New Media: Gender, Culture, Technology » November 6: Hank Green’s An Absolutely Remarkable Thing, Part 2

November 6: Hank Green’s An Absolutely Remarkable Thing, Part 2

Plan for the Day

  • Election Day tomorrow–get out and do your civic duty (if you haven’t already)
  • Social Construction of Sexuality–Wednesday, 10/30
    • Steven Seidman “Sex Work”
    • Children’s Shows
  • Hank Green’s An Absolutely Remarkable Thing (Part 1 and maybe 2–p. 215)
  • ENGL/AMST 3050 “Science Fiction and American Culture”
    • Spring 2025
    • Tuesday/Thursday, 1:00pm-2:15pm
    • Only 2 seats left!!!

Personal Social Media Research

Last class, I mentioned that you should consider following or viewing social media accounts you don’t agree with. The algorithms are giving us what we want, so that technology maintains our echo chambers, which I’m arguing is what we want. Of course, I’m thinking about accounts from people you oppose politically. I’m not saying “you need both sides…” because that’s more akin to the fallacy of false balance; instead, the rhetorician in me feels it’s important to hear how those opposed to you frame their arguments.

Time permitting, we should list social media sites and commenting on their purposes. After all, some are more useful for some activities/discussions than others: Facebook vs Pinterest vs eHarmony.

Hank Green’s An Absolutely Remarkable Thing, pp. 119-222

Let’s think about some more questions:

  • Again, why is this novel relevant to this semester’s class?
  • What makes April popular or able to be so popular?
    • I’m asking you to think culturally beyond the text and not literally. April is a type, perhaps a stereotype, with attributes that make her conventionally well-suited to the attention she garners.
    • Or is she?
  • Gender/sexuality anyone?
  • How does celebrity operate in the text?

Random quotes from the second third of the book:

  • pp. 121-122: April’s 5-tiered fame scale
  • p. 143: The President says, “It’s a democracy, April. Our citizens have access to their representatives in government.”
  • p. 145: “The Dream seemed to be a harmless call for people across the planet to work together.”
    • p. 149: “…the Carls had clearly altered the brains of humans, which was not simple intrusion. It was significant. It was scary.”
    • Collective consciousness
  • pp. 151-158: April meets Peter Petrawicki
    • p. 152: “He looked exactly like every guy I had ever seen walking down Wall Street:…”
    • p. 153: Petrawicki asks, “why, in the face of this immense threat, would we assume the best? Wouldn’t it make more sense to exercise even a little cuation?”
    • p. 154: Petrawicki warns, “…in the history of our planet, advanced civilizations meeting less-advanced cultures doesn’t usually end well for the less-advanced people.”
    • p. 155: “[Petrawicki] was one of thousands of people who scraped by filtering reality through their ideology and then yelling really loudly at the internet.”
      • “[April] was pitching a particular ideology that fit for some people but didn’t for others.”
    • p. 157: “…there were two sides you could be on. It was a huge mistake, and also great for views.”
    • p. 158: “In the end, my brand was me, so whatever I said became something I believed.”
  • p. 165: “…we’re just starting to get used to the impact that the social internet is having on us culturally and emotionally and socially.”
  • p. 178: “What is reality except for the things that people universally experience the same way. The Dream, in that sense, was very, very real.”
  • p. 190: “…the Defenders have been harassing me online. Their conspirac theories just kept piling up on each other until I was literally nonhuman….Dehumanization…”
  • p. 210: “I stayed on Peter Petrawicki’s talking point instead of moving t my own.”
  • p. 213: “Reasoned, caring conversations that considered the complexity of other perspectives didn’t get views. Rants did. Outrage did. Simplicity did. So, simple, outraged rants is what I gave people.”
  • pp. 215-216: April’s Overview on Passionate Believers
    • p. 215: “Human beings are terrible at accepting uncertainty, so when we’re ignorant, we make assumptions based on how we imagine the world.”
    • p. 216: “Some of [the Defender movement] were religious extremists….Some were purely secular, deeply believing that America and possibly the world was going to be destroyed if nothing was done…”
    • p. 216: “I felt very strongly that the Carls were a globally unifying force. For the first time ever, humanity was literally sharing a dream.”

Next Class

There’s no class on Monday, 11/11, Veterans Day. Finish reading Hank Green’s An Absolutely Remarkable Thing. We’ll finish discussing the novel on Wednesday, 11/13.