The Virtual Campfire: An Ethnography of Online Social Networking [online]

I've been a bad blogger recently, and hardly a functional human being- this state of total liminality is both extraordinarily liberating and incredibly frustrating. I graduate on Sunday. If you would like to experience the fruits of my yearlong labors, I encourage you to check out the electronic version of my thesis, which I plan to add interactive features to in the future (I'm thinking more along the lines of a wiki than this rather average website). If you do read it, drop me a line and let me know what you think! I'm always eager to hear fresh perspectives and related stories.

A thesis submitted to the Faculty of Wesleyan University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in Anthropology.

Based on five years of participant-observation on the social networking sites MySpace, Facebook, and Tribe.net, The Virtual Campfire explores the increasingly blurred boundaries between human and machine, public and private, voyeurism and exhibitionism, the history of media and our digitized future. Woven throughout are the stories and experiences of those who engage with these sites regularly and ritualistically, the generation of "digital natives" whose tales attest to the often strange and uncomfortable ways online social networking sites have come to be embedded in the everyday lives of American youth.

Survey on Online Social Networking Habits!

I am conducting a short survey for users of Facebook, MySpace, and/or Tribe.net.

Your participation in this survey is entirely voluntary, and you may terminate participation at any time prior to the completion of this survey without penalty. Please understand that the information you provide will be viewed only by the researcher, and that any responses published will not enable identification of me in any way.

Questions and concerns can be directed to Jenny Ryan (researcher) @
jaryan@wesleyan.edu.
Further information and future publications can be found at http://webnography.blogspot.com

I Agree, Continue to Survey!

Log the Third

Today, after my sister expressed her love for me on my Facebook wall (as she is wont to do), I recorded my first video wall post. Unfortunately, I'm unable to "repost" the video here, but I will say it was quite simple, and rather successful! Facebook recently implemented a variety of options on what was once a user "wall" constrained to text alone. Now, one can record video, post a link, post a band (one needs to first register their band at ReverbNation and upload a few songs, which can then be posted on one's profile, or linked to on another's wall), send a randomly-generated fortune cookie, give a "zombie hug", send a cookie, give a daisy, or post a popular song (when I clicked on this, there was a search bar, as well as 3 popular songs listed: Avril Lavigne, 50 Cent, and Death Cab for Cutie).

I also spent a solid 15 minutes taking screen captures of my friend's MySpace profile. I made myself stop at 50 shots, that's how long his profile page is. Lots of links, artistic images, poetry, politically-oriented buttons and banners, the usual favorite books and movies and such, a long introduction (that is prefaced with:
"TOTALLY NOT INTERESTED IN THE FOLLOWING:
your band (unless your organic/synthetic spiritual sounds and presentation could totally wow me, DON'T EVEN BOTHER)
Promoters of any kind!(go away)
spiders, crawlers, spammers, etc go away i don't like you!
people...who freak me out. (it's pretty hard to accomplish)

and now! on to the good stuff!"

His comments were nearly as fun to sift through as the profile itself. Beautiful images, replete with some animated sparkles or color shifts, adorned his walls. The requisite "Thanks for the add!" comment was also a strong presence. The majority of the content was "New Age" in nature- faeries, Alex Grey, and my favorite: