gender studies

Blog post #9 Week 12

How does Zohran Mamdani’s campaign exemplify the strategy of combining grassroots canvassing and online campaigning? 

Zohran Mamdani has done it. He has harnessed the fandom he garnered online (with the help of a social media team run by youngsters) into real political power that has catapulted him into the mayoral office of New York freaking City. I think it's important to mention that I do not think it healthy to worship or idolize political figures. I am trying really hard not to do that. But it is hard not to feel hopeful in the wake of his win. And with such a large margin too, the message sent there is… LISTEN TO THE PEOPLE! The people want affordable rent, free and reliable public transportation, $30 minimum wage, and universal childcare. It turns out that when you promise to transform and improve the material lives of your continents in real ways rather than imagined, you can move mountains. His online campaign has shown the world the power of connecting with people in the streets and understanding your base, and the power of using memes and TikTok to connect with people that would otherwise be apolitical. Mamdani offers a new vision of the future of politics and how young people can engage online, while simultaneously having their voices heard in very real ways. 

How was this platform, tumblr, influential in the BLM movement? 

After the failure of the grand jury responsible for indicting Darren Wilson for the murden of Michael Brown, as protests were happening across the country, tumblr became a place to share information and keep the momentum of the movement alive. A lot of millennials grew up feeling as if they had no voice, and tumblr was somewhere where they could connect with one another, and movements spread quickly because most users had a common goal: uplifting one another and one another’s communities (to this day, I haven’t found another platform like it). Specifically, it’s ease of use with spreading all sorts of types of media meant that articles, gifs, photos, videos, audio clips, things from the BLM movement were being archived and shared, and the movement grew and grew. At the time, there were more than 200 million blogs on tumblr, and 50% of the users were between the ages of ~15-30, all across the world. The ability to rapidly spread information, across the globe even, igniting a huge movement… With the obvious racism and injustice taking place, people were seeing the brutality first hand.

What are some examples of social media being used to amplify stories of injustice that might otherwise be written off without digital, undeniable “proof”?

Social media allows for people to upload digital proof of injustice and circumvent some of the roadblocks that the US justice system often (read: almost always) imposes on Black and Brown people every day. Recently. I saw a TikTok of a Black woman named Cara Jones in active labor at Dallas Regional Medical Center in Mesquite, Texas who was being denied care by a White nurse. The nurse’s name is Lacrista Vaughn. Cara’s mother says the hospital knew they were on their way because they called ahead of time. She tried to drop Cara off at the ER but the nurses denied her and said she had to go around to the front entrance. At this point, Cara was already in extreme pain and beginning to feel pressure. Once at the front of the hospital, the nurse at the reception desk denies Cara’s mother with aiding her in getting her daughter into a wheelchair. A police officer in the lobby gets up to help. Cara’s mother finds her daughter in the back of the vehicle, on her hands and knees, again, in active labor. Cara says again and again, “it’s in my ass”. She was contracting. She couldn’t move. Once it ebbed, she was able to get in the wheelchair, the police officer helped her into the building while her mother parked, and her mother says that once she returned to the lobby, there Cara was, sitting with a pile of paperwork in her lap, screaming in pain. Screaming, “baby is coming, baby is coming”. All the staff are looking around saying that they can’t do anything until she signs the paperwork. Cara manages to sign the papers, under extreme duress, and they agree to let her in a small examination room. There, Cara is again forced to sit and answer questions while the nurse ignores her screams and cries. The mother goes on to say that the hospital had planned to induce Cara that day, but didn’t have enough beds to room her so they told her to hold off coming in until her water literally broke and she had no choice. It is possible that the hospital is understaffed, overrun, poorly managed and the lot. But it would be despicable to not address the medical racism occurring here, and the severity of it. Cara very well could have died. 

How does this example demonstrate medical racism and the real dangers of it? How can social media aid in amplifying this story and the injustice at the core of it?

This stressful labor caused extreme duress for her child. The nurses there ignored her and were extremely callous. They told her mother that Cara was not a priority, and forced her to suffer. In the US, the maternal mortality rate for Black women is x4 higher than it is for White women. To be quite frank, that disparity is insane. It’s not negligence, it is systemic failure to respond to the racism in this country. This video has already garnered so much conversation, and the nurse captured in the video will probably face social repercussions as well. But that is not enough. Social media needs to be a tool in our toolbox that should be used in tandem with activism on the ground. 

Works Cited

Kelly, Makena. “Zohran Mamdani’s Campaign Figured out How to Channel Fandom.” Wired, Conde Nast, 5 Nov. 2025, www.wired.com/story/zohran-mamdani-campaign-fandom.

Lee, Latoya A. “Virtual Homeplace: (Re)Constructing the Body through Social Media.” Academia.Edu, 28 Nov. 2024, www.academia.edu/29417553/Virtual_Homeplace_Re_Constructing_the_Body_through_Social_Media.

Safronova, Valeriya. “Millennials and the Age of Tumblr Activism (Published 2014).” New York Times, www.nytimes.com/2014/12/21/style/millennials-and-the-age-of-tumblr-activism.html. Accessed 15 Nov. 2025. 

Blog post #7 Week 10

Why has Steve Bannon’s weaponization of the gamers of GamerGate been so successful? Why does there seem to be a never ending supply of men who are willing to subscribe to these beliefs, even when it seems to ostracizes them from society and their community? 

His campaign to weaponize the young men of gamegate was obscenely successful because of the anarchic nature of this group. They specifically thrive off of chaos and madness, and even when interviewed, many insurrectionists at the January 6th storming of the capitol all report having very different reasons to be there, all of which are covered by the umbrella of MAGA – most America-first conspiracies can find a home with this community. These people were able to be mobilized because they felt like they had been left behind. People remember how you treat them, and in an era of equity and a growing minority demographic in this country, young white men are deeply afraid of losing their position in society. There is a seemingly unending supply of their members because the internet is further radicalizing people, either to the left or to the right, and when young men go online and see many women on the left pinning most of their problems onto young men of their own age, their male counterparts feel wronged, feel like they have been accused of something they had no part in. “Not all men!”, they scream, while ignoring the fact that the accusation isn’t that all men are evil, it’s just that most women have had scary interactions with them, and many of the ones who do not partake in this unsavory behavior also do nothing to stop their buddies from engaging in this behavior. They just like to parade around the fact that they themselves would never do that, and that they are “nice guys”. But when these outliers, “nice guys”, also don’t get any “action” from women (or bitches or sluts), they turn to their fellow comrades who are also involuntarily celebate, and together they form coalitions against women that solidify their justification for their scorn. 

How are content creators that are not themselves racist, homophobic, misogynist enablers of influencers who, definitively, are? How does continuing to share platforms with known bigots show complacency and complicity in their harmful beliefs?

A situation arose like this on social media this week, and while I was relatively unaffected because I don’t really enjoy watching gamers/streamers, the parties involved are all really popular female streamers, two of which are queer, and the third is an ex-mormon whose boyfriend is also a popular male streamer on twitch. The ex-mormon (QTCinderella/Blaire) was under fire for hanging out with a known homophobe, and QT was on live with her two queer friends (Vanillamace and KatieB), and was defending her friendship, saying that she can separate friendship from bigotry and that it doesn’t make her a bigot herself. Same for her family – she can love them and see their faults and how they are racist, but it doesn’t make her racist for not kicking them out of her lives. I mention the fact that she’s ex-mormon because I think it adds a lot of important context to the story – there is a lot of racism, white nationalism, homophobia, and sexism that happens in the Mormon community. It does not shock me at all that she does nothing to stand up to these people – if anything, it makes a lot of sense to me. She most likely grew up with a lot of folks that thought that way, therefor she is very comfortable because nothing about her identity itself is threatened by those people. It is much easier to say that you are an ally than to live it in practice – allyship can be a very lonely existence. But QT could use her platform to only uplift creators with similar values than hers that are more inclusive, if that’s as important to her as she says it is. The reason it’s important to hold influencers accountable is because… it's in their job description. Their job is to influence. And if their messaging doesn’t match their actions, than why should they continue to make money off of the backs of the communities that they claim to uplift? It’s also dangerous to talk out of one side of your mouth and say that you’re a feminist, but then not engage in intersectionality and realize that trying to diminish the severity of your lack of stance causes – these up and coming female streamer influencers are inspirational to a lot of young women and their messaging at a time like right now is vital – what do we value? Who do we allow in our inner circle? Which offensive jokes do we allow to slide without challenge or closer examination? These are things that a role model to tens of thousands of young women (QT) should consider. 

If kids are our future, what are the safeguards from them falling down these pipelines? What kind of content should we be showing our kids to combat the xenophobic conditioning of our culture? How do we challenge white supremacy at home, so that our kids go into the world with more holistic ideas of the world and those that are different from them?

There currently aren’t many safeguards. Even parental controls can be turned off by a precocious enough child. The problem with children is that it is in their nature to be curious. Free range access to the internet has made it harder to control how much (and to what) are children are exposed to. So if we can’t keep them off of social media, how to we monitor them? I think we should watch the same content that they are watching. No autoplaying, and every video has to be approved. Autoplay can allow some pretty nasty algorithms to get underway, especially on apps like YouTube, especially if they detect that the user is a young boy who is at all interested in politics. And, as someone who knows even just one little boy, I know that he is obsessed with war and has gone down a rabbit hole/ white nationalist pipeline. Joseph is in the third grade and obsessed with weaponry, war planning, generals, and historical figures known for their ferocity (never their generosity). At first, when I heard of Joseph’s newfound obsession with watching docu-length YouTube videos on history, I was excited to hear all he had learned. Most of what he had to report back to me was US propaganda: the US is #1, our army is #1, and I want to be famous. Famous for what?, my sister asked him. War, was his simple reply. And I know – young boys are like this. They say absurdist nonsense and then run away before we can interrogate it further. But when I mentioned my concerns with potential propaganda he was being fed, his mother assured me that she keeps a watchful eye on his consumption. But I know that’s a lie because I scrolled through his history, and she admitted she didn’t know he had watched half of those America-first documentary length videos! Our boys are in peril and I feel unable to effectively do anything about it.

What is the benefit of having these conversations? Why not just let trolls, troll? 

As in the case of January 6th, we know what happens when we let these “fringe” ideas fester in the margins of society – these folk feel forgotten and resentful, and eventually try to enact their wishes on the people against their will. That is the danger. When you do not fight back against harmful ideology, it allows it to take up legitimate space, and it legitimates itself. The same way that giving platforms to nazis to speak on, say, college campuses, is wrong. And saying that it’s wrong is not an infringement of free speech, because free speech does not include bigotry, racism, xenophobia, homphobia, transphobia. Free speech is not about having free reign to spew hate with no retribution. That is literally hate speech. 

White supremacy on the internet

Is white supremacy on the rise? Did it ever really go away? Why do we enjoy so much media about dystopian dictatorial worlds when we have them right here at home?

This week, I want to dedicate this blog post to the rise of white supremacy on the internet.. It is not hard to come up with these examples, in fact I had to choose between the several stories I wanted to speak about and narrow it down. And I think we should address why this is – why is it that racism, xenophobia, and intolerance are never too far beneath the veneer of society? Because our society is built upon it, of course! One thing I find incredibly frustrating about capitalism is its resilience; it has the ability to handle critiques of itself, over and over again, withstanding blow after blow and still remaining the foundation of Western metanarratives. I’m thinking of series like The Handmaiden’s Tale, The Hunger Games, Squid Games, Severance… all of these shows seem to display a unique ability to critique this capitalistic world that we all live in, and yet nothing changes with the creation of these shows. Why is it that we are so ill-equipped to actually change the world around us?

How can we address the topic of growing white supremacy in the U.S., and how can we combat it?

If we take a top-down approach with this topic, how can we blame our youth for being so apathetic and hateful while growing up in a world that doesn’t give them any good examples of how to do better? The official White House’s X account frequently features memes depicting undocumented immigrants as subhuman, or cartoonishly garish, labeling them as sexual offenders and criminals. One specific tweet from September 8th of this year featured a photo of a product resembling a Labubu toy, labeled "Deported Edition Labubu." The image included a cartoon of a handcuffed man, with text reading "Sexual Predator, Illegal Alien, Arrested by ICE" and a "Deported!" label. The post was captioned, "WTF. Maybe Labubus are demonic," accompanied by a red devil emoji.” I myself and many others saw this post and balked – surely we have not slipped into a timeline where this is morally acceptable behavior from the standing president of the United States. But is it! It is. We have arrived in that universe, in fact we’ve been here for a long time. Like I’ve mentioned before, George Floyd and even Anne Frank’s images have been bastardized and used in AI memes that pick fun at the absurdity and misfortune of it all. To make matters worse, Donald Trump has designated October 14th as a day of remembrance for Charlie Kirk. This is also George’s Floyd birthday. I can agree that it's a strange coincidence, but something about it doesn’t feel completely incidental. There is something more sinister at large, and it is our institutions picking fun at historical moments or figures and making a mockery of their images. It sanitizes history and makes a joke of it. I have a friend who works at an elementary school, and she can recall the teacher giving the students an introduction to Anne Frank and her story, and the kids being confused because they had seen her in memes before with George Droyd, and his partner Anne Clank.

What is the real harm of these AI videos of Anne Frank and George Floyd, and these people using their likeness? Whose naivete is being exploited?

Cyborgs and AI videos meant to amuse people on instagram reels and nothing more. But there is something more. This is SO SINISTER. This week there was a story about a group chat between members of The Young Republican National Federation and their leaked messages. People were disturbed to read some of the horrible, Hitler-adoring comments that these young men were casually messaging back and forth. I am here to say: this is the new normal. Especially with a Trump administration that is not afraid to use AI to generate damning images against their pundits – even when they are some of our most vulnerable.

Is it possible to live as Cyborgs? How do these power relations in media embolden us to be cruel to one another, and what does this widening chasm of separation of factions online mean in the real world?

I don’t think it’s possible at this time to liberate ourselves from our binary lives and live freely as cyborgs. I say that because we are living in a unique time where our humanity is slowly being stripped from us – the rise of AI makes us feel obsolete, we are losing our attention spans and ability to think creatively, and with our impatience comes intolerance. We are not patient, gentle, or kind with each other. The internet and the anonymity it brings emboldens users to be hateful, viscous, even outright cruel at times. That’s not to say there isn’t anything worth saving about humanity. If anything, the most moving thing about humanity, in my opinion, is the indomitability of the human spirit. I see it in resistance efforts across the globe, and in my own personal circles. People show up for each other. People love each other fiercely. We just haven’t been given many incentives to show up for each other – because it’s inconvenient, and it costs us something. Our time. But more and more, our time is going to be our most valuable asset. What causes we choose to spend our time and energy on, what stories we listen to, who we lend our ear. At this time, it is not possible to live as cyborgs. But I would like to spend my next however many years imagining that world for my sister’s child, and maybe, one day, my own.

Works Cited

Beeferman, Jason, and Emily Ngo. “‘I Love Hitler’: Leaked Messages Expose Young Republicans’ Racist Chat.” Politico, 14 Oct. 2025, www.politico.com/news/2025/10/14/private-chat-among-young-gop-club-members-00592146?fbclid=IwZnRzaANbdIpleHRuA2FlbQIxMQABHqjvZJLV3RLGnUE09tQ4qAGL4fHU_CWORfpDgBnA_LrVOEH8mP-00IyrrZno_aem_iuc5_9p0tzOyQZuFRcWOOQ.

How does fatphobia contribute to how people show up in digital spaces?

As I consider how I show up in digital spaces this week, I mostly think about how I don’t. I struggle with posting photos of myself, I rarely go onto instagram in fear of comparing myself to other people on there, and I even have a hard time just looking at photos that my friends and family have taken of me. Short storytime, on my twenty-fourth birthday, my friends and I went to a drag show in Long Beach and had so much fun. At the end, all my friends drunkenly got on stage and sang ‘Happy Birthday’ to me with the drag queens, and tried to get me to come on stage to take photos. I was feeling particularly insecure about myself that day because I hadn’t known what to wear and I was feeling just so uncomfortable in my own skin. I ended up running out and fighting with my parents and boyfriend because I didn’t know how to explain to them that no one had done anything wrong. The threat of having photos of me taken that I would have to later see and scrutinize my own body made me anxious enough that I fled the room, and skipped out on my own birthday dinner with my friends.

Why do so many people enjoy the anonymity of avatars over sharing their real faces? Is there safety in being unknown? Can you show up for people and connect in meaningful ways?

Similarly, I show up online and in digital spaces very hesitantly in regards to showing myself and my body. For instance, I love to go thrifting. I used to be really good at it: I would go constantly and it kind of became a comfort for me – trying to find hidden treasures. Over the years, I have found some awesome stuff and I’ve been dying to make hauls and post on TikTok, but I can’t get over my body dysmorphia and obsession with how I look enough to post one. For a very long time, my profile picture on TikTok was a little Calico Critter cat because I thought it was innocuous and cheeky, and very much representative of me and my niche interest (I’m not saying an adult liking a popular children’s toy is niche, I just thought I was communicating something with certain people who might think like-mindedly to me). I have since changed my picture to a sepia toned photobooth picture, which I think makes me a little vulnerable. Showing your actually face is vulnerable and scary, especially considering how mean people on the internet can be.

How do fatphobia, misogyny, and racism intersect in digital spaces?

Moving through the world as a bigger girl and now woman, especially a brown woman, I notice the ways men treat my White female counterparts who are thinner than me compared to how they treat me. If I do receive attention from men, it is usually from older, usually creepy men that make me feel insulted with their compliments. That’s not to say that I want to be harassed and catcalled – but when you never are, it puts you in a uniquely difficult situation where you are forced to ask yourself, why not me? What’s so wrong with me that no one flirts with me openly? Why do I constantly feel as though I’m reminded that I take up too much space?

Is there a way to be jokingly offensive online (i.e. “punching up”)?

Meritocracies – Real & Perceived

How do merits in ‘Nosedive’ compare to our merit system in real life (if there is one)? 

Merits in this world are ratings, 1-5, that you can rank one another via social media app, and it generates an average score that dictates how an individual is perceived and treated in society. The benefits of a system like this is that upward mobility is extremely difficult to achieve. And it is justified by each individual of society being able to “control” their rating instead of examining the system that oppresses them all. I think this mirrors our real class struggle, in the sense that, most times, our frustrations with out material realities are falsely redirected at other poor folk instead of the people profiting off of our labor. There are plenty of people that believe the “pull yourself up by your bootstraps” trope and think that hard work can get you anywhere. I believe that that is only true to an extent. 

How do demerits work in this dystopian world vs real life? Are there benefits to either, and who maintains the system? What do the consequences of demerits mean in this fictional world, and the real one? 

You can receive a demerit for anything – for having a bad day and losing your temper, for having bad luck like Lacie and wandering around with your luggage and no ride… In this system, you can find yourself suddenly on the outside with no lifeline, and no way to return. A meritocracy is a society in which you enjoy certain privileges or suffer degradation based on your social rating. Yes, in a dystopian, technocratic way, this system is a meritocracy that rewards people with “good” ratings. 

What role does privilege play in the film and how does it mirror our real lives? Is it based off a meritocracy? Do we have a meritocracy in real life? 

Yes, we do have a merit system where you have more perceived “power” the more followers you have. It is very difficult to opt out of this system, because even if you don’t download the apps and create accounts, you might be looked down upon for it. Additionally, in real life, you cannot go “off-grid” simply by not participating in social media. In a lot of ways, we are forced to engage with this system. Also, think of how many times you may have accidentally been filmed in public just because you were walking around, in public? We all share this sense of awareness that we are being watched all the time, and it doesn’t necessarily make us kinder people.  

In Lacie’s world, is there a “right” way to live? 

Cyberfeminism teaches us that it is not social media and the internet that changes us, but rather that we have the power to change the world around us using social media. In Lacie’s world, her brother, the truck driver, and window attendant all seemed to live “freer” lives in a lot of aspects. What if we all opted out in the same way?

Memes and a Cultural Divide

If you’re anything like me, the past week has felt like a desperate search for explanation and answers. I’m going to be brave and say this (what an insane sentence) – I did not like Charlie Kirk. I did not subscribe to his views, I did not support his mission of going to college campuses and garnering nationwide support of conservative young men, and I will not mourn him. That being said, there is something to learn from his death and the way that it has fractured the Republican party. Popular conservatives like Candace Owens and Tucker Carlson are very open with their disavowment with Israel, and they say something is fishy here. But how did we get here? And what do memes have to do with it? 

How can the digital divide be applied here – is it possible there is a digital divide amongst generations and genders that keep members of certain groups unaware of these underground communities? 

Yes, I think that is one way that a digital divide can manifest. Not only who has access to the internet, but who understands unspoken codes of the darker parts of the internet, or even understanding memes, can give people advantages. Think of the concept of being “red pilled or blue pilled”. This is a phrase young men understand, as well as other alt-right dog whistles that have made it into the mainstream. Charlie Kirk attracted a type of conservative young man that liked to troll “SJWs” and dunk on feminists. He was famously anti-abortion, said that Black women were subhuman and constantly called the validity of DEI into question, and had many other deeply disturbing takes that, even after his death, we absolutely need to reckon with. Unfortunately, a lot of adults did not know who he was before his death, and now his history is being actively rewritten. He is being remembered for being a pioneer of free speech, which is ironic considering that anyone who speaks ill of his death (or not even speaking ill, just speaking of it at all!) is at risk of losing their jobs, their livelihoods, their reputations. Fascism is here. Major media outlets are capitulating to Trumps whims, giving into him again and again. So its important to understand how Kirk’s death is representative of this deep divide, and the alt-right’s proliferation into mainstream social media is a major factor at play in the radicalizing of these young men online. 

How do algorithms promoting racism and sexism spread across various media platforms unchecked? Is there such a thing as good algorithms? Who does the proliferation of hate-speech online ultimately benefit? 

Focusing exclusively on X, or formerly Twitter, it must be noted that when Musk acquired Twitter in 2022 for $44 billion, he brought back a lot of creators that were previously banned for hate speech, being a nazi, or both, etc. Of course there are alt-right corners of the internet that nazis can find if they are looking no matter what, but this move of Musk’s allowed nazi and far-right wing ideology into the mainstream with virtually no pushback. In November of that same year, Musk reinstated Donald Trump’s account after hosting a poll where he had the people of X decide if they thought DJT should be allowed back on the app. Ever since, the prevalence of nazis on the app has kept me off. I also must mention that if you block Elon Musk’s account on X, your posts’ reach will be capped because of it. You can use all the hashtags in the world, and have a good amount of followers, but as long as you have the owner of X blocked, your content will not be pushed and the algorithm will not promote you. Not that that has ever been important to me, but as someone who was tired of Elon’s constant barrage of tweets, often just spewing out hateful nonsense without editing, just like Trump, and incessant posting, I have him blocked, so my feed is not the same as it once was. It feels as though hate speech is becoming normalized, and I can very easily attribute it to the Trump administration – when the President of the most powerful country on earth acts without a modicum of dignity of respect, how can we expect our young boys to act? These same young men grow up online, learn that hate speech is okay, learn to hate women, are taught that women are the reason for all of their problems, and many of them find solace and camaraderie within these alt-right communities (thinking of Gamer Gate and Steve Bannon’s successful campaign to use Breitbart and gamers to win the 2016 for Trump). Elon’s allowance of the proliferation of neo-nazis across his platform is to blame, yes, but parents also have no idea what their young children are watching online. These nasty algorithms serve the patriarchy, white supremacy, and capitalism. I’m not sure that there is a good thing as a “good” or benevolent algorithm, because their purpose is usually to keep you using a product or on an app, and that has capitalistic intent. But my algorithms when I was a youth on social media did not actively show me alt-right propaganda, whereas I know boys my same age are definitely spoon fed nazi ideology via IG reels or X. Things are changing, the political landscape and where politics happen is changing, and right now it all serves one party and it is the ruling class. 

How is social media more racially coded, now more than ever? Who is overrepresented in mainstream media, and who gets left out?

Memes. So many memes are racially coded. This isn’t new, its not new for white supremacy to manifest in the way of “jokes” that an inside group shares against a marginalized one. But this summer, I saw a proliferation of memes surrounding contestants of the show Love Island. Particularly, two Black women from the show were singled out by fans of another contestant on X, and memes of them edited onto George Floyd’s body were proliferated and spread across various platforms. At the show’s reunion, one of the women made sure to mention how hurtful those edited memes were to her and how affected she was by them, and the event was generally swept under the rug. No serious apology was dealt and the network did the bare minimum to address racism this season. Misogynoir has been so normalized that even when a Black woman stands up for herself, it seems more often than not no one will come to her defense. I also think of Megan Thee Stallion and how it is a great litmus test to see how a man feels about violence against women, particularly against Black women. I can learn all I need to know about a man by asking him what he thinks about Megan Thee Stallion. The memes surrounding her shooting her also incredibly normalizing on X. The internet can be a bad place, yes, but X has become particularly depraved. It feels like we currently have no protection or representation to protect ourselves, our children, ultimately our society against these harmful views. Alt-right memes are allowed to circulate easily, racist dog whistles are passed back and forth, and world leaders post memes themselves of deportation Labubus and I.C.E. ASMR… nothing is serious anymore. The ruling class can weaponize memes against us, but we can’t even make simple observations about world events without losing our jobs and our livelihoods. 

Is this a difference of political opinion? Or something deeper? Is there “two sides” to allowing nazis back on twitter?

This is facism. We have slipped very easily into it. You could go back to Musk buying Twitter, or DJT’s first presidency, or GamerGate, but the truth is racism has never been too far beneath the veneer of society. And now we are living in an authoritarian state that is becoming less and less safe everyday to speak our minds. Only certain people’s liberties and freedoms are protected, at the expense of everyone else. 

Works Cited

Everett, Anna. The Revolution Will Be Digitized. Afrocentricity and the Digital Public Sphere, Duke University Press, 2002, www.researchgate.net/publication/46609125_The_revolution_will_be_Digitized_Afrocentricity_and_the_digital_Public_Sphere.

Noble. Algorithms of Oppression. New York University Press, 2018.

Q: Why is good internet literacy not taught in school? In other words, why would a country not benefit from its youth, and eventually adults, being competent online? Who benefits from a general populus’ lack of tech literacy? 

A: Internet literacy is not taught in any meaningful way in schools for a variety of reasons. Most kids can manage to download and purchase games, sign on to privacy agreements, or anything related to easily giving your data away to these entities, but it is much less likely that kids know how to pirate those same games or movies, get around paywalls to access information,  know how to delicately navigate those tricky privacy clauses, or cancel memberships. When you make these things harder, you make it easier to trap people into giving away their information, their privacy and their money. 

Q: How does embodiment and disembodiment manifest across different social media or websites? Is it possible to experience both?  

A: Disembodiment is an awesome word to have in my arsenal now. It sums up a lot of how I have experienced the internet since my youth. It is definitely possible to experience both embodiment and disembodiment across various platforms. For example, I can very much lose myself in video games with avatars, because your body is not your own – it doesn’t have to resemble it in any way. I myself struggle with body dysmorphia, and my breasts and how other people perceive them is a constant thought nagging me. But when you immerse yourself in a game with an avatar that you can edit, you can remove your real world tether to your body momentarily, but its not forever and that can be a hard thing to remember, especially when you make friends online or in a certain game where they perceive your avatar a certain way, versus how you may actually appear. There is also an element of anonymity there that's comforting. That is disembodiment. But with apps like instagram and even sometimes tiktok  (tumblr’s ED community was something I thankfully avoided in the 2010s), I find myself constantly comparing myself to others. Especially other women. And there you go. You cannot separate gender from technology, or race, or class. The internet is a window into other peoples’ lives, yes, but it also holds a mirror up to ourselves in sometimes really uncomfortable ways. 

Q: In what ways does the internet reinforce hierarchies like patriarchy, racism, and capitalism? In what ways does it combat it? 

A: The internet reinforces each of these hierarchies in both obvious and subliminal ways, everyday, all around us, constantly. Even who has access to the internet is political. What content is and isn’t shown to us is very purposeful. These oppressive systems also have a way of perpetuating themselves without an actor necessary. For instance, I find myself monitoring what I post online and viewing it from a man’s perspective – what would a man think of this post? What would a man think of me because of it? It dictates my real, material life too of course but its just as sinister online because it’s purely performative and still I can’t help but monitory myself. Capitalism is pervasive on the internet and on social media because it is where everyone goes to get their mind off of their “real world” problems. But, I must mention, I wouldn’t feel so connected with like-minded angry people if not for the internet. I would find people in real life still, through school and work, but not everyone has the same opportunity to expand their minds and meet people that they wouldn’t otherwise cross paths with. Social media helps fight facism in the way that it aids in the spreading of information, especially during social movements. But then I must mention that these companies, though they do allow for some assembly and organizing, they do suppress, flag, and share with authorities and information they deem fit of passing along. I take the good along with the bad; it’s hard not to throw out the baby with the bath water however. 

Q: Why is it harmful to imply that there is a singular consistent definition of cyberfeminism? What, and who, does that rigidity erase?