# Reading Responses 2 ## Ads There is nothing worse than an annoying pop-up ad that disrupts the display of your favorite website. Pop-ups are just one of the many ways that advertisements can find their way into the eyes of helpless viewers, hoping to make a lasting mark. But if we all find these ads to be so annoying, why would these companies think they will positively affect us? This is a question I have always pondered, as I tend to want to click on the ad less if it is impeding my ability to look at my intended website of choice. I believe that it boils down to the idea of attention: no attention, is bad attention. In other terms, it doesn’t matter if their advertisement for vegan dog food is annoying you at the moment, but the next time you are searching for a healthy alternative for your dog, that ad will inevitably pop into your head. It is the hope that their ad, as annoying as it may have been, will still stick in your head, for whatever reason it may. We also see this, oftentimes, in artists and politicians. People will say and do things that gain them attention, good or bad, just to keep their name in the back of everyone’s head. This tactic, although obnoxious, is wildly successful. Another example I have seen of wild and provocative advertising to draw attention is the [“I Hate Steven Singer"](https://www.ihatestevensinger.com/) billboards. What seems like a page to hate on a man by the name of Steven Singer is actually a jewelry website. This approach to advertising is to entice people to want to know what such a strange website would be about, and hopefully catch their eye once they’re there with the beautiful jewelry products. They came for the Steven Singer drama, and they stayed for the jewelry. ## Instagram Pods "Likeforlike" is taking the world by storm. In the land of social media, the only thing people truly care about is their engagement and the way they are portraying themself to the outside world. As explained by Caroline Forsey, the Instagram algorithm can be gamed in many different ways. The newest one being through Instagram pods. However, this world of "likeforlike" and "commentforcomment" is not new at all. This has been a phenomenon for years now that has just become more convenient due to direct messages being within the Instagram app. When I was younger, you would make the cross-app trek to Tumblr or GroupMe to promote your new post, hoping that you would get enough traction to not look like you had no friends liking your post. But does this make sense? To look like I had friends liking my post, I got strangers to do it for me instead. This is just adding a layer to the world of fakeness in social media. A new feature has recently arisen on Instagram that has given users the option to opt out of this anxiety inducing phenomenon all together. Users can now hide their like count or mute commenting on a post. Many influencers have done this, claiming it has helped with their mental health. No longer having to focus on Instagram like it is a job can be beneficial to your time and mental. When the "likeforlike" game starts to feel more like a requirement, Instagram loses its fun, and mental health takes a toll because of it. ## Collapsed Context BeReal is not the authentic, healthy social media platform it claims to be. The French creators claim that the app is authentic and against performative behavior, but this is not the full truth. All social media comes with its different problems. BeReal is a new world of social media shaming and issues. Typically, apps like Instagram and FaceBook are shamed for their ability to show the highlights of one's life. The photos can be edited and posed exactly how the creator would like. BeReals's original claims aim to shut this behavior down, forcing authentic posts in the moment. However, they are now on the flip side of unhealthy social media messages. As mentioned in Brooke Erin Duffy and Ysabel Gerrard's article, BeReal's app score description states that "If you want to become an influencer you can stay on TikTok and Instagram." With this kind of message, the creators of the app are teaching users that the only way to gain fame is through being fake and curated. If the new age of social media is authenticity, then why is fame not achievable through this form of posting? At the end of the day, these apps want to build traction and use influencers to do so. I feel the need to call out BeReal and draw attention to the hypocrisy of their claims to avoid influencers and that form of social media and promotion. When BeReal was on the rise, they were reaching out to people via Instagram Direct Messages to pay them to promote their new app. I was reached out to and asked to post about the app on my Instagram for compensation. I declined the offer, as I did not feel it fit my branding as a sponsored athlete. I find it interesting that a main aspect of their app is disparaging apps such as Instagram and TikTok, yet they used these apps to promote themself and gain traction. These same "influencers", like myself, that they talk down upon, are the people they are asking for help to build their audience. So, as I said prior, BeReal is not as real as they would like us all to believe. ## Authenticity Is it truly a sponsored brand deal if you are sponsored by your own brand? This is one of the many different tactics that up-and-coming influencers use to try and build their "street cred" in the world of reliable advertisements. As Taylor Lorenz discusses in her article, many influencers will fake a brand deal or promotional opportunity in an attempt to build their portfolio of successfully promoted brands and events on their page. As a self-proclaimed "social media influencer" myself, I have a certain level of insight on the way the minds of influencers work. I found the anecdote in Lorenz's article about the amusement park promotional opportunity to be rather funny. I have run into something similar in my own life. I have a Crocs sponsorship, in which I have to post content for them. I had another teammate and friend of mine mimic my posts in hopes of gaining the attention of Crocs, and hopefully gaining a sponsorship herself. This is very common in the world of social media ads and sponsorships. Recently, with NIL opportunities opening up for athletes, there have been many more options for athletes to gain profit off of their name and likeness. With this comes the added layer of stress within a team that some players are gaining more sponsorships than others. This is where the lack of authenticity comes into play as me and Lorenz have mentioned. Many athletes feel the need to overcompensate in order to keep up by faking brand deals, gaining a sponsorship from their own family's company, or tirelessly reaching out to companies, in hopes of one biting at their offer. It has become a feeding frenzy and has lost a lot of its veracity and authenticity, as many athletes that have not worked for and earned sponsorships can so easily fake that they have them. ## Pushback Social media has lost its touch. As mentioned by authors Gomez and Morrison in *Pushback: The growth of expressions of resistance to constant online connectivity*, many people are bidding their Facebooks goodbye. I for one, feel similarly to that of the testimony shared of Stephanie Painter, who bid her Facebook friends goodbye with one last poke before deactivating her account. Social media has become very performative. In the new age of media, people expect your life to be a certain level of exciting. When in the light of influencer, you are expected to uphold a certain level of entertainment for your audience. This may be why I relate so heavily to Painter's concerns of "issues of privacy and control" (Gomez & Morrison, 5). I begin to push back. I start to want to do the opposite of what all my internet "fans" so incessantly request of me. I begin to dread the meetings I have to pretend to enjoy with different brand groups I partner with, as I have to put on my "Izzy on Instagram" face. The authors mention the concept of "unplugging", a luxury I am jealous of many people for having. In the role I have, I do not have the ability to shut off my platform. Monetized, paid ads and content are on strict schedules and require a lot of attention and posting. A shut down period would lose me the endorsements I have spent my entire basketball career gaining. So where does this lead me? Well, I face burn out, identity crises, and animosity towards people who do not have this lifestyle. It has negatively impacted the way I view social media as a whole. I no longer see it as an outlet to be myself, but rather a product that I am trying to promote and sell. So, this is where my pushback stems from. My desire to run away from the business that is social media influencing. Maybe soon I will finally find my own way to "unplug" from the madness of it all.
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Privacy and Self-Stalking

Basketball Related Search Results The first website that is found when I look up my name is the Northeastern Women's Basketball Roster My ESPN profile also shows up in my search results Social Media Links My search results also included links to my personal Instagram, Twitter, TikTok, FaceBook, and Pinterest, but I am choosing to not include the links to them. Spokeo Search I went through the process of searching for myself on Spokeo, but once the results had finished loading, I was prompted to pay in order to see them

11/20/2022
Izzy's Home Page

Required assignments Wiki tutorial Web search and evaluation Filter and label your email Adblocking Privacy footprint Reading response sets

11/20/2022
Ad Blocker

Citation Machine with and without an Ad Blocker: Is there any way to fully escape the world of targeted advertisements? The answer is no. I applied an ad blocker to my Chrome browser and went on Citation Machine. As seen in the photos above, my advertisements were for Ulta. This is very much so a targeted ad for me, as I shop on Sephora very often. Sephora is Ulta's number one business competition. I am very loyal to Sephora, so these ads annoy me. As mentioned in "Targeted Advertising Considered Harmful", people are leaning more and more towards ad blockers as they learn how targeted advertisements work. I do not appreciate when ads try to sway me away from the companies I am loyal to. Even though a company like Ulta is very reputable, I still find the ads annoying and obtrusive. So how do ad blockers and websites determine what ads are appropriate to be shown? Even though this ad is a reputable company, the ad itself is in the way of the website, causes pop ups, and gets in the way of my use of the original website. As mentioned in an article written by Sven Taylor, certain ad blockers allowing companies to pay to have their ads shown is very dangerous. This leads there to be no way to truly trust these ad blockers that you use for security and quality reasons. I also believe that when I get an ad while having an ad blocker on, I find that company to put a bad taste in my mouth. I get annoyed with them for forcing themself into my internet browsing experience.

11/15/2022
Reading Responses

Make it Stick: The Science of Successful Learning Baseball is the key to understanding learning skills. Well, not actually, but that is a metaphor made by the authors of Make it Stick: The Science of Successful Learning. I found this metaphor to be the most resounding piece of information I pulled from this chapter. As an athlete, I can understand how quick wit and picking up on minor signal changes can increase your ability to perform. The poignant message is, “every time you learn something new, you change the brain” (Brown, Roediger, McDaniel 7). However, I can say that I am a member of their skeptical group that they mention on page 8. Today, there is the constant circulation of “fake news” that muddies the water on what will truly be effective to enhance one’s ability to learn. So to this I ask, how does one not only know that advice is trustworthy, but that it will be effective with their own personal needs? We are taught in school to do things like put distractions away, chew gum, or sit up straight to stay focused.They also often teach in the similar style mentioned in the chapter, referred to as “fire hose” style. It's been proven that this is not a successful way to sustain any learning done. So, why is this still the main form of information dispersion seen today is schools? I am interested in continuing to learn of the other ways to successfully teach students with different learning needs and hindrances, as the current ones do not aid all students equally. Professor Reagle: Gossip Like a spider weaving its web, internet communities intertwine and overlap in more ways than one can imagine. It is in our human nature to interact with others and learn about people. With this, however, also comes our desire to spread this information we learned. This is the gateway to gossip. As Joseph Reagle mentions, “A large group is better protected against predation than a small group is, but it also has internal competition for food and mating” (Reagle, 2019). No matter how close a group may feel, there will always be a level of tension and competition. Gossip is a direct product of this, becoming an easy way to stir the pot and plant seeds of doubt in people towards their other relationships in the group. An example of this can be seen in the women’s basketball team at Northeastern. We are all fighting for the same playing time. Due to this, there is a level of competition within the group. Oftentimes, this can manifest as cliques and drama, meaning gossip about opposing groups is not far behind. Similarly, as mentioned by Reagle, “the enemy of my enemy is my friend” (Reagle, 2019). Understanding the more intricate relationships within a group, as well as the secondary relationships, is imperative to having a good pulse on the group you are a part of. Ultimately, no matter how “close knit” a group may feel, human nature will always return us to a primitive state of survival methods. Even if they have evolved to look more like a rumor mill, they still function similarly to that of monkeys fighting over food. Maybe this is a new angle in proving evolution, humans and monkeys similarities in the world of gossip. Bullying and Harassment The line between censorship and monitoring hate speech is slowly beginning to blur. As mentioned in the article written by Shannon Bond, it is getting harder by the day to differentiate what is playful banter and inside jokes versus what is hate speech and bullying on FaceBook (Bond). That being said, many comments and posts are then left up to interpretation, which enters into a very muddy area of bias and opinion. This raises the question of how we can have effective content policies without restricting people’s freedom of speech? There is no denying that these major social media platforms have an affiliation to one or the other political party that is running for office, so would content regulators with a political bias be inclined to mark an opposing campaign's information as disinformation? These questions are pressing in this current conversation over social media censorship. Another issue arises when it comes to people finding their way around the algorithm that flags things such as hate speech and bullying. An example of this can be found on TikTok. Whenever people want to type something on their video that does not follow the app's guidelines, they will spell it with a different character. For example, instead of typing “college”, I would type it as “cõ//ege” so that it does not get flagged for the use of the prohibited word. Although people may report the post, the algorithm typically sends people with a similar ideology to these videos, so the majority of people do not want it taken down. This leaves the minority that did not intend on viewing this content somewhat powerless. With rules on political correctness and appropriate content ever evolving, will these large corporations be able to keep up? Or will angles to avoid being banned from social media platforms become even more complex?

10/19/2022
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