United States
Stephen Yang is a junior pursuing a double major in Communication and Information Science at Cornell University. As an aspiring media professional and social scientist, he is passionate about bringing about changes in our digital culture through creative endeavors and research inquiries.
Courtesy of Flickr Who pays for software these days? Software is either free or is meant to be pirated. That is the implication of our digital culture. Everything on the Internet by default has to be free, or it will be vehemently tinkered until it's free.
Complaints about Cornell's geographical location never cease. Calling it isolated and far from everything is the most common remark you will hear from students hailing from metropolitan areas. Location fundamentally shapes the identities of both Cornell and Ithaca in a spontaneous and symbiotic way.
There's a preconceived notion that noise music is just noise, not qualifying as even bad music. It is also widely believed that producing noise music does not require talent. Yes, its amorphous nature collapses the foundation of traditional music theory.
Courtesy of Flickr I have always had a love-hate relationship with entertainment. I'm too pretentious to openly embrace its blatantly encoded vulgarity that goes against the artful aesthetic of indeterminacy. I'm also so drowsy that I couldn't help but succumb to consuming entertainment for its presumed effect of immediate, sheer pleasure.
Courtesy of Buzzfeed Video For the past few weeks, videos from Buzzfeed havepopped up in my Youtube recommendations. I guess nostalgia is coded in the algorithms. Either way, I fell for it. My past viewing history informed Youtube of my possible current interests, so it is merely my past self suggesting content to my current self, right?
We live in an age of noise. Even an absent-minded soul can expect to be bombarded by information that is manipulated to distract, entice and further influence us. Our platforms, our infrastructures, our economy, our society all endorse the commodification of attention.
For students leaving for Fall Break, music is most likely the go-to temporal escape from the hassle of the trek out of Ithaca. Whether it is amplified through the speaker on your car or your earphones, chances are the music is streamed but not owned. And chances are you conveniently “borrowed” your favorite tracks, which are merely ephemeral on your playlist, from playlists curated by recommendation algorithms.
Courtesy of Netflix A t the beginning of each semester, I always go through a set of back-to-school rituals as a way to mentally set myself up for a new chapter of life. This time, the ritual went digital - I cancelled my Netflix subscription. No, I'm not quitting TV.
Conceived in 2007 at a gathering of more than a thousand independent record store owners across the globe, Record Store Day is held on one Saturday every April and every Black Friday in November to commemorate the unique culture of independently owned record stores and their importance within a community.