Today's big news is Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg has announced Facebook will have a new feature to capture and present the event of your whole life in a product called Timeline. I immediately grabbed my current avatar, which is a cartoon liking of mine, mark it with the letter 2011 and then uploaded it, in hope that this picture will be represented as a picture of me in 2011 in Timeline.

I'm rather ambivalent about these social network companies. I am never comfortable to have them assume the custodianship of my data, distribute it and present it in whatever form of their design. There are a lot for me to gain to participate in their channel, but not enough for me to give up my autonomy.

I finally realize what I am doing with these cartoon pictures as well as some other funky things I've done on other social networks. I am bending their rule. Timeline is suppose to present your life story. I intentionally trying to poison it with something different. I am trying to subvert the social network application.

What if lot more people start to subvert the social network? This can be a lot of fun! Cartoonize yourself! Fictionalize your profile! How about creating an entire alter ego on the social network? Use it to start interacting with your friends in a whole new way! This is far more creative than playing Facebook's game. To be clear, this is not about doing things with malicious purpose. This is about playfulness, fun, creativity and asserting your independency from these Internet overlord.

2011.09.22 [tech] - comments