ricechua1802

[ricechua1802]

Intimacy (Clarice Chua)

This week, I will be interacting with the article by Lysandra Mason: Tinder and humanitarian hook-ups: the erotics of social media racism. In her article, Mason discusses the wild phenomenon of Tinder users using their humanitarian or volunteer experiences to "get laid". These (usually and mostly) white men and women use photos of them with racialized children in what seems to be third world countries to show off their "selflessness" for going on volunteer trips and attract others in the hopes of getting a date or hook-up.

She also goes on to talk about race and desire. Specifically how through data from another dating app from Facebook, "Are You Interested", it revealed that black, white and Latino men preferred Asian women. On the flip side, Asian, white and Latina women preferred white men. Both black men and women however, received the lowest positive response rates. Many races like Asians and blacks are also fetishized by white people, particularly by men.

With online dating, you're first choosing someone based on their photos. So it's false to say that race is not a consideration or an affect. You are subconsciously orienting "bodies toward feelings of hate and disgust, or desire and love" and it "reflects and maintains hierarchies and norms".

Mason also goes on to explain how by fetishizing other races, white people do not link it to "white racist domination" but as a "progressive change in white attitudes toward non-whites". In other words, making it seem as a service to desire other races like blacks or Asians.

When talking about fetishization, sexualization and racism, what strongly came to my mind was the recent shooting in Atlanta (USA) where 6 out of 8 of the victims killed by a white man, were Asian.

The shooter claims that his motivation was "sexual addiction" and that the spas he went to kill were "a temptation for him that he wanted to eliminate", and that he was not racially motivated.

But sexualization and racism are intertwined. Asian women in particular face discrimination or fetishization as stereotypes like "exotic" or "submissive" are continuously perpetuated in countries like the US where they are the minority.

Perfectly put by Catherine Ceniza Choy, an ethics studies professor at the University of California, Berkeley, "Killing Asian American women to eliminate a man's temptation speaks to the history of the objectification of Asian and Asian American women as variations of the Asian temptress...whose value is only in relation to men's fantasies and desires...Stop fetishizing us."

To link it back to the article, online dating makes it so much easier for fetishization and sexualization to happen. As mentioned, people judge pictures first, and you can easily swipe yes or no to to the people on your screen. When white men (especially), hypersexualize Asian women due to their stereotypes of "exoticness" or "submissiveness", you can't ignore that there is an underlying form of racism.

In the context of the shootings, you can't take racism out of the conversation and only talk about sexualization when white supremacy is at play. Here is a white man "threatened" by his sexual fetishization of Asian women that he decides to eliminate the "problem" - referring to the women, when he is the problem itself. As long as nobody addresses this widespread issue on the threats that women of Asian descent face, these types of violence will continue to happen, just as we see now with more attacks on Asian people in the US in general.

[ricechua1802]

Consumption (Clarice Chua)

In the reading "When One App Rules Them All: The Case of WeChat and Mobile in China" by Connie Chan, she points out how WeChat shows the future of mobile, and how it already supersedes many of the Western-based apps we're familiar with like Facebook.

She goes on to explain the features behind the super-app to show what makes it click for the more than half a million users in China:

1. WeChat uses an "app-within-an-app" model and its goal is to "address every aspect of its users' lives, including non-social ones". There are millions of apps on the WeChat platform and they range from messaging to fashion brands to hospitals and more. Users care able to access all these apps within a single app and startups/companies can leverage on the sheer number of people on the app without needing to build a standalone app (unless they want to) - it's really a win-win situation.

2. The WeChat Payment system is growing rapidly in China with people paying through the app at convenience stores, hotels, and even for mobile commerce. They were one of the early pioneers of mobile "wallets" and are applauded for the "trust" and ability to "offer seamless experiences with third parties while never requiring the user to leave the WeChat app".

3. WeChat has actually done online-offline integration all in one app. Again, it's not that Western apps have not done it either, but they usually focus on one feature on one app, instead of having multiple features in a single app like WeChat. (e.g. An app on the platform allows users to search through a directory of restaurants nearby, see how many people are in the queue for a table, and grab a queue number without having to be at the restaurant yet.)

4. Lastly, brands and influencers are not restrained to "limitations of a social network - where content is king" but instead, are offered more options for interacting with users and providing functionality instead of just content. Users want more than to see images or posts by brands or influencers. They want to be able to do pretty much whatever they need to in one single place.

However, the article by Chan only shared the positives of having a super-app, WeChat pretty much control everything. I personally feel that there are many implications of having one platform being king, especially with the sheer number of people using the app.

For one, almost all Western apps are banned in China (unless you go through the trouble of using VPNs and such) and it's problematic when people consume within a bubble and there is no diversity in thought. They can easily be manipulated by people in power and even those who want to speak out will be silenced.

Another problem would be personal data protection. The app contains almost all the information about an individual - your location and addresses, credit card details and more. Data mining has also become an issue within the media sphere where large corporations sell our data to profit.

I feel that while super-apps like WeChat are beneficial in the multitude ways that they can serve users, it is also really a case of "get with it or lose out" - especially in the case of mobile wallets and payments. I feel that this however, is a creation of privilege and that while many people have been integrated into this system, there are many more who do not have the luxury to partake in such a system.

[ricechua1802]

Precarity & labour (Clarice Chua)

This week, I will be interacting with the reading by Arlie Hochschild and Anne Machung - "The Second Shift: Working families and the revolution at home". In this research, Hochschild studied married couples - more specifically, the traditional and egalitarian models of marriage. These couples held 2 jobs each; the first is their day job and the second, the work they do for the home and their family.

She went into the research with the "naive idea" that "couples with more egalitarian ideas about men and women would share more, [and] those with traditional ideas, less". Slowly, she realised that these ideas are not as straightforward as they seem. Below, we'll go into some of the revelations that she took away from the interactions with the studied couples:

- Men were open to their wives working because it made them "interesting" (which this in it of itself, is iffy) and gave them something in common. But the men's attitude to helping out around the house was basically to only do it if their wives asked them to.

- For some people, "covert feelings seemed to subvert the surface of their gender ideology", meaning that they could believe in a certain stance but yet in real life situations, instead of taking that stance they have underlying feelings that undermine the stance. This is what the author describes as "flip-flop" syndrome - a feeling of ambivalence.

For example, one of the husbands she studied was all for sharing the provider and homemaker role with his wife but when his child was born and he had lesser attention from his wife (due to the baby and her FT job), he felt hurt and resented her working, but yet he felt guilty for having those feelings as he wants to feel proud and good of his wife working.

- Everyone, in one way or another, develops a gender strategy. Sometimes their feelings help boster their ideologies, and certain times they feel that their feelings conflict with these ideologies.

- Some women (especially egalitarian ones) took matters into their own hands and either married men who planned to share at home or tried to change their husbands' understanding - literally sat their husbands down and gave them an ultimateum on sharing the load with them. A quote that stood out to me: "If women lived in a culture that presumed active fatherhood, they wouldn't need to devise personal strategies to bring it about". (The tea is piping hot.)

- The idea of supermoming. It is a strategy many women use to absorb themselves into the conflicting demands of home and work. To develop a conception of themselves as "on-the-go, organized, competent", as women that don't need rest or have personal needs. As a consequence, many of these women seem to be out of touch with their feelings.

- In the case of the men, while some of them are superdads, or who share the load with their wives, many alternate between "periods of cooperation and resistance". Some waited to be asked to do something or withdrew attention from the task at hand so that they seemed bad enough for their wives to give up and do it herself.

Overall, the takeaway from the article was that while many couples believe in sharing, few actually do. With the history of female subordination, many women feel lucky just to have men share "some".

Looking at my own life, I see how my own mother is a supermom. While my dad helps out at home when he can, my mum is still the primary homemaker while holding a demanding senior managerial position at work. The description I shared above on a supermom is exactly how I would describe my mother. And honestly, I don't see it as a positive thing even though I appreciate what she does for the family. She usually says, "If I sit down or don't do anything, I'll go crazy" - which subconsciously makes me feel the same way and makes me feel guilty if I am not doing something.

In no way am I blaming her for rubbing off me in a sense but I think that gender ideologies and strategies of our parents definitely influence us children in some way. Because there's a part of me that's like "My mum is a boss woman and I wanna be like her when I have a family of my own" but then there's the other part where I'm like "Why should I have to attempt to do everything?"

Sometimes I catch myself feeling "lucky" when my boyfriend does something for me when we're at home but I think about it and I feel that I should change that narrative to "I'm thankful" rather than "I'm lucky" because its the bare minimum and something I would do for him too. Luckily, (for real this time), I am thankful that he shares the same views as me in that what he does is the bare minimum and what he should do because I would do the same for him. But then again, living together in marriage is a different ballgame, and as we learnt form this readings, we say we're okay or we say we'll do things a certain way, but how often do we actually translate it into our actions?

[ricechua1802]

Remixing (Clarice Chua)

This week, I am engaging with the text "Garage band or GarageBand? Remixing musical futures" by Lauri Vakeva.

In her paper, she discusses the topic of remixing as a mutating form and she talks about how music today is very much largely influenced by an exchange and "copying" of different parts and patterns. These parts and patterns are then reinterpreted and constantly remixed by different people. The proliferation of these type of appropriation can be attributed to this digital age. She mentioned creative commons - and how people can use them easily, and the culture of collaboration and sharing also plays a part in this practice of remixing.

And because of how easily people can remix these days, people consume and get tired of "content" very quickly. The challenge then, is to be able to keep listeners' interested with so many variations and new works being thrown at them.

She also asks a question, "But how is the authentic part of the work identified, and when can creative reuse be taken as new expression?" For me this is where loads of thoughts come in.

I have a small side hustle/hobby where I do custom embroidery works, and have an instagram account where I post my commissions, engage with other embroidery creators, and reply to prospects/customers. Recently, there has been a few instances where a few creators have got their original ideas/designs copied. (But this is not a new occurrence). There were other businesses/creators either tweaking only a little of the original design and then passing it off as their own work, or blatantly copying the design. 

As many creators do not copyright their work or designs, many others treat the designs like creative commons. They scour Pinterest for inspiration and many of the times, copy the work they see on there. But those works belong to other artists. Saying that they got the idea or design from Pinterest is not a "pass go" to use or copy the work for their own profit.

Lots of hard work goes into conceptualising and creating designs and works and to ride on someone’s success be copying or in this case, “remixing”, does not seem to be very ethical at all. So, while I agree with the reading that there is a culture of collaboration that people enjoy in this digital age, I do not agree with her that we can consider “remixing” “as not primarily violations of the original author’s copyright”, because in actual fact it really is – especially when their idea or work is not credited. It is theft and I do not agree that “remixing” equates to “recycling”, especially in this context.  

Credits: @andotheradventuresco on via Instagram story 

[ricechua1802]

Mobile media (Clarice Chua)

The reading I am engaging with this week is Portable Objects in Three Global Cities: The Personalization of Urban Places. For this week, I will aslso be interjecting my thoughts and experiences throughout instead of at the end.

Ito, Okabe and Anderson's research delves beyond our mobile phones and looks at a range of portable objects that people use to "inhabit, navigate through, and interface with urban environments". They recruited young professionals in London, Tokyo and Los Angeles, and got them to document the use of their mobile kit.

They then focused on objects and activities that center on managing presence in urban spaces. The genres of presence mentioned are cocoons, encampments and footprints.

Cocoons offer privacy and a safe territory when in a physical space. A main focus I got from the reading is that cocoons are also individually controlled, which to me points that it is still up to individuals what they choose to cocoon with, and if they want to do it. I agree with the reading that people shield their personal spaces from the outside; it is just like how if someone were to call my mobile phone while I am on public transport, I would either talk in a hushed tone or call back later to avoid disturbing others or have them eavesdrop (because that in a way invades my personal space and cocoon).

Camping on the other hand, focuses more on spending time at a particular place in a temporal manner (so it does not include your home or workplace). As a freelance writer myself, I also prefer to head out and 'camp' in cafes, rather than do work at home as I feel more creative and have lesser tendencies to be unproductive when surrounded with people who most of the times are also camping.

Lastly, footprinting is about capturing the movements of individuals by a particular establishment or location. In the context of Singapore and COVID-19, the TraceTogether app/token is an obvious example of footprinting. However, a concern brought up is that are we privy to data mining and is our data safe? I think my concern from observing people around me is that there are individuals who either make use of another person's app/token if they forgot theirs or are too lazy to switch. So, is it really an accurate way of tracking footprints? And while we are concerned about our personal data, is it ethical for individuals to be taking advantage of an imperfect system?

[ricechua1802]

Domestic media: The TV (Clarice Chua)

In this post, I will be interacting with the required reading by Spigel, L. The reading talks about how the TV is seen as an object of affluence in the past and that really, it was used to demarcate a space at home (i.e. the living room). Within this space, watching the TV is seen as a family activity, where members of different generations can come together and enjoy together. In this case, the TV is seen as a symbol for reaching a certain status in life and the living room as a benchmark of good family cultures and life (Having pictures, awards, and other heirlooms displayed as compared to having none up).

The reading then moved on to talk about how TV today, "is a hybrid spatial experience", where people find and use TVs in different ways and in different places. This is also possible in this age because of technology. Smart TVs for example, boast a wide variety of apps you can download and use, besides watching TV programmes on them.

What I find interesting is that nowadays, while the TV still dominates and demarcates the "living room", many families including mine, either do not use it or use it for other reasons besides watching TV programmes. While family time in the past included everyone sitting in front of the television watching a program in the living room, my family's idea of quality time is watching TV in the dining room during dinner. We usually pick a show where we decide to watch together so that our meal times are usually spent watching these shows while we eat. While some people may say that we are not spending quality time together or that there is no conversation, it is actually the complete opposite. Because of these shows, we either are laughing our heads off or having spirited discussions over them. Besides, we can still have conversations while the show goes on. It definitely beats families who eat together but everyone is using their phones or watching their own shows.

The way we use TVs are also starkly different across generations: my younger siblings use the TV to play their Nintendo Switch games on, my father, who once found out we had Spotify downloaded on to our TV, uses it to play his oldie tunes whenever he is at home, and my mother while sitting at the dining table prepping dumplings and what not, watches cooking shows or tutorials on Youtube.

Overall, I do agree that many households still see the TV as a necessity even when according to my coursemates, many of their families do not actually use their TVs nowadays. Especially with the proliferation of smartphones that allow us to access TV programmes and many other more shows, applications and games - it is no wonder that TVs are not as attractive. While owning a TV was seen as "the future" or having the best in the past, owning smart gadgets like tablets and game consoles have now taken over that status. This leaves me to wonder what will take over 20-30 years from now.

[ricechua1802]

Mediatization (Clarice Chua)

Today, I will be engaging with the text by McCarthy, J., & Wright, P. (2004). Overall, the main subject is about Human-Computer Interactions and how there's a broadening of focus from computers to interactive technologies, and from work-related tasks to lived experience. Technology is now moving past what computers can do to what users can do, and these technologies need to be able to support relationships and the activities that enrich our lives. An important point I have also gathered from the reading is that interaction with technology is now as much about what people feel as it is about what they do.

I want to bring in now the example of Apple and the way they market their products (i.e. the iPhone). When you search up their account on Youtube and take a look at their campaign ads on the iPhone, they not only show what their products can do, but also present what people feel when using them. For instance, a video that shows people exclaiming out loud their search history, login details and other personal information ends with "Some things shouldn't be shared. iPhone keeps it that way."

Without even talking about the safe gatekeeping features of the iPhone, they show the common feelings of stress people face when their accounts get hacked or the embarrassment when someone comes across your web history - and tells the viewer that they can avoid all those simply by having an iPhone.

Nowadays, consumer branding is concerned with establishing connections and maintaining emotional ties with consumers and I think that Apple has done just that, giving their consumers that sense of safety, keeping away unwanted feelings - which is one of the reasons that differentiates them from their competitors.

All in all, I agree with the reading as it's applicable to our everyday lives. We choose technology that supports our wants, needs and our feelings. Feelings on how we can communicate and about the technology itself (whether it conflicts with what we believe in, whether we like it but it doesn't exactly fulfil our needs, etc.). However, I think this applies more so for outside-work experiences, because in the down time where we create things for our pleasure, communicate with friends and family, we choose the medium, the technology that we want to use for those instances. But during work or even school, most of the time we are constrained by the technology itself and our feelings or wants can't really come into play (i.e. Using a particular brand of technology, Zoom over Skype).