By now most netizens have seen the hilarious – and slightly horrific – twerk fail video.  It became a Youtube sensation, garnering over six million views in under a month and being passed around other social media sites with remarkable frequency. Therefore it was surprising when late-night host Jimmy Kimmel revealed on his show that he had staged the video with the help of a trained stuntwoman, and had released the video onto the internet, hoping it would reach viral status (the entire Kimmel reveal can be found here). Not surprisingly, given its content, it succeeded.

Kimmel’s manipulation of Youtube as a social medium brings up a crucial question about what we consider ‘real’ on the internet. As many of my friends vented their frustration (my personal favorite is my friend who told me he “felt betrayed”), I couldn’t help but think that there was nothing terribly special about a staged viral video. The medium Youtube – and for that matter any other site where users post similar content – is by its nature fabricated. It does not show uncensored events as they happen. It shows what the users choose to upload. The element of user choice is an important one when talking about social media, because choice determines online identity. In the case of viral videos, often the widespread nature of the video was unintentional, but it still represents a choice to share that content in the first place.

With the speed of the internet, information can become ‘fact’ incredibly quickly. I remember spending half an hour a few years ago thinking that Morgan Freeman had died because of a number of posts on Facebook. When it turned out to be fallacious I admit I felt some sense of betrayal. But that’s part of the beauty of videos as a medium. Whereas on sites like Facebook and Twitter we expect some adherence to the truth (within reasonable limits), a video contains content elements chosen specifically to represent something in a certain way. Manipulation is part of the creation. How a ‘filmmaker’ manipulates the medium is really up to their artistic license. Fact is not the primary purpose of such videos. Therefore, when Jimmy Kimmel tells us he faked the whole thing, we shouldn’t say he betrayed us. We should just keep laughing because really, the only thing more funny than a twerk nearly ending in self-immolation is Jimmy Kimmel running out in a pink V-neck to put out the fire.

-epn

Access to everything ever said, written, drawn, done that has been recorded can now virtually be accessed everywhere, from almost every corner on Earth on any digital device we own… And we take it less than lightly most of the time. In the new era of communications, file accessing is the main thing that makes the fast-paced life we live even faster, information is open and competition is fierce, and knowledge can be attained in the most convenient form, in the midst of an argument, a debate, a casual chat with any of our friends just by typing in words connected to what we need to know.

People can manipulate with this information in all sorts of fields by just clicking a few buttons, learn when and how to do certain things, from small scale event planning to future business planing (e.g. Facebook events for the former, and something as simple, but huge, as Google*)

This open access to everything that forms us can be seen by everyone, and although it sounds and is scary, it avoids the past nuisance of meeting people, finding places, forming a community of a shared interest or hobby which can reach millions of like-minded people in just a matter of weeks.

I am impressed with the way we can use the Internet and our digital devices, yet at the same time still quite saddened by most of its colloquial and unimportant use. Then again, if everyone is to use everything they own at its maximum capacity, havoc will ensue throughout an entire group, population, nation and worldwide (e.g. WikiLeaks, NSA surveillance leaks, etc.) so people tend to stick with the safe use of most of it, enjoying the easy leisure it provides, since for most of us, it spares much time to use one device for numerous purposes (e.g. Applications for phones, tablets, computers that can deliver any information needed on the palms of our hands from ebooks to movies to social connections); And we love it.

I wrote this post just to skim through some ideas I have of accessibility of information to the way we approach it, and just conclude with the fact that while some people might be chatting their friend from Hong Kong or Australia on the other side of the planet at almost any given time, other people are using and learning SQL, HTML, C++ and many of the rest of programming languages to understand how they can access everything they can, and make it easier and available for all of the rest, who just stick to the surface of its use.

*By using Google for business purposes, I mean the business-oriented applications they have made available, but also the easy-use search engine to find listings, business websites, exchange rates, and anything related to reach a specific business tool or web in a matter of seconds.

Something I’ve noticed about myself is that I always measure my success in numbers, as many types of media that I use enable me to put numbers to accomplishments and push myself to my limits.  However, a lot of the time these numbers give me unrealistic expectations and I set my goals too high.  I’ll explain this through three examples from my life.

A trivial example is Facebook friends and Twitter followers.  As a freshman in high school, I thought it was super important to have the most friends and followers, and I watched the numbers on the side of my accounts as they crept higher and higher.  I remember looking at popular Twitter accounts and wishing I could have the thousands of followers that they did.  Looking back, this was a ridiculous mindset to have.  But I guess it was real at the time.

A more relevant example of my number goals takes place when I’m erging at crew.  The rowing machines have monitors that display numbers and tell you the distance, time, and rate at which you are rowing.  For the past four years, I’ve consistently pushed myself to unrealistic points as I watch the numbers on the monitor drop.  These unrealistic goals sometimes result in disappointment, sickness, or both, and end up lessening my confidence for more realistic rowing goals.

A final example comes with school and grades.  Although numbers on a piece of paper can’t be considered media, our calculators serve this function as they process the numbers we put into them.  I often find that after completing a school assignment or receiving a grade back, I quickly pull out my calculator or phone to see what possible grade I could have gotten.  Again, I set my standards too high by constantly worrying about the numbers and I end up focusing more on grades than actual learning.

So pretty much all of my goals are oriented around the numbers that media and new technologies provide me with to determine my success.  I hope to eventually overcome my need to measure myself against a number so that I can make realistic goals that I can actually achieve.