Social Media Fall 2014

Bianca Horan

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Did Kim break the internet, or something else?

The recent release of Paper magazine’s latest cover starring Kim Kardashian, and its attempt to “break the internet,” received a lot of attention and backlash that I witnessed firsthand on Facebook and Twitter. The entire situation made me think about the idea of fan identification as discussed by Click, Lee & Holladay in their article, and also the problem with rape culture as discussed by Rentschler. While people who were already haters of Kim Kardashian used this photo as a prime opportunity to bash on her more than usual, what I found most interesting was the range of reactions from her devoted fans. Typically, fans will always stay behind and support whatever the celebrity does, but in controversial situations like this there can be a divide, even among fans. Click, Lee & Holladay believe it is because, “fans bring their own meanings to fan objects…to service their own self-reflection, that [the fan objects] gain the ability to profoundly shape the fan” (363). So in terms of the explicit Kim K photo, fans brought different meanings and interpretations to it depending on their own beliefs and values. On one end of the spectrum, I saw several Tweets from my friends that supported Kim’s bold move and applauded her for embracing her womanly figure and sexuality. On the other end, I saw comments that expressed feeling personally upset and offended by the photo, saying that they looked up to her as a role model and what she did was inappropriate, especially since she’s a mother now. On further investigation of the mix of reactions, I noticed that most of the support came from single, young women and men, while the disapproving comments came from older women, women in relationships, or mothers. This shows how fans bring their own values into their “relationships” with celebrities, and their interpretations of celebrity actions are taken very seriously because devoted fans, “incorporate the media figure’s values and plans into their own attitudes and behaviors” (363). Often times fans have an idea in their head about self-image, related to the celebrity, and if the celebrity does not live up to this or does something that counters it the fan gets upset. The Kim Kardashian explicitly nude photos also stirred up some conversations about gender roles, rape culture, and slut shaming. The Rentschler article touches on how the current rape culture has a tendency to blame the victim, especially related to acting provocatively and dressing in a way that exposes the body or appeals to male sexuality. Recently, there have been a couple different approaches to changing rape culture through online media. Rentschler discusses some sites that teach girls, “to take the tools of mobile media communication and social media dissemination into their own hands in order to expose the culture of street harassment,” (72). On the other hand, there are many women, including Jenna Mourey (Jenna Marbles), who practice extreme versions of female gender stereotypes and over-sexualization as a means of parody, or even to show that no matter what a female does/wears, she does not deserve nor is asking to be sexually assaulted. These same concepts can be applied to the Kim Kardashian photos, even though these probably were not her intentions. I’m not a huge Kim Kardashian fan because I don’t see her as having any real talents, but I think her photos were shocking in a good way. I don’t think it’s a good idea to teach young women that parading their naked bodies around is a way to earn respect from others, but I do think it can teach young women that it’s okay to embrace and be proud of their bodies, and that women, not just men, can openly exert their sexuality. Recently Nick Jonas did a very scandalous photo shoot where his “bulge” was extremely apparent, and I did not hear a word of bad feedback or “slut shaming”, so why should it be different for Kim? Also in terms of rape culture, the photos should further speak to the fact that no matter what a woman does, even if she is naked on a magazine for the world to see, does not mean her sexuality is anyone’s to take, or that she is actually consenting to any sexual interactions. I understand that Kim is a mother and many people are upset by that, but mothers are still women and are still sexual beings; how do you think Kim and Kanye made baby North West? Citations: Click, M. A., Holladay, H. W., & Lee, H. (2013). Making monsters: Lady Gaga, fan identification, and social media. Popular Music and Society. Rentschler, C. A. (2014). Rape culture and the feminist politics of social media. Girlhood Studies 7.

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Boyfriend/friend/professional by day, micro-celebrity by night

One topic we discussed in class is how we manage our profiles on different social media, and some of us may even act like “micro-celebrities”. Marwick and Boyd define a micro-celebrity as, “a mindset and set of practices in which audience is viewed as a fan base; popularity is maintained through ongoing fan management; and self-presentation is carefully constructed to be consumed by others” (140). I think Twitter is the perfect social media for people to practice this kind of behavior; followers are considered the audience/fan base, popularity is determined by retweets, favorites, and followers-to-following ratio, and each tweet is very deliberate and perfected, since there is such a small limit on the amount one can say. Although myself and most of my friends simply use Twitter to express opinions on random things, complain about our everyday lives, and share funny memes, I do see other people behaving differently. Some people, and one person in particular I’m going to discuss, use Twitter more for, “self-branding and strategic self-representation” as Marwick and Boyd discuss in their article (141). My boyfriend Eric fits the definition of micro-celebrity to a tee, so I took a closer look at his behavior on Twitter to analyze this topic. For starters, his Twitter profile screams self-branding. His picture is one of himself holding an American flag, and his banner picture is also an American flag, right away framing himself as “an all American guy”. Also, his Twitter handle is @theeric_____(his last name, which I’ll leave out); using the word “the” to verify it’s really him and he’s the only one, something that a lot of celebrities do in their Twitter handles. Next, judging from the ratio of followers to the people he follows, it seems like his popularity exceeds his interests in others (660 followers, 399 following). He tweets a lot about current events and sports, which on average get anywhere from 5-30 favorites and several retweets, which is considerably a lot for a “normal” person. Since joining Twitter a few years back, he started a blog last year, and writes a couple new posts a week and tweets the link to each new post he writes. His blog has received a lot of good feedback and apparently “fans” who read it religiously; he even lets some people write “guest” posts and writes on certain topics if enough people request them. Most recently in the past month, he decided to start a personal podcast. There have been 3 episodes so far, all of which he has shared the link to on his blog, Twitter, and Facebook. His fans have followed him from Twitter, to the blog, and now to his podcast, which got over 500 views on the first episode. Marwick and Boyd say celebrity is “a learned practice rather than an inborn trait,” and by this and the other definitions he has been very successful in gaining his micro-celebrity status (141). The documentary and popular television show Catfish, among other things, have brought the ideas of self-manipulation and self-promotion online to light, and the public sees this as a problem. We discussed in class a lot the various consequences of constructing our online identities, like having superficial or no relationships at all in real life, or letting our time spent online take over the rest of our lives, making it essentially meaningless. But I don’t think this is necessarily true, it’s absolutely possible for our online lives in social media to coexist with reality, and for both to even thrive. Boyd said, “just because people are adopting tools that radically reshape their relationship to privacy does not mean they are interested in giving up their privacy,” and I agree (52). For example my boyfriend, a Twitter “micro-celebrity” has a productive and healthy life outside of Twitter; he graduated from Rutgers, has a finance job in the city, friends and family who he spends time with in the real world, and he and I have a good, non-superficial relationship. In fact when we are together, he doesn’t even check Twitter or other social media; he is able to live in the moment and enjoy what’s happening around him, something a lot of people today isn’t possible with the existence of social media. Because of this, it’s hard for me to say or believe that the time and effort people spend creating their images on social media, or acting like celebrities is superficial or a waste of time. The way I see it, social media is like any other hobby someone could have, like knitting, collecting items, etc. Hobbies are meant for personal enjoyment, and can be pointless or silly or even selfish, much like social media. I believe the key is balance. Micro-celebrity and other behaviors on social media are not a problem until they truly overtake every other aspect of life. For some people this might be the case, but it is certainly not inevitable. Citations: Boyd, D. (2010). Social network sites as networked publics. Boyd, D., Marwick, A. (2011). To see and be seen: Celebrity practice on twitter.

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In this week's readings, Bloor and especially Deresiewicz discussed some of the potential bad side effects of social networking and online friendships. Counter to Deresiewicz's argument about "faux friendships", the social site Meetup proves that an online platform can be used to facilitate real world friendships and interactions, by connecting people in the same area with similar interests, and encouraging them to meet up just to talk, or do activities that they share an interest in.

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"Twitter Urges Celebrities To Tweet at Each Other" In the last month or so, Twitter added two new features that they hope will encourage celebrity interactions on the site. Verified accounts (blue badge) will now receive a notification whenever another verified account follows them, and they have the option to only see other verified users in their stream. This relates to Marwick and Boyd's theory of the "performing celebrity"; celebrities tweeting at each other would make their followers feel like they are part of the conversation as well, and create a perception of authenticity for readers.

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The recent Ray Rice scandal, involving the video footage of him hitting his fiancee in an elevator that was released by TMZ, demonstrates the scalability and persistence of social media, as discussed by Boyd. #WhyIStayed became a trending tag on Twitter as a result, as people reacted to the issue of domestic violence and wanted to share their own stories. In an act of detournement (Vejby & Wittkower) gone wrong, DiGiorno accidentally took the hashtag out of context, and tweeted something that received a lot of backlash. While DiGiorno did apologize, it goes to show how powerful a simple tweet and change of context can be.