Introduction: Human No More

Buymylife.com: Cyber-femininities and commercial intimacy in blogshops

“…Boellstorff, 2008;Whitehead & Wesch, 2012). We extend the arguments of Roberts (2004) and Foster (2007), who have written about the producer-consumer (co-)creation of value (surplus and profit) through cultivation of product intimacy, in which consumers pay a premium for products they love.…”

What Defines a Community?

“…They found that on Twitter 22 percent of participants had reciprocal links compared with 30 percent on Tumblr and 3 percent in the blogosphere in general. 15 YouTubers in the present study did not define reciprocity in terms of following another video maker's account when friending was still active. Instead, they engaged in behaviors such as comment and viewership reciprocity.…”

“…13 By 2017, 400 hours of video were uploaded every minute to the site, 14 which represents four times the amount of video uploaded in 2013. 15 According to the Pew Research Center, YouTube is the second most used social networking site, behind only Facebook. In a 2014 study of US internet usage, Pew reported that 77 percent of adult internet users participated on Facebook, compared with 63 percent who used YouTube.…”

“…Pew reports that the percentage of adult internet users who posted videos online doubled from 14 percent in 2009 to 31 percent in 2013. 15 Still, nationwide statistics offer only one view of what people are doing and feeling when they post videos. In the present study a typical participatory trajectory began when a person watched YouTube videos through links that friends had sent.…”

“…Web pages and posted images create connotations of isolated places, while, ironically, the internet facilitates more intense connections with people in remote areas. 15 In addition, techno-cultural representations of places such as digital, interactive maps assert the tangibility of groups such as place-oriented but physically displaced diaspora. Dispersed groups may retain images and other material artifacts of cherished home countries to keep their memories of places alive.…”