I thought that the article by Joanne McNeil, the Dream must be continuous, would only be touching on the strengths and pitfalls of online anonymity, but she gets into some points about online writing that were more novel to me. I like the idea of having another persona that I could write fiction under (something that I used to do more but haven’t found time for recently). The fact people like to sneak writing into such temporary and anonymous places such as on a craigslist posts beckons me to experiment with the place my portfolio could reside. What if one created a portfolio page that resembled a craigslist page, all their work seemingly up for sale by imaginary sellers with different stories in the viewer’s area? It might make them seem temporary, but it would also a be a fun project to exercise writing characters and worlds that they live in.

Question: What is it about writing and creating in these temporary and many times anonymous places do you think is appealing? Or do you not find it appealing at all?

Being a user myself, I found the fact that most profile viewer on Facebook are men and that those viewed are mostly women to be exactly what I would expect. One might think this is just the nature of the male gender, and that the site is gender-neutral in its format. However we must remember Facebook’s Facemash origins in which women were subjected to a more crudely designed means of photographic judgment. In her article The Male Gazed, Kate Losse is talking about how Facebook enables a certain social surveillance. Many of these network’s creators are not particularly sensitive to how online harassment might effect groups differently. Losse states that their technological achievements come before their sensitivity.

Question: Kate Losse makes the claim that technology is not a neutral element, and that it represents a form of power. Learning to use these technologies is one way to gain this power, but not all of it, as Losse explains that there is politics and sexism that cannot be changed by abilities in technology alone. What attempts can you make to subvert these other powers through your abilities in technology?

Question: In the last piece of the article, Kate Losse seems to define transparency as seeing the connection between your photo as its taken and its public display. Do you think an app such as snapchat where immediate publicity happens is successful because of this transparency, even as it enables more effective and immediate survellience by those you have become snapchat friends with?