I am certainly going to argue that it is.

Fred Dervin and Yasmine Abbas are editing a book entitled “New technologies of the self, mobilities and (co-)constructions of identities.” Here is a snip of the synopsis:

The new interpersonal spaces created by web 2.0 and 3.0 technologies seem to correspond to the technologies of the self that Michel Foucault (1988) has addressed in his lectures at the Collège de France at the beginning of the 1980s. These new technologies enable the individual’s self to emerge publicly and to be worked upon with its “disciples”… With high speed Internet access and increasingly generous capacities of storage… the opportunities for staging the self have become unlimited.

An email in my inbox was sent from Fred Dervin today to let me know that Yasmine had posted the list of chapter authors on her blog. Not to hold you in suspense, I am on the list. My work on craigslist Missed Connections will join what now looks like a fascinating group of authors and topics (read about the book and topics here).

(more…)

Next week I will be presenting at quickanddirty IV, part of a the larger D.C. Queer Studies Symposium. The two-day symposium is on April 17th and 18th at the University of Maryland, and its FREE!

I am presenting craigslist and anonymous online behavior research as part of a session entitled Regulation, Surveillance, and Queer Challenges to the State (obviously composing the ‘regulation’ portion). But don’t come for me – The symposium is bringing in academics including Siobhan Somerville, Roderick Ferguson, and their inevitable groupies.

Ramzi Fawaz and Ben Richfield, two DC-based colleagues of mine, will also be presenting work. Congrats to you both.

The rest of you – go learn something! (Find out more at The D.C. Queer Studies Symposium website.)

UPDATE: DC Queer Studies blog posted an entry with more details. Read it here!

UPDATE #2: The New Gay is now running a promo for the symposium. Read that one here.

Metropolitan cities are the perfect breeding ground for misfired romantic connections, and those posting ads in an attempt to expedite the back-fire. Something about the size and anonymity of cities like NYC and DC makes craigslist important, where in places like Salt Lake City it somehow just seems sad.

One DC community, however, is not teaming with as much digitally captured sexual frustration as some might like. The New Gay has issued a call to action for all DC lesbians:

We all know this: the w4w ads on Craigslist suck… I know we can do better. For the next week I challenge All DC-Area Lesbians to place a regular or Missed Connection ad on Craigslist that does not suck. One that you yourself could imagine responding to. Do it. And report back.

Granted, I have forwarded this to all of my w4w applicable friends, but I am curious if this will really work. (more…)

Apparently HappyCat and I CAN HAS CHEEZBURGER have combined forces and entered new mediums.

Announcing the I Can Has Cheezburger? LOLcat Colleckshun!

To be released in time for Xmas, this seems like the perfect gift to further confuse my parents about my higher education track.

For everyone who has ever asked “Do craigslist missed connections actually work?” this video is for you.

The theorist in me has to point out that a missed connections attempts to reconstruct an interaction so that the other-half of the would-be connection will respond (think ‘intertextuality’ and ‘Kriteva’).

Or in other words, “Yeah, the odds are pretty low.”

So why not use YouTube to help you reconstruct the scene via video? (It might even go viral!)

But really, what is up with the pillow fight?

(via craiglist blog)

gnovis ran an article of mine today about a keynote delivered by THINKFilm’s Mark Urman at the URI conference last week, and the impact of digital distribution and net-neutrality on culture. You should all go and read it!

How is Urman shaping independent film? Well, I will leave that for my article on gnovis, but I will share a funny bit that I couldn’t quite fit in.

When URI’s Dr. John Leo was introducing Mark Urman to the stage, he stopped for a moment to ponder the name THINKFilm.

“Is that an acronym?”, he seemed to ask no one it particular.

Urman answered from his seat in the audience: “It’s a command!”

Go read the rest!