Recently in class we have been talking about Facebook and doing homework on Facebook. Who knew I would ever get homework related to Facebook. Only in Dr. McNeill’s ASTU 100 class, where we focus on life narratives and their roles, has this ever happened. To say the least, I never realized how much of my life and how much information Facebook pushes to post to the web for millions to see.

The first thing that we noted as a class was that Facebook is always asking to post more information about you in order to get you in touch with other people you know, so people can find you and you can find others. In order to this, they are constantly telling you that your profile in only __% complete and more information is required to make it 100% complete. They ask for stuff like your hometown, your current town, your relationship status, to link your family members, are you in a relationship and if so with who, age, birthday and so on. Because they are always adding in new options of what you can add and say about yourself, it makes it really hard to always have your Facebook profile 100% complete.

We also looked closely at status updates and some of the things you can post in them such as location, mood, friends and even pictures making status updates more and more personal. Facebook even pushes for you to add these details to help create your personal profile of close friends and highly visited areas. With this, Facebook events from these people and places stand out first in your news feed since they are seen as more important. By doing this, Facebook also pushes away updates from people that you rarely or never interact with making them almost invisible. I see this on a day to day basis with my Facebook account where I have 1000+ friends but I only see posts from around 100 to 200 people that I interact with most.

As for advertisements on Facebook, we looked at many people profile and looked at what advertisements they saw in comparison to another person saw. On my profile, there were many advertisement for loans and banks and always about savings, saving and making money. I found this very interesting since many of my posts and all my information on my profile link me a college student and Facebook is able to recognize this and push advertisement that may attract me.

By doing this, Facebook creates a social circle for you that it sees as your closest friends and most interacted with and keeps you updated with them the most while also trying to attract you to certain advertisements such as if you where a college student or are in need of weight lose or other services you may relate to.

Further, think of everything you have posted all the way back to when you first created your Facebook profile such as all the pictures and status updates, conversations and different interactions. This is all information and content that Facebook now has in their possession forever even if you have deleted it off your profile.

This really makes me question my Facebook use and what people can see and what Facebook has on mine in their possession. But still because of all of this, I will probably still use Facebook, I will just limit what I post and the detail of the content I post.

So in the past few weeks, we have encountered multiple attacks against women on the UBC campus. These attacks have been targeted against young women who have been walking alone late at night around campus. Of the four girls that have been attacked, they have all been wearing skirts and been dragged off main roads into the woods while walking alone. This have raised concern and awareness to the RCMP on campus and local students, staff, and the general public around Vancouver.

It has been a topic of discussion between almost all students and staff throughout campus. I can personally say that it has been something that has been brought up in each of my classes and it has always been regarding how women can protect themselves and stay safe in these times. But what advice should be given for men? Why can men walk freely without having to worry about being assaulted or accused.

To this, I wanna bring up how in my Political Science class on monday, one young man brought up about how after the third assault, he had many of his friends calling and texting him question if it was him that was attacking these women. They were saying that he looked exactly like the description of the attacker. He also mention how he feels attacked and worried for his safety now and possibly being mis-accused for something he has no relation to. From a guy who doesn’t live on campus and never stays on campus past 4pm, he felt victimized.

To this, the description of the man preforming these attacks is very vague and does not describe a certain individual alone, instead can connect to a large group of men. Another ironic thing that I realized the other day was we are having these attacks now after the exposure of the Sauder School of Business rape chants that occurred after Sauder frosh. Could these attacks be an act of rebellions’ against UBC for the ban of frosh for years to follow?

I believe that men and women should be warned and protected equally while these attacks are taking place. It may be a feminist thought, but all men and women should be looked at equally in a way the men should not be aloud to walk freely without having to worry while women must not walk alone and must be ready in case an attack may come for them.

Over the last few weeks of class, we have discussed the idea of globalization through blogs and also graphic narratives. Blogs such as Where is Raed by Salam Pax in which Pax blogs about the events that where taking place in Baghdad, we also read Baghdad Burning by Riverbend who is a teenage girl living through the events in Baghdad. Lastly, we spend some time reading Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi which is a graphic novel that deals with the author telling her story growing up through the Islamic Revolution. An idea present in all three of these narratives is war and how war has affected and changed the lives of many.

Pax is always blogging about how bombings and attacks are happening on his city as he types his blog, but he able to bring a sense of humour into his blog posts. I feel that Pax sees all the attacks and acts against his city his city as normal and doesn’t fear or worry much of it anymore as it has become an everyday occurrence. He is always out taking pictures of the events going on in the streets and doesn’t seem to worry much that he could get in trouble for his actions. Not to forget, Pax writes his blog in an inviting manner that really questions the audience and has an engaging attitude that causes people to question his existence. As brought up by Gillian Whitlock in Word Made Flesh, people start to ask the question, “was he real?” and many thought the CIA, Mossad, or Baathist regime had an agent posting (2). I feel that these questioning came up because of the genre in which Pax posted and was so open and whiling to show the terror of what was happening. I questioned myself the first time I was reading his blog because he had so much information on the events taking place, but also his willingness to share.

The the contrary, in Riverbend’s blog, she writes her posts in more of a story or novel type fashion. Similar to Satrapi’s graphic novel, Persepolis, which is written as her life narrative that reveals her everyday events that she had to endure while living through the Islamic Revolution. In both narratives, the authors feel sympathy for those that has been done wrong by the government or another force acting in rebellion. Since both women are young, educated, critical, and also vocal in acting in rebellion against for their beliefs of what is right, it makes them quite similar. Both women also touch on the idea of a western culture and influence and have their own ways of trying to connect with it. By having such a desire for this western culture, it shows both of their willingness to rebel against social norms.

Through the different readings with have done with Pax, Riverbend, and Persepolis, it has really opened my eyes to things that take place around the world and how fortunate I have to live somewhere so peaceful where I don’t have to worry about my life everyday. It has helped me to see that there is another world happening out there and how living in such a developed country like I do, we don’t see what really goes on from day to day.