July 20, 2009
“We have condemned ourselves to a lifelong immersion in the arbitrary” says Rem Koolhas, “’Identity’ is the new junk.” 5 Social media has become the perfect platform for expression of identity, providing the opportunity to create extensive lists of likes and dislikes, favourites and fan pages. “Humans brand themselves subtly… They convert their experiences (“At what moment did I feel the most comfortable with myself? When did people respond to me in the way I liked best?”) into tangible via clothing, belongings, and behaviour.” 6The practice of publicizing personal identity can be seen throughout social history, in clothing choices, appearance, social practices and recreational activities, however, it is never more apparent and boring than when stated in long lists for the world to see. The creation of virtual identity, whether it be a representation of the existing or a fictional fantasy, is often a strive for approval. Baudrillard says, “The exam is the preferred means of social advancement. Everyone wants to pass exams, even in such bastardised forms as radio, because to be examined is a form of prestige today.” 7 Social media and the formation of identity exemplify this theory, in that the blogger, or poster offers personal information, photographs, or comments, in order to be approved by, and accepted in a social group or situation. “– A twofold process since everyone can be examined in it, but also integrated into it as an examiner or juge (insofar as everyone is a member of that collective authority called the public).” 8 It is also the role of the viewer to validate these efforts, therefore completing the acceptance of identity.I believe that this pursuit of acceptance is nothing more than a popularity contest. Take for instance, most popular Australian Myspace user Hanny Wu, who confesses that “I had really low self esteem and I was posting a lot of pictures of myself and trying to be friends with everybody.” 9 There are countless examples of competitiveness in social media and its easy to see why with statistics like number of friends, number of views, followers etc. on public display. In fact, blogging program Tumblr has recently started measuring activity in terms of Tumblarity, determined by how much you are blogging, and determining your overall rank in Australia and the world. This kind of competitive listing encourages users to become more active, in order to rank higher and become more popular in the blogging community. New York University professor Dalton Conley is quoted as saying activity on social media is “anxiety born out of a deep-seated fear that we’re being left out of something, somewhere, and we may loose out on advancement in our work, social or family lives if we truly check out.” 10 This theory supports the idea that activity equals popularity, we must keep interacting and putting ourselves and our ideas out into the digital world in order to keep up with our peers.It is assumed that the virtual can be easily disconnected from the real, that nothing can replace the experience of face to face social interaction, but the actions of virtual identities often have consequences in the physical world.  Zizek uses the example of the Tamagochi, a virtual pet, a children’s toy, which has no semblance to existing animals, to illustrate the level of care and emotion that can be invested in a digital interaction. Children feed and play with their virtual pet, responding to a set of demands that they are by no means obligated to, and when the pet dies, through neglect or inattention, they experience sorrow. This means that though they have not actually lost a pet (a new Tamagochi cam be hatched within minutes) they grieve for the virtual entity as though they have. Zizek describes this practice of responding to a virtual entity’s demands as interpassivity rather than interactivity because it implies “being active through another subject who does the job for me.” 11“The key feature of interpassivity is that it designates not a situation in which the other replaces me, does something for me, but the opposite situation in which I am incessantly active, and sustain my activity by the other’s passivity,” 12explains Zizek. Zizek’s theory relates to social media in that we keep sending information into this social sphere in the hopes that no one notices “the nullity of incessant babble.” And is that not what we are doing, when we contribute meaningless nonsense to a social network? Some examples of meaningless tweets added to the social network today, for nobody and everybody to hear, include: “Aww, iPhone 3.0 comes out on my birthday. You’re so thoughtful, Apple! <3”, “finding night time cold and flu tablets enjoyable”, “this weather is AWFUL. i ate cake for lunch coz it was too cold to leave the house and get good stuff.” This ‘incessant babble’ is supposedly the most important occurrences of the past half hour. This is how we portray ourselves in public when we don’t think about what we are saying. The practice of forming virtual identities for ourselves has become normal. For every online newsletter subscribed to and every profile filled out there is a connection with your name. When you put your name and email on a mailing list, you assume you will be advertised to because that is essentially the function of a newsletter. However, when web banners and promotional spaces start displaying personally targeted advertising we can start to see how our personal information is being used. Google president Eric Schmidt is of the opinion that  “ads are worth more if they’re more targeted, more personal, more precise.” 13Already our thoughts and images are being turned into advertising. Earlier this year confectionary company Skittles launched a website that simply redirects users to various social media sites, ‘Home’ is a Wikkipedia entry, ‘Chatter’ takes you to a Twitter feed, ‘Friends’ is a Facebook fan page, and ‘Video’ and ‘Pics’ redirect you to YouTube and Flickr.14 The success of this campaign, though more pronounced in the first few weeks of operation, is undeniable. Social media users are excited to be part of this new form of advertising and willingly contribute to it, no doubt due to the exhilaration of seeing their own work on a website that is has a wide audience. This means that Skittles do not even have to promote their own product. They basically have people writing slogans and taking photos for them for free. 5 Koolhas, Rem, Junkspace, p.1756 Lifrieri, Joe, Branding for the Social Web, http://hugsformonsters.com, 06/06/097 Baudillard, Jean, Revenge of the Crystal: Mass Media Culture, p.688 Baudillard, Jean, Revenge of the Crystal: Mass Media Culture, p.689 Wu, Hanny, Elder, John, Myspace Users Just Wild About Hanny, The Age, March 200910 Delaney, Brigid, Wither Our Real Selves in an Internet Age, The Age, 04/05/0911 Zizek, Slavoj, Is it Possible to Traverse the Fantasy in Cyberspace? E. Wright, The Zizek Reader, p. 10412 Zizek, Slavoj, Is it Possible to Traverse the Fantasy in Cyberspace? E. Wright, The Zizek Reader, p. 11013 Eric Schmidt in Dowd, Maureen, What Will Happen to News in the Age of Big Brother? The Age, 16/04/0914 Skittles Website, http://www.skittles.com/pics.htm, 11/06/09

“We have condemned ourselves to a lifelong immersion in the arbitrary” says Rem Koolhas, “’Identity’ is the new junk.” 5 Social media has become the perfect platform for expression of identity, providing the opportunity to create extensive lists of likes and dislikes, favourites and fan pages.
“Humans brand themselves subtly… They convert their experiences (“At what moment did I feel the most comfortable with myself? When did people respond to me in the way I liked best?”) into tangible via clothing, belongings, and behaviour.” 6
The practice of publicizing personal identity can be seen throughout social history, in clothing choices, appearance, social practices and recreational activities, however, it is never more apparent and boring than when stated in long lists for the world to see. The creation of virtual identity, whether it be a representation of the existing or a fictional fantasy, is often a strive for approval. Baudrillard says, “The exam is the preferred means of social advancement. Everyone wants to pass exams, even in such bastardised forms as radio, because to be examined is a form of prestige today.” 7 Social media and the formation of identity exemplify this theory, in that the blogger, or poster offers personal information, photographs, or comments, in order to be approved by, and accepted in a social group or situation. “– A twofold process since everyone can be examined in it, but also integrated into it as an examiner or juge (insofar as everyone is a member of that collective authority called the public).” 8 It is also the role of the viewer to validate these efforts, therefore completing the acceptance of identity.
I believe that this pursuit of acceptance is nothing more than a popularity contest. Take for instance, most popular Australian Myspace user Hanny Wu, who confesses that “I had really low self esteem and I was posting a lot of pictures of myself and trying to be friends with everybody.” 9 There are countless examples of competitiveness in social media and its easy to see why with statistics like number of friends, number of views, followers etc. on public display. In fact, blogging program Tumblr has recently started measuring activity in terms of Tumblarity, determined by how much you are blogging, and determining your overall rank in Australia and the world. This kind of competitive listing encourages users to become more active, in order to rank higher and become more popular in the blogging community. New York University professor Dalton Conley is quoted as saying activity on social media is “anxiety born out of a deep-seated fear that we’re being left out of something, somewhere, and we may loose out on advancement in our work, social or family lives if we truly check out.” 10 This theory supports the idea that activity equals popularity, we must keep interacting and putting ourselves and our ideas out into the digital world in order to keep up with our peers.
It is assumed that the virtual can be easily disconnected from the real, that nothing can replace the experience of face to face social interaction, but the actions of virtual identities often have consequences in the physical world.  Zizek uses the example of the Tamagochi, a virtual pet, a children’s toy, which has no semblance to existing animals, to illustrate the level of care and emotion that can be invested in a digital interaction. Children feed and play with their virtual pet, responding to a set of demands that they are by no means obligated to, and when the pet dies, through neglect or inattention, they experience sorrow. This means that though they have not actually lost a pet (a new Tamagochi cam be hatched within minutes) they grieve for the virtual entity as though they have. Zizek describes this practice of responding to a virtual entity’s demands as interpassivity rather than interactivity because it implies “being active through another subject who does the job for me.” 11
“The key feature of interpassivity is that it designates not a situation in which the other replaces me, does something for me, but the opposite situation in which I am incessantly active, and sustain my activity by the other’s passivity,” 12
explains Zizek. Zizek’s theory relates to social media in that we keep sending information into this social sphere in the hopes that no one notices “the nullity of incessant babble.” And is that not what we are doing, when we contribute meaningless nonsense to a social network? Some examples of meaningless tweets added to the social network today, for nobody and everybody to hear, include: “Aww, iPhone 3.0 comes out on my birthday. You’re so thoughtful, Apple! <3”, “finding night time cold and flu tablets enjoyable”, “this weather is AWFUL. i ate cake for lunch coz it was too cold to leave the house and get good stuff.” This ‘incessant babble’ is supposedly the most important occurrences of the past half hour. This is how we portray ourselves in public when we don’t think about what we are saying.
The practice of forming virtual identities for ourselves has become normal. For every online newsletter subscribed to and every profile filled out there is a connection with your name. When you put your name and email on a mailing list, you assume you will be advertised to because that is essentially the function of a newsletter. However, when web banners and promotional spaces start displaying personally targeted advertising we can start to see how our personal information is being used. Google president Eric Schmidt is of the opinion that  “ads are worth more if they’re more targeted, more personal, more precise.” 13
Already our thoughts and images are being turned into advertising. Earlier this year confectionary company Skittles launched a website that simply redirects users to various social media sites, ‘Home’ is a Wikkipedia entry, ‘Chatter’ takes you to a Twitter feed, ‘Friends’ is a Facebook fan page, and ‘Video’ and ‘Pics’ redirect you to YouTube and Flickr.14 The success of this campaign, though more pronounced in the first few weeks of operation, is undeniable. Social media users are excited to be part of this new form of advertising and willingly contribute to it, no doubt due to the exhilaration of seeing their own work on a website that is has a wide audience. This means that Skittles do not even have to promote their own product. They basically have people writing slogans and taking photos for them for free.

5 Koolhas, Rem, Junkspace, p.175
6 Lifrieri, Joe, Branding for the Social Web, http://hugsformonsters.com, 06/06/09
7 Baudillard, Jean, Revenge of the Crystal: Mass Media Culture, p.68
8 Baudillard, Jean, Revenge of the Crystal: Mass Media Culture, p.68
9 Wu, Hanny, Elder, John, Myspace Users Just Wild About Hanny, The Age, March 2009
10 Delaney, Brigid, Wither Our Real Selves in an Internet Age, The Age, 04/05/09
11 Zizek, Slavoj, Is it Possible to Traverse the Fantasy in Cyberspace? E. Wright, The Zizek Reader, p. 104
12 Zizek, Slavoj, Is it Possible to Traverse the Fantasy in Cyberspace? E. Wright, The Zizek Reader, p. 110
13 Eric Schmidt in Dowd, Maureen, What Will Happen to News in the Age of Big Brother? The Age, 16/04/09
14 Skittles Website, http://www.skittles.com/pics.htm, 11/06/09