World of Simulacra and Its Inhabitants - Essay Example

The World of Simulacra and its Inhabitants When we meet something that we feel can do harm to us, we often try to hide from the hazard, but it is a great idea to live and hide simultaneously – nothing would ever make us suffer. This is what we do when we recreate ourselves online, sometimes even totally changing the entire personality in order to hide ourselves as far as it is possible. And we believe it would help. But would it? With the appearance of Internet the problem of privacy gets the new aspect of consideration, as the Web is a totally new world, probably, in some cases it is even separated from the real one. People can hide their real identities and create the fake ones to play their social game in this virtual world. A huge amount of different information published online almost destroys privacy for several reasons. The research will provide the anaysis of the main functions of social networks and the peculiarities of the life in the web and prove that online communication is not so harmless. It has its own rules, which should be taken into account. Two articles will be used for the research:. Visible Man: Ethics in a World without Secrets by Peter Singer, and. “Kiki Kannibal: The Girl Who Played With Fire” by Sabrina Rubin Erdely. As Singer noticed in his essay “Visible Man: Ethics in a World without Secrets”, people involved in virtual life can be easily discovered and tracked down by different governmental institutions, which raises the issue, whether democracy really works in such situation, where people can be easily controlled and observed (Singer 463). The question is rather contradictory as it can be analyzed from different points of view. First of all, if we accept the fact that Internet is the thing where both, let’s say, good and bad people can exist and act almost without any restrictions, then the question is if is it possible to control such people and society in general. If anybody can recreate oneself online, then this world of fakes becomes completely uncontrollable. If nothing is forbidden, everything is allowed – the simple ethics of modern internet space. It appears that federal institutions probably have a right to have the access to the private information in web. As Singer has noticed in his example about the experiment of “canteen honesty box and a poster with a pair of eyes above it” (468), which made students pay three times much money than when the eyes were absent , people are much more moral when somebody is watching them. But as federals are also people, the human factor can play its role and people, especially those who possess the private information, frequently overstep their authority. This is another point of view on the situation. As we all stand for liberal principles, such a rude violation of our rights offends and makes us doubt the real intensions of the authorities. We should not forget that in the Internet we many meet very different people. "I never thought I would run into these types of people," she says. "But on the Internet, youre exposed to people that will do anything" (Erdely 3) - in the article by Erdely Kiki reminds us about that. To answer the question about particular restriction of free speech in the Internet, it is very important to notice that privacy online is also a very contradictory thing. First of all, nobody forces people to participate in the virtual world called the Internet so it depends on them whether to share the information about themselves or not. The second thing is a huge fakeness of internet space, which creates too many simulacra to find out, which information is really truthful and private and which is the fake one. Very often it’s people’s fault that their privacy is violated as they provoke others to invade into their lives by posting personal stuff online. Also, there are a lot of cases when they start suffering from the communicational situation when people interpret them wrongly, not the way they are in “real” life. But the point is that it is they who made people around misunderstand their personalities. The same happened with so-called Kiki Kannibal, the girl whose life was destroyed by her internet social life “She remade herself into a "scene queen," a teen trend that uses as its baseline the snarl of goth — thick makeup, piercings, fishnets — and brightens it with the cutesy uplift of hair bows, vivid Eighties colors and lots of Hello Kitty. The effect is a hodgepodge of the grown-up and the infantile: adolescence visualized. But Kikis new look made her even more of a freak at school, and her tormentors words turned to punches”(Erdely 3). The new image did not help run away from the personality, moreover, it helped destroy the life of girl. This testifies that the world of simulacra is not so harmless as it seems and there are definite rules, which should be followed. The example of Kiki made me analyze my own internet life. My personal internet life is quite active as I use a lot of social networks like Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook in order to share my life with people I know. On Instagram I frequently post pictures, which show to my followers what kind of life I have, for example, photos of me and my friends or some interesting events. On Twitter I also share the events and thoughts I have about them and my life in general but, of course, textually. The previous two networks are made to present your life the way you want others to see it, so this is what everybody is doing using them. Still I definitely try not to post too much personal information, not because I think somebody is watching me, but I believe that there must be some place for real privacy in our lives. Probably, if I were someone who didn’t know me, I would think that I’m a sociable person that likes having fun, but perhaps not too much as I frequently show that I’m too selective deciding who can become my friend. As I want to create certain impression about myself, sometimes I may a little bit embellish the information I post, but it doesn’t mean I lie about my life, I just select the information to post, which would maintain my character formed online. For example, sometimes I omit the things that can be embarrassing or too much personal as I believe that it makes no sense posting them. Who would ever flaunt their failures or disappointments? This is definitely not strange, as in this situation people act the same way in both the “real” and virtual worlds. However I noticed that many people from my, for example, Facebook friendlist are obsessed with posting the things that create totally different images of their personalities. Most of them just want to look differently because they are afraid that if people get to know the reality, they may hurt their feelings or goof on them. Still later these people start to worry that others would interpret them in the wrong way and this is ony their fault. Describing the Kiki’s story Erdely claims that Kiki couldn’t give up on her online social life, because she was afraid to lose the link she had with people through the Internet as she wasn’t able to make any connections in the “real” world. But in her situation such evaluation of online life is quite acceptable as the kid’s mind was not strong enough to understand and analyze things she went through. “For the past year, she had endured the hateful blogs and e-mails, the threats and prank calls, the late-night drive-bys with teenagers screaming her name out of car windows. Just this week, at an all-ages punk show, a pack of girls had recognized Kiki in the audience and jumped her, cramming gum into her bleached-blond hair. But this vandalism of her home was a different level of harassment” (Erdely 1). Perhaps, another explanation why Kiki did not leave social networks is though they brought her a lot of suffering, it was a kind of great self-actualization for her. It’s a pity that she has actualized only in virtual world without building any connection with the real one. “while Kirsten Ostrengas life was falling apart, Kiki Kannibal continued posting as though nothing had happened” (Erdely 2). For me leaving social networks would be quite difficult as I would partly lose some kind of connection with others as I am really interested in others’ lives and also have a need to show mine. But I think I would survive living without Internet as I believe that there are still a lot of ways to connect with people, even if less convenient ways. The thing is that people often don’t understand that they may go over the top in their online self-esteem, because this actualization of their personalities is fake and unreal so they need more and more of it to become sated. The question is if we can imagine what will happen in decades, when a lot of modern internet users will die and the web will be full of dead simulacra. Dozens of open information would make people lazier in acquiring it and will maintain their stupidity. Ethics can be destroyed if free speech would be totally allowed in the Internet. The perspective is rather sad. As far as Internet is quite dangerous thing as it often evokes people’s worse personal qualities, we should be responsible for what we publish there to protect ourselves and not to do harm to others. It is important to take into account the fact that the world of simulacra has it is own principles. Every user should know about the possible risk and the way to defend himself. Works Cited Singer, Peter. Visible Man: Ethics in a World without Secrets. Emerging Contemporary Readings for Writers, 2nd Edition. Ed Barlay Barrios. Boston: Bedford St. Martins, 2010. Print. Erdely, Sabrina Rubin. “Kiki Kannibal: The Girl Who Played With Fire”. Rolling Stone. Web 14 Oct. 2014. Read More