iTunes Exposure, Embarrassment and Misleading Evidence.

Granted - music, movies and other entertainment choices can paint a pretty clear picture of ones interests, and even elude to what type of person you may be. But like Katherine (http://katkirkwood.blogspot.com/), my iTunes is full of things that could paint a rather embarrassing picture!

Yeah, I'd be embarrassed of some things in my iTunes library.
(terrible twos and running shoes, 2011.  http://2snshoes.blogspot.com/. Accessed 20 March, 2011)

My music collection is a crazy, sporadic mix of 6013 songs that have been accumulated over the past 6 years since my first iPod. Some are all time loves, some I've never heard before and a vast majority should probably be deleted. But they won't be. And that's just the beginning - there's applications, TV series, games etc that could reveal a lot about my personality. But they don't. I just get bored a lot...

In Levy's (2006) article, The Perfect Thing, he explores at length how a music collection is self- defining. I disagree. The exploration of playlists however, is more on the money. Playlists are personal - but for a stranger sitting next to you on the train to get a good enough glimpse to judge you... Well I'd be changing seats.

Snooping is an everyday pastime, didn't you know?
(cartoon comics, n.d. http://www.mexicanmemorabilia.com/cartooncomics.html. Accessed 20 March, 2011)

On the other hand, both my Mum and sister wouldn't have a clue how to put together a playlist, let alone put one on their iPods. So they rely on me, and my taste in music. Which would say nothing about them should a stranger get a hold of their pods. Tony Blair is not alone on that one (Levy, 2006).

The iTunes hybrid of music sharing and social networking, 'Ping', if successful, will undoubtedly satisfy all the curiosities of the peripheral snoopers... Hopefully. Permitted snooping is different, right?

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REFERENCES


Levy, S. 2006. “Identity” in The perfect thing: How the iPod shuffles commerce, culture and coolness, 21 – 41. New York: Simon & Schuster Paperbacks. Accessed on March 20, 2011. https://cmd.library.qut.edu.au/KCB201/KCB201_BK_272671.pdf