Author Archives: zephoria

homosexuality

Homosexual is a term originating from the greek words Homos, meaning “same”, and sexual, meaning “sexual.” It is used to describe couples who have sex in the same manner each night. This is different from heterosexuals who have sex in varying positions.

Homosexuality is especially popular in most Christian religions where anything aside from missionary style sex is considered sodomy. Most christians are outright homosexuals and believe heterosexuality to be a sin. — Uncylclopedia

ROFL. ::crash::giggle:: Oooh… my belly hurts. ::laugh::laugh::laugh::

Homophily of Professional Conferences

(reposted from centrality)

Ever notice how many professional conferences tend to lack diversity (in ideas, methodologies, demographics)? Ah, homophily. Ever wonder why this might be problematic? Or why it might stifle innovation and creativity?

sitting in the boardroom / the i’m-so-bored room
listening to the suits / talk about their world
they can make straight lines / out of almost anything
except for the line / of my upper lip when it curls — Ani

Following from network analysis, we know that birds of a feather stick together and that they invite more like minded birds to join them. And we also know that networks play a key role in innovation and that disparate networks are critical to creativity. Let’s keep those two bits in mind when we think about conferences.

Professional conferences are fundamentally social networking events; don’t let anyone convince you that people are there to listen to lectures. We attend to connect with the people that we know and meet new people who might inspire us (or hire us). Professional conferences are also primarily word-of-mouth events, particularly the smaller ones. You go because your colleagues are going or because someone you know is going and you track their whereabouts. Additionally, speakers are frequently chosen by organizers who they know; they hope these speakers will attract a particular (paying) crowd. Well, by and large, we are friends with, listen to and know of with people like us, making conferences painfully homogeneous affairs.

Unfortunately, even the most conscientious organizers tend to have difficult diversifying their audience because they are under pressure to make certain (paying) audiences attend. Attendees also magnify the homophily problem by choosing events based on their friends. Likewise, companies attend if they’re guaranteed their target audience (for either marketing or hiring). If homophily works so well for these groups, why should we try to diversify?

While we go to conferences to see our friends, the opportunity to learn and really think from a new perspective is still there. We all learn from new people and yet we rarely leave a conference having met more than a handful of people. But try going to a different country – it’s a mind-opening experience. You see your own culture from a new lens. You come back to your home environment and you bring with you ideas based on observations abroad. There’s something very powerful about really moving oneself out of one’s comfort zone, out of the norms.

Well, the same thing can occur at conferences. The more diverse the audience, the more potential for really new ideas because you can engage with more disparate world views. People of different theoretical, methodological, ethnic, religious, political, cultural backgrounds, genders, races, socio-economic classes, lifestyles, perspectives… Diversity matters for more than some PC idea of what’s right. Diversity matters because it helps us see the world in new perspective and engage with development that supports a diverse world. It fundamentally helps innovation.

Those looking to hire at conferences should also care about diversity. If you meet someone at a conference who’s exactly like you, what do they bring to your company? Most companies want innovative minds. Well, you don’t innovate best when in a room full of people like you; you innovate best when you get to play with a lot of different people because you take their throw-away ideas, remix them with yours and voila, new idea!

Organizers want to have a diverse audience because their event will be remembered as the place where someone’s new idea came from, where the ideal employee was hired. Of course, it’s also tricky because over time, as excited attendees return, they too will end up being homogeneous, at least in ideas/perspective. This happens everywhere – events/companies/schools that were once a site of innovation become stale because it’s difficult to keep things fresh.

Of course, it’s also difficult for newcomers to attend a conference that is so solidified in its attendees. It makes it hard to penetrate, to be a newcomer. The amount of effort it requires to attend as a stranger, to learn the cultural values that bonds attendees… it is much higher. Yet, so are the potential rewards. But not if the attendees have so much centrality that they do not wish to meet newcomers.

So, what do we do about it? How do we support diversity in order to evolve? How do we help integrate new people to meet the consistent attendee? Conference organizers design programs; how can they design the event as a whole? There is an art to event organizing and it is not solely one of choosing good topics. But it is definitely a tricky social network problem. You want there to be just enough but not too much centrality. You also want to use the topics and common interests to bond people, not segregate them. You want to help people who will only really meet 2-3 people to meet people most unlike them but who they will still have enough in common to have reasons to engage. What else? What else can social network theory tell us about conference organizing to support innovation through diversity?

MySpace blamed for alienated youth’s threats

Another beautiful MySpace article: Online Terror Threat Hits Local High School. The “terrorists” are two boys who are threatening to show up in school with machine guns. As a result of their posts to MySpace, most students didn’t show up for school. The school district is pissed and blames MySpace for enabling students to “post their thoughts and ideas” without surveillance. They are deciding whether or not to sue MySpace.

::smacking forehead:: We didn’t learn from Columbine did we? Both of those kids also posted their threats on websites. What they were doing was a cry for help. I’d bank money that those kids are feeling alienated and disillusioned with authority. Goddess knows the number of times i had dreams about blowing up my school growing up. Why is MySpace at fault? Because they are letting kids speak their minds? Is it better that they speak their minds so far removed from adult vision that they can’t actually be supported when things go horribly wrong? Why not learn from the kids and try to support them rather than take away their tools for expression?

I was talking with a friend about this and he reminded me that these services help kids who are alienated come together and, sometimes, this means that they get validated in their alienation which exacerbates the situation. He’s right and this is a problem with some of the cutters on LiveJournal – they try to outdo each other with more severe images. But then i talked to a psychologist about the cutters and she pointed out that she’s so thankful for LJ. Now, she can see into the lives of people like her patients, better understand their psychology than anything they say in therapy and be a more effective therapist. Sure, she has to deal with the peer validation issue, which she admitted was more significant on LJ than in everyday life, but she said it’s worth it because knowing what’s going on in their heads helps her help them overcome the peer pressure bit as well as the actual damage. She told me it was far more effective this way.

In my research group, we started talking about cultural differences regarding peer groups and age-related validation. In the US, it’s expected that you will be friends with people your age, but elsewhere, it’s more common to socialize with cousins and family members of all different ages. Throughout our lives in the US, we’re chunked by age and then we’re spewed out into the adult world and it’s so weird to make friends with people that are older than us. And we think it to be weird when friends span large age gaps.

The problem with a lack of diversity around age is that you’re constantly being validated by people who are in the same stage as you, who are dealing with the same problems and don’t have much in the way of perspective. I was thinking about how Manuel Castells always talks about the solution to ending violence starts with having diverse groups of people always interact. He thinks about this mostly in terms of socio-economic class, but does this apply to age too? Would we stop more youth violence if teens weren’t so age-segregated? If the groups that provided them with validation were from different age slices?

It’s pretty horrifying that we’re talking about teens as “terrorists” now. More fear, always more fear. Of course, the more we fear teens and place restrictions on them, the more prone they will to seek agency through whatever means possible, even violence. We’re creating our own demise through oppression. (::cough:: Paris.) When will we figure out how to support people through feelings of alienation?

God, i feel like a broken record on this one, but it seems like the media is doing a damn good job acting as one too.

election day: analysis of California Proposition 73

hold me down
i am floating away
into the overcast skies
over my home town
on election day — Ani

When the election results started pouring in tonight, i was in a state of horror. Initially, it looked like Proposition 73 was going to pass. Thankfully, with most of the returns in, it looks like it will die a well-deserved death.

Some folks have asked why i am so obsessed with Proposition 73 and i feel the need to articulate the problems that emerge because of it. First, take a look at the propaganda:

Protect Our Daughters – Parents have a right to know
Campaign for Teen Safety – Their safety, our responsibility: If she can’t come to me, I just want to keep her safe

There are some amazing linguistic messages there: protect vs. safety, right vs. responsibility. The Yes folks give parents ultimate power while the No folks are invested in youth agency. The imagery from the Yes folks is directly targeted as parents and speaks past youth, never inviting them to participate in a dialogue about this proposition. The Yes folks are speaking a protectionist rhetoric while the No folks are speaking the language of respect. Protectionist rhetoric comes from a place of ageism, a belief that there is a clear division between adults and youth: adults know what they’re doing; youth do not.

Unfortunately, ageism is one of the least acknowledged forms of oppression in this society. As a society, we’re pretty shitty to our youngest and oldest members, thinking them too stupid to deserve agency. These groups often have no voice, no power. Adults will never go back to being youth and they can’t see life from a youth’s perspective. Instead, they project their own needs onto youth. They create hazing rituals following the “we did this, you should too” mentality. Why do we try to strip those we have power over of any agency?

As with most political propaganda, the problems are not addressed. The target market for the Yes folks is clearly middle-upper class parents. Yet, the effects of this proposition would place undue burden on poor or working class teens, abandoned and abused teens. I think back to the time that i spent hanging out with teens on Haight. Many of them came from abused families and found the street to be safer. Unfortunately, these are teens are quite susceptible to rape and unwanted pregnancies. Can you imagine them needing permission from parents?

There is no doubt that parents should know, but this does not mean the government should mandate it. Parents need to earn the respect of their children, not demand obedience. Parents are informed when parents engender a trusting relationship. But when parents don’t, teens should be able to turn to those that they do trust. This is not to say that there aren’t fucked up stories… the Yes folks certainly highlight them. But what they don’t highlight is what the consequences would be on abused youth. And sadly, there are far more abused youth getting pregnant in this state than sad stories like Holly Patterson (who wouldn’t be covered under Prop 73 anyhow since she was 18).

I’m actively pro-choice, but this doesn’t mean that i like abortions or want to see youth getting them. I want to structure a society where youth don’t have to face that choice, but if they do, they have one to make. I want to see parents be supportive and trying to build a meaningful relationship with their children based on trust and respect. I don’t want to see oppression and regulation, ageism and condescension – this destroys our society. And it pains me that people don’t realize this.

Of course, Lakoff has gotten far too deep inside my head. I know the response… good kids don’t get into those situations… good parents make their children behave… the world is evil and a good parent has to protect his kids… you can’t solve a sin with a bigger sin… God, it makes me angry. I wish Dobson a good long painful spanking.

the power of social structure in World of Warcraft

Earlier this week, i was talking with Joi about his “research” on World of Warcraft. He was telling me about how some of the social norms get maintained by members in the community (and particularly within guilds) and how newcomers learn the social structure.

The thing about World of Warcraft (and many other MMORPGS) is that people who fail to work within the social structure get penalized. Most tasks cannot be done without collaboration. Guilds are the formalized version of groups that gather to complete tasks and the most effective way to achieve within the system. Achievements have a measured component – leveling, possessions, honor points, ranks, etc. Pissing off one’s guildmates is foolish because it results in being left out of quests and other group activities needed for advancement. Also, since most quests require groups to work together seamlessly, people practice. They also get to know each other and joke around because the level of intimacy is super helpful in team building. Personality compatibility is necessary both within a guild and also essential when guilds team up with one another.

Joi told me about a teenager who was fucking off and how members of the community reprimanded him. He told me he thought it was a fantastic environment to learn sociability, to learn team work and to figure out how to compromise. The structure and incentives were so explicit that even the most socially clueless individuals could work out what they needed to to do advance.

I’m very proud to be a feminist, but a pro and con of feminism is that it destabilized social structure. There was a time when women knew what they were expected to do. They could hate it, resent it, rebel against it, but the norm was there. Those norms were hugely oppressive to women but they also provided a framework to work within. Today, we have no structure and i live in a mecca of people trying to “find themselves.” How do you build an identity from scratch without having it pre-defined? For many, this seems to be a hard task. Personally, there are days when i revel in my ability to escape gendered norms and then i dream of being a Hollywood-image 1950s stay at home mom. Even in my chaos, i realize the power of structure.

I think that it’s fascinating that some gaming systems have worked hard to create a formalized structure such that people know their positions and can visibly see how certain actions help them ascend. Are we building structures in our virtual lives because they are easy to compute? Because we desperately desire a structure where we know the rules? What does it mean that many active gamers were the types of individuals alienated historically for being socially deficient? What does male dominance in gaming mean given that men historically defined the social structure? Is it possible to build structure that is not oppressive?

growing up in a culture of fear: from Columbine to banning of MySpace

I’m tired of mass media perpetuating a culture of fear under the scapegoat of informing the public. Nowhere is this more apparent than how they discuss youth culture and use scare tactics to warn parents of the safety risks about the Internet. The choice to perpetually report on the possibility or rare occurrence of kidnapping / stalking / violence because of Internet sociability is not a neutral position – it is a position of power that the media chooses to take because it’s a story that sells. There’s something innately human about rubbernecking, about looking for fears, about reveling in the possibilities of demise. Mainstream media capitalizes on this, manipulating the public and magnifying the culture of fear. It sells horror films and it sells newspapers.

A few days ago, i started laying out how youth create a public in digital environments because their physical publics are so restricted. Since then, i was utterly horrified to see that some school officials are requiring students to dismantle their MySpace and Xanga accounts or risk suspension. The reason is stated simply in the article: “If this protects one child from being near-abducted or harassed or preyed upon, I make no apologies for this stance.” OMG, this is insane.

In some ways, i wish that the press had never heard of these sites… i wish that i had never participated in helping them know of its value to youth culture. I wish that it remained an obscure teenage site. Because i’m infuriated at how my own participation in information has been manipulated to magnify the culture of fear. The culture of fear is devastating; it is not the same as safety.

Let’s step back a few years. Remember Columbine? I was living in Amsterdam at the time and the coverage was brilliant – the Dutch press talked about how there was a school shooting by kids who felt alienated from their community. And then the US coverage started pouring in. Goths (or anyone wearing black, especially black trench coats) were marked as the devil incarnate. Video games were evil and were promoting killing. Everything was blamed except the root cause: alienation. There were exceptions though. I remember crying the first time i read Jon Katz’s Voices from the Hellmouth where numerous youth poured out their souls about how they were treated in American education systems. Through his articles, he was able to capture the devastation of the culture of fear. My professor Henry Jenkins testified in Washington about how dangerous our culture has become, not because there are tools of rage, but an unchecked systematic creation of youth alienation. He pleaded with Congress: “Listen to our children. Don’t fear them.” And yet, we haven’t. In response, youth went underground. Following one of his talks, a woman came up to him dressed in an array of chaotic pink. She explained to Henry that she was a goth, but had to go underground. What kind of world do we live in where a color symbolizes a violent act?

We fear our children. We fear what they might do in collectives. We ban them from public spaces (see “Mall won’t allow teens without parents”). We think that we are protecting them, but we’re really feeding the media industry and guaranteeing the need for uncountable psychiatrists. Imagine the weight that this places on youth culture. Imagine what it’s like to grow up under media scrutiny, parental protectionism and formalist educational systems.

During the summer of 1999, i was driving cross-country and ended up at an outdoor rave outside of Denver, Colorado. I was sitting in my tent, writing in my diary when a group of teens wrapped at my door asking if they could come in and smoke because it was too windy outside to light the damn thing. I invited them in and we started talking. They were all from Littleton and had all dropped out of school shortly following Columbine and were now at a loss for what to do. I asked them why they dropped out, expecting that they would tell me about how eerie the school was or how they were afraid of being next. No. They dropped out because the media was hounding them everywhere they went. They couldn’t get into the school without being pestered; they couldn’t go to the mall or hang out and play basketball. They found underground venues for socialization. Here we were, in the middle of a field outside town at a rave, the only place that they felt safe to be themselves. The underground rave scene flourished in the summer of 1999 outside Denver because it was a safe haven for teens needing to get away from adult surveillance and pressure. Shortly later, the cops busted the party. I went and pleaded with them, asking them to let the kids camp there without the music; they had the permits for camping. No; they had heard that there were kids doing ecstasy. Let’s say they are – you want them to drive on drugs? Why not let them just camp? The cops ignored me and turned on bright lights and told the kids that they needed to leave in 10 minutes or they would be arrested. Argh! I’m not going to condone teenage drug use, but i also know that it comes from a need to find one’s identity, to make sense of the world removed from adult rules. These kids need a safe space to be themselves; overzealous police don’t help a damn thing.

How do youth come of age in this society? What good is it to restrict every social space that they have? Does anyone actually think that this is a good idea? Protectionist actions tends to create hatred, resentment. It destroys families by failing to value trust and responsibility. Ageist rhetoric alienates the younger generation. And for what purpose?

The effects are devastating. Ever wonder why young people don’t vote? Why should they? They’ve been told for so damn long that their voices don’t matter, have been the victims of an oppressive regime. What is motivating about that? How do you learn to use your voice to change power when you’ve been surveilled and controlled for so long, when you’ve made an art out of subversive engagement with peers? When you’ve been put on drugs like Strattera that control your behavior to the point of utter obedience?

We drug our children the whole way through school as a mechanism of control and wonder why drug abuse and alcoholism is rampant when they come of age. I’ve never seen as many drugs as i did at pristine prestigious boarding schools. The wealthy kids in our society are so protected, pampered. When given an ounce of freedom, they go from one extreme to the other instead of having healthy exploratory developments. Many of the most unstable, neurotic and addicted humans i have met in this lifetime come from a position of privilege and protectionism. That cannot be good.

We need to break this culture of fear in order to have a healthy society. Please, please… whenever you interact with youth culture (whether you’re a parent, a schoolteacher or a cafe owner), learn from them. Hear them from their perspectives and stop trying to project your own fears onto them. Allow them to flourish by giving them the freedom to make sense of their identity and culture. It doesn’t mean that there aren’t risks – there are. But they are not as grandiose as the press makes them out to be. And besides, youth need to do stupid things in order to learn from their own mistakes. Never get caught up in the “i told you so” commentary that comes after that “when i was your age” bullshit. People don’t learn this way – they learn by putting their hand in the fire and realizing it really is hot and then stepping back.

Post-Columbine, we decided to regulate the symptoms of alienation rather than solve the problem. Today, we are trying to regulate youth efforts to have agency and public space. Both are products of a culture of fear and completely miss the point. We need to figure out how to support youth culture, exploration and efforts to make sense of the social world. The more we try to bottle it into a cookie-cutter model, the more we will destroy that generation.

In line with Henry’s claim to Congress, i want to plead to you (and ask you to plead to those you know): Listen to the youth generation – don’t fear them and don’t project your fear onto them.

(Note: my use of the term “kids” references the broader youth population using a slang very familiar to subcultures where an infantilized generation reclaimed the term for personal use. I am 27 and i still talk about my friends as kids. What i’m referencing is youth culture broadly, not children and not just teens.)

Jimmy Wales speaking at Berkeley tomorrow

Who: Jimmy Wales (founder of Wikipedia)
Where: School of Information, South Hall, UC-Berkeley, Room 110
When: November 3, 4-5:30

For those who love Wikipedia, i’m hosting Jimmy Wales to speak at my department tomorrow about Wikipedia’s culture. It is free and open to the public. It should be a fun talk and question/answer discussion.

danah boyd | apophenia

making connections where none previously existed