I (micro)blog, therefore I am. Not a strange statement in today's digital world, where we all seem to have a Twitter account, a Facebook profile or at least a blog. Why? To show the world that we are important and relevant enough? There is more to it than just an ego trip.
Get to know yourself: stalk someone online
Everything we do on the computer (in laptop or tablet form) is a mediated activity. We communicate literally and figuratively through this piece of technology. Banal media theory already teaches us that by working with a computer, we are indirectly occupied with ourselves. All media are only means through which we are confronted with ourselves – again and again and in a different way. The computer is a – nowadays not so new anymore – medium through which we stare at ourselves via the other.
The Facebook profile of that annoying old classmate is just a way of seeing denmark phone number list ourselves, of comparing someone to our own image. Is he happier? Didn't we actually do better? Because of the current social channels that we have at our disposal, we are constantly confronted with the success (or failure) of famous and less famous people in our environment. And indirectly, we constantly mirror ourselves on these people.
Why do we all go online en masse to update our statuses? What is this urge to describe ourselves – or rather, to inscribe ourselves – on the internet?
Humans have an inherent urge to write, to give meaning to our own existence in texts. Literature has adapted to technological developments in special ways throughout the centuries. A shining example of this is the novelisation , a form of literature that initially emerged as a booklet to accompany the film. In the thirties, we only had the chance to see a film once a month; a summary to take with us was therefore not an unnecessary luxury. Today, this genre still exists, but it fulfils a completely different function. Today's novelisation has become part of a large cross-media spectrum, in which we consume the same story through different media. The book of the film, but the other way around.