Against the Machine by Lee Siegel

After watching the first group present in class I thought it was an interesting book to talk about.

The book is about the internet reshaping out thoughts about ourselves, other people and the world around us. In other words, the internet is separating "us" from the real world. I thought that was interesting that he stated that in his book since we did discuss that topic in class... is the internet really separating people from the outside world? The group also talked about the Bait and Switch method which relates to Ebay. Also Online expressions as in everything is the same and anyone can put whatever they want on the internet. For example: expressing who they are or who they aren't. Siegel doesn't believe people can be both artists and a professional. Its kind of like the "click" in high school. One group can be part of another group, its just wrong. He says that there is not originality and no one has personality. He talks about how culture changed from watching a movie on TV to watching a TV show like American Idol where you can express yourself by voting. He also says the only reason people are doing things online is so that people will notice them and it will help them become more popular like web 2.0. So overall Lee Siegel is very negative and contradicts himself a lot. He seems to be really against the internet and how popular its become.