Me-Zone: The Hive-Mind of Digital Community

What am “I”?

Becoming “Me” in the Me-Zone-

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“Me” is on the mind of the “online” everyone. What does it mean to be “me” in the “Me-Zone”; the emergent “cloud-space” of TwitterFeed, MyFace and Youoogle etc? Maybe we’ll StumbleUpon it and Digg it? Maybe not. The Me-Zone quest is founded on our phenomenal ability to get outside ourselves and point at ourselves;  all we do is ask “Is that me? Is this me?” The age of mass comparison breeds a congenital dissatisfaction; a lack of “feel-good” about ourselves from birth; no one can be all things to themselves. Thus, we have “community”.

“I” have become the universal singular collective that everybody knows, wants to talk to but doesn’t understand. I am the new digitally social “me” and my “Me-Zone” desperately needs borders; hive mind “click-fit” identity needs to be defined, owned and signified. Why? Because we need it to function. It is “me” and I need it to shop, talk about shopping and then put down  hard earned cash and talk about what I’ve bought, so others can purchase too… but, of course, most of all I need it to “share” myself generously with the “huggy-world” community of everyone else. It is my passport into the “Me-Zone” of communal consciousness.

I am vicariously, through a fragmented digital “me”, being distributed, stored and accessed by others via servers across the world.  Each facet of “me” is expressed through mashup widgets that pipe “me” in to the Me-Zone; the more widgets connect me, the more the Me-Zone knows “me”.  The digital “me” is shared around, and that makes me happy…  I feel good because I can be all things to myself; I am the center of my digital universe, I have reached the Me-Zone…  but am I really assimilated into the new hive mind?

Who is and where is new the “borg-ian” Me-Zone? Where does this community really exist? Me-Zone exists in the tentacles that bind us digitally together; the connectivity conduits and the content of  communication. “Me” is my distributed self; the annotated “me” that’s  simultaneously referenced, positioned, identified, aggregated and assimilated as fresh meaning in the Me-Zone. The transformation of our means of expression is becoming a trans-media occupation;  we have to be conversant across the board. We have to make all and any  media bend to our will; mould it, stretch it, make it mean what we want. We communicate in strings of condensed but expandable snippets, drawing on the ever-growing Me-Zone vocabulary and increasing our reliance on our  “snip-it” repositories. We don’t need to say it all ourselves anymore… We have community.

The Me-Zone continues to build “me” online with or without me, digital “me” is added to, modified, enmeshed, embellished and assimilated  into the Me-Zone cloud; “I” am part of the growing cloud-vocabulary of meaning. There is no reserved space for “me” in the Me-Zone stream of consciousness; if I am silent in the Me-Zone my iota contribution to the expansive ocean of meaning will not be missed. Why?  “I” have become “meaning” and “me”, my proxy, is always there waiting to dish it out.  “I” am ready for my Me-Zone contextual redefinition; “me” is melded into other people’s “me”; “I” am meta-synchronised, tagged and regurgitated into the communal snip-it pot. My  automatic “Me” version update has been successfully installed.

“I” have now become “Me” in the Me-Zone.

dmojo-

©Dmojo, 2008-2009.