Within the past 15 years, some of the better films have drawn attention to the inter-connectedness of individuals. “Short Cuts,” “Magnolia,” “13 Conversations About One Thing,” “Crash” and “Me and You and Everyone We Know” are all poignant movies informing audiences that you may be more connected to the person sitting just a few rows behind you than you thought.
What’s significant about this recurring cinematic trend is it seems to indicate that we live in a society where there exists a need to explain to people that their relationships occur within a larger network of people, that their actions affect others.
The latest film to touch on this subject, “Me and You and Everyone We Know,” once again centers around lonely individuals longing to feel some sort of connection to other individuals living in the same community. Unlike the other films, it recognizes the role technology has played in making it easier for us to communicate, yet more difficult for us to connect.
The potential for alienation inherent in some of our most brilliant technological advancements reaches well beyond any phenomenon Marx could have ever predicted. Blogs, Livejournals, Facebook.com, Myspace.com, reality television, talk radio and annoyingly self-conscious documentaries all exist as outlets for the individual to scream to the world, “Please recognize my existence and tell me I am significant.”
They are tools where one’s passive-aggressive instincts can be honed and perfected, a means of communicating without really connecting. Blogs and Livejournals are indirect forms of communicating with others through a medium sensationalizing the role of the self-writer while diminishing the role of the other-reader. While this might be appropriate for a personal journal (an outlet of communication with oneself) it can hardly be considered a healthy form of social interaction.
It’s fascinating: the evolutionary progression of self-consciousness developing along with our technology. With photography and cinematography come an increasing awareness of physical appearance – how we appear to others and how we’d like to appear, all influenced by film and popular culture, both of which present us with idealized fantastical versions of reality.
We construct our identity based on physical appearance, adopting a stereotypical role and acting and dressing according to our self-constructed identity, an identity influenced by popular culture, itself an idealized and unrealistic representation of reality. Now, with the Internet and a vast array of Web communities, individuals are further encouraged to construct their identities in accordance with a specific criteria.
Membership in these communities is free, “friendships” easy to form and an “identity” easy to construct. So I join Facebook or Myspace and tell the world that my identity is the movies and music I like, my political views, relationship status, etc. I go online and “poke” my friends, send them messages, write on their walls and read their Livejournals and all of these interactions much resemble an actual relationship, an actual connectedness to other individuals. However, the reality is that cyberspace now exists as an almost entirely separate realm from the living, breathing material world.
Internet interactions are somewhat superficial, or else entirely emotional, and are ultimately unfulfilling. While they might affect us psychologically and emotionally, they have limited ramifications for the real world and might actually deter us from sustaining meaningful relationships in the real world.
