So I've been trying pretty hard to nail down my KYHOI (aka Knock Your Head Off Idea) over the past few days, and have arrived at what I lovingly refer to as a SDYNI (read: Slightly Dislodge Your Neck Idea). My tendency to procrastinate into the wee hours of the morning coupled with a strenuous amount of schoolwork will most likely have an adverse effect on the degree that I explore said idea in this post, but I half-heartedly assure you that I will at the very least get my general point across.
When I wrapped up my last post, I came to the shocking realization that I didn't have very much in the vein of concrete ideas or research relating to my project of choice; this has not changed substantially. My quest to add links and widgets to my blog in order to fulfill my assignment gave me a false sense of progress. What I am not going to do in this post is scour my brain for various links and examples that make it seem as though I have not been wasting my time (although the prospect of MOAR WIDGETS still seems pretty enticing.) While there still remains the possibility that I stumbled across something amazing, the amount of potential filler clouding my head, including the majority of this paragraph, gives me serious doubts.
I'll admit that I felt pretty damn satisfied when I hit that big yellow upload button several weeks ago. While it wasn't perfect, I felt like I did a bang up job on my project trailer considering the intense time limitations I imposed on myself. It's only now that I realize that this video conveyed little to nothing about my project's intentions; it amounted to little more than a amateurish amalgamation of various 4chan memes with an Anonymous spiel tacked on at the beginning to give it a hint of meaning.
While lurking around on the blog pages of my fellow classmates, I began to notice a sort of interconnectedness to their posts that mine still seem to lack. I've been drifting by on a week by week basis, fulfilling the basic requirements for my assignment-of-the-day and unleashing a sigh of relief at having successfully postponed my failure for another week. If I will continue to follow this pattern is anyone's guess. A little voice in the back of my head is telling me, "Soon, everything will be illuminated." Whether this should be interpreted positively, negatively, or as straight up schizophrenia is yet to be determined. At the moment I'm pretty intimidated by the stuff coming out of my classmates, which admittedly I should expect being in a 500 level class and surrounded by upperclassmen. Sometimes I feel as though I've hit a brick wall in my cognitive development, with the Kool-Aid Man nowhere in sight.
Enough dilly-dallying. A KYHOI is now approaching your face at speeds of at least 100 miles per hour. In your final moments you come to the sudden realization that the thirst for anonymity is a reaction to the "required" maintenance of a persistent identity online and our culture's obsession with achieving celebrity status through any means possible. Anonymity allows us to communicate ideas, be they good or bad, in a way that is otherwise unobtainable due to fear of reprisal. It does not mask our ability to express our individuality; rather, it frees us. We are given the opportunity to be a different person every day if we so choose, eliminating the baggage of our own histories from the equation. The pursuit of the elusive celebrity status is replaced by a nobler goal: the progression of humanity as a whole (or flat-out trolling; I never claimed it was always a pretty picture.)
The realm of popular culture today is strongly influenced by the process of anonymous exchange. Memes, which were once a sort of secret code for "channers" and users of other online media, have penetrated into mainstream culture and been adopted by many who are still oblivious to their origins. The recent surge of Anonymous coverage has relegated anons to the bottom rung of the social ladder in the eyes of many.
Complete authenticity is a difficult objective to achieve, but I believe it starts with the disposal of our ego - the desire to maintain and elevate our social status. Anonymity encourages us to do this, and as such is one of the last bastions of hope for humanity if we hope to obtain the divine state of Absolute Truthiness. That's my piece, anyway.
Pic somewhat related.
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