Reading Response #10

1. Context collapse is an endless amount of contexts that fall onto one another in the span of moments in recording. Anything captured by a camera can be sent anywhere in the world and preserved for all time, something Michael Welsh refers to as “a black hole sucking all of time and space – virtually all possible contexts – in on itself” (Welsh 23). This is extremely prevalent in YouTube’s world of vlogging, where users create video messages directed at no one in particular; the videos encompass an audience possibly as wide as the internet itself or as narrow as a family circle. According to Welsh, vlogging leads to a lack of ability of the individual to understand context and situation. The unlimited amount of contexts that now run through a vlogger’s imagination when creating these videos aimed at anyone and everyone leave behind many separate parts and as a result, make for an extremely cluttered and nonspecific subconscious contextually.

2. Based upon the video reading responses and blog posts I’ve created for this class, I believe that I am most definitely participating in forms of community and self-expression. For me, community is not defined by literal physical contact, but rather any form of mental and possibly emotional connection and contact. If you like a persons status on Facebook, it is akin to nodding your head and smiling in agreement to a statement made in a conversation. The experience of community in new technologies may feel very different and likely effects us all very differently than if it all took place in person, but that does not make it any less a community. Likewise, my definitely of self-expression is even looser. Any form of creative output by a human being is self-expression to me, as what one creates comes from somewhere within the self and expresses something, whether it be intentional or not. Therefore, all of this vlogging and blogging falls very much under the categories of community and self-expression because it is being sent out to and experienced by others as something created from one’s inner self.