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Last night I successfully signed out of facebook to re-watch Fight Club. After reading “Postmodern Hollywood” by M. Keith Booker I thought it’s an perfect example for postmodernism in film as it spreads plenty of postmodern theories.
To my dissatisfaction the internet sporadically disconneted and made made all (obviously very legal) ways of getting the film to magically start playing on my computer impossible and I returned to facebook to refresh my friend-feed. There it was: My way out. Facebook as new example for postmoderism as a tool of social interaction that changed the way we communicate.
“Computer-mediated interaction stands as an example and determinant of a shift to a postmodern media culture.”
(Bignell, J, 2000, p193)
Since facebook copied twitters status-update in 2007 I add with every new status a sentence to my postmodern version of an autobiography. Everything that we think is important is documented in real time. Not only can users answer the “What are you doing now?” question, but also check-in places with their mobile devices and upload pictures or videos to further illustrate all written data.
“We don’t have to wait sixty years for the autobiography to be written. Individuals are autoring real time stories with cultural significance.”
(Hart, W, 2011, p4)
It is highly interesting to observe how everyone is working on his “virtual self” and thanks to “Social Memories”, an facebook application by Deutsche Post, it’s even possible to get a few pages of your “autobiography” as good old book.
btw: I can’t wait to read an interesting blogentry by someone else about “Postmoderism” or “Semiotics”. In 200 words are hardly enough for an intro and one idea.
References:
Bignell, J. (200) Postmodern: Media Culture, Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press Ltd.
Hart, W. (2011) Mind, Self and Facebook: Toward a Postmodern Sociology available at: http://tamu.academia.edu/WallyHart/Papers/448473/Mind_Self_and_Facebook_Toward_a_Postmodern_Sociology
Further recommendations:
Book: The virtual self: A contemporary sociology (Ben Agger)
Random Youtube User: Some not directly related thoughts (but somehow funny and interesting) on Facebook, and the internet changing from a source of information to being “us”: http://youtu.be/cPbwRYg7OaI
MAN/UEL 
Posted on 2011/03/10
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