B Sensory, the first connected sextoy to read and vibrate...

Boom of connected objects, trivialization of the use of sex toys, erotic books growing success ... B.Sensory, new startup in Bretagne, decided to mix these three trends to create a new and vibrant original concept! 

Combining the erotic power of words to the potential of connected objects to offer women a new way to play and have fun. This is the idea Christel Le Coq, creator of B.Sensory, developing the first application of erotic readings connected to a sex toy. The concept is simple: read, and vibrate!

But then B.Sensory how does it work? It's pretty simple. The user downloads the app. It will be, at first, a vibrating egg via Bluetooth, which connected to a vibrator and its tablet allows women to choose an erotic text. When reading, small interactive passages trigger the most "hot" readings and invite women  to caress the tablet ... which will have the effects to activate the sex toy.

"The essence of erotic literature is the one that triggers the more physical reactions. The idea is to go further in the game and provide even more sensations to the readers, "says Christel Le Coq.

B.Sensory fights for freedom of female pleasure and a better shared pleasure. So she has not forgotten the game partners who will - after invitation in the application - send vibrating messages and remote control of the Little Bird! A kind of collective intelligence? Indeed it seems that this app meets the criteria:

- A local and limited information: not being in direct contact, the decisions of interacting partners won't be aware of all of the elements influencing the other.

- Multiple social interaction: interaction with simultaneous reading, sensations simultaneously in reactions with a possibility to exchange the app or by interposed voices

- Useful emerging structure to the community : The benefit is for example for a couple at a distance not to cut to sexual relations, and possibly avoid deception ... Moreover it may reveal unexpected fantasies pushing the unconscious because partners will consider to be protected by its screen and the distance

This project pushes the boundaries of interactivity of books using media convergence. This is also with the notion of media convergence that the designer has created a new way to read and have fun solo or duo (and soon to 10???).

But will it kill the the old media which is the paper? It maintains, since it contains it. It is only a duplication of a paper read existent in another format. An additional way to read and to couple it with an other distraction/pleasure. Finally yes, medium contains medium.

One thing is sure, in a world where the consumer has become a real actor, he decided to give way to what could bring the most quickly to the satisfaction of his wants and desires, when and where  he wants Again, we're on an important concept: the participatory culture. Henry Jenkins says "producers and consumers are transformed into participants who are expected to interact with each other according to a new set of rules which none of us fully understands. » This is the case for this new media that would become obsolete without editors and women willing to engage in play.

   

Regarding erotic literature, it is still booming, thanks to the global success of "50 shades of Grey" and the emergence of e-readers. Digital technology has enabled women and men to decomplex vis-à-vis this kind of reading, and especially to maintain some anonymity by buying online digital versions. 

In addition, we could talk about divergence of ways to act in parallel to the convergence of media interacting in a common goal. Divergent ways of practicing sex is in continuous booms (erotic chat traditional sex toy, naughty application, erotic film, erotic cinema ...). There has been a long time, sex was heavily censored by morality. We did it, but we did not speak about it. The practice of sex remained for the purpose of reproduction or men satisfaction in their search for power. Now we can consume sex any number of ways and decide to practice individually whether one is a man or a woman. This sex toy is just one application converging concepts already developed and linked to satisfy Women (wider human-beings) and standardize the practice and use of sex once so complexed.

Make every moment of our lives digital now? Here is another concept that could be explored ... In 10 or 20 years, will we be landlocked in a completely digital world which will be sufficient to our basic and vital needs but also to our wishes, desires, fantasies?

Even though many are shocked, the first conquered will be women. For once!

When a Tweet can change everyting

Social networks are the best way to let people know your thoughts in a simple, easy, fast and multitudinous way. In just one click, thousands of people can read what you are talking about, no matter about the geographical barriers, sex, gender, age or social status. It is quite like a widespread freedom of speech. But sometimes it can cost you dearly.

Twitter has been in a red-hot these days in Spain. Due to the fateful accident of the Germanwings plane in the French Alps (Click HERE for more information in CNN) in its way from Barcelona to Düsseldorf, some people decided to write down their opinions aboutit in less than 140 characters. The freedom of speech dilemma comes when these tweets are offensive, far away from ethical and disrespectful for the people affected: German, French and, above all, Catalan people. Here you can see some of them: 

@pvansix: So, minus 42 Catalans.

@AxelGOD: 42 death Catalans it's not enough for me

@pianelo: C'mon, don't make a scene, in that plane there were Catalans, not humans. 

@JaviRcd99: The plane accident sounds a good idea to me if there were Catalans inside 

@__mancuso: Plane full of Catalans and German people has crashed in France. #WinWinWin

The Spain and Catalan Governments decided to act against this users - after a Twitter request from other citizens - and ow the first one has been arrested (@pianelo). But these anti-Catalan (and German and French) tweets were not the only ones that caused controversy in the peninsula. After the accident, the usual broadcasted television programs were stopped for the news bulletin, where they were explaining all the details about the catastrophe. Some part of the population were angry at that change of the programming schedule because the dating show Hombres y Mujeres y Viceversa (MYHYV) (Click HERE for the english information about this show) was not being broadcasted. Comments like these were written (with all the possible spelling mistakes):

@tupaALCALA: Bfff, just broadcast #MYHYV, I don't care about what happened in France. I want my guuuuys!

@katino_98: Okay, it's so sad all this about the plane and stuff, okay? But what the hell, aren't you going to broadcast #myhyv? That's so bad Telecinco!

@MiriVzq98: F*ck God, they are going to remove #myhyv because of this from France, I don't care at all about it!

@oscarg23_: I find terrible that they don't broadcast @myhyv for an accident, it's not my fault that they are stupid and have crashed! 

@Miguel_Lara_: I hope that one plane crashes in the house of the idiot that has removed the programme #myhyv

@GuillEDM_:If the plane has had an accident it must because its own fault xDDD Just show #myhyv, c'mon!

After this introduction of the facts, I want to focus to what I really wanted to explain. Following these tweets about the dating show, another part of the Spanish population started to react. They have joined forces and they've decided to create a platform to delete the program from the television schedule. I would dare to guess that these people who started the campaign didn't like the show before the events, but they just decided to act in a moment where the context was totally favorable for them. We can talk about that as Cass Sunstein does: we are in front of a group polarization. Groups of people will end up thinking the same that they thought before, but in an extreme form. Although a huge part of the population is always against these kinds of programs, this crisis has just appeared now in a massive way, because some strong reason has happened to disapprove them even more. 

So, we have no doubt that nowadays, everyone can have a word into bigger affairs as, in this case, the mass media. TeleCinco is one of the most important television channel in Spain, operated by the big communication group Mediaset España Comunicación owned by Silvio Berlusconi, and which has been the leader of audience for so many years in the country. The program in question (MYHYV) has almost one million daily viewers (approx. 13'6% of audience share), leading a huge fanaticism. But, in the Internet world, even a single person can start a movement against an important mass media like this, recruiting thousands of people from all over the country in just some minutes. This petition is almost achieving its 150.000 votes needed through the website Change.org, a corporation legally constituted as a legal person. Civic, reformist, social and, generally, protest petitions are admitted. 

In this event we can totally appreciate a public forum doctrine where speakers have an access to a wide array of people. It's easier and faster to start a movement through Internet than in "real" life. What is more, this public forum also allows them to have an access to, for instance, specific institutions with whom they have a complaint. I can imagine that it was more difficult before to have access to the TV studio and its owners.

Offtimes a very small man can cast a very large shadow. This quote of the American writer George R.R Martin can describe very well  what is Internet about. As well as the offensive tweets were spread all over the country in just a few minutes, it has happened the same with this campaign. From a single guy in his own house - Abel Romeo Cariñena - to all the houses of Spain (as well as they have access). And, what is more, to the TV channel itself. And all this movement occurred due to the use of the social network Twitter, a different device that has apparently nothing to do with television. We can all agree that nowadays all the media is connected; every movement in one new media can affect all the other ones. 

This is only a small example about what the convergence of media is. As Henry Jenkins wrote in Convergence Culture (2008), it is undeniable that old and new media collide and the power of the media producer and the power of the media consumer can interact in unpredictable ways. In the new media, the participatory culture leads the process. The new consumers are active, socially connected and, above all in this case, they produce a noisy and public work.

In this online democracy everyone has his or her opinion. In the moment, there's a pitched battle on Twitter between the people who loves the show and the people who's against it. All this opinions affect directly to the TV program and, therefore, to its channel. Although that, in my opinion, it's not probably that they will annul the dating show - because of the big audience that it has and how my country works, unfortunately -, there's been indeed an echo that, leaded in the good way, can have negative effects for the show, as it happened with the arrested catalanophobics men after that the citizens asked to the Official Police's Twitter to do something about it. 

A fortunate result of shared experiences is that people see each other as fellow citizens (even if they don't have much in common with one another) with shared concerns and intentions; the collaborative spirit grows and we can find it in the knowledge or even fan community. When it leads to cooperative projects that can change an aspect of the society or the world into a better situation, as in my opinion would be this particular case, it is clear that the power of the new generative media is undoubtedly important in our new personal, social or political life. As Henry Jenkins says in the book previously mentioned: just imagine that fans and players begin to focus their energies toward solving civic and political problems! 

We, the users and consumers, have the real power nowadays. The last word can be ours. The era of the kingdom of the sovereign mass media and producers is finishing. In this online world, everyone is the same: King, nobles, plebeians or even buffoons. 

My sincere condolences to the families.

Natàlia Sellés Guillaumes

ISIC: 32736161

ERASMUS 2014-2015