“Markus Giesler, a 28-year-old assistant professor of marketing at York University in Toronto, is fast becoming a bright light in high-tech consumer research… Giesler is currently conducting a study of iPod users and their music-listening habits. He has set up the iPod Stories website to solicit tales of iPod
consumption, which he will craft into an ethnographic study called ‘iPod Therefore iAm.’ According to Giesler’s preliminary research, the iPod isn’t simply an updated Walkman. It’s an entirely new beast: a revolutionary device that transforms listeners into ‘cyborgs’ through a process he calls ‘technotranscendence,'” Leander Kahney writes for Wired News.
“Unlike the Walkman, the iPod taps into a ‘hybrid entertainment matrix,’ in which functions like random shuffle are a key construct, not just a cute marketing device. ‘iPod and user form a cybernetic unit,’ said Giesler. ‘We’re always talking about cyborgs in the context of cultural theory and sci-fi literature, but this is an excellent example that they’re out there in the marketplace…. I have seen the future, and it is called the cyborg consumer.’ The cyborg consumer, Giesler said, is one that uses several different technologies — from cell phones to Viagra — and is highly connected, technically and socially. The iPod, for example, isn’t just an MP3 player. It’s an extension of the memory: storing the soundtrack of a lifetime, as well as names, addresses, calendars and notes,” Kahney writes.
MacDailyNews Take: Yeah, what that guy said.
Full article here.
Get a life….
Loser. I bet this guy gets laid a lot.
I am forever welded to my iPod ‘zone implant.’ So be it. Sigh.
Can I buy a vowel?
This guy is what we in the forum world would call a flame baiter. He is high on crack and still dilusional from reading Kurzweils (sp?) ‘The Age of Spiritual Machines’ or Bill Joy’s ‘Why the Future Doesn’t Need Us’. Either way, anyone who makes up or uses a word like ‘technotranscendence’ needs to be brought back down to earth.
God bless academics who find a niche and run with it.
-Curtis
http://cmyanko.spymac.com/blog/
Tonight i am going to play with my hybrid entertainment matrix (HEM). and because it takes batteries (electrical circuits) (E) I will call it my eHEM (pronounced as in clearing my throught). any when i have has enough of that I will be cybering (um cyborging) my techno transvestite (ehem, scratch that! )Technotranscendental mind into….
You make up the rest…
If this is anything more than a way for Markus to impress and “get with” pretentious college chics then I am gonna be dissapointed with him. If not, then way to go Geis! Wish I had thought of this one.
Boy, I’d like to tap into her “Hybrid Entertainment Matrix”
Angus Thermopyle: Crossed the Gap lately?
Angus, was your Magic word by chance “Apotheosis”?
“is highly connected, technically and…SOCIALLY ??!!!?”
By zoning out on yer earbuds?!?
This guy really needs to lose his virginity.
Men who can string more that 4 polysylables together and create a new way of looking at things are hot. You kids are just jealous.
Does anybody notice how this sort of portentious, abstract, Jargon-y, useless social theorizing always seems to come from Canada ?
Sounds like a bunch of Bull$hit for a Thesis.
B.S. – Bull $hit
M.S. – More $hit
Ph.D- Piled Higher and Deeper
did you mean “portentous” sonny
Quick! hide before mom finds out you’ve been playing with her computer.
BTW _What does a geopolitical land division have to do with who the poster is?
Green Memes says “Does anybody notice how this sort of portentious, abstract, Jargon-y, useless social theorizing always seems to come from Canada ?”
Well, Green Memes, as a Canadian, I can tell you it’s pretty cold up here right now and we have a lot of time to drink, make love or think during the winter.
But our friend at York U. might be on to something. The iPod is so exponentially different from the original tape Walkman that it is a life changing device.
I find that I can tune out and create my own little world anywhere – and my world while walking down the street consists of more than noise avoidance.
Sometimes I’m learning by listening to a book, sometimes I’m living in the past (Iron Butterfly singing “In-a-gadda-da-vida, baby. Don’t you know that I love youoooooooooooo”). (Side note…. Donna Wylie, if you’re still around Steel Town, post here and we’ll chat!)
And sometimes, I’m creating art by watching people perform their daily lives to a symphony.
Am I a cyborg? Nah…..
But the professor got us all talking and thinking, so that’s not so bad.
And …. I notice that Green Memes’ name shows a certain appreciation of “useless social theorizing” and that he/she is a social thinker too.
Now…. back to work in Toronto!
Just cause its cold you get “time to drink, make love or think”! Hell its 12 below here in NY and Ive got my ass at work! Im moving to Canada
” width=”19″ height=”19″ alt=”wink” style=”border:0;” />
anyway, this guys job it to think of new words to describe why a new gadget is fenomnally popular and the effect it has on culture, and he is pretty good at it. I agree with the general concept but I think calling me a cyborg because I have ALL of my music in my pocket instead of just a tape of it and an FM radio (walkman) is a little much. The iPod was perfectly timed and designed for what it was meant to do.
People’s Obsessions over technology are really getting out of hand.
NoMacForYou says “People’s Obsessions over technology are really getting out of hand.”
That’s simply not true… it’s not an obsession. It’s love, passionate love. Love that starts with the simple feel of the shiny plastic, the wonderful way the click wheel bounces when I press it just so… the smooth flow of the menus on the deeply private screen that gets me so excited just to see and hold and touch the music….
Oh…
Maybe you have a point NoMacForYou…..
“Technotranscendence” Correct me if I am wrong but isn’t this just a high-faluting word for what we call “the kool aid”?
You will be assimilated. Resistance if futile.
In the future, people will expect more and more from their iPods. Cybernetics as in implantation would be a bit far fetched, but as far as interdependence goes, I can see a future where people feel they can’t go anywhere without it.
Mr. Green Sir
“Does anybody notice how this sort of portentious, abstract, Jargon-y, useless social theorizing always seems to come from Canada ?”
You mean like the concept that all men are created equal under God except Black Folk? Read your history and get a clue…
Wow Canadian made a HUGE leap from techno-gadget-love to social equality and racism.
How did he do that????
I don’t know how the Canuk made the leap, but I’m bettin’ an ipod was involved. You know an ipod as 21st century “Flux Capacitor” kind of thing.
D0 cy80r95 5p34k 1n 13375p34k?