2/29/2012
Short paragraph on Catfish
Though Mr. Garrioch promised us to finish watching Catfish next class, I just couldn't wait, so I finished it by myself a few minutes ago. All I can say is that I'm pretty much confused now. At first I felt scared of how a person like Angela could exist in the world, fooling everyone. But at the end of the documentary where I saw her crying, telling all the truth on how much she wanted to be an artist, I couldn't let myself stop crying with her. Although I still think she's a weird person, I think I can understand her a bit at least. She has been having this dream of being an artist, but the reality for her was to take care of two handicapped children, as her routine. If I were in her shoes I might have wanted to commit a similar thing perhaps. I can feel how much she wanted to socialize with others, while she lacked confidence on herself. She had to put her in disguise in order to do something that she wanted for a fairly long time. The only thing is that the way she did it was not so right. So well, for now, I would not judge on what she has done. I need more time to think deeply on such matters and to get some more information. I'll be back with more thoughts! :)
Article on Catfish by someone else :)
The "Truth" About Catfish, The More Complicated, More Important Facebook Movie
Posted by Alex_Pasternack on Thursday, Sep 30, 2010
If “The Social Network,” a partly-fictional rendition of Facebook’s founding, is version 2.0 of “The Great Gatsby” or “Citizen Kane,” then “Catfish,” a clever new documentary about fantasy, desire, and the slippery place of truth online, is “The Wizard of Oz” for the Internet generation. As the burgeoning “Facebook” genre goes, it’s the far more interesting, bedeviling and provocative film. I mean, “It’s complicated.”
The documentary revolves around a big mystery and a revelation, leading the Financial Times to compare it to Hitchcock, a description that’s both lazy and right-on (but more on that later). It’s not giving too much away to lay the updated scene: a teasing Facebook friend, Meagan, plays the Wizard, a bored New York photographer named Nev is Dorothy, and the “information superhighway” stands in as the Yellow Brick Road.
The protagonists’ real arrival in Oz – the “We’re not in Kansas anymore” moment – comes halfway through the movie, when Nev and his brother and friend decide that things have gotten too strange, and that they must actually go to meet the Wizard at her home, armed to the teeth, of course, with little digital cameras. And suddenly, the digital paths of their correspondence, up until now registered in the digital routing of Gchats, text messages, and naïve late night phone chats, give way to an actual road.
“Reality” hasn’t set in yet; desire and fantasy and a suspension of disbelief are all still in play. As with Dorothy’s Technicolor arrival in Oz, Nev’s voyage somewhere over the double rainbow comes with its own stylistic shift. Instead of simply shots of the interstate, most of the trip is described in zippy, zoomed-in Google Earth animation, some hypnotic fast forwarding, and then a Street View depiction of the road, jerking forward in blurry freeze frames; the navigation screen of the car’s GPS makes an appearance, as does a screen capture of the trip on Google Maps, from above, a single red line illustrating the path.
With its blurred edges and choppy, high-speed movement – an accidental correlative of the filmmakers’ own nonchalant hand-held style (or is it the other way around?) – the scenes are a far cry from the celebratory prettiness of the Hollywood cinema or the art house: this is haphazard, dull-colored, immediate, undigested, completely unadorned. And it would be shocking, if it weren’t so normal to see the world this way.
And maybe that’s what’s most shocking: that it’s not just normal to see the world like this, it’s strangely comforting. There is a sense of control to the world in virtual: think of how our smart phones have become indispensable safety blankets on even the most cursory trip across town, our guides to the world as video game, with our dot in the center. And think of how much we glean from our Facebook analysis, our Google searches: in a matter of minutes, they offer us more information about the world and the people around us than people of earlier generations could hope to gather over lifetimes of making friends.
It’s clear then, as the line pushes on and as the music pulses and the pace quickens, that entering the real world is not going to be easy. What the heavy and eye-grabbing and hypnotic use of Google travel does best is to give some hint of that anxious gap between the simulated road that we have come to expect from our gadgets’ augmented realities, and the world as we see it with our eyes and ears. The distance between “content” and substance, data and knowledge.
But even as the film makes this gap explicit – warning us, that if we abandon the Cave, things will not be as they once seemed – it also perpetuates another layer of virtuality, this one older and more complicated, but not by much: the documentary film. With its promise to show the world not as Hollywood would fantasize it but as it is, there is something as comforting in the medium of documentary as there may be in the information offered by the Internet.
In place of the lenses of Google and Facebook, which all but disappear from the film in its second act, we end up with the lens of the camera. Forcefully verite, the camerawork aims at a direct connection with reality: like some of the actual cameras, concealed under clothes or in the palms of hands, the camera in a film like this wants to be invisible. And in wanting so hard to seem real in a world laced with truthiness, with performances, with the presentations that make up the mediated life, Catfish inadvertently offers some valuable reminders, if we can actually pull away from the constant stream of updates and think about it.
The questions that circulate around the film – about its veracity and accuracy and deccency – aren’t incidental to the film: they are part of its force, and they are also irrelevant. In a fact-laced story (“not based on actual events” says the motto) about truth, the question of whether the film is “true” becomes the animating force. Concern over the truth of the film is precisely the truth of the film. (Hitchcock had “the McGuffin,” but the boys of Catfish have something more meta; let’s just call it “the Catfish.”) To anyone who has really lived on the Internet – and I mean anyone who has taken the Internet as some representation of real life, who has carried out parts of real life relationships on Gtalk or traipsed through the fantastic wilds of Craigslist – this uncanny relationship with the truth should sound a bit familiar.
There is Catfish’s greatest catch: the film’s metaphorical ability to capture what makes social networking so bedeviling. It’s a documentary not just about making a documentary, but about lives-as-documentaries, the identities we build, the selves we perform, the deceptions we make and to which we submit, in the name of information and “truth.” An increasingly relentless, irresistibly fascinating look at the lives of others, in all their reality, in all their contrivances, in all their heavily contrived appearance of reality. In that sense – the film as social network and vice versa – the word “documentary” betrays its weaknesses, its seams. Its makers don’t even insist on calling it a documentary.
Instead what we have is more like a carefully constructed montage, a virtualized version of the chaotic and unreal cities that our culture has triumphed since the start of the Industrial Revolution, shot appropriately in self-conscious Flip style. The film’s main locations directly echo the narrative arc that a character describes in Catfish’s truth-meets-fiction cousin, The Social Network: “We lived on farms and we moved to cities, and in the future we’ll be living on the Internet!”
All of the contemporary anxieties aside, all of its up-to-the-minute currency, the film is still a film: like any old fashioned movie, its narrative moves in a straight line towards a denouement that can be either so profound, stunning, or bewildering so as to be insightful. Facebook, with all of its pervasiveness, its penetration, its endless and many-directional streams of links and updates and pictures and videos and likes – with all of its marketing – is anything but straight. It’s more like the endless film that Walter Benjamin envisioned we would all be living in some day. So we live in this public film, we live in this city. But – and this puts aside the sometimes suspect behavior of the CEOs of Facebook and Google – we have no clear mayor, no director, other than ourselves and our friends and even perhaps people we haven’t yet met.
This is the movie’s recursive motif: the more we live in the bright white glow of our virtual world, the more the real one starts to look like a dark, cold, and haunted forest, a place we can sometimes forget how to inhabit. There are signs to alert us to oncoming dangers, but we have to know how to read them. There are more friends out there, whatever that means. And there are also more lions and tigers and bears too.
But in the endless vanity and fun house mirrors of the internet, which is what profile tinkering and Googling often reminds us it is, it can be hard to tell who is what. Finally, we’re left puzzling over not who the person on the other end really is – that gets an exhaustive investigation. The mystery is who the protagonist is, how much did the filmmakers know and when, and just what were they thinking. How clever. One of the most telling moments happens inside the Wizard’s lair, when Nev escapes to the bathroom and finally turns the camera on himself to deliver something like a status update. There’s a vanity to it, obviously, but also a manipulativeness, a performance, and a false naivete.
And here too we begin to get wind of another kind of Internet behavior ported to the screen: the sideways attempt to terrorize someone by exposing them to the world. There’s a serious documentary to be made about the people whose lives have been destroyed by the Internet, in some cases literally: last week, for instance, after his roommate posted a video of him in an intimate situation with another man, 18-year-old Rutgers freshman Tyler Clementi jumped off the George Washington Bridge. An hour beforehand he sent a farewell to his friends by Facebook.
By this point in the film, the title’s meaning will soon be explained, but it already echoes another term, ripped from the web. “Phishing” is a ploy that begins with an innocent email or IM from a supposed friend or customer service rep – check out this link, confirm your bank details – but ends in theft, of passwords, credit card numbers, identities.
When Nev dramatically records his commentary, it’s pretty clear the filmmakers had an upper hand from the start, that the film is a weapon of sorts, in the guise of a victim’s claim. The filmmakers are the fish and the fishermen, both the innocents but the hackers. It uses the word “documentary” the way Facebook uses the word “friend”: lazily at best, distorting at worst. In the very serious, very ironic carnivalesque funhouse of the film’s final act – which comes complete, even, with deformed children, actual freaks – it’s hard to tell where the infinite mirror of the internet ends and the infinite mirror of the film begins. It’s brilliant, and it’s sick: the stuff that Internet hits are made of.

If we had to find the film’s final hook in this dizzying series, we could look at the teasing tagline on every poster: “Don’t let anyone tell you what it is.” Echoing the promise of social networks, with all the revelations and information that comes with belonging or being accepted as a “friend,” it urges us, “Just join and then you’ll know.” But this is a pretty challenging imperative in an era of 140-character publishing and instant updates: how can we prevent the Internet from spoiling anything? When privacy is dead, secrets aren’t just passe, but they’re nearly impossible to keep.
If we dig a little deeper, the tagline offers a more interesting challenge. We never really know what “it” refers to, and even if we did, we can’t really know what “it” is. Attempts to unpack our complicated relationship with the truth, be it on the silver screen or the computer screen, the tagline tells us, are somehow doomed. It’s a key to the film’s logic, and it’s another puzzle.
The games aside, if we take life on the Internet seriously, as we increasingly should, there are some very serious implications of Catfish, starting with its “playful” use of the term “documentary” and ending somewhere at the fringes of our notion of privacy. If we’ve ever done or said things online we wouldn’t do in real life, if we’ve ever fallen victim to a snide comment, a hack, or an untruth, we should be familiar with just how easily things can get complicated there.
We don’t have to disregard the ethical complications of the movie to enjoy it,; on the contrary, those complications are important in a document of our lives online, and the desires and fantasies that feed them. Note the implied subject of the tagline, “you,” and the tagline betrays the film’s deeper subject. It has turned the mirror on us, which, like the best art, is what makes it so intriguing, what brings it so uncannily close to home, or the profiles we call home pages. We’re along for the ride and we’re taken for a ride too, to a place far nearer and far stranger than Oz, a place where the perpetrators of fictions aren’t Wizards, but all of “you,” and any of your “friends.”
2/27/2012
[Mr.Menard] First Assignment (02.23.2012) ! :)
<Things to consider for the revision>
1. Organize the last paragraph more concisely.
2. Explain the relationship between my personal experience and the main idea of the story.
3. Specify the difference between this story and other dark romantic stories.
<Revision>
The very first thought that came to me after reading “The Ambitious Guest” by Nathaniel Hawthorne was that it was different from other Dark Romantic short stories that I have read. The other ones I have gone through, such as “The Tell Tale Heart” or “The Cask of Amontillado”, were literally dark. They used negative vocabularies, and they were all about murders and revenges. However, in “The Ambitious Guest”, no one tried to get revenge on anyone, or to murder anyone out of jealousy or inferiority. It does have a core theme in exploring human beings, but in a different sense than other Dark Romantic stories. This one gave me a more fundamental wonder on human beings, ourselves. Why do we want to know about something that we don’t know?
To look back on myself, there were usually two different reasons why I wanted to find out the unknowns. Most of the time was because I felt anxious whenever I saw someone else knowing something that I didn’t know. (To specify, those were mostly personal things such as who like whom and that kind of stuff.) The other reason, though it only took up a very little percentage unfortunately, was out of pure curiosity. I believe this exists in every single person. Although it has no direct relationship with me, I sometimes like to dig into the world of science. Nowadays I’m very interested in physical chemistry, so that could be one of the examples.
As there is always “the middle” existing, I sometimes seek for something on my own, neither because I feel anxious nor out of pure curiosity; maybe both because I feel anxious and I feel curious. One big example is that I’m almost insanely interested in politics. I’ve been always proud of the fact that I spend comparably long time giving attention to the society and its controversial issues. I have considered some people as cowards just because they say that they are indifferent about those issues. Ironically, I sometimes want to be like them, having no interest toward the society, only caring for myself. I feel tired, and wonder about where this curiosity might have come out of. But the reason I can’t stop giving attention, is perhaps because I want to feel the superiority over others. I might have been hiding my feeling in the name of “curiosity” to justify myself.
Overall, I still don’t know the answer for the question “Why do we want to know about something that we don’t know?” Well actually I think I don’t know. Perhaps, I want to pretend as if I don’t know. But, there’s one thing I can guarantee: having curiosity and ambition is never a bad thing. Hawthorne does not seem to be describing curiosity as a good thing; rather, he seems to be believing that ignorance is a bliss sometimes. But, I don' think so. Whatever the reason for that curiosity is, all of us human beings have rights to know about the world. Trying not to know is a mere shield for those who are afraid to know more. Although I could not find the exact answer to the question that I threw at first, this reflection was a very meaningful opportunity for me, to have time to think more deeply on myself and on the whole group of human beings by extension. I hope to be able to have a definite answer for the question someday later in my life.
2/19/2012
:) (edited)
Whatever the reason is, and however convincing that is, something unjust should never be considered as a natural consequence nor be allowed in this society. But the reality is such an irony. There are tragedies happening everywhere. People lie, don’t trust each other, and the social gap is widening day by day. And frankly, one of the main factors of degrading the world justice has been quite near us. Walmart.
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I left these two best ones to show how people are protesting against Walmart now. Although these two videos don't explain every single detail about what they are doing, I think looking at the exact scenes of the protests would be much more helpful for us to get the mood and the feeling at the sight. One thing I noticed was the difference between their protests and the ones in Korea. There was no police involved to abuse them anywhere in the videos. Also, the protesters seemed much less violent than in Korea.
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I left these two best ones to show how people are protesting against Walmart now. Although these two videos don't explain every single detail about what they are doing, I think looking at the exact scenes of the protests would be much more helpful for us to get the mood and the feeling at the sight. One thing I noticed was the difference between their protests and the ones in Korea. There was no police involved to abuse them anywhere in the videos. Also, the protesters seemed much less violent than in Korea.
2/14/2012
Dear my ex-braces :)
Dear my ex-braces
I don’t think I have ever said thank you for you, though I have always been secretly appreciating you in my mind. Considering the fact that I have known my high school friends for a year, you and I have known each other for a fairly long time. Perhaps that’s why I felt like crying when I realized that I had to put “ex-“ in front of your name as a prefix. As all the good-bye letters include, it seems like it’s my responsibility to talk about the first time we have met two years ago. But, first I will tell you how I have often thought of having you as my friend, even before our first meeting.
It all started when I first went to Jefferson Middle School, a small school in the middle of cornfields in Champaign, Illinois. Apart from the fact that all of the students, teachers, and even faculties there were foreigners, noticeably many of them were wearing braces. Well, to be honest, I didn’t even know what that was at that time. As I went to school day by day and made more friends, I could realize how colorful their braces were; and how cool they looked. One of their arguments was that having braces was a trend among “well-living” kids, and that it represented their wealth. But the whole thing that attracted me was when I saw my crush wearing them one day. That was all for me. Since that day, I had begged my parents to get me braces like other kids, well actually like that one kid.
And my dream came true; except that it came a bit too late: after I went back to Korea. Mom told me one day that I would have to get braces because my mouth was as volumetric as a duck’s mouth. Though that was not quite a complement, I was just thankful for that I could eventually get braces! I also thought that I would eat less due to the pain of braces. And that it might help me losing weight. (It didn’t really come true though) Anyhow, this was how I finally got you! I was finally wearing you inside my mouth!!
Although it often hurt a lot to have you tightening my teeth, I could endure quite well because my pride for having you was way bigger than the pain. My Korean friends didn’t understand me being so proud of wearing you, which I didn’t really care. I changed a lot while having you inside me. My closed-mouth smile turned into a big open one; I brushed my teeth five times a day; and I tried to show you out whenever I was taking pictures of myself. Each moment thinking of you made me excited with something, something that I can’t really explain. I wouldn’t say it was only because of my crush back in Champaign; there was something more than that. I will tell you why someday, when I figure out my true feeling underneath that pride.
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Sorry to say this, but, I have got another thing to tell you- not really a good one this time. Though I always tried hard to maintain my pride on you, I couldn’t keep my sincerity after this one big incident. Do you remember the day when I had to take a photo for the KMLA ID card last year? As always, my mouth was widely open while one of the TTL members was taking a picture of me. Suddenly, the photo taker yelled at me to close my mouth. I asked him why and he got angry at me with saying, “Don’t you notice your mouth looks weird with those braces?!” And even for now, that has been one of the most shocking days in my life. I tried hard not to care about what he had said, but it was not quite easy. Since that day, I had felt embarrassed on you; though I never really let you know my feeling.
Shame on me. I realized how precious you were to me too late. And it was already after you left me. The pinches handled by the orthodontist’s right hand were approaching me. They quickly took you away from me. And that was it. Sorry, I’m really sorry. After losing you, I life-experienced the true meaning of saying “You don't know what you've got until you've lost it”. I promise I would never commit this kind of stupid mistake for the rest of my life. Though you’re not next to me anymore, I would think of you whenever looking at my big smile on the mirror, as a precious gift that you gave me.
I really miss you,
Thank you my friend.
Sincerely,
your lifelong friend Jane.
2/13/2012
Walmart!
The last two are what happened in korea few years ago. They wanted to tear down small markets in the streets in order to build up a big megamarket like Walmart. The megamarket company even employed gangsters to kick our poor market owners, with only a little amount of money paid. I believe this is a kind of incident that probably happens in the united states too. I will write about these more in later time!
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