Finstas

Below is a link to an older article on what I've only observed on my own instagram feed over the course of the last year or so. At first I dismissed the idea of a finsta outright. However, as I followed more of my friend's finsta accounts, I noticed some interesting effects.

First, the habit become normalized...the more finstas I was exposed to the less weird it seemed. Next, it became a sort of affirmation of closeness. If you someone wanted to you to follow their finsta, it meant they felt close enough to be real with you.

Further, this created norms of what was appropriate when it came to following people's finstas. I caught on quickly--it puts people in a weird position if you request to follow their finsta but they do not want you to follow them; it creates an awkward sense that you perceive more closeness in your relationship with said person than they feel comfortable reciprocating. The best way to mitigate this potentially uncomfortable situation is to wait for people to request to follow your regular account with their finsta account; this gives you the green light to request their finsta in return.

Finally, the more finsta posts are integrated into my everyday reality the more ideas pop into my head for my own potential finsta posts--even though I don't have a finsta account!

https://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/19/fashion/instagram-finstagram-fake-account.html

"I f**king hate science"

I remember when the IFLS ("I F**cking Love Science") Facebook page was incredibly popular, and how widely disseminated their posts were. I also remember the one time they published a piece about gender not being biological, and the comments went from "yeah!!! science!!!" to "those damn SJWs", it's interesting to see how scientism intersects with a lot of other gross things sometimes.

https://www.salon.com/2017/05/07/i-fucking-hate-science/


"Beyond such negative effects on the nitty-gritty of hard science, popularization and simplification pose a broader cultural problem. With their paraphrased ideas, relatable yarns, and mic-dropping, “Yeah science, bitch!” approach to the field, the pop-star scientists command a genuine authority. And they pass that authority onto their readers and fans, who rush to their defense to attack smirking Twitter jokers and share “I Fucking Love Science” memes. Pop science offers the general public the air of authority and credibility of science without all the. . . you know, science. There’s a word for this highly empirical, authoritative worldview: scientism.

Scientism refers to the view that science possesses a unique claim to truth, and that it reduces knowledge to that which is provable by the scientific method. It’s not even a particularly new or novel idea."

Thought I'd put this up here, even if no one is still checking in:

Don't let facebook make you miserable

I just came across this article on Reddit today: http://www.businessinsider.com/ron-howard-genius-einstein-american-science-2017-4?r=US&IR=T
It's about how a TV producer Ron Howard has been trying to make scientists into celebrities, because he believes it should be pushed and funded the most for the future of America. He produced the TV show "Genius" and the well-known movie "A Beautiful Mind".
I thought this fit well with our debates on the importance of science and that it was an interesting article because it rose a lot of questions. For example, I love "A Beautiful Mind" but it was actually criticized for misrepresenting John Nash's life and the mental illness of schizophrenia. It made me wonder about the wisdom in what the article promotes when it states "shows like "Genius" give filmmakers a chance to cut through the politics that often distort science, and remind people about the value of exploration", but then puts its own bias and distortion on the representation of scientists. By framing it as the "truth" and "unbiased", it rang false to me. I think it's important to fund science, but not by misrepresenting it in the media like this.