Student A
1.) My original thought on Feminism is just girl power, empowerment to all womankind. While reading this excerpt, I realized how we as a society do tend to think of feminism as a more negative word, and that the definition is stereo-typically meaning women who don’t positively conform to society’s thoughts on how a woman should act.
2.) According to Gay, essential feminism is the “notion that there are right and wrong ways to be a feminist, and there are consequences for doing feminism wrong.” A part where she discusses essential feminism is on page 170, when she says “I sometimes cringe when someone refers to me as a feminist, as if I should be ashamed of my feminism or as if the word feminist is an insult.” The problems created by this insult are that some women are afraid to stand up for themselves because they don’t want to be labeled in a negative way, and they don’t want to do what is perceived by society as “normal” because they don’t want the other end of the spectrum to label them in a negative way either.
3.) I don’t believe Gay is a “bad feminist.” She explains how she is sometimes afraid to be a feminist, but her whole excerpt explains how she still goes with girl power, so I believe she is an okay feminist. She cares what people think a lot, which is a normal response found within all of us, but she still acknowledges the issues of gender equality and she doesn't add to essential feminism.
Student B
1. My own definition of feminist is a woman who fights for equal rights and hopes to live in a world where both men and woman are given the same opportunities as men and are treated the same. Gay's definition is similar to mine because we both believe that there are problems with equal rights but have trouble truly understanding feminists based on myths and bad reputation that media gives them.
2. Gay explains how "Essential feminism" is bad because it basically tells woman how to be a true feminist and what is wrong and right. she says an essential feminism is an angry woman who rants about everythingI and acts a certain way. I feel like this contradicts the true purpose of feminism because they are fighting for equal rights and equality yet they are telling woman that they have to do things a certain way in order to be like them. The problems that this concept creates is that it gives feminism a bad name and is why a lot of people have negative thoughts about this.
3. I don't think the there is a bad or good feminist, she states her ideas and agrees with a lot of feminist views and supports them, she is aware of the injustice and although she doesn't do everything in her power to fight for women but she wrote this article so she's obviously trying in her own way. She is aware of the injustice and in her own way spreads the message, while i think she can do more i personally wouldn't call her a bad feminist.
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From a Moodle discussion on the piece "My Crowd Experience: The Mob Project"
Question Set One: How does social media enable phenomena like flash mobs? Use the Dunbar number (Limits of Friendship, p. 236) to examine the ways in which social media allows memes to spread. How does the rule of three enable viral ideas? Do the limitations of the Dunbar number represent a limitation on viral culture as well?
Student A
I believe that social media enables phenomena like flash mobs because it can spread messages that people can agree with or disagree with very quickly. For example, on Instagram there will always be people commenting their own side of the argument in the comment section below a meme. In "Limits of Friendship," Dunbar states, "judging from the size of an average human brain, the number of people the average person could have in her social group was a hundred and fifty." This quotes shows us how many people we can have in our social group, this means that the people you associate with must associate with many more people and so on. This could be the reason why memes go viral because of the constant sharing from people to people.
Student B
Social media enables phenomena such as flash mobs by bringing up many people with very similar interests, and social media makes it easier for people to come together and create something that would otherwise take a long time to come together.
Social media also create kind of a social group which people with the same experiences and struggles can come together to discuss common inconveniences and laugh about them.
The Dunbar number is implemented through these concepts such as memes because social media directly connects to through people that you can relate to and create bonds with.
These rules create viral trends because the people that are creating them know that others will relate to the certain situation or situations. "From the moment flash mobs first began to spread, there was a term applied to them by both boosters and detractors, and that term was meme." This quote defines what a meme is and how it could relate back to flash mobs as people coming together with common interests
Question Set Two: What role does emotion play in our use of technology? Does social media support or hinder our emotional development?What impact do memes or the bandwagon effect have on the ways in which we use technology? Do you turn to social media when you are bored? Does our ability to connect to others rely on emotions?
Student A:
I think that the role that emotion plays in our use of technology is by the way you interact online. Also that includes what you see because not all the time are you going to agree with someone else's post. “Bandwagon effect: the instinctive tendency of the human animal to rely on the actions of others in choosing its own course of action” (Wasik 482). I think that social media hinders your emotional development because if you look at multiple comments on a posts and think that if the majority agree with it you should as well. The impact of the bandwagon effect has on that ways in which we use technology is that “we get interested in the things we see others getting interested in” (Wasik 482). We rely on other people to say something before and if we are put on the spot usually will agree. Yes I turn to social media when I am bored or sometimes I watch netflix. Our ability to connect with others relies on emotion because some people are not opened to show any emotion in front of the people we don't know.
Student B:
Our emotion plays a huge role in our use of technology. For example, if we see a case of police brutality on twitter, we usually assume that what was shown to us is the truth. Seeing all of that makes me feel sad because I think of the family and how the death of the person wasn't necessary. But that's not always the case social media makes me sympathize for the person that was killed. But social media doesn't always say the truth. It just makes us feel that way. I feel like social media hinders our emotional development because it affects the way we view certain situations. Twitter and Instagram is always full of memes, my friends always send me what they see on there. I feel like a lot of people on social media go along with what everyone else does. I go on social media all the time when I'm bored. That's a way of entertainment for me. I like to see the latest gossip, and know what else is trending. There's also always funny things that appear on snapchat, twitter and Instagram. Yes because that's usually how we connect with a person. If we have a connection with them we are more likely to talk to them more or become friends. That's why me and my roommates connected so well because emotionally we are so similar.
Student C:
Young adults and anyone born in the 90's or after are constantly letting technology become their main source of communication. They use it to communicate with friends and family and to stay up to date with the world. I have been plagued time to time with obsessing over Twitter or Instagram because of a celebrity's new post or a picture my closest friend just posted of us. We become disconnected with each other and begin to feel disenfranchised if our phones are taken away. We constantly forget what it means to make a connection without technology making the connection for us.
Memes have transitioned quite quickly into, typically, pictures with references to outside events using an unrelated photo by adding caption. Dictionary.com defines a meme as "a humorous image, video, piece of text, etc. that is copied (often with slight variations) and spread rapidly by Internet users." It is has become the new chain letter and instead of through email it is sent through text or posted onto social media. Wasik agrees: "The other technilogical reasons for the rise of the meme/viral idea is perhaps more obvious: the Internet."
I do turn to social media in crisis of boredom. I want to occupy myself so that I don't look out of place or to take my mind off of things.
We constantly need an emotional connection to bond with people, so yes, we do lose a sense of connection when we lose emotion through an intent connection.
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