Com 125 Assignment #7: Community

Personally, I would define the term 'community' as a group of people who share a common attribute. This could involve ethnicity, location, interests, etc. Since the internet was originally developed to connect people who were far from each other, the concept of a virtual community was inevitable. Today, there are countless ways to be apart of one of these online communities. Personally, I am actively involved in a few of these communities including Facebook, Myspace, and assorted message boards. The one that I find most interesting, however, is Myspace.

I used to constantly update my personal Myspace page with pictures, comments, moods, blah, blah, blah. Now, I really only use the website to promote my band on our music page. I believe that the Myspace Music is one of the best things to happen to unknown bands in a long time, but that's a different story. I think there is a big distinction between a music Myspace and a personal Myspace. Based on content of the page alone, while personal pages are attempting to sell the attributes of the creator, band pages are focused on spreading creativity and the message of the music. I know that sounds a bit cliche, but think about it. Personally, I would much more readily accept a stranger's friend request on my music page than my personal page.

Myspace seemed to start out as a place for friends. Thats even their motto. Which brings up the million dollar question...what makes a friend a friend? I could click a button, and a complete stranger could be, according to Myspace, just as much as a friend as some kid I grew up with. This turns out to be a difficult question to answer. Danah Boyd writes that, "a friend is a relationship that involves some degree of mutual love or admiration (Boyd 2006)." I don't have mutual love or admiration for SeXiGuRl45...but I do appreciate the fact that she digs my band. People all over these social network sites have tousands of these 'friends'. But that's not what they are at all. In a few cases, maybe...there may also be a bunch of people that you have met once at a party or something. These people with the ungodly amount of people that they consider their friends are lying to themselves and are probably not that interesting or as awesome as they think they are. Tila Tequila has over a million friends (Boyd 2006). Case and point.

So is there any sort of relationships or actual friendships that can be derived from these crazy social network sites? I would say yes. In spite of all of the bad press and their many flaws, I would conclude that there is some meaningful relationships that can be etched from these websites. Wellman and Gulia write,

"If the Net were solely a means of information exchange, then virtual communities played out over the Net would mostly contain only narrow, specialized relationships. However, information is only one of the many social resources exchanged on the Net. Many Net members get help in electronic support groups for social, pysical, and mental problems along with information about treatments, practitioners, and other resources (Wellman, Gulia 1997)."

As much as people are beginning to love to hate these websites, they do provide some good. Relationships are created and the people involved ultimately benefit. Myspace and Facebook are prime examples of online communities because they bind people from all over the world who share common interests. I believe that this connection, and the ease at which it can be obtained, is very important in today's world that is so divided.


Souorces:

1) Boyd, Danah. Friends, friendsters, and top 8: Writing community into being on social network sites. First Monday, volume 11, number 12 (December 2006), URL: http://firstmonday.org/issues/issue11_12/boyd/index.html

2) Wellman, Barry and Gulia, Melina. Net Surfers Don't Ride Alone: Virtual Communities as Communities. August 1997. http://www.chass.utoronto.ca/~wellman/publications/netsurfers/netsurfers.pdf.