Rae Does Things

In a way, that also has a lot to do with Sunstein’s work: his viewpoint wasn’t aimed towards me and wasn’t something I would have normally sought out because of it, after all, but Sara’s is. I’m rambling and missing the point: Technically Wrong is good, it’s great. It’s easy to read and encompasses some of my main concerns not only within the tech industry but within most of the corporate world I am destined to enter within the next few months. She summarizes and emphasizes all of her main arguments in a way that is practically impossible to misconstrue, and that’s exactly how I like it. Shout out to her.

Now, about what I came here to discuss other than how much I like this book so far. The world of tech is so racist, sexist, and homo-, trans-, and queerphobic, I literally wanted to scream with every example Wachter-Boettcher proposed. Let’s get into two that rankled in particular:

“Take the story of product designer Amélie Lamont, whose manager once claimed she hadn’t seen her in a meeting. ‘You’re so black, you blend into the chair,’ she told her. Or Erica Joy, a black software engineer who wrote that past coworkers had constantly assumed she was a single mom” (17).

and

“... Eve might offer the features Delano wants – it can track her periods and her moods – but it still makes a ton of assumptions about its users, referring them as ‘girls,’ using slang like ‘hookups,’ and describing sex in a way that’s centered entirely on male genitalia: a banana with a condom, a banana without a condom or no banana. If you’re an adult woman in a relationship with anyone who’s not a man [or better put, anyone without a penis], you’re probably still going to feel left out” (31). 

First of all, who the HELL thinks it’s appropriate to tell someone they’re so black they blend into the chairs!? I know damn well Amélie had some color on that wasn’t black, therefore making her f*cking visible! That comment wasn’t just racist, but colorist and UNNECESSARY! Just tell her to speak up more at meetings, thanks! Secondly, y’all still assuming all black women are mothers? And to add onto that, single mothers? For the love of ***, please drop that racist stereotype. I can bring out a list of statistics that will prove you wrong, try me.  Lastly, associating fruit with genitalia is so corny, even teenage me would have deleted that app. That’s not my real critique though – all people who menstruate are not women, nor are they all sexually active with people who have penises – it is all those -phobics I listed earlier to assume so. 

Tech does this all the time, as Wachter-Boettcher makes clear. It’s the default for most apps, the default effect that follows isn’t just people like me (non-binary and queer as hell) not kicking up a fuss about our pronouns, gender identity, and sexual identities not being available and signing up anyway. It’s cishets also not thinking about it, and when presented with us, revolting. It’s cishets feeling like they are the only normal and proceeding to oppress us. Finally, it is cishets feeling like it is their space and their space only, and we’re invading. 

It is the reinforcing of “something most of us already have stuck in the deep bits of our brains… [and it’s] strengthening that association rather than weakening it” (38).We’re not invading any space because we belong there too – because we are normal humans and we use tech the same way as anyone else. Tech has all this ability to make change, and refuses because the people who run it are too busy being secular and looking for “culture fits” instead of new ventures and hires that will help them grow and bring their dreams of “making the world a better place” to fruition. 

I don’t not enjoy all of Sunstein’s work in this book. Take this quote from Chapter 6: Citizens, for example. This is something that rings true for me. You cannot say a neighborhood doesn’t need access to grocery stores (mom and pop or chain) just because they make things work with gas stations and corner-stores, local restaurants, and fast food. Being underprivileged and adaptive, and therefore not interested in asking for help, does not mean that the help is not needed.

“Elster’s broader suggestion is that citizens who have been deprived of options may not want the tings of which they have been deprived, and the deprivation cannot be justified by reference to the fact that citizens are not asking for these things, when they are not asking because they have been deprived of them” (165).

This quote from Chapter 7: What’s Regulation? A Plea is also agreeable, and so was his tone for most of this rather short chapter. Privileged people like to remain privileged and at the top of the food chain, so any change that might disrupt that, they fight. When it comes to regulation on the Internet, people who are getting the most engagement for being inflammatory, and therefore making the most money, want the government as far away from their domain, and their pockets, as humanly possible.

“Those who complain most bitterly about proposed regulation are often those who most profit, usually financially, from the current regulation. They depend not only on themselves but also on government and law. What they are complaining about is not regulation as such – they need it – but instead a regulatory regime from which they would benefit less than they do under the present one” (179).

While there was a section (or a few) in Chapter 8: Freedom of Speech that rubbed me wrong – one in particular that I was going to post but can’t find – I found some of his quintessential statements to be agreeable and had me frustrated with the plight technology has put upon free speech, and also reminded me distinctly that government just can’t be trusted – even when it looks like it’s doing the right thing. Take this quote as an example:

“… These sorts of penalties should be analyzed in exactly the same way as criminal or civil punishment. When benefits are being withdrawn, just as when ordinary punishment is being imposed government is depriving people of goods to which they would otherwise be entitled, and we probably have excellent reason to distrust its motives” (211).

In this post, I’m going to rip a few quotes from the text and expand, starting with this quote from page 10:

“Of course we would like to vote with the Democrats on that one, but if we did, we would lose our jobs.” There is no question that behind closed doors, Democrats would on occasion say the same thing. Both sides are worried about the effects of echo chambers – about an outburst of noisy negativity from segments of constituents, potentially producing serious electoral retribution.”

I have beef, because as representatives, it is there job to decide and vote for the betterment of the people, NOT to make crucial votes in the hopes of reelection. Doubts concerning reelection come with the JOB – if you make your life’s work about politics, elected or not, you will have work and a career. It should not be about staying in office and being a “career politician.” You are a person and the entire point of your role as a representative of the people is to be in Congress and discuss the resolutions at hand and learn from your peers, including and especially those with opposing opinions to you, and come to a decision that would best impact the people and country at large. I remind you all of John Rawls’s argument (Sunstein 46):

The benefits from discussion lie in the fact that even representative legislators are limited in knowledge and the ability to reason. No one of them know everything the others know, or can make all the same inferences that they can draw in concert. Discussion is a way of combining information and enlarging the range of the arguments.

Another major beef I have starts on page 27, where Sunstein is outlining what they won’t be focusing on in #Republic. The very first bullet point is about how coverage of minority issues and points of interests will likely no longer continue to be an issue – but the minorities they mention are like fandom bullsh*t, and they discuss the ease with which these people will be able to find what they want to learn about. It continues to page 52, in which they discuss how Madison’s example of how a “bill of rights [can] serve in popular Government,” because Sunstein describes this example as illustrating “the founders’ belief that for a diverse people to be self-governing, it was essential to provide them a range of common values and commitments.”

Sunstein seems to be willfully ignoring the fact that the founders wrote the constitution and all the papers that went along with it with mainly, if not only, the consideration of white men in mind, and to make matters worse seems to be ignoring the concept of race and gender in totality. E Pluribus Unum was not written with the true all this country would come to have in its populace in mind.

Except this isn’t a tweet obviously but memes within memes are spectacular. Plus, the story of Makmende spoke to me. I’ve been feeling a bit nostalgic lately, one of the many things spring tends to inspire in me: nostalgia, loneliness, and allergies. It’s not time to unpack trauma here though.

I missed the Makmende train and it makes me SAD; this is what I get from deleting my Twitter app every few months. However, I have seen African memes quite similar in popularity to what Makmende seemed to have. Memes of low quality African music chopped and screwed, or cut to a five second clip for laughs and reaction imagery. African memes and African Twitter users outsold, honestly – but only when they’re not being elitist and anti-black (you ain’t hear that from me).

Makmende’s proliferation reminds me of how stans and fandom members behave: finding something they enjoy and love and making it their own and showing it off to the world. Manips, manipulate photos, like the GQ and Esquire covers mention on page 279 were the rage on Tumblr back in 2011-2013. I’ve seen a number of magazine covers altered to be focused on Harry Potter as if the characters were real-life celebrities and not just bits of fiction. That’s what Makmende reminds me of.

There’s also the addition of funny memes Twitter users pushed out during the height of Makmende on the web. Jokes like “Makmende bit a mosquito and it died of malaria” are jokes I couldn’t and can’t in good conscious make because, well, I’m not African and I don’t deal with tragedies like death by malaria intimately (279). But, it’s less taboo to laugh at a joke that somebody who has experienced or observed things like that – it absolves me of my privileged guilt, not that I’d even think to make such a joke anyway honestly. It’s just that quick memes with a focus on certain individuals or concepts that are easy to understand go viral the fastest. It’s not shocking that it felt like Makmende was everywhere despite it being an African, especially Kenyan, reference.

Things reach transnationally when it is placed in a relatable and easily understood style, and I don’t think it especially American. I understand obviously that the jokes made about Makmende crossed American and Kenyan cultural lines – and like Zuckerman explains there’s nothing inherently wrong with that. It isn’t necessarily a sign of cultural imperialism so much as a melding of cultures and disintegrating transnational borders via social media. I am hopeful that that the propagation of such memes from developing countries will result in the welcoming of said countries to web 2.0 platforms (280) and give them further and bettered access.

As a YouTube connoisseur, this is a fight I’ve been hearing about for YEARS. When I say years, I mean probably since 2009, the time this book continues to reference. YouTube creators are constantly complaining and ranting about the frustration of being called on copyright infringement despite attempting to be vigilant and catching anything that might get them flagged during editing. They also complain about being demonetized about the smallest of things – but that’s possibly an argument for another day, or maybe just a separate facet of this ongoing fight.

I’m a lover of the average Joe and the underdog, a glutton for pain and suffering and absolute idiocy, a consumer of sh*tty content as well as high quality. I live for people who for the most part are, or were, just like me, and do things similar to me. I would never think about the music playing on my phone in the background while I rant about how the Grammy’s and the Oscars are a scam in front of my garbage webcam. I would never consider that playing Christina Perri’s “Jar of Hearts” as a scene-setter between my takes would be an issue. These things wouldn’t cross my mind naturally because they’re just songs and they’re constantly playing all the time.

Half the time when I’m watching YouTube videos I don’t even notice when the music the creator is playing in the downtime isn’t royalty free.99! The content they make is typically reviewing or reacting, or just having the song play absent mindedly, and therefore the song is incredibly important to the video or nonconsequential. Either way, more observant people than me hear or see these clips and seek out the source – often legally. YouTube creators, the ones attempting to make a profit and not genuinely pirate corporations’ materials, typically don’t put enough of the materials into their videos to get satiate viewers curious minds.

But, I get it, mostly. Corporations want credit and to earn money. They feel ripped off and threatened. I get it. However, an option: make you ish more accessible! Stop taking people’s videos down! That’s their income! Nobody is worried about your tunes and no one is stopping your bag! Collaborate with YouTubers, make everybody happy! Declare your comfort: limit length of clips (both audio and visual), and define what’s off limits and what is public domain. Suing people who have no chance in hell in besting or beating you because they don’t have and often can’t afford a giant team of big corporate leaders is unfair and cruel – and OVERREACTING!

Also, for the love of all that is good and holy, pay content creators better, and make it easier to get paid. I know a lot of creators who are making dust if anything at all from their content because their following and views are too low despite the quality, time, and effort put into it. It’s not fair. Make it a bigger, better, and stronger industry.

Listen, Twitter and the internet at large is a powerful and sometimes outright scary place. Especially with the advent of social media creators and influence who have millions of relatively young, eager, vitriol-filled fans desperate for an outlet to unleash upon. Fighting with someone with upwards of 500k followers or subscribers on any platform is, to me, incredibly foolish, but it happens all the time. Y’know, free speech and all that.

As we see with Maranci’s story (198-200), you don’t have to be famous or have a bunch of followers to go viral and have an impact. But, we’re not all Maranci, thus we don’t all influence changes in a city’s public transit infrastructure. Sometimes, the things we post that go viral are memes and jokes/trolls towards people’s favorite celebrities and politicians. And, y’all, when those fans catch wind of any negativity aimed towards their faves, all hell breaks loose.

If you’ve ever heard of or read up on Gamergate you know how nasty fanboys and fangirls can get. You run the risk of getting doxed, trolled, threatened – people have moved and switched schools because of online harassment. These things get amplified especially if you end up in a back and forth with a celebrity of practically any caliber.

Let’s take Shaun King, because I’m feeling frisky and he gets my blood boiling. King recently terrorized a bunch of young, black, queer activists on Twitter who have criticized him in the past. Many of these criticisms revolve around the suspicious ways he handles the money he raises in the name of black families of victims of trauma and brutality. These criticisms are not unfounded, but there’s not enough characters and words for this assignment to delve into that.

King sent out emails that I viewed as filled with thinly veiled threats asking for them to take down the tweets ‘defaming’ him, and a public apology. In these emails, he CC’ed several big-time lawyers associated with some big racial injustice based cases, claiming they represented him. While this is heavy handed and a tad unnecessary because many of the tweets he referenced had already been deleted, this is technically fine, and the behavior isn’t too reproachable.

No, the issue laid within him tweeting this out to the world and singling out a young black woman in college specifically. He had no need to do this other than to intimidate her further. King has 1.1 million followers on Twitter. And with a quickness, those million followers came for that young girl’s neck. It was nearly a week before he apologized and called them off – the girl had already fled the site by then.

Shaun King has power, and he unleashed it upon young black activists who had none and barely any support. It was foul of him – especially since he claims to be so for the culture. It was eye-opening to watch, and it’ll be a cold day in hell before I put my trust into his citizen journalism again. (It’s also been revealed that none of those lawyers actually represented them. Shaun King is not kin and is reprehensible. I have words, but not today.)

I’m just saying networked individuals have a lot of power, and they don’t need a barrel of ink because they have armadas of other networked individuals ready to go to war.

No, the short quip that follows this anecdote is what got me – what got my friends. In an attempt to show it’s not just developing countries and societies who think a phone number is good enough for an address, the authors thought to chip in Western sociologist from Oxford, Bernie Hogan’s, tweet in which he says: “A friend asks for my address & phone. I give him email & cell. It never dawned on me that he meant ‘home’ address” (Rainie and Wellman 101).

Y’all, what? What. What?! This quick little exchange did not strike me or my peers as a mobility thing but a thoughtless thing. We sat there and debated on whether there was ever an instance in which we asked or were asked for an address and the person asking meant ‘email’ address. The answer was a resolute and firm ‘never’ because that doesn’t make any sense. I recognize that he tweeted that out in 2010 and maybe things were different back then – actually no, nope, nah. I don’t buy it!

I was using email in 2010, regularly and avidly. I was applying to high schools and needed to be on mailing lists and looking out for correspondence from administrators; email was familiar and constantly on my mind. When I filled out forms the line asking for my email rarely even had the tacked on ‘address,’ as a matter of fact the only things asking me to differentiate addresses were the lines asking for my ‘home’ address and my ‘school address.’ So, putting it into a year perspective still makes this interaction sound like Hogan wasn’t responding consciously.

However, benefit of the doubt here, Hogan is probably on the older side, bringing us back to the last two weeks’ conversation on the generational gap between understanding technology and the language it brings with it. My parents, some of my past teachers, some of my current professors even, still call emails ‘email addresses.’ My friends and I don’t really call it that, and I don’t think many of my peers in my age range do either. This kind of clumsy and funny mistake probably won’t have a chance of happening in the near future because people younger than me won’t call it an email address at all. They’ll be even more confused than my friends and I were.

I can call ageist hoopla, and back it up! Communication and navigation of personal networks have just shifted in such a way that sometimes people caught up in the "golden days" can't see or understand. That's fine. Language and linguistics shift and change all the time, and as we read in last week's readings: that's a good thing! So, let’s talk about the Triple Revolution.

Thanks to Social Network Revolution, we can traverse all sorts of communities and groups and develop strong meaningful connections without the restraint of proximity and stationary living (11). In conjunction with that, we have the Internet and Mobile Revolutions, which provide us with nearly unlimited access to new modes and methods communication and channels of information at all times (12). Most of us have a device at our side, if not at our fingertips, every second of everyday that embodies The Triple Revolution, as Rainie and Wellman have coined it.

Teens and young adults, like ourselves, have managed to turn our smartphones into social networking hubs, business offices, fountains of knowledge, and the source of most of our digital entertainment. That is insanely powerful, and an incredible privilege. It’s something that comes to us naturally, these phones have all these capabilities and seem to be full of endless options – why not make use of everything they have to offer? We should – but because we have the privilege of understanding technology and being able to follow it as it transitions and transforms into a new beast almost daily, we have to understand that some people simply missed the technological wave.

That could be due to access – you know, money, education, transportation to the local library, the works. It’s a steep learning curve, and to some of our parents, or older counterparts, things changed so quickly it must have seemed to happen overnight. My parents stare and peck at their smartphones like their mystical and need to be tested sometimes. Other times, they’re fascinated and using the voice-to-text/Cortana at every chance they can. To them, it’s new, and it’ll always be new. They will probably never be used to smartphones, smart tablets, and the super high-tech computers coming out. And that’s fine.

What’s not fine is them questioning my ability to communicate or exist without my phone whenever they see fit. That’s, in a way, developing a language barrier. They can’t seem to understand that my phone holds every important date, every contact, and every memory – because they’re still stuck primarily in dialog. They don’t understand that without my phone I can’t communicate with some of my friends – because they’ve never had friends who lived across the country (or in another completely) that they communicated with regularly.

Quick bio: who are you, where are you from, how old are you, what career are you in/what do you do? What is the nature of your experience with public relations per se? Is it past or present?

Damon Percy. Native of Detroit, Michigan, born 1972 just turned 45, freelance writer/publicist/author (Conversations with Love: a Poetic Journey)  does PR for the Clark sisters (female gospel group) since the late nineties Earnest J. Lee (another gospel singer), worked for LGBT Detroit (largest afro-am gay organization in the Midwest, writes poetry/press-kits [picture/bio/press release] (promotes product/self/whatever you want to be heard or seen), BA in journalism w a minor in public relations, started writing for the paper at Wayne State U where he was the entertainment editor for four years and attended several events and exhibits,

Opinion: what do you feel are the two most positive aspects of public relations, specifically from your perspective and experience? Be as specific as possible.

Helping someone or something be heard that might not have a voice otherwise/ he likes to help/be the voice for someone who does not know how to put themselves out there/on the market (bc a publicist’s job is to leverage that lack of knowledge & it’s a good feeling to realize “I did that I helped w that”)

Being integrated in so many aspects of our culture and community. Publicity is not just one particular thing, people want to be heard on the grass-roots level as well as the corporate, he gets to be a part of so many things / he gets the chance to work on all levels

Opinion part 2: what do you feel are the two most negative aspects of public relations, …

Being told how to write about something or someone in a certain way that does not truly reflect the thing or person to manipulate/influence public perception and thus being held accountable for any negative reputation gathered bc the product or person was misrepresented (compromised integrity)

If you do not continue to work consistently (aka working all the time or constantly being in people’s faces), people will disregard you and take away your credibility

Summary: how do you define public relations?

Brooke Metz; “Daniel Dae Kim takes over ‘Hellboy’ role originally given to Ed Skrein”; https://www.usatoday.com/story/life/2017/09/14/daniel-dae-kim-takes-over-hellboy-role-originally-given-ed-skrein/665382001/

Hollywood has a long history of casting white actors as nonwhite characters, and in recent years, consumers have been more vocal than ever about how reprehensible they find the practice. Asian characters typically fall victim, especially if the character is mixed-race (specifically Asian and white), which is where this particular character fits in. It was announced about a month or two ago that actor Ed Skrein had been cast in the newest Hellboy movie. The backlash was immediate, fans and non-fans alike were accusing the movie’s production and casting team of white-washing, and expressing disappointment that Skrein had accepted the role. However, Skrein quickly resigned from the role, with a well-written explanation and expressing his desire not to contribute to the obscuring of Asian-Americans in American film and television.

http://people.com/tv/mayim-bialik-slammed-harvey-weinstein-op-ed-sexual-harassment/

Good intentions are rarely ever enough, actress Mayim Bialik is learning. The Big Bang Theory star has found herself in quite the conundrum after writing an op-ed on the Harvey Weinstein sexual assault allegations hubbub. The article was titled “Being a Feminist in Harvey Weinstein’s World.” For those who are avid believers in feminism, this article fell quite short, and led to the questioning if Bialik’s feminism is genuine. This op-ed was accusatory, but not seemingly of Weinstein or men in Hollywood like him. Instead, Bialik’s piece read as a way to shame the victims of this particular Hollywood tradition (you know, the sexual assault? Fairly common in the fanciful suburb). It also felt as though Bialik was patting herself on the back for being smart enough to dress modestly and avoid plastic surgery and dieting so that men like Weinstein would not want to assault her.

As one would expect, this did not blow over well with readers, especially the women and sexual assault survivors. Many people accused Bialik of victim blaming, and not actually being a feminist. It was pointed out over and over again that the way a woman dresses or looks is not what determines if said woman gets sexually assaulted. Which is true, rape is a power play and has little to do with the actual attractiveness of the victim. Many believe that Bialik missed an opportunity to Weinstein and men like him, and the opportunity to lift up their victims.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/19/us/politics/cia-lulu-bomb-dog.html

Last Thursday, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) tweeted out a story that endeared Americans nationwide – and probably people all across the world. As most people know, the CIA, trains dogs for bomb and drug sniffing (like most law enforcement agencies), and get some great detectors out of it. This class of super-sniffers, however, had a student who just was not into the bomb detection game. Her name is Lulu, and she is a black Labrador retriever. Both the CIA and the Internet community will tell you she is absolutely adorable and resistant to things she has no interest in.

It is not uncommon for trainee-dogs to exhibit some disinterest in catching and following the scent of explosives during the sixteen-week training (six with an entire class, ten with the dog’s handler). Typically, though, this disinterest only last a couple days, if that. Lulu was of a different sort: her displeasure lingered. A ‘doggy psychologist’ was brought in to monitor Lulu and her behaviors to make sure nothing deeper was going on her head, but it was clear that she just was not happy with the direction her career was going in. So, Lulu basically dropped out of the program, and has since been adopted by her handler. The Lab spends her time chasing rabbits instead of explosive odors, and hanging out with the handler’s other dog, Harry, who is also a black Labrador retriever.

http://www.cnn.com/2017/10/30/entertainment/kevin-spacey-gay/index.html

Actor Kevin Spacey has found himself in some boiling hot water in the last week or so. Fellow actor Anthony Rapp recently alleged that Spacey acted inappropriately and essentially propositioned and sexually harassed him when he was 14 and Spacey was 26. The incident happened at a party about thirty years ago, but left Rapp with some serious emotional and psychological damage. The younger actor opened up to Buzzfeed about it, and since then, Spacey’s reputation has taken quite the hit. To counteract the negative buzz floating around his name, the actor issued a public apology in the form of a written statement he screenshotted and posted to Twitter.

Lisa Respers France: http://www.cnn.com/2017/11/07/entertainment/sia-nude-photos/index.html

Pop songstress Sia is renowned for hiding her face as much as she possibly can. She wears huge wigs on stage and walking down the street, does not make appearances in even her own music videos or album artwork, and will keep her back to the crowd while performing if need be. The woman is as incognita as it gets. So, when she tweeted out a photo of her bare bum this weekend, her fans and the Internet in general practically exploded. Nobody expected to see so much of the powerful vocalist and songwriter, so the shock was immense.

The capture of the photograph explained why she was sharing such an intimate photo, the fully naked backside of a woman on a balcony. According to the singer, some paparazzo was attempting to sell her nudes to fans. In typical dramatic Sia fashion, she released a screenshot of a deal proving the allegation, the photo in question, and a witty urging to“[s]ave your money”. The last sentence of her tweet, which doubles as a caption, was “Everyday is Christmas!” That caption is also the title of Sia’s upcoming holiday album.