One of the first aspects I notice about this writing is the author’s definition of the word glitch, specifically that it is a mistake, an indicator of something going wrong. While I do agree with the sentiment that a glitch is generally wrong in the sense that it is a deviation from the intended effect or purpose, I also find it important to stress that there is nothing inherently awful or abysmal about a glitch. In fact, glitches may be beneficial, they reveal the different forms of interaction between mediums, whether between people or between people and technology, ultimately adding depth and enriching our world. It is only through our own introspection that we, as an individual or a collective, assign a value to a glitch.
Another point I found interesting about this author’s piece is the examination of surveillance capitalism and gender, specifically how the latter’s redefining and expansion can affect the former’s efficacy. Surveillance capitalism, whose ultimate goal is to create tailored individual profiles based on copious amounts of data, inadvertently rely on a rigid structure pertaining to algorithm-based analytics, one of such may be gender. Algorithms by nature, must be well defined and follow a rigid set of criteria; to be an effective evaluative metric, they must be able to assign people into neat boxes, gender being the prime example in this author’s writing. When we expand gender into this self-identifiable spectrum that, according to the author, consists of almost infinite variations, we make it exceptionally more difficult for these companies to force people into nondescript boxes of data sold to the highest bidder.
An aspect of this piece I am not particularly fond of is the piece’s desire to designate the use of AFK as a replacement for the acronym IRL. The author states that one of the motives for this switch is that the acronym IRL implies a falsehood, a person’s online persona is not as authentic as their real physical identity. I agree with the author’s statement that a user’s online self does not simply disappear when they transition from an online setting to a physical one, however, I think the author does not completely consider the idea that there is a very distinct reason these two personas must be isolated from each other. This piece is saturated with concepts or race, gender, sexuality, and other characteristics that makeup individuals who may be marginalized due to their respective qualities; there is a distinct correlation between these individuals’ characteristics and their potential need to isolate their respective online and IRL personas. The anonymity of the Internet, while both a blessing and a bane, allows individuals to express themselves in a medium without fear of retribution for simply looking a certain way or being attracted to a certain gender.