Personal – Page 5 – Robert Bettmann

Tweet Tweet

I joined Twitter a few months ago… More than a preternatural understanding of technology, I’m simply committed to not being the old guy who doesn’t know what a walk-man is. So I joined Twitter, and I’m trying to figure out how to use it.

For me, embedding my feed into my blog – to the left here – has been nice. While blog writing isn’t exactly Lord of the Rings length, someone can look at your Twitter feed and see thoughts/agenda over days very quickly.

I just saw an article – twitted by one of my followers who I am not following – and appreciate the following quote:

I try to follow people that share similar interests and that add value to my network and the information I am receiving from them. While some use Twitter as a way to connect with their friends, I use Twitter as a way to soak in information from users that have similar interests in social media, journalism, technology and more. Yes, this does mean that I dont always follow even my friends back. I keep up with my friends on Facebook. Twitter is a social broadcasting tool that I can use to see what exactly is the buzz during any given moment. It is a social RSS, a place where I can have a discussion about issues in technology and how its changing our social interactions and especially the journalism industry I am a part of.

Whole blog post here. Each of us – and I include in ‘us’ each business – gets to decide how, and if, we want to use new media tools. For instance: I recently started following a local politician who was clearly new to twitter. She was using twitter to stay in touch with friends, and has since made her tweets private. That’s a fine choice.

There’s flexibility in these tools, just like websites. You can do them/use them lots of different ways. And just like advertising, too, there are a variety of best practices out there. That’s all for now.. just a random social media thought at lunch-time. Taking walkman off now.

By the by – you can follow me on Twitter at #RBett

Telling Stories is Like Doing Card Tricks

I have some “good stories” from my life. Last week I told a story I havent told in a while to AS and JW. For some reason it made me start thinking about the process of telling my personal stories. Why do I tell them? When do I tell them?

Telling my personal stories feels a bit like doing card tricks. I share these little bits of myself – sometimes fantastical, sometimes impressive, sometimes magical, sometimes revealingWhat makes me share my stories?

What makes someone go around and perform lots of card tricks to everyone they meet? If you perform a card trick every now and then, perhaps the purpose is to share your magic. But if I go around constantly performing my magic tricks (and I’m not saying I do), perhaps its more about my own need to perform magic than about the tricks themselves.

As I finish this post I realize it could be read as somehow judgmental of actual story-tellers, or magicians. There are people who do those things professionally. This post refers to people like myself — people who share their stories outside of professional settings to do so.

Art and Stereotypes: What is a Gay Character?

I contributed the following piece to Bilerico on July 12th. It’s based on an older piece, which you can see here. I like this version. It’s tighter, I think. Would love some comments if anyone reading has any on it.

A female friend turned to me a few years ago and said, “You’re a dancer! That’s so great that you’re in touch with your feminine side.” It reminded me that my profession is embedded with expectations of gender and sexuality. Dance is not masculine, feminine, straight or gay, but it seems like most people think it is. Why do we see dance as feminine, or gay?

We all live within communities. And so while you could say – for instance – that “Hispanic men like soccer,” to do so would be invoking a stereotype, not projecting a reality. In the practice of theater, stereotypes are used. When you go to create a character on stage, you need to project aspects of character from which an audience will ‘read’ the vision you are trying to create. At the same time, from what I’ve seen, many artists project the same character stereotypes that their work is seeking to dissolve.

Artists are the visionaries who create the new world (at least that’s what it says in our press packets). So while we exist within communities, we are also leaders, responsible for helping others to find a new way, a new truth, and the way away from The Guiding Light. When we pay homage too deeply to existing stereotypes, we lose our ability to express a more complex, holistic humanity.

Art – dance inclusive – has always been a home for the alternative. Artists are ‘different.’ Today as all members of society jockey for full participation, artists are unfortunately making our own acceptance more difficult by producing work that fetishizes notions of masculine, feminine, straight, and gay. The projection of character and community are complex. To the degree that we as artists prepare the audience to see the world in stereotypes, we perpetuate a society that judges us in the same way.

Are there essential character traits to being a man? Are there central character traits to being a gay man? It is fine to answer glibly that, yes, being a man means liking beer, sports, and Jessica Simpson, and that being a gay man means liking fashion, wine-coolers and Jake Gylenhall. But in reality, the fetishization of ‘gay’ characteristics, like the fetishization of ‘female’ characteristics, pigeon holes not just artists – but also audiences – into oppressive roles.

Being a dancer does not imbue one with a definable character. It doesn’t mean that you are sensitive, feminine, gay, or straight. Being gay does not give you a character either. Being a woman does not give one a certain character. Being hispanic doesn’t give you a certain character. We still live in a world where smart people (for example Lawrence Summers, recent past president of Harvard University) actually debate whether men and women have the same intellectual possibility. As long as we cling to theatrical stereotypes of masculine/feminine/gay/straight, we give validity to the limits placed on any of those groups.

As audiences, and artists, we owe it to ourselves to allow individual character to overcome community stereotyping.