The End is Nigh

What seems to be the end of the multimedia module with my group NAFA cannot be all true. The thoughts of NAFA will be an ongoing global talk. What we have discussed, within our wiki, will echo and echo with, what I hope, deeper analysis and a wider audience. As what are we today, if we not question the new, rebuilt and updated social difference that the internet has provided us with?


Within my group, my role was to study the advantages of citizen journalism. I interviewed online journalist, Abeer Mishkhas, and provided an analysis of her views on citizen journalism. Initially, I was overwhelmed and felt personally archaic because of the advantages that I had discovered the internet could provide me with. Ok, so I always knew that one could blog, be an online journalist, buy things online like art and books, take educational courses, network and potentially promote themselves online. All these advantages had been placed infront of me for years. Why did I not take advantage of them? I didn’t even hold a facebook account before the module. Once I was obligated to use the different virtual communities available to me I was in some sort of state of ease. Somehow I felt that something had been resolved in me. It was simply, I later realised, that time was clicking. Many things that I wanted to achieve were at the tips of my fingers and it was acceptable for them to be so virtually near and geographically far.

At the beginning of the module, I was unfamiliar with the technical side of multimedia. In truth I did not master it, nor did any of my class mates but to learn another language, another world, with its own numbered mentality was very interesting. I was introduced to the language of HTML which in short, was the beginning of a new experience. I was able to set up a basic website which I wish to develop in the future. The group wiki website had most of what the NAFA group had learned during the module. The colours were pleasing to the eye and they continued to repeat themselves to create a pattern. This made the wiki look professional, organised and user friendly. My own wiki page could have looked better but the wiki program didn’t provide all the technical advantages that other programs may have. For instance, the image used on my wiki page is of different planets. I initially chose this image because I wanted have a hyperlink to the different areas of the module, e.g. my blog, the group blogs and the NAFA wiki page.
I guess in a way, as we were at such a beginner’s level, it was much simpler to use a more basic program.
I was also disappointed with the templates my blog was offered. I changed the colours and outline of my blog several times but in truth, I’m still not particularly happy with its outline. I think I shall change this soon again. One member of my group created her own using Photoshop but, at this moment, I unfortunately only know how to use Photoshop to edit my photographs.

I was initially very excited about blogging. I always considered blogging but never thought I had a reason. The module gave me a reason to blog. More importantly, it made me realise that I should always have a reason. I should always question my life, goals and expectations of the world around me.
The fact that, through blogging, my thoughts were made public gave me a stronger will to write with an aim. Perhaps not so much with a solution, as it is not always easily reached, but with a question. As I have a somewhat interest in writing, I realised that blogging was an education, a formless education with boundaries, if any, that I could dictate. I had the freedom to not be filtered or regulated in any sense and by anyone. So here it was, I became an addict to writing and could never master summarization. Then I remembered that I didn’t have time to summarize; it was easier to write and write and much more complex for me to declare a premature full stop.
Overall I’m pleased with my blog, but in truth, I had, at many times, wished to have more free time to write other blogs. Perhaps now that that my new found hobby is like water on a humid day, I shall push myself to find reasons, personal reasons that will benefit me in my life.
Having never visited my home country Iraq, I have always found myself to be not fully developed. I always feel a certain distance between my country and the country I live in now. Perhaps when the beauty of kissing the dust of your grandparents’ street will not result in instant death, I shall be able to write a blog on Iraq. When, I don’t know. Yet even the waiting is worth writing about.

Overall I feel our group has worked exceptionally hard on our project. Our wiki page is quiet but elegant. Our content is relevant to what our initial aim was, to find the possible advantages in virtual communities. Of course the module was rather short, or perhaps it seemed so because I enjoyed it so much, but it would have been interesting to further our knowledge on the internet. I guess I can do this in my own time but it was great to be introduced to the internet in such a way as all our other modules are very academic. Ok, they are important and enjoyable but they are so closely knit to each other that it was refreshing to study something like the multimedia module.

Who Are Your Audience?

In an earlier post I decided to test the waters of the good and bad websites and I compared asos.com to simlyyours.co.uk. Lately I’ve been looking at a new lingerie website, knickerpicker.com. Knickerpicker is a lingerie website that has a very special twist to it. It has an online dressing room which consists of three fairly similar sized women (average sized women who’s actually sizes are not specified in writing) who can try on your selected lingerie items. There are also brands that one can choose from. Once a model and lingerie set has been selected you’re able to view the model wearing it from different angles, back, front and close up. Pretty normal hey? Well here’s the interesting part. Once the suitable model and lingerie has been chosen you can ask her to walk towards you, turn around and walk back as if she were standing right in front of you. It was definitely different but I started to think why do we need the models to be so real? Then I thought who is this ‘we’ I’m thinking of?

Ok, so first of all the most striking aspect of the website (second to the real women modelling) was that there were no actual sizes that you could choose from. I know my actual bra size so why was I presented with three models that could have a close resemblance of what my body looked like? It was then clear from my personal experience at working for two years at the Lingerie section in Harrods that this tactic was in aid of men. Working at Harrods, I would frequently come across male customers looking to buy their girlfriends and wives “the perfect lingerie set” and along with that they were frequently unsure of her actual size or whether it would actually suit her body. So they would describe her figure, skin colour and clothes taste in which I would therefore pick out a suitable lingerie set. They would usually get quite embarrassed talking about these topics as well which was always hilarious. So, it came to my senses that knickerpicker was a lot like visiting an actual store yet perhaps without the embarrassment that men may come to realise they have bought upon themselves. After all, knickerpicker didn’t sell any of the lingerie sets they modelled (you had to visit another website to purchase the goods) so the male customers could, after choosing the desired garments, go and ask their other half what their real size was. I guess in a way that was a very practical solution for them but I couldn’t help but find it offensive or perhaps I was just jealous. I found it offensive because it was simply unbelievable to assume that the female form had only three different forms and two colours to it. I was also particularly jealous that this site was not available for women as well. Perhaps not for underwear in particular but definitely for men’s ordinary clothes. I’m sure women have doubts when buying for their boyfriends/husbands too.

So with this aside my initial shock should be questioned. The not so virtual side of this virtual site, women modelling the garments. In the Dress section of the Asos website one could also view the models walking up and down and performing a kind of cat walk; which was very helpful. Yet the difference with Knickerpicker was that one had the power (a vital word in this context) to tell the models where to move; to walk up or down towards you or turn around at a close or far range, over and over again. So why do we need this? Why do we need them to be real to this extent? Co-founder Dan Gleeson of Knickerpicker said they started the site because they wanted to offer a “more rewarding shopping experience,” instead of a site “that more closely resembles a paper-based catalogue.” I thought a simple cat walk would do the trick but I guess that wasn’t enough. On the right hand side of the chosen model one was able to direct the models to the consumer’s desired position; clicking on turn around would make her turn around, move back or forth would in actual fact make her do this as if she were standing right in front of you. Here, the customer held a power never been so accessible to him before. A level of accessibility that can be seen as pornographic; like S ‘n’ M (Slave and Master). Now why is it at all necessary to add a sort of hidden yet obvious sexual fantasy to a lingerie site that didn’t present highly sexual items? From this freedom granted to the consumer, it seemed obvious that the models were the slaves and the consumer was the master, a master that was seeking sexual gratification from ordering around the slave which in most cases can be held to the male sex. I guess it’s not such an old fact that porn plays a big part in fashion but Knickerpicker was certainly taking it to the next step for us. If one were to argue, like Dan Gleeson, that it was “A more rewarding shopping experience”, perhaps rewarding enough like the privileges of attending a fashion show before buying, then it still didn’t make sense. I’ve certainly never seen a fashion show where one has the power to ask the models to walk up and down as many times as one wishes. The level of power that a customer holds with Knickerpicker is unarguably rewarding yet the obvious exploitation is somewhat worrying.

With all this aside I thought I was done. Not quite; I decided to test Knickerpicker out for myself as I regularly buy my underwear online because lingerie websites are less exhausting then trailing around central London for the right brand and size. At Knickerpicker I was stuck. It seemed that although it offered a reasonable number of brands (18 in total) it didn’t offer many that I would normally trust or know. I think I knew about 3 of the 18 brands yet if forced to I only preferred one; Calvin Klein. This bought me back to my experience at the Lingerie department in Harrods. Among the questions that I would ask my male customers was what brand they would prefer. Looking back it was probably a dim question as if they had little knowledge of their partner’s size then they would most likely not have an interest in all the lingerie brands available at Harrods. Anyway the answer was always along the lines of “I don’t mind. Whatever looks good really”. So there it was, or perhaps it might have been, a crucial reason why the brands at Knickerpicker were not that good in terms of popularity and quality. A man wouldn’t probably question a lingerie brand as much as he would prefer to look at how good the lingerie set looked aesthetically. Why should he? He wont be wearing the, with some brands, the uncomfortable wiring strapped under his breasts or be annoyed that the bra had been stretched in a matter of 3 weeks. It looks good so that what matters man thinks. Who could blame him if at 2008 websites such as Knickerpicker are created and aren’t educating men in women’s vital preferences in lingerie?

It was obvious to me that Knickerpicker’s audience were male and one could look at it in a positive way. An article in Daily News suggested that “It’s a website for a man that has been long overdue”. Its article was even titled “How virtual half-naked women can save your relationship”. One of the top female fashion magazines, Marie Claire, voted it their favorite lingerie website. Although one can not avoid certain positive aspects to the website for men it is still bothering me. I decided to Google it and found interesting results that backed up my feelings towards Knickerpicker. Youtube.com posted a somewhat comical video of knickerpicker.com yet the video posting was related to porn postings. Among the many one was titled ‘My maid! Hot’ and another ‘Student’s Webcam Striptease’. All the related videos, including the knickerpicker one were by male users. Among the comments left for the Knickerpicker video were some very pornographic ones. The Youtube poster of the Knickerpicker video commented on the video saying that “The Knickerpicker lingerie models need someone to take control”. As if these models were now actual people who lived their lives by taking orders from others and if they didn’t they perhaps could not survive.
Additional Google results led me to blog and forum discussions on the nature of Knickerpicker. An open discussion on viralblog.com about Knickerpicker had posted comments by 5 men, and none from women, declaring that it was a simple and fun way to buy underwear. One male comment stated that Knickerpicker was the “Best fashion site I’ve yet to see! Great use of technology in a fun and relevant way. The first in a new wave of fashion sites I would guess”. Perhaps he was right on some level, his personal level, yet every search result that I came across had little commentary from women and more from men. When women voiced their opinions they were very casual, saying that they liked the website, yet not going absolutely crazy about it. All the comments on viralblog.com overall stated that Knickerpicker was a good website for people to by stuff on. Therefore they declared that Knickerpicker, as a lingerie website, was not only for women but for men or even, perhaps from my findings and investigation, only for men.

Maybe I’m exaggerating and maybe I’m just not used to it yet. After all most new things in life are at first unaccepted or difficult to understand. Perhaps this is an extremely acceptable way for men to purchase goods. This may be a way of moving forward with technology and before we know it this would be the normal way to purchase clothes online. Lingerie brand Passionata will shortly be posting their Paris cat walks online later this year and if they find they are successful with this then they might too take on Knickerpicker’s tactics.

Ok discussions aside I decided to do some more testing to see whether the men in my university (University of Arts, London College of Communication) would consider using Knickerpicker to buy their wives and girlfriends lingerie.
It was an anonymous survey on 10 male students aged between 18 to 40. I realise that’s not exactly a large number but some men were really not bothered to test out the Knickerpicker and Asos websites in order to answer the questions. Anyway the results, as you will see, are quite interesting.


Here are the questions and results:

1) Would you use an online lingerie website?
Results: 5 out of 10 answered yes.

2) If you were using an online lingerie website would you look for brands when buying or would the overall look matter more?
Results: 9 out of ten chose ‘Overall matters more’.

3) How much would you rate asos.com overall out of 10? (10 being excellent and 1 being terrible).
Results: 8 out of 10 rated asos.com under 6.

4) How much would you rate the online dressing room on Knickerpicker.com overall out of 10? (10 being excellent and 1 being terrible).
Results: 7 out of ten rated the Dressing Room on Knickerpicker.com over 8.

Sources:

Daily News article on Knickerpicker:
http://www.nydailynews.com/lifestyle/2008/02/05/2008-02-05_how_virtual_halfnaked_women_can_save_you.html


Knickerpicker Video Posting on Youtube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MLjiNjcIK2c


A discussion on viralblog.com about Knickerpicker:
http://www.viralblog.com/2008/01/05/knickerpicker-the-viral-online-dressing-room/

The official Passionata website:
http://show.passionata.com/en/

The Dressing Room on the Knickerpicker website:
http://www.knickerpicker.com/dressing-room.asp

Taking Nigel’s Side

Our group has always been very optimistic about our direction. Therefore when we were told our direction was repetitive we didn’t take it lightly. Then again, we thought, there seems to be a vital point placed in front of us. Ok, so we initially wanted to explore the idea of the second life. All the imperfections of virtual communities, its isolation from the physical world, the Big Brother like monitoring and its theft and mix-match of identity that all resulted in what we may like to call today the ultimate consumer society, nothing is for real today, no matter what you think you’re selling. Was this second life a therapy for some to overcome their timid personalities where online they would be their ideal self in their funny version of a utopian world or was it an illness, further infecting us and the ones around us with the disease of pretending? It is a second life after all, presuming you have a first. Why you would choose to have a second life is beyond me, its hard enough dealing with the first one. Anyway what we realised, as a group, is that Nigel, our Multimedia lecturer, had a point. Wasn’t it tiresome to always look at the negative, to moan and moan and then perhaps end up excluding yourself from the upcoming, ever-changing, new and old within days, advanced and powerfully technological society that is, without hesitation, becoming our norm? “Yes” we said.. haha. What do we now do then? (I don’t particularly mean as women who may have nothing left to do if not moan) This isn’t a quote from Nigel but he might have well sung 'look on the brighter side of life'. So we trashed the second life as it made our heart race with anger and looked at what benefits come out of the internet. Now we’re looking at the virtual communities that deal with online schooling, promoting yourself and exactly what I’m doing here, blogging or in particular the more advanced blogging, citizen journalism.
In my opinion it’s a good move, if for just a simple reason that we’re one of the only groups that smile in lesson. Then again what is beautiful without pain? What I mean is that maybe, just maybe 100000 years from now our world will be at the tips of our fingers. I guess that would be normal then and people would always wonder how we were ever bothered to actually put on uniform and come into class, run around promoting ourselves and walk up to a group of strangers and present ourselves. Will technology take away the beauty of life? That’s what I thought if it were used excessively like it is going to be tomorrow but then again…beauty, happiness. What are the meanings of these words today to you and I? Today they may be having a drink with a friend, playing golf, watching the sunset, hearing laughter from a child and the smell of freshly baked bread. Tomorrow they will be something else and the day after they will be another. The word ‘happiness’ will change everyday therefore I could comfortably say, ‘I have a Facebook account and yes I know I’m being observed by different companies.’ Why? In reference to my blog post ‘I’m being used by this capitalist society!’, I ranted on about how I somehow feel used and abused to be observed to such a high degree. I’m still being observed but I can look at it in two ways. For instance, my Facebook profile lists all my preferred films and music genres and because I have made this public I’m frequently being offered tickets to see various exhibitions and music bands – to spend more money than I usually would prefer to, and lately because these advertisements are in reference to me I’m starting to regard them as some kind of friend or even ‘a’ friend; a friend who does the research on upcoming gigs for me. After all, Karl Marx did explain that the finishing point in the arts, music, film etc, cannot occur without its ‘last finish’ which is consumption. One may start to argue here that the arts is no longer an art but all about the ‘last finish’, nevertheless if we want/need more of the arts we have to consume it. We must acknowledge and accept that we (we as men, women and children of all classes and ethnicities) are patrons who are the driving force behind production, who are part of today’s production and an inspiration to tomorrow’s production. In all honesty, if by consuming I managed to be part of a ‘backstage inspiration’ to the next Salvador Dali then I’m in. By consuming these products I’m learning more about my preferred subjects/topics, similarly to the way Amazon.com send me emails almost titled ‘Thought you might like this pal’, Facebook is posting their collective ideas on my taste of music and literature.


Anyway realising I had a new friend (not particularly Facebook as a whole but perhaps its advertisements. If only we could do that in reality, befriend only a certain percentage of someone) I decided to take advantage of him (yes him, because I said so. No I’m kidding, because of Mark Zuckerberg’s sex) by adding the Visual Bookshelf application to my profile. I started off with around 70 books I had already read and only 2 months later have resulted with a total of 91 books already read and six I’d like to read. Only two months later I had made a decision that I always found so irritating to be clear on. What book to read next? The Visual Bookshelf application not only let me share with others what books I’d read but let others comment and suggest related books I may be interested in – So I went and bought them (I hate giving back a book I’ve read. Come to think of it that’s quite narcissistic of me). With the help of the advertisements and many other profile visitors I had read these books briskly (the image is somewhat hilarious I know – visualising the way superman read books) for the reason that they were interesting and also, more crucially, because I knew there was more. There were more books to read, books that I was being introduced to everyday (with an occasional £3.99 mug that read ‘Virginia Woolf and Sting rock!’).

Ok, so another way I could be looking at this would be by my initial reaction to Facebook’s generous offerings (angered by the somewhat forceful assumptions of my interests). If truth be told, although I have befriended the advertisements, like true friends we still have virtual arguments, a simple ‘I don’t think so’ is the usual comeback though. Yet we, as friends, have come to an agreement that everything has a limit. In advertising the extreme is the preferred, putting out the most (in quantity) so that they can grab your attention, yet as an individual (assuming that advertisements place me in categories and my personal morals create limitations to the assumed categories I’m placed in) I can learn, through the experience of consuming the product, what my limitations are so that I may not digress into extreme popular culture.
So there it is, my relationship with Facebook is (at this stage) at sound. A bit of me and a bit of them is what makes me happy.