It's interesting also to see all the nonsense about Stephen Fry's twittering habits that is consuming the UK news ... he left in a huff over a comment that his tweets were boring ... but is back (for those concerned!). http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2009/nov/01/stephen-fry-twitter-quit-threat And, re food tweeting http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/nicholas-lezard-so-youre-e... Note that I get my twitter news from traditional media -- Maybe newspapers have found a new niche! /Caroline ---- Original message ----
Date: Mon, 2 Nov 2009 15:40:11 +0800 From: Giorgos Cheliotis <gcheliotis.lists@gmail.com> Subject: Re: [Air-L] facebook, twitter and annoyances To: danah boyd <aoir.z3z@danah.org> Cc: aoir list <air-l@aoir.org>
I also find the discussion very interesting and would hope that someone will look into this as a research topic. There is something almost intimate, though at the same time casual, about food updates. Sharing a bit of someone's daily life can help create a sense of connectedness, assuming you care for the person as such to begin with. If you're following someone simply as an information source, you might not care at all. So, in a completely fictional example:
Who would be interested in hearing what the Huffington Post recommends for breakfast? Assuming those who visit the website do so in search of information that is broadly deemed news-worthy, no one would. Readers and fans of Arianna Huffington may on the other hand like to hear what she had for breakfast and thus remotely partake in the daily ritual that one would typically only share with partners and friends.
I guess this would be a typical case for a uses and gratifications approach, though food culture in particular would also be interesting to focus on.
On Nov 2, 2009, at 8:15 AM, danah boyd wrote:
When it comes to food status updates, I also think that the value goes beyond the food itself. Food is part of ritualized culture and sharing is common with food itself. All around the world, people sit down for a meal with people in their lives. There is no food in online interactions. There is no alcohol either. All we have are performances of food (and alcohol). It's not the same, but there's still some endearing about it, a feeling of peripheral awareness, a feeling of togetherness when apart, a feeling of commonality and patterns and daily flows. My mother used to post about what she ate and I loved it; it let me feel her presence in a way that's not possible from far away. I loved seeing the habits of her life, not because they are important to strangers, but because they are important to me.
I'm sure there are folks on this list who are more versed in food culture than I am, but I just want to say that I appreciate those in my intimate sphere talking about their food. There's something comforting about the simplicity of it.
danah
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"taken out of context, i must seem so strange" -- ani http://www.zephoria.org/thoughts/ http://www.danah.org/ @zephoria
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Caroline Haythornthwaite Professor, Graduate School of Library and Information Science, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 501 East Daniel St., Champaign IL 61820 haythorn@illinois.edu OR haythorn@uiuc.edu