Virtual CommunityA virtual community is a community of people sharing common interests, ideas, and feelings over the Internet or other collaborative networks.The term virtual community is attributed to the book of the same title by Howard Rheingold published in 1993.
The first online community:
The first example, known as The WELL, began with a meeting between Brilliant and Stewart Brand, then editor of the Whole Earth Catalog, an early green-living manual.
Online communities
Community -- from a sociological perspective we can not see a whole community, we can not touch it, we can not directly experience it, a community may come in one of many shapes, sizes, colours, and locations. a community is not people who are in it. a community usually was already existing when all of its current resident were not yet born, and it will likely continue to exist when all of the people in it have left. It is something that beyond its component, its members and its residents. a community in some senses may not have a physical location, but be demarcated by a group of people with a common interest. http://www.scn.org/cmp/whatcom.htm
This event was happened after the Iran’s tenth presidential election 12 June 2009, there are 30,000 to 40,000 people were gathering in Iran city center to protest the election. When the protestation broke out, huge amounts of video picture and text which relate to unsatisfied with the results of election were continuously sprung up online. Citizen takes advantage of the online social networks, like twitter facebook to convey the messages. The government attempted to block network access, and the protesters fought back in kind, crashing government Web sites. It was reported that online sites and blogs were used as the vital tool for this political campaign.
Twitter Facebook and Flicker Outside of the country, ordinary people are connection via Twitter, show the support and aid the revolution, setting up proxy IPs and trying to confuse Iranian security services. Facebook, too, provides information, the fan page for "Tehran Bureau," an independent news source, posts regular update and commentary, and allows others to post thoughts and commentary.Flicker has in the past served as an up-to-the-minute repository for the breaking news images taken by amateur photographers.
Culture, what is it? Given a clear complete definition is always a difficult question. Nearly 200 different definitions exist in academic area so far. The culture itself is an interesting and diverse topic.
EB Taylor an anthropologist from England once mentioned in his book: “culture or civilization which is multiple integrality, include acknowledge, religion, Art, virtue, Law, country convention, and as member of part of the society who hold an ability of learning other things and his behavior to act.” Clyde Kluckhohn, another anthropologist from America said from his book: “people get culture by learning; culture has structure; culture is divided by different aspect; culture is dynamic; culture is changeable and has its own regularity; culture is tool for individual to adapt the environment, is a way to express their creativity.”
For me, I think culture can be distinguished from the what food we eat, what kind of clothes we dress, communication of the language, the TV program we watch in the leisure time, the online instant chat tool we use (MSN, QQ etc.)
Culture defines people identity which makes them unique and different from people of other cultures. Culture is something we learn from our family, college, and society. Culture is so important because culture is a part of us, and tell others "who we are".
Internet suicide in Japan
Today I am going to talk about the internet suicide in japan, this moral panic beginning with the appearance of online suicide chartroom in japan, a group called ”NEET” is the group of people who chat online and plan to suicide together.
This case first happened in November 22, 2004, Tokyo - Six people have died of carbon monoxide poisoning by burning charcoal stoves in their cars, in the latest of the growing number of suicide pacts in Japan, police said on Monday. Three people -- a 21-year-old university student, a 25-year-old man and a 20-year-old woman with a part-time job -- were found dead in a car in the southern city of Fukuoka on Sunday, police said. The suicide pact was suspected to have been arranged over the Internet as the three came from different parts of Japan.
One month later, Police found seven young people dead in a deserted van outside Tokyo in what was believed to be Japan's biggest-ever group suicide, while also finding two women dead in an apparent suicide pact in a car at a temple. The cases -- involving young people in their teens and 20s -- raised alarm over suicide agreements, many of which are made by people who meet over the Internet.
After these group suicide happened, amount of messages were shown on the online suicide chartroom, the words like “people who want to kill themselves use charcoal stoves and pills, let’s go together” “I can’t do it by myself, I need partner!!!” The procedure of make suicide appointment was very easy. Two people get know the address from each other, one person said:”that’s not a joke, we will commit suicide together.” Then another said:”so when you suppose to do, I am serious.” then they will accompany to carry out their plan.
In the present Japanese society, the incidents causes by the net suicide still continuous happen. The event has been reported through various media, all the newspaper, TV program, radio etc.
The major of research worker from government said:”Japans weak economic growth and a high rate of unemployment can be attributed as the primary reasons behind it.”
'Catfish,' the controversial what-exactly-is-this film by New York documentary filmmakers Ariel and Nev Schulman and Henry Joost, has captured the movie world's attention. Ariel Schulman and Joost follow Ariel's brother Nev as he develops an unusual relationship with someone online. An eight-year-old named Abby sends Nev a painting of one of his dance photographs that appeared in the New York Times. It's followed by more, and soon Nev and Abby are in regular touch on the phone and online.
Abby claims that she lives in Michigan with her mother, Angela, and a teenage sister, Megan; as Megan and Nev soon develop an intense online romance, he insists that they meet in person. But the family repeatedly turns down opportunities to meet Nev, so he and the boys secretly head to Michigan, armed with cameras, to find them. What they found there would shake them to the core.
The story is so outlandish that doubts have been cast on the film's authenticity. Moviefone caught up with the Schulmans and Joost to find out exactly what the story is with 'Catfish.'
-------------------
Real or Fake?
I am putting a strict warning here, if you read anything below this it will spoil the movie for you. There is no way around that, so my advice…go see the movie then come back here to read this
verything is on camera. As a documentary film maker myself, the perils of getting everything on camera will drive you insane. In CATFISH, absolutely anything that holds any weight in the movie is on camera somehow. So for running a production company and making another film as the same time as CATFISH they still had time to film Nev almost completely non stop and at all the perfect moments. So this is either extremely lucky, or really staged.
The timing of when they actually started filming is a little weird to me as well. At what point would any filmmaker say “oh you know what, my brother got some paintings of his portraits from an 8 year old, that are mediocre at best, perhaps we should start documenting this”? There doesn’t seem to be any real reason why they would just start filming him non stop. They claim it’s because he is very cinematic and they always film him, but at the beginning of the film he states that he doesn’t want to be filmed, he doesn’t want to be the center of this documentary.
Their Blog: When I was reading up on their production company’s blog, I went through every entry back to the beginning of the site. In the film they start learning of the lies from Megan and Angela while they are in Vail Colorado shooting video for the Vail International Dance Festival. While on the plane they meet a young girl:
and give us this description of her:
That sounds remarkably similar to the Megan, the girl that Nev falls in love with in CATFISH. She is a model who has recently purchased a horse farm from a small town. Coincidence?
They also document every trip they take on this blog, as well as production on their films. However there is absolutely no mention of ever going to Michigan in the August or September blog posts. In fact there is never a mention about even shooting scenes for the film that eventually becomes CATFISH. There is a gigantic gap in posts from the middle of August to the middle of September.
Photo of Megan and Vince: After seeing the movie we know that Angela, the mother of Abby, was the culprit behind all of it. She used photos from someone she found online and posted them to a fake facebook account for Megan. The photos we see of Megan and her Dad Vince didn’t actually go online until March 28th 2008. In the film we see the photos at the beginning of the film, which is supposed to be late 2007.
Also, who in their right mind would actually believe the guy next to her was her Dad?! That is insanity that these guys could honestly be so easily duped.
Link to the mp3 of the song downhill: In the movie, after they are in Vail which we know we at the beginning of August, Nev is having a chat with Megan. In the chat she sends him a link to an mp3 of a song she supposedly recorded. I found the chat transcript on the CATFISH website:
So I decided to check out Charte.net and as of February 2008 it has been nothing but a landing page. See below:
So it is obvious that this chat transcript is completely fake. In the film this would have taken place in August/September of 2008.
The Plot: The story seems to follow the big plot twist of MY KID COULD PAINT THAT, where the dad faces accusations that he is painting the portraits for his daughter. In CATFISH, Angela, the mother, is actually painting the photos for Abby.
Angela: After Nev confronts Angela with the truth, she does nothing more than put her head down. She never freaks out. She never asks them to stop filming. Instead she accepts that she is caught in a HUGE lie, on camera that could completely ruin her marriage and everything she has, and continues to let them film without any questions asked? This is insanity to me! Her husband had absolutely no idea what was going on behind the scenes, its almost as if she wants her marriage to end and her husband to find out she is insane…or its fake.
Abby; The original subject of the “Documentary”: At the beginning of the film Nev tells us that Abby is the focus of the documentary, most likely because she is 8, and her mom is telling them that she is a local celebrity and all of her paintings are being sold around town. So they decide, at some point, that they should focus in on Abby and her paintings of Nev’s photographs.
So, a professional production team at no point goes to google in order to do some research on the new subject of their documentary? They seem pretty tech savvy with their iPhones and mini HD cameras. Why wouldn’t they try and get just a little bit of information just for the overall success of what they set out to shoot?
“The only thing we re-created were the close-ups on the computer screen“: This is the part of their explanation for the film that is super vague. What exactly are they considering “close-ups”? Is it only the parts where you only see the pages up close? Is it the scenes where you see mostly the computer and a little bit of Nev? And what exactly do they mean by re-created? At the end of the film they tell us that Angela deleted all of the profiles. Did they go back in and recreate all of the profiles? Did they use the same photos from before? At this point had they asked permission from the real “Megan” to use all of her photos in the film?
The real Megan: The girl that we know as Megan in the movie, is actually not named Megan at all. Her name is Aimee Gonzales (which we find out about in the movie). She is a model and photographer. Reading through her wall posts, it seems as though she frequently photographs dancers, just as Nev does, and is currently in New York as I type this. It seems that its a bit too much of a coincidence that they are both photographers, both shoot dancers and she is also doing it in the same city that Nev typically does his in. How is it that they haven’t run across each others path? Unlikely.
All of the above information doesn’t prove that the film is entirely fake. What it does prove is that much of the film has been recreated, and its possible that they did it in such a way to create a story where there might not have been one to begin with.
Cosplay is a youth subculture originating in Japan.
The main feature of cosplay is that participants enjoy dressing up as their favorite characters from anime, comic books, and video games. It has developed to include, particularly when adopted in the west, people dressing up as characters from popular non-Asian fantasy and science fiction movies and games, such as Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, Doctor Who and World of Warcraft.
As a fashion concept, cosplay has also been seen to extend towards a style of dressing up not only as established, famous characters, but as characters that the enthusiast has developed themselves. This is often a crossover into the Japanese Lolita style of dress, where girls wear a distinctive, cute style. This allows girls who like the look but do not want to fully adopt the Lolita style as street dress to enjoy the less serious "Cosplay Lolita" style at cosplay events and venues.
Cosplay are different from Mardi Gras, Halloween and other holidays dressed, not only in time of these independent holiday but its purpose. The mission of the cosplay is his interpretation: an attempt, a character like an actor in a role. Cosplayers can buy or most often, the creation of costumes by their own work. Cosplayers often trained in the production of specialties such as sculpture, face painting, glass, fashion design and such things in an attempt to “look and feel to make a costume with precision. Props are a fun part of the cosplay, because people really crazy with them.
Once in costume, cosplayer presents the gestures and body language of the characters that they represent. cosplayer often to collect the other costumes, show their own creations, tips, pictures, and participate in contests. Fans to make the images, instead of posing in Cosplay costumes are like kamekozo known, or “Children of the camera and support amateur free Cosplay idol and image advertising.
In contrast is known as Reiyaas dedicated or hardcore cosplayer. There is an element of ritual Cosplay users move in a different mood. The use of costumes is no rebellion or fame seeking, but a ready-made social group for groups of people with similar interests. It is an aspect of traditional Japanese culture that is reflected in the cosplay culture. Many think Cosplayers Cosplay is an expansion of world culture.
The steep rise in the number of people to collect points Cosplay since 1990, this phenomenon is an important part of popular culture. This is particularly true in Asia where Japan’s cosplay culture and street fashion has influenced. Companies are always looking for Cosplayers interest in clothes, accessories, and collectibles fair.
what is moral panic?
A moral panic refers to the reaction of a group of people based on the false belief that another sub-culture or a group poses danger to the society. They perceive that group as being a major threat to their social values and culture. Since these panics often cause social tensions, they are not open for discussion in public.
The major impetus for these panics is provided by the media. Moral panic is often expressed as anger than fear. These panics generally have a variety of outcomes. Moral panics are only semi-spontaneous. The term moral panic is coined by Stanley Cohen in 1972 for describing media coverage of Mods and Rockers in UK in 1960s.
The most common themes in moral panics are the influences and behaviors of young people. The term moral panic is of recent one. But many social scientists are of view that the in-depth study of this phenomenon is conducted in 1925 itself.
Rainbow Parties
We Heard About It From:
The Queen of Believing Anything, Oprah Winfrey. The "Threat:"
"Rainbow Party." Doesn't sound too bad, right? It could be a coloring party for kids, or a house decorating get-together. Maybe some kind of friendly gay pride thing.
But no, according to a guest featured on the Oprah Winfrey Show, rainbow parties were wild, oral sex parties that were being held by teenagers all over America. At these orgies, each girl would wear a different shade of lipstick and as they each serviced a lucky guy in sequence, it'd leave a "rainbow" of colors on his dong.
The story was so widely believed that sex educators across the country started to investigate. Simon & Schuster quickly published a young adult novel imaginatively entitled Rainbow Party to warn of the non-existent danger. Don't bother reading it. We flipped right to the end and the party never happens. Turns out the girl's dad comes home early, so the party gets canceled. Fucking douche!
It didn't matter, the damage was done. Once the teen literature industry dips its filthy beak into something, the moral panic is on.
But alas, as awesome as these parties sound, they turned out to be absolutely, tragically, untrue. According to that wicked cool newspaper for kids, The New York Times, sex educators couldn't find any evidence of even one rainbow party having taken place, ever.
Teens were aware of the slang, but no one had ever been to an actual Rainbow Party. And that's remarkable because it just sounds so totally plausible, and not like something a 15-year-old boy thought up during a masturbation fantasy. Relieved, the busybodies of the world went back to worrying about their neighbor's uncut grass.
60s Mod Fashions and the music that goes with them!
The classic Sixties "mod" scene is usually considered a cultural phenomenon, not a musical one, but the original genre did have certain parameters, although it's easier to determine what Mod music was by looking at what it wasn't. First, unlike Merseybeat, which was influenced by skiffle and '50s rock, or the second wave of British Invasion bands focused on traditional American blues (The Animals, The Rolling Stones), Mod was the first true English R&B phenomenon.
The most crucial Mod fixation was on what came to be known as "Tamla/Motown" (the label Motown singles were released on in the UK). The mods, generally more middle-class folk who dressed in a collegiate style and preferred the new R&B to traditional rock, clashed openly in the streets of London with the more working-class "rockers" who wore leather jackets and clung to the obsolete sounds of rockabilly; the war between the two in 1964 was the American public's first introduction to the trend.
The typical Mod song fused the harder, earlier Motown R&B sound with traditional British pop virtues; as a result, the songs were slick, uptempo, yet soulful, featuring hard guitars and drums but also pop harmonies and, typically, sporting a cynical attitude about romance. As the phenomenon died around 1966, the "hard mods" gravitated toward the British garage-psychedelia that would come to be known as Freakbeat; the poppier mods (that is, those who hadn't had the vision to break free from the fad, like the Kinks, Small Faces and the Who) went full hippie, and the fixation with American R&B turned insetad to Jamaican ska and bluebeat. As with so many UK movements, this one came back around -- first in the punk movement, spawning bands like the Jam, and then more recently, complete with a revival of '60s mod clothing and the mod's favorite form of transport, Vespa and Lambretta scooters!
Early 60s
In the first half of the 60s, for women's fashion, the look of the late fifties remained. It was all about the glamour of American movies. By 1963, when this photograph, right, was taken, the wide skirts of the 50s had disappeared, but the look was still formal. The two girls in this picture look very grown up. The look was adult and glamorous, there was no real attempt to look that different from the older generation. This style can be seen in films such as 'Saturday Night and Sunday Morning' (1960).
The young man in this picture is in Mod gear: a smart suit with narrow lapels and tapered trousers, a slim tie and winklepickers. Fashion was very regional in the 60s. Styles adopted in the Capital took some time to reach the whole country. In the film 'Kes' (1969), about Billy, a boy growing up in Barnsley in Yorkshire, his older brother, Jud, still wears this style, right down to the winklepickers. In the early sixties, in some towns, the Teddy Boy style was still in vogue, whereas in London the Mod movement was beginning.
The photograph, above, from 1962, shows a selection of more casual styles. They range from a sports jacket and tie complete with hat for the man on the left, to open necks for the two in the middle. The hat was on its way out in the sixties and was mainly worn by older men.
Slim fitting trousers were also popular casual wear for women in the early sixties. This shot, right, is also from 1962.
For most men over thirty the smart suit remained the only way to dress for going out. Many went to tailors, such as Burton or John Collier to be fitted out at least one a year. Burton's suits were good value for money and lasted reasonably well.
See also 60s mens suit
Mid 60s fashion
By the middle of the decade little had changed in women's fashion. The Chanel suit, left, a hangover from the 50s was still very popular in the 60s. Hemlines might have been slightly higher. The bouffant hairdo (as worn right) dated from the middle years of the sixties. It needed a considerable amount of back combing and hair lacquer.
The smart suit and fairly formal look remained popular, certainly for women over thirty.
Hair styles
Below are some more popular hairstyles from the 60s. The flip was a classic 60s look that remained 'in' for most of the decade. The beehive was popular in the early to mid 60s; this girl has a typical 'Audrey Hepburn look'. The pixie was a short hairstyle, which was popular in the mid 60s, before long hair came back in the hippy era.
The Mod style
The Mods of the early sixties took the suit to new levels of style. The tapered trousers and thin lapels of the Italian style, became a new youth cult in the early to mid sixties. To this look they added striped blazers, Fred Perry shirts and the Mod scooter, a Lambretta if possible.
Carnaby Street was their fashion centre. John Stephen had several shops there. His male boutiques became the equivalent of Mary Quant's Bazaar.
In the mid 60s, the London Mods congregated inCarnaby Street for a regular fashion parade. Pop music poured from the boutiques and men's shops along the small, narrow street. By the mid 60s, boutiques catering for girls as well as boys were common on Carnaby Street; the Mods usually brought their girlfriends along with them. Shops on Carnaby Street often came and went. Shops that were on Carnaby Street in the 60s included:
The Teddyboy emerged in the 1950s as Britain was coming to the end of post-war austerity and represented the first face of British youth culture. The consumer boom of the 1950s America did not reach Britain until the 1960s but nevertheless working class teenagers could for the first time afford good clothes, a bicycle or motorcycle and entertainment. The clothing that the Teddyboys wore was designed to shock their parents' generation. It consisted of an Edwardian style drape jacket, much too 'camp' for a working class man, suede Gibson shoes with thick crepe soles, narrow 'drainpipe' trousers, a smart shirt and a loud tie - usually of the 'Slim Jim' or bootlace type. The trademark drape jacket was not as impractical as it seems. Not only did it act as a badge of recognition but, as it was made of woollen cloth with lots of pockets, its kept it's owner warm as he hung around in the street and was also good at concealing weapons and alcohol. The Teddygirls adopted American fashions such as toreador pants and circle skirts, although they tended to wear low cut tops to make themselves look less prissy. Girls wore ponytails and the boys tried a number of experimental hairstyles, the most favourite being the overblown quiff with a DA (ducks arse) at the back.
The Teds fully embraced the American Rock and Roll music that hit Britain and the British bands that adopted the same style. The Teds were, however, shadowy figures at the dancehalls, lurking around the bars, bopping around and drinking. They formed gangs who sometimes had a common uniform like a particular colour of jacket or socks. For the most part, violence and vandalism was not too serious by modern standards, and exaggerated by the media, but there were instances of serious gang warfare with razors and knives. Some Teddyboys had fascist tendencies and were involved with gangs of youths that attacked the West Indians that emigrated to Britain in the mid Fifties. This racism was the most unfortunate of the Teddyboy's tendencies and it closed off much American Rock and Roll to them. This was their loss as a lot of white covers of Afro-American songs were very poor by comparison with the originals.
American influence on European teenagers was huge. Rock and Roll idols including Elvis Presley, Bill Hayley, Jerry Lee Lewis and film stars James Dean and Marlon Brando set fashions almost unwittingly. The main looks for teenagers were greasers and preppies.
Greasers followed the standard black leather and denim jeans look set by Marlon Brando in "The Wild One" (1953) and later emulated in the 1978 film called "Grease". They raced about town on motorbikes and were consider outrageous.
Preppie qualities were neatness, tidiness and grooming. Teen girls wore full dirndl or circular skirts with large appliqués on their clothing. Neat pleated skirts were also popular. The pleated skirts were made from a then new fabric called TERYLENE (polyester) which helped maintain razor sharp sunray pleating.
The skirts were supported by bouffant paper nylon or net petticoats. On top, teens wore scoop neck blouses, back to front cardigans, tight polo necks or three quarter sleeve white fitting shirts often with a scarf knotted cowboy fashion at the side neck. These teen clothing fashions that originated in America, filtered to Britain in watered down fashion.
Traditionally Teddy Boys or Neo-Edwardians sported the "Drape" a long knee length, single breasted wool jacket with narrow contrasting lapels and cuffs either of velvet or satin and plenty of pockets. They wore contrast or matching narrow drainpipe trousers, brocade waistcoats, stiff shirts and shoestring ties or bootlace slim Jim ties topped off with suede shoes. Teds also wore crepe soled shoes which helped with the dance movements of jiving.
Teddy Boy clothes were not cheap to buy and when custom tailored, usually cost up to £100 for one outfit. An ordinary mass produced drape suit cost approximately £20 and shoes £3. So sporting a new suit indicated to peers how well an individual was doing money wise. At this time a Teddy Boy would have earned between £5 and £12 a week.
A site visitor has written to tell me some fifties facts - The 'Crape' sole shoes originated during the second world war and looked nothing like the Brothel Creepers seen in the 50's, George Cox the company who first made the Brothel Creeper is still in business and making the Creeper.
The boys slicked back their hair with Brilliantine into a wavy Quiff style with long sideburns and because of the way the hair was finished to the back of the head, the style was brushed back to meet in the middle with the finishing touch of a comb run down the centre back ,thus giving the look of a DA (ducks arse). The most common Hair cut was called a Tony Curtis taken from the way he wore his hair.
Lots of Teddy Boys had Bikes in the fifties, the rocker style was born from the Teds who wore Drapes at weekends but leathers on the bike, by the early 60's Rockers were a major style. A trip to the Ace Cafe in London is well worth a visit to learn about Rockers. (Thanks to Chris for input on these few paragraphs).
The fashion for Teddy Boy clothes spread across the world, even to the USSR. In the USA teen fashion fads were paralleled by youths who wore leather jackets instead of a drape, sometimes leather trousers, but often jeans, all accessorized with a shiny motorbike. The film West Side Story captures this era perfectly as does the later retrospective film Grease.
These skirt pattern images are courtesy of anothertimevintageapparel and are typical of the full skirts worn by teddy girls for rock n'roll or jiving.
The pony tailed girlfriends of Teds wore eye make up and took every fashion to excess. Their favourite outfit was a close fitted black sweater and calf length skirt, or toreador pants or circle skirts with low cut tops all perfect to display the body when dancing.
By 1956 the Teddy Boy movement was on the wane in the UK and by 1958 was fading rapidly as teenagers fixed on new fashions influenced by American pop and cinema culture and a nod to the Italians.
