# Reading Responses: Set 2

## 3/29/22: Online Advertising (Stokes), How ads follow you around the internet (Vox)

Basically every member of Gen Z has been told at some point in their life, whether by a parent, teacher, or other adult, how screens are ruining lives. While this is evidently an overexaggeration, it is true that many aspects of technology which were invented to improve lives have also had ill effects, and a solid example of this is the existence of cookies. Similar to the black market being repurposed for nefarious activities when the original intent was for it to be used by the government, Lou Montulli's cookies have strayed far from his original vision.

When Montulli invented the cookie, it was designed to be a communication strictly reserved between a user and each individual webpage they visited, saving information such as search and purchase history and language preferences in order to improve the internet experience and make navigating sites more convenient. However, advertisers have found ways to hide third-party cookies under clever disguises in order to track the every move of users and target advertising based on their history. Pop ups, cookie notifications, and more have become incredibly normalized for internet users, but not many think to pull back the veil and examine how private their activity really is. After reading these articles, I am more incentivized to check my internet browser for any cookies that might be unnecessary.

## 4/8/22: Bemused: WTF! (Reagle)

In 2018, a woman named Shelby, normally very inactive on Twitter, was surprised to see her [notifications blow up overnight](https://www.insider.com/woman-review-kat-von-d-tattoo-liner-car-accident-viral-2018-4). The cause? Another user had found a review she posted eight months before for Kat Von D's Tattoo Eyeliner. In the review, Shelby described how she got into a car accident and spent eight hours in the ER, where her eye makeup naturally smeared and began to rub off- except for the eyeliner, which stayed entirely put. The review even includes a selfie of Shelby in the hospital that shows off the product, which Shelby said was originally taken for her police statement (the photo also includes the neck brace she wore as a result of her injuries).


This viral sensation, which I had heard about back when it blew up, was the first thing that popped into my head when reading about viral and often bemusing internet reivews, frequently found on sites such as Yelp and Amazon. However, the one thing I am not sure where I stand on is whether ridiculous comments on the internet are something that needed to be addressed. It is certainly a fascinating topic for sure, and I understand the draw in researching and examining it from a communications perspective in order to better understand how we as humans operate. But the fact of the matter is that dumb internet comments are a fact of life- at least, this is the way I see it. I fear that if too much effort is placed into trying to filter it out, we might soon cross the line into unnecessary censorship. I suppose for now, I'll keep scrolling past those "First!" comments on every YouTube video I watch.

## 4/12/22: Weapons of math destruction (O'Neil), This is why some people think Google's results are racist (Rutherford, White)

In 2006, George W. Bush criticizers performed a "Google bomb" that lead to a search for "miserable failure" leading to Bush's biography on the official White House website. Naturally, this piece of information from one of our early classes this semester popped back into my mind as I read the Rutherford/White piece on Google and racism. Though disturbed, I cannot say I was at all shocked to look at the search results displayed in the article, such as the differences in images for "unprofessional hairstyle" and "professional hairstyle" or the contrasting ways in which White and Asian women were portrayed (White women were typically basic stock images, whereas Asian women were overly fetishized). It is definitely true that in some cases, there can be an overemphasis on causation; for example, when searching "unprofessional hairstyles," Google pulled some results from articles that critiqued the way Black women are often seen as "unkempt" or "unfit" when wearing traditional hairstyles to work. However, it is remiss to not acknowledge that these differences are indicative of a greater societal problem, and one we all know very well: that our vast, diverse world is often white-washed. Looking at pages of white hands, noses, faces, and more, I also could not help but be disappointed in myself; I wondered, if I searched for these images before reading this article, would I have even noticed anything wrong, or carried on my way? In fact, the world in which I have grown up is so entirely Eurocentric that I have been desensitized to it.

In contrast, I did not find myself hit as hard by the O'Neil excerpt. Though I understood the individual points being made, as well as most of the metaphors (though I must say the sports analysis went a bit over my head), I could not help but wonder what the overall message was supposed to be. O'Neil continuously repeated how she uses her knowledge of her family's likes and dislikes and eating patterns to determine what she will make for dinner and how much, but this could be difficult to organize were she to try to relay the information to another person. Is this supposed to be a critique on the ways in which we sometimes messily categorize information in our heads, or just a simple observation? Perhaps it would make more sense to me on a larger scale, but I found it difficult to connect on a deeper level with this unknown family's dinner habits.

## 4/22/22: Gender and self-enterprise in the social media age: A digital double bind (Duffy/Prunchniewska), Influencers are faking brand deals (Lorenz), Social media influencers walk tightrope to strike right tone on pandemic, protests

In summer 2019, I attended a 10-day leadership camp at Stanford. I was surprised to find that as an East Coast native, I was an outlier amongst the Californian attendees, many of whom fit the bill of the typical "VSCO girl" that was so dominant at the time. One girl that I met on my first day looked super familiar, but I never thought much of it until I heard other people referencing her online posts. Curious, I asked her if I'd know her from somewhere, and she explained that she was the "turtle girl from TikTok," having posted a viral video (which, as it turned out, I had actually seen) about using reusable straws to save the turtles. She revealed that the video got attention not only from other TikTok users who blew up her follower count, but from the brand she had purchased her reusable straw from, and she was now one of their ambassadors. She gave me her promo code to get a 10% discount, and I ended up ordering one when I got home from the camp. Nearly three years later, it sits in my dorm room drawer as I write this assignment.

Indeed, influencers grow more powerful, and younger, by the day. Not only are there teenage social media moguls all over the internet, but it's not entirely uncommon to see an actual child getting millions of YouTube views for reviewing toys and snacks. But as Lorenz points out, what's on the surface is often an illusion. Influencers have taken to misleading their followers into believing that normal product features are actually sponsorships. This, to me, was really interesting, because I feel like I still tend to see more of the other side of things: influencers clarifying that their endorsements of products they like are not paid advertisements, or people scoffing at the number of influencers that sell out to big brands. This made me look at the posts on my feed in a new light, although I have noticed recently that most actual sponsored posts will say "#Ad" on TikTok.

While I thought it was extremely interesting reading about these fake sponsorships, I thought that the piece on gender and social media missed the mark. In pointing out how an increase in virtual jobs in social media allows women to juggle home care with a career, the authors completely fail to realize the root of the problem: that women are expected to automatically do these tasks in the first place. Having more of these types of jobs is a solution to a problem that *shouldn't exist*, because it's inherently rooted in sexism and long-standing gender roles. Furthermore, pushing women into careers as mommy bloggers and beauty influencers only serves to accentuate stereotypes about femininity and the duty of a woman to have children and center her life around them.

## 4/26/22: Conclusion: Commenterrible? (Reagle), Pushback (Gomez/Morrison)

In 2015, middle schools across America were swept by the Summer of TBH. The trend manifested itself in multiple forms, but the most popular, at least at my school, lived in Instagram captions. You'd post any random picture of yourself, living your best life on summer break, with a caption such as "comment [insert random emoji here] for a TBH." For self-conscious preteens looking for validation in any form, this was liquid gold, and we all rushed to the comments to receive a compliment from the poster. But of course, there always loomed the presence of the formidable foe: "TBH, nice." This TBH was considered the cop-out; it meant you were unimportant, irrelevant.

The TBH trend on Instagram eventually led rise to multiple apps and games, though in 2022 the trend has pretty much faded. However, comments on social media sites are often still as worthless as they were back then, as summarized in "Conclusion: Commenterrible?" But unfortunately, attempts to filter out inappropriate or useless comments often only serves to make these users even more angry, and they have a habit of returning with keyboards ablaze. As usual, I have to wonder if there is even anything left to be done. My faith in the digital future of humanity is, unfortunately, pessimistic.

I was also able to connect my own digital life to the Pushback piece. In my own efforts to set healthy limits with technology and social media, I have certainly implemented elements of behavior adaptation. For example, I have had my Instagram notifications turned off for going on a year now, except for a few weeks when I turned them back on because a group I was in for a project used the app for communication and I wanted to make sure I received their messages in a timely manner. Though it's such a small change, it has really kept me off the app; I'm not jumping every time I see a notification, and when I decide to post every now and then, I can shut the app and just let myself respond to comments later rather than anxiously monitoring likes. However, there are definitely other apps that I am okay with keeping in my life, such as TikTok. Though I'm aware I spend quite a bit of time on it, watching silly videos helps me release stress and unwind from the day. It's also an easy way to keep in touch with my friends who are not in Boston. Just by sending my friends videos that make me think of them and vice versa, it helps us both get a laugh and makes me remember that there are people who care about me enough to want me to see these things.