My Grandfather’s Experience with Social Media

The younger generations of today know almost everything about social media, we grew up with it, it’s in our blood. We use it everyday, it’s a part of life. As for older generations, the switch to everything being online hasn’t been the easiest. My grandpa, who’s in his sixties, had some opinions about social media, not always good ones. As the years went on, he learnt a lot about it, and now uses it daily. I wouldn’t say he’s addicted to TikTok yet, but maybe we’ll get there…hopefully not.

From knowing nothing to using it everyday

My grandfather is a Ukrainian man who moved to Canada when he was young and taught music his whole life. Now he’s retired, spends his time in the garden or catching up on tv shows he enjoys. When the internet became huge, he struggled a lot. Anything with technology, he’d ask my dad or uncle to set it up and wanted nothing to do with it. Do not ask him what’s the WIFI password, he might make a snarky comment. As for social media, he didn’t need it therefore didn’t use it. He only became interested when his wife started using Facebook. He couldn’t care less about celebrity drama or news articles that weren’t playing on the news on tv, but he saw some benefits to this platform.

How Facebook and other social media platforms can be beneficial for elders

“Hey Tatiana, grandma said she saw your prom pictures already but I haven’t…What’s up with that?”

Well grandpa, get on Facebook.

Trying to explain social media to him was not easy, but I told him it’s really nice to be able to see pictures of what our friends and family are doing. I showed him how most of our family members use it and give life updates once in awhile. Right away, he wanted to join. We set him up an account and he started using it from time to time until it became daily. He now can see what his family does and stay in contact with them more than ever. I’m surprised how much he uses it, but can’t say I’m not always excited when he sends his daily jokes he saw online…maybe I should explain to him what a meme is.

Via Pinterest

Not only can he reach family and friends easier, but he also reconnected with an old student recently. The student reached out to him thanking him for everything he taught her and they chatted about their current lives. He was so happy to hear from her, made his day.

I think it’s great to show older generations the benefits of social media. Although make sure you warn them about some of the bad things that can come from it.

When showing him some of the features Facebook has, I quickly remembered how if you try and do a lot on it you can end up getting scammed. Trolls stealing your identity online is very common. I explained to him the different privacy features, and to only accept friend requests from people you’re sure you know. Also important to watch what links you click, even if they are from friends. If it seems sketchy, it probably is. I remind him that if he thinks someone may be accessing his account, like posts are on his page that he never made, to change his password once in awhile to avoid this. So far, he’s had great luck, but nobody is safe online.

What he learnt on his own

The day my grandfather found YouTube, his whole life changed. He loves music, it’s his passion. He can play over 10 instruments and has tons of old records and cassette tapes. Grandpa knew about “googling” things, but didn’t understand how literally anything and everything is online. One day I went over to his house, and he was so excited to tell me how he can listen to all his favorite songs online without buying CDs or having to ask my uncle to download albums onto his iPod. ” This playlist has EVERY single song from The Beatles” Then when I told him he could watch some of their live performances, it was like a kid in a candy shop. Now he finds all of his favorite songs from the 60s and 70s and listens to them daily. He also found out that he can find music sheets for songs he wants to play already made and just print them out.

Lastly, his recent obsession is finding Ukrainian recipes online, that his mother used to make for him when he was young. He couldn’t believe how many there are. All I know is I love all the dishes he makes, can never have too many perogies.

If you have grandparents in your life, or know of some elders who don’t use social media, I think it would benefit them if you took the time to teach them what it is. Let them be able to see what everyone is posting so they can live those moments with the rest of us.

Do you know elders who use social media? If so, what do they use it for?

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How people get into bad internet trends

Social Media has so many amazing features and content that can help you in your day to day life. It’s a tool but also just a fun pass-time. One thing about it though, you can get into some bad stuff. They might seem somewhat innocent, but actually are quite harmful or maybe just plain annoying. This blog will talk about some internet trends I saw online but also saw recreated in real life. As a student in High School, I walked around people doing trends daily and experienced all of them first hand, which I will add my stories to each trend I talk about.

Scary Clown Killer Trend

This one you might remember. When thinking what trends I should add to this list, remembering this one really brought me back to 2016. Here’s what happened

CBS News

When researching trends, it can be hard to find how they started, as news spreads so fast online, and a lot people claim they are the ones that started it. I found many sources claiming different things on how it started. Some being about actual murderers that were dressed as clowns having started it (Vox News) , or a set of people doing pranks by dressing as this persona (People). This phenomenon of clowns scaring people has been seen decades before, but 2016 was the most current one. In 2016, people of all ages would dress up as a clown, go in public and try to scare anyone they meet. They would either stand at a distance to creep you out or actually walk up to you and harass you. Many people who participated in this didn’t have any intent to hurt anyone, but would still be committing crimes. Some cases resulted in misconduct, threats were made to schools in America surrounding the clown trend and the schools were forced to close (Vox News). One 16 year old who participated in the trend and tried to scare people was stabbed to death by others (Vox News), as well as many other cases.

My personal experience with this trend was watching Youtube videos about sightings near my area and scaring myself over this stupid trend. I remember going to school and when it reached Halloween the teachers sent letters home explaining that nobody was allowed to dress as a clown that year. Luckily everyone listened where I went to school but I can’t so sure it didn’t happen anywhere else. That same Halloween, when I went out to trick or treat, it was at the back of all my friends and I’s mind. Honestly, we almost wanted to see one. See if someone had the guts to do it. Surely enough, we saw a teenage boy dressed as one. He was almost 100% following the trend as he was dressed as a scary clown with a chainsaw, making the sound of the weapon go off when people passed by him. I was freaked out for a bit until I recognized who it was and knew him personally, making me at ease, but I’m sure other adults and kids didn’t feel safe that night.

Devious Lick, the dumbest trend ever

This trend is recent, started when schools reopened after having to close down due to Covid-19 restrictions. Remember this one? Maybe your children know about it or maybe even participated. Maybe you participated. It was and still is very popular.

Devious Lick, what a name. This trend was all about stealing. Not exactly stealing products from stores, but stealing soap dispensers from school washrooms. I know, so so so dumb. This trend was primarily done in schools but happened other places too. Teenagers and children are the ones that made this trend so popular, and if you were a student in school during the pandemic to now, you probably saw it first hand. This trend became popular on TikTok as everyone would record themselves stealing whatever they want and posting it with the hashtag #DeviousLick or #DiabolicalLick after TikTok banned the first hashtag. Many schools had to take action against it as washroom were getting destroyed and any hand sanitizer station for the pandemic got stolen. It was difficult to stop this from happening as you can’t put cameras in the public bathrooms, so many kids got away with it easily.

Here’s a compilation of some videos posted online for the trend. I apologize for the terrible music playing behind some of these videos, it was the designated song for this trend.

Youtube account: Random TikTok Videos

As for my personal experience, I can’t believe what I’m about to tell you happened at our school. It started with smaller stuff like emptying hand sanitizer bottles on the ground and stealing teachers pens, but quickly they made their way to the infamous washrooms and oh my, they didn’t hold back. The girls washroom, from what I saw myself was not as bad as the boys. When going to the bathroom, I saw the anti-vaping posters rolled up and stuffed into the toilets. Tampons were soaked with water and thrown onto the ceiling where they would stick and stay there all day long. Sometimes other smaller things would happen but overall it wasn’t anything near what was going on in the opposite sex bathroom. From what my guy friends told me, and seeing many pictures on snapchat, their washroom was a mess. First started off with soap dispensers being torn off the wall, toilets getting clogged by stuffing paper towels in it, and more graffiti than usual on the wall. I even heard a rumor that someone stole the top part of a toilet. It escalated into students stealing multiple items and bringing them into the bathroom, and yes, I saw pictures. The pictures included, multiple chairs and student desks, a tv, plants, a fan and multiple hand sanitizer stations. This ended with the boys bathroom being closed for weeks on end and the only way the boys could use the washroom is if a teacher accompanied them. Might I add, the boys broke into the bathroom many times.

Youtube Pranks GONE WRONG

One of the biggest trends online includes the genre on Youtube where people pull pranks on others. This started with smaller pranks pulled on friends and very commonly couples. These prank accounts have been making videos since Youtube started. Because so many people were doing it and new trends came up, it was hard to keep viewers interested, so they had to up their game. These pranks would now be bigger, more risky and include the public. Some stayed innocent but others are questionable and receive more hate than love. If you search on Youtube “pranks” a lot of them will have “GONE WRONG” in the name, as clickbait. Clickbait typically refers to the practice of writing sensationalized or misleading headlines in order to attract clicks on a piece of content (CoSchedule) Most of the time the pranks are scripted and multiple people are involved, but sometimes it actually goes very wrong.

In 2021, a youtuber decided to pull a fake robbery prank. A group of boys made their way to a parking lot, pulled out a knife and were ready to start their “social experiment”. Almost instantly a gun was pulled out and shot the young man, Timothy Wilks, before they were able to reveal that it was all a joke. (WatchMojo) One crazy video I remember kids at school talked about was the story of how Jason Ethier lied about his girlfriend dying. Jason and his girlfriend often made prank videos together, until one day he made a video claiming she drove into a ditch and died. He had set up candles and pictures of her outside around the spot it supposedly happened and filmed everything. Well, it was all a lie. It was simply so they could gain more views and stay famous as their channel had been losing subscribers. This resulted in them losing their account on Youtube. (WatchMojo)

The reason I chose Youtube pranks is because I saw one of my best friends shut down after watching one of the most horrible pranks online. This prank was done by Youtubers Sam and Colby who were huge at the time. My friend was obsessed with them, had their merch and everything. They seemed innocent making prank videos on each other. Many children followed them. One day they released a horrible and terrifying video. It starts off with Sam and Colby having to stop on the side of the road to fix something in the hood of the car. A man then comes behind and puts a black sack over Sam’s head. Colby was in on it so he just watches and screams sometimes to make it believable. Already, this video is disturbing as Sam screams for his life. They get shoved into a car and brought to a rooftop where they are both tied up. Colby gets a gun pointed a him while Sam watches in fear and then Colby gets shot. I remember when this video came out because little me googled it right away and watched it, I felt sick the whole time. My friend didn’t know what to say or do afterwards. Sam and Colby were now on their way to get “canceled”. They released a video where they both claim they were BOTH in on it and it was just for views. But the damage had been done, all those children had watched the horrible video.

The Hollywood reporter

All this to say, trends aren’t always fun and happy, and people can get easily persuaded to follow them even if they are obviously negative. I think it’s very important to keep an eye out on your children or friends, make sure they understand how terrible some of these trends can be. Any and every social platform has bad people who are trying to make the world a worse place for their own entertainment.

What’s a bad trend you’ve seen?

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Trends GONE WRONG!!! Uh oh. Read more here: Bad Internet trends

#BadTrends #BeCareful

Social Media, it’s great! But why do I feel worse about myself when I use it?

As a 19 year old in this day and age, I grew up with Social Media, alongside a lot of others. It’s my number one pass time, could it technically be my hobby? I’m on break at work, scroll through my socials. I’m bored at home, TikTok time. I’m eating a meal, time to watch Youtube videos (seriously, I can’t eat without watching something ((I almost feel like I should watch a video right now while writing this)). It’s taken over my life, but I’m usually okay with that, until I’m not.

If you were to ask younger age groups if they love going online, their answer is almost always yes. Because who doesn’t love it!? It has everything. The content you can watch and read for days on end, sounds awesome! Well, until it isn’t. It’s not the first time you’ve heard that Social Media isn’t always beneficial for us, as so many bad things come out of it. I’ve been and will forever be a victim of the bad side of it, but have no means to stop using it whatsoever, as I’m sure others aren’t either. But Social Media offers so many good things and opportunities! Well let’s take a dive into what isn’t positive.

News

Growing up, I watched the news once in awhile when my Grandfather used to put it on when his show was stopped because of commercials. No other time was I putting it on myself or reading the newspaper. As I started using Instagram and Facebook, I would read news articles without even knowing it. I actually really enjoyed the fact that I could stay current with everything, made me feel pretty smart and I do enjoy talking about issues that go on in the world and give my opinion/ hear others take on it. At some point, I was reading too much about was going on in the world, and slowly it started to change my mood throughout the day. I would be on lunchbreak with my friends during high school having a good time until someone would see on Twitter that there was a school shooting somewhere, or an earthquake in another country that resulted in casualties. All of a sudden, our fun conversation turned into sometimes silence and all of us feeling down. I do recognize that it is good to read the news once in awhile, learn about what’s happening around us, but it got to the point where I couldn’t avoid it. Every couple of swipes, more bad news came.

The moment I realized how much it affected me was when the war between Russia and the Ukraine was in the talks. My Socials were covered in rumor’s and even memes of the situation. As someone who had a grandfather who was born in the Ukraine, it felt personal. I felt so much guilt knowing that people who share the same blood as me are there living in fear while I scroll on TikTok and see people making fun of the situation. I became very emotional during this period of time and sometimes felt like I would have to turn my phone off, which then just made me feel even more guilty cause I was avoiding the situation. This story does have a positive ending for me, as all this news made me want to do something to help. I ended up setting up a table at school with a jar to make donations to help the Ukrainian families who had to flee the country. It was positive until I shared it on Snapchat and had some trolls attack me online, but I stood strong and held the event that turned out great. So if you want some good news, here you have it.

Via me

The correct way to look

Beauty standards have been a thing forever. Before Social Media, we saw it on tv shows, magazines, music videos, beauty contests, and more. We have never been able to get away from it. Magazine articles like “How to lose 30 lbs. before summer starts to get your bikini body” or even a Barbie doll that came with a scale and a book on how to lose weight. Whether it’s diet tips, recommendations on what plastic surgery to get, or a detailed list of exactly what you should be wearing depending on your size, we’ve seen it all. Social Media just made everything a million times worse. Not only are there way more articles on these things, but it is reaching a very young and vulnerable audience. If you scroll on TikTok and watch one video on losing weight fast, now all your videos on your for you page will be about that subject, no matter how young you are. I’ve fallen into this “trap” many times, scrolling for hours on how many calories I should be eating, or maybe how I should be fasting for 12 hours a day, all this while I was just a pre-teen who was most excited about playing soccer with my friends. Suddenly, I was researching how to be more beautiful. So many young people are exposed to the narrative on what is beautiful, and how to achieve it. It’s impossible to escape it. And it isn’t just body image, it’s everything that is judged about us.

This Tiktok by Clara Dao explains it well.

https://www.tiktok.com/@clara_dao/video/7255541231818771718?_r=1&_t=8eBICYmBaT7

Luckily, you can try and change your algorithm to self-love videos and articles, which a lot of us need after years and years of only seeing how we should be changing ourselves. But removing all the harsh videos isn’t possible, you will still come across them, and they can be very persuading.

Cyberbullying

The easiest way to bully. You mean I don’t have to do it to someone’s face? And they don’t even know it’s me spreading these lies? I can hide behind a screen?! I’m in.

Yeah, Cyberbullying is way too easy, and in most cases has no consequences. This type of bullying is very common for all age groups. For kids and teenagers, it’s getting very common, very normal. Just take a look at this graph made by the Cyberbullying research center.

Via https://cyberbullying.org/summary-of-our-cyberbullying-research

Many schools have to have regular seminars on why you shouldn’t cyberbully, but it’s almost always never enough. Not only is it hard to prevent it from happening, but it’s also hard to stop people who do it, as taking down social media accounts isn’t always easy. Yes you could block their account, but it won’t stop them from continuing to bully you online or even make new accounts to reach you. I remember Christmas day, I was enjoying time with my family when my friend called me to ask if I had seen the TikTok. See, a girl and I at school didn’t get along. We butted heads as friends and in the end had a messy fallout. I didn’t think much of it as I had removed her from my socials and we avoided each other at school. On Christmas day, she had made a TikTok using my name in a trend where you made fun of people you don’t like. Usually I’m good at ignoring bullies, and continue my day without worry, but I knew many people from school would see this, and got very upset with the whole situation. Fortunately for me, after I messaged her to take it down, she did, but this is a very rare occasion. Posts making fun of people can stay on the internet forever, and stick with someone for their whole life. Social Media apps like Instagram, Facebook, Twitter and more do say in their terms and agreements that bullying isn’t allowed and posts will be taken down. Sometimes even deleting people’s accounts. But with the amount of posts that go out in a day, it’s impossible to flag them all down. Even if they get taken down, the time that it was up is enough to cause damage to someone.

I could write forever on the dangers Social Media has on one’s mental health. Any insecurity you have, the content will find you and expose you to more insecurities you weren’t even thinking about. It can be an amazing time looking up subjects you love and gaining knowledge on them because of our technology, but when you least expect it, the internet will make you feel down. It’s very important to realize what is positive and what is negative when it comes to Social Media, so please, be cautious. Billy Joel was right when he sang this lyric in his song Vienna “Take the phone off the hook and disappear for awhile” Take care of yourself. Use the benefits of Social Media to help your mental health, not the opposite.

Has a post on your socials ever made you upset? Have you ever felt like turning off your phone for the day?

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Is your pass time scrolling through Social Media? Me too! But it doesn’t always feel great, does it? Read more here >https://algonquincollegesocialmedia.wordpress.com/Social Media, It’s great! #SocialMedia #MentalHealthAwareness

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Social Media is a way to connect with everyone and share ideas with the world! Sounds great! Where do I sign up? I can’t wait to see all the positive things, but could there be a catch. Yeah, there’s a catch. Lots of negativity is online, and it’s impossible to avoid it. Want to see what you might be getting yourself into? Read here > https://algonquincollegesocialmedia.wordpress.com/Social Media, It’s great!

Have you heard about the upcoming Barbie Movie? Who hasn’t?!

Reasons why the Barbie marketing team know precisely what they are doin

Building Anticipation

The Barbie movie has been in the works for a while, and many people waited patiently to hear anything about it. The first teaser trailer was released in December 2022 and didn’t give much information on the storyline, making everyone anxious for more trailers and news to come out. It wasn’t until April 2023 that the second trailer came out, which was incredible. It showed off Margot Robbie as the main Barbie but also hints as to what BarbieLand was all about. This trailer was amazing and made everyone so much more excited for the movie, even if they had been left in the dark for a while on what this movie is really all about. I think making people wait was a great idea. It let people make up their own interpretations of what the movie would be about and set some expectations. The marketing team knew just how amazing this trailer was, so decided it would be right to make them wait for it. With Social Media, news travels fast, so the moment this trailer came out, everyone was talking about it. The trailer also isn’t the most informative on what the storyline will be, leaving us fans to speculate on what the message of this movie is. Many have made TikToks on their theories and all of their evidence to back it up, after watching the trailer more than once and finding Easter eggs. Easter Eggs are a great way to get people to start talking, and gives out free marketing.

In this TikTok made by Cat Quinn, she talks about a theory that’s been going around about what the storyline will look like. There are many Easter eggs in this movie but the ones that stand out a lot are related to the 1939 film The Wizard of OZ.

@catquinn

The Barbie movie trailer reveals a huge Wizard of Oz easter egg that could explain the plot of margot robbie, greta gerwig, and ryan goslings movie. Between the dorothy gingham dress and the movie posters plus the pink brick road and slippers, its looking clear that this will be an epic journey. #barbie #barbiemovie #barbiedoll #margotrobbie #barbiemovieedit #barbietrailer #margotrobbiebarbie #ryangoslingken #gretagerwig #wizardofoz #wizardofozmusical #greenscreen #greenscreenvideo

♬ Fun, Fun, Fun – The Beach Boys

Video via TikTok by @Catquinn

Collaborations

As someone who loves Barbie and Fashion, I was and still am very excited to see some collaborations come out. I assumed a handful would as this movie is set out to be one of the biggest movies of the year, but the amount of collaborations that are out, as of now, is mind-blowing. According to MordernRetail Mattel said over 100 brands are participating in the Barbie collaborations. That’s so many, but I’m not complaining. If you go to a mall at this time, chances are you will see some collabs in the windows of stores, and if you want anything, you better go quickly as people are already complaining that their locations are selling out fast. My social media, specifically Instagram and TikTok, has been filled with so many brands showing their Barbie collections, and I may have been persuaded by some of them. Just the other day, I went to work in a pink dress, wearing Barbie x Urban Planet pink socks and a pink water bottle in my hand from the same brand. Every business uses social media to market their products, so working with these brands was free marketing. One of the most anticipated collaborations was Barbie x Aldo which came out with shoes and handbags. This collection sold out many products within a few hours and Barbie fans who were too late were upset. Some of the products are even being resold online for double to triple the original cost. Collaborations are an amazing way to market, and at the same time, you are supporting other businesses. These collections reach the consumers of the brand you are working with, even if they didn’t even know about the Barbie Movie.

Here you can see one of the heels released for the limited edition collection from Aldo. I really want these but can’t walk in heels. UGH

Image via Aldo

Press tour looks

What’s Barbie known most for? Her iconic blonde hair? Her pink dream house? I’d say, it’s her fashion, as at least for me, dressing her up was my favorite part of playing with Barbie’s. In the trailers, we see that many new outfits have been made for Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling, and some of the new looks made for the movie now have their own Barbie doll.

In this picture you can see 2 of the new Barbie and Ken dolls released compared to the looks from the movie.

Photo via People.com via Mattel

But what about Barbie looks from the past, that made the doll so iconic? Don’t worry, the marketing team did not forget them. Margot Robbie has been on tour to market the Barbie movie for the past month or so, along with her cast. From her press tour looks, to dressing for the red carpet and outfits at the airport, her style resembles the Barbie doll’s closet. Yes, I freaked out at every outfit. When this movie first came out, I knew I wanted to see Margot in pink outfits, but recreating Barbie looks? Even better. The Barbie actress has had some casuals looks and some fancy ones, and all of them are just perfect. Being able to find the exact doll it’s inspired by is so fun, and matching right down to the accessories just feels like a treat to us. These looks have been posted and shared countless times across the internet. Most fashion accounts and blogs have reposted these looks with their opinions, and they are all good ones. Doing this has been made so many Barbie fans happy and has been some of the best movie marketing ever. This was the point where I became so impatient for this film and count down the days to when I get to go see it.

In this amazing TikTok by Entertainment Tonight you can see which outfit was inspired by which doll. Like the caption said, “this press tour will be studied for years to come”.

@entertainmenttonight

Margot Robbie’s ‘Barbie’ movie press tour will be studied for years to come. The attention to detail is so— 😭💝 #margotrobbie #barbie

♬ original sound – swiftierights4all

Video: TikTok by @EntertainmentTonight

All this to say, this movie is going to be one of the biggest movies of the year, and some of the best marketing of all time. From making us wait and come up with our own theories of the storyline, and making us want to buy every single Barbie related item, to recreating some of the most iconic Barbie looks, the marketing for this film is unforgettable. I may have been someone who was already interested even before all these things took place, but I just know some of you are now more excited than you thought you’d ever be. Social media is undoubtedly amazing for marketing, and all of these looks and collaborations were plastered all over the internet. To all the girls and boys who grew up with this doll, this is exciting. Are you going to go see the movie? If so is it because you already love Barbie, or have you been persuaded by these amazing marketing tactics?

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One of the most anticipated movies of the year is coming out soon. Their marketing team has been working hard to let everyone know just how amazing this movie is really going to be. From the fashion to collaborations, Barbie is taking over the world. If you want to know more read my blog https://tinyurl.com/HSVEBS