I always thought of the internet as a somewhat timeless space, but reading "Reload" by... McPherson? Well, reading Tara's chapter for this week made me think more deeply about what constitutes that sensation of timelessness. While Tara discusses at greater length temporality as a function of/tied to mobility and spatiality on the web, the way the internet combines the functions of an archive and a crystal ball bringing the future to the present in "real time," really caught my attention. At a certain point I began wondering why the "History" tab did not come up as much as I thought it would, though maybe that's a function of the age I was introduced to the internet.
On the one hand, the history tab or search history are (or were? I guess I just never close my browser now...) essential to navigating the internet, as Tara describes constructing a sort of information geography. Even though I'll rarely use the history pull down bar these days, the last time I had to type a url in its entirety into the address bar I nearly collapsed from exhaustion. But that trail of footprints, the trace memory left in the browser then whipped up into useful shorthand has taken on significantly different meaning as I've grown into a new internet autonomy. Coming of age in the era of the "family computer" (do folks still have those or are we just giving kids iPhones now?) the history was my greatest source of anxiety, simultaneously mapping internet bypasses and hording incriminating evidence of my pre-pubescent curiosities. On the one interesting to think of this as a relationship to web-temporality that is specific to millennials on and something Tara would likely not have encountered being a grown woman who could google whatever she liked, thank you very much. On the other hand, it makes me wonder about the development of workarounds like incognito and VPNs and how creating space outside of a web geography might impact how we interact with/conceive of the web.
(And for folks keeping score at home, yes I in fact did manage to make this a little bit about porn for perhaps the last time in this class. It's been an honor.)
Supplemental Response #5..?
ReplyDeleteOk, but your comment about the family computer is super interesting--because it DOES influence our history and decisions. Tara's (/McPherson's?? whoa) article discussing the presence of media consumption is taken a step further because with historical records on public spaces, your "nows" are known. Weird stuff.
Also, good job bringing it all back to the core of media--porn. Way to uh.. finish strong..? I'm a child.