// Category Archive for: The Internets

You Are Not Your Browser History

Visual representation of
the Internet from
the Opte Project

Over the last few weeks, the blogosphere was in an uproar over SOPA and PIPA, two pieces of proposed legislation set to appear before the House and the Senate in January. While the alleged intention of the legislation was to thwart online piracy of movies and other media, opponents expressed concern that the actual effects of the bills would be far more insidious and damaging to the Internet, claiming that it would drastically change not only the structure of the Internet, but the way people use it. Although both SOPA and PIPA are US legislative proposals, there was an overwhelming fear that they would cripple Internet usage on a global scale.

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Catfish: Beyond Real And Beyond Fake

By Less Lee Moore

Living on the Internet means that you often have to dodge spoilers. Luckily, the Internet is also so crammed with information there are enough things with which to distract yourself.

Such was the case with Catfish, a 2010 documentary that caught my attention via its unsettling trailer, which seemed like a faux documentary horror movie along the lines of The Blair Witch Project or the Paranormal Activity series. It was clear that an appreciation of the film was a case of “less is more,” so I added it to my DVD queue and successfully avoided spoilers for almost two years.

When I finally watched Catfish earlier this week, my stomach was in knots for at least 45 minutes until the movie completely . . . I’ll stop here because if you haven’t seen Catfish, you should watch it, and you should watch it not knowing any more than I did.

Catfish is a remarkable film and one that is thrilling, upsetting, disturbing, and moving. It makes incredible use of technology in its presentation of the Internet persona through GPS, Google, YouTube, Facebook, and all the other forms of social and searchable media we use every day. Such technology is so easily accessible and so widely used that it becomes a part of our lives that we take for granted, even though we assign it so much importance. We take all the veracity it reveals to us on faith.

As far as Internet personas, it’s common knowledge that we want to show everyone the best of ourselves, even if that means we make ourselves seem better than we are. But there is always a gap between our “real” selves and our Internet selves.

The width of this gap will likely determine how you treat your Internet friends. Do you treat them the same as your “real life” friends? Better? Worse? Do you subscribe to the “It’s just the Internet” theory to make yourself feel better about what you see and read there? The width of this gap will also determine how much Internet interactions affect you when you’re not on the Internet.

These were the ideas swirling around in my head right after I watched Catfish and right before I started looking up reviews online. Then, much like the film itself, everything changed. SPOILERS BEHIND THE CUT!

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Best Of 2011: Less Lee Moore

As always, I wish I’d had the time and resources available to experience more, but here are some of the things that made 2011 memorable (in alphabetical order, to be fair).

À l’Intérieur (Inside) at TIFF Bell Lightbox, August 20: Though I’d already watched this film three times on DVD, I felt that I needed to see it on the big screen. I’ve probably said this a few times already, but it’s still true: it manages to completely transcend the horror genre to become a bona fide work of cinematic art. It is indescribable and powerful and if you haven’t experienced it yet, you should.

Adam Ant: For all those folks who thought he was a crazy, bloated has-been, recent live performance clips on YouTube will more than prove those half-baked theories wrong. He’s so much more than the guy who did “Goody Two Shoes” and any and all adulation for him is well deserved. His descent into madness, fall from grace, and subsequent return to form (used in the truest, most non-cliched sense ever) are remarkable achievements. He remains, after thirty years, a huge inspiration to me. (more…)

Crypts And Blood: A Creepy Crawl Through The History Of Horror Hosts

By Cait Brennan

“There’s nothing on,” you say. A strangely common complaint in an era with hundreds, if not thousands, of 24-hour-a-day channels. Once upon a time, there was literally nothing on, because the two or three local stations your town was lucky to have would shut their transmitters off at 11 p.m. Stations invented every possible kind of stunt (up to and including running the weatherman’s home movies) to fill airtime, but eventually the exhausted staff would finish the late local news, have a priest give a drunken invocation, run the national anthem, and pull the damn plug.

But as the signals died, there through the flickering static, in the dark dead of night, one station would keep its dim light on, transmitting faded images of 1930s ghouls into your darkened living room. Then, out of the black, when it all started getting just a little too real, some character covered in blood cut their way into the movie and cracked wise. You’ve just met your horror host, and whether your movie was terrifying or just terrifyingly awful, spooky late nights never had a better friend.
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The Women Behind The Whedonverse

By Lisa Anderson

Even casual fans of Joss Whedon know that strong female characters are important to him. Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Echo from Dollhouse, and Zoe from Firefly are only a few examples. What casual fans may not realize is that women behind the scenes—Whedon’s fellow writers and producers—have also helped make his storylines beloved to so many fans. They include Jane Espenson, Marti Noxon, Maurissa Tancheroen, and Felicia Day.
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Duran Duran, All You Need Is Now

By Jemiah Jefferson

In 2011, what does “relevance” mean? A term heavily bandied about by the music press, especially in the UK, a band’s relevance is of paramount importance, ranking ahead of sexiness, competency, or pure enjoyment. Perhaps for these reasons, Duran Duran hasn’t been necessarily “relevant” since their second album Rio set a new bar for all musical artists everywhere.
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Girl Talk, All Day

By Janet Brusselbach

It feels really good to be listening to free music that’s not only intended to be free, but that’s also really good.
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Robin Hatch, Sheezer: Best Of 2010

New Music that I was into this year

Anamanaguchi, Scott Pilgrim vs. The World Original Videogame Soundtrack
Wild Nothing, Gemini
Kanye West, My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy (except for the song “Runaway,” which is the Emperor’s New Clothes of songs)
Anything Nicki Minaj does or is “feat.”-ed on
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Top Five Hilarious American Commercials (As Of RIGHT NOW!)

By Ann Clarke

I hate most commercials. Probably 99 percent of them! I especially hate commercials with those goddamned whining wuss-bags playing an acoustic guitar, or a whispery girl with a ukulele. Fuck that bullshit!

In the midst of having to suffer through that torture, I noticed a few diamonds in the roughage. . . and let me just say these are brilliant, and whoever came up with these advertising concepts has my unyielding respect for going against the current shitty trends in commercialism.
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Underground Girls Blog: Q&A With Mandy Mullins Of Garbo’s Daughter

By Less Lee Moore

The lovely and talented Mandy Mullins, who has been an integral part of so many of our Popcasts here on Popshifter, was recently featured on the Underground Girls blog where fellow groovy girl Kelly Fever describes her as “one of the grooviest girls in the pop music scene” and I couldn’t agree more.

Read their Q&A with Mandy to find out more as she discusses her influences, her idols, her guitar, plus Stryper, Sassy Magazine, The Beatles, The Osmonds, and Bubblegum!