K-pop is popular!

To be honest, I got a bit offended in this weeks lecture. K-pop is not an obscure trend. It’s a huge market that rakes in millions of dollars EVERY DAY.  I’m sick of people thinking that it’s a small market.

In this source, they talk about the recommendation algorithm and how that helped to sell this book- the same thing is how I stumbled upon K-pop. I was in my Weaboo (anime nerd) stage of life and a recommendation for this band called “Girls Generation” showed up on the side- it was a video from their debut performance and since then, I’d been hooked.

Slightly racist of companies, but generally interest in one Asian thing, will lead to recommendations of every other Asian thing available. So naturally most, K-fans are lured here from the anime side of things.

Anime, is a huge market. It is definitely bigger than K-pop but most people who like anime, come from their emo/punk stage. How this works, I will never know.

I’ve included a lovely diagram of progression for this phenomenon.

The source talks about how in a few years, the ‘trends’ and mainstream media will be very different and this will be based on the economy. I hope it does change.

At the moment, being interested in something that isn’t mainstream costs a lot more money. A standard mainstream band concert will cost you, what? $60? Maybe $100 at most. And $20 for a CD.

If you translate this into K-pop coin: A concert is CHEAP if it’s $250. An album can cost anywhere between $40-$60 and that’s if there’s only one version and you buy it online.

I hope for the sake of my wallet that Chris is correct.

Otherwise, I will have to start a GoFundMe.

Here’s a vine of all the huge k-pop titles and the millions of views because IT’S A POPULAR THING.

Liquid Labour is Making Zombies

This week in the lecture, we’re discussing liquid Labour and the positives and negatives of the workforce becoming more virtual.

To be honest, I hadn’t realised until Travis pointed it out, but my current role as an admin is definitely an unpaid job that requires me to use a lot of the aspects discussed this week. So, after reading a few blogs, I decided to discuss the negatives and how they affect my life.

Since everything is online; there’s no way to escape your job or responsibilities after the regular working hours have ended.

I’m literally on my phone 24/7. I’m always checking messages, posts groups and completing tasks that really could wait. Sadly, my sleeping schedule is also very difficult. I sleep from 3am-9am usually, since this is the least active times for people in my group. What life?

If people who are actually getting paid to do this, are struggling like I am, then this is not a necessarily positive paradigm.

Personally, I think Liquid Labour will have a negative impact on the mental health of people who are already stressed enough during normal working hours. There are positive aspects, like accessibility and an ability to problem solve immediately but this also means due to a constant flow of information; no rest for the wicked and a significant decrease in sociability of people since they will not have a reason to stop working (unless their phone dies haha).

 

Spew of Communication

Every person that has a phone is now a part of the “Global Nervous System”, the phone you hold in your hand connects you to the node of information. The messages sent and received to you, connect you to the network.

Through this node, you are given a “spew of information” – Ted, 2k16. That can be passed onto others, over and over again without interference.

There are 3 types of networks that are largely recognized

Centralized:

This is the system of having a single hub in which all information travels in and out to the various hubs connected to the main node.

This is a bad network because if you remove the centralised node, the others will separate and become useless.

Decentralized:

This system is where rather than have a single centralised node, you have various hubs that are able to distribute information to the nodes- these hubs are connected and would usually hold different messages/information depending on the nodes that are connected.

This has a similar issue to the centralised model, in that the removal of a hub will trigger a lack of information or for the network to stop functioning.

Distributed:

This network has no centralised hubs! Each node is connected to each other, so if one of the hubs is disconnected, the system can easily continue to run on its own.

Personally, I think the distributed node is the best option- there’s nothing wrong with a bit of independence~!

 

A Reflection on Progression

“Vibrating thousands of miles in a breathless point of time”

This is an accurate representation of messages travelling through a modern network. Instant messaging is the technological embodiment of this notion. The message is the matter, being sent instantaneously through the internet to another person (regardless of their location within the world).

The progression of this, starting at the telegraph (1837), progressing to Morse Code (1838), Undersea Cable for Morse Code (1851) which then evolved into the trans-Atlantic cable (1866), Radio telegraph (1895), and then evolving into the mobile phones and internet we have now, enforces another popular concept of “the medium is the message”. This development has followed the progression of human time. While increasing the speed and ease at which we communicate it has also restricted us in many ways.

We no longer show an independence from technology, the old technologies are being forgotten (such as books, tv etc) and instead we are constantly impatient when things take longer than 10 seconds, constantly wanting to do things simultaneously and hating devices that only have one function. Instead of communicating in person and being connected by being in the same place, we were being connected by ‘nerves of iron wire’ and now, seemingly connected by invisible wireless strings of technology.

We have become more interested in travelling and visiting the places we can see through our mobile phone, speaking to people with different experiences and backgrounds- the extent and reach of communication has grown, but are we ignoring the face-to-face communication right in front of us?