In Paris
in early 19th century the creation of labyrinthine arcades, designed
to control the flow of moving city crowds, created the environment of the
Flaneur, both the anonymous face in the crowd and ostentatious wanderer(Prouty,
R 2009)(Kuttainen, V 2015). The modern cyber-flaneur tends to fit in one of
those categories as well, lurker or provocateur. The latter are generally
trolls or the intentionally ridiculous, both doing their best to be noticed in
the communities they take part in. The former however make up the majority of
net users, and aim for the opposite.
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As much as
90% of people who follow blogs, forums and other groups will never post, choosing
to merely read and remain anonymous (Nielsen, J 2006). This is less common in
social networks like Facebook but many people still take the path of the
cyber-flaneur, remaining mostly silent while enjoying the various communities
on offer. I tend to follow this trend myself, being a member of several groups
and favouring many others, keeping my thoughts and life to myself as do many
other lurkers. Most people enjoy this anonymity and dislike if it is stripped
away, a problem in the current surveillance culture most of the west lives in
to a lesser or greater extent. This was shown in the Snowden affair and the
responses to metadata collection laws and yet lurkers enjoy what is essentially
References
Kuttainen, V 2015 BA1002: Our Space: Networks, Narrative and the Making of Place
Week 4 Lecture notes [Pdf] Retrieved from https://learnjcu.jcu.edu.au/webapps/blackboard/execute/content/file?cmd=view&content_id=_1992266_1&course_id=_69740_1
I like cats.
ReplyDeleteLurkers may be anonymous entities and not post, but on the other hand, they may be provocateurs. For instance: a cyber-flaneur on social media may like one's pictures from two years ago; they may poke you; or, you may not know them, but they send a friend request anyway.
". . . A product of post-modernity, the cyborg-flaneur is an androgynous spectator of virtual spaces. A person's whose aim is to 'disappear' in the spaces of the city" (Barnes, 1997). Cyberspace is a realm of "disembodied consciousness" where communication online is spatially experienced.
The literary motif of the 'panopticon' springs to mind if pondering surveillance on the internet. Bentham described the panopticon as "a new mode of obtaining power of mind over mind" (Wikipedia, 2015). This motif of power may be 'lurking' in catlike places.
References
Barnes, G. (1997). Passage of the cyber-flaneur: Retrieved from http://raybird.com/essays/Passage_Flaneur.html
Panopticon (n.d.) In Wikipedia: Retrieved August 22, 2015, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panopticon
Many facebook users tend to blur the line between being a 'cyber-flaneur' and a 'cyber-dandy'. Where a flaneur is part of the crowd, simply viewing the many items through window-shopping, a dandy will make themselves into a spectacle (Prouty, 2009). I would argue that a larger portion of facebook users are not flaneurs, but in fact Dandies, but not by creating new content themself. I would argue that by sharing others content, such as memes and political posts/images, people have extended from simply liking posts as flaneurs, and become dandies, by making their appreciation or interest in a particular thing much more pronounced, as sharing an image or post makes it much easier for someone to question you about your thoughts on it, than if you simply 'liked' it.
ReplyDeleteReferences:
Prouty, R. (2009). A Turtle on a Leash. One-Way Street. Retrieved 24 August 2015, from http://www.onewaystreet.typepad.com/one_way_street/2009/10/a-turtle-on-a-leash.html