I don’t know if my topic directly is about making a change in the world, but it is manipulating reality through media and as a phenomenon I find it interesting. Today in class we briefly discussed the cultural differences when using social media. What I have noticed is that in Finland, the things we post on, for example, Facebook are often funny. One of the apps that has gained success recently on Facebook is bitstrips, where you can cartoonize yourself and make often hilarious comic strips about your current life situation. Bitstrips advertises itself as an app, with which you can show how you’re feeling. In social media, words are not enough as we have seen with the selfie-craze.
Along the same lines, as Jaakko mentioned in his post, bitstrips can be seen as just another way of creating an alias online, someone who has more comedic value than what we have in “real life”. Even the most simple life situtaions and feelings gain comedic value through the app. One of the themes discussed in class was if media is making us all narcissists and bitstrips could potentially be something that emphasizes this claim. However, the difference between bitstrips and, for example, selfies is that bitstrips definitely has the comedy aspect, whereas selfies often try to show us in a “cool” way. Bitstrips allows you to change your appearance and literally edit the world and image you wish to portray to people. What is interesting about bitstrips is that the cartoon strips, which are ready-made, are often media-related. I leave you with some strips, which unfortunately star me, you can go and create your own at: http://www.bitstrips.com/
Why I Heart My Media 