Final Foursquare Cyberculture Report

You know when you feel like you’re being followed? If you get a Foursquare account, you just may be. Foursquare is a social networking site that users participate in nearly exclusively via their smartphones. The site allows users to “check in” wherever they go – tell the site where they are and what they’re doing. When a user checks in at a venue (most public places already exist on the site) they earn points and become one day closer to being the “mayor”, a title for people who have checked in at a particular venue more than anyone else within the last two months. The site also offers users points for check-ins and badges which users can collect. These badges can be for anything, from checking in all the time to being “On a boat.” These badges, along with the site’s new points system for check-ins, are a reward which seems to have no goal other than to keep the site fun and to keep users interested. After studying the site this semester, I believe the goal of the site, unlike most social networking sites, is to bring friends together in person, separate from the virtual world where so many of us spend our time. Often, however, users take a different approach, using the site to create an identity for themselves or to engage in competition for points and mayorships.

Step 1: Download the app to the smartphone or notepad of your choice. From there, your options are virtually endless. Check in everywhere you go in order to try to be the mayor of every place into which you step. Check in only at the gym so people think you’re really fit. Never check in and just leave “tips” at certain venues to leave advice (or snarky comments) for people who show up later. You do have to, at the very least, have a cell phone to use Foursquare. And to be fully included, though they have a texting version like Twitter’s, you have to have a smartphone with internet or cellular data access and the ability to download apps. On the site, the users you see are mainly those who are your "friends", people you have chosen to allow to see and get updates on your check-ins, and on a site where you’re constantly telling your Foursquare friends where you are, most people don’t want too many friends that they don’t actually know very well.

When I joined the Foursquare, I had very few friends who used the site, so I added everyone from my Facebook, Twitter, and email address book who the site told me used Foursquare. The problem, though, was that unless these people checked on the computer site, they couldn’t access my “friend request” (a problem which an app update has since solved). For a few weeks, I only had three “friends” on Foursquare. This made it so that some of the site’s main features, like checking in with friends, were not possible for me. Also, except for someone who was my “friend” or who was at

a given venue at the same time I was, it really didn’t matter much that I had checked in. I didn’t link my account to my Twitter or Facebook (I’m a little skeptical of the idea of telling the general public where I am ALL the time), so most of my friends that I see on a regular basis didn’t have any idea that I now avidly check-in on Foursquare anytime I go somewhere, or when I don’t, for that matter. In a way that no other site could, Foursquare seemed to connect me to my surroundings but also make me feel secluded, with the secret that I was an avid Foursquare user. The friends I did have who connect Foursquare to Twitter and such, while didn’t seem to have a problem with getting friends, but they still only

averaged around 40 friends, compared with over ten times that many on Facebook.

The first friend I have as an example of a type of Foursquare user is one who I not only don’t know well, but who I don’t know at all. Tony Weber’s avatar on Foursquare is Roger Moore as James Bond, not a “real” face. According to some of my friends, it really frustrates them when people don't use their real pictures as their avatar. I’m personally not a fan of avatars that aren’t your picture on most sites, but on Foursquare in particular, it seems odd. After checking emails I had received from Foursquare, I learned that I asked him to be my friend, but I have no idea who he is or when I did this. His avatar is William Shatner on Twitter (I don’t follow him) and is Sasquatch on Facebook (we’re not friends). I have no clue when or how I asked him to be my friend, but he lives in Austin, and I know everywhere he goes. I could stalk him if I

really wanted to, because the places of which he's mayor include “Tony’s refrigerator” and “Tony’s couch.” Tony obsessively checks in. In fact, he may be dangerously checking in – he doesn’t know me and I know where he is at all times! I get more notifications of his whereabouts than of any of my real friends. For Foursquare to really mean much, you have to be going somewhere when you check in, or you're inviting the killer from Seven to come get you for Sloth. But I'm mayor of my apartment building, and unless you follow me, chances are you don't know what floor or what room. Creating a venue for your couch and becoming friends with strangers is a different story, though. I don't really come off as threatening on my Foursquare page (imagine me smiling and checking in on campus all the time) but what if my picture was an avatar - just not a famous one?

For those who use Foursquare often, and this hits you as soon as you start using it, the check-ins can be a sort of competition. The site allows users to become “Mayor” of a particular

institution, place, even room – any venue you can create. You’re not really "mayor" in any sense other than being there all the time, usually. Occasionally venues offer coupons or other perks (free pizza, etc.) to their mayors. The University Co-op, for example, offers its mayor a $50 gift card on the 28th of every month. For me, the chance to gain mayorships made badges secondary. These types of incentives are still relatively rare, though. Soon after I joined the site, I began wanting very badly to be the mayor of my apartment building. I live here. I check in here nearly every day. The app even tells you when you’re within 10 days of becoming the mayor of any place when you check in. But for two weeks I didn’t get such a notification. When I first wrote about Foursquare, I was still an excruciating 9 days from becoming mayor, but I didn’t think I could actually make it. Someone else in this building was an avid Foursquare user, and they got to the site (and the site of our apartment complex) before I did. Now, however, I am the mayor. Foursquare started using a system soon after I joined so that “this week” really meant between this time exactly and this time seven days ago. During Spring Break, the person who had been relatively diligent about checking in at this building must have gone on vacation, because my Spring Break included a countdown: “5 days til you’re the mayor...4 days til you’re the mayor...” Finally, on the last day (Saturday) of Spring Break, I became the mayor of the Quarters Sterling House. Now, I am the old user who won’t stop checking in and who is keeping new users from being within ten days of becoming the mayor. Other places, though, like the bus I take to work, were ones that either no one cared to check in to or that no one was an avid enough user until now to check into often, and I took those mayorships easily, and hold them, even though I don’t check in at them very often.

There is a sort of class structure that is almost unnoticeable, but that I felt was tangible on the site. Some users check in at very specific places in order to create a certain appearance.

Others, like my Foursquare “friend” Vincent, truly are often checking in at venues like the airport. Vincent is a “friend” – he and I aren't friends in the true sense of the word, but we know each other through social networking sites and mutual acquaintances. To be honest, I’m not sure he'd recognize me on the street, but I know that he was in D.C. a couple months ago. Vincent owns a social media company and as such has the opportunity to travel for work often. On top of this, his group of friends includes more people than average who use SNS’s frequently. As such, Vincent has nearly 200 Foursquare friends and has checked in over 1,200 times. He’s the mayor of only five venues, but they include his Florida office and two gyms. He has more badges than anyone I know (I used his badge page to figure out how to get some of the badges) and when I see his check-ins or look at his page, I get the feeling that he’s, simply put, cooler than my other friends. When I joined Foursquare, Vincent was one of those first three friends, and while his pings were often things like "Mmmm Chipotle... Vincent H. @ Chipotle," I got the sense, from his not-exactly-rare check-ins at the airport that he was using Foursquare for something that was more important than my check in at Chipotle and then at my apartment.

A real hierarchy has been created by the makers of Foursquare that, unless one happens to be researching it, goes unnoticed to the average user. That hierarchy is one comprised of people called “Superusers.” No site that I could find online knew exactly how to become a Superuser, but from the people who didn’t mind bragging that they had been awarded the title, I have a feeling that it has to do with checking in often and being a member for a certain amount of time. According to AboutFoursquare.com, Superusers are “regular users who’ve been hand selected by the foursquare staff to help maintain the venue database.” Superusers come in stages: a user can be a 1, 2, or 3. At Level 1, users can report venues to have them deleted or combined and can edit any venue. Level 2 Superusers can, on top of their Level 1 power, complete suggested merges, add categories to venues, and close venues. Level 3 Superusers can create and remove venue names and can lock venues so that they can only be edited by other Level 3 Superusers. The Level 3 Superuser power is not often awarded. This real hierarchy, which also points to the fact that the site’s creators are intimately involved in the maintenance of the site through their choosing Superusers, is one that the average Foursquare user has no conception of and would not be very likely to notice.

If a user checks in ten times in twelve hours, Foursquare will award him the “Overshare” badge. In our everyday lives, it seems, we have a conception of “overshare,” and checking in everywhere we go (and broadcasting it) just might be overshare, even to some of our closest friends. A friend of mine on the site was the person that inspired me to try Foursquare for this project – and he has no idea. My friend Josh is the sort of Foursquare user who checks in everywhere. He has his account connected to his Twitter and often takes flak from our friends about all his check-ins. A whole conversation at dinner, after I had already joined the site (I remained quiet), was dedicated to picking on Josh about his Foursquare use. He is the mayor of a few sandwich shops and proudly checks in at Chick-fil-A at least three times a week. For a long time, Josh checked in every morning at work, but after registering with Foursquare as an employee, he is no longer the mayor of the venue. Since this turn of events, Josh doesn't check in at work anymore, or at least not on a very regular basis. Still, at any given time, a third of Josh’s latest tweets are likely to be “Josh P. @ HEB” or “Josh P. @ Thundercloud Subs.” This sort of user is the type that is using the site purely for the fun of it and because it is a social networking site to be a part of. Josh isn’t the mayor of any venues who give incentives, and he certainly isn’t selective about the announcements of his whereabouts. My guess is that he’s the kind of user who genuinely enjoys using the site.

My friend Jenn joined the site after I confessed to her and another friend, Charity, that I was using Foursquare on the night of Josh's dinner ribbing. She didn’t judge me, as I was afraid she would, but rather said she had been mildly interested in joining herself. And boy, did she join. Jenn is an example of someone who likes checking in everywhere. Jenn checks in when she eats out, when she gets back to Brazos garage, and when she gets back to Jester. If I didn’t know where Jenn was for a few days based on her pings to my phone, I would probably begin

to worry about her. Jenn also provided me with my first-ever example of a Foursquare "flesh meet.” One day I was minding my own business and eating a burrito with my roommate at Chipotle when all of a sudden, I looked up to see two of my friends. I couldn’t believe they found me so randomly, but Jenn said, "I know where you are all the time.” I had checked in at Chipotle on Foursquare! Sometimes I forget that my actions on a social networking site have consequences. In the case of Foursquare, if I didn’t have that friend I don’t know, I think this sharing is completely healthy. The site, it seems, encourages "flesh meets" among friends. Foursquare doesn’t want me to be lonely – it wants me to see my friends more often.

Charity followed me and Jenn onto Foursquare, and the three of us ended up having a Foursquare day together. Charity acts like she’s above the idea of being on Foursquare, but she gets excited about beating people to a check in if you're together. She checks in mainly at the rowing center and at the Capitol, two places she wants people to remember that she visits. One time that she did get excited: Foursquare day at Six Flags. The three of us checked in at every ride, trying to get as many points as possible. This meant trying to beat each other to checking in at a particular coaster (I got my Overshare Badge that day), because you get extra points for being the first of your friends to check in at a particular venue. Like Foursquare does, we trusted each other to wait until we were actually to a coaster to check in – one could probably check in at any coaster from a central location in the park. This day of checking in together further solidified for me that Foursquare intends to bring friends together. In fact, that day we all got “BFF Bonus” points for being around each other so much.

On Foursquare, you can be whoever you want to be. As long as you tell your friends who that is so they can look for you. The point of Foursquare doesn’t turn out to just be about being the mayor or getting badges and points – Foursquare wants to help users hang out with the people they know. Unlike sites such as Facebook and Twitter, Foursquare encourages “friends” to actually be friends - to be around one another. It's true, this site and its perks are really only available to those who have smartphones, not simply internet access, but lately it seems that more and more people of all kinds are able to conform to that requirement. Concerns with letting someone know your location seem to be broken down more often everyday, at least among users of smartphones and other social networking sites. You have to be going somewhere, it’s true. If a person is a stay at home mom, it wouldn't be very worthwhile to check in. But her friends would know where she was. For people who are often, say, walking around Austin, the site provides a way to actually see those people who are their friends -especially when it turns out that it would only take walking a few steps down the street.

A Semester's Worth of Observations on Social Networking

When I started this class, I thought I knew all I'd really care to know about social networking. I had a Facebook and a Twitter account that I used regularly, and I really wasn't interested in joining any other sites. In fact, when we started our comparison projects, I considered sticking with Twitter for one of the sites. When I thought about what Dr. Davis said about the project and that we shouldn't do something we were too invested in, though, I realized something: I love Twitter.

I really, really do. I've learned a lot about it over the course of the semester, too, as I've devoted a lot of time to being involved in and studying another site: Foursquare.

My first big Twitter-happening of the semester came when I was told at work (in a Representative's office at the Texas Capitol) that my tweet about being excited to be off work for MLK day had ended up in my boss' daily update about her name on the internet. For a few hours after that, I had a crisis of conscience that ended in my setting my Twitter account to private.

But, to me, there's a problem with that. What am I doing on Twitter if I make it private? If I didn't ever actually "microblog" and simply used the site for news (which I think would be a completely legitimate use of the site) having a private account would make sense. But when I put an opinion of mine or link something I think people should see to my Twitter account, I want people to see it. In fact, I'm more likely to want people who don't know me to see it - my friends are already pretty well-informed of my opinion on most issues.

So, after a six hour private-account hiatus, I was back to tweeting.
I love Twitter, and I love the ways I use it. Occasionally I'm "retweeted" by someone I think is important or who I have a lot of respect for, and when it happens, I get really excited. If my account were private, I couldn't have the same influence. I certainly don't simply use the site to tweet my own feelings.

When we discussed where we got our news at the beginning of the semester, I said mainly on Twitter. This has proved true, and I actually heard on Twitter that the President would be giving an address before television news stations announced that the address would be about the death of Osama bin Laden (who we discussed in connection with Bert and Viral Texts at the beginning of the semester, interestingly).

All of this has been a long-winded way of saying that I am glad of two things, especially:

1. This class has given me an appreciation of SNSs in general and the role they can play for us even when we can't codify what participating in them (think: checking in everywhere you go) really satisfies for a user.

2. I didn't try to be critical of Twitter-use. I'm guessing, after the Twitter fangirl moment I just had, that I wouldn't have been very good at it. This was one of the great parts of the course, though. We got the opportunity to really explore something that was similar to our norm, but was apart from it. In this way, I think we have gotten the opportunity to really consider our "real" and "virtual" lives.

"Flesh meets" on Foursquare

If I think about it, I think the real intent behind Foursquare is for people to have more "flesh meets" with people they already know. Or at least to contact them more often. The site allows users to get updates on where their friends are whenever the friends check in. For me, this meant that a couple of my friends came into Chipotle and started talking to me one day. This freaked me out a bit until I realized that just a few minutes before they walked in, I had checked in at Chipotle.

Really, what's the point of telling your friends where you are if you don't want to see them? Some people use check-ins as an opportunity to brag about where they are or to create a sort of persona (always at the gym, always at the airport, etc.) and I have to admit that if I were on vacation, I'd probably check in everywhere, just to say I had. "Just to say I did" is also a big motivation for people on Foursquare, I think. I'm currently the mayor of five places, and none of these are places where I receive any kind of recognition or coupons or any of that. I've simply checked in there more than anyone else in the past two months, and Foursquare calls me the mayor.

I think Foursquare really wants to encourage "flesh meets", though, based on what Foursquare itself has done. With a few of my friends that I see a lot, I get "BFF bonus" points for checking in with them a few times a week. The point, Foursquare seems to be suggesting, is that you're supposed to be together in using the app. After my initial embarrassment, I've decided that you're supposed to run around Six Flags checking in at every roller coaster. And you know what? It's a lot of fun to become mayor of the only roller coaster that ever makes you feel sick and to spend the day acting like a fool with your other Foursquare using friends - in person.

Do any of your sites encourage flesh meets in a sort of backhanded way? What about those that have them set up intentionally - do they encourage having more non-organized flesh meets after your first site-organized one?

Foursquare's competitive edge

One of the biggest things I noticed when I joined Foursquare has become even more pronounced: Foursquare is competitive.

When I joined Foursquare, the "Mayor" system, where a member is rewarded with the status of Mayor for being the person to check in the most at a particular venue, was the most obvious way the site encouraged competition, but since I've been there, the site has taken it up a notch.

The point system, implemented about a month ago, gives users points for their check-ins. As far as I can tell, one only gets points for the sake of getting points. The site also awards "badges" for checking in at certain types of venues, for example, but there has not yet been any indication that members will be receiving badges based on their points. So why do we get points?

Well...members are now encouraged to keep going -- check in everywhere you can! Check in at places you've never been and get more points! Check in somewhere your friends have never been and get extra points! Check in somewhere at least three times a week and get extra points!

Every time you get points for a check in, Foursquare reminds you how many points you got, tells you if you passed any friends in total points for the week, and encourages you to pass the friend you're closest to catching. All of this seems to really just be competition for the sake of competition.

My guess is that this must be Foursquare's way of trying to get its members to check in at every venue they visit. Some people, as I've mentioned in class, only check in to certain places that will create a "cool" Foursquare persona. Perhaps the site is using its new point system as a way to boost its stats, so to speak. If people are checking in more often, as my friends have been since the change, Foursquare will be able to boast about the amounts of check-ins that are taking place on the site.

Have any of you seen your sites using competition in this way?

I'm the kind of person who's always hated group projects...

As I tend to be pretty conscious of my grades, "aw, heck naw" was my knee-jerk reaction to the idea of crowdsourcing grades. I did my best, especially after reading Davidson's reply to her critics, to take her word at face value and not to scowl.

I must say, I think Davidson's argument has value. She has students be more responsible through the whole process of taking the course and makes them responsible to one another for the quality of their work. From this angle, I think crowdsourcing grading sounds like a relatively great way to do it.

As a student, though, I don't think I could help but object to crowdsourcing. I don't think I would choose a class if it said this would be going on in its description, and I think the idea of my peers grading my papers and other assignments would make me...angry.

If Dr. Davis gives me a really awful grade on a paper, I'm not going to be happy, but I wouldn't question that she's the authority on the subject. Like with group projects, though, if a peer seemed to have not done a satisfactory job and caused me to have a poor grade, I'd be angry. This class, with these specific people, after reading your blogs and interacting with you in class, I MIGHT be willing to participate in this with.

I think Davidson's argument presents a sort of utopian idea of what classes are like. All the students are suddenly motivated to work hard when they have the opportunity to run the show (at least a little). My fear is that this wouldn't be as much of a motivation for other students as it would be for me and that those students who work hard would be subjected to the group project nightmare - all semester.

S/R 3: eXistenZ

In the beginning, whether or not it’s really the beginning, of eXistenZ, a group of gamers is given the opportunity to test the newest creation of Allegra Geller, the gaming world’s best and most famous game designer. Before they get a chance, however, Allegra is attacked and shot by a realist, a person who wants to end the influence of gaming’s alternative reality. Ted Pikul, a marketing person for the gaming company, is sent away with Allegra and told that she is in great danger. When Allegra believes she is somewhat safe from the attacks of the realists, she brings up the trauma that her game pod, a fleshy object that we later learn is made with animal innards and synthetic DNA, must have gone through, and that she needs to check on the game by playing it. Allegra convinces Pikul to have a “port” inserted into his spinal cord (an enhancement she is shocked he didn’t have to begin with) so that they can play the game. After multiple complications with Pikul’s port, the two are finally able to play eXistenZ. Once in the game, Pikul is surprised to find that he feels he’s really there, like his body in the game is real. Allegra and Pikul work their way around, soon going into a game in the game. Pikul realizes that in the game he can’t tell what’s real and that he has no idea what’s going on with his real body. After pausing the game and finding that they seemed safe, Allegra convinces Pikul to return to the game. In the game, Allegra and Pikul find themselves realizing that they don’t know who their friends or enemies are, and both in the game and “out”, later on, they find themselves willing to kill people that they don’t truly know the motivations of. Finally, Pikul realizes that he is Allegra’s true assassin, but she is one step ahead of him, and she blows him up through a bomb she inserted in his game port. Suddenly, all the characters we recognize from the game are sitting in a semicircle, taking off headsets, and being told that the trial of a brand new game, tranCendenZ, is over. They’ve been in the game for twenty minutes, though it feels like days. In the final moments of the film, Ted Pikul and his somewhat timid girlfriend, Allegra Geller, shoot and kill the designer of tranCendenZ, using the wording of the original realist shooter, leaving the characters and the audience to wonder whether or not the game is still going.


Throughout the movie, the characters bring up the question of reality. Like in the Matrix, characters are given the choice between the game and reality, but in eXistenZ, the preferences and subconscious thoughts of the players create the world in which the game operates. As in the real world, those playing the game both bring their own thoughts to create the game and are changed and manipulated by the game itself. Pikul’s objection to the world of the game and its not giving him much free will leads Allegra to say “it’s like real life – just enough to make it interesting.” We have free will, Allegra the Designer would argue, but only so much as we’ve been given by our circumstances. This critique of life, by a woman who is intent on staying in a game that she created to mimic life, brings an audience to consider our own lives. It seems the game is both an imitation and a critique of the lives we lead. In a way, characters in the game are like people we deal with in our lives. We can at no point determine their true motives or know how their stories will cross with ours. We are at once a being that gets to make conscious choices and one that cannot decide for itself its next steps. We are constantly being shaped by the role we were given when entering the “game” and by the other players. When considering whether or not we have free will, many people determine that humans don’t have any. On the other hand, even people who believe that humans have free will would be remiss to ignore the fact that our position in society, the game character we’ve been given, has a huge impact on what we become, or even on what it is possible for us to become. The question of where our motivation comes from is a more complicated one, but it doesn’t take much a logical leap from here to see that the world we live in has a huge influence on what we desire. Reality, it seems, creates us and is in turn created by who we become.

eXistenZ: Too Real?

When, in a moment of uncertainty, Ted Pikul (Jude Law) tells Allegra Geller (Jennifer Jason Leigh) that he feels like he's just stumbling around, unsure of the motivations of anyone else and not sure of even himself. After raising this as an objection to being in the game and saying that he can't believe anyone would really want to play a game like this, Allegra responds, "But it's a game everybody's already playing." This really hit me, because in a game like eXistenZ, or online where Case "jacked in", or when using AR technology or SNSs, we're "playing the game" the way we live our lives. In all these cases, the participants can't be completely sure of the motives of players we interact with. Our lives are so intertwined with the game and with the lives of the other players that our fate depends on them, even if we can never figure out whether they're trustworthy or how much they really know.

This comparison that Allegra makes is one that is well taken, whether or not our nervous systems are actually connected to the interface. In a way, me, the real me, the Jenna that people believe they know, is the one that can be found online on my Twitter and Facebook accounts. Online, on these sites and others, I am the character, and my life outside the "game" could be forever affected by my actions online. I never thought of myself as actually "in" Banjo-Kazooie or Sarge's Heroes (yes, my video game knowledge is small and not too up-to-date), and I was never too invested in the characters. I got multiple chances at life, and if I decided to, I could reset the world and start over. eXistenZ seems so real because it offers players a chance to feel that their actions truly have some consequence. In eXistenZ, the game has become so real that Pikul and Allegra end up having a hard time deciding whether or not they're actually in the game, and the audience, it turns out, has been tricked into its own dilemma about whether or not the game is still going. In a way, Pikul makes a great point, whether you're in eXistenZ, "jacked in", or posting on Twitter. You need to be worried about your body, your real body, because it might be in danger.