Against Everyone With Conner Habib · AEWCH 115: JOANNE MCNEIL or THE INNER EXPERIENCE OF THE INTERNET
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Friends,In my final episode (at least for now) in my mini-run of episodes on the challenges of tech, I thought I’d turn the lens a bit: What does tech feel like for us? What is the experience of it, particularly using the internet?
To answer this question in a deep and engaging way, I talk with author, cultural critic, and internet historian Joanne McNeil.
Joanne’s book, Lurking: How a Person Became a User, is unlike any book on the internet that you’ve ever read. Why? Because it’s not a book of praise or even condemnation of social media founders, or a journey through start-up-dom. Instead, it’s an exploration of what it’s like for us to be on the internet. What were and are the contours of our experiences on Myspace, Hotbot, Friendster, Google, writing and reading blogs, and (ugh) Facebook? What kind of people do we become engaging with these “spaces?” And perhaps most challengingly, what’s good about them?
(NOTE: Joanne and I had some sound challenges in the episode, so you’ll notice a few quality discrepancies, but nothing terrible. Just a heads up that you’ll get the glitches. mid-ep.)
ON THIS EPISODE
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Respecting the interactions on the internet
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What the internet has done to memory
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The way pop culture just before the internet hit got lost
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The gay history of the internet
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The shaping of love on the internet
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What sort of relationships are forming in quarantine conditions?
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The fulfillment of wandering and lurking on the internet
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Craigslist’s lost potential
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The asymmetricality of anonymous users and open users
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How twitter acts like capitalism
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The difference between caring about wrongs and being involved in the stories of them online
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The three times I had twitter pile-ons
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Why we need to get rid of facebook and not replace it
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Where to go from here and all this mess
SHOW NOTES
• For more on Joanne, here’s her website, which has tons of links and a great HTML aesthetic. And here’s a great interview with her just after the release of Lurking.
• Have you seen Brainiac: Transmissions After Zero? Also, did you know that there’s a severely distorted sample of a Brainiac song in the AEWCH theme? Well, there you go.
• SESTA/FOSTA was passed years ago now, but I and other workers fought against it. Here’s a review of what it is.
• Melissa Gira Grant comes up a couple of times in the episode, so check out her writing via the twitter link and her website!
Until next time, friends.
XO
Conner Habib 
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