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CJR
assistant professor at California State University, Fullerton, wondered aloud to me. “It’s a problem if you’re a journalist or not.”) By the time fall rolled around, Woodstock was nursing a non-protest-related injury and realized that they had to take a break. The risk of getting hurt at the protests had become too great for a solo documentarian; even colleagues with institutional affiliation were plastering their heads, chests, and backpacks with press in big white letters, for fear of being attacked. “I went out there to fill a void,” Woodstock said. “Now, consistently, the crowd at protests is half demonstrators, half press, medics, and legal observers.” Sure enough, when Woodstock stopped showing up in the streets, the donations ceased. “I was doing it as a service to people,” they said. “I could
have definitely spent way more time pitching to outlets…or chasing the biggest bylines that I could. Or trying to make more money off my videos. I didn’t do that, because I wasn’t there to further my career.” Fortunately, Woodstock has had other work to fall back on for income—the podcast, as well as a business consulting newsrooms on trans and queer equity. The first-responder journalism work served its purpose, and maybe they’ll return to the scene later, if there’s a need. (It’s a form of journalism that is, by definition, unpredictable.) Woodstock will be around to observe what must be seen, and isn’t widely shown, wherever it comes up. “The reason that I am in journalism,” they said, “is to try to center voices that, thus far, have not been adequately centered.” cjr
YOU TUBE
The Influencer Commentariat
I
N SEPTEMBER 2018, Tiffany Ferguson, a twenty-five-year-old college student and YouTube personality with more than six hundred thousand subscribers, sat down in her bedroom, ready to record. She wore a navyand-red turtleneck sweater; her blond hair was tied into messy braids. Typically, she used her channel for in-depth “story times” detailing random events from her day. But on this occasion, she told subscribers, her video would be different. “I have a little bit of something to say about the YouTube algorithm and the role of rapidly rising creators,”
she said. Ferguson then launched into a thirteenminute meditation on internet fame, algorithmic bias, and the importance of relatability to an influencer’s success. She reported information gleaned from Social Blade, a social media analytics tracker, and offered her interpretation of the facts. “That’s my two cents: thoughts on the YouTube algorithm and seventeen-year-olds that I can still relate to,” Ferguson said. “I’m not that old.” The video was an instant hit (it now has more than four hundred thousand views) and inspired her to change direction. She launched a new series, “Internet
M E N GX I N L I
By Mary Retta
