It’s 2020 Why Is Sex Still the Top Seller?

                With women fighting for the equality of their bodies why are we still choosing to sexualize ourselves for views and likes? Why is it that the people seen as the top are mostly the stereotype of societal beauty norms? Why are we not asking more of our favourite companies? It is unfortunate that we live in a society where women must think about who will value their opinion depending on how pretty/sexy they are. It doesn’t help when you have people like the Kardashian clan leading the way to be “self-made” entrepreneurs who apparently “struggled” to get where they are. Now I do not want to down play the Kardashians in full because I am sure that they have done good things but, due to how I have seen how they decide to post about themselves all the time and they come from a higher class background they are not exactly self-made; and, Kim is known for her overtly sexualized body to gain likes and followers.

                With women like Kim Kardashian we are consistently reminded that for the likes and comments we must perfect our bodies to get those likes. As pointed out by May Rose Somarriba (2016):

There is something to be said about how social media today has become for some people a means not just of self expression but of selling oneself. Women’s bodies are beautiful and should not be shamed as they are. Women’s bodies are so beautiful and amazing though, that they are often exploited, whether physically or digitally, for others’ pleasure. (Pg. 6)

I find a lot of the time that it leaves women endlessly scrolling through their social media news feeds and comparing with other women what their bodies could be. The things that the user can change about their physical looks to simply make themselves look better to society and creates a numb feeling.

Photo by mikoto.raw from Pexels

Not only are we being perpetually sexualized in social media to be trying for the attention of not just other women but, men. If the “main consumer”; being white heterosexual men, are not pleased with the outcome of an image it is instantly ragged on. Whether we are being a tease and not showing enough or being too pornographic by showing too much. This showing too much could simply be a woman’s nipple which in my last blog I wrote about how female nipples need to be de-sexualized. A video made this year and posted by Girls. Girls. Girls. Magazine went viral because it points out so many truths about what women hear daily. I hear them daily and still find myself questioning what I am posting thinking wow this may be too much or too little. I put the video below with the lyrics, it does warn of sensitive content so if you feel uncomfortable to watch it’s okay.

I feel women are still not seeing themselves in the media leading to all these different eating disorders and body disorders. Women experience more depression and anxiety with having the consistent reminder of what a typical woman is “supposed” to look like. Hell, even lesbian women are even subjected to the stereotypical “hot” women who are making out for the pure pornographic pleasure for men. This quote from an article by Jenna Drenten, Lauren Gurrieri and Meagan Tyler I think says it all, “For the women who upload these self‐representations to social media, conformance to heteronormative prescriptions of attractiveness and femininity is fundamental in gaining attention (Duffy, 2017).” (Drenten, Gurrieri, Tyler, 2019. Pg. 4).  It’s fundamental? To follow societal norms of female beauty to gain attention? This is really where we are at. Women no matter their sexual orientation are always depicted as something else in the media rather than what they really are. The next video breaks down the Instagram beauty standard and if you watch to the end the ending is sort of eerie with what is imagined to be of every woman.

So, I have nothing wrong with women being sexual I just want there to be a time where women can turn off the sexy like men and, not have to consistently feel as though they must live up to what other women are. Are you going to think more critically of the influencers you follow and what all they are putting out into the cyberverse? Are they adding to your life or making you want something that may be unhealthy for you?

Sources:

Biogilates (2019, Sept. 16). Decoding the Instagram Beauty Standard [Video], Youtube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5HJ8du5i_rE&t=1s

Drenten , J., Gurrieri, L., Tyler, M. (2019, Feb 21). Sexualized labour in digital culture: Instagram influencers, porn chic and the monetization of attention. Retrieved from https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/gwao.12354

Somarriba, M.R. (2016, Aug. 18). Why Kim Kardashian’s Latest Nude Selfie Proves Just How Confused Our Culture Really Is. Retrieved from https://verilymag.com/2016/03/kim-karashian-nude-selfies-empowerment-sexualization-porn-0903

This is Majla (2020, Feb. 25). Be A Lady They Said [Video], Youtube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jvgvaFFZlZ0

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Twitter: Let’s Throw Societal Beauty Standards Out The Window: https://bit.ly/2VchJI6

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A Nipple is A Nipple, To Censorship Policies Though Apparently Not?

It’s beach day and the boys are out, they are in their swim trunks; short, long or speedo, and playing a fun game, or laying in the sun or swimming in the ocean. They take a few pictures and post them on Instagram to flex and show the great day they enjoyed. What happens when this is you are your girlfriends enjoying a day at the beach and not wearing a bikini top? Unthinkable totally against the norm. But why? What is different from a woman versus a man?

Photo by Polina Zimmerman from Pexels

It’s 2020 and yes pictures of women’s nipple are still being taken down due to reports of “sexually explicit” content. This is a long generated societal norm of “women’s bodies are sacred” and “only meant for one person”. To me wearing those wire lined chest compressing booby traps is something I cannot stand. I understand some women feel comfortable in them and some feel the need to wear/need to wear them. However, what about social media taking down even photos of nude women due to the thought of a nip slip.

Other than having another function other than arousal and temperature gauge a nipple is a nipple. So why is it being taken down? Let’s first look at a snippet from an article by Erika Hallqvist (2019),

Instagram recently announced an addition to its already stringent censorship policy: it is enabled to demote from its “Explore” page anything that it deems “inappropriate,” regardless of whether it violates community guidelines or not.

Remaining characteristically vague when it comes to censorship, Instagram offered only one example of the kind of thing it would be cracking down on “sexually suggestive” content. Leaving a lot of room for interpretation. (Pg. 1&2)

So, Instagram has gone up to not only allow people to report imagery like this and taking it down now they have an algorithm in place in order to hide this sort of content. This content especially during this changing time could help women love their bodies more. Learning about feminism I learned that it was society making me spend 50$ plus on bras and wearing them to feel safe and not looking like I am “asking for things”.

When an artist is posting a drawing, a painting or a photograph it shouldn’t be taken down. When a woman feels empowered, she should not be told what she is doing is not okay. The censorship to nipples should be based on desexualizing them so sexual unwanted comments should be censored. But don’t worry Instagram is working on it, as written in an article by Payton Saso, “Instagram’s community guidelines ban the posting of nudity on the app, including that of female nipples, “but photos of post-mastectomy scarring and women actively breastfeeding are allowed,” states the policy.” (Saso, 2019. Pg. 8).  So, we are now normalizing the fat sac that our nipple simply sits on top of. Don’t get me wrong the women who show off their fight through cancer or other medical issues and the women who show off their motherhood are so empowering and needed as well but, still why are we looking at breasts and thinking those nipples are completely different from the ones we see on men like Chris Hemsworth?

This video is one of my favourites speaking out about the #freethenipple campaign to try and change the narrative on censorship laws.

As the video states men fought for their right to free their nipples at one point in time why is it now that when women do it, it’s seen as too distracting or we are asking for a certain type of attention. Will you support this women’s movement to normalize the female nipple?

Sources:

Hallqvist, E. (2019, Jun. 8) How Instagram censors could affect the lives of everyday women. Retrieved from https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2019/06/08/how-instagram-censors-could-affect-lives-everyday-women/1329016001/

Mic (2015, May 12). These women are going topless, but it’s for a very good reason! [Censored] [Video], Youtube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UK8k4agYg6M

Saso, P. (2019, Jan. 27) Opinion: Freeing the nipple is more about freedom than nipples. Retrieved from https://www.statepress.com/article/2019/02/spopinion-stop-sexualizing-the-female-nipple#

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Facebook: Was the free the nipple movement silenced by only a couple censorship changes? https://bit.ly/2UM2J3q

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How Colour Can Affect Social Media Use.

Catchy slogans, intriguing headlines, and clever writing is this all that social media platforms and brands use to catch new users? What about the colour? Ever seen a puke green app icon or it used as the main colour in a website background? What about the subliminal messaging that colours send to our brains? Picking the colours to use with the tone you are going for need to match to attract the right people for the right reasons.

Photo by Sharon McCutcheon from Pexels.

                As per Mark Walker-Ford, “No matter how you look at it, the colours you choose to use, both in your overall branding elements and content, matters.” (2017, Walker-Ford. Pg. 1). The colours that you choose for you brand is something that is going to affect your customers               . to be able to select the colours that work best for you brand it’s best to not only know the tone you are looking to put off but, the feeling you wish to make your customer/follower feel. To see an infographic of the colour spectrum and social media branding click here.

                Just like other major brands you want people to see a colour and associate your brand with that. Lillian De Jesus points this out in her article, “McDonalds has become a popular restaurant for families, especially for young children. So popular that just seeing the yellow arches a smile to a child’s face and have then screaming for french fries.” (2016, De Jesus. Pg. 5).  Even though I would say most kids are excited for the whole happy meal what else does the McDonalds iconic logo paired with? A red background enforcing that it’s fast, which is what the parent’s may be looking for after a long day at the office.

                Some brands even use it to trick the mind. Blue is a colour of calm and invite, with applications that have to do with meditation tend to use this colour to have people feeling more comforted even by the visuals of it. Who else does this? Facebook and Twitter do and maybe for the same reason… This is making networking seem calming and inviting, to connect with friend and blow off some steam; however, a lot of the time I find that this can devolve into infuriation and annoyance with the people around and what they may post. The video below gives more tips on choosing the right colours for you.

                So, you can either stay true to you and go with the feeling that you want your brand to be or choose something that will go with your brand what colour will you choose?

Sources:

Walker-Ford, M. (2017, Aug. 27) Colour Psychology & Web Design: How Your Colours Affect You Visitors. Social Media Today. https://www.socialmediatoday.com/marketing/color-psychology-web-design-how-your-colors-affect-your-visitors-infographic

De Jesus, L. (2016, Dec. 22). How to use Colour Psychology in Social Media Marketing. Stencil. https://getstencil.com/blog/how-to-use-color-psychology-in-social-media-marketing/

Patel, N. (2017, Oct. 17). How to Choose the Right Colour Schemes for Your Brand or Website|Conversation Tips [Video], YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eXhZJI9Iy5c

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Coal Mining and Data Mining, What’s the Difference?

What’s the first thing that comes to mind when you think of coal mining? The hole in the ground? The endless taking of what the earth has to offer us? There is a lot of things that come to mind when thinking of mining however, there is groups of people where either they are for it and understand the economic growth and use for coal or people protest digging enormous holes in the ground and the environmental damage it creates. What happens when we change ‘coal’ to ‘data’? What comes to mind now?

Data like coal is everywhere and just laying around. Think of how many years that social media and the internet has been developing. You now get reminded of these fragments of data through memories. Consistently we are giving up information on ourselves like signing up and filling out fitness applications to start following a routine, posting about our views on certain events happening within the world, or anything else. While yes, we can set up security settings to block out the people we want and the people we don’t know but, what about the people who own or run the platform?

Photo by Kevin KU via Pexels

Facebook for instance one of the biggest social media platforms ran into a scandal with data not too long ago. 2018 and through 2019 to be precise. IAME wrote in an article,

“what happened was that the political research firm was able to gain access to data belonging to over 50 million Facebook users through a third-party personality quiz – the users had absolutely no knowledge of this and had not explicitly given consent for this to take place.” (IAME, 2018. P. 5).

With just the click of a button so many people can have their data used. What for? No one knows that’s the problem. Like the place that did it was a political research firm which typically means that they are using it to collect statistics on people’s thoughts on political parties or which way a certain demographic is swaying toward. However, no one knows if that is exactly what they are doing with the data. IAME (2018) includes in his article that this is not the only time this has happened. So, who is and has done it? What data is being mined and for what reasons?

Now I am not trying to instill paranoia within people. I simply want to bring light to something that people like me didn’t even know is and has been happening. I had to take an undergraduate degree program in communications to understand all this. People should be aware of what they are putting out into cyberspace is forever there and could be used at some point for statistics. Click here and professor Stephan P Kudyba from NJIT School of Management will give a small explanation on data mining.

After watching the short clip above it shows that yes people are looking at you but, to them you may just be a number and they are simply seeing who is liking what and what common correlations go between the users. Just sometime the boundaries of privacy are over stepped and not looked at or become a public scandal.

Just like coal, data is mined for the everyday use of improving technology and improving the economy with marketing and advertising but, some may argue that there is need of better security and privacy protocols when it comes to it. I think the first step is get the topic on the table and understanding the pros and cons behind it and just finding a better more translucent way for companies to do so. For another more in depth article on the 2018-2019 Facebook scandal click here to see a post from The Guardian.

Sources:

IAME (2018, Mar. 29) The Facebook Data Mining Scandal – What happened. Retrieved May 24, 2020, from https://medium.com/@IAMEIdentity/the-facebook-data-mining-scandal-what-happened-82154855aeca

Wong, J.C. (2019, Mar. 18) The Cambridge Analytica scandal changed the world – but it didn’t change Facebook. Retrieved May 24, 2020, from https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/mar/17/the-cambridge-analytica-scandal-changed-the-world-but-it-didnt-change-facebook

NJIT [NJIT]. (2010, May 25). What is Data Mining? [Video File] Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R-sGvh6tI04

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