Some Ideas Concerning Cyberspace

When reading Interface Fantasy A Lacanian Cyborg Ontology, I find it reluctant to connect female voice system to Oedipus complex, claiming that people are willing to hear female voice for its maternal characteristics. As for me, it’s over interpreted with tenuous evidence, just like the other viewpoints proposed through psychoanalysis method.

Reading that the cyberspace “blurs the boundaries between self and others”, it causes me to think of my own situation. Since I am used to typing everything important in my laptop and mobile phone, like class notes and memos, and I also mark every book, film and album I appreciate on Douban, a website specifically aiming at marking and sharing cultural products, it’s quite risky but crucial to think what if I’m cut off the cyberspace one day. I wouldn’t be able to remember most of the books I’ve read, for sure, and I would also hardly remember the coming up events and meetings. So am I really taking advantages of cyberspace, or have I already given up a part of me to it? That thought scares me.

Another thing that confused me is the cyber addict, which appears widely on social media. A communication mobile app in China makes people crazily post their daily life, the lunch they’ve had, their boyfriends and girlfriends, complaints about work… After posting that, people desperately wait for others to click “heart” as a support or leave their comments. I understand their thoughts that much because I’m part of them, though I cannot figure out the innermost willingness that drives me so.

The idea that there’s a gap for fantasy between virtual world and reality is appealing to me, meaning that the object itself could never been shown through the cyberspace, but the image, texts or sounds takes the place. I think the most obvious example is the goods we buy online are hardly the same as we imagine, because they’re shown merely in pictures and words that could easily be misunderstood by consumers.