Containment.
My Writing for Electronic Communities graduate course, taught by Dr. Bill Wolff, required we read for this week Color Monitors: the black face of technology in america. (No, I did not mess up capitalizing–the author, Martin Kevorkian, was being creative!!! Imagine.)
There’s been a lot of talk about this being a racist book, or a “why are we making issues where there are none” etc., but I’ll let you devise your own opinion, as I am confused as to what I’m allowed to feel towards this subject as a white person.
What I will say, is this: containment. It makes sense, ya know? We are always containing things, and when we find a way to contain, we find new ways to contain.
Look at the array of choices of containers you can purchase at The Container Store. We’re not just talking the cardboard boxes you get from the back of the liquor store when you’re moving–this is the big leagues.
Sturdy containers (drawers) for your containers (cabinets)!!
Containers to keep things fresh!!
…to keep things orderly…
and organized!! (ohhh, marketing marketing marketing…)
playful
protected.
Contained.
We choose to contain.
We choose to be contained.
We create when forced to be contained.
Containment does not have to be such a terrible idea.
WIRED writer Bob Garfield writes, “It’s said that if you put a million monkeys at a million typewriters, eventually you will get the works of William Shakespeare. When you put together a million humans, a million camcorders, and a million computers, what you get is YouTube.”
Containment on internet sites such as YouTube only strengthens this idea that containment can lead to good. However, I think the greater issue is whether we are containing ourselves or if we are being contained by others. The latter–ugly.
A Post-Grad's Journey Towards Domestication 