section 13

The chapters on Gender, Inequality and Politics made me rethink the ways in which it plays out in the MMO context. I remember distinctly the kinds of assumptions that are made when you meet new people, or join a guild, and so on. On the internet, you are a straight white man until proved otherwise. I remember being nervous when people would ask what my real name was and coming up with a fake “white” name that wouldn’t be too distinct from the other John’s, Mark’s and Michaels’s. I also remember the ridiculous amount of teasing women would receive when joining online voice channels.

The online was an extension of the social inequalities of the offline.

I’m also thinking about the activism piece, and how social media was crucial for building transnational solidarities during the Ferguson protests. Angela Davis talks a lot about how Palestinian activists tweeted advice to Ferguson protestors on how to deal with the specific brand of tear gas that was being thrown at them. This was because the STL police were deploying the same tear gas that the IDF deployed against them.

But, I’m also thinking about this current trend of clicktivism, where white and nonblack-PoC allies constantly share videos of black folks being gunned down/executed by the police. The reliving of trauma every time a share is made has had documents effects on black mental health. We have reached a point of trajectory from this article on #Ferguson where the internet is constantly circulating proof of violence, it has gone from awareness to oversaturation.

Rapporteur Notes 4/14/17

• Difficult to think outside of the way we see social media (outside of the US), wechat
• “Generation of chinese copycats” [?????? orientalism]
• Wechat — “super-app” does everything; virality as a concept-->anything can go viral, company and products etc can be tagged and connections between people are drawn
• Tech is evolving quickly — street vendors even have QR codes, and people usually only pay through that
• Circumventing banks, banking ecosystem that is a lot more accessible
• circumventing ID reqs, note wrinkling, limited hours
• WeChat wallet is a super big thing, paying for everything (not cash or bank cards) —video chatting feature has better connection than skype
• Wechat always has the best internet connection, perhaps because services mediated by tech companies AND state?
• Public and private blurring, state-owned companies trying to innovate, state contract enmeshment
• Different ecosystem, online-offline relationships, ad focused on things you would do in your daily life, new tech playing a role in class formations or a new taste in aspirations?
• Bubble formation? Certain companies are boosted? To what degree do we trust ‘pay-to-play’
• Controversy (baidu paid to prioritize certain searches) re: cancer patient and finding treatment at military hospital, died
• ——-gold farmer clip:
• “The same as transmitting Chinese labor to America virtually”
• “He lives in the virtual world, he has no time”
• Vignette on vigilante killing farmers, perhaps reality of xenophobia is also transmitted through these radicalized caricatures of goldfarmers
• ——- paper tips:
• Themes of virtual economies, but now sociality
• Relationships that develop, issues of authenticity, elements we should attend to?
• Community == who? moderators, designations of what? Disciplining?
• Newbie student? How do they learn the norms, banned, isolated?
• Thinking about diffuse kinds of communities? Subreddits? Facebook groups?
• Identity construction, anonymity?
• ——- discussion re: folks' projects
• Student doctor network, collaborative, pdf, hierarchy, acronyms, celebrities
• How do people assess sketchiness vs reliability? Comments said it was good ==?
• Professor at yale med messed w/ ppl
• If you don’t need/want help then you probably wont be on the site, altruistic check
• Microsituations are good support for claims you want to make, use them as evidence
• Custom-crafted platforms with specific topics that things are oriented around
• signature widgets construct identity, how old, how far along, how long you have been married —> level of authority
• Catch people in a perpetual state of participation, “graduation”, moving up with cohort?
• determining trustworthiness?
• Flip it around and find the scam, what behaviors led to that discovery?
• Ebay, lingo, algorithm
• How to control what you’re working on —> focus on a small element, otherwise the scope might be too
• Facebook difficulties: posts moderated,
• Different levels of knowing people, structuring the dynamics of the relationships
• Ephemerality, versus deeper commitment, just leave and enter more quickly, transforming how that works
• Moderation is curation, presentation and performance?
• Subjectivities on and offline:
• More or less authentic online?
• We choose and select what we want to show of ourselves
• Terms of authenticity online are morally loaded, different social norms perhaps
• Relationships mirroring and mapping onto social media patterns
• Formats for things, mirroring the relationship with the norm of performance
• ex: Where he physically is, posting different things when he is at conference vs home, twitter at home vs twitter in Dhakar (talking directly to people, “research mode”)
• All our identities change where we are geographically + temporally
• ex: Audience based on different social media platforms changes the performance [facebook, the most people, the most filtered] instagram brought up as college student, pinterest exclusively for teaching ideas
• Curation and audience? But what about community? Because audience go and view — branding, seller and buyer, community member,
• Audience is directionality perhaps? Power discourse
• Integration of selves possible over social media?
• Inauthentic == ?? we are always products of our context
• No maybe, there is actually a “true” representation of something, versus people posting their positive experiences and not talking/reserve the -ve vs hiding the truth in a tv thing
• Moral judgment being placed
• But you cannot be a public figure, make claims, and be a hypocrite —> it is all about curation and authenticity
• Sharing data through social media is transparency, which is what we’re getting at, the fidelity between what’s happening in the backstage and in front of the stage
• Oversharer, too authentic and transparent?? Dramatic and fine line of authenticity?
• Self quantification? Tracking and mapping that online
• Next week
• Constructing projects and strategies for the ethnography, critique Song's book!!! She welcomes it

Reading Response 4/21/2017

For this week, we continued with the reading of How the World Changed Social Media through the readings of the “Gender,” “Inequality,” and “Politics” chapters. Specifically related to the chapters on gender and inequality, the results of the use of social media on these topics was dependent on the region and/or how it was used. For example, in some parts of Turkey, social media was highly monitored by the individual and relatives alike to make sure women were only portraying wholesome or culturally appropriate materials. The Facebook profiles of these women was a censored version of their real lives in order to fit the cultural norms of socially acceptable behavior. In this case, social media acts to reinforce gender norms. However, in other parts of the world, through the use of fake accounts or names, people are more expressive and act out of their prescribed gender roles. This goes on to show how it is nearly impossible to make a generalization about the use of social media.

The politics chapter discussed how and why social media may (or may not) be used for political activism. One thing that stood out to me in the article and what I have also personally experienced is how your social sphere really affects what kind of political discussions you are exposed to. People tend to surround themselves with like-minded people or the place they are living may have a leaning towards one direction, causing their Facebook news feed to feature only one type of thoughts and opinions. For example, I went to a Catholic high school so I tend to see posts from both my conservative high school friends but also my liberal WashU friends that I met in college. However, I do know that if I go into the newsfeed of either my high school friend or my WashU friend, more often than not, their newsfeed will be heavily skewed towards one side. This shows how social media can reinforce your opinions because that may be the only one you are ever exposed to.

The Ferguson article that was assigned discussed the use of hashtags in political activism, specifically related to the police killing of Michael Brown in Ferguson. With the rise of the internet and social media, we are able to hear about events that happen all across the country and have a platform in which we can discuss or state our opinions on the subject matter. In this case, twitter and hashtags were used to protest and also to show solidarity with the events that happened. I personally think that the use of social media in political activism is a great way to raise awareness of issues and events that other people may not know about. However, I do know that there are some downsides to this, such as people using the movement for personal gain or just speaking on social media without any action. 

Social Media is Not Just for the Rich

Gayatri Spivak famously asked if the subaltern could speak, and I think these readings demonstrate that they certainly can. Something I appreciate about this article and these chapters is that they implicitly challenge the assumption that social media (and, by extension, mobile devices) are unaffordable luxuries among the poor. Reading the Miller chapters, I was reminded again and again of the faces of my lay friends and family members when I tell them that my all of peers in Dakar have cell phones and tablets, despite living on $150 per month. (I know people who will eat less daily if it means they can pay for their daily purchase of internet credit.) It comes as no surprise that white Americans are less likely than Black Americans to use Twitter. The fact that this challenges assumptions about race and social media comes from a long genealogy of moralizing the decision-making of low- and no-income Americans, who are often assumed to be Black (while white Americans are the biggest “burden” on the welfare system). This rhetoric has been around since at least the Nixon administration, but it was Reagan who popularized the undying myth of the welfare queen. I mention this, because I want to point out that when “Utah congressman and seductive beaver” (Colbert 2017) Jason Chaffetz chidedlow-income Americans for choosing a new iPhone over healthcare, he challenged their connectedness to information and each other. By challenging a major democratized resource that has worked in their favor as a rallying point for resistance, he constrained their right to free assembly. In a way, he resurrected the welfare queen myth to challenge their very identities.

Confession: Most of my Black Studies courses have been Africa-based, so my America-based race politics are actually heavily influenced by Black Twitter.

For a long time, one of the critiques leveled at Millenials was that we were “armchair activists” and that social media not only enabled that form of activism, but insidiously made millennials feel as if they were doing something, with the echo-chamber of online platforms leading many to believe that their message was getting out. The #Ferguson highlights several reasons this critique was unfair:

1.     “Twitter allows users who are territorially displaced to feel like they are united across both space and time.” Social media has enabled coordinated marches, protests, etc. across locations – we saw this most recently in the Women’s March and will see it again this Saturday with the March for Science. Still, the authors characterization of “territorially displaced” I think could be picked apart more. Yes, #Ferguson was a trending hashtag, and the broader Ferguson community was the seat of much of the protests in 2014, yet what was being protested was not just #Ferguson but the system it represented. I have a lot of questions here re: the importance of place for a social movement. Did people feel left out if not in Ferguson, DC, etc.?

2.     I think “armchair activism” is more powerful now, simply because social media is so much more prominent and also because the boundary between “social media” and “media” continues to decay. Literally every Trump tweet is a news story, and trending hashtags on Twitter and other platforms are now worthy of broader coverage. This isn’t to say they are effective as actual boots on the ground, but social media has made virtual voices heard in a way that speaking in private never could.

The authors write that what we need is “internet related ethnography,” and I agree. The other day I heard an interview with April Ryan, the White House Correspondent for the Urban Radio Network. She discussed the dynamics of White House press briefings and how Sean Spicer often refuses to answer questions. One of the more powerful tools to force him to answer questions, however, is that Twitter is ablaze as he speaks, and reporters can immediately read off tweets and trends in their questions to him – he gets both immediate response and pushback, and that can force him to answer more clearly.

As the Social Media book has pointed out, we need to think beyond online and offline as separate realms, recognizing that a phone is a tool as much as it is a connection to some “offline” world separate from the one we inhabit daily.  

Social Media Preferences

Like many other current undergraduates, I’m in the Facebook group for the incoming WashU class of 2021. In that group, a lot of the prospective students have been posting a short paragraph about themselves and their interests along with a couple photos. I’ve been casually reading through some of their posts if they show up on my newsfeed, and a common theme I have noticed is that a lot of people (or at least, enough that I have noticed) have been saying something along the lines of “I don’t use Facebook much, but check out my Instagram instead or “I only made Facebook for college purposes but here’s my Instagram handle.” I thought this was interesting because when my friends and I were graduating high school, Facebook and Instagram were equally popular among students. However, I know among my older friends who hang out with my oldest brother, Facebook was the dominant source of social media. Even though there is only three year difference between me and these incoming students, there is a clear preference for Instagram among those students. I guess I should not be surprised because I have always been told that younger kids only used Instagram and/or Twitter. For example, a friend of mine who worked as a camp counselor over the summer had told me that all of the kids in her group (middle schoolers) only had Instagram and thought Facebook was for “old people.”

I think I was just surprised to see this preference play out where I could actually observe it rather than me hearing it from someone. For the students who made Facebook for the purposes of college, their profile will probably have more of a professional tone because their main goal is to connect with other students, be part of groups, or know when events are happening. They won’t have those embarrassing middle school pictures and statuses that my friends and I all had. It’s a different use of Facebook for them. I am interested to see what the preference for social media will be in a few years from now. 

What is Online Activism?

After reading "#Ferguson," I was particularly challenged in my way of understanding online activism and how it relates to offline activism. Perhaps, even, the article suggests, the online-offline distinction isn't even as discontinuous as one may think. Offline may be a continuation of online activism and vice versa.

I find there to be a large distinction between spreading news and information to others and what I consider to be online activism. I appreciate scrolling through online news sources and reading articles, and I appreciate when friends share and post particularly interesting articles. What I often don't consider valuable is the political echo-chamber that fills my timeline and newsfeed from time to time. I generally take statuses stating opinions rather casually with my thought process being "it's just online activism." To me, online activism means very little if you don't act in person. I feel as though social media and online activism can create a sense of being aware and making a difference, when in reality, a status or tweet doesn't have that large of an impact.

I know that in some sense, this way of thinking is wrong. Online activism brings attention to topics that may not be otherwise covered in the media, and this is extremely important. What "#Ferguson" brought attention to me was how Twitter can be an important site for activism by allowing those to voice opinions who are not typically represented. For example, the article mentions that percentage of African Americans that have mobile technology and what that can provide. "Today, 56 percent of the U.S. population carries video-enabled smartphones, and the use of mobile technology is particularly high among African Americans. The increased use and availability of these technologies has provided marginalized and racialized populations with new tools for documenting incidents of state-sanctioned violence and contesting media representations of racialized bodies and marginalized communities" (5). I had most definitely been overlooking how social media can serve as a platform to get opinions out in a productive manner.

I however, still weird about online activism. I recognize it's importance. I recognize that strength often comes in numbers, and online interfaces allow hundreds to thousands of people to connect and support one another in ways that they could not have before. The article mentions the story of Elzie and how online activism led to her offline activism and success while collaborating with many others that reached out through online activism as well. Here, the online activism sped up offline activism and actions, which is extremely valuable. Converting online activism to offline activism is one of the most productive and influential things that can come be produced from hashtags and statuses and tweets.

I think my issue lies, rather, in something that I once labeled as "activism" but is not really in that category at all. I am referring to aggressive statuses, tweets, posts, etc. that state an opinion with not much substance behind them. These posts then lead to discussion, but not productive discussion--I have never seen a controversy in the Facebook comments go well. Social media is not only about activism--it is also about posting photos of your day, interacting with friends, etc.--so posting controversial statuses can often bring in people that aren't actively aware. This can be good in some cases, because social media can make people more aware. But many times, I think social media polarizes people in their opinions further. I don't think that social media posts ever sway people to believe something drastically different. Social media often acts as a place for people to state their firm opinion and not budge. I was at first associating this social media behavior with the online activism that the article was talking about, but after deliberation and writing this blogpost I realize these two are not the same thing. I'm not exactly sure how I would label aggressive posts and aggressive discussions on social media, but it definitely isn't as productive or awareness-raising as the online activism "#Ferguson" described.

The Necropolitics of Facebook Filters

I've been thinking recently about the ways in which we use the internet to valorize certain bodies over others, which is not necessarily a new concept, but bringing the hyper-temporality and hyper-connectivity of social media into play truly changes the playing field.  The internet has sort of "spread" the kind of valuation across different contexts, to the point where people all over the world share the same kind of valuation system.

I am specifically thinking about the French profile filters, and what that meant. Why were French bodies specifically chosen to be mourned and institutionalized by literally overlaying the flag of a racist colonial nation over one's profile image (read: online persona, face, veiling with the flag etc.) Which bodies are rendered disposable and devalued to the point of inexistence/irrelevance? Bombs went off across the world, yet the French flag was the only one strewn across public buildings and Facebook profiles. The mirroring of the public representation of nation(s) having the French strewn across them in parallel with the Facebook profiles being covered as well is an interesting point to note.

I am also thinking about the rainbow profile filters. What did it mean for Facebook to valorize marriage equality, a victory for a very specific and narrow conceptualization of queerness? It was the first profile filter released (to the best of my knowledge), and it was available globally -- so, what does that mean for "filtering", what must happen for Facebook to institutionalize representation? What kinds of bodies become valued/are valued through such acts? I remember feeling very helpless as I saw so many people change their profile photos, for one thing, the colonizer who brutally murdered and enslaved so many was being valorized, while at the same time, executed bodies rendered disposable and dead by imperialism were ignored.

Is Facebook then truly a revolutionary platform? I do not know the answer to that, and this might be something I talk about in another post--the kind of epistemology forced onto activism by Facebook "rules".

iR8

I have a reading response, and I might even have an abstract for Friday, but at this moment, I am undertaking all kinds of emotional labor being irate at this jackass in the Physics department.

First, recall what we learned earlier in the semester about physics and gender. Remember? Got it? Good. Now read this hot garbage.

Here's my response. Hopefully StudLife runs it. In the meantime, I'm putting on FB, StudLife's FB, and I may even send it to the chair there.

“Serious students don’t care if their instructors look different from themselves. They are almost always older (are we concerned that there aren’t many 18-year-old professors?). Serious students do not feel ‘anxiety and isolation’ if ‘everyone except you, including the professor, looks the same’; they regard this as a stimulating challenge to prove themselves.” – Katz, StudLife Opinion, 4/18/2017

How dare Professor Katz minimize the very real experiences of my non-white or non-male colleagues who have braved incredible obstacles and curmudgeonly old professors – Katz most certainly included – to come to and thrive at Washington University in St. Louis. The anxiety, depression, and other mental health issues with which many of them are burdened make my colleagues no less serious than their white male colleagues who, more often than not, get away with producing comparatively mediocre work year in and year out. Katz’ basically admits that he is blind to the extraordinary feats and tenacity of our colleagues who silently tolerate race-, gender-, and ability-insensitive white male professors while keeping up with the bare minimum of academic and non-academic requirements.

Katz would do well to meet my colleagues of color who do double duty by advising students of color (both disproportionately and in addition to white students), simply because those students would rather not seek the aid of professors like Katz, given the option. (Gee, I wonder why.) I doubt very highly that Katz has ever had to fit professional service in various forms of diversity work into his already busy research, publishing, teaching, and service schedule, but I assure you that they have. Further, I doubt that Katz has had his very identity threatened or minimized in print the way he has threatened and minimized others’ – excluding this response, of course.

Katz should read the peer-reviewed work done by anthropologists that find that women in the sciences suffer disproportionately from sexual assault, particularly at the hands of their superiors. Is that a hurdle he had to overcome? Statistically, no. I dare Katz to tell those women that they aren’t “serious students.” Maybe Katz can talk to a female colleague about how students are more likely to seek counselling from them or use their office hours as confessional time, than they are male professors’. Is that a burden that Katz deals with in addition to his regular responsibilities? Statistically, no.

Katz should gain the acquaintance of an Indigenous colleague – here at Washington University or elsewhere. Did you know that 65% of Native Americans graduate high school, 9% earn a college degree, and 0.0035% earn a PhD? How’s that for statistically significant? That’s not even considering contract employment, tenure track, and tenure as possible objectives thereafter. Is Katz saying that they are disproportionately not serious about their work?

I think of my discipline – anthropology – which has historically propagated racist and sexist theories of human evolution to justify colonialism, imperialism, capitalism, and other forms of white supremacy. And yet, we wonder why few people of color want to join us in our endeavor to study human cultures. Perhaps it’s because anthropology is largely the study of how white people see the world. Perhaps it’s because in our bodies of literature, people of color have historically been represented as strange or primitive research subjects, rather than as equal collaborators in the undertaking of research. I challenge to Katz – as I am sure he challenges his students – to think critically about his discipline in the same way I do my own.

Neither Katz nor I have any idea what it takes to represent our White male identities in our respective fields in relative isolation – we stand on the shoulders of giants and those giants are white and male. He should acknowledge this. What Katz’ opinion demonstrates is that he suffers – as many of academicians do in their later years – from disciplinary myopia. I would venture to guess that Katz has never considered that there are manifold worlds, sciences, and philosophies outside of his own. (For example, over in sociology, they’ve known about gender issues in physics since at least the 1980s.)

Finally, women and people of color are all too familiar with having to constantly support the validity of their experiences with “proof.” There is a lot of peer-reviewed work that backs up all of my claims. And you know what? I’m not even going to cite them. Katz has one of the best institutional research libraries in the country at his fingertips and he should learn to use it.

As long as he refuses to see his privilege as an old white man practicing an old white discipline at an old white institution, he knowingly insists on being a shining example of a bygone era. Instead, I suggest that Katz take steps toward becoming a model for his white male peers and students to be the kind of ally that non-white and non-male students need when they have the courage to traverse fields in STEM. He can start by apologizing to minorities of the Washington University community and commending them for producing exceptional work while carrying a burden that he has the privilege of never having to know.

Failing that, Katz is obsolete because the labor is already underway to make the future of STEM brighter and more inclusive.