People join Twitter to send micro-blogs to their friends, and in the process make new ones. From a humble beggining of ten followers you can bump it up to over two hundred in no time if you have time on your hands and online social skills. Some are so adept that they hit the Twitter ratio (followers to follows) that they get cut off from following anyone else.

What I am seeing now is Social Poaching. My friends become your friends, and vice versa. So we are one big happy family of thousands. The three degrees removed is narrowing down to two, you are just a click away from knowing half of the world.

“I want your friends.”

“Help yourself. Just don’t be more entertaining than me. Hey wait a minute, they like you better! Why are they @you more than me?”

The ego is such a delicate flower.

The latest project is UppityChink.com and I will be publishing contributed stories about being a Bitter yet Empowered Chink in todays’ world. Let me know if you have a story or if you know of someone who has a great story to tell.

New “OC” Letterpress work up on Flickr

A series of ephemera and Wood Type Letterpress. Hand done with care and love.

A selection of Salutations on my Twitter:

Good Night. The arc of white sits above a sparkling city, like a tiara on a beauty queen. She dances in the dark alone into our dreams. Los Feliz, CA

Good Morning. My feet land on the sun drenched floor, one toe testing the tone of the day. The rest of me follows. Los Feliz, CA

Good Night. One arm bends, as the heart faces the sky. I close my eyes and lift off. Los Feliz, CA

Good Morning. Like cannon shots, the water flies up to catch the sunlight, arcs and drops onto the waiting blades of grass. Los Feliz, CA

Good Night. Ripples of laughter slide across the canyon and rise up to the stars. We sit and share this moment in Los Feliz, CA

Good Morning. The tip of my tongue licks the coffee off the rim of the cup, and after the last flick, the sun peeks out to say hello. LF, CA

Good Night. With one foot in front of the other, I shuffle off to the soothing inky darkness of my bedroom. Los Feliz, CA

Good Morning. Silence from all participants this morning. The sun and the clouds move in unison with minimal effort. Los Feliz,CA

Good Night. A long 14 hour work day. The moon tugs at my shirt and points to my bed. Los Feliz, CA

Good Night. Ignoring the eventually of night is akin to a temporary state of blindness. Los Feliz, CA

Good Morning. Nothing moves, the leaves are all still. Silent. The sunrise tiptoes quietly into the new day. Los Feliz, CA

Good Night. It’s a triple layer dessert sunset, blue to pink to orange. From tart to sweet with a mellow finish. Los Feliz, CA

Good Morning. A dragonfly lands outside my window, bright orange body with translucent gold wings.A bird notices and swoops by. Los Feliz CA

Image: ©Ophelia Chong

Latest Column on HowToSplitAnAtom

BOING

Click click

Click click click CLICK CLICK CLICK!!

Hmmph.

Dial phone.

Auto Message: There is no more Internet. Good bye.

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Congratulations Ophelia, you’re selected for the project Source Book of Illustration.
mao mao Publications is a Barcelona-based publishing company that specializes in art publications. They produce titles for Taschen, Harper Collins, Daab, Page One, and Gustavo Gill.

Source Book of Illustration
Harper Collins International

Image: © Ophelia Chong

When do we reach an age when we can declare maturity? Never.

I have come across people in the last few years that are in process, just like myself. And like glaciers we all progress slowly and with great effort. Some burst forward like lava, erupting with epiphanies and 180Ëš changes. A few never do. But are we supposed to mature? There’s no rule book that says we have to.

The situations are the same, I am  just looking at them with thicker glasses.

Image: © Ophelia Chong

I am beginning a new fad, the “I hate people” fad. To do this you have to work alone at home. Wear only yoga pants and tank tops. Fuzzy slippers are de rigueur. Have a pot of coffee going at all times. And your only contact with people is online. You have thousands of friends online. Offline, maybe a few that will put up with your rhetorical questions.

It’s not really about “hating people”, it’s about not wanting to deal with actual face to face conversation. Online you only converse when you want to, and you can cut it off as fast as you start it. BRB.

Where did our social skills go? Will we ever be able to be present physically with anyone? Or will we retreat to our glowing screen and thousands of “followers”. Are we afraid that we will disappoint in real life? We shouldn’t be.

Online our words are copied and pasted and sent off to strangers, in a real conversation it’s up to our memories to recreate that moment the next day. Memories are colored by mood, environment, life baggage and hope. Hope to have that moment again. As we play it over and over in our heads, it becomes softer and the edges round out. Memories online live forever in a static form and are two dimensional, we are not able to sense it any way other than as flat text or give it  tone or touch.

So the “I hate people” fad is not going to survive, because we need that sense memory to feed our souls, or else we are nothing but binary.

Love,

Ophelia

image: © Ophelia Chong

Who are the early most popular and notable Newsmakers on socialmedian?

By Jason Goldberg on July 21, 2008 11:43 AM |

Just one week ago we launched our “newsmakers” feature in which enables users to follow the news clippings of other users.

After 1 week, here are some of the most popular Newsmakers on socialmedian (popular defined by # of people following their updates):

Ophelia Chong, Designer, OC Works & CO, Los Feliz, CA, USA

In the last 2 months, I have designed a book (at the printer now), designed two websites (coolmom.com and ProjectLore.com), working on a third MobJustice.com, submitted work to Vintage Books/Bertlesmann, and now waiting for the DVD of Transcendence of CSS II that features my artwork.

I have been working every weekend since May. I am tired, but the exhaustion is replaced by the excitement of  the work and the possibilities in the coming months. There is electricity in the air.

art: © ophelia chong

Soot (So Opt Out) – when you just want to cancel every free socnet account you have

I have been moving towards the being alone in the Real Life and the Online Life. I like working in a quiet space with little distraction with no clutter of small conversations. I am most efficient when I can just plow ahead and work. And with the IM, twitter, emails and other little widgets popping up, I am constantly pushed off course. I need quiet in both worlds.

I like silence.

I thought I was done with this one. But my friend Shannon just left for Mexico City after visiting his apartment here in Los Angeles for a few days. So far Jack Lhasa and Drake Frost have left a broken sugar bowl (that was an heirloom), taken $22 in loose change, taken two towels, and split without paying rent (they have promised to pay, but we will see on that). None of these were addressed until Shannon asked, like five year old boys who hope that you don’t notice that they knocked over the vase, they had hoped Shannon would not notice. I am upset at myself for convincing Shannon that these were two guys that he could trust. My fault for trusting them. It’s not their fault, that’s who they are. I just didn’t know.

©ophelia chong /image