Feed my Feed: Radical publishing in Facebook Groups
Michael, I see you have blocked my account after leaving my last comment in the moderation pile. I will attempt to respond in a way that reflects constructively on this article and the ensuing discussion.
As a way of gauging interest in this essay, I have attempted a small survey of the response on Facebook. Often we hear that the "real" discussion happens on Facebook; indeed Howard's own Facebook post glosses the article thus:
"Just published an essay where I use the example of Facebook Groups to argue that opting out of Facebook also involves a disavowal of crucial forms of vernacular culture and solidarity. Hi Facebook! I love you, despite it all.."
This short form expresses little beyond preaching to the choir, insisting that Facebook contains "crucial forms of vernacular culture" that Facebook rejects are missing out on by not being there (i.e. being elsewhere). Despite this, there is "solidarity" among Facebook users, which implies a prison mentality -- we're stuck here, so let's make the best of it, "despite it all.."
By way of analogy, we can compare Howard's whole point to car culture. By "opting out" of driving, walkers and cyclists miss out on a big part of culture which is only accessible in the car. Driving is accessible to many but in practice limited by state control and enforced by police (you can't speed or drive backwards on the highway). The car is the platform -- you could build your own car but who would want to (you certainly can't build your own road) - maybe the best thing you can do is learn how cars work and wind up working in a gas station. Drivers will understand the last part -- the sort of solidarity we can expect at the DMV. I love driving, despite it all.
Where is the public, then? Is it in the car, or on the road? In a field of shifting signifiers, it is probably both. Public is a loaded term, and the use here is diluted somewhat since it means four different things in this article:
1) The substantive "public" in the sense of any group of people engaging in discourse, via her unanswered question "are platforms publics?" Only one platform matters here, so she's really asking "Is Facebook a public?" or "Do Facebook's users, when on Facebook, constitute a public?" Or are Facebook groups themselves a platform embedded in another platform, thus can we refer to each one as its own fractured "public"?
2) "The public sphere" from Habermas, a "historical condition" outside the privacy of the home. In a way this reduces to "going outside" and whether we can freely speak or associate there. Based on this article, the "public sphere" seems dead in the water -- it is ostensibly guaranteed by democracy, but gutted in practice by bureaucracy, government, border police, etc.
3) "Public" as a publicity setting for posts on Facebook, implying it is readable to those outside the network (but not outside Facebook). I am not friends with Howard, so this post must be set to "public", meaning if you have a Facebook account you can read it (and, it seems, comment on it).
4) "Public" as a publicity setting for groups -- "some Groups are public, while others require new members to be approved by an admin"... much like new commenters on Rhizome.
Oddly missing here is "public" in the sense of mutual ownership - public parks, public beaches. Any (non-incarcerated) American can go to a public park and sit on a public bench, throw their garbage in a public trash can. Foreigners, if you make it through the gauntlet of border security, customs and immigration, you too can sit on the bench beside me. Facebook provides the illusion that it is a "public" utility in this sense, since "anyone" can make an account (and, presumably "everyone" has, except for us anonymous untouchables that still skulk around on Rhizome comment threads). The Internet is public, but individual access is usually private (unless you, poor soul, are using that grotty Dell at the library).
"Be wary - the Internet is still a dangerous place! The raw, public Internet is full of thieves, you can't trust anything, even email." This is the vibe we get from the comment on Rhizome's Facebook "post" for this article. The commenter did not see this post on Facebook first, but on an email update from Rhizome. Michael Connor is quick to reply, begging her to click "trust" since this will help future emails navigate through Google's spam filters. "Dorothy's writing style must be similar to scammers," he quips. No further discussion here, nor on any of the 13 shares.
Howard gets some more traction on her own Facebook post, again public. Three people comment. One is a short message of support ("luv this") akin to a verbalized "like" (incidentally, "Dorothy likes this"). The second is weirdly -- hopeful? I can't say. Apropos of nothing, the user "Soap Bar" insists "fb II will start up eventually" but laments "corporate control will never die only be sidestepped avoided and ignored". Not clear if Soap Bar actually read the article, since via Howard's border security analogy, a system of control cannot be ignored for long. Soap Bar will be caught by the "real name" policy eventually.
Finally, we have the pithy comment from Brenda Starr: "Who opts out of Facebook? ... Exactly." Again unclear if she read the article, but the implication is people not on Facebook are not to be trusted. I'm reminded of that quote from Groucho Marx about clubs and members. Get with the program, Groucho!
Howard's repost on the "Cool Freaks Wikipedia Club" page received one comment that hits home, from one E.J. Boulton:
"this is actually super helpful cos i've been trying to mention CFWC in a PhD proposal document (which is Deleuzian in theory) - citing an article from a journal called 'Rhizome' is pretty perfect"
It goes without saying that by supporting this sort of pro-Facebook, anti-Internet discourse, Rhizome legitimizes it in a way that can only be appreciated by a PhD candidate. The legitimacy here stems not from Rhizome as an arts institution or a cultural organization, but from the name as a mere pun -- which I cannot appreciate, since unlike these over-educated ironists, I've never read Deleuze.
Taking these posts and comments into consideration, we must ask the question -- does "discourse" on Facebook ever rise above phatic communication? That is, is anything actually communicated beyond pleasant chit-chat? Beyond dumb jokes, beyond saying "me too". Is serious thought appreciated, or merely "liked" or dismissed with an ironic "ayyy lmao". Does the level of non-phatic communication ever rise above questions about Mom's Gmail?
Judging from a longform post on Howard's own group, we must answer with an emphatic *yes!* Far too long to be pasted here, we have a multi-comment rant from one Eric Reilly. Little is revealed about Eric from his Facebook, beyond his residence in the Bronx. He has a blog - http://thecentralcommittee.blogspot.com/ - where he posts similar long-form essays. I don't really know what to say about this guy, except that I've encountered similar individuals on the (shudder) Internet before, who seem to type until their fingers fall off in an ecstasy of blather. The term "pant load" comes to mind.
https://www.facebook.com/groups/immaterial.labor/permalink/1647413242139605/
I'll quote the first paragraph, but you should really read it all:
"agree with the predominant argument along the lines used by those who oppose 'developmental' economics for 'opting out' of the global market - to be in the global market creates pressures to peripheral nations, but to cut its production off completely would only make the dependency felt more"
Again, we must ask: did this person even read the essay? Dorothy Hexa Howard seems to think so, as she "liked" his first comment -- but not the other two. Being a bit judicious with your likes, Dorothy. Aren't you taking this a little seriously? The lack of response from Howard, either here on any of these Facebook comment threads, suggests she isn't really in it for dialogue either -- maybe only a bit of institutional "cred" from posting (not commenting) on Rhizome.
Not sure I would want to talk to any of these people, either. Perhaps things really are better on the private powder rooms of closed FB groups, though I imagine it's really more of the same (combined with a dash of moral condemnation, perhaps). Thus I find my terrible thesis reaffirmed -- opt out or no, real discourse is not happening on Facebook. I look forward to more Rhizome articles in praise of the decay, imbecility, and tastelessness endemic to Facebook.
As a way of gauging interest in this essay, I have attempted a small survey of the response on Facebook. Often we hear that the "real" discussion happens on Facebook; indeed Howard's own Facebook post glosses the article thus:
"Just published an essay where I use the example of Facebook Groups to argue that opting out of Facebook also involves a disavowal of crucial forms of vernacular culture and solidarity. Hi Facebook! I love you, despite it all.."
This short form expresses little beyond preaching to the choir, insisting that Facebook contains "crucial forms of vernacular culture" that Facebook rejects are missing out on by not being there (i.e. being elsewhere). Despite this, there is "solidarity" among Facebook users, which implies a prison mentality -- we're stuck here, so let's make the best of it, "despite it all.."
By way of analogy, we can compare Howard's whole point to car culture. By "opting out" of driving, walkers and cyclists miss out on a big part of culture which is only accessible in the car. Driving is accessible to many but in practice limited by state control and enforced by police (you can't speed or drive backwards on the highway). The car is the platform -- you could build your own car but who would want to (you certainly can't build your own road) - maybe the best thing you can do is learn how cars work and wind up working in a gas station. Drivers will understand the last part -- the sort of solidarity we can expect at the DMV. I love driving, despite it all.
Where is the public, then? Is it in the car, or on the road? In a field of shifting signifiers, it is probably both. Public is a loaded term, and the use here is diluted somewhat since it means four different things in this article:
1) The substantive "public" in the sense of any group of people engaging in discourse, via her unanswered question "are platforms publics?" Only one platform matters here, so she's really asking "Is Facebook a public?" or "Do Facebook's users, when on Facebook, constitute a public?" Or are Facebook groups themselves a platform embedded in another platform, thus can we refer to each one as its own fractured "public"?
2) "The public sphere" from Habermas, a "historical condition" outside the privacy of the home. In a way this reduces to "going outside" and whether we can freely speak or associate there. Based on this article, the "public sphere" seems dead in the water -- it is ostensibly guaranteed by democracy, but gutted in practice by bureaucracy, government, border police, etc.
3) "Public" as a publicity setting for posts on Facebook, implying it is readable to those outside the network (but not outside Facebook). I am not friends with Howard, so this post must be set to "public", meaning if you have a Facebook account you can read it (and, it seems, comment on it).
4) "Public" as a publicity setting for groups -- "some Groups are public, while others require new members to be approved by an admin"... much like new commenters on Rhizome.
Oddly missing here is "public" in the sense of mutual ownership - public parks, public beaches. Any (non-incarcerated) American can go to a public park and sit on a public bench, throw their garbage in a public trash can. Foreigners, if you make it through the gauntlet of border security, customs and immigration, you too can sit on the bench beside me. Facebook provides the illusion that it is a "public" utility in this sense, since "anyone" can make an account (and, presumably "everyone" has, except for us anonymous untouchables that still skulk around on Rhizome comment threads). The Internet is public, but individual access is usually private (unless you, poor soul, are using that grotty Dell at the library).
"Be wary - the Internet is still a dangerous place! The raw, public Internet is full of thieves, you can't trust anything, even email." This is the vibe we get from the comment on Rhizome's Facebook "post" for this article. The commenter did not see this post on Facebook first, but on an email update from Rhizome. Michael Connor is quick to reply, begging her to click "trust" since this will help future emails navigate through Google's spam filters. "Dorothy's writing style must be similar to scammers," he quips. No further discussion here, nor on any of the 13 shares.
Howard gets some more traction on her own Facebook post, again public. Three people comment. One is a short message of support ("luv this") akin to a verbalized "like" (incidentally, "Dorothy likes this"). The second is weirdly -- hopeful? I can't say. Apropos of nothing, the user "Soap Bar" insists "fb II will start up eventually" but laments "corporate control will never die only be sidestepped avoided and ignored". Not clear if Soap Bar actually read the article, since via Howard's border security analogy, a system of control cannot be ignored for long. Soap Bar will be caught by the "real name" policy eventually.
Finally, we have the pithy comment from Brenda Starr: "Who opts out of Facebook? ... Exactly." Again unclear if she read the article, but the implication is people not on Facebook are not to be trusted. I'm reminded of that quote from Groucho Marx about clubs and members. Get with the program, Groucho!
Howard's repost on the "Cool Freaks Wikipedia Club" page received one comment that hits home, from one E.J. Boulton:
"this is actually super helpful cos i've been trying to mention CFWC in a PhD proposal document (which is Deleuzian in theory) - citing an article from a journal called 'Rhizome' is pretty perfect"
It goes without saying that by supporting this sort of pro-Facebook, anti-Internet discourse, Rhizome legitimizes it in a way that can only be appreciated by a PhD candidate. The legitimacy here stems not from Rhizome as an arts institution or a cultural organization, but from the name as a mere pun -- which I cannot appreciate, since unlike these over-educated ironists, I've never read Deleuze.
Taking these posts and comments into consideration, we must ask the question -- does "discourse" on Facebook ever rise above phatic communication? That is, is anything actually communicated beyond pleasant chit-chat? Beyond dumb jokes, beyond saying "me too". Is serious thought appreciated, or merely "liked" or dismissed with an ironic "ayyy lmao". Does the level of non-phatic communication ever rise above questions about Mom's Gmail?
Judging from a longform post on Howard's own group, we must answer with an emphatic *yes!* Far too long to be pasted here, we have a multi-comment rant from one Eric Reilly. Little is revealed about Eric from his Facebook, beyond his residence in the Bronx. He has a blog - http://thecentralcommittee.blogspot.com/ - where he posts similar long-form essays. I don't really know what to say about this guy, except that I've encountered similar individuals on the (shudder) Internet before, who seem to type until their fingers fall off in an ecstasy of blather. The term "pant load" comes to mind.
https://www.facebook.com/groups/immaterial.labor/permalink/1647413242139605/
I'll quote the first paragraph, but you should really read it all:
"agree with the predominant argument along the lines used by those who oppose 'developmental' economics for 'opting out' of the global market - to be in the global market creates pressures to peripheral nations, but to cut its production off completely would only make the dependency felt more"
Again, we must ask: did this person even read the essay? Dorothy Hexa Howard seems to think so, as she "liked" his first comment -- but not the other two. Being a bit judicious with your likes, Dorothy. Aren't you taking this a little seriously? The lack of response from Howard, either here on any of these Facebook comment threads, suggests she isn't really in it for dialogue either -- maybe only a bit of institutional "cred" from posting (not commenting) on Rhizome.
Not sure I would want to talk to any of these people, either. Perhaps things really are better on the private powder rooms of closed FB groups, though I imagine it's really more of the same (combined with a dash of moral condemnation, perhaps). Thus I find my terrible thesis reaffirmed -- opt out or no, real discourse is not happening on Facebook. I look forward to more Rhizome articles in praise of the decay, imbecility, and tastelessness endemic to Facebook.
