Like my previous blog, I feel like I’m touching on a topic that is too big to properly explore in this format, so again I leave this blog as a jumping-off point for discussion instead of any kind of definitive statement on my part. I greatly enjoyed your comments on my last blog, even if I haven’t found time to respond to them yet, so thank you for reading!

This entry which will explore the role digital culture plays in stories and literature, and its relationship to Chamberlin’s writing. Before I get into it, however, I would ask that you read a short article from Wired Magazine, “Navigating the New Digital Landscape,” which will provide some important background knowledge and definitions relating to my discussion.

I would like to apologize to anyone who clicked that link, (and promise that the rest of the hyperlinks will be legitimate!) but also suggest that what you experienced was actually one of the oldest and most recognizable ceremony of digital culture. You were trolled, or in Chamberlin’s terms, tricked: the Rick Roll is an example of “language that gives [to the world]” (Chamberlin, 161) as you discover there is a disparity between what I have written, and the reality of the code which makes up the “digital world.” Digital culture seems impenetrable to outsiders; they speak in code, have an infinite number of in-jokes, get obsessed with cats and fundraisers for potato salad. But as I was considering writing about this topic with Chamberlin still circulating in my brain, I was struck by how many similarities internet culture shares with the disenfranchised cultures Chamberlin writes about.

When discussing the Internet, the “Wild West” metaphor is a common one. When an agreement was made in 2008 to limit user’s abilities to upload copyrighted content online, it was described by NBC Universal president Jeff Zucker as “a significant step in transforming the Internet from a Wild West to a popular medium that respects the word of law.” President Obama claimed “the cyberworld is the Wild Wild West – to some degree we’re asked to be the sheriff,” in a recent speech calling for greater online regulation. Their rhetoric is obvious, I think: the Wild West is meant to evoke a lawlessness and lack of civility, which follows Chamberlin’s description of our “habit [of] dividing the whole world into the civilized and the barbaric, Us and Them.” (Chamberlin, 10) Paraphrasing Matthew Arnold, Chamberlin talks about the colonial belief that the “‘coarsely tempered natures’ of the ‘barbarians and philistines’ would be imbued with the ‘sweetness and light’ of a truly cultivated, civilized society.’” (Chamberlin, 23) The attempts by these powerful figures to control the Internet echoes this passage, promising to bring “civilization” to fix what is identified as barbarism in order to justify their takeover.

We can take the internet-takeover as colonial-narrative argument further: corporation’s attempts to regulate the control of copyrighted material online is, for netizens, “discounting their livelihoods and destroying their languages.” (Chamberlin, 78) Writing about the participatory nature of the Internet– everyone has a voice, and a chance to add to a discussion – Limor Shifman mentions the importance of remixing artifacts of digital culture. Remixing is the practice of manipulating images or videos, “for instance by Photoshopping an image or adding a new soundtrack,” (Shifman, 22) and these works often “reappropriate the news or popular culture.” (Shifman, 118) Clamping down on the distribution of unlicensed copyrighted material places great restrictions on the ability of netizens to express themselves in this manner.

I would like to end this blog with a contradiction I think Chamberlin would enjoy. According to Chamberlin, our cultures are all looking for a homeland – a contradiction between the metaphoric “home” and the concrete “land.” For netizens, however, the “land” is a metaphor as well – it is based in every country on Earth, but takes place on a separate plane altogether. It is nonexistent, but it is also infinite, “a place where things happen that don’t.” These circumstances make this a unique culture-clash, and I am very interested to see how it turns out.

Works Cited:

Chamberlin, J. Edward. If This Is Your Land, Where Are Your Stories? Toronto: Vintage Canada, 2003. Print.

Shifman, Limor. Memes in Digital Culture. Massachusetts: MIT Press, 2014. Print.

Wuerker, Matt (2011 Nov 16). “Shootout at the digital corral.” POLITICO. <http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1111/68448.html>