Manovich and Facebook

Consider that the word “tag” now has a vastly different meaning then it did five years ago due to the evolution of Facebook as a cultural interface. In fact, many words now have far different meanings anointed to them via online language infiltrating standard English. Various computer operations have also entered the common dialect of this generation. By generation I’m referring the generation that grew up in the 90’s and early... um... 00’s(?). The generation that grew up with MTV (not the Nirvana cool one, the Backstreet Boys and Blink 182 one), AIM, MySpace, and the always expanding Facebook. The Facebook generation.
Manovich of course he never talks about Facebook specifically. I’m willing to bet that has more to do with the fact that Facebook didn’t exist when he wrote his book, not because it doesn’t illustrate the thesis that he presents in the Operations chapter. He says, “If we find particular operations dominating software programs, we may also expect to find them at work in the culture at large” (118). Web-sites like Facebook have certainly changed not only online culture, but indeed American culture at large. The English language is constantly evolving and new media provides this particular generation with a vastly different dialect then previous generations. Whenever a person takes a group picture these days it seems that the comment “Tag me in this” is always uttered by someone in the group. How would a person in 1960 respond to this? They probably wouldn’t. To “tag” someone either had a different meaning, or had no meaning at all, but in the Facebook generation it’s pretty well understood what “tagging” means.
Facebook is an interesting microcosm for Manovich’s Operations chapter. Consider that the website employs the “copy, cut, paste, search, composite, transform, and filter” operations of previous computer software (Manovich 118). . Some of the operation names may have been altered, but their purposes are not unique to only Facebook. I mean the interface of Facebook as it stands right now (as I’m looking at it) is like a hybrid of Myspace, Youtube, and AIM. Users can post pictures, music, videos, chat with their friends, and send out e-mailesque messages. These are all operations available to plenty of other web-sites, but Facebook is unique in the sense that it combines many of these operations on one interface.
Since Facebook was invented by a 20-something college student it also subscribes to Manovich’s assertion that, “as we shift from an industrial society to an information society, from old media to new media, the overlap between producers and users becomes significantly larger” (119). Facebook was created by someone who didn’t even have a college degree and is now a multi-billion dollar corporation. That would suggest that in the world of new media a person has the potential to be whatever they want to be (and not simply be told this is some cliche speech from a loved one). If a person wants to be a writer, they can start a blog. If they want to be an actor, they can make and star in something on Youtube. The possibilities are seemingly endless, though Manovich does point out, “new media do not change the nature of the professional-amateur relationship. The gap becomes much smaller but it still exists” (Manovich 119). A person working for a magazine will ultimately make more money than a blogger, and Colin Farrell will for some reason still be paid more as an actor than a person on Youtube (thought to be fair Colin Farrell is really good in In Bruges... look it up on Net Flix).



So, in the end computer operations certainly have become part of American culture both on and off line. The next time you’re on Facebook take a second that this website that some of a computer’s standard operations were combined together by a 20-something college student. Then think about how that guy is a billionaire. Then try not to let this fact drive you mad and consider that in this chapter Manovich alludes to the possibility that new media operations can become part of more than just Internet culture. Today we live in a world in which online and offline is constantly blending together. Even if Facebook isn’t the best example of this, it still is a very different world with Facebook in it.