Rahf Elmahdi

Everywhere in the world, people are under surveillance in the streets, in shops, subways etc and have been for the longest time all for security reasons. With the rise of the internet and especially the social media world, more and more countries started implementing the concept of surveillance and censorship online for a myriad of reasons. Some of them have extremely strict rules and some of them have more lenient rules. Some of the strictest countries include China, Russia, Saudi Arabia, and India. Is having surveillance on the internet really a bad thing? Let’s dive a bit deeper.

Normally, some countries choose to have surveillance over the internet usually for the national security of the country itself. To protect it from possible plans of crimes that would cause a threat to the citizens or catch criminals. As well as to track the sale of illegal items like weapons etc.. On the other hand, some other countries use it as a weapon to control what their citizens access online in many ways. They mainly want to silence any potential political change that would put them or their power at risk. Hence, they block out all information regarding news in the world and many political views or discussions to prevent broadening the mind of the citizens in any way possible.

One main example of this is China, which is known to be one of the strictest countries in the world in regard to browsing the internet. Many things are blocked from their access- to the tiniest of things like the name of Winnie the Pooh on google search, which is because there’s a joke that goes around saying that their president looks like him.

China blocks access to things on google to disconnect the Chinese people from getting any knowledge about the world’s politics. They track what people do or say and arrest those who seem to have any political engagement or activity. The current president has even made it worse than ever because he boasts in conferences about his internet surveillance system and encourages other countries worldwide to do the same. (Economy E, 2018)

This extreme control has even impacted the country economically in many ways as it made it very hard to connect with external and international companies. (Economy E, 2018)

The issue struck so much debate that even the Canadian government expressed its concerns in regards to human rights, because of how the Muslim Uygurs are being held in concentration camps but no light is being shined on them due to the way China’s social media companies and outlets are usually misused whenever China feels its own political sensitivities are under threat. (Zheng S, 2019)

With china’s case aside, many other countries apply censorship and surveillance over their internet to control what their citizens watch and do online, which strips away all rights of freedom and the free will that human beings were created with and have every right to embrace and practice in every aspect of their life.

I believe people should have the complete freedom to access any information they wish to access online, or else its all just a virtual jail.

List of References - 

https://www.theguardian.com/news/2018/jun/29/the-great-firewall-of-china-xi-jinpings-internet-shutdown

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/politics/article/3036312/china-worst-abuser-internet-freedom-online-censorship-hits

The gaming environment for female gamers has grown to become a very toxic one. Women have always struggled with two main issues in gaming which are the lack of proper representation and being sexually harassed and molested. The whole industry has always been considered the arena for masculine men however in the past two decades, things have been shifting and the stats of women in the industry as both consumers and developers has increased.

For the longest time, video games have been designed and created to cater for men all on an outdated basis of what masculinity and femininity are, which is that men are naturally more interested and competitive about it but females would just prefer sitting and watching them play.

All of which has resulted in the lack of proper representation of female characters for years in video games since they’re all catered for the outdated understanding of masculinity. Where female characters were always made to be one of four: sexualized heroine, damsel in distress, unnecessary background character or the enemy. Men wouldn’t naturally be interested in a damsel in distress and women wouldn’t be interested in a sexualized heroine so everybody naturally would gravitate towards the main male character that was created by the developers who feed the same outdated masculinity concept.

This lack of proper representation stems from the fact that there is not enough diversity in game developing teams because women within the industry are always given more “feminine” jobs which is unfair to their knowledge and expertise. Jobs given to them are mostly ones that require soft skills, including marketing and PR. But hardly ever within the deciding and developing team. Male developers have mostly been chosen over women for the longest time within the industry, which also creates a big wage gap. Without any woman holding any of these roles, the most important roles always belong to men, which keeps the lack of representation going and also suppresses the potential that so many women have.

In addition to that, countless female gamers on a daily basis experience some form of sexual harassment while engaging in online games by strangers. Part of it links back to the hypermasculinity mentioned earlier and flawed perception of masculinity that so many male gamers grew up programmed to believing due to how games were designed to be.

A survey was of 293 women playing online who were harassed showed that for most of them the harassment continued even after the game ended through direct message. Some of them were rape and death threats. 

So many of the women who face these situations choose to ignore them, but some others report while others expose them. But those are too little to count as a proper percentage. Others go all the way to appear as a different gender to avoid disturbing comments.

A study has been made by a university to show that even though women claim they’re used to automatically blocking it, the comments keep repeating in their mind later on in the day and bother them regardless.

It’s a vicious cycle that needs to be addressed.

EA reported in a recent conference that they are looking into the issue and trying to tackle and address it in different ways. It's very hard to tackle and solve due to how hard it would be to control what everybody does on such a massive platform.

Being a multimedia design student myself, part of my degree is about game developing and 3D design and animation. I’m very worried about my own future and what women currently go through in the industry, as I have seen and known many extremely talented women who perfect their craft but were hardly given the chance to find a place to fit in.

We need a place on the table, and with the world changing every day, I hope it keeps changing in the right direction of proper representation, respect and equality.

*i, unfortunately, lost all the links of the articles that i read this information on, so i cant put any links or references*

The topic of fandoms and fan communities was one that I hardly ever put much thought into. Until we discussed it in class, and it made me stop and think about what are fandoms? When can somebody be eligible to call themselves a fan? Do I belong to any fandom?

Fandoms are is a subculture that celebrates a mutual bond formed between people over a book series, TV show, movie, band, or another form of pop culture. People from all over the world connect and build communities online based on a shared interest of a show, book series or any form of pop culture. The online presence of fandom is not very different from offline presence. They tend to create communities online where they connect with each other from all across the globe, share theories about their favorite shows/character, fanart, fanfiction etc.. their offline presence is very heavily focused on cosplay events, conferences, shows, screenings etc.. they bring the world they are indulged in very deeply to life.

Being part of a fandom however goes beyond just sharing your interests with likeminded people, or bringing the imaginary world you're in love with to life.

Dr. Laurel Steinberg, a psychotherapist and professor of psychology at Columbia University told Teen Vogue: “Belonging to a fandom group helps adolescents connect to other like-minded youths on social media throughout the year, as well as at concert events. Feeling like you are part of a group can help one define his/her identity and give a sense of purpose to what might be an otherwise routine lifestyle.” (Wiest B, 2017)

She went on to say, “Connecting with people over shared passions and interests is good for mental and emotional health because it helps to create a fraternity-like or family-like sense of security. It's also generally fun to scheme and get excited about something with others, and gives them a subject to talk about that they know will always be well received.” (Wiest B, 2017)

In addition to that, the adolescence period is when teens get to know more about themselves, get to understand who they want to be and who they really are rather than what they have been told to be. Being part of a fandom helps shape their identity of becoming who they really are. And connecting with like-minded people through fandoms helps in the process of the transition.  (Wiest B, 2017)

Apart from just that, through the communities they build, they tend to build real friendships online with people across the globe that are very similar to them and have similar interests, ones that can understand them. And in many cases, the friendships developed into really good lasting ones, that stand by their side in the darkest times or when they need help from each other. (Morrison M, 2016)

In many ways, the media has portrayed fans as crazy people in the simplest terms, ones that are obsessed with crazy extents with a specific topic. Sometimes they are known to be childish, nerdy or geeky. Which throws everyone who is a fan off from actually expressing who they are, or the love they have fro the community they belong to. Which is very unfortunate. (Morrison M, 2016)

It was very eye-opening for me to know what being part of a fandom is and how it's much more beyond being obsessed with a specific topic in general. I never considered myself a fan or part of any fandom, not because I was too shy to claim that I am, but its because I don’t think I like one thing so much or like it enough to be a fan the way real fans actually are.

I guess its an issue of authenticity in my case, and not wanting to claim I'm something I'm not and steal a title when other people deserve it more than me. But I hope people who identify themselves as part of fandom get comfortable enough to express their identity. 

List of References - 

https://medium.com/s/5-things-i-learned/5-things-i-learned-studying-fandom-2bb857fdef03

https://haenfler.sites.grinnell.edu/subcultural-theory-and-theorists/fandom-and-participatory-culture/

https://www.teenvogue.com/story/psychologists-say-fandoms-are-amazing-for-your-mental-health

Crowd-sourcing has been around for quite some time now. And with the development of tech, usage of internet and the world in general, the context in which it can be defined in has so much debate over it. To put it very simply, its using the help of the public in getting tasks done or generating ideas. And in countless ways recently, social media has been a defining factor in crowd-sourcing. (Bloomerg Cities, 2019)

The way social media is designed and the way people use it make it very easy for brands to interact and get ideas from their followers or also find help for specific tasks easily over a vast population.

Many people tend to confuse the difference between outsourcing and crowd-sourcing. Crowd-sourcing in way is derived from outsourcing. But outsourcing is mainly the process of finding another company or trusted person to assign tasks to in exchange for a payment. Traditionally, businesses have usually found this to be a more cost effective when they want specific tasks. But for crowd-sourcing, the work assigned is spread across a large group of often undefined people.

Traditional businesses usually tend to fear crowd-sourcing due to being very used to their old ways of employment, the desire to have absolute control over their businesses and who they employ which has proven to come at a great cost to them right now because of the way the business world has shifted and evolved. Partnerships now are often preferably made with companies that include them in the creative and marketing process which can’t happen without crowd-sourcing, or at least without innovating in the way you hire and interact with your consumers as a business. (Mainwaring S, 2010)

Crowd-sourcing technically comes in all shapes and forms. Some of the most famous types of crowd-souring processes that happen in companies are crowdfunding, crowd contests and micro tasking. As well as, of course, using social media in different ways to generate ideas and get feedback from users. (Lake L, 2018)

Epi Ludvik replied to a question that said “What are the implications to business, politics and culture?” in an interview in an article by Entrepreneur, 

“Massive! Let's put it this way: No country or large organization has ever seen anything like this before. We are now living in the most exciting times for humans to experience. Yet, the world of mixed reality comes with lots of challenges where society and large institutions from the private and public sector are not ready for this massive challenge.

For so many centuries we've been looking down and practicing a "dig and burn" mentality for energy resources. Now we are looking up for alternative energy; solar, asteroid mining, etc. The old economy is run on the basis of scarcity compared with the new economy which is run on the basis of abundance. Now we are beginning to see the tensions between the old and the new.”

On the other hand, some disadvantages of crowd-sourcing can be the fact that there’s a lack of proper control or follow up on the tasks given due to distance. There’s a high possibility that the person assigned the task might have understood it wrong and then you’ll receive the wrong thing. In addition to that, fraud. Some people get into it to get paid without any intention to do any work.

Apart from just normal tasks, even using the public’s voice and opinions and fully relying on them might not be a great idea since many people have a lot of bias towards certain issues, sometimes even they give answers by mistake, sometimes they are fake accounts. So results and suggestions and ideas need to be analyzed and understood first but they can’t be something to totally rely on. (Bloomerg Cities, 2019)

Having weighed out the definitions, taken a small business lesson and understood the differences, I would full on say yes, crowd-sourcing is a great resource which is a byproduct of what humans have made out of the internet. 

Which is honestly amazing. It makes you excited and feel “damn, what a time to be alive”. There are so many opportunities and exciting twists to things. To err is to human, error is always going to be there. Assigning tasks and not getting them done the way you want to is not foreign to employing anyone, whether you consider (traditionally) to be trusted or not. Social media statistics are extremely helpful, but you can’t rely on one thing to help you take decisions. 

Just use your amazing resources wisely y’all. It’s so freaking cool. It really is an exciting and fun time to be alive.

References- 

https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/307438

https://medium.com/@BloombergCities/explainer-what-is-crowdsourcing-9dc2914e1845

https://www.thebalancesmb.com/what-is-crowdsourcing-marketing-and-how-is-it-used-2295467

Opinions are things that everyone is entitled to have. Everyone is entitled to their own opinion about something and that is totally fine, what really matters is how they act upon the opinion. Some people keep them to themselves, some people spread them respectfully while listening to others, some people don’t harmfully act upon them, but some others do. But how far can the harm go? Can it ever be useful?

Over the past decade or so, people have expressed their opinions online more openly and often in much harsher and harmful ways than they would have if it were a personal interaction. That has been defined as trolling, or at other times, cyber-bullying. What’s the difference?

Trolling has been defined as creating discord on the Internet by starting quarrels or upsetting people by posting inflammatory or off-topic messages in an online community. Basically, a social media troll is someone who purposely says something controversial in order to get a rise out of other users. (Hanson J, 2019) Whereas trolls focus on being a nuisance to online communities, cyberbullies target individuals. Rather than post generally inflammatory statements, they post vicious things about a single person with a goal of shaming or intimidation. (Mcdunnigan M, 2019)

After looking at the definitions, is there really any difference between the two? They’re both hateful comments or actions thrown at someone, some are meant to be public and some are meant to be directed to the person to threaten or disrespect them. Either publicly or privately.

Now the question is, could trolling ever be useful? Let’s dig deeper.

A case to look at that kind of reflects both cyberbullying and trolling is a recent one that happened with a fashion blogger called Dina Torkia. She is a Muslim British blogger, born to an Egyptian father and a British mother, who has started blogging 10 years ago on YouTube. She was a full-time hijabi and started off her blogging career as one. She was exploring modest fashion and her main drive was to showcase how there’s more to hijabi fashion than ugly baggy clothes, and that it can be classy and there’s so much room for style and exploration. (Barr S, 2018)

With time, she started feeling differently about her headscarf and decided to take it off after wearing it for 20 years. The backlash she got was insane. She got cyberbullied by so many of her followers through her DMS and comments section on Instagram and YouTube and trolled by several “Muslim” channels on YouTube. Claiming that they are trying to expose her, or make sense of her decision, or claim things she never said just to stir up drama and evidently get more views and attention since she’s one of the top Muslim YouTubers with the most views. They basically added gas to the fire for the sake of their own exposure, which brought so much hate towards her than what already existed. (Nabbout M, 2019)

People’s reactions were inexplicable, and unjustifiable, and had no relation whatsoever with what Islam really is or what it preaches in any way. Modesty can be practiced in a thousand and one ways; her headscarf was only one of them. And while many people claimed that she was selling herself and her modesty, that she did it all for the money. Their actions if anything were the most immodest in this scenario.

She later posted a 47 minute long video called “The Bad, The Worse and The Ugly”. It was a video of her reading all the terrible hurtful comments people left on her videos after she posted her first photo and video online without her headscarf, and particularly increased after the video posted by the “Muslim” YouTube channel. It was a painful example of how disgusting humans can get because they’re hiding behind a screen. It was showing the true colors of certain people and how in no way they represent the modesty they’re defending nor the Islam they preach. It was an eye-opener. (Prideaux S, 2019)

It would raise a lot of questions. Related to societies, their double standards, their actual motivation for support, their harshness, their understanding of Islam and modesty and of course, how bad trolling and cyberbullying can get for something so... small. It’s just a piece of cloth on somebody’s head, it’s their relationship with God and their own journey. How can such an innocent act result in so much hate and pain for her and her family? How is that ethical?

Attached is the video she posted on youtube.

WARNING: This video contains sensitive language.

On the flip side, there’s another case that has struck much debate in the Egyptian society recently, and it is one that involves the football player Amr Warda. He was supposed to be part of the national team during the African cup of nations. He DMed a model through her story in a flirty manner and she exposed him for doing so because it was quite shocking since he’s not only in a position where he’s not supposed to be doing that but also should be focused on the mission he’s on for his own country’s sake. When she exposed him, people started spreading a lot of hate about him. A lot of others were defending him. There was even a hashtag that was made to support him because some Egyptians, which were particularly young men his age, thought what he was doing was normal. And that girls were making a big deal out of it; she was in fact “happy” she got that message that’s why she was “showing it off”. And so much more cr*p.(Douihech M, 2019)

More girls started exposing him, because they felt the need to show his true colors and that he does not deserve the support he’s getting. They even shared some voice notes of him forcing himself on some girls to come to his hotel room, and him getting angry and offended when they declined his offer. Sadly, but quite expectedly, the media for the most part were supporting him as well. And asking, ‘why did girls reply to his DMS on Instagram anyway??’. (Khalife L, 2019)

But due to Egypt being put under the spotlight, especially that it was the hosting country for the African Cup of Nations, and the issue getting more attention, the Egyptian national team management felt the need to suspend him from the team for a few games. But brought him back a short while later. Almost, like nothing ever happened. (Douihech M, 2019)

Did he get what he deserved, at least slightly? Yes. Did trolling and exposing him perhaps be of any good in this situation? Probably. He did receive a large amount of hate, which he deserved, but in my opinion, the word for this situation is exposing him and not so much trolling him.

In my opinion, I believe trolling, in general, is a terrible unethical practice that nobody should practice nor participate in and that is simply because it is based on harmful intentions and the motivation to do bad and cause harm. Which are all elements for destruction, and once our intentions as humans are ill or evil, it starts a cycle of chaos? It is the reason behind all the chaos in the world right now. Bad intention. This is why I mentioned Amr Warda's case was more exposing him than trolling him because the core intention was not bad. It was fueled by the desire to expose a bad that he has put in the world, to potentially make him get the punishment he deserves to make other people watch out from him.

 It all lies in good intentions and the core motivation behind doing what you’re doing. Just don’t be bad to people man. Learn to respect them and respectfully say your opinion. Learn to fill yourself with love and have good intentions with your actions. The world would be great. Damn, what a world that would be.

 List of References - 

https://www.thenational.ae/lifestyle/i-hope-you-die-influencer-dina-torkia-shares-shocking-amount-of-abuse-she-s-received-since-taking-hijab-off-1.809869

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6554641/YouTube-star-reads-abuse-received-stopped-wearing-hijab.html

https://stepfeed.com/muslim-youtuber-received-a-bunch-of-hate-comments-after-taking-off-hijab-4766

https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/fashion/dina-torkia-youtube-hijab-video-fashion-modesty-style-a8176081.html

https://itstillworks.com/difference-between-troll-cyberbully-5054.html

https://unlcms.unl.edu/engineering/james-hanson/trolls-and-their-impact-social-media

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/apr/05/online-trolls-comments

https://www.thesundaily.my/sport/egypt-footballer-amr-warda-banned-over-sexual-harassment-claims-XD1027671

https://orangefootballclub.com/en/articles/amr-warda-scandal/

For the longest time, protests have brought voice to the voiceless to reflect the change they need in their countries from their governments. It was a platform for them to speak up and express the anger they suppressed for so long, but it has almost always had its negative consequences on none more than the protesters themselves.

For the longest time, I’ve been pro protesting all the way. It’s the most beautiful and terrifying statement that can be mad against corruption or any form of injustice you’ve expressed or seen. If anything it makes you feel human. I’m Egyptian, and I grew up witnessing everything that has happened in my country before, during and after the 25th of January revolution. Recently, many countries have been rising against their governments again, it feels almost like a global spring and not just Arab. Including Egypt. But with the results I can currently see in Egypt post revolution, it got me thinking, do protests really work? At all?

Protesting has definitely brought about some sort of change in some scenarios, but in some others they almost never did, and it anything, they’ve made things worse. And in some others if not most, it has been completely ignored.

Ok. Story time.

Taking Egypt as an example, the 25th of January revolution was the most beautiful and chaotic thing that has happened for Egyptians and in Egyptian history. 30 years, if not a lot more, of utter suppression of anger. Of daily witnessing some form of injustice or the other. Has suddenly exploded. Egyptians reached a state of mania. Nobody cared whether they’d die at Tahrir square or not. Some people walked straight towards policemen who were shooting them and kept walking. All to make a statement. Thousands were killed and millions were injured. After around 11 days, they were heard and the president stepped down. It was a state of hope that nobody has ever experienced, the air in Egypt felt different. 

But it all went downhill, and before we knew it, Egypt went into military coup. Thousands were put in jails for no reason at all. Thousands were put in jail because they were expressing the voice they fought so hard for during the 25th of January revolution to keep. Thousands were killed for protesting towards all of that. Thousands were killed.

Corruption slowly seeped back in, almost like it never left. Its 10 years later, and Egypt’s economy is worse than it’s ever been. Our current president put thousands in jails, stole millions, and even made agreements with other countries to claim parts of the Egyptian land as theirs.

He changed the rules to be in his favor, changing the presidential period terms to make him potentially stay till 2034 (G Jonathan 2019). A little while before the elections day back in 2018, all other candidates stepped down, overnight at the same time. And there was no other option but him.

I can go on and on about this forever, but the point I’m trying to make is that if anything, things are getting worse. Corruption is too deeply rooted in some nations that simply protesting would not work.

If anything I’m having a very hard time deciding myself, whether protesting is ever a good idea anymore. And that is solely because protesting in most corrupt nations is never peaceful or harmonious. You can never guarantee that you are going to protest and come back alive. And looking at the results, of not only Egypt but of almost all countries that set revolutions like Syria and Yemen and Algeria and many more, I think. It’s still beautiful, but at what cost?

Thousands have died for almost, and it breaks my heart to say this, nothing. Is it really worth it to protest in the first place, at all?

I’ve had this conversation with at least 20 people, and I can’t get myself to have a stand about this. Because on one hand, having a voice and expressing it against evil is what makes us feel alive and human but on the flip side of it, at what cost does that come? And is there ever any actual impact change after that?

 References - 

Since the beginning of time, human beings have been wired to exist and evolve solely by sharing opinions, thoughts, and ideas. We are created with the natural capacity and ability to build thoughts and have a voice to not only evolve as beings but also make the world we exist in evolve. And above all, free will. The sharing of ideas has always naturally happened through different platforms over time. Very recently, its been social media.

Social media, as we all have grown to know what it is, is a platform that gives users the freewill to share almost anything they feel like sharing with the world (with the exception of a few restrictions). Very recently, however, studies and people have started to believe that engagement on social media over political issues doesn’t always have a good impact and isn’t necessarily beneficial. But how bad is politically engaging with a wide audience freely really is? How bad was it before social media even existed? Was it better before?

In general terms, the wide public would immediately gravitate towards believing that political engagement online has brought about a lot of good change. I mean, you’re given absolute free will, how can that be bad? Many benefits of political engagement online especially through facebook and twitter include the ability to connect with not only different citizens and strangers to understand their stand. But also engaging with politicians and leaders and expressing your concerns directly. In addition to that, you can create viral campaigns online that thousands or even millions can participate in that can actually bring about positive change through hashtags on twitter or movements on facebook. Things like connecting citizens together, encouraging people to go out and vote and opening up a discussion as well as bringing light onto underrepresented minorities’ viewpoints. (Murse T, 2019)

It’s all coming down to the factor of the widespread of views and concerns as well as connectivity among democratic advocates worldwide which made it possible in many scenarios to take action and voice opinions. One example is the Arab Spring in the middle east which started in Tunisia and then Egypt. It all started online with someone creating a page who was expressing his anger against the deeply rooted corruption and injustice that made so many people connect and relate. Which naturally evolved into an idea, of taking action against the corrupt government that would hopefully bring about positive change. Which gave birth to several revolutions that showed the power of the people and their voice, regardless of the consequences that followed that. Which had nothing to do with social media.

On the flip side, political engagement on social media has been proven in many scenarios and only very recently that it has its downsides. It can all be summed up in one point: false information. By understanding human psychology, the phrase “what's good for capturing human attention is often bad for humans.” Sums it all up. Recent studies have shown that fake news and rumors reach a larger audience and are spread way faster than true information. A recent study has shown that false stories can reach 1500 people six times quicker than a true story does. This stems from the natural human desire to prefer novel and emotional content that aligns with pre-existing political worldviews. (Born K, 2018)

Corrupt politicians have been taking this to their advantage recently to bring down people who go against them, by spreading false or fabricated views through ads and famous news pages on facebook. This technique has been used several times to give voice to extremists and anti-democratic minorities in the liberal west. (Beauchamp Z, 2019)

Information can be very easily fabricated online which can also very easily manipulate people and their views and directly or indirectly affect, say, elections or even actions citizens might choose to take against special people in power to bring them down.

It all revolves around understanding how the algorithm works, what gets most to people and using that in your favor as a corrupt leader. Which has evidently worked in Trump’s case for his elections. (Botler J, 2019)

In addition to the fabrication of news, people have grown to become demotivated in participating in any political discussion or even bothering to read it or have an opinion about it due to all the contradicting views and confusing clutter of information. It’s overwhelming for many, which is understandable. It makes it very hard to have a stand or an opinion, because most times you don’t even know what the source of the information is. And even if it's from what seems to be a legitimate source online, it could just be another fabricated attempt to manipulate you as a citizen.

This discussion could go on forever, but now that some of the key pros and cons have been weighed, is it really worse than the traditional ways for political engagement? Which revolved around getting news about your country or the world through limited news outlets and the only form of voicing or exchanging opinions would be through friends gatherings?

By now you could probably have an opinion about it, maybe you don’t and that’s an opinion on its own. But I'm going to share my stand on this.

It all connects to the first thing I mentioned in this post, which was free will and self-expression. The more the world gives us channels to be able to express ourselves, thoughts and voices and share them, which is a desire that has been deeply engrained within us as humans, the better.

Taking Egypt as an example, the only platforms to receive any sort of news for Egyptians for the longest time was through news outlets on TV and newspapers that were entirely controlled by the government. All the news was almost always fabricated. The only way you could express your thoughts was by chatting with friends. Corruption went on for decades, if not a whole century. And as soon as social media was shining a light on an issue, everyone was sharing the anger bottled up in them because of the connectivity it offers. And with an idea, a facebook post, a call for action, everything exploded. Many had high hopes for the future because they finally realized they have free will, the ability to self-express and voice the opinions that have been shunned for decades, but things went downhill again. And I won't say that was because of social media, nor that the revolution failed, it's because of lack of free will to express and share for decades through traditional methods that made the corruption too deeply rooted to be cleaned out by a revolution. It was beautiful though. If anything, the lack of political engagement on platforms like social media earlier, is what made it too bad to fix.

This was one hell of a long post.. thank you if you read it till the end. I did mention in my bio that I like to talk a lot! I’ll try to keep it short next time. I’ll try OK.

References - 

Murse T 2019, How Social Media Has Changed Politics, ThoughCo., https://www.thoughtco.com/how-social-media-has-changed-politics-3367534

Botler J 2019, Social Media Are Ruining Political Discourse, The Atlantic, https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2019/05/why-social-media-ruining-political-discourse/589108/

Beachamp Z 2019, Social Media Is Rotting Politics Within, Vox, https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/1/22/18177076/social-media-facebook-far-right-authoritarian-populism

Recently there has been a lot of debate about what Tumblr is and isn’t. Is Tumblr a blog? Or is it a social media site? Why do people use it and what do they use it for now? Well, let's dive a bit deeper into that.

By definition, a blog is a list of journal entries posted on a web page. if anybody knows how to make a website, they can immediately start a blog. And recently, there have been many platforms that have several templates that allow users to just type their blog in and hit the publish button  (TechTerms, 2019). In way simpler terms, and my terms, it’s an online diary or scrapbook that you can share with people. With social media, on the other hand, its communication tools can be accessed through the web which allows people to interact together by sharing and receiving each others’ information (Hudson M, 2019). Which in simpler terms, again, is interacting and socializing with people online by sharing information together. In my perspective, I feel the difference between a blog and a social media platform or website is that social media is mainly targeted towards socializing and interacting with people through screens while blogs are just posts you put up online, you can still get interaction, but that’s not its mere purpose.

So, with all that’s been mentioned above, what is Tumblr? Is it a blogging site? Or is it a social media site?

On paper, Tumblr allows instant messaging, commenting, liking posts and even ‘reblogging’ them or ‘sharing them’ which are all key elements of social media sites. But it also allows following people rather than having them on a friends list, the numbers don’t matter and you can follow hashtags or look up topics to read or see posts about. Which isn’t necessarily available on social media sites.

Where can we draw a line to distinguish where Tumblr stands?

Majority of the users on Tumblr post long posts about their day, thoughts, journeys or sometimes even things as simple as pictures. Posts have taken a specific aesthetic that people always call now ‘Tumblr aesthetic’. Which makes it attract a specific audience, mostly ( Reeve, 2016 ).

However, some others really use it mainly to advertise their work and products, mostly artists. In some cases like Abbey Sy, she started her entire hand lettering career on her Tumblr account and her posts are still circling around to this day. That is due to the ‘reblogging’ nature created by Tumblr users on the platform.

But then again, the act of blogging doesn’t seem to be confined within Tumblr alone anymore. Facebook is currently used by several people, including the Egyptian political activist Wael Ghoneim, as kind of a blog. He doesn’t want to get anything out of it anymore. He shares messages and thoughts and feelings. And he isn’t expecting anything but respect from the people watching him and open-mindedness as well as acceptance. 

By now I think you might be confused and feel like this really long post is conflicting and relatively confusing since no side has been taken and no question has been answered.. which is exactly the point.

In my very humble perspective, I believe that different platforms – especially now – that enable you to share things with people in whatever way, shape or form are just tools of self-expression. All people really do on any of those platforms regardless of what they are labeled as – being a blog or a social media site – is one thing. And that is sharing. And since not a single person is the same, their form of self-expression is not going to be the same either. And that comes back to their way of using a specific channel of self-expression. I believe a site can be a blog or a social media platform or even a burger if that’s how you plan on using it. I believe those are all fancy terms put by people to label different forms of expression, which isn’t bad or wrong in any way, but it just leads to debates that show lead to confusion over a simple matter.

So what is it that I’m trying to say? Or what its it that really answers the question I oh-so-proudly wrote in bold block letters in the headline of this post? Its that it can be whatever the user can choose to let it be. Tumblr can be a social media website if we choose to use it that way or just a blog, or even a little bit of both. Or sometimes none of these, and we can use it as a marketing tool instead. And the same goes for any other platform.

We as humans have so much control over things than we think we do, and we love constraining ourselves within terms and guides for many things. Even simple matters such as how to express yourself online. Bro, just talk. In whatever way that pleases you. Have fun. And express your self, feelings and thoughts. Or maybe, if you're creative enough, make a burger out of it. Because it's almost 2020 and almost anything is possible. Which is something I'm starting to really like about the world right now.

List of References

________

Reeve, E. 2016. “The secret lives of Tumblr teens ”, The New Republic https://newrepublic.com/article/129002/secret-lives-tumblr-teens

Hudson, M. 2019. “ What Is Social Media?”,  https://www.thebalancesmb.com/what-is-social-media-2890301

TechTerms 2019. “Blog”, https://techterms.com/definition/blog