Journal #9

     Being a writer in the 21st century has many different meanings than it may have had several years ago before the internet, computers, even television. The internet has allowed anyone to become an "everyday writer." Being a writer in the 21st century is mostly based ON the internet, through blogs mostly, and this allows the writers work to be seen by a great amount of people all over the world. Everyday writing is the coherent writing of ideas to serve a purpose and are in response to an exigence. This is the backbone of all writing in the 21st century; Instagram posts, comments on someones Facebook wall, Twitter subtweets, etc. These are all ways in which to communicate your ideas to a wide variety of people throughout your community. 

     The emergence of digital technologies and Web 2.0, as I previously talked about, have allowed for new ways of composing; compare to previous time periods. It has allowed everyone to convey their ideas and respond to exigences, which makes them an everyday writer (but a writer nonetheless). Jenkins speaks about the very first "spam" that had ever happened on the internet, and people were furious; although other businesses saw this as a great way to advertise their company through the internet, so they began to make their own "spam." As we can see today, this type to advertising is everywhere on the internet. This spam is even now "personalized" from computer to computer, using your browsing history to figure out exactly which advertising should be showing on your Facebook page. Many people have problems with this because they are concerned with their privacy, which is understandable, but I think it is fascinating how far technology and the internet as gone that it has a memory to put up advertisements for Victoria's Secret, instead of Home Depot.