Intertextuality

I recently bought this book which writes hilariously about what it is like looking up and then meeting, your pals (and enemies) on Friends Reunited. When that site was first around I spent a lot of time looking up old schoolfriends and then people who I used to teach. This ex pupil (who often had days off to go golfing) has his own site now it turns out here.
It is strange how I felt totally fine about the idea of never again meeting people I went to school with, then felt very excited 25years later at the idea of peeking at their new lives without being seen. I renew my subscription every year just in case someone writes something sensational or in case someone new crawls out of the woodwork. Is this the kind of thing which attracts people to looking up old pals on the web? Do you Google people who you used to know? This is a new sport we now have.


I have a Friends Reunited anecdote which demonstrates something about the Public / Private nature of the Internet as a space......


I saw on Friends Reunited that someone I know locally had declared in her profile that she was expecting a baby. I was delighted of course and mentioned it to her when I next saw her, congratulating her. She was horrified however that I knew, saying she had only told a few people so far, it was a secret! I told her I read it on the web. "Oh yeah" she said, realising the true nature of the web.
Moral: Therein lies a very good reason for us being ethical in our research and getting permision from people to use their stuff from the Internet. (She has said I can use this story in my research and on my blog.)


My other intertextual example is a Harry Potter thing allegedly written by JK Rowling. We all know about the trailers for things like Shrek or Harry, but I like this one. It is an invitation to read the books and get to know the author and I am glad there are writers out there who are not afraid to multimodal.(NB New verb, cf 'text')