Monthly Archives: November 2018

If you haven’t heard of Kim Kardashian, you’ve probably been living under a rock for the last 11 years. You read that right: 11 years. It’s been over a decade since her fateful sex tape with then-boyfriend Ray J was leaked onto the internet. Since then, there has been much debate over whether she is a beautiful woman comfortable in her own skin and sexuality, or if she is indecent and a terrible role model. Regardless of your stance on that, there’s no denying her fame and influence. What really interests me about Kim K’s social media presence isn’t even Kim herself – it’s her followers.

On October 31st, 2018, Kardashian posted a picture on Instagram with her four sisters, Khloe, Kourtney, Kylie, and Kendall, all wearing lingerie and authentic Victoria’s Secret Angel wings.

Pretty great photo, right? Five women comfortable in their sexuality, going out as sisters. I was feeling empowered and good about the world – until I read the comment section. Mingled among the very positive comments from awed fans were several hateful and judgemental comments. One user wrote, “I look forward to the day that you will be without butt implants”, clearly referencing the various amounts of surgical enhancements the sisters have had done. Another quipped, “Can we just take a minute and realize there is no way in hell any of them would actually be in a Victoria secret show if they [weren’t] popular”. Some trolls also attacked Kim and her sisters for the revealing nature of the photo. Kim herself has been criticized for posting revealing photos while being a mother.

Kim Kardashian, as I mentioned before, is well known for posting sensational (and often revealing) photos. This kind of celebrity, who prompts both very positive and very negative responses, is always at risk from critics. By giving critics online access to celebrities, social media has magnified this risk. Not many people would go up to the Kardashians and tell them, “Talk about blown up egos. Kendall is the only one who should be in this picture,” but one person had no qualms about leaving this exact sentence in Kim’s comment section.

The problem is, social media has a dehumanizing effect. You wouldn’t go up to a stranger and offer them your negative opinion on their weight or outfit; there is a certain level of basic respect that most people try to give to other humans. That doesn’t stop us from having opinions and biases about other people that we disagree with. It simply stops us from acting on these negative opinions. But through a screen, and across a country, connected by wires and wireless, strangers seem less human. This respect isn’t a requirement anymore. And, because you can hide behind anonymity, there are minimal consequences.

The idea of “trolling” isn’t new. The word itself is associated with the internet and social media, but social media hasn’t created a new type of person; it has simply given unsavoury people a way to communicate their opinions without the risk of being immediately punched in the face.

WeChat is one of the most popular ways to communicate with others and one of the most popular social media in China. Phone numbers are the only thing you need to set up a WeChat account. Not only sending messages, but you can also share pictures on Moments, which is one section of WeChat, and comment or like the pictures posted by your WeChat friends. You can add others as friends just by their phone numbers, their WeChat names or if you are in the same group, you can add each other as friends.

Recently, WeChat has become one of the most popular platforms for selling goods. We even create WeChat Business to describe the WeChat accounts, no matter individuals’ or official, that use the massive market of WeChat and sell goods by sending information to individuals or showing items on Moments. Tmtpost points out that WeChat becomes popular for business for its large business scale, low set-up cost, convenient business model and high revenue potential.

But actually, the massive amount of business account has changed the WeChat I enjoy using. As Shuai Yang, Sixing Chen and Bin Li claim on Journal of Global Marketing, WeChat “can be considered as a marriage between traditional e-business and social networking communications”. We used to use WeChat as a way to communicate and show our daily life to others and see others’ lives. But now, we use it as a way to make benefits. It has changed the relationships between users and their WeChat friends. For example, I used to communicate for sharing thoughts, but now, I communicate for my own benefits—buying cheap goods or selling goods for money. The relationships are now being tied by self-interests. In the Moments, sellers like and comment their buyers’ pictures. It seems like a win-win choice, but the intrinsic quality has changed. Furthermore, according to Shuai Yang, Sixing Chen and Bin Li, there are results suggesting that development of friendships with new customers can help the strategy of developing business relationships; but developing friendships and business relationships with experienced customers negates each other. This has proved the opinion that WeChat Business actually has changed the human relationships on WeChat.

From my perspective, WeChat Business has revealed a social dynamic that people are willing to make money through the internet using relationships with others but not as in the past—learn a skill and work hard. People are adjusting to the internet era, struggling to make money, even inventing many kinds of jobs we could not imagine in the past. It is undeniable that using social media such as WeChat to make money is a good choice, but we cannot forget the original purpose of this kind of social media—communicating. With more and more beneficial friends on WeChat, whether the future of WeChat is a marketing platform?

References
http://www.tmtpost.com/233233.html

What is WeChat? Intro to WeChat Marketing for Business

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/08911762.2016.1184363

The Momo challenge started in the summer of this year, and grew to feverish proportions in July and August. Feverish in the sense that videos of the topic were being spit out by the dozen on YouTube and gaining good traction, as can be seen from the photo below.

The Momo challenge is a successor to self-harm “challenges” like Blue Whale, wherein the goal is to drive the participants to self-harm, and eventually death. The Momo challenge differentiates itself in two distinct ways: regionally and visually. Blue Whale was situated in Russia and Europe, in terms of origin and where it was reported the most. The Momo challenge is more widespread, having been reported nearly worldwide and generally getting more coverage. Visually speaking, Blue Whale has nothing besides its title animal. The Momo Challenge has a visual marker in the form of its title character, which is actually a sculpture created by Link Factory, a Japanese special effects firm. Below is an Instagram post that gives a full view of the sculpture, as the body is usually obstructed in thumbnails.

This visual marker gives an edge over all the other harm “challenges”, as the creepy image of the sculpture’s face gives news outlets and youtubers a clear picture to use for articles and videos. The sculpture is based on Japanese folklore, and is meant to be a depiction of a malicious spirit. As such, the intimidating visage of the creature has done wonders for clickbait. In terms of social dynamics, the Momo challenge is a form of cyberbullying wherein the perpetrators pretend to be “Momo”, and the victims are those who are messaged. Allegedly, the challenge originated on WhatsApp, but any messaging platform would hold the same effect. This cyberbullying was a “flavor of the month”, videos and reports were dedicated to it during the summer, and the trend died off in September. That in itself is both disappointing and troubling. Cyberbullying is now glorified if it’s “dolled up” enough; if there’s a spooky story behind it, it can be publicized in this manner. Most media outlets luckily condemned it, but the opposite can be seen on YouTube, as evidenced by the first image. It’s being lifted up from an unacceptable act to something trendy and exciting, which is appalling enough. As disgusting as it is, this sort of change is desirable for the internet, as can be seen by the sheer popularity of it. It reflects the desires of many, and is simply another chapter in the history of the internet. Perhaps the next cyberbullying incident will follow in Momo’s footsteps, with a stage name and mask.

Several weeks ago, a piece of news went viral. A school girl killed her friend and mutilated her body because of jealousy. The reason was simple, the poor victim had a gorgeous appearance and she was more popular among peers, especially on social media. The murderer, her friend, couldn’t take it anymore, and not only killed her, but went out of her way to make sure nobody would mistake her for “beautiful” anymore.

Jealousy exists everywhere, and has so for as long as humanity has existed… it’s on the list of “seven deadly sins” for a reason!

Regarding social media, the comparison phenomenon caused by jealousy is ubiquitous as well. People tend to show their best moments on social media, they update their posts in order to collect likes and comments which can be seen as a way of craving attention. It’s undeniable that you are proud to get praised or comments from online friends. Then it turns out that the collection of likes and comments is more like a competition, which can be seen as a new social dynamic, a new form of social power. Let me give you some examples for the new dynamic. Have you ever glanced over your home page of social media software repetitively to see how many likes and comments you’ve got? It might be too exaggerating to compare this mundane phenomenon with returning to the crime scene, but you will feel a similar sense of satisfaction if you got a mountain of likes and comments. Have you ever felt jealous…even for a moment, of those who get more likes than you?  Are they better than you? I’m sure that everyone has experienced this feeling, it’s natural. It totally can be understood that everyone gets jealous sometimes and our access to social media has allowed this jealous seed to grow into a full on tree. If the victim of this terrible murder didn’t cast such a powerful shadow with her social media, would she have even been targeted in the first place? I think not.

Can you remember what we were before? Decades ago, there was no social media software like Facebook or Instagram. Instead of over-indulging ourselves for empty fame, people were down-to-earth, which meant there was less comparison and jealousy. It’s not that it didn’t happen; we just weren’t presented with as many opportunities for it to happen. This “newness” can be proof that the generation gap is like an impassible barrier, the last generation are confused with the new phenomenon caused by advanced technology, while the new generation has never known life without it. On one hand it bridges the distance of the world, but it alienates people as well. When you go to a fancy restaurant, what would you do? You care less about the taste and pay more attention on how it looks like. You want everyone to know you are having dinner at a fashionable place. You’re engaged with social media and post photos online, and then you talk less to people around you. You become less connected with people you are supposed to be experiencing the dinner with.

Wake up, people! I appeal to everyone, put down your phones just for a while and talk with others. Don’t disguise yourselves with the mask of social media. Don’t make comparisons with fake information. Don’t leave the best moments on Facebook and Instagram, while hiding a darker reality.

ASTU 1OO Blog post 2 assignment