# Reading Responses (Set 2)

## The Modern Business of Love


When I was fourteen, I met who would become my first boyfriend. I was in Spanish class, anxiously looking around the room for some familiar face, when a sweaty boy ran into the room. Like the movies, I turned my head around, saw his face and decided that he was not worth my attention. We started dating three months later and lasted for three years. I always found this story to be comforting, the idea of destiny validating my experience.

Dating apps and websites existed when I was in high school, but I did not start to use them until I got into college. From the process of making a profile to the infamous swiping from left to right, I was entering a different territory, one where self becomes a brand that I must sell to others.

According to Derek Thompson, marriage has always been connected to a point of practicality. On modern days, this idea has been distorted by a more spiritual and romantic perspective of partnership, in which we search for “intellectual, social, as well as sexual soul mates,” as stated by sociologist Jessica Carbino. However, I argue that we still retain a lot of the practicality of traditional relationships, the main difference being that our “brand” is no longer being promoted by friends or family members. Instead, “the burden of finding a partner has been swallowed whole by the individual” (Thompson 2019). To elaborate, individuals approach online dating as a business. The process of self-presentation –creating a profile- can easily be compared to marketing proposal. While there is a search for authenticity, users critically select pictures that will make their profile appear more appealing for an unknown audience, even when the information is not completely true. For example, according to a blog titled “The Big Lies People Tell in Online Dating” by OKCupid, the more popular the picture, the more likely it is that it was taken years ago. Companies also play into the capitalization of love, encouraging users to buy subscriptions that boost the user’s profile, see who has liked their profile and have unlimited swipes. Contemporary love does have a price and a market, you just need to learn how to sell yourself.

## Ads & Social Graph Background


So, you are telling me that a corporate mastermind knows about my crippling obsession with Squishmallows and instead of seeing ads about a 14-inch Blueberry Cow, I get the same Better Help video every time I try to see an eight-hour essay on YouTube? It seems like a waste of resources to me. Especially considering the complexity of the systems being utilized by companies for advertising. While users interact with the web, such activity is being recorded and analyzed to program personalized advertisement campaigns.

But how do companies know that I constantly search for a Hello Kitty Squismallow? The answer is simple: Cookies. According to Vox, with each click the website “recognizes the unique id from the cookie store your browser” (2020) and holds on to that information. First-party cookies allow the website to remember what items you put on your cart, email address, location, time spent on the internet and other things that you have clicked on (Vox 2020). Online surveillance reaches another level as third parties access the data from the website that you are currently utilizing to display advertisement that reflects your online activity. Even more disturbing is the fact that the third party can also “access information from other websites that use the same third-party elements” (Vox, 2020). Utilizing tracking, companies can highlight banners, popups, floating adverts, etc., that are a more accurate depiction of your taste or interests. Companies like Facebook, YouTube and Twitter primarily engage in this behavior, with the latter offering services of accounting, tweeting and trend promotion. While this form of advertising might allow users to connect with products and services that reflect their needs, how ethical are these tactics?

In recent years Target was involved in a controversy regarding their use of tracking. The company had compiled information regarding one of their customers purchase patterns and created a “pregnancy prediction score.” With this data the company decided to provide such customers with a book of coupons filled with “baby-related items.” Later, Target would have to confront a father who was not aware that their sixteen-year-old daughter was pregnant. The fact that companies can even deduce portions of our identity or physical state, and use this information for consumeristic purposes, questions how much agency and privacy users have on the internet. While companies inform individuals of their third-party cookies and ask for our consent through the terms and conditions, much of the language and format utilized is meant for the information to be inaccessible for the every-day user.

## Collapsed Context


Humans have always been in search of authenticity against the materialistic forces of the world. The rejection of capitalism almost seems crucial in this journey, promoting the idea that this imaginary –almost pure – self has been corrupted by greed. This theme is prevalent in religions such as a Christianity and Buddhism, which constantly condemned materialism and present it as an obstacle in the search of the spiritual self. From a more secular perspective, one can appreciate similar ideas in contemporary books such as American Psycho by Bret Easton and, most recently, My Year of Rest and Relaxation by Otessa Moshfegh. Both novels detail the life of a protagonist that has lost their sense of self to a capitalist society, and communicate consumerism has influenced our personality, behavior, and ambitions. The coldness of both protagonists, and their lack of authenticity, becomes a cautionary tale for the reader, drawing clear moral parameters between what is acceptable and what is not. While this crisis of identity and performance is certainly not new, social media –as it tends to do – has made it more visible.

The first question that I ask myself is: what’s authenticity? Brooke Erin Duffy and Ysabel Gerrad define it as a social construct (2022). Since the authors do not expand on their argument, I would like to expand on the meaning of authenticity. When Duffy and Gerrard speak of authenticity, they are referring to the arbitrary notions that individuals have created about what is genuine and what is not. Usually, authenticity is considered to be a natural and almost “pure” representation of the self. Performing outside of these parameters is socially understood as disingenuous or insulting towards others. Bereal, a French app, attempts to approach this desire for authenticity through a model that encourages “spontaneity” and “informality” (Duffy & Gerrad, 2022). However, while the app remains true to its principles by creating spontaneous time lapses for submission and highlighting the number of retakes individuals do, users' desire to curate their posts remains. Duffy & Gerrard argue that the reason behind this is that Gen Z, the main demographic of the app, “still posts to social media in a curated, or at least strategically calibrated way, because they’ve long been exhorted to do so” (2022). I agree with both authors, as there is a complex relationship between individuals and self-presentation, especially within younger generations that are constantly bombarded with media that encourage their self-exposure in exchange for social status. Another social media app will not be able to fix this dilemma.

In other online platforms like Twitter, “consciously speaking to an audience is perceived as inauthentic” (Marwick & Boyd, 2010). The microblogging site has a “directed friendship model” in which there is “no technical requirement of reciprocity, and often, no social expectations of such” (Marwick et al, 2010). Therefore, the manufacture of a persona for consumption falls outside of what is socially acceptable in that community. However, I consider that it is naïve to demand authenticity for individuals online, when most of the content that is being distributed is created with an “imagine audience” in mind (Marwick et al, 2010). Users often conceptualize their readers as friends or themselves. I argue that users understand that this imagine audience as an intimate reflection of their personal life to perform authenticity. Regardless, within this context, people still engage in self-censorship, following undefined but understood social norms. Since Twitter has a diversity of imagined audiences, users must attempt to portray both an “authentic self and interesting personality” (Marwick et al, 2010). If authenticity is so important and celebrated, why do individuals feel like they are performing for an audience?

## Authenticity, Work, & Influence


Influencers are “cultural tastemakers” who capitalize on the integration of sponsored products into manufacture segments of their “aspirational” lives (Duffy, Miltner, & Walhlstedt, 2022). Being relatable and approachable is critical for the image of an influencer as it helps them establish a connection with their audience. This sense of authenticity is what separates influencers from traditional forms of advertising, which tend to feel more unnatural and fabricated. As Rachel Lerman explains, “influencers have real power to speak directly to followers who trust them and feel connected to them, something that big faceless brands can’t always boast” (2020). Additionally, product sponsorship must be “seamlessly,” meaning that it has to be “near-impossible for laypeople to tell if an influencer genuinely loves a product, is being paid to talk about it, or just wants to pay to talk about it” (Lorenz 2018). However, influencers can often fall within the lines of fakeness as they must navigate a balance between their role as a salesperson and “authentic” public figure.

In my perspective, users who engage with influencers should not expect creators to be completely authentic about the content they generate. As it is natural for individuals to create specific limitations between their personal lives and their job. Therefore, some of the expectations that are imposed on influencers by the public can be quite unrealistic. However, I also understand that influencers intentionally market their lifestyle to appear obtainable and realistic which “opens them up to intensified scrutiny and networked hate and harassment (Duffy et al., 2022). This is important as users may look up to influencers to address issues of race, politics, and gender. The latter is particularly important for female creators who are criticize by hate-bloggers for reproducing “problematic, narrowly defined ideals of femininity, domestic life, and the possibility of ‘having it all’” (Duffy et al., 2022). For critics, the worst portion is that influencers are “unethically profiting off the perpetuation of unrealistic expectations for women” (Duffy et al., 2022).

I wondered if this argument could also be applied to the influencers who gained sponsorship deals from brands during political and social crisis? For instance, during the 2020 anti-racist protest, brands wanted to partner with “relatable, down-to-earth, ‘authentic’ influencers” (Lerman). Therefore, individuals who managed to perform in accordance with the public expectations were rewarded with financial opportunities despite the political and social circumstances.

## Pushback


As I reflect on the incident, I can better understand the feedback I received and agree with most of the points that my critics made. I was insensitive, rude and overly critical. However, I don’t believe that I deserved the level of backlash that I received, which went from people calling me names to members straight up telling me to leave the group. As Joseph Reagle (2019) explains “even skillful feedback sometimes prompts angry responses.” In my case, only a few comments tried to engage in a constructive discussion with me, while a great majority –mostly writers- utilized me as a scapegoat to express their hatred for “mean” reviewers. This is not unusual in places like Goodreads where individual reviews are “hypotextual, and unsolicited comment can easily find its way to the subject-and to everyone else” (Reagle 2019). Personal opinions become the subject of heavy discussions, as individuals, in my opinion, fail to contextualize other users as actual people.

While my experience was not as traumatic as what individuals like Kathy Sierra experienced (harassment, death threats), it still managed to encapsulate a general concern about hostile communication on the internet. Even though this tendency to publicly humiliate individuals in the name of morals is not unique to online communities, the internet has helped normalize this behavior, particularly with the rise of cancelling culture in platforms like Twitter. People feel deeply entitled to their opinions and the Internet offers a door for users to express themselves in ways that would not be otherwise accepted in daily life. As a result, a lot of users have become disillusioned with communication technology.

People are increasingly deciding to react against the “overload of information and changing relationships” by “pushing back against permanent connectivity, in an attempt to manage, limit or control their exposure” to different variations of social technologies (Gomez & Morrison 2014). The pushback movement either takes the form of managing technology to reduce satisfaction, collective decisions to limit media use, technology intervention to reduce media use, or dropping technology completely (Gomez & Morrison 2014). I am particularly fascinated by the latter option, which I find to be almost ludicrous in a time where people are so interconnected with social media. For instance, people use platforms such as LinkedIn to apply for jobs and make connections with future employers. We live a large portion of our lives online, even if it's not by choice.