aurorathoughts

[aurorathoughts]

Week 9/27: Buzzsumo Viral Story

I decided to research on Buzzsumo a viral story a co-worker was telling me about recently. I mentioned to them how I loved the Tabi by the Maison Marginal and how badly I wanted one. These shoes are easily over $1,000. This coworker then tells me about about a viral story of how this guy and a girl went on a date and the guy stole her tabi shoes? She said she followed this on Tik Tok and I don't have one but it sound so crazy to me. I decided to search on Buzzsumo to see where I can find the source of this story.

When searching "tabis shoe" into the search for the trending stories for the past week to month, the first result was "What's really happening with those missing tabi shoes?", this was by the New York Times. However, you need a subscription to the website in order to view the articles. I kept scrolling through and the last result on the first page starts off "She meets a guy on Tinder, invites him home, and he steals her shoe..." This sound like the story that I was familiar with from hearing a small summary from my co-worker.

The website that the article was on was oicanadian.com. The website itself didn't seem too authentic. I tried searching oicanadian about page first and it came up with this.

It was just strange because this story takes place in NYC however the "About Us" states they talk about celebrity news and rising stars in Canada. My guess is that this story was extremely viral so that is why they covered it and featured it on their website.

Going back to the story, I decided to search on TikTok itself for the viral story. Her TikTok username is @nextlevellexuss and the first pinned video that I can see had 1.5 Million Views and it says across the video "NYC FASHION GIRLIES BEWARE". I watch that video and she says the entire story from her point of view of what happened. I can see why this went viral because her story telling was good and the story itself is so insane. The guy was invited back to her apartment after their date and spent the night. The next morning when this guy was getting ready to leave her apartment, he mentions there was this Spotify playlist he wanted her to listen to. He said he didn't have it on his phone and said he will find it on hers. After he leaves the apartment, she realizes that her Tabi Shoes were missing on her shoe shelf. And he mentioned last night how badly he wanted Tabi shoes. She doesn't want to think she's crazy so she goes to message him on Tinder where she originally was speaking to him and realized that he was unmatched and she goes to her call log and their call history was deleted.

I scroll down a bit on her TikTok and watch the other related videos to the "Tabi Shoe stealer" to get the rest of the resolved story. All of the videos that she put out with the updates matched up with the article that was written on oicanadian.com

This tab shoe stealer story became viral on TikTok and in the very first video she put out was shared 41,000 times. She even states in her next videos after the original one with the updates, that she had no idea that the story was going to go viral. The people who shared the story got it to the right people and they were able to message and share with her the thieve's instagram, information to get in touch with his sister, and even finding out that the guy had a girlfriend. He kept denying her and private his instagram when she reached out to him. She was able to find out more details that this guy actually gifted the shoes to his girlfriend and then I guess after getting bombarded by the internet, he finally gave in after denying.

She made a requested video on TikTok of them meeting up for him to give back her shoes. This happened so fast for this girl since it wasn't too long after that she received her Tabi shoes. The original video was put out on September 1 and the retrieval of the Tabis video was September 5. I got these from the video dates at the bottom of the TikTok's. Her update videos were posted on September 2 which is when she found out her story went viral and that she was able to get in touch with the guy eventually.

It is just so crazy but not surprising how this happened so fast. It's amazing because now with viral stories we can track down thieves faster than ever!

[aurorathoughts]

9/20 Read Laterally

For this weeks assignment, I decided to track the credentials of a lesser known personality from depop. Depop is an app that is designed for people to sell or buy second-hand clothes. You can be a seller, consumer or both. It's a great way to sell your wardrobe and to purchase unwanted or unworn clothing. It became a lot popular in the past years since sustainability has been trending and people are more aware of shopping sustainable rather than fast fashion. A Depop seller that I follow goes under the username "funkyazzfinds" has a lot of clothes that I love. So I decided to search up the seller's instagram and do a deep dive into their credentials. Luckily in the bio on Depop included their instagram to their instagram shop.

On Depop it shows the last active status of the sellers, which makes sense in showing that when you want to purchase from a seller that you want to make sure that the shop is still active.

The shops credentials also show that 1,083 items sold and showed that it was active today. The day that I'm writing this blog post showed that it was active. I started my depop by clicking the hyperlink to the instagram. On the instagram in the bio of "funkyazzfinds" was:

"FUNKYAZZFINDS

Clothing store

giving handpicked pieces a new life by @baileylesleyy

depop.com/funkyazzfinds"

They included the Depop link in the shop's instagram bio which shows that the instagram is connected to the Depop account. They have 518 followers on instagram, so a little lesser known personality however on her depop has 3,440 followers. I scrolled through the pictures on depop and instagram, and I saw many in not all items she is selling on her shop being featured all over the instagram. She had trendy shorts and stories that show styling tips for her followers as well. She seem to be posting frequently if not everyday for her followers to show the new drops that she will be putting into her Depop store. This proves to me that this is the seller's instagram. The bio of the shop's instagram has "giving handpicked pieces a new life by @baileylesleyy which to me will connect to the personal instagram of Bailey who I presume to be the shop owner.

Both the person in @baileylesleyy and in @funkyazzfinds seem to be the same girl. This was her personal instagram too and she didn't have any shop content but some people like to keep the two separate. I decided to do my search further by typing in their name "Bailey Lesley" on google and one of the results that popped up was YouTube. I clicked on the link and explore the YT channel. The account seemed unactive, having only 4 subscribers and 2 followers. However the one YouTube short was featuring the user being at a pop up vintage market! This goes along with the whole second hand thrifting scene that she is a part of that realm. She always features herself right in the beginning of the short going to the the market. And also she features a bunch of clothes displayed which seems to be her store at the pop up market.

This confirms to me that she does indeed have a YT channel however she seems to be more active on instagram and of course her Depop to her followers. She utilized the shorts, posts and stories for the shop's instagram to interact with the followers. They are a lesser known personality since they don't have over 1,000 followers on instagram. However, they seem to be extremely active since they run a seemingly successful Depop shop having over 1,000 sales!

[aurorathoughts]

9/13 Go Upstream: Tracking a Viral Photo

I decided to use the viral photo of the "hot felon" "hot mugshot" of Jeremy Meeks that was circulating back in 2014. When I first typed in "hot felon" into Google Search, the information for Jeremy Meeks popped up. Now due to his popularity and presence sky rocketing on the internet/social media since 2014, a lot of his information popped up. He even had a wikipedia page.

On the wikipedia page it talks about how he is a fashion model and actor and how he was arrested back in 2014 during a gang sweep called Operation Ceasefire by the Stockton Police Dept. in Stockton, California.

Seeing this in that description I typed into google "jeremy meeks stockton police department operation ceasefire". The first result that popped up was through Facebook of the Stockton police department page, which behold had Jeremy Meeks original post. The by the Stockton police was June 18, 2014. This is where the photo first originally gained traction and was circulated from here by other people. To confirm that this was true, I searched again on wikipedia and saw that they did in fact state he was arrested on June 18.

I typed into google again and searched "Jeremy Meeks meme", and I kept scrolling in the results to find a Buzzfeed video that had Jeremy Meeks himself talking about how he became an internet meme and how his picture went viral when he had no idea what the word viral meant. He explained his side of the story of how he came to know of his mugshot going viral when he was incarcerated. He was swarmed by many letters of adoring fans when locked up. This was all due to his picture getting circulated which was posted on the stockton police Facebook page. He states in the video he only had one picture of him on his myspace on the internet but that was it. The stockton police of course only holds the mugshots for the inmate photos, thus different individuals and sources were the cause of sharing his photo which made him go viral.

[aurorathoughts]

Fact Checking Assignment 9/13/2023:

Cybersecurity Issue affects MGM Properties

When scrolling through my friend's Facebook page, I saw a story that was posted on nbc10 Philadelphia news about the cybersecurity issue that shutdown the MGM resorts properties. I clicked on the link which brought meta the nbc10 news site. It discussed the cybersecurity issue that included the Borgata in Atlantic City and other locations of MGM across the United States. This incident occurred last Sunday. NBC10 reported that after contacting the Borgata that they were also affected by the cybersecurity issue. Unlike Borgata's sister property in Las Vegas which guests were locked out of their hotel rooms, Atlantic City's rooms were still accessible. Guests at the Las Vegas location was commenting on social media that they were locked out of their rooms. They reported to nbc10 that they are under investigation and certain security systems has been shut down to protect their data. The FBI is also involved while MGM Resorts reported a statement that they identified a “cybersecurity issue affecting some of the company’s systems” and that its investigation involved external cybersecurity experts. MGM properties include tens of thousands of hotel rooms in Las Vegas at properties, This includes MGM Grand, Bellagio, Cosmopolitan, Aria, New York New York, Park MGM, Excalibur, Luxor, Mandalay Bay and Delano. As of Tuesday on the company's website that it was still reported to be down.

I was shocked that this cyber security attack occurred at such a high level. Even though this was posted on nbc10 Philadelphia's site, I wanted to look further into the facts of this occurrence. So I did my research and first looked at the author/source of the article and noticed it was with the Associated Press. I opened a separate tab and went into the APnews.com which is the Associate Press and searched for the article. I copied and pasted the articles name in the search which was "Cybersecurity issue affecting MGM properties" and was able to get to the AP's article "Cybersecurity issue prompts computer shutdowns at MGM Resorts properties across US". It made sense how the original article I viewed mentioned the Borgata in AC since that's local/familiar to the area.

The article was pretty much the same as it was on nbc10 philadelphia's page. Also being from the Associate Press I can conclude that it can be factual since the site dedicates itself to factual reporting. There was also a hyperlink on the ap and nbc10 sites when it mentioned that the site was down. It linked it to the company's website where it lists the telephone numbers to reach the reservation system and properties. I included the picture in this post of the company's site which shows that the story was indeed true.