#THE PHYSCOLOGY BEHIND MANIPULATING THE AUDIENCE

[a-blu-jay]

In the light of the whole doomsday arc and chaos I think it's important to like,,, clarify ? Some points ppl r makin even tho theyre prob not gonna see it.

Also!! This is all /roleplay and talking about the characters not the content creators

Yes, everyone has fucked up. That's what they're ALL going for, especially the ppl takin the lead when it comes to the writin of the script. Everyone is a fucked up character and everyone is a good character with the exception of Dream.

Now to get some more in depth:

Let's start with c!Tubbo. Since the beginning he's been put into tight and bad situations. Watching his friends get exiled, being made a spy for the sake of Intel to win a war which is So Much Pressure, eventually fighting in said war, being made president of the revolutionized country but then immedietly having to rebuild it, later be manipulated to exile his beat friend and brother in arms etc etc. It's a lot of trauma and greif, it's not false to call him a child solider because that's exactly what he is. Schlatt was right, the moment he died the country was doomed, wether that be from Pogtopia, Technoblade, Dream or the inevitability that the leadership would fall onto Tubbo. He's not infallible and he's not experienced. He's a severely Traumatised teenager. But this doesn't necessarily make him a good person.

Next is c!Technoblade because I have some Opinions. He's a fucked up character. Just like everyone else, just in a more transparent way. A lot of the characters hide the bad things they've done in a way to preserve moral righteousness and such. Technoblade has always been clear and transparent he wants nothing more than anarchy, chaos and the fall of L'manburg. Now, acts of terrorism aren't good, they're pretty fucked up. The great thing about his character is that he's so goddman complex. Just like Tubbo and Tommy he's been wronged. And just like Tubbo and Tommy he's a hypocrite. That's what happens when you have morally grey and ambiguous characters. He made his intentions about anarchy clear and Pogtopia made their intentions about Governments clear, they both chose to ignore eachother which in the end made them Hypocrites. A specific point I want to make about Technoblade teaming up with Dream is that Tommy has NEVER been clear with Technoblade with how Dream treated him. Technoblade couldn't have known what Dream did because of Tommy's trauma about speaking about it and Dream's manipulation. Technoblade teamed up with Dream because they shared a common goal, he doesnt trust Dream and has voiced that before. Also! Tommy's point in their argument in the middle of Doomsday was really interesting, he said (I'm paraphrasing) "why can't you just let people love what they love." A thing to note is that Technoblade DID. After the end of the revolution he left to go live in retirment and solitude and let them fight amongst eachother and destroy eachother. The very same Government he predicted to be corrupt then tried to execute him without trial even though they said he'd be given one. Which is a pretty corrupt thing to do. In the end Technoblade was used and just a little bit mistreated but he's not in the right because of that. Again, he can be seen in the lense of a Villain but that doesn't mean he really is one.

Now onto c!Tommy. His character is deffinetly an interesting one! I think his main fault is his own hubris. He's prideful to a default and stubborn when it comes to the idea he could have done something wrong because of how badly he wants to be the/a hero. Now, I'm not saying he HASN'T taken accountability for some things he's said and done because he most certainly has and thus has grown as a character. Another huge fault is his hyperfixation on the emotions and people attached to objects. Honestly? Tubbo logically wasn't wrong, they're just discs. But in Tommy's head they're a symbol of his and Tubbo's friendship. The problem is when he picks these discs over his actual friendship with Tubbo and how Dream has manipulated him. Dream plays a BIG part in why Tommy thinks the discs are so valuable. If you're told enough times and manipulated into thinking objects hold a significant value to the things important to you then eventually they become fiercely important to you and have some weight to them. I think in the beginning, in Tommy's brain destroying the discs meant his and Tubbo's friendship was over because of the part they've played in their friendship. Again, Tubbo only ever saw them as dics, plastic vinyls that drop from mobs and play pretty music. To another point, Tommy is also explicitly Hypocritical, just like Technoblade. He holds onto the fact that Tubbo and L'manburg and it's people are his friends and he cares about him but then calls Technoblade his friend and casts his emotions aside. The problem is the blatant fact that Tommy used Technoblade as a weapon and after being called out that friends don't do that to eachother he ignores it. In this instance he's no better than Technoblade. A kinda big problem is his character development, which really doesn't have a lot to do with c!Tommy and more with how the writers suggest developing him as a character. I think the main thing is that he goes to Tubbo's side saying how the discs never truly mattered to later saying they need the discs. The discs don't matter. What matters is defeating Dream. But just like Tubbo, Tommy is a highly and incredibly traumatised Teenager.

Next is c!Ranboo, the mad lad! I don't really have a whole lot to say? Just some quick analysis of what his characters ideals are and his actions in everything. Looking at his character he's incredibly paranoid, anxious and probably Traumatised from things we the audience don't know. At the end of the day he's a true neutral character. In one of the tweets cc!Ranboo sent it said that as long as Dream isn't hurting the people he (character Ranboo) directly cares about, he doesn't care what Dream does. For a good portion he was against Dream because he cared about everyone nd dream was hurting everyone. He's joined Technoblade and Ph1lza in the Arctic because he thinks that Dream has gotten what he wants, he doesn't know anything about Dream and Tommy's conversation by the end of Doomsday. Also! Ranboo's ideals/beliefs are anarchist by nature and principle. The reason he has a problem with choosing sides between L'manburg and Dream is because of the hierarchy within those sides, and the obligation that you have to fight that comes with picking those sides. Technoblade and Ph1lza both chose to fight under free will and because they chose too without coercion. Everyone is equal there. There's a really good post somewhere talking about it that'll I'll look for that explains it very well. (EDIT: found the post also hopefully i did the link right)

This is getting painfully long so I'm wrapping it up here with a few last things. Everything has always come down to Dream. The reason L'manburg was built was to get away from the oppressive power that is Dream (another point for Technoblade teaming up w dream, he wasn't there for Dreams stuff, he only knew of Schlatt but I digress). Dream has manipulated everyone, he's running the puppet show with the strings tied to his fingers. He's manipulated Tubbo, Tommy, Ranboo, Technoblade, Schlatt, EVERYONE. He's pitted everyone against eachother because he loves the chaos. Because he knows that if they weaken eachother it'll be a lot easier to take control with less effort put in from his part. Dream has always been the main antagonist from the very very beginning. Sure some could say Tommy started it with the discs but Dream was the one who took them in the first place etc.

He's also pitted the audience against eachother. It's really interesting in how he's actually manipulated the audience. It doesn't matter who's on what side or who's wronged who when the cause for all their greif has always been Dream. The fandom is fighting over traitors and betrayals and villain arcs. It doesn't matter, not when Dream is runnin free with the amount of power that he has.

[digitalcom]

WK 6: Body Modification and Visual Social Media

Creating an online identity is one of the newest phenomenons of visual social media. Platforms such as Instagram, have given rise and accelerated the ‘digital influencer’ while fostering microcelebrity culture. An Instagram influencer is a user who has established credibility in a specific niche, sector, or industry, because of their popular reach and authenticity (Drenten, 2018). Instagram users have a wide digital audience, can persuade others, and creates trends on social media (Carbaat, 2016). These Instagram influencers serve as the ultimate connection between a brand and a consumer, convincing their audiences to purchase products,modify their own pictures in exchange for their likes and follows. The Instagram microcelebrity uses their candidness and openness with consumers, and thus grow out their high social clout and credibility (Matthew 2019), which is what makes the phenomenon so successful. Where traditional marketing targeted mostly mass audiences, Instagram influencers have the unique ability to target niche audiences that have until now been unreachable (Matthew,2019). Additionally, recent research has identified modes of visibility labour such as self-branding techniques and offers insight into the common strategies social media influencers employ. However, the ambiguity of branded online identities and how they manage to create the unrealistic trends of body modification, result in the potential dissonance between online social media identities and life offline for users (Mavroudis, 2020).

Figure1: Famous influencer Tana Mongea, Edited vs Real

It is on visual social media platforms such as Instagram, that influencers are often presented as unrealistic standards of beauty. Due to astounding editing and retouching techniques by media models, it has created a cesspool of unattainable standards that users unfortunately try to achieve. The common aesthetic templates of Instagram include posting sexualised photos on the platform while posing with sponsored products that bring in profit for influencers (Drenten,2018). Although money may be a beneficiary of the pornifcation of IG posts, there is a strong connection between pornographication and sexualised labour. Thus, it comes down to the wider cultural pressures that convey to women, sexiness is both valued and a means of gaining attention. Moreover, as the self commodification continuum on Instagram unfolds (Drenten, 2018), more overt sexual objectification has progressed as influencers have curated a formula that ‘more attention= more money’ and therefore work extra hard for exposure opportunities in order to profit.

The spread of unachievable, harmful unrealistic body ideals and sexualised content have proven to have greater social and psychological ramifications. Unrealistic images of femininity, beauty, success and body shape promoted through social media images are associated with development of eating disorders and body dissatisfaction disorders (Fardouly,2018).Thus, exposure to manipulated photos on Instagram leads to lower body satisfaction. Especially the demographic of adolescent girls, who according to reports, spend around 30 minutes per day on the site (Tiggemann and Zaccardo, 2015). In general, women Instagram users compare themselves with manipulated photos of peers might think they are comparing themselves with people who are similar to them, rather than with celebrities whose bodies are unattainable.

Figure 2:  Body Positive IG blogger, Georgie Clarke exposing a photo manipulating influencer FaceApp 

The growing recognition that so much of Instagram is unrealistic has given rise to the Instagram versus reality movement. This is a form of online social activism where women and even influencers post two images of themselves side-by-side: an ideal ‘Instagram’ version that is perfectly lit and posed to show their best attributes, and a more realistic version with more natural pose (Carbaat, 2016). The comparison shows how camera angle, lighting, posing in a particular way and flexing particular muscles can dramatically alter perceived weight and appearance (Carbaat, 2016). The rationale behind the movement is that the contrasting images serve to remind women and young girls that social media is fake, that no one is perfect, that it is normal to have flaws, that they should never compare themselves with others on social media and enjoy loving themselves. 

Figure 3: Body Positive advocate Georgie Clarke, Posed vs Real 

References

Carbaat, I., 2016. Picture Perfect: The Direct Effect of Manipulated Instagram Photos on Body Image in Adolescent Girls. Media Physcology , pp. 1-13.

Drenten, J., 2018. Sexualized labour in digital culture: Instagram influencers, porn chic and the monetization of attention. wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/gwao, pp. 1-26.

Fardouly, J., 2018. New Media and Society, pp. 2-12.

Matthew, D., 2019. Micro-Celebrity Influencer Marketing: The Impact of Instagram Influencers on Consumer Culture of Young Millennial Women. pp. 1-5.

Mavroudis, J., 2020. Am I Too Branded? Fame Labour and Microcelebrity Culture. pp. 1-11.

Murray Drummond, M. T., 2017. Idealised media images: The effect of fitspiration imagery on body satisfaction and exercise behaviour. pp. 65-71.