#mda2009

WEEK 8 - Body Modification on Visual Social Media

Hey hey hey, my fellow bloggie peeps ✨

Guess who's back with another blog post? That's right, it's me! 🩷

I know it's been a while, but I'm here and ready to share some new content with you all~

Welcome to today's blog, where we’ll be diving into something truly fascinating. We're gonna dive into the topic of Body Modification on Visual Social Media and I will be focusing on the one and only Rick Genest, aka Zombie Boy.Sadly, Rick passed away in 2018, but his legacy continues to inspire and captivate people around the world. Despite his untimely death, Rick's journey is filled with positivity, creativity, and the power of genuine support.

Let’s get into it right away now!

𝐑𝐈𝐂𝐊 𝐆𝐄𝐍𝐄𝐒𝐓: 𝐀 𝐋𝐈𝐕𝐈𝐍𝐆 𝐂𝐀𝐍𝐕𝐀𝐒

In our digitally connected world, digital citizenship goes beyond just our online actions—it’s also about how we present ourselves and influence others.

One captivating example of this is the late Rick Genest, aka Zombie Boy. Rick was a Canadian artist, actor, fashion model, and musician who left an unforgettable impact on visual social media with his unique body modifications. With a Guinness World Record for his full-body tattoos, Rick’s journey provides essential insights into digital citizenship and the health education surrounding body modification.

𝐈𝐍𝐅𝐋𝐔𝐄𝐍𝐂𝐄 𝐎𝐍 𝐕𝐈𝐒𝐔𝐀𝐋 𝐒𝐎𝐂𝐈𝐀𝐋 𝐌𝐄𝐃𝐈𝐀

Rick's presence on visual social media platforms like Instagram and Facebook was groundbreaking. His tattoos, which intricately depicted a decomposing body, were both shocking and mesmerizing. They challenged conventional beauty standards and sparked conversations about body modification, self-expression, and identity. Rick used these platforms not only to share his art but also to connect with a global audience, inspiring many to view tattoos and body modifications as legitimate forms of art and self-expression  (Guichard-Kenny 2018).

𝐃𝐈𝐆𝐈𝐓𝐀𝐋 𝐂𝐈𝐓𝐈𝐙𝐄𝐍𝐒𝐇𝐈𝐏: 𝐑𝐄𝐒𝐏𝐎𝐍𝐒𝐈𝐁𝐈𝐋𝐈𝐓𝐘 𝐀𝐍𝐃 𝐈𝐍𝐅𝐋𝐔𝐄𝐍𝐂𝐄

Rick's journey highlights essential aspects of digital citizenship. By sharing his body modification journey online, he took on the responsibility of influencing how others perceive and engage with the concept of body modification. His candidness about his transformation and the artistic process behind his tattoos fostered a community that appreciated and respected diverse forms of self-expression (Dobson 2019).

However, with great influence comes great responsibility. As a digital citizen, Rick was aware of the impact his posts could have on young and impressionable audiences. He often spoke about the significance of his tattoos, not merely as a form of rebellion but as a deeply personal and artistic journey. His transparency and openness provided a more nuanced understanding of body modification, encouraging his followers to think critically about their choices and the motivations behind them (Motta 2018).

𝐇𝐄𝐀𝐋𝐓𝐇 𝐄𝐃𝐔𝐂𝐀𝐓𝐈𝐎𝐍: 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐑𝐄𝐀𝐋𝐈𝐓𝐘 𝐎𝐅 𝐁𝐎𝐃𝐘 𝐌𝐎𝐃𝐈𝐅𝐈𝐂𝐀𝐓𝐈𝐎𝐍

Rick's extensive tattoos also bring to light critical health education issues related to body modification. Tattoos, especially to the extent Rick had them, require significant consideration regarding physical health, mental well-being, and social implications.

When it comes to Physical Health, Rick's tattoos were done by professional artists under sterile conditions, minimizing the risk of infections and complications. His experience underscores the importance of seeking reputable tattoo artists and understanding the health risks involved (Mackinney-Valentin 2013).

As for mental health being, For Rick, tattoos were more than skin deep. They were a therapeutic and artistic outlet. However, not everyone has the same experience. Body modification can have profound psychological effects, and it’s crucial to approach it with a clear mind and realistic expectations. Rick’s journey encourages potential enthusiasts to consider their motivations and the potential long-term effects on their mental health (Matsyshyna 2016).

But to sum it all up, Rick’s appearance challenged societal norms and, at times, led to social stigmatization. His resilience and ability to turn his body into a celebrated work of art serve as a reminder of the societal challenges that come with extreme body modification. Educating oneself about these potential challenges is an essential aspect of the health education surrounding body modification.

𝐋𝐀𝐃𝐘 𝐆𝐀𝐆𝐀'𝐒 𝐑𝐎𝐋𝐄 𝐈𝐍 𝐑𝐈𝐂𝐊'𝐒 𝐈𝐍𝐒𝐈𝐏𝐈𝐑𝐀𝐓𝐈𝐎𝐍𝐀𝐋 𝐉𝐎𝐔𝐑𝐍𝐀𝐄𝐘

One of the most beautiful aspects of Rick's story is the incredible support he received from Lady Gaga. She recognized his unique artistry and saw something special in him. Their paths crossed when Rick starred in her music video for "Born This Way," a moment that skyrocketed his visibility and helped him gain recognition for his extraordinary self-expression (Galway & Mallon 2018).

Lady Gaga wasn’t just a collaborator; she was a true friend and advocate. She often praised Rick’s talent and courage, using her platform to shine a light on his work and the art of body modification (Yebra 2018). Her support played a significant role in Rick’s rise to fame and helped break down barriers and stigmas associated with extreme body art.

Rick’s life may have been cut short, but his impact on the world of art, fashion, and digital media is everlasting. He showed us that self-expression knows no bounds and that true art comes from within. Lady Gaga’s unwavering support and belief in Rick's talent remind us of the importance of lifting each other up and celebrating our unique differences.

So, let’s remember Rick Genest not for his passing, but for the incredible legacy he left behind and the positive influence he had on the world, thanks in part to the support of a superstar who believed in his vision. Keep expressing yourself, and never forget the power of a supportive community! 💖

Love, Zen🌸

REFERENCES

Dobson, J 2019, ‘The marvellous history of medicine’, BMJ, p. l6603.

Guichard-Kenny, S 2018, ‘The Anatomical Tattoo’, Journal of Visual Communication in Medicine, vol. 41, no. 3, pp. 140–142.

Galway, K & Mallon, S 2018, Lady Gaga’s Twitter blunder and why speculating about suicide after a celebrity death is problematic, theconversation.com.

Motta, G 2018, Fashion through History: Costumes, Symbols, Communication (Volume I), Google Books, Cambridge Scholars Publishing.

Mackinney-Valentin, M 2013, ‘Face value: Subversive beauty ideals in contemporary fashion marketing’, Fashion, Style & Popular Culture, vol. 1, no. 1, pp. 13–27.

Matsyshyna, IV 2016, ‘Body-centrism in advertising texts, or how we are inured to pain’, AI & SOCIETY, vol. 32, no. 1, pp. 109–115.

Building political communities has benefited greatly from the use of social media. Regardless of where they live, it enables people to connect with others who share their political opinions. Additionally, it makes it simpler for people to band together and support political issues.

Social media is being utilised in a variety of ways to create political communities. Using groups and forums is one popular method. People may organise events, share information, and discuss politics in these groups and forums. For instance, there are Facebook groups for people who support certain political issues as well as groups for fans of each of the main political parties.

Utilising hashtags is just another way that social media is being utilised to create political communities. People may use hashtags to search for and connect with others who are discussing similar political concerns. For instance, the #MeToo hashtag has been utilised to create a community of those who have been the victims of sexual harassment or assault.

Social media is also being used to create political communities by giving political figures and activists a forum to communicate with their followers. Political leaders may mobilise their fans, offer their opinions, and make announcements on social media. Social media may be used by activists to organise protests, gather money, and spread awareness of vital topics.

The development and organisation of political communities has been significantly impacted by social media. It has made it simpler for individuals to interact with political leaders and activists, organise and mobilise around political issues, and connect with those who share their political beliefs.

Here are some concrete instances of how political communities are being formed through the usage of social media:

Social media has been utilised by the Black Lives Matter movement in the US to create a network of activists opposing racial injustice. The campaign spreads awareness of police brutality and violence against Black people using hashtags like #BlackLivesMatter and #SayHerName. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in India has amassed a sizable following among young people thanks to social media. The party mobilises its members through social media to propagate its message of Hindu nationalism. The Workers' Party (PT) in Brazil has reached out to its followers in rural regions through social media. The party posts information about its initiatives on social media and also share information about its programs.

Benefits of building political communities on social media

Building political networks on social media has several advantages. First, social media facilitates communication amongst people who hold similar political beliefs. People may feel less alone and more a part of a larger community as a result of this.

Second, social media facilitates the organisation and mobilisation of individuals behind political issues. This is so that individuals may more quickly exchange information, plan activities, and find supporters thanks to social media networks.

Third, social media gives political figures and activists a way to communicate with their followers. This might encourage people to take action and raise public knowledge of political concerns.

Challenges of building political communities on social media

Even while there are numerous advantages, creating political communities on social media has certain drawbacks. The transmission of false information and disinformation via social media is a problem. This can lead to polarisation and conflict within political communities and make it difficult for individuals to determine which information to believe.

Conflicts in different eras, Politics everywhere ~ Well, look at the bright side at least it’s not the end of the world. 

The political topics could be very sensitive towards one another where an individual could have different perspectives and opinions on certain topics or people. These topics are easy to get accessed through media, and in fact, they might even appear when you don’t even look for them. Now, I’m not a very political guy, but I have to know what’s going on in the world, and I do say this, not everything is true until there are certain proof and evidence. You never know what going on there, they might appear like a beautiful flower upfront when deep down there are truth uncovered. 

So be prepared and let’s get on to the topic ~ 😉

What is Political Engagement? 

Political Engagement has the meaning of participation of citizens by selecting the leaders or figures that they satisfied or prefer that have the power in government. Entering themselves as a contender for leadership in the country or president of the state is also included. The voted leaders will be entrusted and responsible to public officials and therefore provide services to the public. 

How Political Used in Social Media? 

Politicians had been tackled on social media since 2009, and it’s not easy since technologies are getting more advance now and our politicians are not like us who could master Instagram's features in a day, they have to master every popular communicator to get into public. Platforms that are the most popular like Facebook, Twitter, Facebook. 

So here are a few methods how politician uses the social media platform.

Engage with Short Video or Short Clips 

Since it’s still in the midst of a pandemic, this is one of the most effective ways to engage with the public. I assume a lot of politicians and in fact that every politician is doing short videos to promote and to increase the public’s trust, videos that are encouraging and engaging. Or messages that promise the public certain things if they win the campaign. People tend to be more attracted to watch short videos more with few seconds or 1 - 2 minutes than whole 5 minutes videos. I don’t know why and guess I’ll never understand the mystery 🤔

Video Link: https://publish.twitter.com/?query=https%3A%2F%2Ftwitter.com%2FPOTUS%2Fstatus%2F1353015529410334726&widget=Tweet

Video Link: https://www.instagram.com/p/CGztAMfj07_/

Engage with Media’s Post 

People from all around the world are checking media for news sources even multiple times a day to keep up-to-date, as some of the pages are updated within hours. And news now is faster than the bullet train. 

However, a lot of controversies have been sparked by the posts or tweets made by politicians. For example, President Donald Trump made a controversial tweet directly pointing at CNN. Now sadly, Trump’s Twitter has been permanently banned for life I suppose due to some reasons because I couldn’t find his account. 

Hey, like I say I’m not a very political guy ~ 😉

Once again a little reminder, there’s no hate here but I’m just giving some examples here, social media are very powerful. So whatever we do in the media, we ought to be careful about it, because you never know what’s going to happen and which flames will be ignited.

And that’s all for this week's blog, I hope you like it if you don’t I don’t blame you 🙂 Hopefully I’ll see you next week. 😎

PS: Here a little of Mikasa ( I like her better with longer hair) 

Crowdsourcing

Crowdsourcing can be an extremely powerful tool if leveraged in the right place at the right time (White 2019). It is a form of collective wisdom which enabled a creative mode of user interactivity through the web technology to collect data, information, ideas and talents, particularly driving the human capital to solve the problems in a timely and less costly manner (Chin 2020).

One of the companies that is killing it with crowdsourcing is LEGO, who established the LEGO Ideas platform (Planbox 2018). With this platform, any user can submit idea for new LEGO sets and once a user’s idea is selected, the person can produce the idea into reality with the LEGO team plus the person also gets a royalty on net revenue. The LEGO Ideas platform not only supports new idea generation, but it also enables LEGO to validate a demand for such ideas.

Crowdfunding

While crowdsourcing seeks information or intelligence, crowdfunding seeks money to support individuals, charities, or start-up companies (Hargrave 2019). According to Smith and James (2020), crowdfunding makes use of the easy accessibility of vast networks of people through social media and crowdfunding websites to bring investors and entrepreneurs together. Of course, this extends to the purpose of charities where money is raised through social media and crowdfunding websites as well.

Remember earlier on this year, a massive explosion hit Beirut in Lebanon on 4th August. Impact Lebanon (2020) states that a large part of the city became rubble and many lives were lost. This is where JustGiving came in as a platform that allows for crowdfunding to provide some relief to those afflicted by the calamity. One of the campaigns raised is Disaster Relief for Beirut Explosion targeting for £7,500,000. Personally, I have donated an amount to help those in need through this crowdfunding. Essentially, crowdfunding could be a great platform to raise the small amounts of capital from a large number of individuals to finance a new business venture or donate for charities (Smith & James 2020).  

References

Chin, B 2020, ‘Week 8: Crowdsourcing & crowdfunding’, MDA20009 Digital communities, Learning materials via Canvas, Swinburne University of Technology, 27 October, viewed 29 October 2020.

Hargrave 2019, ‘Crowdsourcing’, URL: https://www.investopedia.com/terms/c/crowdsourcing.asp.

Impact Lebanon 2020, ‘Disaster Relief for Beirut Explosion’, URL: https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/lebanon-relief?fbclid=IwAR04i-xnqayteN4y3a3gHOIhF3TcRDEBMUWddkcLYGDquUpNRVa1n2IQ3wg.

Planbox 2018,  ‘4 Companies That are Killing It with Crowdsourcing’, URL: https://www.planbox.com/4-companies-that-are-killing-it-with-crowdsourcing/.

Smith & James 2020, ‘Crowdfunding’, URL: https://www.investopedia.com/terms/c/crowdfunding.asp.

What is Public Health Campaigns?

A public health initiative is an attempt to encourage a given public to partake in activities that promote health or to refrain from activities that are unhealthful. The communication elements of public health initiatives reflect four main elements.

Why are Public Health Campaigns important?

Campaigns are used to increase awareness about critical health issues and to inspire organisations or people to obtain advice and resources. By increasing awareness, people may shift behaviours over time and change actions over the longer term , particularly as other prevention services are used.

Video games have always been an important part of the Internet ever since it was introduced back in the days which results in a new definition of ‘gaming culture’. This is not an unfamiliar term to us, who was born during the rise of the digital age since gaming has been a vital part of our lives, especially me where my entire childhood is based on video games. In this week's discussion, I will discuss the gaming cultures and game live streaming.

First, what is video games? Granic, Lobel, and Engels (2014) defined video games as digital electronic interaction between the player and the virtual environment, online games, however, is the interaction between a person and others through a third-party interface. The gaming culture has changed over the past decades, starting from hardcore gamers want to try out new games and experience the features into gamers watching other playing video games. This also results in E-sport, “a form of electronic sport where the team competes to gain victory and reputations” (Jenny, Manning, Keiper and Olrich 2016), the most popular E-sport competition is The International organized by Valve were teams coming from all over the world to compete over the game called Dota 2 with the prize reached approximately US$34,330,068 in total. This has significantly changed the perspective of both gamers and non-gamers that gaming can make money, A LOT of money. With the reputation of The International by Valve and Worlds by Riot Games (another tournament compete by League of Legends), the gaming culture rises as one of the most profitable industry in the world, highly developed countries immensely invest in a professional team and spend millions of dollars to recruit professionals players so that they can form a team where they can outweigh others and win the championship.

Live Streaming, is another aspect of the gaming culture, Taylor (2018) proposed that live streaming is a newly introduced proposition of gaming culture, people participated in live streaming are considered ‘viewers’, they come to watch or even interact with the ‘streamers’. The most well-known streaming platforms can be mentioned are Twitch and Youtube Gaming which have the most viewers counts compared to other platforms. Hilvert-Bruce, Neill, Sjöblom, and Hamari (2018) discussed that people logging in to Twitch for multiple reasons, social interactions, entertainment, meeting new people and information seeking but mostly to watch their favorite streaming playing and interacting with their viewers. Live streaming forms a social digital community where people seek to one particular person to share the same interest and a person does not have to be in one community but rather in multiple communities.

  Reference

Granic, I, Lobel, A & Engels, R (2014), The benefits of playing video games, American Psychologist, vol. 69, no. 1, pp. 66-78.

Hilvert-Bruce, Z, Neill, J, Sjöblom, M & Hamari, J (2018), Social motivations of live-streaming viewer engagement on Twitch, Computers in Human Behavior, vol. 84, pp. 58-67.

Jenny, S, Manning, R, Keiper, M & Olrich, T (2016), Virtual(ly) Athletes: Where eSports Fit Within the Definition of “Sport”, Quest, vol. 69, no. 1, pp. 1-18.