Brandan Williams

My posts for Social Media & Participatory Culture

[williamsbrandan]

http://rt.com/usa/210919-anonymous-florida-website-homeless/

This article focuses on the protest actions of Anonymous in Fort Lauderdale.  In Fort Lauderdale, a law has just been passed saying that feeding the homeless is now illegal with the hopes of shrinking the homeless population.  My tumblr posts are usually more analytical than about my personal feelings, but I cannot finish this post without commenting how absolutely barbaric and wrong the lawmakers of Florida are for even coming up with this law.  I completely stand by the actions of Anonymous for taking a stand to try and get the mayor to repeal this law.  Their actions were strong and unaviodable, which is something we have been discussing in class as well as the readings on Anonymous.  This is all happening via social media, but the impact is being felt in real life, showing how dependent we have become to social media and the internet in general.  Anonymous, whether you agree with them or not, are brilliant for coming up with such a way to captivate the world and make a change.

[williamsbrandan]

Little Monsters: Lady Gaga's Fandom & Use of Gender (Analytical Response 2)

Today, social media has become a simple way of keeping up with what anyone and everyone is doing in their lives.  With the incredible amount of information available at ones fingertips, it is as if no one has any secrets.  Social media users make their presence known to keep their audiences coming back for more.  When we like what we see, we will in fact keep going back for more.  If we do not like what we see or if there is nothing to see, we have the power to ignore the user.  When a social media user garners a substantial number of faithful followers who emulate the traits and/or values of said user, this user has generated a fandom.  These fandoms can bring together people of all different backgrounds and demographics, but they all share one common interest; the social media user or phenomena of the fandom.  One of the fandoms I am most familiar with is Lady Gaga’s Little Monster fandom.  Gaga’s messages of acceptance and equality are the greatest traits she uses to keep her fandom alive.  Also notable about her fandom is the way she uses gender as a means of performance.  For this analysis, I will be looking at her fandom and her use of gender as a performance to support her fandom.

            Lady Gaga was at one time the biggest name in the music industry.  While her mainstream popularity has slightly decreased at this time due to her transition from pop to jazz, the effects she has had on society will never be forgotten.  She was very outlandish and unique, and that attracted the attention of almost the entire world.  Whether you agreed with her bizarre antics or not, you knew about her and everything she was doing.  Nearly every social media outlet in the world made sure of that.  I liked the show she put on and then started to follow her more.  I was sucked in by the catchy beats and all of the glitz and glamour, but what kept myself and other fans coming back was her message.  The message was simple: don’t let anyone stop you from being yourself because you are perfect.  The message was simple enough, but Lady Gaga also lived out that message, which was very appealing to me.

However, merely liking Lady Gaga did not make someone a Little Monster.  Click, Lee, & Holladay (2013) explain that “Lady Gaga fans are primarily interested in Gaga’s music, while Little Monsters explore all aspects of Gaga’s persona” (p. 368).  Little Monsters took Gaga’s message and truly embraced themselves and lived out her messages rather than just taking in her message, referring to Gaga as Mother Monster.  While Gaga’s message was relevant to basically anyone and everyone, Gaga’s biggest impact was on the LGBT community.  This was primarily because this community was (and still is) the target of bullying and oppression.  Her music told the community that we were not alone and that we had the power to rise up and fight the oppressors.  While there is still a long way to go, Gaga helped pave the way for many of the opportunities and privileges we now have.  Personally, I am a fan of her music, but I am not sure I can consider myself a Little Monster.  I believe I her message and I do live my life the way I want to, but I never praised Mother Monster the way other fans did.  I praised Gaga herself.

            Lady Gaga also uses gender in a way to keep her fans coming back.  She was, at one time, one of the biggest social media users in the world, sharing on Facebook as well as tweeting on Twitter about social justice issues and taking a stand.  In this way, Gaga could be considered a hashtag feminist.  This meant a great deal to me because I had found someone who had the same beliefs that I did, but did not hesitate to speak up like I did at one point.  Dixon (2014) says that “The loyalty structure of Twitter… is generated by retweeting a statement of justice and political demand regarding race, class, and gender…” (p. 37).  Gaga was known for this and it made her one of the most followed celebrities on the internet.  I started following her more often after learning about her activism in this way as well and also started liking her as much as her music.

            Lady Gaga was, and in some ways, despite her dormancy at the moment, the most fascinating performer in the music industry.  Her messages and actions have influenced not only her loyal fans, but other musicians.  More and more musicians are taking political stands in their songs that emulate Gaga’s style.  They are also utilizing social media to the fullest extent in the way that Gaga does.  As for myself, I am taking in their social media as well as their music and loving every minute of it.

Works Cited

Click, M., Lee, H., & Holladay, H. (2013). Making Monsters: Lady Gaga, Fan Identification, and Social Media. Popular Music and Society, 360-379.

Dixon, K. (2014). Feminist Online Identity: Analyzing the Presence of Hashtag Feminism. 34-40.

[williamsbrandan]

http://www.brookings.edu/blogs/techtank/posts/2014/10/20-islamic-state-social-media

This article talks about the ways in which social media sites, namely ones such as Twitter and Facebook, are used to recruit members for a cause.  Specifically, this article, as well as the piece by Bratich we read for class, talk about war efforts.  Social media is becoming one of the best ways to appeal to mass audiences.  With the large majority of the world connected to social media in some way, it is becoming our primary news source as well as our primary way of gathering information in order to decide where we fit in a debate.  We surround ourselves with those whose points of views we agree with.  One of the pros of social media is that we can filter out the points of views that we don't agree with.  Social media has also become the war zone itself in many ways though, which would be one of the cons.

[williamsbrandan]

http://www.vulture.com/2012/10/is-being-a-fan-psychologically-unhealthy.html

This article offers a different perspective on fandoms than the ones seen in the articles from Watercutter and Click.  This piece entertains the motion that fandoms can be unhealthy if one becomes too immersed within the fandom.  Both Watercutter and Click found that being part of a fandom (they focused on My Little Pony's Bronies and Lady GaGa's Little Monsters, respectively) is about being among a group of people who share similar interests and form a sense of community with one another.  Personally, I agree more with the Watercutter and Click argument.  With all the new fandoms that emerge year after year, more and more people are finding common interests which is creating more and more opportunities to communicate with one another.  In a society where technology has made it so easy to isolate yourself just as easily as you can communicate with others, it is a good thing, in my opinion, that we, as a whole, are choosing to communicate and let our voices be heard.

[williamsbrandan]

http://wow.joystiq.com/2014/07/09/mike-morhaime-apologizes-for-lack-of-diversity-in-blizzard-games/

This article helps highlight the flaws in the gaming community, specifically the lack of diversity.  The games in the community are predominantly white males as that appears to be the most appealing to gamers.  When a female character is seen, she is usually overly sexualized.  This is the image that is spread throughout the community, which is problematic since it perpetuates the stereotype that, in terms of race, white is still the "correct race" and in terms of gender that masculine males and feminine females are also the "correct" gender representations, as noted in the Eklund reading regarding females in the gaming community.  The gaming community has always been predominantly male, but females are coming into this community more and more often, which in itself is already going against stereotypical gender representations.  However, the community still needs to work on being inclusive to all. 

[williamsbrandan]

http://www.psmag.com/navigation/books-and-culture/um-professors-creeping-facebook-page-90906/

This article talks about the boundaries (or lack thereof) that people in a higher position have over subordinates when it comes to finding out information about them on social media, specifically Facebook.  The article gets into self-censorship, which can be problematic under circumstances.  Your profile is something that is supposed to be only for you, but it has become something that is more for others with more power than the individual.  We, in a sense, "become subjects" as stated by Cote and Pybus.  Everything we say and do is watched and judged.  In my opinion, we're not only just subjects at times, but more like numbers on a giant grid, an analogy used today in class

[williamsbrandan]

Facebook: Liking vs Friendship (Analytical Response 1)

            Today, we are all attached to some social media outlet.  No matter which outlet you use, every click or tap of a button is very important as it contains more information than you might expect.  When you like something on Facebook, you are giving out a bit of information to whose ever page or status you are liking.  If it is a friend, you are saying that you feel connected to this person in some way based on the status or photo that was liked.  When it is a fan page, you are turning yourself into an advertisement for all of your Facebook friends to see, especially since Facebook shares with others what you liked when you liked it via news feed updates.  We use likes to help present ourselves in whatever way we chose online.  The corporations we like then provide us with more opportunities to like more pages and we become walking advertisements.  For this analysis, I looked at my own Facebook profile and went back to look at all the things that I liked over the years.

            On my own profile, I noticed many pages within my likes that were not even active pages.  Many of these pages did not even mean anything; they were just random quotes and statements.  Some of them include “I Hate Homework” and “If I get 1000 likes I’ll shave my head” and trivial statements and more.  For my first year or so on Facebook, those were the pages that I liked.  Although a good number of those pages have disappeared, some of them are still there, posting spam and troll pages all over my news feed.  The pages that are not spam pages however are very commercialistic.  Those pages include my favorite TV shows and networks (mostly NBC) and companies such as 7-11 and Buffalo Wild Wings just to name a couple (there are many more).  This is the image of myself that I let others know about.  I am selling these corporations to all of my Facebook friends like a commercial would.  While people who make commercials make a ton of money for them, I do not make any money.  Also worth noting is that my news feed on Facebook is, at times, similar to that of Mathew Honan, author of “I Liked Everything I Saw on Facebook for Two Days.  Here’s What it Did to Me”.  Honan performed an experiment via Facebook that involved literally clicking the like button for everything that came across his news feed.  Honan (2014) commented that his feed “became about brands and messaging, rather than humans with messages” (p. 3).  I tend to scroll through my news feed very often and it is becoming scarcer to find the people who are my friends and what they are doing on the internet.  When I do see a friend appear on my news feed, it tends to be accompanied with an advertisement about something they like and a place that they went to.  Despite this, there are ways that Facebook has made it easier to keep up with your friends.

            While Facebook has this reputation as a giant commercial, there are ways to get in touch with your actual friends (there may still be some commercials on the side though).  Facebook also has many lists which you can use to categorize your friends.  For example, there is the “Close Friends” list which will put the friends of your choice into a group that is easy to access and will only give you updates regarding those specific people.  I personally have found that very helpful in keeping in contact with people I actually consider close friends because I am the one who created that list.  I see this as a shift in power between the user and Facebook itself.  Facebook controls what I can and cannot see, but the close friends list in my choice.  Also on Facebook are groups, which allow people with similar interests or people within the same community to come together and socialize.  Boyd (2008) describes these groups as a way to “provide opportunities for always-on access to peer communication, new kinds of authoring of public identities, public display of connectedness, and access to information about others” (p. 5).  I agree with Boyd here and many of these definitions Boyd provides are my reasons for being in Facebook groups.  I use these groups to enhance my involvement in face-to-face interactions, but I also learn more about people through their Facebook profile.

            In conclusion, Facebook, for me, has been a tricky thing to navigate through.  While liking can and does lead to increased advertisement, it is not all necessarily negative.  We want advertise ourselves in some ways.  As long as we can maintain friendships, which Facebook does allow ways to do so, especially through groups and lists, which have strengthened my social media experiences.

  References

Honan, M. (2014, August 11). I Liked Everything I Saw on Facebook for Two Days. Here’s What it Did to Me. Retrieved October 20, 2014.

Boyd, D. (2008, January 1). Friendship. Retrieved October 20, 2014.

[williamsbrandan]

http://www.democracyjournal.org/arguments/2014/09/is-hashtag-feminism-inevitable.php

This article directly relates to the in class discussion we had on 10/17 as well as the readings by Dubrofsky and Magnet.  While this article does not in depth as to the definition of a feminist, it does go to point out the issues of hashtag feminism.  In my opinion, hashtag feminism can be useful, but it is easy to simply type words onto a computer screen.  Those words mean nothing without the meaning behind them, which I feel is lost in certain cases of hashtag feminism.

[williamsbrandan]

http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2014/06/30/study-middle-schoolers-who-sext-are-more-likely-to-report-sexual-activity

This article focuses on the issue of "sexting", which is the use of social media to engage in cybersexual activity.  This article talks about how engaging in sexting has lead to increased sexual acts in person.  This article focuses on the negatives when it comes to this activity, which I agree with considering the fact that this study done in the article was done on minors.  Hasinoff, while pointing out the negative as well, dedicated a section to the pleasuring aspect of the activity, even quoting how AOL recommended the activity for struggling relationships.  However, in Hasinoff's article, those were adult relationships.  However, there are certain groups who believe that since this activity is known to be abused by the younger generation, it is being reprimanded for everyone, which I do not necessarily believe is right.

[williamsbrandan]

http://www.theverge.com/2014/4/16/5620300/facebooks-friend-problem

This article talks about the act of adding and "unfriending" people on Facebook.  It talks about how you can add "friends" to a restricted list, which was the most relevant part of the article due to this weeks classes and readings.  Also mentioned is how you can create lists of people a user actually considers a "friend" so they can keep up with their latest posts.  This helps to separate true friends from "faux" friends, or fake friends, as Deresiewicz refers to them in his article.  The use of the lists also helps users to keep up with what would be considered "real" friends, since we discussed that part of true friendship involves communicating with each other about relevant topics and personal stories.  

[williamsbrandan]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2264053/Catfishing-The-phenomenon-Internet-scammers-fabricate-online-identities-entire-social-circles-trick-people-romantic-relationships.html

This article covers the concept and ideas behind "Catishing", which is when a person puts up a false front in order to attract other people online.  We saw this done for a film that we viewed in class this week.  Catfishing also uses techniques brought up in the Jeremy Sarachan article in which he discusses how people use manipulation techniques to present themselves in the way that they want to be perceived, whether or not that is the actual way they are.  I also related this Marwick's article, specifically the part regarding performing celebrity on social media and how there is the difference between what you show and what is behind the scenes.

[williamsbrandan]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/04/23/teens-tinder-13-to-17-year-olds_n_5199957.html

In the Frontline video we viewed in class this week, parents were worried about the things that they might be posting on their MySpace or Facebook that could lead predators directly to their profile.  Today, we have apps that are specifically for posting those "inappropriate" things those parents were worried about.  The problem is that this app was not meant for the demographic that it has recently been appealing to.  This article shows more of the darker sides of social media, but this app was not meant to be part of the darker side of social media.  Also, is it a parents job to monitor what their kids are doing on these types of social media, or is it on the part of the social media companies to put more restrictions on who can be a part of their community?