Social medias aren't made equally

Social media sites come and go, they're often treated like fads, with users fighting over which social media is the best. Now Facebook has begun to grow out of style with younger teens, and many claim that there social media of choice (Instagram, Tumblr, etc) is the now the best social media. While it's natural for interests to shift as new products are created, I think it's important to note that not all social medias serve the same purpose. And while Facebook may be pretty old in social media terms, it's still the only service that fulfills certain needs.

"Social" is not all inclusive

While we use the term 'social media' as a blanket term for services online that allow users to connect to other users, not all social medias fulfill the same needs. Therefore, it's impossible to say which social media is the best since they all provide very different services.

Facebook is the only social media that allows totally direct connection between other people. You can see your friends lives unfold and talk to them about it in real time or look at individual pages. You can even use Facebook to do group projects, promote a business, and create events. This is about as social as any media can get. Google+ attempted to meet a lot of these same needs, but they also managed to take away a lot of the personal aspects, like not being able differentiate between things you follow and your friends.

On the other hand, things like Tumblr, Instagram, and Pinterest are very visual and put more emphasis on content rather than the users. Thus, it's a lot more difficult to directly connect to any users. For instance, Tumblr has a messaging system, but it's only meant to function as a system for answering specific questions, not maintaining a conversation. While it's true that Facebook isn't as entertaining as content-driven sites, this was never the purpose of Facebook. No other website is made to easily connect with friends, family, and co-workers.

Online Communities Are Great for Growth

This post was written by Matthew Rader. I wrote a post on his photography blog, here.

As a photographer it can been hard to find people close to you with whom you can have immediate access to and learn from. Yes, there are great photographers everywhere but it is challenging to get to know them and get access to their work whenever you feel like it.

I started getting into photography around 2006. I didn’t personally know a single photographer at that time. That’s when I discovered social media, primarily Flickr.com in 2007. After I made my photos, I eagerly uploaded them to Flickr to share them with other photographers. I joined groups, engaged with people, left comments, emailed and did all of the fun things Flickr had to offer for aspiring and professional photographers. It was in that community where I first learned a lot about photography and how I could improve my images. Several of the people I interacted with on Flickr are now friends on Twitter and Facebook as well.

A part of the power that Flickr plays in lives of photographers, is it gives every person an opportunity to “go “public” with their image. That helps validate their work and shape each person’s visual identity online. The fact that people know others will see their work, gives it more emotional power, making the experience of photography more real (Suler, 2008).

Flickr is no longer the most popular image sharing community, though it has had a profound impact on the social media world. Nowadays there are many other popular photo sharing communities like Facebook, Instagram, Imgur, DeviantArt, and many others. All of these sites provide people great opportunities to connect with photographers that can inspire and courage them.

You don’t have to be a photographer to join an online community. There are online communities for all types of hobbies and interests. Being a part of these communities will have a huge impact on how much you learn about and grow with your hobby or craft.

Suler, J. (2008). Image, action, word: Interpersonal dynamics in a photo-sharing community. CyberPsychology and Behavior, 11, 555-560.

How does YouTube pushing stardom change the community?

YouTube has been becoming more corporate for years, but at the MTV movie awards YouTube launched a new initiative to change the way YouTube creators are seen by the world at large. Hank Green deftly explains this move to change in this blog post, but in general, YouTube want's their stars to become more "legitimate stars", recognized world wide, in order to appeal to advertisers. While it's good that this will bring more money to creators, it has wider implications to the community.

Here is the list Hank wrote in his post:

"More ad money means more competition from more institutionalized companies. Companies that operate efficiently and do market research and clever accounting and have VPs of business development and lawyers and other things that I find intensely tedious.

The barriers to entry on YouTube get higher…the gatekeepers re-take their posts. If YouTube stardom is “legit” stardom, the competition will increase. The people (or algorithms) who decide what content is getting featured, shared, and turned into TV ads will be the new gate keepers.

YouTube will be less cool. Not all of it, mind you, there will still be pockets of exciting, interesting, revolutionary weirdness, but YouTube’s broader culture will be more bland every year in order to appeal to broader audiences and advertising execs." (Green, 2014)

I would like to expand on some of these points and add my other ways the community at large might be changed. One of the things that has so far made the YouTube community unique is the relationship between creator and fan. Creators are much more accessible than 'traditional' stars, they interact with their fans directly, and fans feel more connected into them since YouTube often provides a much more intimate look into the creators life than media does for actors. YouTube culture is also entirely run by the fans, they aren't fed opinions on YouTube stars by tabloids or other stars. An until recently, what was popular on YouTube was a direct result of community sharing.

Already we see advertisements for YouTube channels as pre-rolls on videos instead of generic ads. Now it looks like we will start seeing those advertisements on other mediums, even on television. When YouTube stars begin to become put on the same level as TV and movie stars, that connection between them and their fans might start to disintegrate. They will no longer be as accessible. This will also likely discourage viewers from making the transition from just viewer to viewer and creator. YouTube has always been about letting the normal person take control of presenting and expressing themselves for the world to see. Will the community let YouTube culture be taken over by the corporations of that are catering to advertisers, or will we find a way to work around them?

Resources:

Green, H. (2014, April 16). YouTube at Large(r). - Hank's Tumblr. Retrieved April 17, 2014, from http://edwardspoonhands.com/post/82907720681/youtube-at-large-r

Communities of Support

It's important to remember that there are online communities are much more than just being in a fandom. For many people, the only place that they can find people to relate their struggles is online. Online communities, help people to know that they aren't alone in what they're going through. This became apparent to me when I followed my friend, Maddy, on Tumblr and I began to see her posting things related to her chronic illness. I noticed that she reblogged encouragements and stories from others with chronic illnesses and interacted with them. While I had seen her go through dealing with this illness, as a healthy person I couldn't begin to truly understand or relate to her struggles with it, so seeing into this little community that I didn't know existed really struck a chord with me. Since I can't accurately describe what it's like, I decided to ask Maddy a few questions about her experiences with the community of people with chronic illnesses online.

 1. How long have you had a Tumblr?

I signed up on my 16 birthday after being pressured for a year by my friend. I had just started getting into Doctor Who so she said getting an account was mandatory.  

2. How long have you had POTS and can give you give a brief definition of the disease? I’ve had POTS for about five years now. I got it during my freshman year of high school as a result of some serious virus. POTS stands for Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome (you can see why we have to shorten it) and it’s a form of Dysautonomia. So basically your nervous system has two parts: somatic and autonomic. Somatic controls your voluntary movements (like muscles) and autonomic controls…well pretty much everything else (heart rate, blood pressure, breathing, digestion etc). In POTS the your autonomic nervous system doesn’t work the way its supposed to which leads to a lot of problems. Here’s a link if you want to know more details: 

3. What's the difference between a chronic illness and just being sick?

Well as the name suggests chronic illness are chronic. They are long-term illness, meaning they can last from a couple of years to a lifetime. The difference between a chronic illness and just being sick is that you can get over being sick. With chronic illness you’re kind of stuck with it everyday. For people trying to understand what this is like imagine having a bad cold or flu, except it never goes away. Some people say the world chronic illness is the nice way of saying “incurable”, and it’s kind of true. With a lot of chronic illnesses all doctors can do is prescribe medicine to help with symptoms. You just kind of have to readjust your life to accommodate it.

4. Do you follow a lot of people on tumblr who have chronic illnesses? Do you think it's large community?

I think I follow mostly fandom blogs, but I do follow a handful of people who also have chronic illnesses. When I first found this community I thought there would only be a couple people. However my time on Tumblr has shown me it is much larger than I initially expected, probably in the hundreds.

5. How did you find this community? Were you surprised to find them or did you know it existed and sought it out?

I think one day I was having a hard time dealing with my illness and was curious if anyone on tumblr was going through something similar. So I typed in POTS to the tags search bar and lo and behold thousands of posts came up! I was so surprised and so happy to find them because I had felt alone in my struggle for a while. 

6. Do you feel like you're part of a community online of similar people?

Yes I do feel like I’m a part of this community. We are similar in our experiences, struggles, thoughts, as well as some other interests.

7. Do you know anyone irl that has the same illness as you?

No I don’t know anyone in real life who has POTS. I think it would be super cool if I did, but for now I’m happy with the online friends I’ve made. 

8. Has being online and finding others in similar situations as you helped you cope with daily life?

It really has helped me cope with a lot of things. If I’m having a bad day I can just go online and vent to people who I know will understand what I’m going through. There is definitely a comfort factor knowing you’re not alone. 

9. Are online communities (any kind) important?

In my opinion yes they are important. They bring people together and create a sort of family or support system that some might not have outside the Internet. They also serve as a great conduit/platform for ideas and creations. 

10. Do any other online communities define you, if so which ones?

On Tumblr I’m apart of a lot of fandoms for a whole bunch of TV shows (I couldn’t name them all even if I tried). The main ones are Supernatural, Doctor Who, Sherlock, and Merlin. I also consider myself a part of the Nerd Fighter and science online communities.

11. Do you think kids should be encouraged to find online communities to connect with?

As long kids are smart about it I do think they should be encouraged to find online communities to connect with. They are great ways to make connections with people who have similar interests. They are also good places to express yourself through whatever form. I think some kids feel isolated because the people around them don’t like the same things, think the same way, or are going through the same things etc. Online communities can fix that and give them a sort of family that they otherwise wouldn’t have access to. 

12. Any thing else you would like to say about the impact of having a community of ppl w/ chronic illness, or other communities, or something you think people should know?

This is probably going to sound cheesy but here it goes: If anyone reading this is going through something whether it be illness or something else I hope you realize you’re not alone. There are whole networks of people here on Tumblr and other places that you can access practically anywhere at any time. 

On another note I think everyone should read about something called the Spoon Theory. It’s a sort of analogy that explains what it’s like to live with a chronic illness. 

Comics and Tumblr

Comic fans makeup a large portion of the many sub communities on Tumblr, but they are one of the few that stem from an already decades old fan base. Comics don't reach the mainstream media the way that they used to in their hay day, so they have to change to mold with the current technology and trends. Tom Ewing talks about an example of this with the recently ended comic Young Avengers and it's fan base on Tumblr. Many of Marvels comics have become less about the big moments- butt kicking, action, big reveals- and more about the everyday interaction between the teenage characters. Because of this, Ewing says that Young Avengers gained a reputation as a “Tumblr type of comic”. While on its own, this is somewhat of a back handed comment he goes on to claim that Tumblr may very well be the future of Marvel.

Overlapping Communities 

Tumblr offers a community that is much different from the traditional comic book audience of the 60’s, 70’s and 80’s. The majority on Tumblr actually correlates to minorities on other platforms; a greater number of users are people of color, queer, teenaged and the majority are female. It’s also a place where users interact in fandom, and can do so in a more complex and intimate way than in the past because it occurs on a social media platform. Since the fans are more diverse they will demand more diverse content, no need to pander to the same action clichés to drive profits. Fan culture means that characters are more greatly appreciated by fans that crave complex characters. Ultimately, all of this means a shift away from the focus on epic moments that has been so prevalent in super hero comics in the past to more complex and subtle stories. Since these kinds of fans are driving the markets for so many things, including comics, it makes sense for the comic industry to try and please them. And it's beneficial for the community to demand more interesting, and diverse stories.

Technology Evolves Fandom and Content

Even though I’m personally not in the Marvel or comic community, this article is a perfect example of how a community can be shaped by technology and how that evolving community can in turn shape the medium that the community is centered around. Social media, in this case Tumblr, allows many different sub communities to come together and have more of a voice than they could on other platforms. There is a huge community of LGTBQ individuals and every minority you can imagine who all love to be fans just as much as ‘traditional’ audiences, and as these people gain more voice they are slowly demanding greater representation in media. In the case of Young Avengers, it’s popular on Tumblr because it has such a diverse range of characters.  These are characters that all fans can identify with and love to analyze. Since these fans love to devour more complex stories and characters rather than just action packed male power fantasies, comics will have to shift in order to maintain a market.

Resources:

Ewing, T. (2014, January 10) All Our Friends: aka is there a Marvel Tumblrwave? Retrieved from:     http://freakytrigger.co.uk/wedge/2014/01/all-our-friends/

RE: Are Gamers Killing Video Games? - How Social Media Effects Sales

Resources

The Game Theorists: Are Gamers Killing Video Games?

Yadav, S. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://mashable.com/2006/08/25/facebook-profile/

Williams, M. (2001, August 24). Nintendo unveils gamecube launch plans. CNN. Retrieved from http://edition.cnn.com/2001/TECH/fun.games/08/24/gamecube.release.idg/

Company facts. (2014). Retrieved from https://about.twitter.com/company

Social Media Statistics

Created with infogr.am with statistics from:

Harden, S. Retrieved from http://www.statisticbrain.com/social-networking-statistics/

April Fools Day

So, Monday was April fools day, the day the internet eagerly waits to be entertained by their favorite corporations and social media. It's become a tradition for websites to make sensational pranks for there users on April Fools Day, and these jokes are becoming more and more elaborate as the years go on. It's interesting that these things that are so impermanent are taken so seriously by companies. Real money and real time is spent on fake marketing campaigns for fake products and services. It's all good fun, but in a way it's become a publicity contest similar to the much anticipated Super Bowl Commercials.

LinkedIn's 'cats you may know'

So what do companies get out of it?

Obviously, companies get a lot of publicity for creating the best gimmicks, and I'm sure there is some kind ad revenue that's generated from the websites being viewed. But it does more than that. April Fools jokes humanizes companies and makes individuals more likely to interact with them and buy their products. It makes them memorable. And what do people do with memorable things they find on the internet? They share it. And in a world where things are spread at lightening speed via social media, if you don't contribute to the April Fools' entertainment you run the risk of being forgotten in the wake of more clever corporations. 

What about us?

We can all agree that April Fools' jokes like these are good, harmless entertainment and, even better, for us they're free. More than that, jokes bring help bring down the wall between us users and the companies we follow. It shows us that they care about our opinions and happiness, even if it's mostly to keep their profits up. But these jokes also help us bring down the walls between us, and build communities. It doesn't matter where you are in life or the where you are in the world, we can all appreciate the humor of hats on your Tumblr icon or David Hasselhoff photobombing your pictures.

With that being said, here are some of my favorite jokes from April Fools this year. And here's a link to a proper list of examples.

My Favorites

• Linked In's Cats You May Know
• Minecraft - you have to see it to understand
• Tumblr Pro - gives your icon a top hat
• Netflix's chicken and bacon movies
• Domino's edible pizza box
• Google maps Pokemon challenge
• -Google + david hasselhoff photobombs

Resources

Waxman, O. (2014, April 1). The best of april fools' pranks of 2014. Retrieved from http://time.com/43940/the-best-april-fools-pranks-of-2014/

Ready Up Live. (2014). Minecraft april fools joke - villager voices [Web]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g6Jj-wQdlqI

Minecraft

Minecraft started out as an indie sand box game that has grown far beyond it's original intent. The Minecraft website actually sums up the phenomenon quite nicely: "Minecraft is a game about breaking and placing blocks. At first, people built structures to protect against nocturnal monsters, but as the game grew players worked together to create wonderful, imaginative things" (Minecraft). These imaginative things range from works of art built in game to unique educational tools. Minecraft's gameplay encouraging creativity and team work has allowed for a unique community to form that now exists across many platforms. This post will look at why the community is so unique and where and how it exists.

Minecraft is a game that is never truly finished. Mojang, the Swedish company that created it, updates the game frequently with new features for players to explore. Because players feed back and suggestions are taken into consideration and often implemented into the next version of the game, players feel like they are included. Dedicated players can take their building even further by 
programming modifications and texture packs to add to the game. While Notch and Mojang encourage this kind of creativity, they don't allow any modifications to their idea to make a profit - so the creators make them available for free. Some of these mods just add a few items while others create whole new mechanics such as Galctifraft or Thaumcraft. Who'd have thought that the simple concept of 'building' could be taken so far. Users of Minecraft are constantly causing the game to evolve by being active in it's creation and discussion. Now there are even educational versions of Minecraft, such as Minecraft Edu and Google's qCraft, which teaches quantum physics.

Minecraft doesn't have an in-game tutorial like most video games. Instead, the player is encouraged to seek the help of other more senior players, so because of this the Minecraft Wiki was created with extensive information on everything Minecraft. With in the wiki there is also a forum where players can ask questions and interact. The bigger mod packs like Feed the Beast have their own wiki's. Another contributor to Minecrafts community is the multiplayer aspect. People can create servers where many people can play at once with endless possibilities for game play since there is no story line for them to follow. Of course, the Minecraft community crosses into social media and other art forms. Thousands of people watch YouTubers such as Achievment Hunter, Direwolf, and Yogscast play Minecraft Lets Plays. There are also Machinima series based in Minecraft, meaning the creators use the in-game camera to 'film' a story with in the world of Minecraft. All of these forms of community connection and Minecrafts success wouldn't be possible with out technology as we know it today.  

Resources
Minecraft. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://minecraft.net/

MaceMadunusus. (Artist). (2013, February ). Clock Tower [Web Graphic]. Retrieved from http://macemadunusus.deviantart.com/art/Minecraft-Clock-Tower-352075897

Hoopes, H. (2013, October 13). Google's qcraft brings quantum mechanics fun to minecraft. Retrieved from http://www.gizmag.com/google-qcraft-quantum-mechanics-minecraft/29505

Bristow, E. (2013, November 21). Gaming in education-minecraft in schools? Retrieved from http://theedublogger.com/2013/11/21/gaming-in-education-minecraft-in-schools/

The Evolution of Youtube

Former Paypal employees Chad Hurley, Steve Chen and Jawed Karim started Youtube in 2005 (Fitpatrick, 2010). What started with a few second video of founder Karim at the zoo has since evolved into a force of nature in popular culture with hours upon hours of video uploaded every second. With that much content at once, it can be hard to know what is worth your time and what isn’t, but since 2005 Youtube has grown a unique and ever evolving community that has used technology to stop the vertical integration of media by big entertainment companies and blur the lines between professionals and amateurs. However, as YouTube has become more influential, the community has become more dissipated and the changes to the website it’s self are partially to blame.

In the beginning, the YouTube community was very tight knit and popularity wasn’t actually all that hard to gain popularity. New genres of entertainment like vlogging blossomed while YouTube also created a more accessible outlet for short films and web series. Now there are many different sub-communities and cross-platform communities on YouTube, and many creators literally make their living off of their videos. But, as short form online video has become more mainstreamed into media, Google has implemented many changes on the website that encourage a more corporate or branded approach to YouTubing and - in some users opinions- made the community worse. In the final episode of Becoming YouTube, a web series that simultaneously gives clever commentary and supportive discussion on YouTube, Benjamin Cook tackles the subject of how YouTube and it's communities have changed. He prefaced the episode "Everything Changes" by summarizing many of the complaints heard in the community:  “Youtube’s too corporate now… there’s no sense of community” and then posing the question “has YouTube really changed or is it us who’s changed?” (Cook, 2014). The many different opinions on change can be seen in his video through the interviews conducted with big name European YouTubers.

Whether it's us or YouTube that's causing it, change certainly is happening fast. It's clear that online video is becoming seen as a serious contender in the entertainment industry. Just this week Disney bought Maker Studios, a very successful YouTube production company, for $500 million (Spangler, 2014). Is this selling out? How will Disney ownership affect the content created by those who are a member of Maker? Will they be able to maintain creative freedom? Is the ever increasing presence of big corporations on YouTube going to continue to make it harder for the typical users voice to be heard?

                                                                                                                                       

Resources:

Cook, B. (Director) (2014). Everything changed | becoming youtube | episode 12 [Web]. Retrieved from http://youtu.be/8dKrTkDhGt4

Fitzpatrick, L. (2012, May 31). Retrieved from http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1990787,00.html

Spangler, T. (2014, March 24). Disney buys maker studios in deal worth at least $500 million. Retrieved from http://variety.com/2014/biz/news/disney-buys-maker-studios-in-deal-worth-at-least-500-million-1201145068/

Culture Under the Rocks

What and Why

Many well-meaning adults talk to us young-people about how technology is ruining society, how social media is at best frivolous and worst stupid, and all around discrediting a huge part of society today. What people who aren’t involved in anything online don’t realize is that there is an entire complex world of culture and subculture that exists within the circuitry they are so afraid of. Sure, the internet-verse is silly, and has plenty of offensive things, but it’s also a place where communities can form that could not exist without the technology. Not only do these communities exist, they change lives, make art, and give the underrepresented a voice.

This blog will talk about various different online communities, analyze how they use the technology that is relevant for them, how they change that technology, and showcase things they are doing that contributes to culture. Instead of just talking about vague groups like “the Tumblr community” or the “YouTube community”, we will focus on communities that exist beyond the platform they choose to use. What I mean by that is I’m particularly interested in sub groups that have used social media to band together and form communities in new ways. For instance, YouTube is much more diverse than just sketch comedies and cat videos, and each niche has it’s own unique community. On Tumblr, smaller fandoms and marginalized groups can be heard where they can’t in mainstream media. I’m also interested in discussing the way online media as whole is different than traditional mainstream media. Over all, the internet is a diverse place with many different kinds of cultures that are all accomplishing amazing things that are worth being discussed and showcased.

About the Author

I’m Katie, an 18 year old college student studying arts and technology. In recent years, online communities have become a big part of my life, and I feel that is the case for many people. I have YouTube channel, and I really love online video. As I became more involved in the YouTube community and saw the flourishing of many other communities online, I became more interested in what makes them tick and how they affect people’s lives.