Being Amber Rhea

I usually hate Gawker but this is hilarious and so true:

Quiz: Are You An Online Jackass?

I IMed Rusty the URL and told him I marked it for him in del.icio.us. I’m surprised that wasn’t on the list!

A collection of photos documenting internet meme-age slowly infiltrating meatspace:*

* I can’t read that term without thinking of porn.

WAM has kicked off! So far it’s exciting. I’ll probably be doing more Twittering than blogging (and don’t worry, Dave, I keep forgetting to use the hashtag) although I’m thinking of trying this Cover It Live thing Dacia showed me. Anyway, it should be a great day! This post might be updated, or it might not. Stay tuned on Twitter. :)

While I’m waiting for things to settle down around here so I can get back to blogging on a semi-regular basis, I’d love it if y’all would take my Blog Reader Project survey.

Susie Bright had one a few weeks ago, which I took, and subsequently viewed the results in attractive Web 2.0-ish charts and graphs. (I seem to recall Figleaf having one a while back, too.) Since I like taking surveys, and seeing the results of surveys, I figured I’d create my own!

The results of this survey will in no way influence my content, nor will they help me make decisions about targeted ads and such. This is purely a curiosity thing. I’m just dying to know how many of you floss regularly. (If you don’t, you should. Your gums will thank you.)

This October will mark the third ConvergeSouth unconference, which I believe (and don’t quote me on this, ’cause I might be wrong) was the first new media unconference in the South. Rusty and I were there last year and it proved to be the gateway drug for what’s developed into an unconference addiction on our part; we’ll be back for another fix this year, and this time, I’m a presenter.

I’ll be leading a session titled “Podcasting and Beyond,” scheduled for 1:00-2:00 (I think; the schedule is a little hard to read) on Saturday, October 20. It’s listed as a how-to session, but I don’t plan to get too deep into the nuts-and-bolts of the technical side of podcasting. If people want an Audacity demo, we can do that before or after; but in unconference fashion, I would like this to be more of a discussion about what the “beyond” is. If you’ll be at ConvergeSouth, let me know if you have any ideas of what you’d like to see in this session!

Also, for any of y’all who are handy with a digicam, ConvergeSouth will have a film festival component this year. In particular, several local folks come to mind for the Citizen Journalism category:

We are looking for self-produced videos that are newsworthy stories. Can be but not limited to stories about historic events, local politics, corporate accountability, personal documentary, current events and similar. No more than 15 minutes in length.

Submit your videos by September 25!

Last night I finished reading Audacia Ray’s Naked on the Internet. I was motivated to read it fast because I’d promised to write this review on the June 10, but once I started reading, I knew I would’ve devoured it the way I did no matter what.

I was totally blown away by this book. I had high expectations anyway, because Dacia is super smart and a kick-ass writer, and because the topic is fascinating and basically uncharted territory as far as books go. (Oh, and because I love to see my name in print, and there’s plenty of it in chapter three.) But the finished product was even more amazing than I’d expected. Just… damn.

Instead of spending the entire post gushing about the book’s awesomeness, I want to focus on a few specific things that really stood out for me.

In chapter one, while talking about the differences and similarities between lifecams and other types of webcam projects, Dacia writes:

The degree to which women who operate lifecams have had to be on the defensive about their choice to keep their cams uncensored (hence the entries in their FAQs and blogs that speak to the issue) is indicative of the fact that many people feel conflicted about seeing sexuality as part and parcel of the scope of a woman’s life.

I had a bit of an “a-ha!” moment when I read that - not because it’s some completely new concept that I’d never considered, but because it’s something I’ve long seen as a fundamental, pervasive societal problem with how we understand sexuality, but I’ve struggled to put it into words.

Society has a need to compartmentalize women’s sexuality, and even though I understand the historical “whys” and “wherefores” behind it, ultimately whenever I pursue this train of thought I’m left with a big WTF. I think this compartmentalization - whether forced onto women by others, or by women feeling that they have to conform to it - is the unifying feature behind countless pieces of the Bullshit Puzzle, and we can’t successfully solve problems on a piece-by-piece basis until we undertake the radical task of addressing this compartmentalization.

A little later in chapter one, while talking about Ana Voog’s pregnancy, Dacia writes:

[B]ring a baby into the picture, and suddenly people are up in arms about whether a woman who’s making homemade porn (even if that’s not what the women themselves choose to call it) is fit to be a parent.

I was talking about this with Figleaf when he was visiting last week. I asked him if he ever worries about being “outed” because he has children. He was pretty confident, almost to the point of seeming dismissive, in his answer that no, he doesn’t worry, and why should he? Of course, this is how it should be - a foregone conclusion. The fact that adults have sex lives - which they experience and express in myriad ways - and raise children should be ridiculously mundane. And yet, unfortunately, in the minds of many, it’s not - and especially when the parents in question are women. For some reason, female sexuality seems to be a much bigger threat - to whom or to what, is the part I can’t figure out.

One other thing that stood out to me was this bit in chapter three:

[T]hough many women have the potential and the drive to be freer, they still feel the sharpness of societal constraints when they’re moving around the world outside the blogosphere.

I can relate to that so, so much. Even though I have a ton of ideals wrt sexuality and I try to live as authentically as possible - because anything else feels destructive - the reality is that I still live in a larger world that, for the most part, is very sex-negative. My personal feelings about sexuality and sexual empowerment don’t negate the power of the double standard, the madonna/whore dichotomy, or a society that has legal buy-in to the idea that (for example) a woman who goes to swinger parties is an unfit parent. And on a smaller scale, sometimes even hanging out with local bloggers, many of whom I’ve come to consider close friends, I feel like I have to “tone down” my interest in and enthusiasm for sexuality. I try to actively fight against these kinds of inner reactions, but old lessons die hard.

I could go on writing about every part of the book I underlined or drew exclamation points next to, but if I did that, we’d be here all night. So in conclusion, I’ll just say, flat-out: READ THIS BOOK. I am in awe of it, and I guarantee you will be, too.

Real quick post about my burgeoning conference idea: What would be a good venue?

To get events like this rolling, having a venue is clutch. It’s all downhill (mostly) from there. I have no idea what type/size/location I should be looking for. The Miller-Ward House was a perfect venue for PodCamp Atlanta, but for this conference we’d probably want something a little less “old world.” Ideas? I know the guy who owns the Spring4th Center, but I have no idea what the inside of that space is like; I think it’s more of a nightclub situation. Guess I should just contact the guy and find out.

If anyone in/around Atlanta has thoughts on this, please leave a comment!

Yesterday I went to a Georgians for Choice meeting. I participated in the Walk for Women’s Lives two years ago, but this is the first time I’ve been to a GfC meeting. And, those women are awesome! I did a podcast interview with Paris Hatcher, the co-executive director, which will be posted sometime next week. She and Mia (the other co-executive director) are strong, smart, passionate, fun, hilarious women. Hell, all of the women who were at the meeting fit that description.

I think I managed to get them fired up about social media, and I might be working with them in the future to put some of the ideas we came up with into place on their soon-to-be-redesigned web site. In particular, Paris really liked the idea of incorporating Flickr. (I’m far too busy these days for pro bono freelance work, but the nice thing about Web 2.0 stuff is that most of it is so simple and user-friendly that it’s often just a matter of showing/telling someone what to do, and encouraging them to run with it.)

One thing that I really enjoyed was the emphasis GfC puts on intersectional analysis of social issues. They specifically frame their goals in terms of “reproductive justice,” rather than “reproductive rights.” But you’ll hear more about that in the forthcoming podcast.

All in all the meeting was productive and fun - and that’s not necessarily an easy thing to accomplish. I’ve been to plenty of volunteer organization meetings that are just tedious, and everyone is so dour - as if being passionate about a cause means you can’t have fun. I’m really glad I went to the meeting, and I’m looking forward to working more with GfC. It was a diverse group that felt free of judgment of other women. And it sure was nice to enjoy some good IRL feminism, after all the bizarre shit happening in certain corners of the feminist blogosphere lately. This is a huge part of what made me fall in love with feminism in the first place.

As some of you know, for the past couple of months I’ve been kicking around in my head ideas for a new conference to be held here in Atlanta. Last night I finally got around to having an extended brainstorming session and fleshing out some of the germinating ideas (thanks to Rusty for helping with this process) and I wanted to go ahead and let everyone know what I’m thinking of. I was going to try to organize all of this into nice, grammatically-correct paragraphs; but then I decided, no, I’ll give you the straight-up stream of consciousness post I typed last night. So without further ado, I give you…

Random disjointed ideas for a feminism/social media/sexuality conference.
In light of some of the 101-and-below level conversations that go on at other social media conferences, and all the amazing, awesome stuff women are doing online that isn’t getting enough offline (positive) attention - We need a new conference.

Tracks:
- media
- education
- business
- hippie shit (personal growth, self expression, self acceptance, community building, etc.)

Goal:
- How can we support one another and give back to the larger community?
- Providing education
- Raising awareness
- Mobilizing for social/political activism

Web filling the gap left by US government (and other countries’ governments) mandating abstinence-only education and/or taking a “moral” approach to sex education. Example: Scarleteen. How to support these kinds of sites/projects and help reach more people? Is it limited to just teens when we talk about the education aspect? How can we leverage the power we have thanks to the Web to reach people who don’t have Web access or have limited access?

Analogy comparing the above to new media filling the gaps left by traditional media (e.g., local coverage - “hyperlocal”).

Topic likely to spur lots of debate and discussion: The Web empowers women to start and run their own businesses and do it on their own terms, owning the production and the presentation. E.g., cam girls, porn sites run by women, etc. (Dacia’s book Naked on the Internet also offers some examples.) This could cause debate bc some people still see it as exploitation simply bc there is “selling sex” involved (also a debatable terminology).

Positive: new media in general tends to cut out the middle man, for better or for worse - in this case better, e.g., cutting out skeevy porn makers who treat the workers like shit. -Or is this only an illusion and the reality doesn’t support it most of the time? Need to hear people’s diverse personal experiences.

People might start debating the merits of capitalism vs. other social systems and the question Octogalore raised, should women be benefiting from capitalism in this way if possible? (I think yes but it’s open for debate.) Plus, in some ways this is like socialism in that it puts the means of production in the hands of the workers - so I’m not saying I’ve just got a total gung-ho “yay capitalism, boo socialism” attitude.

Name:
Need a good name that conveys it’s women-centered but not some earth mother moon juice BS; feminist and sex-positive. Men are welcome bc part of the focus is sexuality and the internet, and we want to hear men’s stories and experiences as well - how has this been freeing for them, for example. But it’s not centered around men; like BlogHer with more sex. And of course, the experience should not be like a “walking into an Inserection” version of sex. Should be much more like Babeland!

Would you come to such a conference? Add your thoughts! This should be community-driven.

—
Take Back the Blog! post coming later today. We’re going to hit the Inman Park Festival this afternoon, so it might not be until after that.

“PodCamp Atlanta changed my life.” - Julie Squires

Without a doubt, that’s going in the promotional materials for 2008!

Also, Tim Moenk said something about web 2.0 stuff being a “lifestyle choice.” It was both funny and insightful, but I can’t remember the exact quote, so I can’t post it. Oh, and also, there was conversation about the difference between willingly putting information about yourself out there, vs. the government or whoever else taking such information against your will (and without your knowledge). Why aren’t more people talking about this rather obvious distinction?

Haven’t gotten around to fixing my CSS on the permalink page yet. Remember: patience is a virtue, dear readers.

In the comments a few posts down, valeko asked whytf he should care about Twitter. I started writing a comment in reply, but it got long, so I figured I’d just make a separate post.

I was anti-Twitter until I learned more about it and, then, started using it. One area where I see it being really useful is in telling your friends where you are, so they can come meet you if they want. Like when Rusty and I go out, one of us will Twitter (for example), “At Manuel’s.” You can also use it to tell people if you’re running late! Of course, this assumes that everyone uses the SMS feature; personally I just use it on the computer (for now, anyway).

Twitter proved very useful at large events such as SXSW, SoCon07, PodCamp Atlanta, and PodCamp NYC, where there were a lot of people scattered in various places. For example, at PodCamp NYC, lost-and-found items were Twittered. I lost a card reader, and a guy sent out a tweet saying, “If you find an SD card reader bring it to the help desk.” (No one ever found it, but still, cool usage. Someone else did retrieve their lost iRiver that way, though.)

Another use… up to the minute news updates. CNN uses it for that. But on a non-MSM level - just think of the tweets that were going out during the VA Tech crisis, for example. Look up NewMediaJim’s tweets from last week… it’s fascinating stuff.

Also, Twitter just appeals to my voyeuristic side - and I think most people have that streak in them, to an extent. Especially when it’s friends or people you at least know (or know of) IRL. It’s just interesting, to me, to see what they’re doing! Very much like blogging, in that regard.

Most recently, Rusty and I had fun asking and answering questions via Twitter while we recorded a podcast. We plan to make this a regular feature on our show.

What about the rest of you, blog readers? Why do you like (or dislike) Twitter?

One thing that really annoyed me at BlogSavannah was when, during the Women and Blogging session, this one woman got soooo incredulous when I was talking about the importance of “putting it out there” - she visibly and audibly guffawed, rolled her eyes, and generally refused to hear what I was saying. (This was also the same woman who accused Gennie of “not being honest” because she doesn’t use certain language in front of her young son, so, you know, consider the source.) Finally I got exasperated and said something like, well, this is important to me; it’s not important to everyone, and you don’t have to “get it,” but there it is, and it’s not going to change anytime soon. (Once we post the audio from that session, you’ll get to hear this in all its absurd glory.)

Anyway, via Sexerati, I found this New York Magazine cover story: Kids, the Internet, and the End of Privacy. The subhead does a good job of describing the mental roadblock the obnoxious BlogSavannah woman was hitting:

As younger people reveal their private lives on the Internet, the older generation looks on with alarm and misapprehension not seen since the early days of rock and roll. The future belongs to the uninhibited.

One clarification I would add, though, is that although this is often divided along generational lines, it isn’t always the case. Plenty of the people at BlogSavannah who were insisting that anything you say on the Internet is a reflection on your employer were around my age. Basically, I think what it boils down to is, some people get it and others don’t. The “a-ha!” moment comes at different points for different people; and for others, it never comes. But when it does come - hyperbole alert! - it’s a beautiful thing.

Note: This was originally written for Download Squad, but after I’d spent a good 30 minutes writing the post, one of the editors informed me that they covered PXN8 back in November. Dammit. Never mind that my post is way better. Anyway, rather than let that half-hour of my life go to waste, I figured I’d post it here.

Okay, I just started using it today, and already I’m addicted to PXN8 (pronounced “pix-en-ate,” as the web site constantly reminds you). This kick-ass online image editor seems almost too good to be true. Sxoop Technologies, the company that produces PXN8, obviously has some seriously talented developers working for them.

Here are just a few of PXN8’s features:

• Upload a photo from your desktop, or fetch it from a remote URL via a bookmarklet. (Click the bookmarklet, and it automagically isolates all the images on your current page and instructs you to “click on any image to edit it in PXN8.”)
• Lightweight, cross-browser compatible UI.
• One-click upload to Flickr or WebShots.
• Info above image shows selection coordinates, current mouse position, image size, and zoom percentage (a la Photoshop).
• Automatically crop to different aspect ratios (4×6, 8×10, square, etc.)
• Draggable select box for easy resizing.
• You can install it on your own server and rebrand it (requires Perl).

The effects available through the editing panel are more extensive than I’ve seen on any other online editor. I mean, think about it, where else have you seen a “lomo” button? Or “snow,” for that matter? The fun never ends!

Here’s the first photo I edited. The effects used were lomo (at a very high opacity) + rounded corners + sepia. The result? Way cooler than the original!