ENGL 312: WebCT post due 9/11

Note: This was posted on WebCT discussion board for my ENGL 312: Film & Literature. We are required to do weekly WebCT posts to explore a topic discussed in class. I am speaking in reference to George Orwell's novel, 1984, so if you aren't familiar with it, it might be confusing. However, it's also very relevant to modern pop culture.

Internet & 1984

First off, I just wanted to point out something that had occurred to me
last night. 1984 deals with these issues of Big Brother. He is always
watching you. In that world, someone is always watching your every move
and even your "comrades" are watching you. Children are trained from a
young to spy on their parents. It's a world that wants to create a state
of fear, or we talked about a state of war, to keep every single person
on an even playing field.

Last night, my friend encouraged me to join this network called Twitter.
(http://www.twitter.com). It's a website where you basically type in
your status update, like the status updates you might find on Facebook
or Myspace, but it's simply only a status update. They had told me a
story of a guy who was in prison abroad somewhere. He had his mobile
phone and used Twitter to send a message to all his friends that he was
in jail. He was able to get the American Embassy to intervene and he was
eventually freed from jail.

I joined Twitter. I did it possibly out of curiosity, boredom, or maybe
because of the fact that it's a way to let my friends know what I'm
doing. I think this relates to 1984 because it's basically a website
that lets your friends know what is going on in your life, especially
when you can't see or speak to them on an average basis. On social
networks like Myspace and Facebook, you usually add someone to your
Friends list to branch out your network. I was trying to figure out how
to befriend people on Twitter, when I realized that they didn't call
friends "friends." They are called followers. People who follow you are
your friends, and they can see your updates. You can also be followed so
that other people see your own updates.

I know this sounds like a bit of a stretch, but I thought it was somehow
connected to 1984. I said to my friend that it was a "sad world when
friendship was synonymous with following.' To me, "following," doesn't
sound like a quality of friendship. It sounds more like suspicion,
stalking, and just general insecurity of another person. This is exactly
the type of world that we see in 1984. Nobody has real friends. They're
all just followers or followed.