Monday stuff

I went to this party last night underneath the overpass next to the train tracks. Right outside my house. It’s like people took over my living room. It’s apparently the party that facebook made. I’m rethinking joining the FB. . . mostly because the party was pretty good.

The weird thing was that I could detect absolutely no tension about the whole Temporary autonomous zone thing. It was totally chill - which I found .. kinda lame. The last time I was at a party like that was at the anti-globalization protest in Quebec city in 2001. Now *that* was a intense overpass party.

couple more links:
-lessig leaves copyright and turns to gov corruption

-Viewing American class divisions through Facebook and MySpace by danah boyd

Over the last six months, i’ve noticed an increasing number of press articles about how high school teens are leaving MySpace for Facebook. That’s only partially true. There is indeed a change taking place, but it’s not a shift so much as a fragmentation. Until recently, American teenagers were flocking to MySpace. The picture is now being blurred. Some teens are flocking to MySpace. And some teens are flocking to Facebook. Which go where gets kinda sticky, because it seems to primarily have to do with socio-economic class.

What I lay out in this essay is rather disconcerting. Hegemonic American teens (i.e. middle/upper class, college bound teens from upwards mobile or well off families) are all on or switching to Facebook. Marginalized teens, teens from poorer or less educated backgrounds, subculturally-identified teens, and other non-hegemonic teens continue to be drawn to MySpace. A class division has emerged and it is playing out in the aesthetics, the kinds of advertising, and the policy decisions being made.

-and I’ve added an about page to this blog. please let me know if it makes me look like a jackass.

-There’s a great video piece on ISF. Complete with interviews of the new owners of Pharmacie Esperanza about our new hotspot there. I wrote a whole entry on what I found significant about this story, but it got accidentally deleted.

that’s it for now.

10 Responses to “Monday stuff”

  1. Steven Mansour Says:

    It doesn’t make you look like a jackass.

    But maybe that’s because I know you well enough to know you’re not one.

  2. MK Says:

    It doesn’t make you look like a jackass, but purely stylistically, I’d condense it way down and make it readable in one screen (or so), and then provide a big, blinking, all-caps-fuck-off link to a more detailed bio/CV, and another link to a few scans of some press stuff.

    Just sayin’.. me and your web stalker (you’ve got one, right?) know ya and luv ya so we’ll scroll to the end, but other lazy surfers might not. Leave them wanting more, and then give them the link to get the “more”.

    Or leave it like it is.

    My 2 pence,
    MK

    P.S. Please don’t take me literally and make the link blinky.

  3. mir Says:

    All I suggest is;

    Make liberal use of “blink” mark-up. Sure it’s depreciated, sure it gives you a migraine.

    But it’s time to rock that shit like gold running shoes.. eh eh…?

  4. Michael Lenczner Says:

    okay. thanks you two (not including mir in that note of appreciation). I’m going to let it sit for a couple of days and then possibly look at changing it / shortening it.

    Part of the deal is that I *really* don’t want to make a real CV. they give me hives.

  5. patrick defasten Says:

    those spontaneously overpass parties are awesome! the cops are being so tolerant about it too, which is great. there’s going to be a series of these parties, so watch out for random mobs of kids and boom box trucks! heh

  6. ella Says:

    Yeah, I’m with MK, doesn’t make you look fine but it’s pretty dense & hard to read. & yay for there finally being a hotspot at Esperanza!

  7. Boris Anthony Says:

    warning: may dismay you, but yu know I love ya ;)

    1- the underpass party
    I listened to you say exacty the same thing when we saw each other there and all I could think was “YOU are lame.” ;) You recovered yourself though when you said “maybe it’s just my preconcieved notions/perceptions though”. Well yes duh. Because a) there was tension, however minor, you just don’t know the societies you were mostly surrounded by and their politics b) the cops were thre and if anyone had broken the agreement with them (one reached between reasonable humans, not necessarily kids and cops) they’d have shut us down and c) you showed up with the mentality of “what’s this rich white kids party in my neighborhood and since none of my activist/hippy friends told me about it, it must be lame.”
    But some of your activist/hippy friends did show up, didn’t they. n fact I htink every hipster click and ethnic group on the Plateau was reprezented… and we all danced, and we all enjoyed ourselves. Note to you: suspend your preconcieved notions and ego. (I know exactly what went through your mind though; I’ve thought like that too often. “takes one to know one” genre… ;)

    Also do join FaceBook. It is *pretty much exactly* everything you worked towards achieving with ISF for the last years. With all the flaws you’ve seen documentd in academic papers. ;)

    quoting you: “I want to know what people with similar interests in my neighborhood are doing tonight.”

    b) About page
    Finally. No man is an island Mike. And you of all people know you can’t achieve anything by yourself. And long before people will help you achieve your goals, they need to learn about you. Do not confuse self-confidence with arrogance. It is entirely possible to be humble and forward about your accomplishments at once.

    sez the guy with no about page. :)

    see u at the next impromptu block party? ;)

  8. mir Says:

    You will be assimilated you will be assimilated.

  9. MK Says:

    Dude, I know your girlfriend is back in town, but get on the “about” page already!
    I don’t see any blinking links….
    And I want a pic of the new shoes.
    Smooch.
    MK

  10. MK Says:

    And get on Facebook.
    Suck up the ToS.
    xMK

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