Glassdoor Company Review

I decided to search Amazon to see their employees' satisfaction level. The companies full rating was 3.9 stars. There weren't too many really negative reviews. Most of the employees had a lot of good pros and most of the cons are on the workload is too much. They also bring up the process of going into management as a hard transition. 

I hear a lot more negative stories on social media but the reviews on Glassdoor give a more positive outlook. I am unsure if it is because those employees haven't put in a review through this system. I hear a lot of negative reviews as delivery drives. They bring up that the drives are always understaffed. This contributes to the stress of timely deliveries by the delivery drivers.

77% would recommend to friends, 84% approves of the CEO, 72% have a positive work outlook. For the most part, the employees aren't too displeased with their job at Amazon.

Glassdoor Company

I decided to select Refinery 29, a multinational digital media entertainment website owned by VICE Media. Here their content sits at the intersection of style and substance, helping the audience, especially women, live a more informed and inspired life. The company claims to focus on the core values of individuality, inclusivity, and impact. Refinery 29 creates content that speaks to 360 degrees of a woman’s life, including editorial articles, original video programming, sharable social content across a variety of platforms, and live experiences. Based on the reviews on glassdoor, the overall rating of their working environment is three out of five stars. Here are some examples of positive feedback that I saw, “teamwork is great,” and “lots of freedom.” However, there is a lot of critiques, such as “loads of stress” and “long hours and heavy workloads.” It seems like employees who work in this social media company are always in high demand and have trouble balancing their personal and work life. It feels like Refinery 29 is a very fast-paced environment since people have to create content constantly. 

Glassdoor Company Review

 I chose to look up the company, Snap. Snap is widely used camera app. As an app that focuses primarily on capturing current events, snap describes its work environment as a fun, caring, and a company pushing each other to grow. I did a little and read a couple reviews and it seems like everyone is quite delighted to be working there. They all make it seem like Snap is very on point with their values and provide a very fun work environment with good benefits and great energy. The only complaints I really saw, if any, was that they didn't like the fact that growth within the company was a little difficult but all really enjoyed their time there.

Working at Twitter

Twitter promotes itself as a diverse workforce with a transparent culture with flexible work-life balance policies. Backing that up, the company has long been a proponent of remote work long before the coronavirus forced most companies in to allowing work from home on a regular basis. On Glassdoor and Indeed, employees overwhelmingly say they like where they work. Reviews on Glassdoor often mention that the company has great culture and people and lots of opportunity to grow. 88% of reviewers say they approve of CEO Jack Dorsey and 83% say they would recommend the company to a friend. On the flip side, some of the cons mentioned often are that the company faces growing pains as a result of their rapid growth and that there is lots of turnover and changes in direction/focus. 

Blog Post #10: Glassdoor Company Review

 For this social media review, I choose Quora. Quora is a social media site where you can ask questions and people answers them based on their knowledge and opinions. The working conditions for Quora according to the reviews seem to be great as they have an average of 4.1 out of 5 stars in their review. The reviews state that Quora has very humble and full of nice people environment. In addition, one of the other most common reviews about Quora is that they work with very knowledgeable people. This makes sense as it’s social media where people ask questions, thus knowledge is built upon that principle. Furthermore, one of the specific jobs in Quora that I looked into was Art and Design. Some of the common reviews about art and design were that Quora was a great place to improve their skills as a Designer. People from this department also commented that they feel good for knowing that their work serves a positive contribution to the world. Overall, all, Quora seems to be pretty okay, however, some of the cons that generally appear across the board are those based on team-based work. Mostly all con comments suggest about Quora com from Manager/ direction, unstaffed teams, change of teams, and  General team abase issues. However, a few also wrote that there were no cons on the cons section, something that I did expect in a positive way. With this in mind, the working conditions of Quora seem to be pretty good as it is highly reviewed and is a friendly, humble, and knowable environment, like any other company there a few cons but overall Quora seems like a good company to work at.

Internet/Social Media Company

 The internet/social media company I have chosen to research is Buzzfeed. Buzzfeed is an internet company that has been around since 2006. Their website consists of quizzes, videos, news, and food videos. They post a lot of their videos on YouTube. In their videos, the employees present themselves as hardworking and driven. They also talk very good about their experiences at the company. But, the reviews online told a different story.

One ex-employee (who was a former video editor) said, "Terrible experience. Poorly run and managed company. People in charge of teams are only there because of nepotism. Everyone good leaves the company, and poor performers are left and then promoted." 

Another former employee wrote, "Buzzfeed provides many perks like free lunches, snack bars, and occasional entertainments to keep things interesting. However, they don't compensate for the poor management and the lack of respect for ALL employees."

After reading the reviews, it showed that no matter how accepting and fun a job looks, there are always dark secrets. When looking for ANY job, it is smart to read reviews from former and current employees. 

Working Conditions in Media Company

 So the company that I decided to research on glass door was Google. There has been so much prestigious and elite culture to come from this company enough to combat the culture of the Apple company and its very idealistic and progressive work environment and business practices. I believe that movies like the social network and the internship are ways that these companies use broad marketing strategies in order to give the public a different perception and a look inside the company and let them see that they are not just a soulless corporate entity but a brand that care about education and its people. I went on glassdoor and saw that for the most part the overwhelming majority of people who got a chance to be interviewed at google were very grateful for getting a chance to visit the headquarters, and to be a part of a movement that is projected to grow its audience and its staff. There are some negative reviews saying that many people at the company are very egotistical and rude, while other who worked for the company said that they had no complaints and didn't have anything bad to say about the company at all. Even in bad reviews no one states that the working conditions aren't up to par and that most of the problems really stem from bad management to a poor work/life balance.  The overall research I did shows that there are always 2 sides to everyone story and that some people will have amazing life changing experiences while others will have unforgettably bad ones. But looking at the majority of comments and reviews that real users have given really gives  an accurate representation of what working at Google is like.

Surveillance

       I truly believe that all social media platforms surveil us in some fashion. Isn't it peculiar how we can be talking about a specific brand of shoes or traveling, and as soon as we get back on a social media platform we see in ad for some thing that we've been talking about or maybe researching on another app. It makes no sense, other then suming it up to them stalking us and keeping track of the private things that are in our phones. In all honesty, the government has to track us to be able to keep us safe and to stop terrorism and certain threats that our country faces. While I do not agree with it in total, I would prefer being spied on a little bit compared to another 9/11.

Working Conditions

        The company I chose to talk about is iHeartRadio. I have heard mixed reviews over their work environment for a while. I did a deep dive to see what information I could find, and some of the reviews are below. “iHeart doesn't value their employees one bit. It's a culture here. I've heard from multiple employees in multiple positions, high and low, that they feel unappreciated and underpaid, in addition to my personal experience.“ One person went as far to say it was a toxic work environment, and another claimed people were crying in the office because they made it commission only pay.” I do not know if these claims are false or true, but they did have many 1 and 2 star reviews. 

instagram

     Instagram is a social media site dedicated primarily to sharing photos and short videos. But recently, it has evolved to include longer videos on IGTV and TikTok style videos on Instagram reels. Instagram was founded in October 2010 by Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger, and it was launched on iOS. Instagram is now owned by Facebook. Instagram is one of the more heavily moderated social media platforms. It automatically detects swear words and abusive language, and a warning headlines the screen before you decide to post or comment using that type of language. Photos containing nudity are moderated heavily, especially on public accounts. It is easy to get your Instagram taken down for repeat offenses.

Twitter

Twitter was created by Jack Dorsey. Odeo is Twitter's parent company. Twitter has implemented a lot of restrictions as it relates to posted content, and has began a censorship process that many find to be inconsistent. The bigger issue with them censoring content is it seems to be subjective rather than objective. What if an individual that Twitter has employed to handle censoring content has a bias towards a certain group? Then it's likely that person will censor comments and threads based on the Twitter employees bias. I saw a comment just the other day that wasn't derogatory or misleading and it had been flagged by Twitter's censorship team. There's going to be some give and take with any censorship attempts, but you would like a company to have a consistent process to identify what content truly needs to be censored.

Social Media Site

 

Instagram was purchased by Facebook in 2012 for one billion dollars. Instagram has devoted themselves by blocking and not allowing any inappropriate content. For example, they will not permit any violence, graphic or anything shocking and sexually suggestive. I believe they do a good job when it comes down to censoring things that are not appropriate. I personally have not seen any inappropriate content or images. I like that the fact that Instagram gives you notifications when someone is trying to send you a message. It also notifies you when unknown requests are sent and aren’t marked as seen to them until you accept them. I believe Instagram has done a good job with one’s privacy and censoring inappropriate content.

Reddit

 Reddit was founded by Steve Huffman and Alexis Ohanian at the University of Virginia. Condé Nast Publications acquired the site in October 2006. In 2011, Reddit became an independent subsidiary of Condé Nast's parent company, Advance Publications. Reddit is an American social news aggregation, web content rating, and discussion website. Registered members submit content to the site such as links, text posts, and images, which are then voted up or down by other members. There is a form of censorship on reddit know as "selective censorship". This censorship targets a small number of categories or issues as surveillance is done on the site. They are a bit more lenient I feel compared to YouTube, Twitter, and other social media sites on censoring. I don't like the idea of censoring information that isn't harmful to public interest. Some people don't like having their ideologies challenged or get offended over things that aren't really that sensitive of a topic and get others censored. Over the right circumstances I condone censoring when people come from a place of hate towards others or if its sexual harassment or obscene material.

Twitter

 The site I chose for this assignment is Twitter. I chose Twitter because this is my most used app. The app was founded in 2006 and is owned by Jack Dorsey, Evan Williams, Noah Glass, and Biz Stone. The parent company is Odeo. This is where Jack Dorsey met his future Twitter cofounders. Odeo went out of business in 2006 leading Dorsey to create Twitter. For me Twitter is the only app where I find out news quickly. Many people on the app voice their thoughts on any subject. Like any other app a tweet can be reported and taken down. However, I feel that Twitter is not as strict on the content people post. For example, on Instagram I do not see as many app violations post. I feel that Twitter should censor more hate speech tweets.

Snapchat

I chose snapchat as my social media site. Snapchat is owned by evan Spiegel and it's parent company is snap inc. . As far as I know there isn't any censorship on snapchat but I wish there was. Nudity, for example, can be a problem that I run into here and there an I wish I wouldn't have to.

Week 8 extra credit blog

 Another way to violate social media etiquette would be to copy people's post and post them on your social media tagging them in it every time.  That's a sure way to get someone mad at you. Doing this to a friend would certainly have them thinking you've lost your mind. It's an annoying thing to do to anyone. Something that can become a social media netiquette in the future could be something done over VR. What exactly, I don't know, but it's really no telling. 

Know your Meme

 This meme was probably one of the most appropriate memes I saw for the assignment. It's quick and straight to the point. Funny and clever. Plus, it's relatable for me. I remember I struggled to spell Wednesday wrong for a long time in my life before I actually learned how to spell it the right way. It's funny because they still spelled it wrong in the meme. I don't know if that was intentional or not. It's a clever meme that does what memes are meant to do. It spreads some type of information in a fast and witty way.

Tumblr: About Me

Tumblr is a very common social media site. The site is mainly used as a blog platform and image sharing. It was originally founded by David Karp in 2007. Today however, it is owned by the company Automattic which also owns Wordpress.com. At the early stages of Tumblr, there was relatively no restrictions on the content that was uploaded. In fact, about 22% of the content shared contained pornographic images and video. In 2013 when the social media site joined forces with Yahoo, it began limiting the exposure of inappropriate content but did not eliminate it entirely. It wasn’t until the end of 2018 when Tumblr announced it would ban any content containing pornographic purposes as well as nudity of humans. This censorship caused a lot of commotion since it accidently recognized non-pornographic pictures as ‘inappropriate’ content therefore deleting them. In my opinion the site did a good job at banning this type of content. The use of vulgar language or offensive terms is very common not just on the internet, but in real life as well. Therefore, I believe there is nothing else that Tumblr should censor.

Social Media Inc.

 The social media site that I searched for was Twitter. It has no parent company, is publicly owned, and its current CEO is Jack Dorsey. It actively censors misinformation and some violent and/or explicit posts. I think that it should do more censoring of hate speech. While your tweets can be reported by anyone, its algorithm should do better catching and suspending the tweets and accounts.

The Facebook’s of the world

 When I think of a major Social Media platform that has expanded their wings like no other social medial platform Is facebook. They have became a stern foundation in the social media community through simply staying up to date with everything going on in the world today. The owner of this Platform is the multi billion Mark Zuckerberg. He has a a mindset that has brought us into the future of Social media. I do not how he had the for thought to see how big social media would evolve into. After making FaceBook a house hold name to multiple generations, Mark eventually bough out Instagram and they have became the new powerhouses when it comes to social media, and the masses that use it on a daily bases all year long. Both of these platforms have rules and regulations that are suppose to be followed to make sure that the community is safe for all age groups pmts and people who do not want to see negative things on there timeline. Of course people break those rules, but they are enforced, and you can tell that they are working to a extent. I believe that they content that they restrict is good, and I do not think that they should go to hard because they it takes the fun away from social media sites, and that sucks and will make people go to other websites that allow what yours do not 

Economics of Social Media: Twitter

Twitter is a micro-blogging platform that is based on the premise of a timeline of short messages shared by users. Originally intended to be used to share status updates, the platform has evolved over time to be more of information network than standard social media platform. The platform was created by Jack Dorsey, Noah Glass, Biz Stone, and Evan Williams in 2006 as an internal tool for employees of podcasting company Odeo. The creators of the platform eventually started another company, Obvious Corporation and acquired all the assets of Odeo including Twitter. The company eventually was spun off as it's own company in 2007 and went public with an IPO in 2013. The company is currently owned by its shareholders including Vanguard Group, Morgan Stanley, and BlackRock Fund Advisors. Major individual shareholders still include co-founder Jack Dorsey who owns around 1.68% of the company. Many of Twitter's policies around content and censorship are directly influenced by Dorsey's role at the company. In the past, Twitter took a very hands-off approach in policing user created content on the platform. However, with an uptick in abuse of the platform to spread hate speech, threats, and false information, the company has started to take a more active role in how users can use the platform. Most notably, in the run-up to the US elections in 2020, the platform has begun deleting or tagging warnings on content that is purposefully manipulative or false - including by President Trump. In order to encourage users to read articles before sharing them, they've also changed how the retweet function works. These steps are controversial in some circles but are largely seen as the company's first attempts to reign in hijacking and abuse on the platform.

Snap Inc.

Snapchat’s parent company is Snap Inc. but was originally Snapchat Inc. Snap Inc. owns not only but also Spectacles and Bitmoji. Since Snapchat was the original product/company, Snap Inc. does not have a large negative effect on Snapchat. The main features on Snapchat are the messages and the My Story feature which have stayed consistent through out its time. Snapchat does censor 18+ content on there platform even though that’s the reason it was created. They do not really censor any other content on their platform.

The Economics of TikTok

As many of you know, TikTok has been in the news as of late due to being a possible security risk and has been threatened to be banned, due to it's Chinese origin. TikTok was originally called Musical.y, and is owned by ByteDance, but due to the current fate of the app, it may be sold to an American company in order to keep it from being banned. I did use Musical.y for a little bit while it was still popular, around when I was 13, but now it has reemerged in popularity after being renamed TikTok. As for being censored, TikTok tends to "shadowban" people, which means that a creator may not be getting their content out to their followers according to the algorithm if that creator spoke about a topic that is sensitive or even violated it's community guidelines. I have witnessed creators being shadowbanned and if the creator is known to speak loudly about "controversial" topics, this gives TikTok a bad reputation. 

The Economics of Social Media: Twitter

 The site that I have chosen to research is Twitter. I open the Twitter app more than 7 times a day. Twitter is an app and also an online social media site. Twitter is a great asset to use when trying to connect with others from all over. It also helps people see current news from those who experience it first hand. 

Jack Dorsey is the owner of Twitter. Odeo is Twitter's parent company. Twitter is a great asset to use when trying to connect with others from all over. It also helps people see current news from those who experience it first hand. It gives all people a voice, no matter how twisted and weird their views are. Instead of censoring tweets, Twitter bans anyone who violates the guidelines. I am not sure of any content that is posted that should be censored.

Instagram

Instagram is a social media site owned by Facebook which launched in 2010. It being owned by Facebook makes it follow Facebook's terms and policies. Nudity, violence, harrasment, and any copyrighted content is not allowed. I think everything that should be censored is censored. They make you have a private account to post the more edgy content. And limit the age to open an Instagram account even though for sure, kids get on it.

Extra Credit: Nettiquete

    I believe maybe sometime in the future, texting so much would be looked down on. Like sending paragraphs. Just judging by how people are trying to read less and less, I think people will start hating reading long texts. I might be wrong but I know I sometimes hate reading long texts, especially when I'm busy or rushing. Maybe people will start using gifs or voice messages a lot more or even just a lot more abbreviations than are already used today. 

Meme Analysis

 This meme kind of shows how this year has been going and how this year is basically ready to crush us but the only thing holding us alive is the mexican dude skateboarding. Like it's not the greatest thing keeping us alive, but it's something. It supposed to show that the smallest thing is keeping us afloat. It's actually a little optimistic. I think it says a lot about our current situation as a world. Life seems to be the absolute worst right now with quarantine and all that stuff and it's about finding pleasure in the little things to keep us happy and sane. 

Blog Post #9: Social Media Owners look up & Censorship .

 

After a quick google search, Google surprised me with quite a lot of results for social media than expected. One of them however called my attention named “Habbo”. After a quick look around, I found out that Habbo is a social media that takes place in a virtual hotel, where you can interact with other pixelated people/avatars, somewhat like in a video game. Additionally, real money can be spent to purchased Habbo currency to buy items on the website. The Habbo social media is owned by a company named “Sulake”, the company founded by Helsinki, Finland in May 2000, the current CEO is Valtteri Karu. I do not seem to find any major impacts on the voice of members upon the companies origin, rather mostly all social media stick to certain era servers native to them. Despite the game been pixelated and looks somewhat for kids, this game is intended for 13-year-old or above. Upon research, I found that in 2008, the company added options for those who are 13 to disable censored content. However according to Habbo, even if the censor filter is turned off, there is still a great amount of content been censored due to the age restriction.  Additionally, Habbo even provides safety tips and a parent's guide about how Habbo operates among comment questions and other useful information for parents. More or less, the question is, should it be this way, or should there be more censorship? I personally think Habbo's censorship idea is great, social media do not have the job to be guardians or to be parents. They are here to provide a service and content, not to monitor every user 24/7; it would be too expensive and time-consuming. Rather is up to parents whether they allow their children to have an account or not as to any financial funds to social media.

Blog Assignment 8 [Extra Credit]

 

There are many social media etiquette rules. Some become viral and stay on the internet for years. However, what etiquette rules might surface in the upcoming years, is the real question. Some of those social media rules I see to be more widely known are the liking before sharing content, originated from Facebook. In the past few months, I saw that people would get somewhat triggered if their images or memes were shared without first liking the image. I see “liking” a post as asking for permission to share something but in a wordless way. This is very in the uprise, but what about in the future? I think perhaps sharing content from other sources may include some form of credit. Perhaps instead of liking and then sharing, maybe people tagging, give some credit or indication where the content came from. This is even more so as hundreds of memes are created by the minute and people take credit or lack consideration of the creativeness of the person who created the meme.

 -Benjamin C. 10/23/2020

Censorship on Social Media

Wattpad is a platform for writers to publish new user-generated stories. It aims to create social communities around stories for both amateur and established writers. The owner is WP Technology. It was founded by Ivan Yuen and Allen Lau. Since the company hasn't changed it's ownership since it's creation and its goal was to give anyone a place to write and public their writing.

They have rating systems and the more popular the story the higher the rating. The multitudes of people that use the site cause competitive ratings, it is hard to get a following/readers. There is a way for successful writers on the site to make some money, though most just use it to post fanfiction. It gives everyone a chance and to be a part of different communities within the site. 

There are rules that we must follow on the site; you can't post content that is violent, pornographic, or hateful. They want to keep young kids who go on the site safe and not to make anyone uncomfortable or feel unwelcome. In most of their rules, they are understanding but draw a line when they will remove the content. I think that is important and created a good environment for people to share their stories.

The Economics of Social Media

Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger created Instagram in 2010. In 2012, Facebook became the official owner of this social media site. Instagram has its regulations and features that help censor inappropriate posts or messages. Of course, it is difficult to censor everything that gets posted on Instagram, but just because it is difficult does not mean they should stop trying to tackle this problem. I have heard that Instagram takes down any post automatically if they consider that it violates their guidelines. This site has features that help users report any conflicting feed. Instagram gives people the ability to restrict, block, or remove people without letting them know. Also, this site allows people to self-report any content they believe is improper. This is helpful because a user can control certain aspects, and people do not have to depend or wait on Instagram to act. If Instagram lets an inappropriate post slip, which does happen, people have the means to report it and bring it to Instagram’s attention. I mean there is a lot of content that they do not censor, but the top two that come to mind are explicit posts or hateful comments. 

The Economics of Social Media Assignment: Tumblr

 I decided to research the site Tumblr which was insanely popular at one point before a specific policy banning certain material is what essentially purged the majority of its users and left the site for dead. This policy change was not meant for the benefit of the people but instead to please the overlord executives who wish to control and censor specific parts of the internet. In this blog assignment I will be breaking down in the most simple terms why tumblr failed and why censorship had a huge role to play in it. 

I used tumblr for years as a means for inspiration for photography and hearing about specific movements that were really obscure to the majority of the internet. Even from using tumblr in an wholesome and innocent way, there would still be a way that un-family friendly content could pop up on my feed. This of course is something really dangerous as most of tumblr users were in middle school or high school. A slippery slope of clicks would lead users down a rabbit hole of unwanted content that they were not initially looking for. This was a problem for a lot of users that eventually become accepted within the community. Guidelines and search results were indiscriminate of what users previous interaction activity followed. After several incidents involving users complaining of EXTREME "dark web" material and other inappropriate behavior, Apple threatened tumblr to remove their app from the app store if they did not clear up this issue plaguing the community. Instead of actually coming up with solutions for a balanced community to keep certain mature content on the site like (Reddit/Twitter), tumblr instead decided to completely and totally censor all forms of inappropriate content and nudity to prevent further incident reports. This caused a complete meltdown within all of the tumblr community making the majority of its users flock to other sites where censorship was not much of an issue. 

After the dust settled the community came to the conclusion that tumblr did not ever have the best interests of its users at heart but instead higher stake holders, and extremely powerful executives. tumblr never decided to take action against online predators, drug dealers, illegal content producers while the site was growing; It was only until Apple gave them an ultimatum and a huge financial incentive to change their platform or risk alienating their audience. The rest is history and the fall of tumblr is over.

Social Media Platform

         The social media empire I chose is Facebook. This company which is owned by Mark Zuckerberg who is the CEO and has 29.3% of it shares. Facebook Inc, is the parent company of the facebook website, and a few other popular one. In 2012 Facebook bought Instagram from 1 billion dollars. Some other companies that Facebook Inc own is WhatsApp, Oculus VR, Onavo, and Beluga. These companies range from virtual reality, to messaging services. Facebook and Instagram filter what you post. There are certain things you can not sell on their platform or you will be thrown in their platform jail, figuratively speaking. While on the other hand instagram in particular does not censor obscene images and videos. I personally do not want to see all that, but at the same time i know that how some people make their money. So I choose not to knock it.

Netiquette

 With the social media apps we have today, I believe that most people on the web know these unwritten netiquette rules that are placed down, since they are pretty similar to our rules outside the web. Although most people already know these unwritten rules, I'm sure that there is going to be more apps down the line that have their moment in where everyone is going to be on them and their may be new netiquette rules we are going to be following. Social media is just such an unpredictable thing since its always changing that it is hard to pin point exactly what new rules may come down the line. One thing I can say though, in the future I do believe stealing "posts" and "ideas" will be a huge problem because their is millions of people on the web that sometimes people people post some of the same content without knowing and whole controversy blows up. I say this because theirs already millions of people on the internet and I think that number is just going to keep increasing.

Netiquette in the future

 Netiquette in the future will most likely be less strict. This is a new digital age and more people are growing up with their whole lives online. Crude jokes or lewd pictures will no longer deny you a job if a prospective employer finds your Twitter now. It’s all about time and place. As long as you carry yourself professionally on work social media pages or your business account like a linked-in. Being respectful will never go out of style, but I can see netiquette rules being relaxed 

Netiquette in the future

 Social media etiquette is still evolving like how social media is evolving. There are still new apps coming out and with new apps come new etiquette rules. Even with the apps we have today people are still establishing new rules. I think one new way to violate social media is by posting and saying things that go against social media violations on live streams. When someone is on live stream it can be seen by anybody and is usually not monitored. For example, when you post a picture on Instagram that goes against their community guidelines it is taken down. On live stream whatever you say is already said and cannot be taken down by their team. 

Netiquette in the Future

 As we all know, there are a few etiquette rules we "have" to follow on social media. Most of us know the obvious ones already, but what about any future ones? In my opinion, we will get to the point where if you don't stay active on social media, then you will be breaking a rule. We live in an era where its almost a must to post what you're about to eat, where you're spending your day, what it is that you're thinking about right now, and etc. Everyone is so focused on sharing the personal information and observing other people's information as well. As social media continues to grow and develop even more than it already has, then people will begin looking at you different or "weird" if you never post anything. For example, almost everyone feels a bit disturbed or unhinged when they see an account with no pictures at all. The account automatically stands out by being different from usual accounts. Things like this are what lead me to believe that in the near future, accounts like these will be breaking a netiquette rule.

Future Netiquette: Deep Fakes

I think a future netiquette rule will be deep faking videos and audio. Society already critiques photoshopped photos so taking that a step forward with audio and video is going to draw a lot of negative criticism. The technology is not exactly there yet, but it is a growing technology. Right now deep faking videos are growing rapid, but deep faking audio is still not at the same level yet. Through these two technologies a lot of misinformation and misrepresentation can be spread with the notoriety of someone else. Already certain Reddit communities have guidelines against deep faking and I’m pretty sure this is going to happen on other social media platforms as well.

Social Media future

 Having etiquette on social media to me is basically have morals as a person, and someone who would not use there platform to promote negativity. This is something that we see everyday, and we see the better side as well. So what is the etiquette code? Especially when we promote only fans like it is twitter. It just shocks me that twitter promotes only fans like they do and it is all for a dollar so do we judge there morals or do we let it slide? We have lost etiquette on social medial and I do not believe that we will be getting it back anything soon. There are no rules, and not enough punishment being handed out when someone steps into the dark side of the web and there aren’t enough people speaking out because people like me are entertained by, but that does not make it right. With OnlyFans and other popular prostitution pages like this we are heading for a very very very deep downfall and I do not know where we are going to land 

Other Ways To Violate Social Media Etiquette

Social media etiquette is something that is still evolving. People are establishing all kinds of rules about their social media pages. The the thing about it though is that none of us can actually own a social media page that's backed and provided by someone else's platform. Your social media page isn't like your living room in your house or apartment. You can ask that people act or carry themselves in a certain way, but there's really not much you can do if that person chooses not to comply besides report them or block them. 

One new way to violate social media that I can think of would be if people started hacking into peoples live streams. Like while someone is live streaming a complete stranger shows up on their live and starts interrupting them and talking over them. I think this would turn the world of social media upside down. Do I want to see it happen? No. Do I think it could possibly lead to some very entertaining and hilarious content? Abso-freaking-lutely!

Netiquette

Hearing everyone's experience with violating social media etiquette. Before the assignment, most weren't the normal violations that would come to mind.  Some examples given in class were recording class without permission, interrupting constantly, rude to other users, bashing a celebrity a fan account. When you are hurting someone else or being inconsiderate, you are breaching some form of netiquette.  

I think as time goes on we will start to focus on not accepting racist, sexist, classist,  etc. posts on the internet. We are seeing it more now than ever. When people are being racist, sexist, etc on the internet they are being called out on their behavior. They are being held accountable for their violations.  We need to continue to stand up for each other and be kind to one another.

Social Media Etiquette

     For many people social media is a place where people go to feel safe, to get away from the traumatic things in their lives. You can violate social media by posting explicit content, posting things that could make some feel uncomfortable or make them scared. I could definitely see trump hate speech becoming a violation if he is reelected. The same way in which he is trying to ban tik tok. While I know it is not possible to control what people say or how they feel because of the laws they made to protect that. Knowing our president’s past erratic behavior, I think he would try even if it resulted in failure.

The Future of Online Etiquette - Extra Credit

 One of the other ways that social etiquette can be misused, is the act of finding out peoples information through various forms of searching online public sources of personal data. Granted a lot of people are unaware of the massive digital footprint that they have left behind from previous accounts created long ago. This information can be used against those who no longer have access to these accounts for different reasons. For example, lets say a girl made a tumblr account years ago when she was 13, and she posted personal information about her life and about some of the things she does during her routine. Then years or even decades later, someone finds this information and resurfaces it on her new platform on twitter. Although the information that this persona found is not incriminating in any way, this persona broke a personal barrier for the girl because she did not expect anyone to find out about this information, let alone make her aware of it by resposting it and tagging her about these early posts she made. 

This effect has become incredibly prevalent in twitters cancel culture as new things about a public figure resurface for a new audience to judge and decide whether this information should be relevant to who the person is in the present. At the end of the day it is important to know that things online/ on the internet should be assumed to ALWAYS be there even if deleted. Which is why newer generations should be taught that not everyone needs to post ALL information online. Teaching etiquette having respect for each other as if we were in person is something that NEEDS to happen in order to create a better space for people online. It was not done with bad intentions when the persona found that information about the girl and decided to recover this data, but the effect it had is something that they probably did not anticipate. To make things a bit more literal, through proper discussion and discourse about what a persons actions are, a hive mind should not be the judge and jury of this persons past, as everyone has a digital footprint that is hard to get rid of.

Spongebob meme

 I have an undying love for the show SpongeBob SquarePants. Every episode is forever immortalized in so many young adults' heads with clever one-liners and hilarious frames. The format of the show, with its hilariously dumb punchlines and double entendres of adult humor, it is perfect for twitter memes. Those kids who watched Spongebob back in the day are all now online, sharing Spongebob memes. In the past few years, there have been many notable very popular Spongebob memes. On knowyourmeme.com I saw the "aight Imma head out" Spongebob meme on the homepage. This caught my eye because like I previously mentioned I love Spongebob and Spongebob memes. This meme in particular shows Spongebob getting off of his chair with very tired eyes and a fed-up expression, with the added bottom text "aight Imma head out". This original meme has been edited, manipulated, and shared across the whole web. It is a popular reaction image for when someone posts something weird or suspicious.  

The meme

 

This meme embodies everything that a meme should contain in my humble opinion. I can connect with on a spiritual level that almost cannot be described in words. It has the blurry, unfinished quality that a lot of memes rely on but it freshens it up a bit with the text. Implying that someone must stop lusting after someone or they will end up in horny jail. The use of the word also helps to exaggerate the humor of the meme.

The primary use of this meme has been on the twitter platform but because of its broad appeal, it can be used in many casual conversation.

It's A Trap

It's a Star Wars meme of Admiral Akbar from the Original Trilogy referring to Emperor Palpatine's trap. 

Meme

 This is one of my favorite memes to ever exist as it basically describes my life. I was actually introduced to this meme by one of my closest friends that is very much like me. This image comes from a puppet that was apart of a Japanese children's TV show back in the day. The reason why this meme describes my life so well is because my anxiety just takes over me anywhere and everywhere I go. Such simple everyday tasks like communicating with my co-workers, asking a question, ordering food, picking up my phone, and so much more will make my anxiety just spike out of control. This memes is literally me 24/7.

Meme

 

The meme that I can relate to the most is the "Crying Jordan" meme. This meme was being used on message boards and in a few instances on Twitter. The meme blew up and started being everywhere. Most people had no clue what it represented or how it originated. 

I chose this meme because it represents my pre- 2k connection to the internet, and how some of us are way ahead of others when it comes to creating content online that can cross cultural barriers. Michael Jordan himself had to acknowledge the meme and admitted he was tired if seeing it, lol. Ironically he said this when he was speaking at Kobe Bryant's homegoing and he was crying at the time. That too was turned into a "Crying Jordan" meme, but isn't used as much because of the setting in which it happened.

Memes give individuals power to highlight injustice, point out inconsistencies in the way people handle situations, and they can be used to create awareness. This particular meme caused people to wonder if Michael Jordan had a health issue that he needed to have looked into because of the deep redness of his eyes when he cries. 

Memes

 I chose the monkey meme because of its simplicity, it's kind of like a way to say "hey, forget about the coronavirus, come eat some bananas bro ". There is no " deep" message in this meme, just a little giggle to be had in these tough times. 

IGHT IMMA HEAD OUT

 One of my favorite memes is the Spongebob "ight imma head out" meme. The meme is used whenever someone feels like they are in an awkward or uncomfortable position and uses the meme's phrase to leave. The meme was based off of the 2018 twitter post talking about boys smoking weed. The tweet explained how guys like to consume large amounts of marijuana and sit quietly in a room together until the finally leave saying "alright bro I'm boutta head out". The tweet gained about 26,000 retweets within 6 months. A few months after that, another twitter user used a screenshot of Spongebob about to sit on a chair and captioned it "might imma head out". The screenshot and the caption made it seem like Spongebob was about to stand up rather than sit down and therefor many users began implementing their own scenarios. After gaining some fame in twitter, the meme then transitioned into instagram and gained thousands of likes. One of the most famous versions of the meme is the one with the caption "when El Chapo gets bored in prison" referring to the infamous Mexican drug lord Joaquin Guzman. 

Woman Yelling at a Cat

    After browsing KnowYourMeme for a while, I settled on one of my favorite memes on the internet: Woman Yelling at a Cat. I am sure that most have seen some version of this meme on social media. In case you aren't familiar, the meme depicts Taylor Armstrong from 'The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills' being restrained by Kyle Richards as she yells at a cat from across the dinner table:

    The origin of this meme is interesting as it is actually two different memes combined. The first originated from a 2011 episode of 'Housewives' in which Armstrong is crying during an argument while Richards attempts to calm her. The scene was then screenshot and featured in a recap article in the Daily Mail. 

    The image of a stunned cat named Smudge sitting at a table was originally posted on Tumblr in 2018 and went on to become a popular reaction meme. Prior to being combined, the individual memes had sparing use on various platforms. As with all memes, the creation of the combined meme can be traced back to a single person who first posted it, in this case a user on Twitter in 2019. That initial tweet went viral, eventually gaining over 78K retweets in two months. 

    One of the reasons I like this meme is that the reason it's amusing is because it is a near universal experience. At some point in our lives, we have all either been either Taylor, Kyle or the cat. There is an endless number of real life scenarios in which this meme can be applied. As with all memes, it's a good example of how the internet provides users with the ability to appropriate various disparate pieces of content to form new content to gain followers and engagement. 

Deep Fried Memes

The meme I chose for my analysis is “deep fried memes.” “Deep fried memes” started on Tumblr in earlier 2015 and have gained popularity on Twitter, Facebook, and Reddit late 2015 and early 2016. “Deep fried memes” are images, memes, GIFs, or videos that have been processed through multiple filters to look very grainy and low quality. The subreddit r/DeepFriedMemes was created to the devotion on “deep fried memes. A recent “deep fried meme” that has come to popularity is the “All my homies hate [x]” which has become one of my favorite memes to come out of them. Another “deep fried meme” that I really enjoy is the CNN broadcast meme. Also, through “deep fried memes” out of date or older memes have become circulated through twitter again but more in an ironic or so unfunny its funny setting. This meme isn’t necessarily one specific meme but how the meme looks like and is formatted in.

Kermit the Frog

 Kermit the Frog has been involved in many popular memes, such as "but that's none of my business" and "evil Kermit". Evil Kermit involves Kermit and well, his evil doppelganger. This meme is often captioned with people mocking themselves with their own thoughts, hence the evil aspect. Now for Kermit sipping tea, which relates to the term "spilling tea" where people usually gossip about other people and call-out each other using the meme and saying "but that's none of my business". These memes really show how people can have different meanings for the same image and how people take different situations and make some humor out of them. 

Famous Memes

 During the 2019 NBA Playoffs is where my meme is created. Damien Lillard hit one of the biggest shots in his career while facing one of the best two way players that we have ever seen in the League. This shot elevated his career, and he is getting more recognition for the great player that he is. But he also has become one of the biggest memes of last year. His walk off shot reaction was pure comedy and will never be forgotten in the basketball community. In the photo you can see the celebration from his teammates, and how when you are in the moment true reactions cant be withheld. His confidence was unmatched and the shot was well deserved. Damien Lillard will always be remembered for his shot and this...

MEMEs

Throughout my teen years, I have seen numerous memes that have made me laugh hysterically. Right now a few of my favorites are "Robert Pattinson in the kitchen," "James Corden in a robe," "Brad Pit: Devil's Own interview," and "Trisha Paytas crying on her kitchen floor w/ gross teeth." It was very difficult to choose one meme that I love and am familiar with. If I could, I would attach 20 of my favorite memes. 

This meme shows James Corden looking very motherly. He is wearing a robe and a towel wrap in his hair, with his hands on his hips. His expression is serious. The picture is quite blurry, but you can still make out what is going on. 

Discourse Community

 I am apart of the audio engineering community on Reddit. I consider this a community, moreover a discourse community because we use language and talk about things that people who are not into audio engineering or music production would not understand. For example, there are a lot of posts on the community page about new VST plugins. Although, I believe you can use the same VST plugins consistently for up to a year, before needing to search for or download new ones. There are hundreds of possibilities and settings within one VST. Changing just one knob or setting can alter the entire sound and mix of a song. In addition, I believe some of the most important VST's to update regularly are compressors.  

Pre Web Technologies

One of my favorite websites is Indeed. Indeed is a website that allows employers to post job openings, available to be applied to by qualified Indeed users, as well as post information about hiring events.  Indeed is technically an online job board.  Job boards are all online now, but as I was growing up I remember seeing physical job boards in places such as pizza parlors, or newspapers. You would think online job boards are much more fast-paced than physical ones. However, the easy access to the internet allows for more applicants than the normal amount of people who would've walked into a pizza parlor, and saw the same job listed on the board.

Analyzing Memes

This meme started becoming popular in 2019. It had one woman appear as if she is pointing and yelling at the cat from across the table. While the other woman beside her looks to be consoling her. This meme usually is making fun of whatever the woman is supposed to be yelling as the cat is firing a response back. This post has been used a lot to make fun of "Karens" at their constant complaining that we see all over the internet.

Memes have a lot to do with power and social capital. Memes today have a lot of different messages but we see them now more than ever, making fun of politicians or political sides. In today's time memes are like old political cartoons that they would show us in history class. Power and social capital can come from memes. It catches others' attention to focus on the context behind the meme.

Political tweets vs celebrity

 For this blog post I decided to take a look at to very different twitter accounts, for my political account I used former president Barack Obama and for my celebrity twitter I used none other than the kidd himself Lil Baby. While these two share a love for basketball and music their tweeting styles are very different. In almost none of Obama's tweets are their emojis, I think I may have found one but other than that his tweets are very well written out and precise to the point. Obama most likely has someone read and proof his tweets to post it to make sure it sounds well appointed as well as another set of eyes never hurts. Lil Baby on the hand use emojis a pretty decent amount in his tweets. While Obama has a wide range of audience he is often tweeting to Lil Baby demographic is more narrow and is about his life, music or fans he is very active on social media often retweeting funny videos, comments or other celbs/ fans posts. These two twitters are on different spectrums but yet exist on the same platform goes to show just how diverse but connected the internet can be.

Meme Analysis

 

I chose the meme “Step It Up.” I know the Simpsons have become extremely popular because they are well known to predict future events. I remember when their “prediction” of Donald Trump winning the presidential election back in 2016 went viral. I find these prophecies to be quite frankly a bit eerie, especially if they turn out to be accurate. Like how did they know, but maybe it was all a coincidence?  In this meme, two characters symbolize the year 2020 and 2012. An older man (2020) slaps the younger kid (2012). From what I understand, 2012 was supposed to mark the end of the world, but here we are eight years later. Meanwhile, 2020 has been a very eventful year full of chaos, with a pandemic affecting the entire nation, wildfires, natural disasters, brutal violence, and so on, and all these events sound more associated with the end of the world. Memes are a creative way people can express their concerns or viewpoints about anything, especially when it comes to issues in politics. They also say a lot about power because they can unite or divide social groups. 

Blog Assignment #7 Meme, Power and Social Capital

 

For this meme selection, I choose the Spider-Man Pointing at Spider-Man meme originated from a webpage called Sharenator back in 2011. The meme is from a Spider-Man cartoon from the 60's were two different Spiderman’s from different universes point at each other as they are surprised to see each other. This a meme can relate to power as two entities can have an equal amount of power and even though they both have power, it can be confusing as to who has more power over the other, as they both have equal power but in different areas, thus balancing out. As to the social capital aspect, the same can be implied as at times we see groups of people striving for the same goal but in slightly different ways. It's not easy to see how power and social capital among two parties, groups, entities, or individuals are similar or the same. Thankfully there are memes like this Spider-Man Pointing at Spider-Man that help others see the difference among subject matters in a comical yet informative way.

Proud Boy Memes

 

       The presidential debate that happened on the last week of September 2020 had the USA in an uproar. There were so many different and controversial take away from the live broadcasted event. One major takeaway is when the mediator asked the president to rebuke white supremacy and he instead called them proud boys and told them to stand back, and stand by. In case you are not familiar with white suprimists and who the proud boys are, they are “a far-right, neo-fascist, and male-only organization that promotes and engages in political violence in the United States and Canada.” If you type the hash tag “#proudboy” into any social media platform you will see a lot of hate, racism, and our president. As of recent, a meme of gay men  posting using the hashtag proud boys has gone viral as they try to decrease the amount of hate that is being spewed from the hash tag. 

Social Capital of Memes

 The meme that I decided to write about is the very obscure meme of "change the world...my final message". If you have stumbled on the dark corners of 4chan, Tumblr, and YouTube, you are bound to find this really obscure and kind of creepy meme about a rat smoking a cigarette and giving his "final message" to the world before he disappears into thin air. At the time of writing this, the video posted on YouTube has about 600,000 thousand views, and is filled with comments posting about how the meme makes them feel. Most of the comment are of how the YouTube algorithm pushes video that your subconscious needs to see and how they are randomly available to you, when the algorithm itself thinks that you would like to watch said video. The meme itself is about 10 seconds long and it is surprising how many other people had a similar reaction to mine, in which we felt that this 10 second video was not just something made randomly on the internet, but a piece of art, and by extension a piece of someone who decided to express themselves in a surreal way. The video invokes a sense of sadness, loneliness and peace. The way the video plays out is that there seems to be a really bad quality photo of a rat smoking a cigarette, in what is presumed to be a sewer. Under the video is a hard coded caption that looks like it was from an old GameCube video game. The rat in a robotic voice then says "Change the world, my final message, goodbye". And the rat disappears into thin air. The music in the video also adds to the creepy atmosphere as the first track is from a horror video game (Silent Hill), and the second track that plays is from the Windows 95 startup sound. It is implied that the rat ascends to another world after his "death" in the video. It is also implied by myself and other YouTube commentators that the rat symbolizes the creator of the video. 

There are many other ways to interpret the video, but that is not the point. The effect that blows me away is that such a short video, and such a silly one at that gave so many people on the internet who don't have any connections with each other had the same reactions, and feelings that the video seem to imply the rat was facing. It really goes to show how powerful simple, dumb, silly, irrelevant, random, weird, surreal memes on a screen can have on humans and how even more impressively we can make meaning when there really was nothing to make meaning of.

Jordan V. Cube

 The politician that I chose was Jim Jordan. Jordan is the Republican Congressman from the 4th district of Ohio. He portrays himself on social media as a proud supporter of the sitting President and a champion/lover of his home district and free speech. I also know from a few scrolls down his feed that he is an avid distruster of mail-in-voting. The celebrity that I chose was Ice Cube. He is also politically active with his tweets but his version is much less censored than Jordan's. Ice Cube does not support the sitting President, advocates for African-American rights, and occasionally reminisces with fans about his rap career back in the day. 

Politician VS Celebirty

 The politician I selected is Senator Bernie Sanders. He recently ran for the Democratic primary but lost to Joe Biden. When you look at his tweets he talks in broad platitudes about the issues that concern him such as the 2020 presidential election.  He may indirectly call out a certain someone on their actions while advocating for change. This approach is a bit less heavy-handed than Seth Macfarlane. He routinely calls out politicians for their misdeeds and moral corruption. Usually, he holds back no punches and it seems as if he says what's on his mind whenever he likes and doesn't care about having a filter. This is in stark contrast to the way Bernie Sanders tweets.

Different twitter usage

 The politician I chose is president Donald Trump, as he is very active on Twitter. His use of Twitter is as a way to keep up with recent events going on in the world. In turn, a singer like Kanye west's twitter account is used to just tweet out random stuff like a picture of a soda and occasionally career-related. In comparison to mr.presidents account, Kanye generally tweets out whatever he is thinking about.

Politician Vs Celebrity

 

I will compare the U.S Representative for New York, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to actress Gabrielle Union. In Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez twitter account, I noticed that her tweets topics are more about encouraging people to vote, issues about the pandemic, and issues going around the world and the city of New York. She also strongly shows her opinions towards Republicans and the President. Gabrielle Union’s twitter is completely different from that of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Gabrielle Union does have similar tweets to Alexandria because she also encourages her followers to vote and retweets political issues corresponding to Republicans and the President. Aside from politics her tweets are very different because she tweets about her life, fashion, other celebrities, athletes, and tv shows.

Jennifer Serrato

Lindsey Graham @LindseyGrahamSC v LeBron James @KingJames

This was hard to do because there's nothing @LindseyGrahamSC has to say that I want to hear or read. His tweets are simply about pushing the agenda of keeping white's in power by any means necessary. He has a tweet saying he agrees that Trump needs to denounce white militias that only exist to create hate speech and commit mass murders. All of his other tweets are about passing legislation and appointing judges that will do the same thing that the white militias will do. Killing people by passing legislation denying them adequate healthcare is no different than a white supremacist walking into a church and murdering innocent Christians.

@KingJames twitter personality and social reach is out of this world. Extremely positive content sharing positive stories that bring joy and hope to others during a pandemic and a national outcry for justice and equality. @LindseyGrahamSC is doing everything in his power to suppress the vote. @KingJames is using his Twitter outreach to encourage people to vote. @LindseyGrahamSC has multiple tweets about supporting the police, but never mentions that police are killing unarmed Black Americans at an alarming rate and there needs to be justice. @KingJames has a plethora of tweets begging and pleading that the rogue cops who murdered Breonna Taylor while she was asleep in her bed be brought to justice.

You would expect this comparison to be the other way around. Why isn't the politician @LindseyGrahamSC filling his twitter feed with content to encourage the American people in the midst of the largest health disaster in modern history? Thankfully we have athletes and celebrities like @KingJames to lead us through this time of uncertainty and concern in our nation.

Politician Vs. Celebrity

 The politician I chose to cover is Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. While looking through her twitter account I noticed that she presented herself in a very professional manner while also speaking about issues that many "normal" twitter users are also speaking about. From reading her tweets I can see exactly where she stands on certain social and economical issues while with other tweets I can infer on her stance or at least have an idea of what she thinking. She also provides a lot of information on whats going on in today's politics. The celebrity I chose to compare her to is the Korean Group BTS. Obviously, the number one thing they differ in is culture and language, however, when looking at the group's twitter account since none of the members have their own, you can see a significant difference. For instance, on BTS' twitter account most of their posts consist of various members posting videos they've taken of themselves or selfies, most of which have a caption where they are thanking the fans or giving a little update on what they are doing. They don't interact very much with others on the platform but they do make many nice posts for their fans which is nice.

Politician vs Celebrity

The politician I chose to observe the speech they use was Candance Owens. After reading her tweets she seems like a very direct person. She expresses her points and opinions straight out the gate and lets her audience know what it is that she believes. It is obvious she’s a republican and supports Donald Trump. Given the fact that the presidential debate took place a few days ago, she had a lot to say about the debate and Donald Trump. In contrast to her tweets, I then compared hers to the famous rapper Cardi B. I noticed the big difference in terms of content. Cardi B was way more vulgar and the length of her tweets were less than half the size of Candace Owens. Cardi B would usually tweet a sentence out of the random while Candace would have a purpose behind her tweets.  

Politician v. Celebrity Twitter

Kamala Harris and Beyoncé were my picks for this blog. Kamala Harris speaks like a politician on this account. She's recently post mainly about voting and how important it is, but has also promoted Biden's and her campaign on there. Based on her tweets she seems like she's very passionate about the election and really wants to win. Beyoncé on the other hand posts what seems to be a fashion brand, words of encouragement, and about Covid- 19. She posts as if she's always trying to reach a multitude of people, or as if she's referring to multiple people. She promotes brands and businesses that she's apart of like her newest live album #Homecoming and the music streaming service Tidal. Based on both of their accounts you can tell they live completely different lives. 

Online Community

 There is an online community on discord that I used to be apart of (technically still apart of it, I just don't hop on there anymore) for NBA 2K servers. On there you have people who were considered experts or they were just talented on the game, and they were people that shared tips and tricks to help other players get better at the game. Then you just had people having random conversations that weren't 2K related in the least bit. It was a community where information was distributed about almost anything, but mainly NBA 2K related info. People even talked about their personal lives on there seeking help/guidance for certain situations in their lives. I think until this day that Discord server is still thriving.

Politician v. Celebrity

I chose to compare former United States representative Beto O’Rourke and actor Matthew McConaughey. Recently, Beto O’Rourke has been tweeting about voting registration deadlines, how to register, and the importance of voting. He also tweeted about his thoughts on the presidential debate. Overall, most of his tweets and retweets are political and do not involve any of his personal life. This is not surprising since he was a former representative .  When I scrolled through Matthew McConaughey’s account I saw tweets about his teaching life and his  personal life. He has also tweeted about voting registration. Most of his recent tweets are about his new book he wrote. He is promoting his virtual book tour that features guest appearances from other famous actors and actresses. Matthew McConaughey’s account shows his hobbies, personal life, and interests.

Elizabeth Warren vs Kim Kardashian

I chose to compare U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren and Kim Kardashian. Senator Warren does have two Twitter accounts, what I can assume to be her personal account, and her official Senate account. By looking at her personal account, she retweets tweets in support of fellow Democrats, such as Joe Biden and Kamala Harris. With what has been going on, she seems keen on supporting what scientists are saying and encourages wearing a mask and social distancing. As a democrat, Warren is very firm on her beliefs, such as creating a wealth tax due to Donald Trump's tax records reporting him only paying $750 and continues to speak her voice against Trump. On the other hand, Kim Kardashian's twitter is full of herself, as she promotes her businesses and sometimes posts a photo of her and her family while also interacting with fans. Kim has been known to participate in the political world, as I can see she has retweeted some tweets concerning Armenia and the issues going on there and occasionally speaks about her journey on attending law school.

Politican v. Celebrity

 I scrolled through Representative Marc Veasey's tweets and he had a ton of retweets and all very political tweets. No humor, everything very serious. And also very political. Recently he has been tweeting a lot about registering to vote. Honestly, doesn't seem like a very fun guy but I suppose this is what his jobs requires him to be. I then looked onto Ryan Reynolds twitter page and it is almost the complete opposite. Funny guy. He disses a lot of other people, jokingly. He represents a lot of brands too and also plugs them in. And he just doesn't really take himself too seriously. 

Politician vs. Celebrity

 Twitter is a platform that, by design, allows for generally more free expression than other social media platforms. It's content policies allow for more anonymity and less censorship than Facebook for example. Since the platform is built around the concept a feed of short messages, it also dictates how users can interact with it. Messages have to be as concise as possible to fit within the character limit of a single tweet. The addition of visual content (images or videos) can also help provide additional context to the message without adding additional text. In my experience, there are a couple of primary uses for Twitter that apply to both politicians and celebrities. These public figures are either using the platform for brand promotion or for connecting with fan communities or constituents on a more personal level, sometimes both. Traditional politicians running for major office or celebrities that are hyper brand conscious or more private utilize PR agencies with social media experts dedicated to crafting and posting content and limited follower engagement on behalf of the account. Hillary Clinton's Twitter account for example is combination of carefully curated content from her team and more personalized messages which she signs with her initials. By contrast, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez takes the more personal approach by default. Politicians generally seem to be more cautious about what they post and when they post it. With celebrities on the other hand, it seems more common that you will find the celebrity using the platform as a more freeform means to connect with their fanbase. 

Politician and Musician Twitter Account

I chose to analyze Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s Twitter account. As I scrolled through her feed, I noticed she keeps tweets concise, but the content and message in them are powerful. Based on Cortez’s tweets, I know she strives to represent women, bring awareness to issues, and is advocating to make a change in our systems. Also, the tone of her words defined her as a woman who is not intimidated to voice her viewpoints. Similarly, Bruno Mars’s Twitter account and tweets show he designates time to interact with his fans, self-promote songs, and shares his concern about racial brutality by retweeting posts.

Blog Post #6 Twitter on Politician & Celebrity

 For this Blog post, I will focus on my Dallas district representative upon my zip code, her name is Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson. For the celebrity, I choose rapper and comedian Chingo Bling. Going through Johnson’s twitter account, she crafts her speech as a kind, caring, loving, informative. When I was looking her up on the webpage contactingthecongress.org, it mentions that she was a democrat, even if I hadn’t read the description beforehand, she does reflect and give out a sense of democrat in her twitter. In most of the pictures/videos, she is smiling and gives me a sense of sincereness compare to other politicians. Other than that, from her tweets, she seems like a nice, caring person. 

Moving on to my celebrity and a little of his background, I choose Chingo Bling, a rapper from Huston, Texas who did rap in a comedic/satire way in the early 2000s. He currently put the rap game aside (still does a few features) and started focusing more on his live skit comedian shows in the past years. Furthermore, Comparing Chingo Bling’s and Representative Johnson’s twitter, I found that both seem to give off a sense of humbleness and carrying for others. Chingo Bling’s Twitter has a good %20 involvement in politics. Some of his political posts are about him shaking his head about political matters, other political tweets are shown in a comedic way. Rep. Johnson keeps her posts informative and does not go after other politicians or subject matters like other politicians often do. Chingo Bling is a bit more flexible when it comes to his post regarding politics. However, he does not seem to pass certain comedies lines when it comes to politics. As final touch upon Rep. Johnson, twitter crafts her identity as informational and caring, although she is a politician and posts politician content, to me it did not give me a strong politician vibe, rather she gave me a more community-friendly vibe, with a bit of politician in her. Overall, I believe both of the person's identity on twitter is similar to the person they are in real life as Chingo Bling's Twitter is more comedy, fun-based account,  Rep. Johnson, is a more informative, calm base account, both come up as very humble people.

-Benjamin C. 10/2/2020

Ted Cruz v. Playboi Carti

 The politician and celebrity I decided to compare is Ted Cruz to Playboi Carti (a rapper). 

 

Cruz’s Twitter is mainly him retweeting news articles and videos about him, but when he does actually tweet about it is either him promoting a book or something, he is a part of or his critiques on current politics. He does have a couple of tweets where he is wittily replying to politicians and commentators that do not share his viewpoint. Overall the way Ted Cruz presents himself online is that he wants to sell you his book and wants you to make sure you know what his political beliefs are; he rarely strays away from politics, but when he does it’s typically family friendly humor.

 

Now let’s take a look at Playboi Carti’s Twitter.

 

In the year 2020 Playboi Carti has tweeted a total of 9 times, and out of the last 9 tweets he has only mentioned his music a total of 3 times. He does not stay active on Twitter or any of his social media accounts, and he rarely post any new music. This lack of social media presence and presence in the music industries allows for his music and tweets to gain a lot of attention without needing to shove it down people’s throats. But his lack of presence also makes fans mad as they do not get a lot of music or when he will be releasing. His tweets mainly consist of unintelligible “words” almost like hieroglyphics.

Online Communities

The site that I chose is Tik Tok. I do consider it a community. The tik tok community is something else. It is so supportive. I've seen small channels, and really nobodies been blown up by the tik tok community. I don't consider myself a BIG participant in it, only because I don't really participate in ANY online communities but I actually think Tik Tok is really great. When vine came around, I didn't participate in it cause I  thought it was dumb and not worth my time but I gave Tik Tok a chance this time around, and I don't regret it! I find it so so funny and quite educational. Of course every community has its trolls and haters, but I found that a lot of the people are very supportive. Since it's fairly new, only people who want to see that type of content will go out of their way to download the app and get on it. I don't know, it makes it kind of fresh.

Twitter accounts

 Twitter has always been a place of self expression. This is a site where you can find out how ever much you want to find out about a person based on what they feel comfortable telling the world, and this is how you cal tell the difference in someone’s status in life sometimes by how they express themselves on social media.  When I look up I the accounts of my favorite rappers/entertainers you can see the difference in life styles that have to be upheld by the content that is bing posted. For example, profanity is being used with rappers and entertainers, and also they are3 always trying to sella product while always being the center of attention. This is what they are accustomed to because they know that is how they stay relevant, but on the other hand when I look at the former President of the United States, and the professional manner in which he carries himself is completely different that what I see of other people who do Not have to keep up a clean social status. I would have used the current president, but he is so much of a fucking joke I do not know what to compare his Twitter to. A raspiest, or a high school girl. The manner in which you carry yourself should have something to do with your status in life. And if you dont I have a felling that whatever position that you are holding wont be for to long because you will eventually lose credibility if you are not carrying yourself in a manner that is respectable for where you are in life.