In my early teen years, I struggled a lot with my mental illness, being hospitalised throughout high school, and then being ridiculed when I returned to class. In my high school years, I kept to myself and stayed out of everyone else’s way. I think this has allowed me to learn to not be insecure in who I am. Most people would tell you I am an open book, I take pride in all my weirdness and I am not afraid to show it. I think this makes me stand out compared to my competitors, I will never lie to my audience and never tell them they need to change anything about themselves to fit in. Lately I have been learning how to be by myself, which a lot of people my age don’t do. I don’t go out and party every weekend and I am really just focusing on myself. My friends would probably say my best trait is being honest. A lot of young adults are still trying to have a lot of friends and impress people, but I truly believe as long as I am honest in who I am and honest to other people, I will be happy.
Author: cholm2
COM0114 – Blog #3 Target Audiences
I am starting a company where I would create user-generated content for brands to post on their social media either organically or run to my content as ads. To bring in business, I have to start posting videos of examples of my work. The audience I would be trying to reach potential clients and also other user-generated content creators to establish my name in the community. Effective communication for my target audience is TikTok, this is where user-generated content lives, and where it really took off. Most user-generated content creators have a business profile on TikTok where they post their example videos and also make videos to give tips to other creators. By me using TikTok as my main platform, I can ensure my videos are showing up to the right people by using hashtags (such as #ugcjourney or #ecommerce) so the algorithm will understand who to push my video out to. The location of my target audience is all over the world, but mostly is the United States.
All user-generated content creators work online, meaning everything is shipped to them and there is no in person communication, making it very easy to have an international audience. I can also use TikTok to find potential clients. TikTok shows sponsored ads throughout the for you page, meaning if I see a sponsored post that is user-generated content, I know that brand works with creators and I can potentially create a business relationship with them
COM0014 – Blog #1 My Last Summer as a Teenager
Do you remember the last summer you had as a teenager? Was it everything you ever dreamed about? How long ago was it? For me, it was just this past summer. Looking back on my summer, I didn’t travel or do many of the things I wanted to, but my friends did make it seem like a “stay-cation”. Growing up, I never travelled besides going to visit family in my hometown of Winnipeg, Manitoba, which has stopped happening since the COVID-19 pandemic.
This summer taught me a lot. All through my youth I struggled with a mental illness which I have since been diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder. At the beginning of the summer, I was told by a psychiatrist that there is no “cure” for my disorder, only ways to manage symptoms and live with them. At that moment, I made it my goal to stop living within my illness and try to find peace and enjoy life.
Throughout the summer, I found peace in hanging out with loved ones, being outdoors and working.
Work definitely took up most of my summer, as it does for most teenagers. Although I have a pretty cool job. I got to go to a Dean Brody concert, and I even hosted the meet and greet! I also went to BluesFest to see Luke Combs and other events through work. For a while at work, it was just me and my co-worker Celeste, but about halfway through the summer, more people got hired and I made many friends.
Throughout the summer I made it a point to spend time by myself and learn how to be alone, which is something I struggled a lot with in the past. I started getting back into music and dug my keyboard out of my closet. I went on walks either by myself or with my boyfriend, Liam, and it really brought out a different side of me. I discovered I actually feel better when I am outside and for the longest time I thought that I hated outside.
For my mental health it is extremely important that I go into the colder, darker months with a positive outlook, or it could cause a spiral. I think that my past summer was the best “stay-cation” I have ever had. Because of this past summer, I have a completely different outlook on my life, and how the decisions I make affect the people around me. Have you ever had any experiences that changed the way you live your life and carry yourself?
How to Avoid Being Cancelled
My last couple posts I discussed the idea of “cancel culture”, and I figured for my last post I would tie everything together and discuss how to avoid being cancelled.
In this day and age, there is a lot of reasons you could get cancelled for, but most times it is things you can control. For example, last week I discussed James Charles being cancelled for “grooming” underage boys, this is pretty easy to avoid, just don’t do anything along those lines and you should be safe. However, with cancel culture, people are finding the smallest things to cancel people for, so how do you avoid this?
According to ScreenGeek, in 2020 people were trying to cancel Domino’s Pizza for liking a tweet made by Kayleigh McEnany (United States press secretary for Donald Trump) back in 2012.
This is a situation where Domino’s couldn’t really avoid the controversy, but luckily people took the company’s side and realized they couldn’t have predicted McEnany’s future career or political views. However, this proves that people will go digging through all your social media platforms looking for a controversy. So the number one way to avoid being cancelled is to think before you post. Could your post be taken out of context? Who are you interacting with on social media? Have your internet friends been involved in a major controversy? Anything remotely controversial that you could be linked back to is probably unsafe to post or interact with.
Have you seen any brand or influencer being cancelled for something easily avoidable? Or how about an influencer being cancelled for something they couldn’t control or have predicted the outcome to? Let me know in the discussion space below.
How to Make a Comeback After Being Cancelled
In my last blog, I discussed cancel culture and how people become cancelled. This week I wanted to discuss how to make a come back on social media after you have been cancelled. Although it may seem difficult, it is not impossible.
One influencer, James Charles, has been cancelled multiple times and still has a very successful platform. James is a beauty influencer, meaning he posts videos of makeup challenged, tutorials and reviews of new beauty products. He mainly has a platform on Youtube with 23.8 million subscribers! So, why was he cancelled? His biggest controversy was when he was accused of “grooming” under age boys. Insider has a more in depth breakdown of all the times James Charles has been cancelled, if you read it you will notice it has happened a lot.
You may wonder, how on earth does he still have any kind of platform after all his allegations? Well, it is because of how he handled the allegations. In some cases he just kept posting videos as if nothing happened, trying to ignore all the negative comments. However, he released several long apology videos throughout his career. With these videos, he explained his side of the story and “receipts” (proof) that he was telling the truth. These apology videos can make or break your career, if you do them right most people will cut you some slack, if you do them wrong people will believe you’re “fake” and just trying to save your career.
That being said, how do you ensure you apologize properly? Firstly, you need to make sure your video comes off as genuine. Viewers will be analyzing everything you do in these videos, if they think your tears are fake the video will not help you, if they think you are reading a script they will call you out. Even though James had a seemingly genuine apology, he was still victim to edits of his video making them seem less serious. Take a moment and watch the video below and let me know in the discussion section if you think the apology video as genuine as it should be. Do you think after all the allegations against James he should still have a career?
Blog 2- The Power Your Audience has on Your Success
If you spend a lot of time on social media, you’ve probably heard of someone being “cancelled”. This means information became public about an internet personality that was controversial, leading to this person losing fans/followers. Depending on the issue, the person could also end up being pressured off the internet, basically losing their job.
Recently, I was scrolling through my feed and saw that Ned Fulmer, a member of The Try Guys on Youtube, has been caught cheating on his wife. Now, if you don’t know who Ned Fulmer is, you may not understand why this is so shocking, let me put it into perspective for you. Ned has been married to Ariel Fulmer for approximately 10 years, according to Just Jared. Ned’s fans nicknamed him Ned “my wife” Fulmer because he always brought her up and spoke so highly of her and their relationship. Fans are starting to believe he did this to make us believe the relationship was perfect when it actually was not.
So, who did Ned cheat on Ariel with? None other than Alexandria Herring. Alexandria is the associate producer of the Try Guys, making Ned her boss. You probably think it can’t get messier than this, but Alexandria is actually engaged and his been with this person for 10 years!
The internet is now in a frenzy, not having the full story on the consensual relationship Alexandria and Ned shared, they aren’t sure if they should be both be cancelled. However, everyone agrees Ned is in the wrong.
With the power of the internet today, The Try Guys were already prepared with a statement the minute news was public. This statement just explained that Ned was no longer working with them. This means they already knew the opinion of the fans before information was public, they would cancel Ned even if he didn’t leave the channel.
So, how do you avoid this situation? Remember that all of your information is or can easily become public. If you are a public figure, you need to be cautious with not only what you post, but also what you are doing offline. Even if you aren’t a public figure you can be cancelled. There are many instances of teenagers posting a video with a controversial topic and then being cancelled, even though no one knew who they were before the video. Teenagers have been kicked out of school because of videos or posts, adults in the work field have been fired because of a post or video as well. In the end, the only way to avoid being cancelled is by not doing anything someone could interpret as rude.
Do you think being cancelled is fair or should people have a chance to explain themselves and be given a second try? Have you ever lost an opportunity because of your online presence? Let me know in the discussion space below.
Blog 1- Dangerous Trends on Social Media: Do Platforms Need to Take More Responsibility?
In this day and age, where everyone is utilizing social media for their own purposes, it is extremely easy to fall down a rabbit hole of trends on any platform. During the COVID-19 pandemic, people were spending more time on social media platforms than ever. According to Apuravakumar Pandya and Pragya Lodha on frontiers.org, “overall digital device usage increased by 5 [hours](…)” during the pandemic. With this extra screen-time, also came extra boredom. People are constantly looking for something to keep them entertained.
One platform people turned to for instant entertainment is TikTok, a short video sharing platform. TikTok has created many dangerous trends. In 2020, videos went viral of people pulling their hair so hard the skin of their scalp made a popping sound. This scalp-popping trend was explained by a doctor on the platform in 2021, which then lead to the trend being banned by the platform. Now, when searching in the platform’s search bar for the videos, it will no longer show results, only a message titled “Your Safety Matters”.
Another trend on Tiktok is the blackout challenge. This is a more recent challenge where people will make themselves pass out. This challenge has reportedly killed at least seven kids, according to inputmag.com.
With more potentially life threatening challenges emerging daily, do social media platforms need to update their safety procedures? Do you think platforms are responsible for these trends and who is effected by them?
Algonquin College Social Media Certificate Program 