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we're doomed - Media Blog Post #6

In the first 2 years of my college education, what I would consider one of the most useful pieces of information would be that when working within my career, I am not and am almost never what is considered the “target audience.” 

Specifically in regard to being a marketing major, you have to understand that you are not trying to make yourself understood but an outside audience that is not you. I believe this is something everyone needs to have drilled into them because in both our media landscape and everyday life there's a lack of knowing that you are not the center and there are many dialogues.  

TikTok humanizes and puts every creator at the center, when you scroll onto a video it is their “art” and online existence that you are witnessing in real time. And I think the trends that have emerged from TikTok show that these people are using their online existence as a means of survival.

Just last month, the trend to livestream you repeating the same five words over and over again was having people receive thousands of dollars within minutes. 

The crazy thing is everyone accepted it and began participating. 

This NPC streaming started off within TikToker PinkyDoll repeating the same words over and over again based on the gifts being sent. However, this essential went viral overnight and every day people and well known influencers were following suit. One of the most famous being the Miles Morales NPC where he repeats different catch phrases and even stays in character when questioned and eventually running from the cops. 

Which is why the ability to trend on tik tok is unreliable unless you are consistently trying every trend. 

Personally, an aspect of TikTok that I find really interesting is scrolling through livestreams. Outside of the bizarre NPC streams, there is no consistency or algorithm to livestreams. You can find one that has 5,000 people watching and the one directly below it is 5 people. 

As someone who is essentially justifying their media addiction under the major of marketing, I do think TikTok is dystopian. But not only that all social media is dystopian and it is insane to assume otherwise. 

Our society is undeniably suffering from the developments that we have had from social media. We constantly refer to the fact that Gen-Z is the loneliness generation, but also it's the generation that has free access and will (most likely in some capacity) continue to have this free access to social media for the rest of their life. We have not yet seen the long lasting effects of becoming people who are able to exist solely online. 

I wrote a research paper on just how affected younger generation are especially within depression, suicide, body dismorphia, and grooming. These are aspects I believe if you asked, without a doubt someone has seen a post, made a post, or even experienced it themselves. And it is insane that we now take this into the norm.

I don’t have a solution, and when considering how TikTok exists I can not explain how it operates, what its intentions are, and if there is a way to indicate if its a good or an evil. 

In a space where you can essentially reach a mass audience, project your thoughts onto a young and impressionable audience, and it keeps going around and around, even rhetoric that doesn’t seem harmful is especially when there are no age restrictions and lies are constantly constructed with the only intent of going viral. 

However, my biggest problem with TikTok hate is parents being able to use it as an excuse for bad parenting. While the fact that the site is far from being child safe is obvious. We are always looking at things that are corrupting children's minds whether it's the video games they consume or Dungeons and Dragons, but parents have still yet to find a way around it. 

People who don’t get access to media are ostracized from their peers because of how integrated media is within teenage culture, and it affects their ability to relate, but are they better off?

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Youtube! Media Blog Post #5

Before starting this off, I have the perfect YouTube video idea and I desperately need someone to make it because I know it would be a hit. Currently, there is popularity in YouTube videos that are designed as guessing games, blind folded matchmaking, or even for political conversations. While majority of these come from the YouTube account, Cut, other YouTubers have mirrored this format. That being said, I think someone needs to match the Providence College student to the YikYak’s post. Thank you. 

In lieu of the topic of YouTube. It’s impossible to discuss how it has changed media without talking about all it has done for society itself. 

When specific social media sites develop their own culture, sometimes that culture dies out and just becomes a nostalgic aspect of the past. For example, Youtube has gone through many phases where their popular creators happen to fall under the same type of videos i.e. beauty gurus, prank videos, content houses, and right now I believe trending is a good amount of commentary videos. While this phenomenon has happened for many people and subcultures under YouTube. An aspect that deserves the spotlight is how YouTube was able to have true social impact and awareness in the early 2010’s. 

While the content I am going to reference is not one hundred percent a positive outcome, it definitely changed society and brought this initial awareness of where the online aspect fell within the real world. 

As a child who had essentially full internet access and not a lot of supervision, I definitely saw a lot but, from what I hear today, I’m a bit lucky I wasn’t more curious as a child. That being said, the first video I really have consciousness of watching was the Amanda Todd bullying video. The video depicts a teenage girl showing hand written cards about her story of self-harm, depression, and bullying. The video now has 15 million views and is referenceable at least amongst Gen-z. This video was influential for many reasons, it taught a young generation the impacts of bullying in a way that would definitely stick. It also brought attention and support to anti-bullying organizations and campaigns. However, in terms of taking real issues online and adding in a viral aspect. The way social media communities work is that there was an instant capitalization of this kind of video and bullying stories became ‘trendy.’

Another example of YouTube revolutionizing is the phenomenon behind the coming out videos of the 2010’s. These videos began to come in magnitude and is a key aspect of what queer culture is to my generation. I genuinely consider this to be so influential and changed queer culture and queer acceptance. After so many of these YouTubers have gained a fan base and despite that gay marriage was still not legalized in all 50 states, it spoke to an entire generation and gave a voice to the individual. 

In this sense I can see how TikTok has been able to become what it is. With YouTube now focused on bigger productions, the voices of the individual are best shown through TikTok. Instagram’s feed is considered the least authentic, Twitter is now X, and therefore, TikTok is the voice of the individual. 

In the end, our social media landscape is constantly changing but a factor to look at is how influential something can be even when we consider it a ‘dying’ platform.

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You get a podcast! You get a podcast! Media Blog Post #4

In the year of 2024, I’ve seen that anyone who could possibly have a podcast has a podcast. If I’m being honest I’ve already had two, and my own opinion on podcasts make sense to me on why and how everyone else has one. 

My first podcast was my senior project, our requirements were to have 30 hours working on any topic, a mentor who can sign off on these hours along with a ten page research paper. I went to the topic of teenage mental health and its relation with social media. 

It was mostly to serve as a self service and to have something I knew I could talk about for hours. In reality, this podcast may have been my own excuse to hear myself talk, and I don’t think this is only my excuse. I had always believed that podcasts were meant to be serious, NPR, news, or politics. While those definitely still exist and flourish, podcasting has been changed and we can link this to direct events.

 Covid-19 changed the regular way of life and because of this people began searching for both more media to consume and also a medium away from being “online.” Which adds an audience to a growing medium and therefore giving individuals immense opportunity for success. 

However, where I think we saw the biggest surge of podcasts, at least the podcast being marketed to me was during the SAG Strike. After actors were no longer able to market their work and being able to work in general I noticed many people shifted to their own podcasts or a podcast appearance. Which is in fact a lot easier (from my experience). 

In a sense I can see that podcasts are filling in where talk shows are dying. More recently, I’ve seen trending videos have top comments saying “This would have gotten you on Ellen 10 years ago” and this is so true. Ellen was once where these micro-trending people would have their spotlight, whereas now there are too many places you can trend and too many people trending. Which is why podcasting is able to have such a power, there are significantly less demands and configurations to make it happen AND anyone can make it happen if they have an audience. 

In addition to these big name podcasts, influencer podcasts, and celebrity podcasts, there's another I would like to focus on. And maybe this is a stretch, but there is a bizarre amount of people who carry microphones around asking people questions or hosting a “podcast on the street” or “matching two strangers” where even though they aren’t the main focus they are using these conversations as the content. 

However, the point of these series isn’t to enter the podcasting realm. Instead the change in podcasting has, in a sense, created a new format for social media: clipping, in hopes to get a viral 30 second clip. 

I’ve even had podcasts clips come on my for you page where they are talking about something that may gain a lot of traction they may note, “I know this is gonna get clipped like crazy.” Which is interesting because they aren’t even the ones (in this example) making these clips for viral content, but rather a different account is, yet they are still marketing for them. 

Overall, podcasts are no longer my preconceived notion of a literary aspect, it's now just another practice of social media and how to best exist online. The never ending demand for content and run out of ideas have been cured for people of importance when they go into podcasting. With YouTube “dying” regular youtubers are forced to compete with million dollar budgets when in fact their persona makes them famous and they can do half the work. Yet, in a more positive sense, it is adding back into this casual aspect of social media. Now that many YouTube videos are productions in itself, podcasts seem to be the lowest brow possible for internet personalities at the moment and I’m glad there is an effort to seek their own authenticity and agenda. 

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Korra’s on her way to make Asami laugh by spinning Mako in another tornado

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video games - blog post #3

While I don’t know a lot about video games in general. What surprised me the most so far was the video game crash. Throughout this course we have talked about how there is just about a surplus of everything in media and it seems like such a new concept. The fact that it happened over forty years ago for video games makes me think about many aspects and factors that contribute to almost every single one of my courses.

First, with the oversaturation of everything in media from movies, tv shows, and even podcasts. It inspired me to figure out how video games were able to overcome it. From this, I found that Nintendo was able to revitalize the entire gaming industry. So, this brought on the question, was there something that could revitalize our new age in media. I honestly tried to think of what could possibly change the system that we are currently in but the biggest difference between video games then and our problems now revolves around how advanced we are within technology. We are essentially spoiled in terms of having content despite how we may lack in terms of access. But when thinking of something new and glamorous to change the scene I think we are past that. 

I grew up in a strictly Marvel household where we would all go as a family to watch them together. While Marvel was always big and continued to find success, I think they came very close to revitalizing superhero movies or potentially even movies itself. While coming off the insane peak that was Endgame, a lot of people believe this is where Marvel began to fall. Yet, I believe it was a little after this. After the immense success that was Endgame, they announced they would be branching into shows which I personally thought were very good but simply became another product of pushing out so much content that couldn’t be consumed by everyone. While Covid also played a role in this and delayed many releases, Marvel not only completely missed the mark when they began overproducing and pushing movies. But I believe Marvel also fell to the faults that because Endgame was so monumental and never done before with combining so much content, the idea of trying to overtrump and be bigger failed them. 

When I think of video games in this aspect of being something great especially with crossovers and doing it well, (we must acknowledge my lack of knowledge) the most accurate and prevalent expectations are Fortnite. Throughout Fortnite’s entire run I’ve seen it have mass collaborations, changing, and advancing their game without growing too large or falling behind with greater productions. I’ve seen a lot of Fortnite collaborations that I myself would honestly buy if I played the game but I’ve also seen at least one that anyone would want to buy (even Kesha recently downloaded Fortnite just to play as Lady Gaga). I think overall Fortnite is able to have its fun especially as it is not forever changing the lore and can even go back to its original map which provides a sense of nostalgia and brings back an old audience while maintaining the one they have. 

Overall, this is not an aspect Marvel can really adapt to at this point. But, I think what it is missing is simply the original sense of itself. With Fortnite, you can still detect its original plot and the game itself but Marvel has gone so broad with the MCU there are no ties to its originality especially as almost all of them have been killed off. I’m not sure where Marvel should go, which I think Marvel also agrees with, but I personally believe they need to go back to some sense of its original appeal. 

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get crazy, get loud - media blog post #2

Early this year, I started watching Jersey Shore, from the first episode, for the first time ever. I have been familiar as I had grown up on cable and whatever was shown as reruns on MTV. Which includes an unhealthy knowledge of episodes of Catfish, Teen Wolf, and Wild ‘n Out.  

Yet now that I was watching Jersey Shore for the first time and being able to comprehend the scenarios and the drama, I was addicted. I was addicted in the sense that it was trashy, and I could watch it for hours but also because of how much reality tv had changed and how messy the show was.  

Where the plotline is for eight random strangers to live in a house together and their only responsibility is to work, we don’t really see this troupe in shows anymore. The idea of making people work is absent from the media as of lately, which we explored in class. Whether it is due to an audience seeking escapism from their real life, or we have become so dystopian that the only pleasure of reality tv is found in immense wealth, fancy dresses, dates, or isolation on a tropical beach. 

While this is unfair to compare to Jersey Shore as their premises are different, the closest I could find to a current reality show that is focused on livelihood and “friendship” was Netflix's The Circle, whose premise is contestants fooling each other through online presences for money. In almost all reality tv shows currently streaming, they are almost all dependent on money and fame.  

Which was an easily avoidable factor during the filming of Jersey Shore because they weren’t worried about online presence and money was not tied to “winning” instead they got a free luxury beachfront home and worked (mostly only the first season) 8 hour shifts multiple times a week, a fair trade, until fame came to play.  

Yet, this is exactly why I think I became obsessed so fast. When I had informed my family of my new addiction, they all said that they weren’t fans when it was coming out, they were too loud, too obnoxious, and (this is speculated) coked out. The nostalgia of late 2000’s early 2010’s was experienced at a full front; they were all entirely themselves which is shown in the first ten minutes when they all have confessionals where they call each other essentially ugly and will not sleep with them (they all end up sleeping with each other). When this first happened my jaw genuinely dropped because we are not used to their full honesty. This is because performing for the camera was not a factor yet, they weren’t thinking about getting famous.  

Additionally, Jersey Shore introduced me to an entirely new culture of “Guidos.” With the Italian flag painted on the house it was a very fun aspect to include in the show because even though less than half were actually Italian their personalities clashed in such a specific Italian adjacent way.  

Being a reality tv enthusiast, I learned a lot of understanding how reality tv changed as social media and streaming services have changed. Love Island for example, if you watch the first season vs more recent it looks like entirely different societies. The islanders would get blacked out drunk every night, leading every night into a screaming match or sometimes fight, not caring if they were in just a tank top and underwear, once again reinforcing how the camera has become this other character. Where the camera of reality tv shows was previously a silent character just observing, it has now become the judge and the jury. The islanders are now performing for the contestants and the audience at home. We even see contestants acknowledging this factor which almost seemed like something they weren’t allowed to do. Maria from The Bachelor claiming, “you know we’re being recorded right” because everyone is now aware that the camera is their lifeline to reality in their bubble of their chosen reality tv “rules.” 

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media blog post #1

I think especially now “cult following” is less in regards to an intimate understood subculture and more of a collective culture. There is a lack of intimate spaces to engage in actual real life connections of a shared interest (lack of 3rd locations). Which is why the key part of a modern cult following is a genuine engagement and participation of the “rules” in a subculture. A way I found to best explain this is in Lana Del Rey, while Lana has been a popular singer/songwriter for quite some time, her persona has continued to be curated while also adjusting to how she is viewed by modern social media. 

Lana Del Rey is many things, in the most basic sense she is a singer, yet “Lana Del Rey” is also a stage name and presence that has been articulated into digestible aesthetics throughout her albums. In the success of her music, Lana Del Rey would create an aesthetic with her own name that has nods to what I would describe as Vintage Hollywood or Priscilla Presley American Dream. This is exactly where I find cult followings to thrive. In a position where Lana Del Rey can be interpreted as anything, her fan base chose to conceptualize her character into a personal brand. This causes items even outside of her own merch to be an appreciation of herself, such as bows, cigarettes, or lipstick. You may see where I’m going with this. I've found that Lana Del Rey’s own cult following has taken her sense of aesthetics and formulated it into their own art. 

“Coquette” is a term that has absolutely monopolized over TikTok and the minds of girls everywhere. The popular trend is noted for a “softness” and “feminine” appreciation by using pink and bows. The tag itself, #coquette currently has over 21.3B views on TikTo, which more than half contains audio using her own songs, thus painting her as the face of this trend. 

While I myself do enjoy the aesthetic, the cult following is tragic. As a mass audience consumes what is essentially their own creation, the oversaturation has such negative effects in fast fashion, negative habits / development, and (I say this with semi-satire) the death of free thought. 

While I’ve gotten off track, this all comes back to the fact that I find that modernly, being a part of a cult following is to strictly follow the rules of the culture like Lana Del Rey becoming a concept and accepting this to be true. 

Most recently, I’ve seen images of Lana working in Waffle House, which makes no sense to my acknowledgement of what is in her realm. Yet, this has no effect on her cult following because of the expectations of a successful culture. 

She has recently joined SKIMS, Kim Kardashians clothing brand in a Valentines Day campaign. It is in this moment that I’m especially grateful to be able to prove how specific and true this veil over Lana Del Rey is aesthetically. This photoshoot depicts her in pink, lace, and bows, the epitome of the perfect coquette girl. While a mass audience really started this trend she understands how to fuel and prosper it by accepting and embracing even if she was just in her waffle house era. 

Overall, in the 21st century participating in “cult following” (more like cult appreciation) is possibly one of the easiest things. When audience participation is as easy as opening TikTok and checking a hashtag, the only way to fuel and maintain these connections is now dependent on the mass audience, not the scarcity or individualism that a midnight showing has to offer.

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Lana Del Rey for SKIMS.

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Vino Li

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Moon from my bedroom window, January 2024.

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@lovesdaya

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hi!