Where Worlds Intersect: How ‘White Girls’ Became ‘Basic’

“Calling all the basic b*tches” begins Youtube user and Internet sensation Lohanthony, twirling his leg and finally leaning into the camera to tell his audience “you’re basic.”

Lohanthony’s video was published in June 2012, and it’s the event that several people I interviewed pointed to as the entrance of the term ‘basic’ into mainstream lexicon— with mainstream being young, mainly white, teenage girls that comprise the majority of Lohanthony’s fanbase of 1,367,470 (on YouTube alone). But what is the ‘basic bitch’, or what does it mean to be ‘basic’?

In November, I emailed several student groups on campus, including suburban high and middle schoolers, the Institute of Politics’ Politics of Race and Ethnicity Group, the First-Year Urban Program, and the Asian American Women’s Association with a poll asking about attitudes members held about the intersection of the terms ‘basic’ and ‘white girl,’ as in the Common White Girl Twitter stereotype (see @CommonWhiteGirl, @CommonWhiteGrl, or @girlposts for more of an explanation). I found that 76.9% of those polled were familiar with the ‘Common White Girl’ accounts (the most famous of which, @girlposts, has 5.14 million followers). In addition, I found that a similar percentage, 73.8%, believed that though ‘white girl’ is not synonymous with ‘basic,’ ‘white girls’ are often ‘basic.’

 

90210, the CW

I grew up in suburban upstate New York in a predominantly white community (though I myself identify as AAPI) so I have become familiar with today’s use of the terms “basic” and “white girl” in terms of the community that I was in, in that the ‘basic’ girl is one who sips on her Starbucks vanilla bean frappuccino, uploads selfies to Instagram daily, and wears chestnut brown Ugg boots from October to March. I have been wondering how the term ‘white girl’, which denotes a stereotypical suburban teenager (Davies) who loves “Starbucks, Ugg boots, North Face Denali fleece jackets, and pumpkin spice lattes” (Davies) has become termed “basic” by teenagers and bloggers alike, as the term “basic” derives from the term “basic bitch” which emerged into African American culture in 2009. In this blogpost, I will discuss the appropriation of the term “basic”, along with how racialized, if at all, the term “white girl” is. In addition, I will also hope to shed light on how people of color have come to accept or reject this trope of a “white girl” and on what the roots of their attitudes on this issue are.

Part I: Some Basic Information on the Term ‘Basic’

Today, it’s difficult to post a picture of a Starbucks cup (red for the holiday season) without being charged as being ‘basic’ in the comment section, and it’s hard to wear Ugg boots with pride when you know that you’ll be derisively called ‘basic’ by your peers when you venture out to public. But the term ‘basic’ has origins far from this connotation, of the suburban world of Ugg boots, lattes, and Bath and Body Works 3 for $15 lotions. It is actually rooted, like many ‘trendy’ words, in African American culture.

The first mention of the term ‘basic’ online was on August 3, 2009 when YouTube user LilDuval posted the video “Basic Bitch” (LilDuval). In it, LilDuval exclaims “if you a black girl and your weave is red, green, purple, or blonde… yous a basic bitch,” and “if you go on a date with no money and expect him to pay for your food and he don’t, yous a basic bitch and you shoulda had a backup plan” among other scenarios that he deems “basic bitch” worthy. Writer Logan Anderson agrees, writing in the Louisiana State University Legacy Magazine that the term “basic bitch” was originally in the African American community an extension of the term “ratchet,” a “stereotypical lower class African American woman— someone who wore Rainbow clothing, lace front wigs, and drew on her eyebrows… a woman that a highly ranked, white, male Republican would derisively refer to as a ‘welfare queen'” (Anderson). It’s a far cry from what we, and Lohanthony, deem ‘basic’ today.

The timeline I created here further highlights the transformation of the term ‘basic’ in pop culture. Shortly after LilDuval’s video was posted, the term “basic bitch” was modified on Urban Dictionary to fit his context, and the term “basic bitch” was picked up by Tyga in his 2010 song “Hard in the Paint,” as he raps “don’t compare me to no basic bitch” (Tyga). Lil Wayne quickly followed Tyga later that year, rapping in “I Am Not a Human Being” that “I thank God that I am not basic” (Lil Wayne). Basic, in these two songs, has a definitively negative connotation in which it is, like Anderson writes, an adjective or stereotype that describes people of a lower social and economic class.

The turning point in the term ‘basic’ being used in the music industry is in the release of Kreayshawn’s song “Gucci Gucci” in May 2011 (Kreayshawn). The song’s repetitive hook states “Gucci Gucci, Louis Louis, Fendi Fendi, Prada/ the basic bitches wear that shit, so I don’t even bother,” making it seem that you don’t have to be poor to be ‘basic’; being ‘basic’ seems to be, in this song’s context, a crime of being unoriginal and following safe crowd trends in order to fit in, not of being poor. In addition, being ‘basic’ is no longer something that only women and men in the black community can be; Kreayshawn, or Natassia Gail Zolot, is a petite white woman who is appropriating black culture, and more pertinent to this conversation, black linguistics (Viera). Gucci Gucci has over 48 million hits on YouTube as of 2014, and it’s what many online sources point to as the beginning of the word ‘basic’ entering mainstream (read: white) lexicon, a sort of linguistic gentrification if you will. Being basic, one writer states, seems like a new phrase, but it really is “only new to one narrow part of our culture— white people” (Davies), reminiscent of say rock-n-roll to white audiences with the introduction of Elvis. By the transitive property, it seems like Kreayshawn is our Elvis in that she brought the term “basic bitch” to white consciousness.

Today, the fact that the term ‘basic’ originated from African American culture is virtually unknown, with a vast majority— 80.6%- of respondents stating that they do not associate the term ‘basic’ with African American culture (some respondents were more enthusiastic about this, saying “hell nah” and “I don’t [associate basic with African American culture] but unfortunately society does”). One respondent even wrote that “there definitely are basic people within the black community,” suggesting that there are people representative of today’s suburban white teenager-style basic in black culture and a lack of knowledge that the original ‘basic’ women were black.

Though the term ‘basic’ has been appropriated into describing someone who is completely different from the original connotation, it is still representative of someone who fits a certain basic (literally), generic stereotype.

Ms. Not-Right-Now

It’s interesting also to observe the dropping of the phrase “bitch” from the phrase “basic bitch,” as if it is making the phrase more age-appropriate for younger mostly white teenagers who have taken over the term. Nevertheless, the term ‘basic’ has come a long way from its original context to its current connotation.

Part II: Understanding Basic-ness Within the Context of Teenage Identity

In “The Disconnectionists,” Nathan Jurgenson discusses the idea that there’s a “conflict between the self as social performance and the self as authentic expression of one’s inner truth” and that there is a group of people advocating the unplugging from social media citing the fact that the Internet has “normalized… an unprecedented repression of the authentic self in favor of calculated avatar performance” (Jurgenson). Jurgenson and the Disconnectionists bring up an interesting point— has the “basic” identity evolved because it turns out that a lot of people of certain demographics do a lot of the same things, or has the fact that women tend to buy the same type of clothes or participate in similar activities not stem from online peer pressure? In other words, would Starbucks pumpkin spice lattes have gained as much prominence without the power of social media and the desire to ‘fit in’ by suburbanites? I hypothesize (as someone who has tasted the candle-like pumpkin spice latte) that no, they wouldn’t, and that peer pressure definitely has a role in the spread of what is ‘cool’ and not, and by extension, what ‘basic’ girls do to fit in (and counter-intuitively, this groupthink contributes to the defining of ‘basic’ identity). Ms. Not-Right-Now puts it best, defining ‘basic’ as “an uncanny ability to aspire to mediocrity” (Ms. Not-Right-Now), and one woman who states that she’s “proud to be a basic bitch” wrote that “basic means according to the Internet: a white girl who likes cliché things that ‘every other white girl’ likes,” making it seem like the term has evolved heavily because of the fact that social media has made it possible for everyone to know what people are caring about in all aspects of life, be it activities, food, or sartorial choices (Booth).

Researcher Danah Boyd writes in it’s complicated that American teens use social media in a way that reflects existing problems in society and reinforces their deep-seated beliefs, and that teens bring their “values and attitudes, hopes and prejudices” online with them (Boyd 160). She additionally writes that social divisions remain salient online, and that “class politics intertwine with race” (Boyd 160), which makes understanding why teens may call each other or another group of teens ‘basic’; it’s an expression of helping classify the ‘other,’ just like they do in the cafeteria. Calling out a group of stereotypically middle and upper class girls for the way they dress or act is nothing new and is a normal expression of us-vs-them mentality or teenage angst, and a more dated term might be something like ‘prep’ in the early 2000s for the Abercrombie-wearing set. Teens calling each other ‘basic’ is just making fun or poking fun at being too “normal” or unoriginal, and many embrace the term. It’s nothing radical or new, except for the appropriation of African American culture that’s intrinsically part of the phrase (alongside white suburban teenage girls calling their hair ‘ratchet’ after a day of not straightening it).

I think that this is supported strongly by the fact that the essence of being ‘basic’ varies by regional tastes and by age; for instance, Jezebel ran a feature called “The United States of Basic Bitches” which details the “Chicago Trixie Basic,” “Dallas Basic,” “Manhattan Basic,” and “San Francisco Basic” along with others, showing that being basic, or generic, varies by regional taste and is not static (Ryan).

Part III: White Girl- Racist or Classist Caricature?

From what we have explored so far, it seems that ‘basic’ now describes the quintessential American ‘white girl’—but who is she?

I’ve found online the terms are often lumped together, like in the Buzzfeed headline “16 Questions All Basic White Girls Never Knew They Needed to Answer” or “25 Things All Basic White Girls Do During the Fall,” so to understand these terms a little bit better, I’ve created a chart to compare things that ‘basic’ girls and ‘white girls’ like and do in order to draw a comparison.

(Walker, Marshall, Hudspeth)

It’s easy to see that there are a lot of similarities between the two groups, as denoted by pink asterisks. I would like to note that this list is not comprehensive and is taken from only three articles describing the characteristics of ‘white girls’ and ‘basic’ girls.

I hope that this chart shows that race is not as big of a factor in the term ‘white girl’ as one would expect, as I did not see anything in either columns that had anything to do with race. It seems more that the two stereotypes and tropes are instead based in consumerism (brands like Ugg, North Face, Victoria’s Secret, and Starbucks are named, as well as the website Pinterest which allows for users to compile virtual shopping lists of things they would like, recipes they would like to create, wedding ideas, or things of that nature). This is supported by my poll data, which found that 68.75% of respondents stated that not all ‘white girls’ are white, and as one responder put it, “the reference to a ‘white girl’ is anyone whose behavior corresponds to the white girl stigma.”

However, in a departure from my findings, I do think that there is some sort of racial component inherent in the ‘white girl’ trope; it would be considered racist to use a similar trope for people of color (ex. There aren’t articles out there derailing black girls or Asian girls). There is some sort of element of privilege inherent in the fact that white boys and girls can use the trope ‘white girl’ to make fun of each other, because, as one young woman interviewed in Why are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria puts it, “I’m just normal!” (Tatum 93).

Tatum writes that adolescence is when race becomes salient, as evidenced by what she called the “birthday party effect” in which parties for young kids are often as diverse as the classrooms are, but parties as students get older at puberty are often segregated by race (Tatum 57). My hypothesis that the trope of a ‘white girl’ is based in this notion that adolescence is an age where race becomes salient; seeing the similarities between ‘white girls’ who are usually materialistic middle and upper-middle class girls and the stereotype of Jewish American Princesses (JAPs), why has one taken off on a storm throughout all forms of social media, whereas the other, JAP, has not (Betches Love This)?

Though the term JAP is still used by Jewish American teens, it is not salient enough for the greater public to take on to make fun of or poke fun at. One of the students I interviewed, Sam, stated, “You can call a non-white person a ‘white girl,’ but I would not call one of my non-Jewish friends a ‘JAP.’”

I wanted to know how women of color felt about the term ‘white girl,’ and if teens felt that the term is applicable to people who are not white. 68.75% of my respondents said that not all ‘white girls’ are white, and a similar percentage, 65.6% felt that you could call someone who isn’t white a ‘white girl.’ This would counter my theory that whiteness, or race in general, is salient in this demographic that is using the term ‘white girl’ interchangeably with ‘basic.’

On the other hand, other I learned that 51% of women of color I interviewed felt that they could identify with the term ‘white girl,’ while 49% of them felt that they could not because they are not white. I also asked respondents how they would feel about getting called a ‘white girl,’ if they were women of color, and I got a wide array of responses. Some were neutral on the subject, saying things like “offended” or “okay with it because they are obviously joking,” but I had a lot more negative responses (this was an optional question, so this could be biased in that people with stronger feelings left responses and those who were more lukewarm on the subject skipped it). These ranged from “offended because that means I’m a materialistic snob” and “it plays off a stereotype of being a middle/upper-middle class white girl” to “it hurts because when black women are called and compared to white girls, it is just another reminder of how much this country rejects black womanhood” and “as a person of color, I’m offended when someone calls me a ‘white girl’ and goes on to suggest that I’m denying my own race by ‘acting too white.’”

The negative responses I received about how women of color would feel about being called ‘white girls’ leads me to believe that for the greater community at large, being a ‘white girl’ does not depend solely on race, but for women and people of color, being called a ‘white girl’ is more than being told you’re materialistic, representative of a certain lifestyle/socioeconomic background, or as one person wrote, “a stereotypical/characteristic less intelligent, usually young Caucasian female who follows popular trends and is caught up in inconsequential details.” It’s like being told that you are conforming too much into the white majority (like being called an ‘Oreo’ or a ‘banana’).

One woman interviewed even said that she “automatically feels as if that’s degrading because ‘white girl’ is linked to ‘being basic,’” noting the negative connotation basic-ness has to women of color as well. Being basic, it seems, is something that no one wants tied to his or her identity, regardless of race and class.

Part IV: Conclusion

I wanted to learn more about the face of the ‘white girl’ movement by conversing with someone who is the purveyor of the ‘white girl’ code, namely, one of the owners of the many Common White Girl Twitter accounts. Though I reached out to five of them (the ones that I could find had business emails in their Twitter biographies), I only received answers from two of them, one of which asked me to text him/her (which I felt a bit too uncomfortable doing). The one Tweeter that I was able to talk to stated that s/he believes that ‘basic’ and ‘white girl’ are the same thing, but this is not the opinion of everyone, and wrote that s/he felt that ‘white girl’ is a class-based term, an opinion that many of my poll respondents had held. I think that the most interesting things that I learned from corresponding with the Tweeter was that the account follows many women of color, and that most of the Common White Girl’s followers are people of color.

One of the most famous Common White Girl accounts. The accounts almost all include this picture of pre-transformation Cinderella as the avatar.

 As a woman of color, I agree with one of my respondents in that though I would not feel great about being called a ‘white girl,’ I would still feel like it would make sense if I was carrying a Starbucks cup, as the phrase has become deracialized in some circles to the point in that it’s a meaningless stereotype, akin to the word ‘prep.’ However, I do hold issues with being called ‘basic,’ as I still feel like it is an appropriation of black culture even if its connotation today is a complete departure from its past. 

At the same time, it seems that reading too far into these stereotypes is in and of itself ‘basic’, as Jezebel writer Kara Brown wrote, “overanalyzing basic is the most basic move of all” (Brown). As one of my respondents put it, “being ‘basic’ or being a ‘white girl’ is basically like being called a ‘dumb blonde.’ Not all blondes are dumb, and there are certainly people who don’t have blonde hair that could be the butt of a blonde joke.”

(Author’s Note: I would like to note that my statistics are up for consideration seeing that I did not have a randomized sample size nor was the number of women of color and white women equal or controlled in any way. I used a very informal survey.)

 Works Cited

The Twitter Purge and the Fappening: How Women are Blamed for the Invasion of their own Privacy

The concept of ‘revenge porn,’ defined by the Harvard Civil Rights and Civil Liberties Law Review as “the public online posting of nude or sexually explicit pictures of a person, often with attached identifying information or derogatory comments” has come to public consciousness in the wake of two major events in 2014: the “Twitter Purge” in July and November and the “Fappening,” a colloquial term for the leak of hundreds of nude pictures of celebrities in September (Harvard Civil Rights- Civil Liberties Law Review). However, the practice has been around for a while, with the most prominent ‘revenge porn’ website, Hunter Moore’s “Is Anyone Up,” being created in 2010. “Is Anyone Up,” until its closing in 2012, was a forum-style website where posters were encouraged to shame their ex-lovers publicly by posting their nude pictures and contact information (Harvard Civil Rights- Civil Liberties Law Review). Though the site was not a household name, the practice of ‘sexting,’ or the texting of provocative and sexually explicit pictures to others, has apparently been a mainstay for years, and the Fappening and Twitter Purge made people understand that it was more widespread than most people expected, for better and for worse, and more troubling is the fact that sexting has trickled down into practice in the preteen and teenage arena, with a recent study finding that 18% of teenagers have sent a nude picture to a partner (Parkinson).

Sexting may not have become a problem if it wasn’t for the fact that partners inevitably break up. In moments of anger, many scorned partners turn to the Internet to shame their partners, and these partners whose pictures are posted online are overwhelmingly—90%-female (End Revenge Porn). With these statistics, it is easy to see that revenge porn is a gendered crime, and is more a manifestation of society’s ongoing harassment of women (ex. Street cat calling and victim blame in college rape cases) than a completely new adopted belief that is suddenly adopted when one goes online (Harvard Civil Rights- Civil Liberties Law Review, Nutting). And revenge porn is not just an online issue—the Cyber Civil Rights Initiative has found that 49% of women who have been exposed in revenge porn have been harassed and stalked both online and offline by those who had seen their pictures (End Revenge Porn).

Embedded from End Revenge Porn

The “Twitter Purge,” a burst of revenge porn pictures of women that were posted on a dedicated accounts created by a teenager in California to purge, or expose, ‘thots,’ a degrading slang term towards women, began in mid-July (Parkinson). It is interesting to note that the “Twitter Purge” began only a week after a teenage girl named Jada Sparks became a trending topic on Twitter as boys from a party she was at raped her then mocked her online by posting pictures of her in an unconscious and partially clothed state (Parkinson). The timing of the purge coincided with the release of The Purge: Anarchy, the sequel to the first The Purge movie, and the reincarnation of the Twitter Purge occurred in November when the media hyped the DVD release (Wikipedia). What is interesting about the Twitter Purge is that even when the original Purge accounts that were created by the Californian teen were deleted by Twitter, individual tweeters continued to use the hashtag #twitterpurge in order to shame their ex-girlfriends and women that had trusted them enough to send them nude or semi-nude photos.

The spike of tweets containing the hashtag #TwitterPurge is shown to have increased dramatically on the days surrounding the release of The Purge: Anarchy DVD.  

Two months after the first Twitter Purge, the phenomenon was followed by an even more startling and more sensational story when the nude, personal photos of hundreds of female celebrities were posted online onto a forum site called 4chan, with the photos being stolen through a breach in security in the Apple iCloud which instantly stores photos taken on iPhones (Worland). Though the public had almost become used to the leaking of private photos because of the Twitter Purge, the victim blame game was even stronger than before as people tweeted ‘advice’ to celebrities that was patronizing and misogynistic as they blamed those in the pictures, not the people who had hacked into the iCloud to steal them and post them publicly. The overwhelming voice of people giving advice included things like “don’t take nude selfies,” but this was problematic as it was only targeted towards women, not the men who had hacked the system (Bilton, Dewey). Female reporters and feminists rallied towards the cause, stating that those who told women to ‘not take nude pictures’ were doing the equivalent of telling women to not dress a certain way when going outside, going to a party, or even telling women that rape is their fault (Dewey).

A stereotypical tweet telling women what to do in order to avoid getting their pictures posted online without their consent, which doesn’t even touch the bigger problem of people posting their pictures.

Many men and women tweeted about the Twitter Purge and the “Fappening” saying that women should not sext at all in order to protect themselves from the possibility of a leak by someone they know (as in revenge porn) or someone they don’t even know (as in the celebrity nude leak), but this is difficult advice whe the practice has become embedded into the social norm of teenagers. Ironically, a study by Lippman and Campbell has found that girls are “no more likely than boys to sext” but “more likely to experience pressure to do so, particularly from boys” (Lippman and Campbell). However, girls are the ones who are exposed after a rough break-up, and are the ones who are branded with terms like “prude” if they are not willing to send sexts to love interests and “sluts” if they send them too willingly (Lippman and Campbell). In addition, the way that girls are treated when their photos are put online against their will is problematic as police officers say things like “they victimized themselves” (Rossin).

The issue of revenge porn, sexting, the Fappening, and the Twitter Purge all coalesce into one big question: how far is too far when the First Amendment is concerned (Kim)? How far are we willing to push the boundary of free speech when it is hurtful and detrimental to women online? Barlow’s 1996 “A Cyberspace Independence Declaration” seems eerie as it echoes the attitude of 4chan users who exposed celebrities’ personal pictures without caring about the government’s hand, as it states “governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed. You have neither solicited nor received ours” (Barlow). In addition, Barlow states that governments do not “possess any methods of enforcement [Internet users] have true reason to fear,” which is quite true in that due to the international nature of the Internet, what is outlawed in one state may be allowed in another, as not all states have anti-revenge porn laws in effect yet (Barlow, Kim).

There is no clear solution to this problem, as it again is just a technological manifestation of the way that women are treated in our society September (Harvard Civil Rights- Civil Liberties Law Review). The fact that this problem is not just one online but that society has as a whole is highlighted by the case in which several police officers in California were found to be stealing and forwarding nude pictures from phones of people arrested or stopped for things like speeding to their own phones in order to collect nude photos of women as a game within the police force (Steigerwald). When even the police is contributing to the problem, it seems that it is a lost cause for women everywhere to be given dignity in expressing their sexuality with peace of mind.

Works Cited

Barlow, John. A Cyberspace Independence Declaration. 9 Feb. 1996. E-Mail.

Bilton, Nick (NickBilton). “Put together a list of tips for celebs after latest leaks:1. Don’t take nude selfies 2. Don’t take use selfies 3. Don’t take nude selfies” 1 September 2014, 5:31 p.m. Tweet.

Dewey, Caitlin. “This Is Why ‘not Taking Nude Selfies’ Is Not the Solution to the Internet’s Nude-Photo Hacking Scandal.” Washington Post : September 2, 2014. Print.

Kim, Anne. “Addressing Celebrity Nude Photo Leaks and Revenge Porn: The First Amendment Question.” Roll Call. N.p., 7 Nov. 2014. Web.

“Law and Revenge Porn.” Harvard Civil Rights-Civil Liberties Law Review. N.p., n.d. Web.

Lippman, Julia, and Scott Campbell. “Damned If You Do, Damned If You Don’t…If You’re a Girl: Relational and Normative Contexts of Adolescent Sexting in the United States.” Children and Media (2013): 371–386. Print.

Nutting, Alice. “Revenge Porn Is Vile Symptom of Modern Misogyny — It’s about Time We Had a Protection Law.” The Independent 16 Nov. 2014. Web.

Parkinson, Hannah. “Twitter Trend Based on The Purge Films Exposes Horror of Revenge Porn.” The Guardian 21 July 2014. Web.

“Revenge Porn By the Numbers.” End Revenge Porn. N.p., 3 Jan. 2014. Web.

Rosin, Hannah. “Why Kids Sext.” The Atlantic 14 Oct. 2014. Web.

Steigerwald, Lucy. “California Officers Steal Suspects’ Nude Photos as a ‘Game.’” N.p., 27 Oct. 2014. Web.

“The Purge: Anarchy.” Wikipedia. N.p., n.d. Web.

“Tweets per Day: Twitterpurge October 17- November 16.” Topsy. N.p., n.d. Web.

Worland, Justin. “How That Massive Celebrity Hack Might Have Happened.” Time Magazine 1 Sept. 2014. Web.

If a Tree Falls in the Forest, and No One Hears it, Does it Throw Shade?

Chances are by now you’ve heard of Black Twitter. Maybe you’ve seen Issa Rae’s “Black Twitter Party” Video. Not sure? Take Complex Magazine’s Black Twitter Quiz. However, note, according to the website if you need to reference Urban Dictionary at any point during the quiz you’ll be disqualified. In other words, you’ll need to possess a very specific set of cultural knowledge to understand many of the jokes this quiz refers to, and most importantly to under the satire it is employing to make fun of the University of Southern California’s Annenberg Center for Media Studies, which recently released a proposal to do an actual study on Black Twitter, labeled DSAIL Black Twitter Project. As you may be able to guess by the satire in the Complex article, the study was met with discontent by Black Twitter, expressed in it’s most popular form of venting, the satirical #hashtag based on black cultural black twitter references.

-Complex Magazine

-Complex Magazine

Of course, as always there was also more serious commentary on the subject, with some participants in Black Twitter feeling as though this study came at the end of a long line of the historical spectacularization of blackness under the white gaze.

-Complex Magazine

In his article for NPR, “How Black People May or May Not Use Twitter,” Sam Sanders highlights many very similar reactions to Slate Magazine’s article “How Black People Use Twitter.” Danielle Benton and Baratunde Thurston both argued that the things black people do or talk about on twitter are no different than those of any other demographic, but, according to Thurston, they stand out simply because they are not “mainstream,” or in other words, 40-year old white male technologists. This argument is interesting given that he was quoted in the original Slate magazine discussing “blacktags” (black hashtags) as a new form of the Dozens, a black cultural oral tradition of one-upping insults on one another, usually in front of an audience.

There are many similar arguments about the contextualization of Black Twitter discourse in the history of African American language practices. In his chapter “Taking Black Technology Use Seriously: African American Discursive Traditions in the Digital Underground,” in Race, Rhetoric and Technology: Searching for Higher Ground, Adam Banks argues that African American language and discourse thrives in online spaces, as he found on the site Black Planet. Part of his argument is that black online discourse is rooted in oral traditions in African American language such as call and response, signifyin’, exaggerated language, punning, and more. André Brock expounds specifically on the practice of signifyin’, arguing that this twitter practice can be seen understood as a discursive, public performance of black identity (Brock, 537). Brock believes that twitter’s design and character limit actually encourage the performance of blackness and the use of African American styles of language, creating a unique space for black identity. In this way, we may be able to say that Black Twitter has achieved what Ernesto Priego describes as self-determination, or “the freedom of misrepresented individuals and communities to determine their own online content” (Priego: 2011). Banks situates black online discourse in the concept of the “underground” which, like the underground railroad, describes places and practices that go unnoticed, even though they may be occurring in plain view. This has most often been highlighted in the black discursive spaces created by the barbershop, beauty salon, and the black church. However, Banks argues that these underground cultural practices are not limited only to physical space, but can also be found in technologies and networks.

In her article for the Washington Post, Soraya McDonald describes Black Twitter in a very similar way, noting that the large number of black twitter users means that “a community has evolved online to reflect one that has long existed offline. The difference is now it’s out in the open for anyone to observe” (McDonald: 2014). This visibility, though perhaps annoying for some users when white media attempts to study or create a spectacle out of it, is also what gives Black Twitter tangible, social activist power. McDonald cites many instances, such as the canceling of the book deal of Juror B37 in the George Zimmerman trial, in which Black Twitter was instrumental in real life issues. Black Twitter also has a demonstrated potential to organize users around important social justice causes using hashtags such as #solidarityisforwhitewomen, #justicefortrayvon, and more recently, #iftheygunnedmedown and #Ferguson. Still, Black Twitter’s  hashtags are often highlighted for their witty humor and unforgiving reads of celebrities and mainstream media, some of the most memorable being #PaulasBestDishes, #abcreports, and #TimeTitles. Although these hashtags are humorous, they are usually sparked by a genuinely offensive, or even racist, incident, and can be seen as social commentary about larger issues surrounding race, stereotyping, and microagressions. In his book How to Be Black, Bratunde Thurston quotes Christian Lander, creator of Stuff White People Like who argues that satire is essential to talking about race because it creates a comfort that opens up dialogue (Thurston, 229). McDonald agrees, noting that “unvarnished anger isn’t very effective; it’s too easy to dismiss as an emotional and irrational response, and it’s exhausting. But when humor accompanies it, the whole message seems to stick” (McDonald, 2014). This unique creative wit blurs the lines between comedic relief and social commentary on Black Twitter, and its visibility and seemingly exponentially increasing cultural influence will continue to make it one of the hot topics when discussing the intersections of race and technology.

Discussion Questions 

1. Is satire conducive to serious conversations about race? Does it trivialize the subject, or make non-people of color feel justified in racial jokes?
2. Who are the jokes/social commentary directed to? If only people who have spent significant amounts of time socializing with black people will have the cultural knowledge to understand the references in these hashtags, how can others learn from it?
3. Seeing as Black Twitter is not an exclusive space (it requires no password or personal connection) what does it mean when others participate in it? Moreover, how does one differentiate between who is a part of black twitter and who isn’t? What does it mean to “participate?”

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Works Cited 

1. http://www.complex.com/pop-culture/2014/09/black-twitter-study/define-black-twitter-discourse
2. http://www.annenberglab.com/projects/dsail-black-twitter-project#.VAYYLBYjHLg.twitter
3. http://www.npr.org/blogs/alltechconsidered/2010/08/16/129235517/how-black-people-may-or-may-not-use-twitter
4. http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/technology/2010/08/how_black_people_use_twitter.html

5. Banks, Adam. 2006. “Taking Black Technology Use Seriously: African American Discursive Traditions in the Digital Underground.” Race, Rhetoric, and Technology: Searching for Higher Ground. Mahwah: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc. 68-85.

6. http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/black-twitter-a-virtual-community-ready-to-hashtag-out-a-response-to-cultural-issues/2014/01/20/41ddacf6-7ec5-11e3-9556-4a4bf7bcbd84_story.html

7. Thurston, Baratunde. 2012. How to Be Black. New York, NY: Harper

8. https://www.insidehighered.com/blogs/university_of_venus/can_the_subaltern_tweet

Online Privacy?

In a world where technology provides for an abundance of resources that ultimately make our lives much easier, there are also some setbacks that need to be taken into evaluation. One in particular that seems to be the backbone of controversy in recent news is the death of privacy. It is only due to recent leaks that people have been exposed to the data collection of websites such as Facebook, Twitter, and Google. In each of these cases, the aforementioned companies have gained the trust of their users (getting their users to give their intimate information) only to turn around and sell it to the highest advertisement bidder. Is it wrong for companies to sell the information of their users? Furthermore, where do we draw the line between what is private and what we can share? And in that light, is our information our right? In order to best tackle these questions, one must first be aware of how these companies often manipulate our own information to make money.

Just recently, Facebook conducted research to understand the effects that its news feed has on its users. Specifically, the multi-billion dollar company wanted to see the effects of altering a Facebook user’s newsfeed with positive or negative posts. They were curious whether these Facebook users would then post positive or negative words based on what they were primed with. This psychological experiment was targeted towards 700,000 people over the period of one week (Atlantic, Robinson Meyer). When news of this experiment hit the media, the company received major backlash, as many were in awe about what they had done. People were concerned because it seemed to reflect a lack of understanding of the current public feeling of sensitivity online. In other words, people became suspicious of the fact that Facebook is either oblivious to cyber negativity or they simply do not care about its effects. With the current implementation of many campaigns that are trying to make online interaction positive (i.e. anti bullying campaigns), it is very disappointingly stimulating to see such a negative setback during a positive movement. Below is a video that shows how negativity in the online sphere can severely impact a person’s real life.

So, for Facebook to purposely create a negative online experience for a user makes the company appear to be lacking a sensitivity chip. However, the emotional implications of this invasion of privacy are just one of the factors that are put into play by Facebook’s actions. In addition, people are also forced to question their ownership of information online. What truly belongs to a person? Is any information still sacred?

In the picture diagram shown below, one can see the complex nature of how online advertising works. This graphic shows how much money is to be made by having ownership of people’s actions/information online.

This graphic allows a viewer to see how much money companies like Facebook can make, but at what cost? Many would say it is at a cost that is as high as our basic human rights.

Specifically, notorious government whistleblower has been speaking out against various websites that violate users privacy. He emphasizes the importance of protecting your privacy, “When you say, ‘I have nothing to hide,’ you’re saying, ‘I don’t care about this right.’ You’re saying, ‘I don’t have this right, because I’ve got to the point where I have to justify it.’ The way rights work is, the government has to justify its intrusion into your rights – you don’t have to justify why you need freedom of speech.” (RT News) This quotation is the reason why privacy has become such a controversial issue. Because even though we might think our likes and dislikes on websites like Facebook or Google are irrelevant, they reflect a larger issue – ownership of our ideas. But between all of the scandals and unusual experiments, this concept tends to get lost. We are not fighting over advertisement costs and Facebook’s searches. Rather, the bigger theme we are fighting over is the right to choose and determine what we care about. At the present state, the online world has taken over how we use the Internet and what we find ourselves interested in. As Edward Snowden points out, we must take this right as seriously as any other because if we don’t then we will loose it (RT News). If the big companies like Facebook/Google/Twitter etc. were to have their way, then we would become mindless in our online interaction. But when we are engaged in online activity and take ownership in what our interests are, the online world is our oyster to explore.

Discussion Questions:

1) America is a capitalistic country, and within its system are many gray areas that intersect the legalities and the moral stances that companies like Facebook/Google/Twitter etc. choose to take.  In that sense, although these companies are technically doing legal work, is it immoral?  Furthermore, is our privacy on the internet our right as citizens?

2) Is it wrong/immoral for companies like Facebook/Google/Twitter etc. to sell the information that their users openly give them?  Additionally, where is the line drawn between what is private and what is open to the public?

3) Since many companies like Facebook are making ridiculous amounts of money from our information, should we be compensated for this?  If so, how would this idea be approached?

Works Cited:

“Facebook Is Watching You Screenshot.” 2014. JPG file. http://www.taringa.net/comunidades/conspiranoicos-t/1777638/Is-Watching-You-NEO-Conspiracion-Positiva.html

“‘Hostile to Privacy’: Snowden Urges Internet Users to Get Rid of Dropbox.” – RT News. N.p., 12 Sept. 2014. Web. 9 Oct. 2014.

“How Does The AdWords Work? Screenshot.” 2014. JPG file. http://www.wordstream.com/blog/ws/2011/11/16/how-adwords-works

Meyer, Robinson. “Everything We Know About Facebook’s Secret Mood Manipulation Experiment.” The Atlantic. Atlantic Media Company, 28 June 2014. Web. 9 Oct. 2014.

“What’s on your mind?.” Youtube. Youtube, 2 June 2014. Web. 9 Oct. 2014.

Striking a Balance: Freedom of Speech and Institutional Censorship Online

Note: I have censored words from social media posts that could be perceived as culturally offensive or inappropriate

According to Jessie Daniels, cyber racism refers to “a range of white supremacist movements in Europe and North America and to the new horizons the Internet and digital media have opened for expression of whiteness across national boundaries.” (4) As demonstrated in the two readings for this week, the Internet is both an empowering tool for personal expression and a lawless haven for racism and bigotry. In order to ensure a safe online experience, many people are pressuring companies like Facebook and Twitter to devise better censorship algorithms capable of detecting and eliminating offensive behavior, such as the racist tweets following Amandla Stenberg’s casting as Rue in the 2012 Hunger Games movie.

Cyber racism, however, is not always easy to identify. As Irene Kwok and Yuzhou Wang explain, the presence of “racist tweets against blacks…may not be obvious against a backdrop of half a billion tweets a day.” (1621) In their research, Kwok and Wang demonstrate the future difficulties online companies could face in their efforts to systematically censor racially charged comments. The filter designed for the study, for instance, was only able to capture offensive language 76% of the time and was unable to identify relationships between words—causing it to erroneously censor innocent language. Their study also revealed the added complication of determining which words are exclusively appropriate within certain communities. In other words, according to Kwok and Wang, an effective filtration system will need to have the ability to recognize statements as racist or non-racist depending on the racial identity of the person who said it. The following two tweets provide a good example. Should Case A be allowed in the Twitter community or should the company take an all-or-nothing stance on the use of certain words? How do you think Facebook and Twitter should treat repeat offenders?

 Case A: African-American female quoting a contemporary cultural icon:

Case B: White male attacking an African-American teenager:

The difference between the two statements is obvious to any person consciously searching for online slurs, but appear equally offensive to an algorithm that is unable to analyze the context of the conversation. Computers, and even humans, face a similar predicament in identifying the cloaked comments and websites discussed in Jessie Daniels’ book. She provides an extensive array of examples in her well researched and encompassing writing. I was particularly captivated by her analysis on the cultural impact of cyber racism. According to the author, the “least recognized—and, hence, most insidious—threat posed by white supremacy online is the epistemological menace to our accumulation and production of knowledge about race, racism, and civil rights in the digital era.” (8) In one example, Daniels describes how a user attempted to employ “moderate-sounding rhetoric and an appeal to the nation’s founding ideals to make a point that runs counter to the democratic ideals of equality for all.” (53) The excerpt is included below:

I found this user’s comment particularly troubling because, unlike personal attacks made over Twitter, it is virtually undetectable to filtration systems and has the potential to indoctrinate unsuspecting readers. As Daniels points out, the regulation of such websites is a highly controversial and polarizing topic of debate. She persuasively argues that the United States must first recognize the racial realities of its history and then embrace the urgent need to restrict hate-speech online. According to the author, the United States tends to “ignore and downplay the formative effects of colonialism, slavery, ongoing and systemic racism, and the white racial frame on the acceptance of white supremacy online.”(179) That is particularly worrying given the amount of influence the United States wields online. After reading this chapter, I asked myself two questions: Can governmental entities regulate the Internet in an effective manner? If so, should regulation be crafted at the national level, despite the “border-less” nature of cyber-space?

The questions generated from these readings are crucial to the integrity and sustainability of the Internet as a productive platform for exchanging information. However, both users and governmental actors must accept that free speech cannot take precedence in every online situation. With free speech online, individuals must assume a greater responsibility in order to ensure it is used properly. As stated in response to a recent ruling in Australia, “free speech is not absolute…there is a point where it comes into conflict with other rights and should be legally curtailed.” (The Australian) Indeed, in the case of Twitter I believe the company should begin to enforce a filtration system in a transparent and user-friendly manner—communicating to users why their tweets are being blocked and signaling which words to avoid. Twitter could employ a bigram system, as Kwok and Wang suggest, to analyze the relationship between words and minimize the risk of blocking non-racist tweets. Similarly, Twitter should provide ample warning before deactivating the account of an alleged repeat offender. Those users should also have access to a resolution center in order to appeal their case. Many other sites, such as PayPal and eBay, already include such services on their customer service section.

Similarly, I am confident that national government officials need to play a central role in the effort to combat racism online. Despite a lack of results at the judicial level, past cases have provided great insight into how national governments could potentially regulate the Internet. In her discussion of the French lawsuit against Yahoo in 2000, for instance, Daniels mentions the development of a new technology, geo-ID, which can “identify and screen Internet content on the basis of geographical source.” (177) This tool could not only help restrict the flow of racist information onto public sites, but also, more importantly, could enable the government to match IP addresses to known hate groups, as catalogued in the Southern Poverty Law Center website.

Class Discussion Questions

1. Would you be wiling to have your Twitter and Facebook posts screened in order to guard against hate-speech online, despite knowing you would never engage in such behavior?

2. As an online user, do you feel there are adequate mechanisms currently in place to report abusive or hurtful language? Which social media platform do you feel is best at doing this? Which do you feel is the worst?

3. Do you think it is more important to prosecute individual actors online that are bullying others based on their race or established organizations that create cloaked websites to misrepresent historical information? Please describe what you deem would be the most effective mechanism for regulating the option you picked.

Works Cited

“Balotelli Tweet: The ‘Ugly Side’ Of Social Media.” YouTube. YouTube, 22 Sept. 2014. Web. 29 Sept. 2014.

Daniels, Jessie. Cyber Racism: White Supremacy Online and the New Attack on Civil Rights. Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield, 2009. Print.

“Facebook Can’t See the Problem with Horrible Racism.” Us Vs Th3m. 2 Apr. 2014. Web. 29 Sept. 2014.

“Global Internet Map 2006.” Global Internet Map 2006. Web. 29 Sept. 2014. http://www.telegeography.com/telecom-resources/map-gallery/global-internet-map-2006

“Hate Map.” Southern Poverty Law Center. Web. 29 Sept. 2014.

Jasmine. “I Ain’t Got No Quarrel with Them Viet Cong … They Never Called Me Nigger.” Muhammad Ali, 1966.” Twitter, 29 Sept. 2014. Web. 29 Sept. 2014.

Kwok, Irene, and Yuzhou Wang. “Locate the Hate: Detecting Tweets against Blacks.” Proceedings of the Twenty-Seventh AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence. Print.

Liftoffs. “Because You Can’t Afford Air Conditioning Because You’re a Nigger.” Twitter. Twitter, 29 Sept. 2014. Web. 29 Sept. 2014.

“Racist Hunger Games Fans Are Very Disappointed.” Jezebel. 26 Mar. 2013. Web. 29 Sept. 2014.

“What Does the Online Hate Prevention Institute (OHPI) Do?” YouTube, 19 Aug. 2014. Web. 29 Sept. 2014.

Wilson, Tim. “Free Speech Is Best Medicine for the Bigotry Disease.” The Australian. 26 Mar. 2014. Web. 29 Sept. 2014.

California — the not-so-golden, kind-of-hateful state

In his work, Cyber Racism, Jessie Daniels discusses the intersection of race and digital technology, usually considered two separate entities.  He begins with a powerful quote from white supremacist David Duke, “I believe that the Internet will begin a chain reaction of racial enlightenment that will shake the world by the speed of its intellectual conquest.”  We typically focus on the positive effects of the internet — increased interconnectedness, faster dissemination of information, and globalization of conversation.  However, it is precisely these aspects that white supremacists have taken advantage of to bring their conversation and ideology online.  The danger of cyber racism and supremacist propaganda online extends beyond harassment and physical harm, especially as youth increasingly turn to the Internet for civil rights information but are unable to easily discern fact from fiction.

Without a critical digital literacy, it is near impossible for the unwitting user to realize they have stumbled upon a white supremacist site that detracts from every hard-earned win in racial equality.  Despite fifty years having passed since the civil rights movement, this global white identity termed “translocal whiteness” by Les Back fosters a racist cyberculture that becomes much harder to fight head-on.  A small consolation is that these sites are not successful tools for recruitment as they still rely on face-to-face interactions for bringing in new members.  Still, every online community provides a forum where participants can associate their ideology with that of our founding fathers and thus “engage in a self-perpetuating cycle of validating (their) knowledge claims.”

It’s important to note the bigger picture struggle between freedom of speech and protection of equality in America.  The American predisposition to ensuring the former makes it very difficult for offenders to be convicted as in the sole case of Richard Machado.  His email crime was only possible due to seemingly benign technological capabilities including email, the cc function, searchable online directories, and online aliases.  At the time of this book’s publication, Machado was the only person convicted of an Internet hate crime in the United States.  Given the sheer number of cloaked supremacist sites, this begs the question of whether we are too often turning a blind eye to cyber racism.  Filtering programs are simply not enough, especially paired with the inconsistent application of content rules on sites like Google and AOL.  Google may shift blame to their search engine algorithm to explain why supremacist sites are common top results, but perhaps we should think about better moderating what is displayed.  Regardless, if free speech considerations continue to weigh heavier in this debate, then it’s absolutely necessary to increase digital literacy and educate our youth about cyber racism as the newest form of oppression.

This week’s second reading, “Locate the Hate: Detecting Tweets against Blacks,” discusses the use of labeled data from Twitter accounts to monitor hate speech, particularly of anti-black nature. In the constant struggle of free speech versus censorship, Twitter is unique in the intensity of its “racially charged dialogues”, especially in comparison to other social media platforms like Facebook (aptly described in class as a platform of positivity).   The authors point to the issue that hate speech on Twitter is “not always evident given Twitter’s instant feeds” and how this helps anti-black users with large followings gain a surprising amount of traction on the site.

The initial approach the authors employed was to compile 100 tweets with hate speech that were consequently classified by 3 students of different races as offensive (or not) and if so, rated on the level of offensiveness using a scale from 1-5. Only 33% agreed in their classifications, suggesting machines would have an even harder time classifying racist tweets.  The authors then turned to the Naïve Bayes classifier using a training dataset of roughly 25,000 racist tweets (self-classified or categorized through news sources). Labels were developed for reasons as to why each tweet was deemed racist, such as “contains offensive words”, and “threatening.” 86% of the anti-black tweets contained offensive words, and so became the basis of unique words in the racist/nonracist training sets.

An interesting finding was that “niggers” and “nigger” were most prominent in the racist sphere, whereas “niggas” and “nigga” were found in informal speech within the black Twitter community. The authors concluded that “acceptable usage of these words is restricted to blacks and approved allies of blacks”, given that “nigga” has become synonymous with “person of male gender.”   Thus, the race of the tweeter is an important nuance that adds to the complexity of analysis pertaining to racism.

The Southern Poverty Law Center is an internationally-reaching organization whose “innovative Teaching Tolerance program produces and distributes…documentary films, books, lesson plans, and other materials that promote tolerance and respect in our nation’s schools.”   Take a look at the youtube video below for an example of how Laurence Tan, a fifth-grade teacher in LA centers his curriculum on five values — engage, educate, experience, empower and enact — and includes families/parents in the conversation to help his students become “socially critical and responsible individuals.”

The SPLC also has resources like their Hate Map, which visually displays the number of hate organizations in each state.  Looking at the map holistically, it makes sense that the South is heavily concentrated with hate groups.  However, I was genuinely surprised by the fact that California has the highest number of recorded hate organizations at 77 total. As a California native, I have always perceived the state as both liberal and extremely welcoming towards diverse communities. I didn’t realize the amount of friction this diverse population might cause and we see this duplicated in New York, an even more diverse state (described as a melting pot), yet still on the higher end of the spectrum with 42 hate groups. This suggests to me that having a racially heterogeneous population can be fruitful in increasing understanding and communication between racial subgroups. At the same time, racially homogenous states in the mid-west have an almost non-existent number of hate groups so under what conditions does increasing diversity in communities actually help reduce racial tensions?

 Discussion Questions for The Week

1) In “Locate the Hate”, the authors state “acceptable usage of these words (niggas/nigga) is restricted to blacks and approved allies of blacks.” However, I don’t believe there is ample justification to use the term “nigga,” even if it is accepted as casual speech.  Through this line of reasoning, someone can justify that Asians are allowed to use the term “chink” freely whereas any non-Asian would be considered racist for communicating an ethnic slur. Why is it sometimes okay for racial subgroups to use slurs against themselves? Isn’t the use of these slurs detrimental to our efforts to combat racism?

<Funny if an Asian says it, unacceptable for anyone else to say it?>

2) According to Facebook’s Help Center, “hate speech, credible threats, or direct attacks on an individual or group” are not allowed on the site. Looking at Twitter’s posting rules with regards to violence and threats, “you may not publish or post direct, specific threats of violence against others.” Unlike Facebook, Twitter does not explicitly address hate speech. This is likely a factor in the amplification of hate speech that the authors of “Locate the Hate” speak to in their article. In your opinion, should Twitter also prevent the posting of hate speech on their site and if so, who or what should determine what constitutes hate speech?

3) The Southern Poverty Law Center focuses on education as the means to reducing the existence of potency of racial hate in the United States. To me, this implies a focus on educating the nation’s youth in their formative time of racial biases. According to this New York Times article, “we are living at an unusual moment when the rate of progress has been dizzying from one generation to the next, such that Americans older than 60, say, are rooted in a radically different sense of society from those younger than 40.” With this generational tension, what sort of back-channels are there for educating older generations with stronger racial biases? Do any of you have stories about how your perspective has helped shift that of your parents and/or grandparents?

Works Cited

Bai, M. (2010, July 17). Beneath Divides Seemingly About Race Are Generational Fault Lines. Retrieved September 24, 2014, from http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/18/us/politics/18bai.html?_r=0

Daniels, J. (2009). Cyber racism: White supremacy online and the new attack on civil rights. Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield.

Hate Map. (2014, January 1). Retrieved September 24, 2014, from http://www.splcenter.org/get-informed/hate-map#s=CA

Kwok, I., & Wang, Y. (2013). Locate the Hate: Detecting Tweets against Blacks. Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence.

Laurence Tan -Teaching Tolerance Awards. (n.d.). Retrieved September 28, 2014, from  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fVeNxOQPKMc

The Twitter Rules. (n.d.). Retrieved September 24, 2014, from https://support.twitter.com/articles/18311-the-twitter-rules

Warnings | Facebook Help Center | Facebook. (n.d.). Retrieved September 24, 2014, from https://www.facebook.com/help/101389386674555/

Wait, how are you NOT on Facebook? An introvert’s coming-to-terms with life online

Exploring new worlds

In the beginning, my interactions with computers were uncomplicated. As a self-identified introvert (even at age 7 or 8), I enjoyed entertaining myself with games rented from the library. I’d spend hours exploring Europe with Madeleine:

Madeleine’s international adventures (courtesy of Youtube.org)

I loved this virtual travel opportunity- experiencing animated versions of countries I’d never been to, hearing accents I’d never heard in my life. Madeleine and I had a fun, simple relationship. We were united by a common purpose- to find the thief, and to right the story’s wrong, and we appreciated each other as partners in the fight for justice.

Amplified insecurities

By the time high school rolled around, my use of computers became rather more complicated, and whether or not I felt comfortable having an online presence became a contentious subject.

Being on Facebook wasn’t half as fun as traversing Europe with a storybook character. I obsessively censored and re-censored pictures of me, risking friendships when this censorship process required I be untagged in a friend’s well-intended post, and constantly pursued that elusive ideal of a “cool” status update.

Off-line I am quite passionate about various social issues, global warming, politics. Needless to say, I never participated in debates about these issues on Facebook. What was the point? Your post was sure to offend someone, and what’s more, you would never know if your words might monumentally change what someone thought of you. It was this fear that paralyzed me into silence. Whenever I got up the nerve to break my silence, I immediately regretted it.

Over the years, I realized my self-esteem was far too tied to my Facebook identity- my intellectual self-image became defined by my hesitancy to vocalize my values and opinions online, and my physical self-image became dependent on a handful of pictures and likes. Whatever natural tendency I had to being social anxious surfaced with the help of this online tool, a trend experienced by other users as well, according to Marissa Maldonado:

http://psychcentral.com/lib/the-anxiety-of-facebook/00019448

But why did I care so much that my pictures met some subjective definition of hotness? Why was I so concerned that my words might offend?

Freshman year of college gave me a great justification to finally delete my account. After a few weeks of judging people I had just met by their profile pictures and soon-to-be-outdated high school personas, I decided the best way to explore this new world was through real, face-to-face interactions. Add to that a mild case of being stalked, a predicament that increased my all-too-not-virtual discomfort. Incidentally, it turns out cyber stalkers are approximately six times more likely to obsessively pursue relationships, according to this article by Amy Lyndon et al:

http://online.liebertpub.com/doi/abs/10.1089/cyber.2010.0588

Not wanting to prove this statistic true, I left Facebook forever (or so I thought), and immediately felt liberated. I mean, who needs an online persona? I enthusiastically promised my friends I’d email them pictures throughout the summer, and I was happy to know the people I chose to share my with would not judge me as harshly as I’d assumed the majority of my Facebook “friends” had.

Engaging with the Real World

Up to now, I didn’t understand why anyone beyond my closest friends would care about my words or pictures, and I didn’t know why I should care about theirs. I didn’t understand why people felt the need to share so much of their lives publicly.

And then I interned at an organization working for social change within a socioeconomic and racial population that receives essentially no press time on their own terms, and certainly no positive media attention. With a minimal publicity budget, social media outlets like Facebook and Twitter are this organization’s primary means of generating awareness and support for their work. For a population severely underrepresented in national media, Facebook and Twitter are important tools for building grassroots movements, and for educating an oppressed population about what they can do to change the local and national status quo.

In other words, I saw social impact, and social inspiration, in action.

But still, why does anyone need to see my pictures? I am not a minority, and I do not run a social change organization. Well, as my boss said (paraphrased here for privacy reasons), there are a lot of sad things in the world- gun violence, drugs, sex trafficking, police homicide, etc.- and it’s great to be reminded daily through others’ Facebook posts of the joys of living. Entrenched in a community racked by such problems, I sincerely hope my joyful posts served this purpose for him.

I’d like to point out another great example of social media as a podium for inspirational change- Humans of New York, otherwise known as HONY. Here is proof that Facebook and other forms of social media can foster empathy and compassion between people living in vastly different regions of the world.

http://theambershow.net/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/hony-book-cover.jpg

Check out their website here: http://www.humansofnewyork.com

Needless to say, I’ve returned to social media with a vengeance. But this time I have a strategy and a purpose. My strategy? To use Facebook and Twitter as authentic sources of news authored by minority populations. My purpose? When necessary, to contradict mainstream news and express my values and opinions.

You can never know what affect your words and pictures will have, but I have come to realize what an incredible tool the digital world can be for amplifying any inspirational ripple you choose to initiate.

http://www.thewalkyourtalkcoach.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/feba5def79608d9c289c04365e54b294.jpg

From an introverted perspective, it may take some time and thought to come to terms with putting your virtual self in the public spotlight. But be sure that when you do, it adds to, rather than subtracts from, the positive mark you decide to make on this world, real and virtual.

Works cited:

Creative Wonders. “90s Children’s Computer Games: Madeline’s European Adventures (1/6).” YouTube. YouTube, n.d. Web. 14 Sept. 2014.

HONY Book Cover. Digital image. Http://theambershow.net. N.p., 2013. Web. 14 Sept. 2014. <http://theambershow.net/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/hony-book-cover.jpg&gt;.

“Humans of New York.” Humans of New York. N.p., n.d. Web. 14 Sept. 2014.

Lyndon, Amy, Jennifer Bonds-Raacke, and Alyssa D. Cratty. “College Students’ Facebook Stalking of Ex-Partners.” Mary Ann Liebert, Inc. Publishers. Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking, 6 July 2011. Web. 14 Sept. 2014.

Maldonado, Marissa. “The Anxiety of Facebook.” (2014): n. pag. Psych Central. Web. 14 Sept. 2014. <http://psychcentral.com/lib/the-anxiety-of-facebook/00019448&gt;.

Ripple effect. Digital image. Thewalkyourtalkcoach.com. N.p., 2014. Web. 14 Sept. 2014. <http://www.thewalkyourtalkcoach.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/feba5def79608d9c289c04365e54b294.jpg&gt;.

A lot of my life is online

It started with floppy disks — the kind that were actually floppy. We started visiting the computer lab in first grade or second grade. For several years, we had computer class, and when we started, we used floppy disks to load programs on black-and-green-screened Apple computers. What exactly we did on these computers is vague in my memories. Eventually there were games — Oregon Trail, Lemmings, and typing programs masked as games. 

Photo courtesy of kenfagerdotcom/Flickr

At home, we got our first computer when I was in fifth grade. Before that, if I had to type a school paper, I had to do it on an old, manual typewriter. Its hospital-green keys required force — my fingers frequently slipped between the keys. Mistakes required correction tape. That computer, a Compaq Presario, was a blessing. Besides typing papers, I used the computer to mess around in Paint, play Solitaire, and type up bad poems I’d written and pair them with clip art. The computer lived in my parents’ bedroom. If anyone came in, I would minimize my bad poem-window. The computer had a CD player and came with a demo CD that had five songs on it. It opened a program that linked to each song’s corresponding album and played snippets from the other songs and music videos. I listened to a lot of Mariah Carey’s Christmas album. By sixth grade, I got real CDs (upgrading from cassette tapes), a CD player, and by seventh grade, I was looking up song lyrics on our slow, dial-up internet connection on a Netscape browser. I got my first email account about a year later. I kept this unprofessional address until my junior year of college. It, and the slew of cute AIM names (goldengrahams, swissmiss) at least gave me an illusion of anonymity. When we got a new computer, the old one moved upstairs to a nook between me and my brother’s rooms. I spent many evenings downloading music and videos on Napster and chatting with the same friends I saw for eight hours at school. I found it easier — and still do — to express myself through writing. I appreciated the time chatting gave me to collect my thoughts and edit myself. Others must have felt the same. My classmate asked me to prom on AIM, and my first boyfriend and I did most of our genuine “talking” online before we actually started dating. Today, I would rather text than talk on the phone. When I do talk on the phone, I’m inevitably doing something else. When I went to college, my parents sent me with a massive desktop. I used it for school, AIM, and Livejournaling. By this time, I was saving to 3.5” floppy disks (not floppy). Someone introduced me to USB keys, and I learned to email myself documents for printing in labs around campus. When I studied abroad, I started a separate Livejournal to share adventures with my family. When I returned from Geneva for my senior year, I learned about Facebook, which had just expanded to my school. I now had a new way to procrastinate on my schoolwork. I initially liked Facebook for sharing photos, until I realized they gained rights to anything I shared there. I still used it for the occasional photo, but moved to Flickr for everything else (although I share nearly a photo a day on Instagram). I have tried to quit Facebook for years, but it’s become an indispensable tool for organizing and promoting events and for contacting friends. After college, I served in the Peace Corps in Togo. For 16 months, I lived in a village without electricity or running water, but it did have a cell phone tower. Texts and calls from friends and family made me less homesick. Every few weeks, I would bike or take a shared “taxi” to the nearest town or the district capital to check email and update my blog. While I was overseas, I heard about Twitter. “That sounds dumb and like a waste of time.” Secretly, I knew I would probably love it. I joined within two months of coming home, and I do love it. In fact, I love the internet. My love intensified after two years of no and then slow internet. I love being able to find out anything, immediately. I love the access it gives me to distant loved ones, to music, movies, TV shows, podcasts. I love that the internet can teach me mostly anything. Two weeks ago, it taught me how to install my new bike rack. The internet gave me my last job and numerous freelance gigs. The internet also opens a window to a world I’d rather ignore — the world that lives in the comment section of news sites, the world of trolls, bullies, racists, misogynists. Then again, it helps me remember that people believe these things. It reminds me that people can be amazing… and awful. People seem to forget that the person to whom they’re directing that email, comment, or tweet is a real person. The internet is also a huge distraction. I only got a smartphone in 2013, but now I check it in social situations, which is rude. I check it when I wake up and before I go to sleep. I checked Twitter, Facebook, and played four games of Threes while drafting this post. I worry about losing my phone or computer, and about someone hacking any of my accounts. I take certain precautions, but my worry is more, “That would suck if that happened,” than a constant concern. I share a lot on the internet, but I censor myself. My accounts are mostly public, and every free months (weeks? days?), I review my feeds to make sure I’m maintaining a somewhat professional appearance. I think I’m doing ok. That said, I’m sure it would be pretty easy to dig up those old Livejournals, which were far from professional.

Growing Up as a Denizen of the Digital Realm

My relationship with computers, and specifically social media, has deepened throughout my life, resulting in major connections between my identity and my presence/presentation online.

Beginnings

I remember going to the store with my mother as a five-year-old, helping her to pick out our first computer. It was a tan, clunky computer with a large, boxy monitor. After getting a family friend to set up the computer for us, I hopped onto Internet Explorer to visit pbskids.org, where I could play games that would test the limits of our dial-up connection. For the first few years of my computer use, I spent my time at home playing online and CD-ROM games. Some of my time at school was also spent in computer class, learning how to type. I distinctly remember typing my first “paper” on the computer in third grade: after several written drafts based on a few Google searches, I typed up a page about the planet Neptune. My teacher laminated a printed copy, and my mother still has it.

Photo courtesy of Flickr user moyix.

My first engagement with social media happened around fifth grade, with the rise of AOL Instant Messenger (AIM). Instant messenger was the way to have conversations with peers in an informal, seemingly private context. This sense of privacy opened up space for extended conversations after school, and also, for some formative moments in my middle school friendships. It also worked to create some dramatic moments, as I realized that what I typed to friends was saved in chat logs on the AIM application, allowing friends to go back, re-read, and copy-paste things that I had typed to them in the moment, assuming that these in-the-moment thoughts wouldn’t be revisited. Since these experiences, I’ve become a bit more careful about what I say in online spaces—even if it seems to be a casual environment, I want to make sure that I have an understanding of how the things I say will exist beyond my conversations.

Self-Presentation and Interaction

At this point, I’ve shifted to using Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, and Instagram primarily, occasionally chatting with friends using Gchat. Taking into account my presence on each of these sites, I can see noticeable differences in the way that I present myself and the way that I interact with others, all completely dependent upon the form of social media that I’m working with.

For example, on Facebook, I find myself using statuses as an opportunity to make jokes and informally share humorous anecdotes, but also as a chance to present my political ideas by sharing articles and links that I like. Facebook is a chance for me to get validation for my ideas and experiences as well, since many of my posts garner “likes” and comments from friends. It’s interesting to me how I automatically use the number of “likes” on a post as a metric for the general relevancy of that post (and in turn, that particular aspect of my life that I’ve chosen to share on Facebook). The strange thing about Facebook for me is that the popularity of a post is potentially publicly measured through “likes.” In my own use, it seems like the number of “likes” that I receive on a post serve as personal validation at times. However, one journalist tried to play with Facebook’s algorithms (the same algorithms discussed and critiqued in “What Happens to #Ferguson Affects Ferguson”) by liking everything that came across his newsfeed, and the algorithms responded by pushing up marketing and brands, suggesting that “likes” may not actually be measures of my Facebook friends’ approval.

On Twitter and Tumblr, most of the interactions that I have are retweets or reblogs of what others have posted. I am less-inclined to post my original photos or anecdotes on Twitter or Tumblr because I feel like most of my connections on these platforms are individuals that I don’t know personally. I operate on the assumption that my Facebook friends (who are mostly real-world friends and acquaintances) are much more interested and willing to engage with my experiences and viewpoints than my Twitter/Tumblr followers. The network of semi-anonymous users and looser connections is something that serves as a relief for me, allowing me to feel comfortable in the online space, but there are also concerns of privacy and safety that cross my mind occasionally when using these platforms.

In my real-life interactions, I’ve had several acquaintances comment on things that I share about my life on Facebook. I believe that my identity and my real-life interactions with friends are very much linked to the image that I’ve constructed for myself on Facebook. Learning how to find a balance between sharing and oversharing has been a challenge for me at times, especially as I grow increasingly suspicious of information security online. I worry that what I post will be permanently linked to my real-life identity permanently, or that the personal information that I share with Facebook friends will somehow be accessed by strangers or malicious individuals (like identity thieves or hackers). I’m currently working through the dilemmas of convenience versus security: by using things like Venmo and online banking apps, am I putting myself at greater risk for identity theft or predatory online behaviors from others? It’s unclear to me at the moment, but for now, I’m happy to continue sharing aspects of my life with my real life friends, utilizing Facebook as a means of bridging real-life gaps of space and time.

Works Cited:

Honan, Mat. 11 August 2014. “I Liked Everything I Saw on Facebook for Two Days. Here’s What it Did to Me.” Wired. http://www.wired.com/2014/08/i-liked-everything-i-saw-on-facebook-for-two-days-heres-what-it-did-to-me/

Tufekci, Zeynep. 2014. “What Happens to #Ferguson Affects Ferguson.” Medium. https://medium.com/message/ferguson-is-also-a-net-neutrality-issue-6d2f3db51eb0

But why should Life be boring?

After making a “dad joke” or doing something ridiculous, my dad always laughs and says “why should life be boring??” That’s how I feel about the social sciences and academia in general. Why can’t we make intellectual engagement and involvement in current events fun?

Things I Like:

Twitter

Touché, AAAS108x. You win. Though I am still not sure whether my tweets are worth following, I probably will create my own Twitter account (not just tied to this class) at the end of the semester. While I find myself getting more annoyed with insufferable facebook statuses, Twitter at least expands networks beyond our “friends” and thereby can allow you (if you make the effort to follow people you wouldn’t normally be in contact with, ala Ethan Zuckerman’s advice) to feel a more accurate pulse of what is going on in the world. Also, thank goodness for the 140 character limit.

Humor in Social Science / Digestible Social Science- Sometimes, humor is the best way to point out an uncomfortable truth without making people defensive and closed off. Also, it is one of the best ways to engage our generation on important issues; if young people are in a place where keeping up with the news does not lend itself to social acceptance, then humorous sources such as the Daily Show or the Onion allow one to stay informed and be funny at the same time. I think TedX and Kickstarter, books like rewire, are also great ways of upping public involvement in important projects and ideas by making the content fun to participate in.

Things I want more of:

Discussions about the Speakers

In terms of this class, I think I would have liked more time to let the presentations of our many amazing speakers sink in, and then to discuss them in class. I often found it hard to come up with questions I really wanted to ask right away, and I always learn best from speaker when bouncing ideas around with professors and peers afterwards.

Social Engagement Theses & co.

I am tired of academic buzzwords. I want to see academia grounded in purpose, and actions grounded in evidence. This class is just one of a handful in college that I feel has really engaged current issues in both a practical and academic way (you know things are bad when “practical” and “academic” can be used as two opposing adjectives). Even worse, I remember that in high school, little attempt was made (or it was not done effectively) to make our studies seem relevant to the real world. Luckily, in the digital humanities, we have to be concerned with current issues; but with history, or literature, there is always a way to tie these events back to their real world context. In my case, I am especially interested in conducting research or studying subjects that directly impact the way that I and others view the world, and hope to eventually convert this type of knowledge into impact.

People Who Don’t Take the Internet at Face Value

Sometimes I don’t understand why everyone isn’t fascinated by the Internet. At the very least though, this class gives me some hope that a healthy skepticism about online environments and digital technologies is slowly making its way onto the Harvard scene. In particular, I thought the video about how Google search works was a great example of how generally-accepted-as-normal things on the Internet are also, at the end of the day, designed by a group of people. (When people roll their eyes at “social construction” I want them to understand that when social scientists mention it in reference to coding or biology or other hard sciences, we aren’t saying that it isn’t real or effective, but just to keep in mind that these are not god-given ways that the world works.)

However, I think that the idea that the Internet holds more power than it actually does — to connect us, to break down class lines — is still very prevalent, and I hope that we can change that. Because, to reference my favorite sociology concept, if people believe something is real, then it is real in its consequences. For example, if we believe that we are getting all of the information (about an event, a presidential candidate, etc.), but only are exposed to a fraction of the story, then we will act upon that information with more certainty and entitlement.