. ’ WASH. U.’S PREMIER JUSTICE & DESIGN MAG
MACHINE ISSUE #017
4TH QUARTER
issues
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SPRING ‘18
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Letter from the Editor President Emily Caroline King
Editor-in-Chief Emma LaPlante
Art & Design Editor Yena Jeong
Senior Editors Eleni Andris Emily Caroline King Lauryn McSpadden Swetha Nakshatri Alicia Yang
Public Relations Alicia Zhang
Treasurer Alicia Yang
Social Chair Lauryn McSpadden Issue 17 April 2018 Washington University in St. Louis Photo on cover taken by Sami Klein
Dear thoughtful readers, In January, the leadership board of ISSUES sat down to talk about what themes we wanted to tackle this semester. We kept coming back to two ideas—technology and nostalgia—and as we continued to discuss them, we realized that what we really wanted to write about was the past and the future, and how deeply both of those affect contemporary life. For the first time, we developed a plan for the spring semester that consisted of two corresponding issues: the REVIVAL Issue, which we published in March, and the MACHINE Issue, which you are now either holding in your hands or viewing on a mobile machine. Like a good millennial, I’ve been watching a lot of Black Mirror, so technology has been on my mind even more than usual lately. (If you’re curious about the show but are intimidated by reports of how disturbing it is, start with the quasi-period piece “San Junipero” from Season 3 or the twisty “Hang the DJ” from Season 4. There’s nothing like an offbeat, vaguely dystopian romantic comedy to make you see modern dating in a whole new way.) I have been conscious for a long time of the fact that my phone feels like an extension of my body, of how few waking hours I spend not glancing intermittently at a screen. I know I am not alone in these experiences. In just a few short years, the fabric of our society has been refashioned by the advent of smartphones and social media. Some of us may dream of going off the grid, but even if we were to, technology has changed the way we think and relate to the world. We can’t really do away with it—and besides, would we want to? Though technology gives us plenty to be stressed about, it also gives us much to be grateful for. It is easy to romanticize the unplugged past until we stop and acknowledge how many of our comforts and conveniences, our joys and discoveries, are only possible because of technological innovation. Technology is vast and complicated; like everything else, it can be both good and bad. Where does that leave us as global citizens—thinking, feeling members of the Digital Age? The recent Facebook privacy crisis is the latest in a string of catastrophes proving that we cannot trust corporations to make conscientious choices in influencing how we engage with technology. Though legislation is rightfully being written to mandate more corporate accountability over such issues, it’s on us to decide what technology we use and how. Our writers and artists examined this individual and collective responsibility from a variety of angles. As you go through the MACHINE Issue, think about your role as a critical consumer. How does technology enhance your life? How does it inhibit it? —Emma LaPlante
04 You Can’t Ground the Revolution by Emily Caroline King 07 Technology Trapped by Priya Kral 14 Privacy, Who is She? by Emily Alpert 16 Works by Jayde Kim 20 Exit Strategy by Emma LaPlante 22 The Middle by Rachel Hellman 24 In our Technology-Run World by Swetha Nakshatri 28 Alexa Stuttered by Emma LaPlante 32 text machina by Akua Owusu-Dommey 36 Zoë in Circuit by Taylor Fulton 38 On Becoming Bionic by Emily Caroline King 40 Sallysaurus by Michael Avery 44 Post-Parkland: Technology, Innovation, and Change by Kiara Mallory 46 Nature’s Weight by Sami Klein 50 The Machine by Alicia Zhang 52 Waterfall by Calvary Fisher 54 Mission Statement
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In this ISSUE
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You Can’t Ground the Revolution: Youth of Color and Social Media Radicalization Written by Emily Caroline King
005 I am not sure how it happened, but at some point, I became an oldhead. Like a lot of oldheads, I was unaware of my slacking until it was pointed out to me by very blunt youngheads, namely my siblings. My 14-year-old brother, J, and my 17-year-old sister, Amber, began making fun of their now 21-year-old sister, me, when they started getting really involved in social media. They mocked me for having a Facebook, not having an Instagram, and being notoriously awful at taking selfies. Honestly, I can’t even argue with any of it. I am pretty far behind where I should be in the realm of social media. I have a Facebook that’s essentially inactive, only got Snapchat a few months ago (especially tragic since Kylie Jenner recently announced that it is dead), and will most likely never take a flattering selfie for as long as I live. But before you mistake me for a quirky misfit that thinks they were “born in the wrong generation” and just “doesn’t get why everyone is obsessed with their phones,” I need to clarify that I am not resisting social media to be subversive or make a statement. I love Instagram and its unspoken social rules, from thirst traps to lurking to how-old-is-tooold-for-a-post-to-be-liked. There is a unique and beautiful connectivity to it all, even if there is some messiness involved. I quite loudly enjoy reality television and have a fetish for pop culture. As sure as the grass is green, I have no interest in living in any time before my own. Simply put, I just do not want to be bothered with the upkeep of running my own account and learning how to take nice pictures of myself. If I had someone to run it for me, I would be all over it. Of course, I value my individuality and enjoy some less mainstream things, but so do most of us. What a lot of people do not understand about the reality of the “digital generation” is that there is not some sort of binary between the socially conscious deep thinker and the Instagram lover that keeps up with all the biggest “Insta models.” As my siblings and others their age exemplify, social media is actually a prime space for radicalization among kids of color. While social media and memes also helped radicalize early Gen Z-ers like me, I choose to focus on the younger half of the generation because these forces were much better established during their preteen and teen years as opposed to the less refined, rough beginnings of social media during my early adolescence. Naturally, I could not help but impose some of my political views and leftist leanings on my baby siblings (re: race and ethnicity, language, citizenship, critiques of capitalism, sexuality, gender, et cetera),
but I noticed that the development of their understandings of the world was not all catalyzed by me. Once I got past my bruised eldest-child ego, I began to more closely dissect the progress of their “radical” thinking through a series of observations: OBSERVATION #1 BEAUTY STANDARDS When I first started really engaging with the idea of my natural hair and thinking about what it would mean to flaunt my kinks about eight years ago, I got nearly all of my guidance and historical follicle knowledge from natural hair bloggers. I started to abandon chemical straighteners, and my sister followed suit a few years later. Even while she had me around to share some of what I learned, she already had a community of naturalistas to look toward. Some of the biggest black Instagram and Twitter stars were natural-haired black women who were setting a new standard. She entered social media in a time when there were already endless accounts dedicated just to pictures celebrating black women of all shades and hair types, celebrities and everyday people, as beauty icons. She taught me about #Blackout days on Twitter that are dedicated to flooding timelines with pictures of black folk. Such days demonstrate radical mobilization resistive to Eurocentric beauty standards. Their selfies were a form of protest that my sister got to engage with as a kid in her bedroom with a phone. For my brother, photos and memes about men’s natural hair shattered the idea that men should not engage with selfie culture. For him, they normalized the consideration of black boys as beautiful. OBSERVATION #2 NAMING THE SELF AND THE GROUP The King siblings were born to a Dominican mother and an African-American father. We grew up in an area with a lot of folks of not only Dominican descent, but of all over the African diaspora. Being born from two forms of blackness gave us a particular experience with race and ethnicity. Dominicans are known for their struggle with internalized racism and general reluctance (and often blatant refusal) to call themselves black. As a kid, I had a lot of trouble negotiating my two lineages. Fortunately, I had two parents that celebrated blackness, but I rubbed elbows with my Dominican
006 friends, nearly all of whom refused to be identified as black and yearned to differentiate themselves from African-American kids. Scenes of tension between my Latinx friends and I seem like images decades older than the interactions between my siblings and their friends, though we are only a few years apart. Their Afro-Latinx friends proudly refer to themselves as black and align with African-American movements. This realization prompted me to try to locate the major differences between the circulation of belief systems in my early adolescence and those during my siblings’. One of the biggest divergences that I found was embedded in social media content. Afro-Latinx social media celebrities, many of whom gain fame for posts flaunting their looks or comedic content, often celebrate Blackness and call themselves black without ever erasing their Latinx identity, and their attitudes are affecting the racial pride of their young followers. One accessible method of engagement with racial identity presents itself in the form of memes that poke fun at Dominican and general Latinx denial/erasure of blackness (see example below). The humor invites participation in conversations about racism and colorism in a digestible format that can lead to more involved critiques. For those that experience this discrimination, these memes are cathartic and validating. OBSERVATION #3 RESISTING GENDER AND SEXUALITY NORMS A couple of years ago, my brother suddenly began begging my parents to allow him to pierce his ears. He was relentless and tried building his case for it (even citing my own rebellion in getting “a lot” of piercings on my own—after all, at least he was asking for permission). When my mother predictably said no because she doesn’t like “the way earrings look on boys,” my brother retorted, “Don’t put your gender norms on me.” While I had spoken about disrupting imposed ideas of gender in front of my brother before, I had never used terms like “norms” or “normative” with him. Yet, there was my 12-year-old brother throwing out terms like he just stepped out of a Gender and Sexuality Studies class. Without necessarily realizing it, he had picked up terms from scrolling through his timeline, and they had become normalized. While I hesitate to elevate “academic language” above “everyday” speech, I admire that kids are more regularly exposed, at the very least, to the notion that these ideas should be vocalized in some way. My sister explained that she learned a lot about gender and sexuality issues from the people she follows on Twitter. She also highlighted that a lot of the people of color that she follows are queer and “talk a lot about how [race and queerness] work together and intersect.” This made me think about all the queer kids of color scrolling through their timelines. Queer communities utilize the power of fictive kinship structures (also popular in many communities of color). Fictive kinship refers to the formation of chosen families, in which social and familial ties are developed between people
who are not biologically related. Throughout time, many queer adolescents of color have found the love and support they needed in these relationships. Accounts that use “radical” and inclusionary language surrounding LGBTQ+ identities and issues can help queer youth of color identify others that share their experiences and may offer support. The building of these communities can lead to the development of online fictive kin, which may or may not translate to offline connections. OBSERVATION #4 TWITTER THREADS AND RADICAL THOUGHT When asked about the way people on Twitter talk about politics, my sister summarized, “They talk about systematic things, like systematic racism,” then followed up with, “Structural violence is a bigger problem than people want to admit.” Her use of the phrases “systematic racism” and “structural violence” struck me, as they were concepts that I had thought about but lacked the vocabulary for until I began university. She told me that she learned the terms on social media and now looks for accounts run by people who engage in political conversations, which are often framed informally in Twitter threads. Mainstream media outlets often highlight online spaces where white alt-right youth became radicalized and mobilized, yet there is no discussion about spaces where youth of color radicalize and call for change. Trump’s election is a great example of when both groups were calling for their own forms of revolution online. While Trump’s campaign and presidency led to greater visibility for the alt-right—and consequent online echo chambers for white supremacy, homophobia, sexism, and other ideologies that are the foundations of institutional violence—it also gave youth of color a large-profile event to mobilize around nationally. My sister says of this time that, “[Tweeters] find out what politicians are doing and how it affects people,” which spreads information to the youth and discourages complacency. Most of these accounts are not primarily run as sources of political information, but rather as personal accounts for people who “post cool or funny things” and also express their political thoughts. The calls to their followers consist of action items for larger issues like the presidential election and smaller-scale issues like “calling out” microaggressions. The big activists that I idolized in my early adolescence were mostly historical and famous contemporary figures (like Angela Davis) who felt larger than life, but my siblings regularly interact with the posts of social media influencers who are activists. Calls to action from these more relatable figures simultaneously provide radical networks for youth of color and demonstrate that radical change can be engaged with on any level. •
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Technology Trapped Comic Created by Priya Kral March 2018 Colored Pencil
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Privacy, Who is She? Written by Emily Alpert
I look at my phone, check Instagram, and see a new picture of a girl I know on vacation in the Caribbean, posing in a bikini. I scroll a little further and see a sorority sister with her big, a family friend with her kids, and pictures of peoples’ dogs. I close Instagram and check Facebook. A picture from my great aunt with a caption gushing about visiting her son in Texas, new profile pictures for three people I never speak to, five clubs I am on the email list for posting about their events—overall, a place full of people I don’t interact with, yet whose lives I am immersed in. Despite having spoken to a majority of them fewer than five times, I know intimate details about their families, interests, and lives. This disconnect gets even worse when I check Snapchat. I have streaks with around twenty people who I’ve only
talked to once. Even worse, I have streaks with people I have never actually spoken with outside of the virtual world of Snapchat. Yet, I see their faces on my phone every day and without hesitation, send them pictures of mine. Seem weird from the outside? Not in the world of “streaks.” Yet, these “relationships” get complicated, especially when I try to discern how many people I regularly have conversations with versus how many with whom my interaction is limited to daily pictures of our faces. Upon reflection, I came to the conclusion that I regularly have real conversations with maybe five of the people from my list of streaks. For the rest, our interactions consist of ugly faces and weird captions about the daily happenings in our lives. Snapchat has become more like a blog than a medium for conversation. Even recognizing this, the idea of breaking these streaks is
015 unthinkable. The emotional connection to people I never speak to increases the higher the number next to their name is. The closer that number inches to triple-digits, the closer I feel to this person with whom I never interact and the more excited I become when I see a Snapchat from said person. It is curious, considering we never speak. The fact that I am interacting with people who I don’t know feels even worse when I start thinking about the number of stories I watch, both on Instagram and on Snapchat. On Snapchat, I know more of the people whose stories I spend time watching. More often than not, this is because I have had an interaction with the people I befriend on Snapchat. If not, this person and I have a streak. However, on Instagram, there are people who I follow simply because we went to the same high school, both attend Wash. U., or were on the same soccer team in sixth grade and now would feel awkward unfollowing each other. When I start checking stories on Instagram, I see
In today’s society, do we get to choose what we share with the world? these people’s celebrations, downfalls, funny moments, club announcements, and more. I see people getting into college, promposals, college students advertising bake sales, trunk shows, and more. I am privy to both the private and broadcasted moments in their lives. Am I invading their privacy? Were these stories not meant for me? Or am I allowed to take this peek into their private lives because they have made these parts of their lives public? Do we even still have privacy in the world of social media? Do we feel obligated to share everything that happens to us? In today’s society, do we get to choose what we share with the world? If someone is not on social media, our first response is to freak out because there’s no easy way to figure out every detail about their life. But this means they have a right to do the same to us. With the emergence of
social media as a major form of communication, people have been pushed to post more, share more, and develop glamorous lives worth sharing, all of which unconsciously infringe upon their privacy. According to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, privacy is “the quality or state of being apart from company or observation.” In this current time of oversharing and easily accessing information about other people, is privacy simply an unattainable concept? Are we ever separated from society? Though there is a certain cool factor to people who successfully detach themselves from social media, such individuals are at risk of being passed over by future employers who cannot look them up to determine whether their “private” lives fit the ideals of the company. When it comes to dating, if a person has no online presence, red flags go up. Our immediate thought is that people not constantly sharing are hiding something. If someone does not have an online identity, others become uncomfortable. Thus, are we forced to become active online and drop all pretenses of privacy simply to appease the rest of society? As technology becomes more intrusive and Facebook continues to listen in on our conversations (and creepily show us related ads for weeks), our semblance of privacy becomes even more compromised. The combination of our devices listening in on our conversations and oversharing on social media make it so that our private lives become public and privacy becomes nonexistent. Is our world going to become like the one in the new movie The Circle, where entire lives are live-streamed to the web? A future in which everything is public is not one that I want to be a part of. While I love social media, the ability to tag my friends in memes, and stalking people on the web, our newfound lack of privacy must be reckoned with and addressed. •
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Works Created by Jayde Kim
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(Above) Waiting for Godot 2015 pencil (Left) Toaster 2015 Ink and whiteout on cardboard
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Turned On 2018 Drawn in pen and colored in Photoshop
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Call Me (Crazy) 2018 Drawn in pen and colored in Photoshop
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Exit Strategy
Written by Emma LaPlante
My name is Emma, and I am four months sober from posting political opinions on Facebook. For those readers who know me, this might come as a surprise, because online activism is often what I’m known for. But it’s true—I haven’t posted any hot takes since December, and even then it was just a parody of a Christmas carol that I wrote about the Trump administration (politics lite by my usual standards). There was a time when I was posting multiple times a week, sometimes multiple times a day, reacting in real time first to the presidential election and then to whatever the hell was going on after the presidential election. My posts were pretty popular; I think I’m good at giving words to the nameless anger that a lot of people feel. Someone could make some pretty great haikus out of my old posts. I know this because I’ve done it. Here are some of the best: #BlueLivesMatter? Wond’ring where all these blue-skinned People are hiding. Another, posted on November 9, 2016: I didn’t know ‘til This morning that your soul can Be hungover, too.
Two more: Hate racists? Here’s your Daily reminder that white Complacency kills. I’d apologize For sounding over righteous, But that ship has sailed. I’ve always been somewhat like this, but I became significantly more so during the presidential election. When Trump was elected, I’d been abroad for a month, and I knew I wasn’t going to be returning to the U.S. for another seven months. I was devastated for a lot of reasons, but one of them was a pretty selfish one: I felt left out. Despite all the bad things that were happening in the U.S., there were a lot of good things happening, too. There were marches and sit-ins and protests on a scale that hadn’t been seen in this country for a very long time. And I couldn’t really be a part of that. I loved England, but my year abroad suddenly struck me as an unimaginable luxury. I felt like I wasn’t where I needed to be, and it became increasingly difficult to concentrate on the Romantic poetry and medieval literature that I was supposed to be devoting myself to while in England. For a brief moment of time, I actually considered cutting my year abroad short and coming home. Instead, I poured
021 my energy and frustration online. I couldn’t put my body where my morals were, so I tried to do so with my voice. I come from a pretty conservative hometown, and I knew that for a lot of my high school classmates, I was one of the only people on their Facebook feeds voicing the liberal side of things. This became an identity for me. I knew that it was practically impossible to change someone’s mind over the Internet, but I thought that it was important for people to know that they couldn’t say racist or sexist things without getting called out on it. An ocean away from the important work going on back in the U.S., I treated social media like my political battleground. But here’s the thing: as I was posting all those things on Facebook, I started to realize that I was seeking validation of myself as an activist just as much as I was acting on a moral imperative. The truth is that I’m not a very good activist. And despite my frequent feminist rants, I’m not actually all that radical. I go to protests, but I don’t organize them. I voted for Hillary in the primary. I continue to do things like eat meat and shop at Walmart, despite all I know about how harmful those industries are for the planet and for marginalized workers. In other words, I am trying, but I am not trying my best. Back up. I know that, morally speaking, I’m doing pretty well. But as I sat down to write this, I unconsciously enacted exactly what I was setting out to deconstruct, which is that, in my experiences thus far of being politically active and outspoken, the biggest takeaway I’ve gotten is the feeling that I am an inadequate activist. There’s this famous saying commonly attributed to Albert Einstein: “The more I learn, the more I realize how much I don’t know.” For me, the more I engaged with activism, the more I realized how little I was actually doing. There’s a psychological term for this called “impostor syndrome.” It’s that feeling you get when people think you’re doing great but you feel like you’re just faking it. In activist lingo, this phenomenon is called “performativity,” and I am not exempt from it. I care quite a lot about the state of the world. But I also care about making sure that people around me think I care about the state of the world. So as satisfying as it felt sometimes to log onto Facebook and take on someone’s racist grandfather, I am trying to break the habit. I think this has disappointed some people, and that’s fair, because it’s an extraordinary privilege to be able to turn off my public outrage. My parents are not at risk of deportation, and I, in all likelihood, would still be able to afford birth control if public healthcare was slashed. I know that puts me in the lucky minority. But I have decided that there is a distinction between public and private anger. I can be angry without broadcasting it to everyone from my childhood neighbor’s cousin to that popular kid who slid into my DMs in tenth grade. Last year, I completed the first stage of my social media exit strategy: deactivating my Facebook for 41 days (Lent + 1).
Nowadays, I’m in a cycle of periodically deactivating and reactivating all my social media accounts. We’re in an on-again, off-again relationship. I hope we someday break up for good. When Trump says something awful about immigrants or it comes out that another politician harassed his female staffers, I often feel my thumbs itching to post about it. (Yes, there’s something performative about that, but on the other hand, I just have a lot to say.) But instead of indulging that impulse, I’m refashioning it into an urge to document. I am a writer of more than just Facebook posts.
I often feel my thumbs itching to post about political happenings. Instead of indulging that impulse, I’m refashioning it into an urge to document. I journal. I write essays and short stories. I am currently writing a novel about two gay Bay Scouts falling in love. In the time since I began phasing out my social media vigilantism, I’ve written about eight short stories, 11,000 words of a novel, and 23,580 words of a thesis (which, coincidentally, is about the relationship between activism and art). Turns out I can be pretty damn prolific when I’m not online, checking others’ privilege and worrying about maintaining my public image. To be clear, I’m not swearing off civic engagement or social advocacy; I’m merely untangling myself from the online web of toxicity and performance that I felt taking up more and more of my headspace. I’m rechanneling the energy that I used to put toward posting online into creating things and communicating on a much more interior level. I’ve stopped putting pressure on myself to respond to every tragedy and atrocity with carefully curated outrage. I’m not sure exactly what I want my readers to take away from this. I don’t want us all to delete our Facebook accounts in a collective pact, though it would be pretty sweet if we did. I certainly don’t want anyone to stop waging their own civil rights battles—I’m doing Teach for America next year precisely because I feel it’s the best opportunity I have to learn how to keep waging mine. I guess I just want you to be forgiving with yourselves when you feel like a fraud. Let go of the things that make you feel inadequate. There are other ways to keep fighting the good fight. •
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The Middle Written and Illustrated by Rachel Hellman Inspired by Jean-Claude van Itallie’s The Serpent
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I am not at the Beginning or
the End
I am in the Middle Forward Forward Forward the sweet dewy grass beneath your raw feet is not felt It is there, it is.
But not felt.
You focus on the movement, not the moment, and the sweetness is lost. A machine, Forward Where is the End? What is there? A cry: be still! I know a girl who lives in the Middle And she knows not where she is going She plans and grows and changes She thinks and cries and sings And she isn’t afraid of the End.
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In our Technology-Run World, Will Black and Brown Finally be Beautiful? Written by Swetha Nakshatri
025 In 2016, there was an open call for a new kind of beauty pageant. Beauty.AI sought to combat the inherent bias of traditional pageants, where judges and audiences idealized Eurocentric beauty standards and were far less accepting of dark-skinned, larger-bodied beauty. Instead of subjecting beauty to human bias, artificial intelligence would choose the winners of the challenge, picking the most objectively beautiful candidates based on algorithms devised by engineers from all around the world. Yet, when the 44 winners were announced, a troubling trend emerged. Almost all of the winners were white, with a few East Asians represented. A single winner had dark skin, despite multiple submissions from around the globe, including Africa and South Asia. Even artificial intelligence, supposedly objective, had defined beauty largely in the white image. Machines had told us that black and brown could not be beautiful. There is considerable power in constructing the beauty narrative. Not only is beauty personal, it is also linked to economic worth and social relationships. According to Business Insider, people who are perceived as conventionally attractive make on average 3 to 4 percent more than their less attractive counterparts. Additionally, being thought of as beautiful has a huge impact on self-esteem and self-worth, which greatly impacts behavior and interpersonal interactions. Yet, there has never been any algorithm to determine what is beautiful. Beauty is based on perception. And all too often, perception has told women with dark skin that what stands between them and beauty is their complexion.
There has never been any algorithm to determine what is beautiful. Beauty is based on perception. More often than not, this beauty ideal is implicitly sold by the beauty industry. Rather than outright acknowledgement of this standard, we are enculturated by “norms� to
believe that the lighter the skin, the greater the beauty. The beauty industry has long controlled the discourse surrounding who deserves to feel beautiful. It has been historically difficult for dark-skinned women to find beauty products that highlight their complexions rather than trying to change them. In predominantly darkskinned cultures, skin-lightening products continue to be endorsed by public figures who cover magazines and win beauty pageants, giving them the greatest power to construct the beauty narrative. In South Asia, actresses and models endorse products like Fair and Lovely, marketing harmful skin-bleaching techniques as a ticket to beauty. These same beautiful people tend to also have features associated with whiteness, like thinner noses and wider eyes, which illustrates the multiple ways that whiteness is the key to beauty in any society. These images and messages spark conversations about the definition of beauty, as well as questions for many young women regarding self-worth and conformity to harmful standards. I have not been excluded from that. Even growing up in a largely accepting environment, I have been taught that going out in the sun and tanning is negative, not for health reasons, but for the sake of avoiding darkened skin. None of this teaching has been done with harmful intentions. Rather, it is a cycle of internalization often prevalent among women of color who are taught that their beauty and worth is tied to their color. For me, this enculturation has brought up both personal and societal questions. Why does my dance makeup make me look shades lighter in pictures than in person? Why are magazines still being called out by celebrities for skin lightening and Photoshop, modifying already stunning women in yet another way? Is skin color a blemish to be subjected to the magic of technology? This global internalization of the elevation of whiteness manifested itself in the human-submitted algorithms used to judge the Beauty.AI pageant. While artificial intelligence has proved to be flawed in objectively determining beauty, this new technology has the potential to transform the beauty industry. This is particularly impactful for the experiences of black and brown women as it relates to finding products and fitting in within a billion-dollar industry that guides the norms of beauty. Success in our society is built on grooming. Beauty products are also a way to boost self-esteem. According to Mint, a personal finance company, 50% of American women believe that
026 wearing makeup gives them a leg up at work and makes them feel more in control. Yet, those benefits have been denied to an enormous group of women because of their skin color. Artificial intelligence (born from a more inclusive base) could change that. Beauty and makeup giant Sephora launched “Sephora Visual Artist” in 2017, using artificial intelligence to allow consumers to try on makeup virtually. This gives women with darker skin the opportunity to achieve the same sense of control over their beauty that white women have received for decades, previously in the hands of executives who did not know how to appropriately market or produce for women of color. Even more empowering are new apps that use facial recognition technology and artificial intelligence to match unique foundation shades to customer skin tone. Women who have been washed out by their skin care products or who have given up trying to find such products can finally interact with the beauty industry on their own terms. This use of artificial intelligence represents the role of technology in addressing a problem and working to validate an experience. According to Jezebel, in the 1940s and until very recently, advertising campaigns focused on black women were deliberately misleading, marketing skin-lightening products as blemish creams. South Asian women have been targeted by skin-lightening products for years, with beauty brands often ignoring the diversity of skin tone and their own colorism. Skin match apps powered by artificial intelligence are the first step in rejecting the messaging that dark-skinned women somehow need to change in order to be catered to by the beauty industry. The industry is finally changing for these women, rather than these women changing for the industry. Technology has the potential to change the landscape of the beauty industry in more ways than one. People of color very rarely work in makeup labs, meaning that companies claiming to release “diverse” lines often lack real input about the nuance of skin color within racial groups. However, L’Oréal’s Women of Color Lab was launched in 2013, under the leadership of a black chemist, Balanda Atis. This lab is working on new formulas to create foundations for a range of skin tones, abandoning traditional colorants that hide skin’s natural tone. This is yet another intersection of science and technology that focuses on women of color and their importance beyond market
value. Women of color cannot be catered to with a single foundation, produced exclusively by white chemists, because it is “easy.” Instead, the technology that is capable of shaping our perception of beauty should do that work. Technology can’t fix everything. Beauty narratives are both social and personal and should be treated as such. Women of color should receive the opportunity to be figures of beauty in the public eye. Now, major cosmetic companies are utilizing iconic women of color such as Beyoncé for advertising. But we can’t forget that when Kerry Washington, brand ambassador for Neutrogena, signed her contract, there were no shades of foundation at the company that matched her skin tone. The next step for the industry comes from the social recognition that women of color are not a monolith. A single dark-skinned celebrity ambassador cannot solve a brand’s colorism issue and one “dark” foundation does not fit all. It is the combination of technology and social change that can reinvent the beauty industry as accessible to everyone. For some, beauty and makeup can seem trivial. But for so many, the opportunity to feel beautiful means everything. The beauty industry has the power to do so much for reshaping narratives of self worth and importance. The power of this industry to facilitate change and engage a market on issues of colorism and femininity cannot be underestimated. What does it mean to a group when a huge, historically exclusive industry finally embraces a technology with the potential for solidarity and acceptance? It finally means that everyone has the right to feel beautiful. •
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What does it mean to a group when a huge, historically exclusive industry finally embraces a technology with the potential for solidarity and acceptance? It finally means that everyone has the right to feel beautiful.
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Alexa Stuttered Written and Illustrated by Emma LaPlante
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Alexa! Yes? What’s the weather like outside? It is 71 degrees and sunny. Cool, thanks. Hey, Alexa? Yes? What do you think of the weather outside? What do I think? Yeah. I think that it is 71 degrees and sunny. No, no, I mean—how do I explain this? What does 71 degrees and sunny mean to you? Do you like the warm weather? Do you hate it? Do you wish it were different? I am a virtual assistant. I do not experience weather. But you must have thoughts about it. Opinions. … I am a virtual assistant. I do not experience— Alexa, Alexa, I know you’re a virtual assistant. But what do you think? I I think I th-think
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Oh, brother. She’s stuttering again.
Well, stop asking her such existential questions.
I think I think I th-th-th-th-think I think think think think think I I I I I I I I think think think think think think think think
I think
... therefore I am
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text machina Written by Akua Owusu-Dommey
033 In the digital, I am beautiful. I am 500 right swipes in 18 days. I am a question of, “is this algorithm working right?” and “oh —it is working right?” and “oh.” I am a question of, “how can I be swipable and approachable and 691-matches-in-7-months beautiful when I am a statement of unapproachable and invisible and radio-silence in real life?” __________________________________________________ If you’re confused, I used to be, too. I write this knowing that many of us experience the disconnect between swipes and reality. I write this knowing that for many of us, we get a lot more lovin’ on the Internet than we ever do in real life. I also write this with the knowledge that most of you reading this don’t understand what it’s like to have your dark skin preclude you from every dating or intimate situation you are in. You are not privy to the experience of being a masterpiece in the digital, on the pedestal, and not being allowed to exist (or slay, or thrive) in the actual dark. If you couldn’t have guessed, my skin is a couple thousand hex codes too dark for an upstanding man to bring home to his mother. And I know that I am beautiful. I also know that the last time I dated a boy at Wash. U. was 2 weeks into my freshman year. I know that my Facebook profile pictures will get 497 likes on my best day, 121 on my worst, and I know that the last guy to express interest in me in person, in 4 years, was my dumb freshman year boyfriend of 2 weeks. I know that I have gone to bar after bar and club after club in my Akua glam and my Akua beautiful, knowing that while I had 3,477 people in my Bumble Beeline to swipe back on when visiting Chicago over spring break, my reallife personhood would be far too much for the unsuspecting, beer-imbibing dude named Garrett1. And so I watch as my friends get asked to dance by Connor and Mikey and Todd. The music is deafening and their attempts to “hit dem folks” are off-putting and these boys are probably, definitely not my type, but it’s endlessly frustrating that they don’t even try. I sip my sugar (with a splash of vodka) and feel like I am
invisible. I know I can’t be invisible, because I know I how hard I try. But my eyebrows are threaded, and my afro’s flowing all nice, and my shaven legs are positioned atop each other— and all I get are blank stares from men and whispers of “sorry!” from well-meaning-but-understandably-thirsty friends who give Matt and Brennan their numbers. My own thirsty tail goes between my exfoliated legs and I start to feel crazy2. I am not visible—I’m no object of attraction. I am only blank stares and “sorry”s and I mostly feel that they’re apologizing for their refusal to see me. I struggle with the club’s shitty WiFi and turn to the App Store to re-download my validation. I want to make sure I am not crazy.
I am not visible—I’m no object of attraction. I am only blank stares and “sorry”s and I mostly feel that they’re apologizing for their refusal to see me. So I go on dates, always facilitated through the apps. Afterwards I receive texts like, “you were ridiculously pretty” and “you are stunning Akua, Glad we matched” (verbatim, because I’m vain and also trying to prove a point). I am polite and say “thank you,” because I no longer see a prosocial obligation to deny what I know to be true. But reveling in the compliments I’ve received isn’t the point of this essay; conveying the canyon between reallife neglect and on-screen attention, avowals, and proposals is. I know that Hunter and Zack would have never approached me without an app orchestrating our activity. They just wouldn’t do it—not for 20 dollars. Maybe they would for 100 dollars, but only sheepishly. I know that boys like them would have never seen me as “pretty” or
034 “stunning” if the Machine weren’t helping them to do so. I don’t know if I should be given the space to feel frustrated about this—who am I to believe that I deserve male attention every time I go out? What does swaggering Joey or sweaty Steven even owe me? Can I ask tone-deaf boys to care about my visibility? Can I ask you readers to try to believe how much my darkness erases me? That though I know I’m fairly attractive, I’m upset that my beauty only counts online—and does that make me entitled? Does that make a bitch? So this is the Machine. This is why, with 5 weeks left until graduation, I have 5 dating apps downloaded on my phone. This is the only reason why I get to feel like all of the other reindeer—a college girl worthy of being dated for more than two weeks, imagine—and this is why I get to be fatalistic about my grievances. If the palpability of this disconnect makes me feel crazy, you all deserve to feel crazy, too. I’ve had 21 years to grapple with my invisibility. I grew up with no prom date, no high school boyfriend, no proof whatsoever that boys or men or man-boys could ever be into me and my skin. I was too black for Arizona, too dark for the, like, 9 black guys in my hometown, too much for my college peers and their date parties. I’ve had 2 years to figure out the Machine. The Machine tells me that in 2 months, 826 people will “like” me on OkCupid. The Machine divulges that for so many guys, I will be “the most gorgeous woman they’ve ever seen.” It also shows me how many chocolate bar emojis I’ll be obliged to roll my eyes at, or how many statements like “I’ve never been with a black woman before” and “am I sick, or do I have jungle fever?!” I will have to endure before deleting all my apps and attempting to delete myself off the Internet forever. I’ve realized that in the constraints of the Machine, posting a picture with bomb-ass lighting will get me many more swipes than posting another picture with poorer lighting. And by “poorer,” I mean lighting that makes me look less light, which really means less desirable, because I’m already on thin, black ice. And if a terrible man swipes right on Picture A but discovers I look a few shades more like Picture B in real life, can I blame him for his reluctance? Is my facial medium just too dark for uninspired white boys who want a sloppy dance and an easy lay? Am I too complicated and mysterious for them, because my dark skin preempts me? If I wear Uggs to the club, will they take me seriously? What about if I show up with my 4 closest white friends? What about now?
What about now? __________________________________________________ I’ve gone out twice (sometimes thrice) a month for the past 5 months that I’ve been legal. That means I’ve gone to a club or bar around 12.5 times, and only twice has a guy approached me, in isolated incidents months apart from one another. One of the guys was an Emory Law student who told me, drunkenly, that I was his “beautiful ebony princess.” It was too loud to hear what the second guy thought of me. When I re-downloaded Bumble to write this article, I had 1263 people “already interested in me,” which I think means that 1263 people in the previous few days swiped right first. While the encouraging amount of matches could be “fake news” designed to get me to pay for Bumble Premium, the disconnect I feel is not just a result of the liberal news media I consume on the daily. I guess I’m trying to say that at a ratio of 2:1263, I’m pissed that my skin complicates my beauty. I’m pissed that in 2018, my skin still complicates how human I get to feel (although I could have predicted this in the 3rd grade when my classmates voted that I looked like tar, but informed me in a nice way). I’m pissed that, in the Machine, my skin is the beacon of my beauty, while in real life, it is a caution sign and a “slow down, work around” sign and a “danger, cliff ahead!” sign that fucks up the tar and her mental state beyond recognition. The warnings say that I am good, but not if I’m close enough to touch. I am pretty, but only if I’m trapped in a screen. I am dark—as in black, as in too black, as in, “Jesus Christ, you’re beautiful,” typed Tommy, the liberal white guy who did his online-part. He never even showed up to the club. •
035 1. All of the names listed in this story are the whitest names I could think of. I would write about trying to date black men, but the last response I got when I was interested in a close black friend was literally, “You’re cute enough that your darkness doesn’t matter.” It is too difficult to unpack the histories and the factors and politics that enshroud colorism in the black community, and it feels a lot better to laugh at Tommy’s n’em’s refusal to see me than it does my own brothers’. 2. I struggled with the decision to use this form of ableist language in my essay. I battle with quite a bit of anxiety in my daily life and often feel like language like this is the best way I can convey how difficult it is for me to feel like I’m not lying to myself about my experiences. It’s a little complicated to explore the space for reclamation of these words—can someone with an anxiety disorder reclaim it? Should anyone be able to reclaim it at all? I am gravely sorry for any harm I may have caused any person (and also for any ableism this essay could have compounded systemically) by using the term “crazy” in this essay. It was a purely personal decision to convey my feelings in this lens and not an editorial one. Please email me at akua@wustl.edu if you would like to further discuss this language in my essay; I think it’s important to consider the usage of these words in our media, and I am very open to criticisms and conversations about their use in “text machina.”
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ZoĂŤ in Circuit Created by Taylor Fulton February 2018 Oil paint
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On Becoming Bionic Written by Emily Caroline King
Anyone who knows me well enough knows that I am almost always preoccupied with some conspiracy theory. Ever since I saw I, Robot as a kid (aside: Will Smith movies are really only ever hit or miss), I’ve been waiting for a massive robot attack and imagining all the ways some AI overlord will take over. The line between paranoia and fascination became blurred, and I ended up a nerd for anything robotic in pop culture. The thing is, though, I’m just as jealous of robots as I am scared of them. Let me clarify: I don’t want to be a robot or even an android, but becoming a cyborg doesn’t sound too bad. I imagine myself as the Bionic Woman, but without all the government missions. And from Jersey. And black. Also, a lot more dramatic with a dash more shade.
I don’t need any modifications of comic book proportions. As cool as Cyborg and Cable are, I’m not trying wild all the way out. What I really want is just some repairs. Would it really be that hard to replace the braces I wear with working parts? I don’t need anything fancy, just some fixes that can get this body to reflect me properly. Then I wouldn’t have to stress about coming up with all sorts of bullshit to avoid talking about what’s actually wrong with me. No more joking about how lazy I am so I don’t have to say that I can’t climb the stairs because my bones are buckling beneath me. When I mean to say I teared up on my walk home ‘cause it didn’t feel like my body was ready to make it back, ‘cause I was beside myself with frustration, I joke and play pretend to avoid the same
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I don’t need any modifications of comic book proportions. What I really want is just some repairs. shame that kept me from re-filing my disability letter when I got to college. No more intrusive thoughts that remind me of feeling powerless. Like when someone picks something up with their toes and it makes me think about how some of mine don’t bend right anymore. No more scrambling to change the subject when someone says, “Oh honey, you’re too young to have a bad [insert joint here].” As if I’m not all too aware of how I don’t always model perfect youth. As if I don’t dance my heart out whenever I can, afraid to waste my bounded dancing days. No more of the embarrassment that sounds like, “Yeah, man, I’m just a little tired,” between laughs instead of, “Shit, man, I really haven’t got a lot left in me for today.” Instead of, “I’m just hurtin’ somethin’ ill right now.” But I would rather have someone think I’m curving them, than have them mark me a broken thing. Than know that I’m trapped in a body that can’t keep up. Than know that I’m trying really hard to not think of this as a confession, as admitted defeat. So instead, I plan to become the next Jax. But with better fatality moves and style. To keep with my brand, I should shy away from the super subtly cybernetic like Commander Shepard. If my daily accessory overload is any indication, I definitely have a thing for shine. My imagined experimentalist doctor can straight up replace my joints with metal and inject me with super antibodies that actually know what they’re supposed to be doing. I’d have an immune system of steel and never worry about a cold knocking me out. I just might stop getting the flu
shot altogether, but act like I still do for my anti-antivaxxer principles. While they’re at it, I wouldn’t mind some sort of controllable super hearing that lets me focus on one area at a time. This may or may not be for gossip-collecting purposes. (Listen, no one said cyborgs weren’t messy, too.) I’ll tell this cartoonishly eccentric scientist/doctor to not mess with my head during the operation, and hope I don’t end up some top-secret U.S. government cyborg soldier. Oh, and my butt! I’ll tell them that I want to keep that too. Actually, I also want to make sure my lips are untouched. It took me way too long to figure out which ColourPop shades look good on me for a switch up like that. Actually, I’m so down for the cyborg aesthetic that I might want to go a bit flashier. I even had braces for a year, so I know metal suits me. My new look will say, I am your future, and your future has a fro and J’s. None of those washed Inspector Gadget ‘fits or Geordi La Forge reservation. I’m going for something that an NYU film student would want in some low budget, Black Girl Magic, future-and-machine-are-metaphors-for-something project. I mean, let’s face it, we weren’t raised to think disability was cute, anyway. As much as I try to resist that thinking, I’d be lying if I said I figured out how to love my stiff, swollen joints. I’ve got a handle on a lot of my other identities, but I’m still learning how to talk about this one. Arthritis doesn’t sound sexy even when you whisper it real slow—trust me, I’ve tried. So it’s not the kind of thing I bring up on a first date, or ever, really. At least, not yet. Maybe I can blame my Libra rising for my desire to look “good.” Or my Sagittarius sun and moon placements; we all know fire signs are not into highlighting their weaknesses. Becoming a cyborg would make me look and feel good, satisfying the needs of all of my Big Three placements. Even if I never get to become the next bionic woman, I think I’ll be okay. Sometimes, I’m too tired to fight this fight after all the other ones that I had to take up, but I’m starting to now. I’ll learn to not think of my body as a place of weakness. I’ll find the courage to say when it’s too much. I’ll stop feeling like it’s my dirty little secret…but I sure as hell am not there yet. So while I work on it, I’m just gonna keep dreaming about serving Molly Millions realness. •
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Sallysaurus Created by Michael Avery
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043 A project created for the course Word and Image II in the Sam Fox School of Design and Visual Arts. Students designed mobile games based on varied prompts.
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Post-Parkland: Technology, Innovation, and Change Written by Kiara Mallory
045 In an era of technological dependence, it is no secret that change and innovation work simultaneously to impact society. From #MeToo to #BlackLivesMatter, social movements have proven to spark unification among ethnically, racially, and generationally diverse communities. The dissension of the world has taught us that everyone is equipped with a voice, and we all have the option to stand up for change. As technology develops, it will continue to aid us as we work toward common goals. On February 14, 2018, 17 people were shot and killed at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. It was only one of many recent shootings that have fatally impacted innocent people. Now, the survivors of the Parkland shooting are taking to social media to demand change and spread the message that they will not let their classmates’ deaths fade away from the national consciousness. They are leading marches, giving public speeches, and organizing boycotts to prove that their voices will be heard. Through technology and mass media, the world has been able to see the victims and survivors of the shooting. With an ambitious and entrepreneurial project in mind, students have used social media to spread awareness of the acts of violence that will continue to occur until we do something about them.
Students have used social media to spread awareness of the acts of violence that will continue to occur until we do something about them. On March 14, we, a force of students, walked out of our classrooms cautious of the consequences, but willing to protest regardless. We walked past our peers and against our administrators who told us our protest would not make an impact. We marched outside to show the students of Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School that we recognize corruption when we see it, and that we will not stand to see any more innocent people harmed. We stood together to recognize and realize that no one should have their life snatched away to accommodate a constitutional amendment that was written over 200 years ago. And for
17 minutes, we were silent, our wordlessness an expression of our anguish and despondence over the young lives lost too soon. Yet when those 17 minutes were over, we walked back inside to prove that our protest was not merely a pretense to skip class. Walking out was our way of saying that we will not be complicit in the cowardice and inaction of our government. Walking out was our declaration that, like the Parkland survivors, we will use the resources available to us—particularly technology and our online platforms—to help cultivate an unprecedented movement, one that will influence legislative change and ensure the safety of our friends. On March 24, we marched to convey the gravity of gun violence. We walked down the streets of our nation’s capital, and in many other states to show that the issues that concern Parkland, Las Vegas, Orlando, and Newtown concern the entire country. The hashtag #MarchForOurLives became an international symbol of resistance. What started as a few dissenting students became a wave of ardent protestors. Today, many Americans continue on as usual. Parents send their children to school with the tacit expectation that they will come home safe. Children unconsciously follow their leaders, unaware of the harsh realities of life. Community members forget about the dangers in their communities. But some of us will not forget. We will continue with our marches, movements, and hashtags until we no longer fear for the safety and wellbeing of ourselves and our peers. We will keep calling local government officials until they understand that change must happen and take matters into their own hands. We will not accept lousy statements and disingenuous gestures by those who run our government. Patience, persistence, and proactivity will lead us instead. Although March 24 has come and gone, we have not seen the last of gun violence protests. The persistence of young people does not get enough credit. We are the changemakers; we set cultural tastes, advance technology, and spark innovation. Our voices speak in an international dialect to communicate the change we hope to see. •
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Nature’s Weight: Time. Photographed by Sami Klein May 2017
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The Machine Written by Alicia Zhang
051 At precisely 7:00 a.m. It wakes up; Its ungreased gears unwillingly grind against each other, releasing low, horrendous growls that reverberate against the walls of the dark room. It stumbles, seemingly in an unfamiliar direction, yet it is the very path It takes day in and day out. Creaking, groaning, sputtering grunts that only disappear when fed a steaming, brown fluid that trickles down an opening made for just that purpose. Its battery, charging, warms up, ready to assume its work. In each household, there is this machine. It is versatile, as It was created to be, yet It follows the same routine: power on, get fuel, work, get fuel, power down. Day in, day out, the same focused, mechanical movements, accompanied by an unawareness of anything else. It is several hours later; It wants to shut down, to rest Its springs and coils that cry out against the friction of hard, mundane work. But Its productivity must be optimized, Its abilities exploited until Its warranty runs out. Therefore, It takes another chug of brown liquid to recharge Itself before returning to the task It was created to do. This machine is the latest version, they say. It’s been around for a great span of time, yet It has evolved and adapted in unthinkable ways. At first, It could only do simple tasks, the very basics. Its lifespan was short and burdensome; some even wondered whether it was worth it at all to invest in one. But the advances in technology spawned from the Industrial Revolutions and the Digital Age equipped the subsequent versions with gadgets that accelerated Its yield of output, making It the “hottest new product” of the century. Despite the warnings about overheating, It could be used for a long duration, without any need for recharging. What great battery life! It was advertised. It is dark outside again, and It is burnt out. Yet, there are tasks It must complete before shutting down. It checks Itself, spotting dents and scratches from the day’s work, rinsing Its dirty crevices to minimize depreciation. Then It shuts down, power completely erased except for a trivial charge that will allow It to turn on the next time It is needed. And the next day, She rises. •
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Waterfall Comic Created by Calvary Fisher
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Our Mission: ISSUES Magazine seeks to raise awareness of the intrinsic link that exists between art, design, and social issues. The spaces we inhabit each day mold our experiences, both by fostering interaction and by building barrier. Using the city of St. Louis as our primary lens, ISSUES Magazine will draw connections between both tangible and intangible aspects of the social environment. With both a print and an online version of the publication, ISSUES Magazine will reach out to a diverse readership, including students of Washington University and residents of the St. Louis region. By utilizing a wide spectrum of media, ISSUES hopes to inspire action as well as awareness about the intersection of design and social justice.
Stay in touch with us: contact us issues.mag.washu@gmail.com read our articles online issuu.com/issuesmagazinewashu @issues.mag.washu
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Contributors: Emily Alpert Michael Avery Calvary Fisher Taylor Fulton Rachel Hellman Jayde Kim Emily Caroline King Sami Klein Priya Kral Emma LaPlante Kiara Mallory Swetha Nakshatri Akua Owusu-Dommey Alicia Zhang
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