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Throughout the 10 weeks of class, I had increased my knowledge on the inside scoop regarding social media. For example, one concept I will carry with me is from the reading, “Race after Technology: Abolitionist Tools for the New Jim Code”, written by, Ruha Benjamin. On page 35, Benjamin described the “Beauty A1”, he went into depth about how people go through to process pictures of their faces in hope to find ways to slow down ageing and to keep them young and beautiful. But there is a downside, darker people are coded to be “unhealthy looking and unfit” while white people are perceived as “beautiful, young, and healthy.” And this is still a huge racial issue in our society, I’ve noticed billboards and ads mainly of white men and women. Don’t get me wrong, here and there I would see other races, but it’s not enough. These stereotypes stick with people every day. What’s the point in marginalizing and discriminating other ethnicities just because they aren’t pale skinned? Everyone is beautiful and this is not okay to be portrayed onto the younger generation. Not to mention, another piece of material that really stuck out to me was the episode from Black Mirror, “Nosedive.” After ten minutes into the episode, it reminded me of the app, “Yelp” an app where you rate restaurants and shops. Which is quite like this episode, but instead of rating restaurants and shops, you’d rate people. If the person had a rating of either 4 or 5 you’re all good, but those under 4 were shunned. And of course, the conflict was the main character received a 3.1 rating and was trying to get it back up. This made me think about how we live in a world full of judgement, people are looked down upon based on their culture, color of skin, the way they dress, or even their social skills. A lot of people say the United States is full of equality, but all I see is inequality. And this is based on hate crimes against Asians and Blacks, we know and understand our place in society, we’re minorities and we will always be at the bottom of the totem pole. Respect is the only factor we are looking for to obtain equality between people.

I think my favorite module is from week 5, mainly when all of us were able to create memes. Since the beginning of Covid, I noticed on social media there were a lot of memes, mainly comedic ones that would always keep me entertained. The reason why I loved it so much was we were all able to not only create our own, but create one’s based on our own preference of humor, hoping others could relate, and to just make people laugh and say, “Omg that is too relatable!”.

The module that challenged my thinking was week 10, from the reading, “Go Fund Yourself,” Brian Stauffer helped me challenge the way I view donation sites. I never thought too much into it, I saw it as a platform for people to ask for money to influential causes, but I didn’t think people would be shallow enough to use it for other irrational purposes like for potato salad. Even though it’s a joke, it’s still taking money when someone else who needs help, would be more beneficial towards it. A lot of people are using those platforms to help pay for their medical expenses, especially since the beginning of the pandemic since the price of medical bills skyrocketed.

One main idea I would pass onto the public is: Don’t believe everything you see on the internet. A prime example is when people kept insisting on the internet, when you receive your vaccination, they’re inserting a microchip to track you. Which is hysterical, because there is no evidence in them doing so, there is zero proof, and it steers the younger generation away from receiving it since they tend to believe everything, they see on the internet without going the extra mile to research the bare facts. Another thing I would tell the public: social media is tracking your every move. What I mean by that is, whenever you buy something online, you might see similar items pop onto your Facebook or Instagram feed. I’ve noticed that even if I talk about wanting something, that same exact item would pop up onto my Instagram. Most importantly, remember if you post something on the internet, it’s out there forever (so don’t post anything you don’t want out there.)

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I have to start out and say, this was a huge challenge for me, considering the fact I’m very addicted to my cellphone, plus social media, which is a huge problem. These are some of the things I had experienced when I tried this challenge:

·      Boredom (not being able to talk to friends over Snapchat or just texting through iMessage).

·      Sadness, with a hint of depression

·      Productivity, I was able to clean my room and to get it spotless without looking at social media

·      Made me hungry

I was able to go about 3 hours without any social media. The main reason why it was difficult to not go through my phone was because of Canvas, I noticed with my peripheral vision there was a bunch of them constantly popping up onto my home screen. It was either grades on assignments or schedule updates etc. It didn’t help the fact that college is all online now, where we are just so highly dependent on technology to help us succeed. Positively, when I went out to go get an iced coffee, I got into my car with my phone in the cup holder and didn’t even play music. It made me look at the world differently and what I could possibly be missing out on. I noticed all the little details of what people were doing on the streets, little details to my surroundings like if there was trash on the sidewalk, or if people were following mandatory rules and wearing masks (I started counting how many people I could find that aren’t wearing one, I got up to 7 within a 20-minute drive to Broadcast Coffee near Roosevelt). This experience also tended to make me less social with people, it’s a problem that millennials only use social media platforms to communicate rather than having bare human interaction, which is a lot healthier than staring at a screen all day. Without having my phone for three hours did make me feel a lot more awake rather than unmotivated and sleepy all the time.

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Since the beginning of the pandemic in 2020, it was quite heart breaking to me to see people fighting for their lives with this virus, that didn’t deserve to be on a hospital bed fighting for their lives. I have had a lot of friends with their relatives passing away too soon.

From the very start, I’ve had to force myself to stay at home and to social distance myself from friends for a while, in order to protect my parents from Covid since they’re first responders, plus I didn’t want to be selfish and constantly go out, to protect yourself and others is to be considerate and to stay home. In the news article from the New York Times, “The Virus Changed The Way we Internet” by Ella Koeze and Nathaniel Popper, immediately grasped my attention with all of the graphs. For example, between Jan. 15th - Mar. 24th, Netflix, Facebook and YouTube had a dramatic increase of usage. With the first death occurring on February 29th was a huge wake-up call for citizens, they stayed home and relied on the internet for their entertainment. Especially since it was mandatory to stay home for a bit. I did the same thing; I rely on the internet for everything I do now. I constantly watch Netflix (16% increase) in my free time, especially late at night. The way we internet now, is the new normal for all of us.  Also, based on the movie, The Social Dilemma, the biggest take-away was social media is very addictive. It was intriguing to see how the internet operates and how it constantly has our attention at all times. During the film, Asa Raskin (helped start Mozilla Labs switch over to Firefox side) said, “Advertisers are the customers. We’re the thing being sold.” It twisted my brain a bit to be able to dig deeper on how the internet is so addictive and why it was difficult for me to fight the urge trying to touch my phone in Challenge #1. The internet is consistently watching everything I do, what I search up or what I look at. I’ve noticed if I buy something from a store online, next thing I know is, the same product pops up on my Instagram feed, in my mind it’s yelling at me to buy more. Not to mention, Tristan (former designer ethicist for Google) said, “The classic saying is: If you’re not paying for the product, then you are the product.” We are all products of Google, Instagram, YouTube, Twitter, etc. They’re all competing for our attention; our attention is the product. Google is my main platform for look up things for assignments and other personal matter. We, and I, are heavily reliant on the internet to get through our daily tasks.

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I am heavily addicted to Instagram; I can be on that app for hours. I haven’t been posting that much lately, mainly because I am home more rather than constantly out with friends. But in the past when I used to post on my account a lot, I would use photo editing apps. It started at a young age, when I was a freshman in high school. I always felt like I had to fit in, in order to be “accepted” by peers. At one point in time, all girls would post a picture with white boarders, it was heavy trend for a year or so, and of course, I followed. Rather now, I mainly use VSCO to edit my pictures, such as if the photo is too dark then I could critique the photo by either adjusting the brightness, sharpening, blurring, or graining etc. I honestly don’t think it would get me more likes by editing and putting filters on my photos. I think it’s dependent on whether people feel like “liking” your photos or how many of your followers are on the app when you post. Connecting with the Goffman essay, “Rather each participant is expected to suppress his immediate heartfelt feelings, conveying a view of the situation which he feels the others will be able to find at least temporarily acceptable.” (Goffman, 5). To explain, this quote really made me think about how people may perceive social media. How I view it, what you see on posts, isn’t always what people are actually feeling, and so many people take that for granted. Everyone on social media feel the need to always be accepted and to show/demonstrate that you’re “happy” based on the comment you write under your post or the types of emojis you use. It’s really sad because it’s also teaching the younger generation to suppress their feelings in order to be accepted. Been there and done that, I really hope it doesn’t force anyone down a dark path.

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In the reading “The Cultural Logic of Photo-Based Meme Genres” by Limor Shifman, as stated on page 341, “the unique features of the internet turned the diffusion of memes into a ubiquitous, highly visible, and global routine.” Ever since I got my hands on Instagram in middle school, I was able to see the revolution of memes. I selected these three images mainly because I’ve seen them so many times on Instagram and I thought I could relate to them. The memes I’ve selected, I’ve seen them display humorous content over the internet in the past. And I hope with these memes, I can make the people viewing them, laugh or even smile, and think “Oh, I can definitely relate to that.” My first meme, it was focused on the pandemic, and I’m sure a lot of others can relate to this if they’ve currently been working since the past year. At least once or twice a week when I’m at work, I’ve had to tell anti-maskers to put a mask on. I find it quite funny that people think it’s okay to still walk around without a mask on even though it’s mandatory. Majority of the time I would get the same response of “Oh I forgot it in the car”, and I look at them like, “Ok? Do I need to hold your hand and walk you to your car to help you put on a mask?” It’s beyond frustrating that people do not understand we are still in the middle of a pandemic, even if we have a bit more leeway now, compared to last March, it doesn’t make it okay to take full advantage of the system. Otherwise, we will all have to start from square one again. For my second meme, I wanted to create one based on how I spend money like water sometimes. When I get a paycheck, in my head I tell myself it’s okay to spend a lot of money because I know I will make it back. Even though a lot of online shopping occurred while we were all in Phase 1, it helped me get my mind off what was going on. Plus, it was therapeutic shopping, I wanted to make a serious topic (managing money) into something more light-hearted. And for my last meme, I have seen this meme all over the web, and I think it’s beyond funny. On the left I said, “Sitting in a world full of anti-maskers” and on the right it’s me, “it’s fine”. Even if it’s a serious topic, this is a metaphor of how I feel currently. I don’t think people realize that we are all in this together, either wearing a mask or being fully vaccinated is one step closer to having a normal life again. The dog(me) in the meme, feels like we are burning ourselves to the ground, since none of us are working together.

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I regularly use Instagram rather than other social media platforms. I mainly use it to connect with friends, to see what they’re up to base on the pictures or videos they post.

It’s designed to achieve money, that’s what every single app wants, with the numerous amounts of subscriptions and adds. I never realized it, but apps are constantly tracking you every move with everything you post. For example, in the episode of “Blaxites”, it focused on a girl who was dependent on her phone, such as with school and breathing exercises to help with her anxiety. She tried refilling her prescription for Lorazepam, and it said it was unable to. She went to the doctors to see what was going on and she was “un-compliant”, the doctor’s office was tracking her through social media and saw a pic she posted drinking a glass of wine (which is not compatible with this medication). She said she did not agree to it but the doctor insisted she did. It’s scary what social media can do these days. I mainly use it to connect with friends, to see what they’re up to base on the pictures or videos they post. This app has a button for: shopping, posting pics on your page, looking up accounts, sending messages, reels, and seeing what likes/comments you’ve received. Also, I think one thing it could have been designed to achieve is, the kind of interests the user has. So, the app would constantly post things you lie, for example, after you buy a pair of shoes, Instagram would show ads like the ones you just bought from another site/app. Not to mention, a function that could have been included is the news, anything that is occurring globally. Because at our current news stations, it’s focusing on the community that the reporters think is the most ‘important’, you don’t see the news on Asian hate crimes or BLM. According to the reading, “Engineered Equity: Are Robots Racist?” by Benjamin R., “darker people are implicitly coded as unhealthy and unfit- assumptions that are at the heart of scientific racism and eugenic ideology and policies.” (35). Beauty A1, referred to this concept as, “deep learning”.  A lot of users from Instagram expect guys and girls to be appealing to the eye when they post on their page. People are constantly trying to find ways to keep themselves young and beautiful. They photoshop pictures to the point where it doesn’t look real, no one’s skin is perfect. To the younger generation, it puts this biased expectation, “you can only be beautiful if you look like that when you’re older”. Lastly, the users that are excluded (in my opinion), are the ones that don’t keep up with the current trend, putting filters on their pics or if you don’t have that many followers. It’s sad because if you don’t have over 1000 followers, you’re considered “not cool”, I’ve heard it so many times in my life. There shouldn’t be social media at all.

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I’m choosing to inform my great- grandmother who worked in a nursing home in the past. In the beginning of the pandemic, around March 2019, it was a cluster of stress and worries all around the world. Everyone was trying to contain Covid-19 from spreading, mandating wearing masks, limit social gatherings to none, and staying home, period. Currently, people rely on the media to obtain new knowledge or daily information occurring within their community, but little do people realize or question: Is this information valid? Or are they just trying to make money off me? Within the media today, it’s so technical and elaborative that not all the information you may see is valid. Using the internet (being a user), you need to be able to navigate the web, to receive the information, and what you’re seeking. For example, it’s important to realize, when you navigate the media during the pandemic, there is a ton of resources floating around. In the Marche article, Crowfunding companies’ purpose is to help people so that they’re all interconnected, but not many would see that YouCaring and GoFundMe may be actually projecting inequality within the American health system. “And they are potentially exacerbating racial, economic, and educational divides.” (Marche). Healthcare during the pandemic is the most crucial element for a citizen to have, but while using a donation site, it’s only helpful to citizens if they’re eligible to receive that donation. Not to mention, as an ABC (American Born Chinese), I have been blamed for this virus and I have witnessed other Asian- Americans blamed for the pandemic as well, causing a rise in Asian-hate crimes. It’s a racial and educational divide. Since the start was in Wuhan, doesn’t give citizens the excuse to blame and beat on Asian-Americans for a virus completely out of their control. Conjointly, within the article, Dante Rahdar was trying to raise money to help pay for his sister’s chemotherapy ($25,000), but he didn’t realize it was becoming a bit absurd on YouCaring.com. He saw someone wanting to raise money for some potato salad. While on Facebook, people are posting their GoFundMe to cover their medical bills. “Outline what you are asking and why you are asking for it.” (Marche). The purpose of this quote is to be vulnerable and truthful about WHY you need this money, and how it will be used towards the person you’re helping and HOW it would impact their life. One time at Bartells, they asked me when I was checking out, “Would you like to buy a teddy bear? If you do, you will feed a child in need” (something like that), but I was hesitant. Not because I didn’t want to, but they never gave me enough information to make me want to help, like the organization. Or how are you going to feed those kids? We live in a world that’s divided currently, where people are taking this nationwide issue seriously or as a joke.