CBC hero and host of the radio show Q, Jian Ghomeshi, has been surrounded by controversy after allegations of sexual misconduct surfaced, and he was fired from the CBC. Currently 9 women have come forward with allegations, however, when there were only 1 or 2, Ghomeshi released a statement on social media, hoping to prevent a social media outburst. The support of his statement was short lived as the list of accusers grew to 9 women. Each of the women seemed to be convinced to share their experiences as other women started coming forward- their shared experiences marking a trend, a trend of inappropriate behaviour by Ghomeshi that wasn’t confined to “one uncertain occasion”. Not only do the 9 women together create a stronger case against Ghomeshi, but the women themselves, by initiating an exigence to share among one another, create an exigence for many women to share their stories of sexual abuse.

These blogs from MTV host Jessi Cruikshank and this other blog are examples of the stories women have been sharing about their personal experiences with sexual assault, spurned on by the numerous accounts of alleged assault at the hands of Ghomeshi.

Social media is shown in these blogs as an outlet for personal narratives. However, these narratives are written and shared as a result of an exigence created by the Ghomeshi affair and the numerous women continuing to come forward.  It is important to note how social media marks trends in what is shared. At first, when Ghomeshi released his statement, he was surrounded by overwhelming support from fans, even the Green party leader Elizabeth May. However, as the women alleging assault against him grew, the trend on social media was to label him a sexual predator, a flawed former hero, and a deviant.

Three women wasn’t enough for blogs like the above to show up, or for popular belief of Ghomeshi’s guilt to develop. However, as women continued to come forward, the authenticity of their statements became legitimate by their numbers.

The Ghomeshi affair raises many questions concerning allegations of assault, why women are afraid to come forward, and society’s views concerning sexual deviancy. However, the numbers of women coming forward reminded me of Missing Sarah, and The World is Moving Around because of  the concept of cultural authority. Many of the women speaking out about their experiences with Ghomeshi are educated and accomplished, however, before there were many of them and before they put their names on the record, they were not believed. Ghomeshi was seen, by the general population on social media, as more credible- the likes on his media release “jilted girlfriend” claim had hundreds of thousands of likes at first, but as women put their names forward and their numbers grow, the likes declined by hundreds a day.

Overall, I think the Ghomeshi affair’s discussion over social media indicates dominant public opinion on the affair, and the growing personal narratives of various women’s experiences with sexual assault are the result of an exigence created by the sheer amount of women coming forward, and the relative acceptance of these allegations over social media.

(A personal story, it will not be my entire post.)

I grew up without cable T.V., and the only channel I watched growing up was CBC. At 5:30 every night, The Simpsons would air, and I watched it religiously. As a child, I thought that because The Simpsons was a cartoon, it was for children- even though my mum constantly told me it was “a cartoon for adults”.

I grew up in a non- religious family, but I watched the Simpsons a lot. In fact, I was told the story of Adam and Eve through the Simpsons, in their 10th season, episode 18- “Simpsons Bible Stories”. In the Simpsons version of this essential, cultural, religious and foundational story, Homer actually eats all the apples from the tree, but blames Marge when God comes around to condemn them! From then on, I was sure that Adam blamed Eve for eating the apples, and that God was mistaken.

My Lit 12 teacher told me that the Simpsons is a rich source of social satire and irony. Looking back on my conception of Adam and Eve from the Simpsons, I see the social satire, and the questioning of themes that form the foundation of society and culture (originating from long ago).

I like the Simpsons version of Adam and Eve better, but I digress.

Maus and the Simpsons are similar in that they perform important cultural work in the form of a comic or cartoon. The Simpsons subersively interrogates society by poking fun at family values, cultural traditions and american stereotypes, while Maus, is an autobiography of the holocaust told through the form of a comic, a less traditional and respected medium.

Maus is an autobiography struggling to tell a tragic narrative concerning modern, western genocide- an atrocity and a subject that is as sad as it is unbelievable. When approaching the holocaust, the historian’s approach is, widely, fact based. The American Holocaust Museum does not use adjectives in any of its descriptions of the event. Although disputed, it is believed best practice not to include personal opinions in the form of emotionally charged descriptions and adjectives.

However, Spiegelman’s job is different, as he is writing an autobiography of his father’s life and holocaust experience, and one would expect a more emotionally charged and biased telling.  Michael Rothberg writes that “Spiegelman transgresses the sacredness of Aushwitz by depicting in comic strip images his surviver father’s suffering and by refusing to sentimentalize the survivor (665).” The medium of the comic allows Spiegelman to escape from the sensitive and tragic sentiment of the camps, and portray his father as a real and flawed person, instead of the tragic victim. He constantly portrays his father as flawed, petty and frugal, commenting that “in some ways he’s just like the racist caricature of the miserly old jew” (1, 131). Vladek is also seen as racist, himself, despite being in the camps, in book II when he is upset that they pick up a black hitchhiker.

The comic form allows Art to break away from the sentimentalized and traditional holocaust memoirs and their subjects, and in doing so, he also creates a popular and accessible medium for a larger variety of readers. The comic, as a subversive text, filled with social commentary, attracts readers- but that doesn’t mean that it doesn’t have value. Perhaps younger readers, or those interested in comics and art will pick up the book and learn about the valuable cultural narrative that is Maus and Vladek’s story.

Comics, as Maus was, are seen as fiction. However, if they are fiction or not, comics and cartoons, in their various forms allow for a transgression of accepted social sentiment- they have more leeway and less of a traditional framework than written mediums. In doing so, they can do important work, making pointed social statements, satirizing society and social tropes, and even telling tragic stories.

Works Cited:

Rothberg, Michael and Spiegelman, Art. We were talking Jewish: Art Spiegelman’s Maus as Holocaust Production. Contemportary Literature Vol. 35 (Winter: 1994). 665.

Maggie De Vries’s Missing Sarah frequents this week’s blog posts, and many of the posts related Jiwani and Young’s article “Missing and Murdered Women: Reproducing Marginality in News Discourse”. Maggie De Vries’s autobiography of Sarah gives the reader an opportunity to empathize and understand a sex worker’s life and a DTES perspective- breaking through the stigma of sex workers and DTES residents perpetuated by the media (and ourselves). There were three trends I noticed when reading the class blogs this week:

1. Blogs concerned different ways of looking at the DTES through connection, breaking through stigma, and education.

2. Blogs addressed problematic representation/social action.

3. Blogs examined the ways we attempt to understand the origins of sex workers/how society grapples with the concept.

1. News Ways of Looking at Sex Work and DTES: Connection, Breaking of Stigma and Education.

Kira writes from an educated perspective, a perspective that considers the alternative: that sex work is voluntary, that women have a say in the matter, that perhaps the occupation is enjoyable and lucrative for those that choose it. Her blog post is reminiscent of the movie, The Sessions, where the main character’s job is to allow disabled people to have sex- really changing their lives. Helen Hunt plays a relatively normal woman, a mother and a wife. Carly writes about how an instagram account allowed her to access within herself “compassion and understanding” into the world of the DTES, through humanizing photos of the residents. Sunny writes about the DTES as a community, one which, as she became more immersed in, she understood better. These three writers break through stigma through education, connection through social media, and immersion.

2. Problematic Representation/Social Action.

Stephen writes about the problematic representation of Tiffany Drew in Foresaken, arguing that her bio manifests a “fractured identity”, without allowing the reader more understanding of the nuances of her life. Patrick also critiques Foresaken, as he questions whether the biographies capture “life from the inside” as opposed to events that have social significance, such as the common sequence of: birth, drug addiction and death/disappearance. Sam writes about figures such as Trayvon Martin, or the missing women, whose media representations (missing posters, mug shots) represent them as degenerates and “asking for it”. Riley brings up monetary reconciliation for families of victims as a problematic offer of social action, raising questions such as: what amount of money could replace a loved one? Is this a result of society’s failure to investigate this women, is the government attempting to pay these families off?

3. The Ways We Understand/Grapple With Sex Work, Social Issues.

Many of the biographies in Foresaken are heavily focussed on explaining why these women ended up on the DTES, as if we need a logical reason for these women’s “degeneration”. Rafaella addresses how Maggie De Vries portrays Sarah as “vulnerable” and how this explains her entering the sex trade. Al writes about “naming the other”, and how the disenfranchised/marginalized become numbers- 4000 dead in Liberia of Ebola, while the 1 western Spanish person has their full name on display. The missing women are also grouped together, however, it is interesting that Foresaken attempts to individually name the women to give them more social respect. Al shows the way we comprehend social issues, for the marginalized, is sometimes quantified.

Works Cited:

De Vries, Sarah. Missing Sarah: A Memoir of Loss. Penguin Canada, 2008. Print.

Jiwani, Yasmin; Young, Mary- Anne. “Missing and Murdered Women: Reproducing Marginality in News Discourse”. Canadian Journal of Communication (2006): npa. Print.

Ubc blogs of Eng 474: (linked)

Al Shaibani “What’s in a Name?”

Carly Bean “Humanizing Vancouver’s Forgotten and Ignored Society”

Kira Nordhoj “The Silent Motive for Sex Work”

Patrick Connolly “The Second Life”

Rafaella Caffo “Vulnerability as her Drug”

Riley Murtha “Monetary Compensation for Families of Missing Women Insufficient”

Sam Cohn Cousineau “If They Gunned you Down, What Picture Would They Use?”

Stephen Cook “Revisiting the Portrait of Tiffany Drew”

Food is universal and food is relevant. 

Instagram has become synonymous with food photos, and food blogs are one of the most popular categories of blogs on the web. Lucy Longs (in a reply to Kiersten Mcgaughey’s article) responds that “food, perhaps because of the universality of eating, is a particularly popular topic of blogs”. However, despite food and eating’s universality, food photos are a common source of soft ridicule among a social-media centred society. Whipping out your smartphone to take a picture of your meal is “so gen-y” and should probably be featured on Portlandia as a skit with Fred and Carrie.

Nevertheless, coming back to Long’s point on the universality of food, food is relevant- and for some, interesting. The types of food blogs vary from vegan ventures, gluten-free goodness to traditional but exciting ethnic cuisine.

Although food online is a new age concept, perhaps it is only because the internet is a new age form of media. Traditionally, there was no avenue to share food photos, or access endless collections of recipes with the click of a mouse. Food is universal, interesting to most, and now there exists an avenue to share it. The progression to an internet full of food no longer seems to far fetched.

Food also plays a large role in our lives today: we have varying dietary habits, lots of variety, and for the most part, expendable income. How much would an online food journal inform us of our projected narratives? Ethnicity, social class, moral concerns and principles, interests?

A personal spin:

I am an athlete and a vegan. My values lie in the treatment of animals and the health of our bodies: from my instagram page this is very clear (kenblen), and well as my own personal blog Kenblenblog.com. You’re welcome to check me out and learn about my online narrative :).

Works cited

Longs, Lucy. Reply to “Food in Binary: Identity and Interaction in Two German Food Blogs”. Bowling Green State University. <http://ist-socrates.berkeley.edu/~caforum/preview/volume9/pdf/mcgaughey.pdf>. 2010.

Mcgaughey, Kerstin. Food in Binary: Identity and Interaction in Two German Food Blogs. Boston University.<http://ist-socrates.berkeley.edu/~caforum/preview/volume9/pdf/mcgaughey.pdf>. 2010.

Eli Pariser speaks about the way we receive information online, how algorithms determine what we see and do not see. Ultimately, algorithms act as sensors. The algorithms, selecting our preferred avenues, gather information from how often we click on things, who we speak to online, and who we appear to be close with (photos, being tagged, etc.). Essentially, the algorithms create an online profile of a person. A created profile, although created by an algorithm without “morals”, according to Eli Pariser, does gather information from what we choose to put online.

The information we put online, including the “about” section on Facebook, our photos, status updates and location updates, all contribute to a created online narrative and identity. Facebook features glamorous lives, ones of adventure, parties and friendship. We keep the photos we like, and “untag” the ones we do not. Our online narratives showcase who we want to be and what we want people to see about out lives. We avoid the mundane and unpleasantries of normal every day life, such as: failing grades, family fights, failing relationships…or the cold porridge we eat for breakfast.

Just as algorithms filter information, we filter what we put online. Our online identities are created by us, showcasing the aspects of ourselves we find worthy and interesting. Algorithms, although censoring, and without human morals, do reflect what we choose to put out there.

Algorithms reflect our perceived images based on our online information. For this blogger, this raises questions about the location of authenticity online.

However, authenticity of online narratives may not be so different than questions of authenticity of more historical narratives/diaries (like Anne Frank). This raises questions like:

What makes social media narratives different from the more traditional narratives? Or, what similarities do social media narratives share with the traditional? Are they one in the same, with social media as the modern equivalent?