Wednesday, 15 February 2012

Losing My Revolution: A year after the Egyptian Revolution, 10% of the social media documentation is gone

The Egyptian revolution on the 25th of January 2011 was unlike any other revolution in history because of the role of social media. Several blogs, Storify entries, web pages, channels on YouTube where created to document the revolution. Several books were even published documenting the 18 days. All of these contributions were made by the public, not historians, utilizing the tools of web 2.0. As a result of all these contributions we have an enormous digital content including thousands of posts, tweets, images, videos and sound files narrating and documenting the revolution. Unfortunately, at the first anniversary of this revolution over 10%
of this digital content is already gone.
Websites like Twitter, YouTube, Facebook, Storify, 1000Memories, Blogger and IAmJan25 have allowed the public to document the events of the revolution in real-time. Storify, for example, allows the user to create a timed organized collection of tweets, links, images, posts, map locations or videos to create a story. 1000Memories on the other hand allows the user to keep the memory of a loved one after he/she has passed away by creating collections about them including photos, notes, testimonials, videos and other mementos. Iamjan25 is a website dedicated mainly as a hub for all the videos and images about the Egyptian revolution sent to the website administrators.
It is fascinating to read the amalgamated stories assembled from the tweets, Facebook posts, links, images, videos, map-taggings, etc. from the authors who were experiencing and documenting these events as they occurred. These social media contributions could give a great insight of what happened in the revolution and feed the curiosity of the readers by making them relive those moments with the authors.
Even in the period when the Internet and cellular services were shut down people still took photos and videos which they later posted in the social networks. You can often find videos and images documenting the same incident from multiple angles which reminded me of the movie "Vantage Point"...
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Turkey: Another victim in the undeclared war on transgender women

Via Kocaeli Gazetesi, Mynet Haber and Haber 27 comes the sad news of the murder on Monday afternoon (13 February 2012) of Melda Yuksel in Kocaeli, Turkey.

As I understand it, Melda - a 26-year old transgender woman - met her younger brother Murat at a building site to ask his advice on some construction work she had commissioned. It seems that a conversation after the site meeting somehow escalated into an argument between the two about sexual orientation/gender identity, during which Mr Yuksel pulled out a gun and shot Melda five times. She died of her injuries at the scene of the shooting.

Neighbours reported hearing gunfire and officers from the County Police Department were on the scene within minutes, where Mr Yuksel was taken into custody with the gun still in his possession. The police investigation continues.

As regular readers of this blog will know, I believe that murders like this are part of a larger pattern of violence and discrimination against TS/TG people in Turkey and it's disheartening to have to repeat myself yet again:

TS/TG people are human, just like cis people. We have the same civil liberties and human rights as cis people. We're just another face in the crowd, someone you pass on the street every day. And yet, time and again, we are subjected to bigotry and violence simply because we exist. But being TS/TG is not some "lifestyle choice"; it isn't something we can leave at home when we go out into the world each day. And neither is it anything for cis people to react to, not with fear, not with hatred - and especially not with violence.

Transphobia is everywhere and it's way past time that cis people understood this and began to act accordingly, to show us the same respect that they automatically demand for themselves.

The answer is in their hands, not ours.

Cis people, you have to stop the transphobic violence, and you have to stop it now.

I extend my condolences to Melda's loved ones on their sad loss of yet another victim in the apparently endless undeclared war on transgender women in Turkey.

---------------

Photo of Melda from Mynet Haber

Thanks to Kemal Ordek, Secretary General of Pembe Hayat for the heads-up

Cross-posted from Bird of Paradox

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Tippi Hendren and her family (including a very young Melanie Griffith) lounging poolside with Anton LaVey's lion...

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Urban Times and GV Art gallery have come together in a momentous collaboration set to explore the tale of scientific traumas via art. GV Art is a contemporary art gallery, in the heart of London, which aims to explore and acknowledge the inter-relationship between art and science, and how the areas cross over and inform one another. The gallery produces exhibitions and events that create a dialogue focused on how modern man interprets and understands the advances in both areas and how an overlap in the technological and the creative, the medical and the historical are paving the way for new aesthetic sensibilities to develop.
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Patti Smith & Lizzy Mercier Descloux as Arthur Rimbaud and his sister Isabelle (NYC 1977 )

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Dave L Stevens of Stevens Internet Productions has generously uploaded to You Tube this stunning performance of "Spell" a.k.a."Footnote to Howl" by Patti Smith and her band, with Philip Glass on piano, and back-up "vocals" by saffron-robed Buddhist monks (the recitation was in honor of a visit by His Holiness the Dalai Lama). As Stevens himself notes, "Not seen for more than a decade. I directed and produced this interactive webcast. When Patti Smith begins "howling" on her clarinet, it's sublime."
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