free. The person who creates a font is looking to ‘go mainstream’ by ‘getting included’ on tons of personal computing machines. This is the same thing that buzzbands need to try to accomplish. Fonts + Music can’t really ‘change the world’ but they can definitely be an under-appreciated element of ur every day life.'

'“I stopped living for moments and started living for people.” — Miley Cyrus, 2009 -- I was reading that popular tween sensation Miley Cyrus deactivated her twitter account. It will go down in history as the ‘most tragic’ internet suicide of all time, since she had over 2 million followers. I have read ‘doomsday articles’ that say this is ‘the end of twitter’, since tweeple now have role models who were ’strong enough’ to quit twitter. Instead of mimicking role models who are ‘twitter addicts’, tweens will now be more independent and mimmick role models who are ‘twitter quitters. A lifestream of text filled with 140 character statements just doesn’t give U enough room to BE U. It seems like maybe she turned to ’social media’ to try to replicate human relationships+interactions+socialspheres, but it was just this weird experience of ‘people looking at her.’ -- Just want my life 2 belong 2 me, but also want my life to make other people feel jealous/bored with their own existences.'

'While students tend to experiment with various identities during their college years, Vanderkamp's peers said the accelerated pace of his process of self-discovery is alarming. Since the beginning of the fall term, Vanderkamp has aligned himself with no fewer than nine social groups, and has adopted a new wardrobe and a distinct set of speech patterns to accompany each identity.'

'If I put a bunch of tracks on an MP3 blog ... I’ve crossed the line into being a freelance marketer, a wannabe A&R person. I want strangers to applaud my taste under the auspices of “sharing.” -- It’s no better if I talk about my musical tastes on a social network—the context changes the relevance of what I am saying and my opinions can be aggregated and sold as demographic data, or could lead to my friends being hit with certain sorts of targeted ads. By the terms of service, my opinions become part of a commercial public record. Our intentions in listening will be harder and harder to keep pure; the temptations to sell our tastes out by blogging/tweeting/social network posting about them will continue to increase.'

'Jay-Z chooses to signal his authenticity not with authenticity, but with an already established symbol of authenticity: because otherwise, how would we know he was being authentic? His audience is regular people, black and white, for whom authentic isn't "being yourself" or "true to where you came from" because for those regular people, that would be unbearably boring. For them, authentic has to mean loyalty to the persona you made up. This video isn't about Jay-Z's authenticity, it's about letting you choose your own authenticity. That's the business smarts of Jay-Z. Brand it, make it seem elite, make it an aspirational product—but make it easily available, everywhere. Then—and this is the key—the consumer has to be able to show others that they've accessed it: that's the only way other people are going to know who they are pretending to be.' -- ("Non-conceptual, non-exceptional; Everybody's either crime-related or sexual." - O.C. - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LIj4RqH43GY)

'Online sharing is in the porcess of reaching its logical endpoint, in which identities become collective, and watching/consuming another's youtube presence becomes equivalent with becoming that presence. The technological miracle of transubstantiation takes place via hosts (IP hosts) that connect us up to the great cloud computers. Our displaced identities cannot be fixed in any particular place, disembodied we emanate and manifest in many servers at once; online we are legion. Naturally our boundaries dissolve -- we become what we regard on our screens, that with which we interact. -- The growth we once might have perceived in our pursuit of the authentic self has no conceptual or ideological basis in a post-internet society. -- Alt means not alternative but alternation. What Carles points the way toward is the oscillating self, or the dissolution of subjectivity into the online hive mind, in which every avatar is another mask we can wear.'

'...no matter how hard he tries to “move forward” in an act of will to redefine his identity, he can’t control the ways that others see and define him. -- Our actions affect our identity, yet identity is only effective insofar as it ties us to others, opening us up to social forces that no individual can fully master. In the end, Betty is right that even the most intimate performances of our life are done for the sake of an audience. Yet that doesn’t make them “only” performances; rather, it infinitely increases the stakes of the way we form and perform our identities. A meaningful identity comes not from forgetting all previous ties in an act of willful self-assertion but from respecting the ties identity creates, the demands for attention and care that it entails—or at least, if one can no longer live with those ties and demands, counting the costs of breaking with one’s identity and knowing that the damage can never be fully contained.'

'I have always wanted to be a designer. I believe that we can meaningfully impact the world by the not only the things that we own, but also the clothes that we wear. We live in a beautiful society which encourages tiered self-expression depending on your income. You can truly show the world who you are, and where you ‘fit in’ with society. Do u feel alone? The IAMCARLES.com brand is attempting to be similar to the HIPSTERRUNOFF.com brand. It wants u 2 feel like it ‘gets’ u. Carles wants to relate to you.'

'Think it is supposed to be ’self-aware commentary’ that only blacks can make, because only black ppl can critique their own culture. It really made me think. Kinda made me feel guilty about ‘getting my grind on’ post-ironically when I hear a ‘nasty-ass’ top 40 rap hit. Seems like rap is simple–they just sing about where they used to live (the streets), what they enjoy (stuff that rich ppl spend money on), and what feels good (pussie, fucking, dranking, smoking, etc.) Seems simple, but maybe African-Americans are trying to ‘rebrand’ now that Obama is in office. -- Sorta just wish I could watch vintage ‘racist memes’ and grin without thinking 2 much abt what they ‘mean.’ Just want to ‘go viral’ with my MexiBro. -- Barackisha, Obamaniqua, Unidastazovamerikaliqua.' -- LOLZ

'These guys were never heard from again -- but their promotional savvy lives on. Many at the early screenings believed that the film's novel premise -- three student filmmakers disappear in the woods while shooting a documentary about the legend of a local witch and their footage is found a year later -- contained some grain of truth. "The blurb on the poster said this was 'found footage,' and there was nothing in the marketing to lead you to believe it was anything but that." That perception was reinforced by the movie's clever website, launched before Sundance, which expanded the "Blair" lore with bogus news reports, historical timelines and video interviews. "Did the marketing overshadow the movie? Yeah, in some respects," "Blair" co-director Eduardo Sánchez says. "But since we created 90% of the marketing, I never had a problem with that."' -- Haha-hackers.

'Unrelenting indecision, isolation, confusion and anxiety about working, relationships and direction is reported by people in their mid-twenties to early thirties who are usually urban, middleclass and well-educated; those who should be able to capitalize on their youth, unparalleled freedom and free-for-all individuation. They can’t make any decisions, because they don’t know what they want, and they don’t know what they want because they don’t know who they are, and they don’t know who they are because they’re allowed to be anyone they want. Boomer and post-boom parents with more money and autonomy than their predecessors has resulted in benignly self-indulgent children who were sold on their own uniqueness, place in the world and right to fulfillment in a way no previous generation has felt entitled to, and an increasingly entrepreneurial, self-driven creation myth based on personal branding, social networking and untethered lifestyle spending is now responsible for our identities.'

'Life is very hard for most white people, because they are ’so ordinary.’ Their expectations of ‘how things should feel’ are constructed by watching 80s, 90s, and 00s cinema. Mainly movies like bromances, romantic comedies, comedies, and miscellaneous ‘bad ass movies.’ They just need life to ’seem like a movie’ or something. Seems like average white people don’t understand the insignificance of who they are as ‘1 person’, and don’t accept that they are just part of a larger white mass. They fight against this feeling of ‘being ordinary’ by trying to construct meaningful moments that seem like they are ’straight out of a movie.’ Might start a blog about ‘things that average white people think are meaningful’/a documentation of ‘white ppls struggle’ and how ‘we’ as white ppl have had more hardships (psychologically) than most other races + ethnic groups.'

'Back in the day, I feel like I ‘genuinely like things’, not really making an active personal branding decision. As a kid, u do things like ‘watch the popular shows on a popular channel’, and ‘listen to popular music on popular radio stations’ without really understanding ‘why.’ U get the opportunity 2 connect with other kids abt ‘watching the same shit’, and u can connect, and think ‘damn. we have a lot in common.’ Used to do stuff like ‘play’, but now u have to ‘pay money to have a unique experience.’ Sad abt growing up, losing touch with my innerchild, experiencing things like ‘joy’ or smiling for a reason other than ‘laughing @ some1.’ Sad that most of my connxns are so inauthentic. Sad that I can’t enjoy things. Sad that whenever I ‘connect’ with some1, I just feel like a ‘nostalgic fggt.’

#5 Search for Authenticity: If you are smart, you realize that ‘authenticity’ is yet another archetypal persona that seduces you into a static self-conception. If not, you go down an obsolete path blazed by a stoned generation. #8 Skill: Some of your personas become increasingly comfortable to inhabit. You start noticing that you are now acting out the role so well that you are actually as good or better in those roles than people you previously considered “authentic” non-actors. This leads to the epiphany that everybody grows into roles this way. #11 Fluidity: Jumping among the set of point-like roles in the space of personas yields to continuous movement. You become aware of the gradual expansion of the space you can inhabit. It starts acquiring, through its growth, a shape and character. #12 Brandhood: The integrated, growing space which you can inhabit with fluidity starts acquiring an overall sum greater than the parts consistency, that has only one analogy: the notion of brand.'

'I know I have a tendency to cling to my sense of my own idiosyncrasy and take a peculiar pleasure in what I think it might prove about me, about my nonconformity, about my ability to resist manipulation, about my ability to transcend social norms and expectations and realize some higher originality. I’m into obscure music; I have a taste for difficult books; I don’t watch popular TV shows. But I think that my presumptions of uniqueness are probably what guarantee my overall insignificance—it keeps me motivated to remain deliberately apart, internally praising myself to the extent that other people don’t get me, thereby guaranteeing that I will only be happy with myself to the degree that I influence no one. I wonder if this attitude truly is personal idiosyncrasy or the product of late capitalist ideology. Isolating individuals in their presumed specialness is an effective way of rendering them vulnerable to marketing appeals, to consumerism generally.'

On media ecology and Postman's amusing ourselves to death. Quoting Henry Canbry, 1926: "What we are encountering is a panicky, an almost hysterical, attempt to escape from the deadly anonymity of modern life ... and the prime cause is not vanity ... but the craving of people who feel their personality sinking lower and lower into the whirl of indistinguishable atoms to be lost in mass civilization." -- That 'context collapse' makes people to want to discover an authentic self to perform authentically towards 'authentic causes' that reinforce the authenticity of the endlessly authenticating self? Dude needs to read some HRO.

On 'users’ criticism of a popular style of profile picture referred to as “MySpace Angles.” Reactions to this style of portraiture label the display of these photographs “deceptive,” alleging that MySpace Angles fool users into believing that the subject is more attractive than they actually are. ...the MySpace Angle commentary, revealing three main themes in users’ critique of MySpace Angles: 1) users who post these photographs are conforming to a social trend at the expense of their individuality; 2) the presentation of these photographs is narcissistic; and, 3) these photographs purposefully conceal the body. This case study displays a shift in the conception of deception online; on the social Web populated by SNSs, theories of deception and authenticity are called into question as users are increasingly anchored to their bodies and expected to effortlessly present an online self mirroring the offline self.' -- False advertising. Caveat emptor.

'Feels weird that my generation was ‘defined by 9/11.’ I feel like that was more of something that I felt ‘entitled to be affected by’ as opposed to something that ‘lit a fire under my ass/inspired me to unite for the greater good of my country. Feel like I ‘take everything 4 granted. I just want to fight in a war, and kill a foreigner. I want to take control of my life, and prove to this land that I was born in that I deserve to be a part of it. I don’t want to stand around indie rock festivals for the rest of my life. I think my life could be more meaningful if I saw the world, and also fought for the lives’ of millions of people. This 4th of July, I realized that I want America to go to war soon, so that I am not part of a generation defined by the internet + 9/11 + ’social networks.’ I want 2 die fighting in the Final_War_of_Mankind. This will be our legacy. This is the last chance our generation has to ‘rebrand’ itself. We must goto war before 2011.' -- (!!!)

"In light of the explosion of citizen journalism in Iran, Jeremy Paxman asks Arianna Huffington of the Huffington Post and Anne McElvoy of the Evening Standard if internet journalism has come of age." -- Really good interview

'"Some critics of our coverage during that time have focused blame on individual tweeters. Our examination, however, indicates that the problem was more complicated. Bloggers at several levels who should have been challenging twitterers and pressing for more skepticism were perhaps too intent on rushing scoops onto the homepage. Accounts of Iranian protesters were not always weighed against their strong desire to have Mahmoud Ahmadinejad ousted. Tweets based on dire claims about Iran tended to get prominent homepage display, while follow-up tweets (and on the ground articles) that called the original tweets into question were sometimes buried. In some cases, there was no follow-up at all." -- ...a healthy democracy needs also to have a dispassionate journalism that is able to question the motives of sources....even when that leads to discovery of information that is terribly inconvenient to our own assumptions or to the geo-politcal outcomes we as individuals may desire.'

"By conflating the murder of an Iranian protester with the assault of a onetime independent celebrity gossipmonger, Carles suggests that without institutions determining what should be considered significant -- a bureau of newsification, perhaps -- a dangerous flattening of all events into trivia ensues... Everything and nothing becomes worthy of our limited attention; left to our own devices we try to generate parameters for what to comprehend, but these are doomed to be woefully inadequate, generally misguided, hopelessly skewed by our desire to flatter or distract ourselves."

"Feel like the downside of ’social media’ is that u can’t really tell what is important, and what is just a meme, since it is on the internet. It’s kinda weird how news is becoming like indie music–we can’t tell the difference between ‘whatz hyped’ and ‘what is actually important/relevant.’ Feel like there’s a huge burden on me to sort through this kind of stuff, and I’m not sure if I’m prepared for it. h8 technology. Who is the more authentic victim of violence?"

'We tend to imagine that a time existed when our consciousness was pure and untainted by cultural strictures and expectations; Carles suggests that for most of us, that time is adolescence, when we learn the painful art of compromise and confront the reality that we frequently don't subscribe to our own ideals, which in themselves often prove not to be our own but some else's idea of what constitutes the good. "Back in high school, there was no such thing as ‘authenticity’ because everything ‘just was.’ U could be bold, and u could ‘feel things.’ U could do drugs/drink for the first time, and be convinced that no1 had ever felt this way before." Only with age do we recognize our own unique experience is actually second-hand, that our creative impulses and insights are hand-me-downs. The condition of postmodernity is such that these past feelings are suddenly invalidated by their lack of originality; we efface our own past when we deduce that it was not sui generis.'

"He also made some sort of promo video for the clothing line, where he talks about how authentic it is, and how it is ‘all stuff he would actually wear.’ I feel like it comes across like some sort of parody of himself, as played by Ben Stiller in 2001, but I think British people ‘actually see the world like this’, which is why they are into things like soccer clubs, Ricky Hatton, and Oasis. I think that British people only know how to ‘be into something’ that they like by treating it like it is a soccer team. They like to get drunk and sing, and ’see what happens’ [via violence]. Just wish the entire world had the same definition of ‘cool.’ Feel like British people enjoy weird stuff for some reason. Like they grew up thinking that ur supposed to appreciate some gritty aesthetic. I think maybe cuz it is s0 rainy over there." -- Fookin' poof

"Maybe this is why our parents loved the Beatles so much. Maybe they knew that their songs would last 4ever, eventually ending up in some ’sweet ass’ video game that ‘doesn’t promote musicianship’, ‘the spirit of music’, but primarily highlights the fact that bands are ‘brands’ which ‘create art’ that can be protected and licensed out whenever u need some more money. Feel like it’s hard for young people to ‘authentically enjoy music’ because we enjoy aligning ourselves’ with brands and criticism more than any of the ‘more organic’ elements of music. I don’t think that is ‘a bad thing’ but feel like it turns good artists into a ‘hokey experience’ when ‘too many ppl start 2 suck their dicks.’ Like a concert will become a high priced show where people ‘act the way that they think they are supposed to act. Do u think that these music games are ‘fucking ghey’?’ Would u rather ‘jerk off’ for 3 hours than ‘get good at playing fake instruments’?" -- HAHAHAHAHAHAHA

"I published my life on the fucking internet. And it doesn’t make people wanna be with me. It makes people not trust me. And I don’t know what the fuck to do about it." -- “It was like Justin was maintaining a celebrity gossip blog about himself. Who needs that kind of cruelty in their lives?” -- 'In 1994, Justin Hall invented oversharing ...no one knew that the self-revelation he found so addictive would one day become a temptation for millions. -- the transition we’re living through today.. The struggle to draw a line between the self and the world isn’t some novelty imposed on us by technology; it’s part of human development—an effort we all face from the moment our infant selves begin to notice there’s a world out there, beyond our bodies. The Web has just made the process of drawing this line more nettlesome. In the end we’re each going to find the compromise between sharing and discretion that’s right for ourselves. If we’re lucky, it will take less than the decade it took Hall.'

'Hoffer regards the rise of mass movements as the almost inevitable consequence of widespread mediocrity coupled with the unreasonable expectations that democracy generates for the common person. “Unless a man has the talents to make something of himself, freedom is an irksome burden. We join a mass movement to escape individual responsibility, or, in the words of one ardent young Nazi, ‘to be free from freedom.’ “ Democratic ideology leaves the impression that all men are equal, whereas it has the effect of making one’s place in the irrepressible hierarchies in society seem entirely the individual’s fault. Thus the frustrated people in a capitalist democracy “want to eliminate free competition and the ruthless testing to which the individual is continually subjected in a free society.” ... consumerism can reduce freedom to a burden of perpetual self-redefinition... But the symbol shouldn’t be mistaken for the person behind that facade, who is most likely feeling the same way.'

"I am just trying to create an authentic life for myself. I am just trying to fill up my apartment with meaningful items. I am just trying to create authentic art. I am just collecting some cameras from different eras. I am just enjoying a beer, relaxing. I am just collecting old magazines with pictures of nature/old stuff. I am just mashing up genres of music. I am just sitting on my authentic couch. I am just going buy some used books later that look ‘old’ and ‘historically relevant’. I am just going to buy some humble shoes." -- Haha!

Carles: 'I generally feel "ashamed" that I am "part of humanity" who is "searching for something meaningful." (Not ashamed of humanity like I want to go on a school-shooting spree-more like I have been trained to think that my life is more inherently meaningful than every one else's.) Or like maybe I am "ashamed" that I bought the Matchbox 20/Third Eye Blind albums when I was a kid. And maybe I am "ashamed" of myself for having that in common with all of the other kids who were growing up at the time. And I might be "ashamed" that I found that meaningful. While I did listen to the AnCo song "Visiting Friends" on a winter drive with a group of people whom I love, maybe I am "uncomfortable"/"ashamed" with that meaning something. But then I kind of look back on my life as a consumer, and Amazon.com will recommend new purchases for me to create more meaningful experiences/my identity based upon previous purchases.' -- So Andy [via Warhola]

'When the crappier bits of life are ­considered more real than the joyful bits, everyone is cheated. Happy people's happiness gets undermined and, tragically, sad people's sadness gets termed acceptable. The problem is that implying to people who have tough lives that those lives are more real or natural than those of people with an easier time is a tacit way of opting out of helping. "You may be struggling to make ends meet, getting punched by your partner and having racist abuse screamed at you, but at least your life's real." It's not a massive leap forward from, "You'll get your reward in heaven". Here's a suggestion. Why don't we use as our starting point the notion that people are generally a good thing, noble and willing to improve themselves and their communities, and find ways to help everyone do that.'

"It was as if there is this other form of ‘authenticity’ that I didn’t even know about that has nothing to do with the arts. I feel like there is ’something wrong with me.’ I feel like my ‘alt’ perspectives might have crippled me forever. I feel like my ‘global perspectives’ and the required 2-year core courses at my university made me ‘know too much’ about life, and possibly enabled me to think that ‘nothing matters.’ I feel trapped. I feel like I just wish I really knew a lot about computers, and could have just designed CollegeHumor/vimeo/twitter, or something. I sort of just wish I could have a job where I am ‘paid to have opinions on things that seem important’, and make me feel like I am ‘behind the scenes’ in important decisions regarding meaningful brands. I feel worried. I feel like there is a ‘real world’ that I have always told myself that I will be able to transcend, but it might have just been a gimmick." -- :*(

"I want you to feel proud of me for living an authentic life. I want you to understand WHY I am different than every1 else. I want you to understand that I won’t ‘achieve’ anything ’special’ in my lifetime, but I want you to ‘get’ why ‘that kind of stuff doesn’t matter to me’ and how my perspective on life ‘lessens pressure/expectations’ when it comes to ‘accomplishing’ stuff and letting things ‘be meaningful.’ I want u to ‘get’ my humor and snarkie perspective on the world. U r my best bro, but I think we can become even more bro-like in the future. I love you, MomBro."

"I want 2 be happie, but I don’t even know how 2 do that. I want 2 be in a meaningful relationship, but I also want 2 cum with as many ppl as possible 2 feel attractive. I want 2 be intelligent, but I also want to know a lot about ‘dumb shit.’ I want 2 be in a meaningful city, but I don’t know which 1. I want to be a part of something bigger than myself. I want 2 party, but I want to do something that changes the way that millions of ppl think/makes their lives’ better. I want to cure the swine flu. I want to invent something. I want to be an architect and designer. I want to play in the NBA Finals. I want to be the first African American President of the United States of America." -- LOL

"Is it ‘alt’ to go to the movies to see mainstream summer blockbusters? Feel like people who ‘go to the movies’ and ‘build their weekly schedules around television shows’ make me sad, because they represent how people don’t have any thing 2 do, so we just have 2 waste time watching things 2 keep us from thinking about how sad we all are on the inside. Sort of prefer ‘wasting time on the internet’ because we are all trying to get vulnerable and ’show the world who we are.’ It makes me feel sad when people outsource their personal brands to ‘fictional tales.’"

"Feeling really ‘irrelevant’ right now. Can yall send me pix of yall that remind me who the ‘real people’ who read my blog are? Not even sure if people read ‘this stupid site’ any more. Think I might turn it into some sort of ‘re-branding’/'marketing’ campaign. Not even sure who reads this n e more. Feeling down. Not sure why I even blog n e more. ‘Who am I? What do I believe in?’ -a tween trying 2 find out who he is"

'“Hipsterism,” is more a fear of irrelevance or phoniness than it is an aesthetic one would purposely adopt. It is the shadow that passes over us when we begin to tentatively plan to do something unconventional, the chill that tells us that maybe it would be safer to do nothing rather than become one of them, trying for cool but failing. That is to say, “hipsterism” is the term for that sinking feeling that cool is at stake in any endeavor, and that nothing can be pursued for its own sake anymore. Of course that is not true, but it often feels like it is, and the image of a stereotype arriviste hipster is there to personify that feeling. And the final twist is that once we begin to fear becoming hipsters, begin thinking primarily about the way what we are doing will be perceived by others who somehow can see through us to the roots of our motivations, we become at that very moment hipsters ourselves.'

'I’m back, yall! It’s me–Carles. Let’s learn 2 meme again. We’ve both made a lot of mistakes' -- Comment: Pyry: 'Jesus may or may not have died for our sins. What did Carls die for? I say mnstrmism. Justice designing Coke bottles and remixing U2, AnCo being featured on MTV blogger’s top list and so on. And so Carls who has never been one bit mnstrm died for the mnstrmism of the others. Now nobody who believes in Carls won’t ever be mnstrm again.'

'These posts are about fatal strategies. Baudrillard advocated a sort of nihilistic indulgence in place of perpetual resistance, and Carles has decided to dabble in this sort of paradoxico-ironical epistemology. Chasing authenticity is the guarantee it will never be achieved. But as Baudrillard advocates, "We will not be looking for change, and will not oppose the fixed to the mobile; we will look for the more mobile than mobile: metamorphosis." The only escape from the strictures of identity and authenticity is to present an entire new identity; schizophrenia, as Deleuze and Guittari had suggested in Anti-Oedipus, becomes the inevitable response to the structural necessity of capitalism to fashion a lack in the midst of excess. ... when humans are reconceptualized as desiring machines and retro fitted with cloud-computing-derived extensibility and perpetuity? Is Jeff the first rain from that cloud? Are we all to expect to see Jeff in our mirrors, some unsuspecting morning?'

"Heard that there was some sort of economic and global rights summit for all of the world’s most important leaders in the world to ‘talk about important stuff’, kinda like when tweens have a sleepover. Apparently, there were ‘protesters’ who wanted these leaders to know that ’shit was fucked’, so they ‘got all violent’ to ‘make a scene’ and ‘make sure that their voices were heard’. It was kinda like they were simulating ‘anarchy’, or other concepts from punk music. Not sure if I identify with them. Feel sort of resigned to not being in control of global policies. Do yall ‘believe’ in anything? Or do yall just like 2 go to events with a lot of people because ‘chaos might happen.’ -- ‘we believe in something, yall. gotta update my fb status 2 tell people i’m chillin somewhere ‘relevant’ on a global scale.’ -- ‘gotta take some kewl pix for my flickr account. might live tweet about how ‘bad ass’ this ’shit’ is.’ -- ‘feel angry about society and my parents.’ -- LOL

"Started 2 watch South Park. Need 2 catch up on a lot of episodes.

"Afraid. Afraid of losing everything. Afraid of my site ‘dying.’ Afraid of losing sight of ‘what’s important in life.’ Scared of who I am finding out I amIs the internet ‘my prison.’ Not sure if I have a healthy sense of self [via the internet]"

'It might not be long before memories are pharmaceutically targeted, just as moods are now. #Sandberg: People are more worried about deletion [than adding memories]. We have a preoccupation with amnesia, and are more fearful of losing something than adding falsehoods. The problem is that it's the falsehoods that really mess you up. If you don't know something, you can look it up, remedy your lack of information. But if you believe something falsely, that might make you act much more erroneously. You can imagine someone modifying their memories of war to make them look less cowardly and more brave. Now they'll think they're a brave person. At that point, you end up with the interesting question of whether, in a crisis situation, they would now be brave. We can't trust our memories. But on the other hand, our memories are the basis for most of our decisions. We take it as a given that we can trust them, which is problematic. We have authentic fake memories, in a sense.'

Really nice thoughts on 'multitude' identities, authenticity, plausible deniability (burying bad news/negative impressions about yourself online), and from a branding pov, the long-term value of the trust that comes from allowing an audience and employees to collaboratively break the 'fourth wall of business.'

"Carles adopts an alterego diametrically opposed to the persona he has created for lingustical-philosophical-cultural space of HRO in an effort to problematize the identity that has been constructed therein and which perhaps has begun to deconstruct his subjectivity outside of the delineations of that space. Though Carles writes HRO, there is clearly a sense that it has begun to write him... The audience is blamed for the commercialization of expression, as if the terms of any kind of communication exchange have been ineradicably infected by commercial exchange, which no structures all efforts at reciprocity. The pseudo-Carles challenges the notion of creative consumption and derides a culture transfixed with surfaces... by adopting this new persona, Carles tries to demonstrate the manner in which identity itself is surface." -- dutr

"there’s more to life than trying to make your personal brand into a commodity. stop standing on the sidelines of life and actually LIVE. get off the internet. you are all afraid to live your life. you want it to mean something, but at the same time, you want every one else to feel more trivial than your life. you just want to sit there and gawkerfy everything. like i said, i am deeply disturbed by today’s internet culture and the trends amongst the latest generation. every thing is like a mirror and every one just wants to reflect. they waste time on their bullshit myspaces posting photos and creating themselves. it’s just fucking bullshit. waste of time. you spend so much time thinking about who you are that you don’t even become someone. needless to say, with sites like this promoting that, this world is headed down the shitter. of course kids are gonna makes mistakes, but not if they are told that it is okay to make mistakes and that it is cool to act like a dumbfuck all the time."

'The survey is a disguised expression of his will to power, since its outcome is irrelevent. By asking the question Carles has proved his relevence in a culture that hypocritically worships the forms of democracy while clinging fast to the social hierarchy that makes the cherished ideal of social mobility legible and meaningful. Carles emphasizes the pseudo-democratic gesture as a bourgeois-making fait accompli by rendering the words "Am I 'making a difference' in the lives of smart/educated/wealthy/culturally-aware/authentic/meaningful people?" into an image that cannot be manipulated digitally as text, but only as a bloc. The question becomes an image of cultural capital itself, which is evident in the habitus that enables Carles to conceive of the question itself... The words seem open to alteration, but they are fixed, in the form he determined. The openness toward which they gesture is always already an illusion, a ruse, a tactic.'

"A lot of people ask me ‘Carles, is ur blog relevant?’ I thought I’d ask the ppl who know best–yall! It’s kinda hard to understand ‘how important’ ur blog is after you’ve ‘come so far’ and become ‘a blog worth blogging about’ or maybe ‘a blog that is a bloggable meme. Sometimes I just need 2 ask my readers if I am meeting their expectations. Am I 'making a difference' in the lives' of smart/educated/wealthy/culturally-aware/authentic/meaningful people? //// OPEN POLL ////" -- Comment: thetruthyall: "oh, but if ur asking WHAT u should be blogging about, maybe u could be more vulnerable. sometimes it seems like ur authenticity has too many rules, which is not authentic (altho it is relevant)" -- Comment: Carles (not HRO) -- "you fuckfaces will just keep reading this shit.. fuck any one who reads this blog. you should be ashamed of yourselves and your parents should take away your internet for a year and make you live on the streets" -- LOL KILLAR

'China has been in effect financing American consumers going into debt and indulging in consumption practices that allowed the U.S. to become "really good at branding" -- both at the level of corporate marketing practice, serving a buoyant consumer marketplace, and at the level of personal self-actualization, in copious acts of self-branding. The underdeveloped consumer market in China has meant that Chinese consumers are exempt both from the dilemmas of self-branding and of mounting resistance to hyper-targeted brand-marketing campaigns. Hence Carles remarks that we still believe ourselves in America to be "'cooler'" even though the economic relations of production underlying that ideological notion have now begun to shift. The equation of "cool" with "smart" has never seemed more tenuous, even though the entire hegemonic consumerist superstructure of American quotidian existence has been built upon that equivalence, operating as reflexive common sense.'

"They’re all over there laughing at us. It sucks. My whole life, I have been raised thinking that America was the best country on the planet, but I think it might have all been a lie. Maybe we were just really good at branding. Feel like we just control what it means to ‘be cool’, but we might not even have that n e more. Because of the internet ‘coolness’ doesn’t really have a ’source’ and the brand can exist anywhere with no point of origin. Sad about the economic crisis, and how AZNs have been smarter than us about saving ‘money’ and only spending what they have. I think America is beautiful. We’ve had a good run, but maybe we’re not as special as we thought we were. Kinda sad. I still feel ‘cooler’ than a lot of foreigners, and like smarter. Should I h8 azns and hold them responsible for the destruction of my country? Or should I move out of the USA and move to an authentic city like Paris/Beijing/Tokyo/Cairo?"

"... status games are perhaps an inherent part of humanity, they are also the engine that drives consumerism. If adults dismiss such games, it’s not because they see them as juvenile, but because their experiences of such games were probably humiliating and horrible for them, and they are now hoping against hope and prevailing cultural tendencies to grow out of such preoccupations, rather than internalize them. -- If people cease to blog for the pleasure of existing in public space, and begin to demand something more tangibly beneficial (power, connections, money), then it will probably turn into a giant MySpace where one parleys the attention of marketers into some paltry excuse for self-esteem and one congratulates oneself not for the substance of one’s contribution to public debate, but for how many others whom, by virtue of your connections, you can feel superior to. In short, it will reflect the society that already persists in real space."

'... college was my big chance to [...] reinvent myself, to get busy with the embarrassing, exciting, muddy, wonderful work of creating an adult identity. Can you really do that with your 450 closest friends watching, all tweeting to affirm ad nauseam your present self? Perhaps my nieces will find a new way to establish distance from their former selves, to clear space for introspection and transformation. Perhaps they will evolve through judicious deleting and updating of profile information, through the constant awareness of their public face. It could be that [...] Facebook marks a return to the time when people remained embedded in their communities for life, with connections that ran deep, peers who reined them in if they strayed too far from the norm... Kids [...] will inevitably want to drive a stake into the heart of former lives, may simply abandon [Facebook] and find something new: something still unformed, yet to be invented — much like themselves.'

"Could Kelly’s [1,000 true fans] solution extend to the design, manufacture, marketing and distribution of products? ...not buying into a product design as a brand, but more like micro-investing in a product at it’s conception. Almost like a distributed commission of something that you’ve followed the progress of like a work of art. This model would be a potential new spin on both human-centered design and product marketing. Collect the desires and needs of your customer base, but they’ve bought into the design process revealing something new about that. You can see some of this in communities such as Etsy... Is this possible in the arena of more complex products with behaviour, connectivity, and services woven into them? Is it possible where there’s not a direct relationship to the artisan or designer - that is, could it scale to work for larger companies and brands? ... creating products and potentialities for products that will garner a fanbase through their lifetime..."

'As I grow older, I feel like I have more in common with more ppl realizing that we had the same childhood and that we are all ‘kinda mediocre’ but searching for differentiating gimmicks. ////Makes me kinda sad. Sometimes I wish my differentiating gimmick was something that was both ‘beneficial to society’ and ‘had a salary of over $250K per year’ but I’m probably being unreasonable. Not sure if I would rather ‘find the cure for cancer’ or ‘be in a relatively popular band.’

'FEel like s0 many people try to ‘find meaning’ on the internet, or they think they deserve to ‘get paid’ [via advertising revenue] for just sharing their memes. They are s0 out of touch with reality. It’s kinda weird how not even that many people want to be ‘mainstream famous’ any more. A more authentic version of fame comes with being ‘microfamous’ via the internet. Some people also want 2 b ‘macro-anonymous.’ -- Just want to be comfortable with who I am [in real life AND on the internet]. ////I want 2 be famesies. Just want to ‘get paid’ and be ‘critically acclaimed’ for ‘being myself’ and ‘living life’ by ‘being on the internet for 70% of my life.’

"I want to start an online site that isn’t a blog, since blogs are dead, but I want the site to be more ‘fun’ and ‘less linear’, and I want my fan base to be authentic, looking for something else out of their online life"

"h8 our modern world. I can’t tell if videos like this are ‘real moments of beauty’ or just gimmick marketing. Do yall know if this act of puberty is authentic, or just something designed by marketing firms?"

Quotable! -- "#2. Social criticism has been resolved into self-expression. #3. Hipsterism consists of its own repudiation. #4. Social networks mandate identity formation on the model of cloud computing ...we now have self as a service. #5. The variables we transfer to the cloud increasingly delimit the field of identity and condition what sorts of data will subsequently be considered relevant or applicable. #6. Existence online... forces on us unremitting self-consciousness. There can be no harmonizing of action and its preconception; no spontaneous authenticity. #9. The collapse of language into abbreviations, arbitrary conditions of brevity, self-enforced infantilism and the like are attempts to import the the inflexible conditions of reality, against which we shape ourselves, to the online world, which lacks such conditions and threatens us with an amorphous and intolerable incontinence of identity." -- Phew!