Comments on: My Facebook Status is… Meta http://blog.rachellovinger.com/2007/11/19/my-facebook-status-is-meta/ Pursuing datameaningfulness, online and off Thu, 18 Mar 2010 21:29:32 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.com/ By: Rachel http://blog.rachellovinger.com/2007/11/19/my-facebook-status-is-meta/#comment-1068 Rachel Wed, 20 May 2009 05:21:52 +0000 http://meaningfuldata.wordpress.com/2007/11/19/my-facebook-status-is-meta/#comment-1068 Doug, You make some intersting points. And certainly, when I originally wrote this, I didn't take into account the type of status message where a person is purposefully experimenting with language and signification on multiple levels. Of course, with the onset of Twitter, I think the nature of the way people use Facebook status has probably changed slightly, but I haven't reanalyzed it since I originally posted this. I'm curious, why did you address me as Jason? Or were you addressing someone else in the middle of your comment? Doug, You make some intersting points. And certainly, when I originally wrote this, I didn’t take into account the type of status message where a person is purposefully experimenting with language and signification on multiple levels. Of course, with the onset of Twitter, I think the nature of the way people use Facebook status has probably changed slightly, but I haven’t reanalyzed it since I originally posted this.

I’m curious, why did you address me as Jason? Or were you addressing someone else in the middle of your comment?

]]> By: Doug Pokorny http://blog.rachellovinger.com/2007/11/19/my-facebook-status-is-meta/#comment-1067 Doug Pokorny Wed, 20 May 2009 04:34:23 +0000 http://meaningfuldata.wordpress.com/2007/11/19/my-facebook-status-is-meta/#comment-1067 Quite comprehensive and accurate, until one considers the paradoxes inherent in hybrid messages. True, a statistically significant categorization would require numerous random selections and analyses, even though trends may become intuitively clear before this quantification, especially among people who post with a penchant for staying in one mode or another. If one person knows the context (say, that Rachel is thinking obsessively about something that may happen, (she might be selected as the next American Idol), but has not yet happened, Rachel's literary friend might post as status Macbeth when he says "And nothing is but what is not," meaning that to Rachel mundane, objective reality is overwhelmed in her mind by the compulsive subjective ideation about a mere possibility, which is "not" yet and might never be. Thus the allusionist is at once cryptic, and, at the same time, communicating simple "inside baseball" to one in the know, i.e. if Rachel applies Macbeth's paradox to herself. And how would antilogies such as "This statement is false" be evaluated? Meta, I suppose. What is a message that responds literally to the "What's on your mind?" prompt with something like the answer, "meninges"? (This, of course is predicated on a reductionist notion that the mind-brain relationship is in relativistic harmony in the same way that light as photon particles and light as waveform energies are both true.) I post Meta messages frequently out of the same impulse that makes me want to create in the reader a sensitivity (and even better in your case, both the sensitivity and the analytical classification, creating order out of chaos. For me it's often just impish fun, the result of an urge to be simultaneously literal and cryptic at the same time. It brings up the "Observer Effect"; if one categorizes the hybrid discourse in only one way, it reflects the interpreter's consciousness at least as much as the one who posits it. Deconstructionists do this all the time to the consternation of all the people who, like myself, are not cognitive atheists, locked up in the prison house of language. Their argument is ultimately non-falsifiable and therefore not really any more convincing to me than, say, astrology; but they should be considered. I really enjoy what you've done here, Jason. I'll apply your paradigm to what I read, and get back to you. I'm tickled at you good humor and funny examples as much as I am at your sterling analyses and syntheses. Quite comprehensive and accurate, until one considers the paradoxes inherent in hybrid messages. True, a statistically significant categorization would require numerous random selections and analyses, even though trends may become intuitively clear before this quantification, especially among people who post with a penchant for staying in one mode or another. If one person knows the context (say, that Rachel is thinking obsessively about something that may happen, (she might be selected as the next American Idol), but has not yet happened, Rachel’s literary friend might post as status Macbeth when he says “And nothing is but what is not,” meaning that to Rachel mundane, objective reality is overwhelmed in her mind by the compulsive subjective ideation about a mere possibility, which is “not” yet and might never be. Thus the allusionist is at once cryptic, and, at the same time, communicating simple “inside baseball” to one in the know, i.e. if Rachel applies Macbeth’s paradox to herself. And how would antilogies such as “This statement is false” be evaluated? Meta, I suppose. What is a message that responds literally to the “What’s on your mind?” prompt with something like the answer, “meninges”? (This, of course is predicated on a reductionist notion that the mind-brain relationship is in relativistic harmony in the same way that light as photon particles and light as waveform energies are both true.) I post Meta messages frequently out of the same impulse that makes me want to create in the reader a sensitivity (and even better in your case, both the sensitivity and the analytical classification, creating order out of chaos. For me it’s often just impish fun, the result of an urge to be simultaneously literal and cryptic at the same time. It brings up the “Observer Effect”; if one categorizes the hybrid discourse in only one way, it reflects the interpreter’s consciousness at least as much as the one who posits it. Deconstructionists do this all the time to the consternation of all the people who, like myself, are not cognitive atheists, locked up in the prison house of language. Their argument is ultimately non-falsifiable and therefore not really any more convincing
to me than, say, astrology; but they should be considered. I really enjoy what you’ve done here, Jason. I’ll apply your paradigm to what I read, and get back to you. I’m tickled at you good humor and funny examples as much as I am at your sterling analyses and syntheses.

]]> By: Rachel http://blog.rachellovinger.com/2007/11/19/my-facebook-status-is-meta/#comment-860 Rachel Fri, 29 Feb 2008 22:37:49 +0000 http://meaningfuldata.wordpress.com/2007/11/19/my-facebook-status-is-meta/#comment-860 Well, I think there's a range of possibilities from "slightly cryptic" to "completely obscure." You might know what the word "indefatigable" <em>means</em>, but you would probably be a little puzzled as to why it's my status at that moment. Well, I think there’s a range of possibilities from “slightly cryptic” to “completely obscure.” You might know what the word “indefatigable” means, but you would probably be a little puzzled as to why it’s my status at that moment.

]]> By: Dennis http://blog.rachellovinger.com/2007/11/19/my-facebook-status-is-meta/#comment-859 Dennis Fri, 29 Feb 2008 15:22:23 +0000 http://meaningfuldata.wordpress.com/2007/11/19/my-facebook-status-is-meta/#comment-859 I dont think the example for cryptic was actually cryptic... doesn't everyone know what indefatigable means? Now, if you used a _made-up_ word... "Rachel is indefattable" (rachel can't get fat? or.. ??) now *that's* cryptic! :-) I dont think the example for cryptic was actually cryptic… doesn’t everyone know what indefatigable means? Now, if you used a _made-up_ word… “Rachel is indefattable” (rachel can’t get fat? or.. ??) now *that’s* cryptic! :-)

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