[Air-L] facebook, twitter and annoyances

[Giorgos Cheliotis]

I also find the discussion very interesting and would hope that  
someone will look into this as a research topic. There is something  
almost intimate, though at the same time casual, about food updates.  
Sharing a bit of someone's daily life can help create a sense of  
connectedness, assuming you care for the person as such to begin with.  
If you're following someone simply as an information source, you might  
not care at all. So, in a completely fictional example:

Who would be interested in hearing what the Huffington Post recommends  
for breakfast? Assuming those who visit the website do so in search of  
information that is broadly deemed  news-worthy, no one would. Readers  
and fans of Arianna Huffington may on the other hand like to hear what  
she had for breakfast and thus remotely partake in the daily ritual  
that one would typically only share with partners and friends.

I guess this would be a typical case for a uses and gratifications  
approach, though food culture in particular would also be interesting  
to focus on.

On Nov 2, 2009, at 8:15 AM, danah boyd wrote:

> When it comes to food status updates, I also think that the value  
> goes beyond the food itself.  Food is part of ritualized culture and  
> sharing is common with food itself.  All around the world, people  
> sit down for a meal with people in their lives.  There is no food in  
> online interactions.  There is no alcohol either.  All we have are  
> performances of food (and alcohol).  It's not the same, but there's  
> still some endearing about it, a feeling of peripheral awareness, a  
> feeling of togetherness when apart, a feeling of commonality and  
> patterns and daily flows.  My mother used to post about what she ate  
> and I loved it; it let me feel her presence in a way that's not  
> possible from far away. I loved seeing the habits of her life, not  
> because they are important to strangers, but because they are  
> important to me.
>
> I'm sure there are folks on this list who are more versed in food  
> culture than I am, but I just want to say that I appreciate those in  
> my intimate sphere talking about their food.  There's something  
> comforting about the simplicity of it.
>
> danah
>
>
> ------
>
> "taken out of context, i must seem so strange" -- ani
> http://www.zephoria.org/thoughts/
> http://www.danah.org/
> @zephoria
>
>
>
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