technoculture203-09

Wesch explores the current apathy and political disengagement within today's youth, through the investigation of "whatever" 06.20, introducing a great quote form Thomas de Zengotita:

06.26 "In the midst of a fabulous array of historically unprecedented and utterly mind boggling stimuli - whatever."

Wesch demonstrates how "whatever" has changed from the 1960's "whatever, that's what I meant", to today's "whatever, I don't care what you think", concluding that it is this attitude and narcissism, which has led to the decrease in the sharing of systems of meaning and thus disengagement and fragmentation. Wesch then explains why this matters in the context of new media, that new media help us know ourselves and form relationships with others, and thus the disengagement and fragmentation may deeply impact our own identity and authenticity.

Then Wesch looks at his YouTube research about identity and authenticity on the web 13.32. Wesch explains how mediums shape the message, the possibilities for communities, identity construction and self awareness, going on to explain context collapse, and how by not knowing who we are interacting with and in what context it will be, there is a heightened sense of self awareness. It is this sense of self awareness that I find interesting, as surely this may in some way provide insight into what makes us, us? With all the paranoia about technology dehumanizing society, perhaps it may in fact help us better understand ourselves and what it means to be "human".

Finally, Wesch acknowledges the hatred that the web allows for due to the anonymity 23.17, but quickly points out the MadV and Free Hugs video, and dubs these people the new heroes. Personally Wesch himself is my new hero. He not only gets me excited about technology but he has a vision for the positive potential of technology and encourages people to move from the previous "whatever I don't care", to "I care. Let's do whatever it takes, by whatever means necessary" 33.13.

Hopefully this video get you as excited about his vision as it did me.