# Reading Responses (Set 1)

## Reading Responses 5 out of 5
### Sep 20 Tue - How the web works
If there is anything in the world that I am afraid of, it is the Internet. With mythical gadget (my broken iPhone XR) and sleight of hand (a couple of clicks), I am given the keys to the kingdom (a decade-old WikiHow article on how to make chicken alfredo). Everything I have ever wanted to know sits inside of a magic box that runs clients and servers, little 8-bit messenger pigeons delivering every image, video, or website I have ever wanted to see. This is efficient, yes, maybe even magical–but it is a power unfathomable to me. A power destined to get out of hand.

So what happens when the power of the Internet falls prey to a predator? There are millions of connections forming webs among the growing tree of the Internet, and statistically at least one of them is bound to corrupt. Hartley Brody briefly mentions how networks can “potentially eavesdrop or tamper with your connection,” but fails to elaborate. Who is listening? What does it mean when a network is “stealing your data?” How does Google know I have a new interest in bootleg WikiHow chicken alfredo? Brody comforts us by explaining how key exchanges and certificates and wizard mathematics secure our connections, but this is all garble to me. I fear those who understand it all enough to manipulate the web like a puppet. I fear the faceless specters who pull the strings, the ones who breach and hack and collect data unbeknownst to the Internet commoner. And yet, I am so curious to learn how…

### October 4 Tue - Cooperation

Cooperation is the sunlight that wills the bud to bloom. We could lay out seeds and water the leaves as much as we want, but nothing progresses without the sun. Nothing progresses without warmth. Humans must cooperate with each other in order to breed anew–whether it be thoughts and theories, myths and machines, or to breed even more humans. This is a universal truth. We fail when we rot, when we hide from the sun in favor of the familiarity of our shadow. We become engulfed in our own opinions, beliefs, and ways of life–and fail to intermingle with alien-minded beings. But really, we aren’t so different after all. Most of the time, we manage to find twinkles of light amidst the shadows and connect with others against all odds. This is what moves us forward.

I often find myself tumbling down the rabbit hole. I stumble upon an interesting topic, then stumble upon an interesting topic, then stumble upon an interesting-well, you get the point. Though we never put a thought into it, every website we have ever visited, every funny Tweet, every photo, every little blue hyperlink, is a tiny bug in a giant web. Behind every link is a human being with a purpose who leads me to places made by other human beings with purposes. We are superconnected, even online. Behind a link is a person who pasted the link, a person who created the link, a person who created the mechanism of links, a person who created the cursor who clicked the link, a person, a person, a person. We are at the point we are at due to a chain of people, a chain of links.

### October 07 Fri - Social networks
We are our own solar systems. Through networking, we act as centerpieces of vast social networks, little stars and planets and places and people, all interlinked. Whether it be a similar interest, a job, a strange (but I don’t judge) fetish, or a school friend, everyone is connected to everyone, and we find that “the person has become the portal.” We have become units of connectivity, each at the front of a long conga line of humans. We dance and dance and dance all day and night, together. And through social contagion, we do the same dance moves as people we may not even know. A friend of a friend is on the same dance floor as I am. In retrospect, the online neighborhood is a beautiful yet frightening place. Only 6 degrees of separation set us apart from a neighborhood on the other side of the Earth. 6 stars in the sky forming a constellation. 6 steps in the choreography of the conga line. Only 6.

But is networking really that scary? It must be great, considering that we are now closer to all becoming friends and joining hands and frolicking in the fields. But even in networking, we fall prey to the rat race. Rainie and Wellman introduced the concept of “networked individualism,” pointing to who is king of the network. Who is the sun? Who is the front of the conga line? They mention the idea of building a “personal brand,” but fail to elaborate. In a club meeting I had on Wednesday, the “personal brand” concept was also present. Now that the person has become the portal, the unit of connectivity, we become the product. We are the brand. Instead of advertising a place to go to in order to connect, we advertise ourselves for people to come to us. Selling ourselves is a symptom of networking often overlooked, one that is often tiring. Is it exhausting turning yourself into a product? Or do you accept it as part of life? As it seems, to stay connected is to stay alive.

### October 11 Tue - Haters
At heart, I am a troll. Back around the ripe age of 14, I ran an Instagram blog of sorts–one that I ran like a ringmaster of a circus. Being 14 to me meant being an “edgelord,” and using “shock humor” at any given circumstance to generate engagement. I saw myself as a court jester, pumping out satirical content that sometimes resulted in conversation that I found to be quite… compelling. It was content that managed to get me “IP banned” from Instagram across all accounts, plus getting blocked by Raini Rodriguez as a bonus. The Instagram guidelines hated me, as I would get warnings and posts taken down on a weekly or monthly basis. I enjoyed prancing around on the Instagram battlefield mostly because A) I flipped on a mask of pseudo-anonymity that allowed me to virtually be anything I want; hence the term “deindividuation,” and B) I found it amusing that people would react so strongly to a 14-year-old teenage girl from the middle of New Jersey. Allowing myself to detach from my body and perform a persona online was what excited me. It was toxic at some points, but man… It was fun. As a wise man once said, “We do a little [trolling](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PobQzVsj7GE&ab_channel=mr.bruh).”

So yes, I will put my hands up and confess that I was a perpetrator of digital misbehavior. My trolling days are over, but I can’t help but reminisce. Nowadays, most of my exposure to haters stems from my male friends who willfully engage in TikTok or Twitter battles, then send me the carnage illustrated through a series of screenshots. The commonality between these friends is A) male, a gender dimension observed by Susan Herring, and B) a deindividualized profile. Oftentimes, my friends’ bully battles were man and man, anime profile picture and black circle profile picture, for example. If one can detach themselves from what they say, then did they really say it? But even when detached from their profiles, my one friend claimed that he just “had to win the argument.” But why? A personal, secret sense of pride having to do with the nature of reciprocal accusations. “I must win, I must win, I must win the argument because I am right.” Although I have a background in trolling, I still beg to understand the art of hating. I respect the tenacity of my male friends in their Internet wars, and perhaps one day I will “enjoy critical analysis and being a hater.”


### October 21 Fri - Gender, communication, and contribution
What does it mean to be a man on the Internet? Is it video games and weightlifting videos? Subreddits and C++? Dark web boner pills? Findings reveal that the biology and/or socialization of men has had curious effects on the way men use technology: most notably as a means of gathering information and dominating the tech industry. Men use technology to showcase their masculinity–whether it be a coding competition, career advancement, or a dreaded Tinder picture of them holding a fish. They are socialized to perform masculinity through dominance and power, seen in how they overtake Internet spaces and skill-based competition such as Open Source and coding. They are socialized to be less emotional and to “act tough,” which is why they stray away from Twitter gossip or following Aunt Sue on Instagram. What hardworking man has time for that kind of frivolity?

A man may not want to create a Snapchat private story or post a TikTok dance–but I am a woman… and I am a netizen. Slater argues that originally woman-based soft skills such as coding and programming have become masculinized in a way where men who’ve dominated the field feel as if they can perform their masculinity in a “hierarchy-enhancing legitimizing” manner. In essence, men keep the dominant class–the white, heterosexual, cisgendered man–dominant by usurping what was once a woman’s. Personally, I tend to shy away from the infamous “STEM,”: science, technology, engineering, and math. I could never imagine myself willingly immersed in a world so hypermasculinized, the world of coding. When I think of coding, I think of a geek: a man in glasses scrunched up behind his screen. This is not me. Like Krasnova said, women prefer to use technology to further SNS continuous interactions–and I am no exception… except for when I was young. Interestingly enough, I found myself doing more “masculine” techy things when I was younger: playing video games, coding, browsing Reddit and 4chan. As I grew older, I became more and more socialized into womanhood, and my tech habits changed: iMessage group chats, fashion videos, Twitter threads. Though Damore argues for science in explaining the difference between men and women at Google, I would have to disagree. I was what you would call a “tom boy,” and it was not in my biology to act womanly until I was exposed socially to hyperfemininity. The way American society teaches gender has left a mark on my browsing history, my social pages, my vacuum of a TikTok feed. What does it mean to be a woman on the Internet? I explore this question daily as I scroll infinitely through content that is meant to be Me.