Digital Anthropology

Apart from window shopping and people watching, I have seriously increased my online activity over the past few weeks. I've not only revived both of my blogs, I've also gotten a lot more active on Facebook, joined Twitter and have gone e-mail crazy.
Equally importantly, I've spent a lot of time thinking about the Internet and my place within its community of users. Digital Anthropology is a newly discovered passion that I find hard to leave alone. Questions like what is a web user? Am I a consumer or producer of the Internet? What is the nature of my interactions with the net, its other users, and myself. Is what I am doing here a dialogue or a monologue? And if it is a monologue, does it have an audience? Or is it maybe a dialogue between two different sides of myself? Questions, questions, questions... I'm definitely going to have to answer some of them and in order to do that I will dig deeper into the field of digital anthropology.
I'm fascinated by it and really don't want to let go. I feel that this is what I'm meant to be doing, which is an entirely new sensation to me. I've never had a clear plan in my life nor did I ever know what I wanted to be when I grow up. (Other than tall, that is, and when I stopped growing at 5'3'', I gave up on the planning thing.) I've just run with whatever life put out there for me. That is not to say that I went mainstream or did not pursue my dreams. But my dreams were always individual dots on the graph of life. They never connected to form a clear path:
I wanted to live in LA, so I moved there not knowing anyone and not sure about how to get a visa, a job, a place (it worked out great!). Then I looked for a good thing to study, and despite my experience as a legal secretary anthropology was the perfect fit. During my studies I focused heavily on Latin America, but I ended up specialising on Africa. I got a PhD in Media Anthropology, but rather than staying put and pursuing research, I moved to Ireland and started working in digital advertising. Now I've quit my job to move to London. In the middle of the biggest crisis in recent history! (I must admit, I am doubting my own sanity over this step, but it felt right, so it must have been right. All previous steps have been hard at first, but I regret none of them.)
But now they all seem to make sense. It is strange, as if the diverging, interrupted paths have suddenly by some magic twist of perceptionary illusion, come together in one spot and shouted at me: "THIS IS WHAT YOU NEED TO BE DOING!" In this time of unemployment and seeming emptyness it all comes together. I now understand why my time was not wasted in trying to sell cheap car insurance, penis enlargement and the like. It gave me unique insight into the psyche of the other side of the Internet. Before, I knew only the user. Now, in an almost sickeningly postmodern, hermeneutical twist, I have come to know those who try to make money from the online community and understand what they think this community is. But I know that this is not an image. It is a distorted reflection of the commercial mind of the business world reflected onto the online community. No, that's actually not quite it. That sounds cynical and wannabe communist. I need some time. And more knowledge. But I see some really interesting stuff here; questions of the online and offline self, of the convergence of online and offline worlds and of the nature of value. In fact, I think I understand the underlying reason for companies' inability to cash in on the social side of the web. But before I go off on another accidental anti-capitalist rant, I will get on with some research. I will be digging digital. And I'm loving this!