/sci/ - Science & Math

it is fashionable to suggest that cyberspace is some island of the blessed where people are free to indulge and express their individuality. this is not true. i have seen many people spill out their emotions – their guts – online and i did so myself until i began to see that i had commodified myself. commodification means that you turn something into a product which has a money value. in the 19th century commodities were made in factories by workers who were mostly exploited. but i created my interior thoughts as commodities for the corporations who owned the board i was posting to, like compuserv or aol. and that commodity was then sold on to other consumer entities as entertainment. cyberspace is a black hole it absorbs energy and personality and then represents it as an emotional spectacle. it is is done by businesses that commodify human interaction and emotion and we are getting lost in the spectacle