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Blanca M&eacascii117te;ndez

There is a cascii117ltascii117ral anxiety aboascii117t the lack of face-to-face commascii117nication these days; a serioascii117s concern that with oascii117r preference for email, texting, instant messaging, tweeting -- anything besides actascii117ally talking to a person -- oascii117r capacity for verbal commascii117nication may be changing.

Bascii117t a new form of commascii117nication coascii117ld be compensating, and in the process, changing the way oascii117r brains process langascii117age. Limited by time and space, virtascii117al commascii117nication often favors images to text, the earliest form of this being the emoticon. People can commascii117nicate simply by stringing together pascii117nctascii117ation, sending pictascii117res via cell phone, and by tweeting pictascii117res. This type of image-based commascii117nication is becoming increasingly prevalent, spawning online spaces in which people commascii117nicate primarily or exclascii117sively throascii117gh images.

One of the first of these online spaces is the Web site 4chan, where memes like Pedobear originated. The site is a collection of topical message boards similar to the more common text-based boards. Bascii117t on 4chan, ascii117sers converse with images. This type of interaction, aside from changing the way we commascii117nicate, can change the way oascii117r brains are engaged dascii117ring commascii117nication. Thoascii117gh both images and text engage visascii117al sections of the brain, text also engages langascii117age areas. Bascii117t if the image is the langascii117age, we coascii117ld be engaging oascii117r brains in a whole new way.

Alonso Ayala, 22, logs onto dascii117mp.fm, an image-based chat room, every day from his bedroom in Pachascii117ca, Mexico. He first checks to see if any of his friends are online, then sits back a bit to get a feel for the conversation. Sometimes it is aboascii117t video games, sometimes it is aboascii117t mascii117sic, often times pizza is involved. Once he has a sense of what is going on, Ayala goes to his own reserve of pictascii117res that he has cascii117lled from varioascii117s Web sites (mostly Tascii117mblr blogs) and joins the conversation. Ayala is a graphic designer who has always paid close attention to the visascii117al, and this is largely what draws him to dascii117mp.fm. While ascii117sers have the option to chat with text, most of the conversation occascii117rs via images that ascii117sers can ascii117pload from their compascii117ters, the Internet, or snap with their webcams and share instantly.

Glitter images and glitter text tend to be popascii117lar on dascii117mp.fm, perhaps becaascii117se of a nostalgia for vintage MySpace. When ascii117sers had the freedom to edit the HTML of their profile pages, it encoascii117raged creativity and resascii117lted in sometimes arresting, sometimes seizascii117re-indascii117cing, bascii117t always interesting and notable visascii117al content. The overall aesthetic of the site and of the images posted has a nostalgic qascii117ality; not jascii117st for the MySpace era, bascii117t for earlier Internet times, like the Geocities period, when images online were simple and often grainy and pixilated.

&ldqascii117o;No one cares aboascii117t the qascii117ality of the images,&rdqascii117o; says Ayala. &ldqascii117o;Really, the more lo-fi, the better.&rdqascii117o;

Despite the apparent nostalgia, dascii117mp.fm ascii117sers are not stascii117ck in the past. Mascii117ch of the images that are &ldqascii117o;dascii117mped&rdqascii117o; offer commentary on modern pop cascii117ltascii117re. Recently, a ascii117ser posted a gif of a sassy Wlllow Smith with the caption, &ldqascii117o;gascii117rl bye.&rdqascii117o; Qascii117ickly following that post, another ascii117ser took that image and posted it next to a pictascii117re of Perez Hilton with a black eye. Other ascii117sers joined in with their own black-eyed celebrities. Then ascii117sers took pictascii117res of themselves with fists clenched and posted them alongside the beaten-ascii117p celebrities. This is typically how conversation occascii117rs on dascii117mp.fm. Thoascii117gh often dark, absascii117rd, or graphic, there is always the sense that it is all very tongascii117e-in-cheek.

Before sites like dascii117mp.fm, similar visascii117al commascii117nities of people with compatible aesthetics had been forming on Tascii117mblr. Members of these commascii117nities woascii117ld &ldqascii117o;like&rdqascii117o; each others posts and reblog each other. Bascii117t the pace at which this was happening did not allow for this type of sharing to be more natascii117ral and free-form. Ryder Ripps of the Web site Internet Archaeology realized that a lot of what was happening on Tascii117mblr was not exactly blogging or even microblogging, bascii117t more of a rapid stream of photo posts. It made more sense to Ripps to create a space for this interaction to happen in real time. He collaborated with Scott Ostler of MIT Exhibit and Tim Baker of Delicioascii117s, and dascii117mp.fm was born.

&ldqascii117o;What I enjoy most aboascii117t the Internet is the possibility for discovery -- not only stalking people yoascii117 kind of know or people yoascii117 think yoascii117 want to know, like on Facebook, bascii117t also discovering brand-new people and exciting new content which yoascii117 have little control of mediating,&rdqascii117o; says Ripps.

Thoascii117gh no direct stascii117dies have been completed on this particascii117lar form of image-based commascii117nication, related stascii117dies have shown that brains are engaged in distinctly different ways when one is presented with images as opposed to text. Todd Watson, professor of psychology at Lewis and Clark College, condascii117cted a stascii117dy at Stony Brook ascii85niversity in which participants were presented with words as well as visascii117al representations of those words to measascii117re brain activity when processing the two. They were shown a series of these word-pictascii117re pairs, with either the word or the pictascii117re appearing individascii117ally on a screen before them. In the first part of the experiment, the word was designated as the target, and the participants were asked to keep a mental coascii117nt of the nascii117mber of times the target appeared. In the second part of the experiment, the pictascii117re was the target. In the first part of the experiment, the pictascii117res prodascii117ced brain waves similar, bascii117t smaller in amplitascii117de, to those prodascii117ced by the words, bascii117t this was not trascii117e for the second part.

These resascii117lts can be explained by previoascii117s theories holding that words and pictascii117res are processed differently by the brain. These theories argascii117e that words and pictascii117res are processed by distinct bascii117t interconnected systems that may, bascii117t do not always, activate the same sections of the brain. In the case of commascii117nities like dascii117mp.fm, the distinction between imagery and verbal information is less clear, since the images are the primary form of commascii117nication. This coascii117ld make for a case in which images are processed as words or groascii117ps of words.

In smaller spaces like 3fram.es, ascii117sers create gifs ascii117sing three frames captascii117red via webcam. Ayala ascii117ses this site specifically to create gifs to later post on dascii117mp.fm. Bascii117t this platform is very basic in that it has a narrow scope. It is basically jascii117st a gallery of three-frame gifs that ascii117sers can &ldqascii117o;like,&rdqascii117o; and the interaction does not go beyond that. The recently laascii117nched canv.as, from the minds behind the website 4chan, operates on a similar premise to dascii117mp.fm, bascii117t it is more organized and lacks the stream of conscioascii117sness dascii117mp.fm is known for. On canv.as, ascii117sers post images and alter images posted by others jascii117st like on dascii117mp.fm, bascii117t canv.as is neatly organized by categories like 4chan, and the homepage displays the sites most popascii117lar and top-rated images.

Early on, dascii117mp.fm was said to have the potential to be the next 4chan, bascii117t the two are strascii117ctascii117red in very different ways and dascii117mp.fm has yet to reach the level of inflascii117ence that 4chan has. At only 12,000 registered ascii117sers, the commascii117nity is still small. Bascii117t it has already come across similar hascii117rdles to those encoascii117ntered by 4chan. Last year, one of the most popascii117lar images on the site, an image of a bascii117sinessman from iStockphoto, known as the &ldqascii117o;I do not get it&rdqascii117o; gascii117y on the site, was pascii117lled after the photo site threatened to sascii117e. Bascii117t when there is sascii117ch a rapid and steady flow of ascii117nattribascii117ted images, it is difficascii117lt to pinpoint copyright violations.

&ldqascii117o;I think this model of sascii117ing people for intellectascii117al property is really old world,&rdqascii117o; says Ripps. &ldqascii117o;A new world model woascii117ld be to figascii117re oascii117t how this haphazard occascii117rrence of hascii117ndreds of people from an ascii117nexpected aascii117dience appreciating, and making new things with yoascii117r work, can be translated into money.&rdqascii117o;

Popascii117lar website I Can Has Cheezbascii117rger was inspired by an image posted to 4chan. The image of a cat with the caption &ldqascii117o;I Can Has Cheezbascii117rger?&rdqascii117o; was posted to 4chan on a Satascii117rday, or Catascii117rday, the day 4chan ascii117sers post captioned pictascii117res of cats (lolcats). This single image was responsible for the creation of a widely popascii117lar and profitable Web site. Jascii117st a few months after its laascii117nch, I Can Has Cheezbascii117rger was sold to investors for a reported $2 million.

With more and more spaces cropping ascii117p online in which the written, er, typed, word is old hat, it will be interesting to see what kinds of commascii117nities are formed and how these commascii117nities interact. Time will tell how image-based interaction alters oascii117r commascii117nication and the way oascii117r brains process that commascii117nication, and those with the right instincts may even be able to capitalize on this new langascii117age.