Zeitgeist by UNC Hussman School of Journalism and Media

Z ZEITGEIST

Spirit of the Internet Era

Suicide Prevention and facebook

second life

fandom and supercelebrities

Bringing the Chapel Hill Experience to Life.

Awardwinning Microbrews made on site.

A delicious menu with something for every taste.

Handcrafted spirits from our new TOPO distillery.

Stunning event space right on Franklin Street.

Restaurant & Brewery | BAck Bar | The Great Room www.topofthehillrestaurant.com

zeitgeist JANUARY 2013

NEED TO FOLLOW

SECOND LIFE

6 DEGREES OF JUSTIN BIEBER

Hot, Fresh, Now: the sweet, strange and stellar of the Internet The avant-garde of the digital experience

You’re closer than you think

DEATH BY TWITTER

GLOBAL SOCIAL MEDIA

FANDOM AND SUPER CELEBRITIES

INTERNET AND ART

BEST OF CRAIGSLIST

FIVE THINGS TO COME

DEMOCRATIZING FASHION

INTERNET COMEBACK KIDS

INFORMATION REVOLUTION

SQUARED, SHARED AND TARGETED

TROLLING

#PLEASESTOP

THE MEDIA EFFECT

SUICIDE PREVENTION & FACEBOOK

DATING ONLINE

A plague upon the relevant

Because Facebook is only part of the puzzle

Social media and the new celebrity-fan relationship

What’s lost in translation and what’s made more beautiful with sharing?

If you can dream it, someone’s already posted it to Craigslist

Predicting the future is risky business, but we’re up for it. Get ready

How the Internet is dissolving the exclusivity of the fashion elite

Sites and organizations that defy the Internet’s linear tra jectory

Investigating the implications of the global information glut

Decoding QR codes, the new marketing and advertising technologies

Answering the questions “who,” “why” and “how much” of trolling

A code of conduct for social media

This is your brain on the Internet

Dealing with the darker side of social media

A new level of “putting yourself out there”

03 | january 2013

E L S ’ R O T I ED

R E T T

NING DEFI

HEN THE TEAM describes Zeitgeist as a magazine about the Internet, we’re doing a necessary simplification. Zeitgeist is a magazine about contemporary culture seen through the lens of the Internet. In it, we interpret the Internet not as an object but as an entity. We’re bound to the present and fascinated by the future. This is the first issue, and I’m thrilled to share it with you. We knew we were onto something when we first began discussing article ideas. We talked about cats online, about fracturing identity, about hashtags and trolls. We talked about artists like Lil B (#tybg) and issues of online anonymity. As we talked, tweeted and shared elements of our online experiences, we realized the importance and influence of the Internet on our global culture. We also realized that we spend much of our day online, passively consuming information. That time is spent skimming through websites, clicking ourselves into oblivion. The Internet has strengthened the metaphorical current of information flow, and it’s easy to get lost in the sheer quantity of accessible information. In our writing and your reading of Zeitgeist, we’re recognizing the details and the implications of our online experience. We’re slowing down the

04 | january 2013

” EIST

TG “ZEI

pace on information flow and deepening the understanding of the digital experience. We are Internet experts. We understand the Internet’s intricacies, its idiosyncracies, because it is ours. We grew up with the Internet and came of age with social media. The Zeitgeist team laughed about Henri Le Chat Noir, swooned over Carolyn Janssen’s digitally-inspired artwork, and were inspired by the global spread of information. In this issue, we’ll investigate the way that social media restructures our sense of community and redefines our sense of identity. We’ll analyze current pop culture trends online and highlight some of the Internet’s most compelling sites and sources. We’ll discuss the newest frontiers of the digital experience as a user and as a consumer. I hope sincerely that you enjoy experiencing Zeitgeist as much as we enjoyed creating it. With much well-wishing,

KINSEY SULLIVAN, Editor-in-Chief

Zeitgeist

SPECIAL THANKS ADVISERS LINDA BRINSON, EDITORIAL TERENCE OLIVER, ART EMMA GALLI, ART DANA MCMAHAN, ADVERTISING PHOTOGRAPHERS BRITTANY HENDRICKS SABINO AGUAD (COVER) IPAD ASSISTANCE KEVIN UHRMACHER 05 | january 2013

SXSW Interactive Award winner and finalist / Horizon Interactive Awards best in category, gold and silver / Student finalists in Hearst individual writing, broadcast and multimedia championships / SABEW Best in Business contest winner / Gold in each multimedia category of 66th College Photographer of the Year competition / SND Best of Digital News Design silver medal / Zenith Awards in research, social media and case studies / Hearst Journalism Awards first place multimedia features / Hearst Journalism Awards first place radio broadcast news / Award of Special Merit from the Grantham Prize / Sweep of standalone multimedia category in student SND contest

Shaping the future of digital media The UNC School of Journalism and Mass Communication is an international leader in digital media.

ital Media

The school’s “Coal: A Love Story” project won the top student award from South by Southwest Interactive. It also drew an Award of Special Merit from the Grantham Prize, which honors exceptional environmental journalism. See the new water-themed project at poweringanation.org

Entrepreneurship

Dig

Carolina welcomes a new Knight Chair in Digital Advertising and Marketing to Chapel Hill this year to join forces with our Knight Chair in Journalism and Digital Media Economics. The dual Knight Chairs create an entrepreneurial hub that drives innovation at UNC.

Innovation

The experimental Reese Felts Digital Newsroom was awarded a grant to provide a digital news service that advances the national conversation around the need for more science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) teachers in America. The service will distribute content and track audience engagement in order to inform future coverage and approaches to reporting. reesenews.org

Congratulations to our students, faculty and alumni presenting at this year’s conference, and to doctoral alumni winning top AEJMC awards: Dean Smith – The Nafziger-WhiteSalwen Dissertation Award for the best Ph.D. dissertation in the field of mass communication research.

jomc.unc.edu

Kathy Roberts Forde – The Covert Award for the best mass communication history article, essay or book chapters in edited collections.

/uncjschool

Thanks to the Triad Foundation for 15 years of funding the prestigious Park Fellowships for graduate students at Carolina. jomc.unc.edu/park

Business Models

z >> In this section 08

NEED TO FOLLOW

10 16

SECOND LIFE

Hot, Fresh, Now: the sweet, strange and stellar of the Internet The avant-garde of the digital experience

6 DEGREES OF JUSTIN BIEBER

AN ADDICTION to newness and widespread sharing of information define pop culture online. We’ve compiled a highlight reel of the Internet, showcasing the strange and wonderful.

You’re closer than you think

07 | january 2013

G N I W O L L

O F W O N

n ives o s i l a see. by d n a h c ad, wat e r o t t to wha e d i u g onthly m r u o Y

NEED TO SEE FLICKR

Sabino Aguad Contacts: 2,400+ Specialty: lifestyle and portrait photographer uad

Photo by Sabino Ag

TUMBLR mr-gif.com Followers: 600,000+ By New York artists Jimmy Repeat and Mark Portillo Speciality: GIF, or graphics interchange format

PINTEREST Kate @ Wit & Delight Followers: 2,600,000+ Pins: 7,000+ A graphic designer from Minneapolis Speciality: fashion & design

“

NEED TO WATCH Rick Mereki’s Vimeo channel Videos: “EAT,” “MOVE,” “LEARN” Likes: 100,000+ Three beautiful films documenting the whirlwind travels of three dudes across 11 countries and 38,000 miles

Photo by Olivier Douliery/Abaca Press/MCT

Twitter’s latest and greatest 08 | january 2013

by Will Braden Views: 5,590,000+ “Melodramatic French Cat” won the Golden Kitty award at the Internet Cat Video Film Festival

“A Day Made of Glass” by Corning Incorporated Views: 19,900,000+ Corning’s vision for a touch screen future where everything is connected

Eternally speaking, there is only one means and there is only one end: Private plane + Wendy’s. This is how we do.” — @KimKierkegaard

NEED TO READ

“Henri 2, Paw de Deux”

KimKierkegaardashian @KimKierkegaard Followers: 55,400+  The philosophy of Søren Kierkegaard thoughtfully paired with the not-so-thoughtful tweets of Kim Kardashian.

Image provided by Corning Incorporated This photo from the video, “A Day Made of Glass,” demonstrates the use of its latest glass technology.

Rob Delaney @robdelaney Followers: 603,756  Comedic musings from the winner of the prestigious “Funniest Person on Twitter” award (via the Comedy Central awards).

Ryan O’Connell @ryanoconn Followers: 11,300+  Insightful tweets from the editor of Thought Catalog.

The

ROY H. PARK FELLOWSHIPS

Pictured left to right: Elizabeth Park Fowler, Tetlow Park, Roy H. Park Jr., Trip Park and Laura Park

A World-Changing Idea In 1997, the Triad Foundation of Ithaca, N.Y., made a commitment to UNC that was to transform not only the School of Journalism and Mass Communication, but to make a deep imprint on the field itself. Thanks to the Roy H. Park Fellowships, some 350 professionals have completed their doctoral and master’s degrees in the 15 years between the time Dean Richard Cole announced the program and Dean Susan King presided over the 2012 commencement. The fellows, assuming research, teaching and professional posts in news, technology, advertising, web design and public relations are having, as Cole once predicted, “a domino effect.” Their restless energy and world-changing ideas are reminiscent of the fellowship’s namesake. Roy H. Park, a Dobson, N.C., native who rose from Depression-era farm boy to media titan, reinvented himself through several careers. He wrote for newspapers, worked as a publicist, hatched a lucrative branding campaign with Duncan Hines using outdoor advertising and then embarked on a meteoric rise as CEO of Park Communications, estimated at its zenith to reach one in four U.S. households. Park’s final career turn, that of philanthropist, achieved a different reach. The impulse to leave the world better, more connected, more comprehensible than one found it, is the essence of the fellowship. Through the Park Fellowships, Roy H. Park’s legacy continues.

JOMC.UNC.EDU/PARK

L E L L A R PA SE

R E V I UN

Bush y k c e B ife. By L d n o c ith Se w d e d i 足coll e f i l t firs How my

Photo courtesy Linden Labs

10 | january 2013

Y VISION SUDDENLY BECAME CLEARER. Bodies around me slowly started to take their shape. The blurry, pixelated shapes slowly turned into crowds of swarming, lively people. I had just teleported from a nightclub to the heart of Caledon. Caledon, with its stone buildings and perfectly green grass, is a city that looked like a mix of Chicago and Rome. I decided to hop into the air and fly around a bit so I could gather my bearings. I know what you must be thinking: That isn’t real life. And you’re right, it’s not. But it’s close. I was exploring a virtual, digital reality called Second Life, a program infamous for its life-like mimicry of physical reality. Second Life was launched in 2003 by Linden Lab as a virtual experience that would transcend the traditional boundaries of digital reality and become another layer of experience. In the past, interactive virtual environments were usually found in games, like the popular games The Sims and World of Warcraft. Second Life goes beyond those.

It’s not just a game; it’s not just a new digital reality; it’s a new definition of reality. Over 20 million registered users have logged onto Second Life to create avatars and explore the thousands of discrete virtual locations that exist behind the computer screen. To experience Second Life, users create an account and a customizable avatar, and from there can explore the various locations. Second Life avatars can interact, fly, teleport, attend school, build relationships and buy and sell goods. There is a Second Life currency, Linden dollars and a Second Life language.

11 | january 2013

I know this may seem a little strange, and until you’ve logged on and experienced it yourself, it is. Why would an online computer game need its own currency? However, Second Life isn’t intended to be used as a game. It’s intended to be a “second life,” and with that, it only made sense that Linden Lab created a language and a currency. Industry experts believe that Second Life is just the front line of virtual reality, or VR, products that will be available to consumers. “VR will continue to develop rapidly,” said Joel Rollins, president of Everett Hall Associates, Inc. and Second Life developer. “The ‘perfect storm’ of a groaning environment, weak economy, federal regulation of travel and telecom industry fragmentation over networks and videoconferencing all spell a fundamental need for this technology — as well as a younger management group, comfortable with the idea, taking over American and international industry.” Developers are not the only ones who have noticed the enormous

INSIDE SECOND LIFE

$700M spent in Second Life in 2011

20+ million people play on Second Life

18,000 places to explore

12 | january 2013

potential for virtual reality in general and Second Life in parImagine you would be ticular. After its initial sitting in a class ... You would release in 2003, it be able to raise your hand and gained huge amounts of media attention. An ask questions in real time. And article in BBC News you wouldn’t have to leave Magazin e s tated your dorm.” that directly after its debut, “newspapers —Larry Taylor, the developer fell over themselves for the University of North to cover [Second Carolina’s Second Life campus Life], devoting many column inches in their business, technology and lifestyle sections to profiles and trend pieces. By the end of dress their avatar. Companies 2007 Second Life had secured such as IBM, HP, Apple and Cisco more than 600 mentions in UK have all invested in the future newspapers and magazines, of digital reality to train new according to the media employees and conduct global database Lexis Nexis.” meetings. Two of IBM’s divisions conduct more than a third of their Not only European publications employee training in their Second caught the Second Life wave. Life training center, Rollins said. Wired magazine has its very own Even President Barack Obama travel guide to the virtual world on has a Second Life avatar. its website. Whether the visitor is searching for places to shop, new Education has the opportunity to destinations or entertainment, be hugely successful on Second Wired has it covered. “So you’ve Life. The University of Delaware decided to take a trip to Second and the Massachusetts Institute Life. Good choice! Whether you’re of Technology, or MIT, are among coming for the uninhibited nightthe 11 universities on the site. The life or the affordable jetpacks and University of Phoenix, a university rocket ships, you’re sure to have a that offers all of its classes online, memorable stay,” the guide said. is moving students to virtual classrooms on Second Life, RolWhile users certainly can conlins said. Students are 20 percent nect via Second Life much as more likely to complete a course they would on any social neton Second Life than via a webworking site, it has the potential site, and students are scoring 18 to be much more. Second Life is percent better in virtual reality. also a viable platform for endeavors like education, business and Larry Taylor, the developer for enterprise. At least 11 universities the University of North Carolina’s operate on Second Life, some Second Life campus, described of which even hold their online the Second Life classroom expeclasses through the avatar-based rience in an article published in system. UNC-CH’s paper, The Dail y Tar Heel. Retailers like J. Crew and Gap also have virtual stores, where “‘Imagine you would be sitting in people can pay real dollars to

“

a class,’ Taylor said. ‘There would be a professor or teacher at the front. He would be showing a PowerPoint and writing on a white board,’ Taylor said. ‘You would be able to raise your hand and ask questions in real time.’ And you wouldn’t have to leave your dorm room.’” Although the experience of learning in a classroom may be different from learning in Second Life, the educational experience in Second Life is a huge step up from online courses. When taking a class in Second Life, students can see each other, ask questions and interact as they would in a real classroom, Rollins explained. “The question, reall y, is not whether students lose something compared to a real classroom environment. It’s what students gain [in Second Life] over Webbased courses,” he said. Second Life also has nine channels of audio, which means that if the teacher is speaking in English, students can listen in eight other languages, Rollins said. “In the real world, we have to fly in translators. In a Web-based class, the student sees the teacher, who may or may not see the student when they speak. But there is virtually no interaction between class members. In the VR environment, class members can interact, work in teams, split off for discussions.” Second Life also features a growing economy. Last year, more than $700 million was spent in Second Life, Rollins said. Most of it was spent in privately held businesses and stores. “People pay rent, tuition, services fees and just about anything that you could think of in a virtual recreation of a real world,” Rol-

A Second Life avatar by Kristine Schomaker. Picture courtesy Kristine Schomaker

lins said. “People build homes, people start clubs, people build games, people build schools, [and] people attend classes.” For companies, Second Life is also a way to connect and collaborate

more effectively. Companies can eliminate travel costs and allow global communication by meeting in a virtual reality environment like Second Life. Like any culture, Second Life also 13 | january 2013

has a seedy side. Entertainment and adult content both thrive on Second Life. In the real world, someone could go build a country club, school or Hooters. Gaming and sex are extremely prevalent on the Web, and there’s a corresponding adult entertainment presence on Second Life. “It is a mistake to think of a VR system as a game or as a single entity. It is a virtual land made up of thousands of servers both publicly owned and independent. People can do whatever they want,” Rollins said. “You must equate a VR system with the World Wide Web. It has a standard of servers, but you could publish just about anything you want on it. Therefore, we have both universities and gaming environments, but they are separated,” Rollins said. Second Life and other virtual reality environments are appealing because they are environmentally friendly, cost-effective, platform agnostic and utilize universal and ubiquitous equipment, Rollins said. Pollution is nonexistent in Second Life; the cost of travel is as simple as clicking the teleportation button. “VR environments are essentially 3D, interactive websites — actually a combination of Web and conferencing tools that produce a more interactive environment than the Web can,” he said. “Additionally, VR environments are moving to using Web browsers rather than dedicated applications, meaning that moving back and forth between VR environments and the flat Web will become more seamless.” Current technologies set us up perfectly for using virtual reality environments, Rollins added. 14 | january 2013

Picture courtesy Linden Labs

Increasingly high bandwidth connection capacities and low-cost, high-processing power computers are widely available, which makes virtual reality environments more accessible. “I’ve been involved in VR for nearly 25 years, beginning with work for the U.S. Air Force in simulation environments,” Rollins said. “My work in SL [Second Life], E-Reality and private VR systems has been an effort to determine when general-use or consumeroriented VR will reach the tipping point where it becomes useful in ‘simulation for the masses.’” To Rollins and so many others, virtual reality and Second Life is not a game — although it may be used as one. Instead, it is a world of 8,000 places, new possibilities and the potential to make so much of our world more convenient, cost-efficient and environmentally friendly. “My ultimate goal is staying ahead of the curve,” Rollins said. The reaction to Second Life is not always positive; the concept of interacting with unnamed people around the world in a fictional, avatar world is often scary and unnerving.

I, too, originally thought the concept of Second Life was disconcerting. I was also wary of using Second Life because of its potential as an online outlet for anonymous sex and other adult activities. However, after conducting my interview with Rollins virtually, in his Second Life conference room, I appreciate the site’s potential more fully. There are few limitations on who uses the Internet or why. This means that while people can use the Web and Second Life for adult entertainment, they can also use it for business, education and communication. In Second Life, people from around the world can meet and communicate. Whether it’s a huge corporation or a start-up business, it is a simple and interactive tool for companies. Students taking classes on Second Life have done significantly better than they had in Web-based online courses. Retailers have an opportunity to put their product on another network. Second Life even allows people with physical handicaps and illnesses to move beyond those physical limitations. The possibilities for Second Life are as vast as the Internet and only a few clicks away.

MEZ

CONTEMPORARY MEXICAN

5410 Page Road - Durham, NC 27703 | Telephone: (919) 941-1630 | mez@mezdurham.com

degrees of twitter

N THE AGE of social media, we’re all more connected. But just how linked to one another are we? Could any person in the world be connected to another by, say, six degrees? The ’90s had Kevin Bacon to prove this theory. In the age of Twitter, we have Justin Bieber. Zeitgeist tested out the six degrees theory with everyone’s favorite Canadian heartthrob using Twitter follows and ended up with some interesting results. Check out some of the Twitter users below who are linked with the Biebs. Where do you fit in?

JUSTIN BIEBER

Actor and comedian Billy Crystal (@BillyCrystal) dl er

Singer and actress Bette Midler

Olympic basketball player Chris Paul (@CP3) Actor, writer and rapper Donald Glover, aka Childish Gambino (@DonaldGlover)

i tteM @Be

Business magnate Donald Trump (@realDonaldTrump)

Television presenter Maria Menounos (@mariamenounos)

ney

Rom Mitt

Dalai Lama

CNN anchor Anderson Cooper (@andersoncooper)

Former Massachusetts governor and presidential candidate Mitt Romney Photos by Gregorio Binuya, Carolyn Cole, Irfan Kahn, Lionel Hahn, Nicolas Khayat |

Lam

16 | january 2013

lai @Da

Fashion designer Jean-Paul Gaultier (@JPGaultier)

Runway coach Jay Alexander (@Miss_JAlexander)

Musician David Bowie

ieRe Bow d i v @Da

Supermodel and businesswoman Elle Macpherson (@ellemacpherson)

Lip-syncing YouTube celebrity Keenan Cahill (@KeenanCahill)

Singer and actress Jessica Simpson (@JessicaSimpson)

Olympic swimmer Missy Franklin (@FranklinMiss4)

er Bieb n i t us

New York Jets quarterback Tim Tebow (@TimTebow)

SkinnyGirl Cocktails founder and TV personality Bethenny Frankel (@Bethenny)

The Today Show host Matt Lauer (@MLauer)

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo (@NYGovCuomo)

ABC World News anchor Diane Sawyer (@DianeSawyer)

The Today Show weatherman Al Roker (@alroker) Actor Kevin Spacey (@KevinSpacey)

Actor Bob Saget

Actor John Stamos (@JohnStamos) et

sa g

b @bo

17 | january 2013

cle i t r a e ctiv a r e t n i nt. e t n o c more

Get Zeitgeist on the iPad & get more. Coming soon at store.apple.com

z 28 MASS COMMUNICATION fuels the growth of artistic culture and celebrity. The Internet has the capacity to fundamentally alter the foundation of the global culture. We look into the icons and the products of the art community, and how those are affected by our digital experience.

>> In this section 20 22 24

DEATH BY TWITTER

INTERNET AND ART

BEST OF CRAIGSLIST

A plague upon the relevant

GLOBAL SOCIAL MEDIA

Because Facebook is only part of the puzzle

FANDOM AND SUPER CELEBRITIES Social media and the new celebrity-fan relationship

What’s lost in translation and what’s made more beautiful with sharing? If you can dream it, someone’s already posted it to Craigslist

19 | january 2013

for whom the tweets toll Twitter is on a killing spree, and no celebrity is safe. michelle lewis examines eight of its a-list victims.

he murder weapons vary. A simple hashtag such as “#RIPDrake” can escalate quickly into a worldwide trending topic or TT. A fake retweet, such as user @Lorraine_Star’s 2012 tweet that declared, “RT @CNN: American recording artist Cher dies at 65 years old. Found dead in Malibu home,” is easily — and quickly — spread throughout the Twitterverse. Some faux death tweets list causes of death as bizarre as freak snowboarding accidents in Switzerland, but other fake death tweets don’t even come with a cause of death.

ey Britn

rs Spea

We’re in an age when getting breaking news out as quickly as possible is more important than checking to see if a celebrity has actually kicked the bucket on a Swiss mountaintop or is still very much alive and sunning next to a pool in Los Angeles. Twitter users aren’t known for their fact-checking, so expect more fake Twitter deaths to come, and be wary of all those “RIP” TTs.

ie S h arl

Miley Cyrus

heen

In 2012, Cyrus apparently died soon after her first controversial haircut. Fake Twitter account @MTV_Newss stated that the pop star was dead and provided a link to a “story” that was actually a website advertising anti-aging cream.

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Justin Bieber

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20 | january 2013

rus y Cy e l i M

Poor Biebs. He seems to die more than any other celebrity on Twitter. Bieber squashed a 2010 rumor with his official Twitter account @justinbieber, saying, “one ... Im not dead. I had to check on this one ... but it turns out Im alive.” Millions of preteen girls let out a sigh of relief.

britney spears

austtisnbieber t s k quic @j lionrs iflollowe m + 8 2 lthes p i t a l e d mtwuitter

Charlie Sheen

ars

@britne yspe

lion 9+ mil followers one ods r Wo itter death

Tige

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arl

8+ mi iesheen ll fol ion low ers twi tter one d eman

#morganfre

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acittecor stuatnuts no tw odenateh twitter

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Woods was another Global Associated News victim in 2011. The site, which stated that he “was found unresponsive in his luxury vacation house near the Roko Ki Golf resort in the Dominican Republic earlier today and later pronounced dead from what appears to be natural causes,” led to TT #TigerWoodsDead.

Lindsay Lohan

tter one d

Geo rge

Rumors of Freeman’s death started with a fake CNN retweet in 2010. @originalcjizzle, who has more than 2,000 followers, tweeted: “RT @ CNN: Breaking News: actor Morgan Freeman has passed away in his Burbank home<< wow legendary actor #RIPmorganfreeman.”

Tiger Woods

twi

A Charlie Sheen death rumor circulated in 2010 thanks to fake news website Global Associated News, which claimed that the actor died in a snowboarding accident in Zermatt, Switzerland. The site is actually the creation of FakeAWish.com, a site that allows Internet users to insert celebrities’ names into premade fake news stories (hence all the snowboarding accidents) to spread death hoaxes.

Morgan Freeman

eath

oh an ay L

In 2009, Britney’s official Twitter account, @britneyspears, was hacked. The tragic tweet said, “Britney has passed today. It is a sad day for everyone. More news to come.” It was taken down soon afterward.

no ac looney twi cou tter nu stat t s mt ult wit ter iple deat h s

In 2010, Lindsay Lohan’s Wikipedia page was edited to say that she died, sparking questions from Twitter users around the country. The rumor was helped by fake Kim Kardashian Twitter account @kimkardashain, who tweeted: “Omg! Is @lindsaylohan dead?! I keep hearing these rumors from my friends n stuff!! Is it true?!”

George Clooney

George Clooney also fell victim to a Global Associated News hoax in 2011, which claimed “the actor fell more than 60 feet to his death on the Kauri Cliffs while on-set” in New Zealand. Photos by Morgan Freeman and Charlie Sheen: Allen J. Schaben/MCT; Tiger Woods: Curtis Compton/MCT; Lindsay Lohan: Olivier Douliery/MCT; Britney Spears: Ray Mickshaw/Fox; George Clooney: Lionel Hahn/MCT; Justin Bieber and Miley Cyrus: Kevin Sullivan/MCT

21 | january 2013

GLOBALLY CONNECTED FACEBOOK IS no LONGER THE ONLY SOCIAL NETWORK OUT THERE. caroline corrigan TAKES A LOOK AT DIFFERENT ONLINE COMMUNITIES AROUND THE WORLD.

FACEBOOK [USA] MEMBERS / 900 MILLION+ LAUNCHED / 2004 Though Facebook is based in the U.S., it is the most popular social networking site in the world. In fact, only about 30 percent of its users live in the U.S. If Facebook were a country, it would be the third most populous country in the world.

ORKUT [BRAZIL] MEMBERS / 100 MILLION+ LAUNCHED / 2006 Orkut was actually launched by Google in 2004, but it did not gain much popularity in the U.S. However, its ratings soared in Brazil, which resulted in Orkut’s headquarters being moved to Brazil in 2008. While over half of Orkut’s users are from Brazil, the site is also very popular in India.

22 | january 2013

TUENTI [SPAIN] MEMBERS / 13 MILLION+ LAUNCHED / 2006 Tuenti, also known as the “Spanish Facebook,” is a private social networking website for students and young people. The name, pronounced like “twenty,” comes from the word “tuenti[dad],” meaning “your identity.” One of Tuenti’s most interesting features is a popular game called “Fitness City.” The goal of the game is to build a gym and earn prestige points to start marketing campaigns to attract new gym members. The more members, the more exercise, which in turn leads to more cash.

LAGBOOK [SOUTH AFRICA] MEMBERS / 200,000+ LAUNCHED / 2010 Developed by twin brothers Chika and Chidi Nwaogu when they were just 19 years old, LAGbook is Africa’s fastest growing social network. Though still relatively new, the site has already gained international popularity, with members from countries all around the world, including India, Romania, Germany, Denmark, Mexico, France, China, the United Kingdom and even the United States. LAGbook encourages users to meet new people by making it acceptable to add, poke or send a private message to someone you don’t know.

BADOO [UNITED KINGDOM] MEMBERS / 160 MILLION+ LAUNCHED / 2006 Badoo, based in the trendy Soho area of central London, is one of the top social networking sites in Europe. It is unique because one of its primary functions is to serve as a dating service. To improve their chances of finding love, users can purchase premium features, such as Spotlight and Rise Up. Spotlight makes the member’s photo and brief profile info appear at the top of every main Badoo page within their region. Rise Up puts the member’s profile at the top of search results within their region.

QZONE [CHINA] MEMBERS / 550 MILLION+ LAUNCHED / 2005 China is home to the world’s largest Internet population, but its web censorship program makes Facebook inaccessible. Instead, Qzone is the most popular social networking site. Like Myspace, Qzone allows its users to customize their own pages — for a price. While some customization features are free, greater flexibility can only be achieved through buying a membership. For instance, users with memberships can add background music and theme customizations to their pages. If your membership expires, you lose the features you have gained so far, which helps keep users in the system — and keeps them paying!

VK (V KONTAKTE) [RUSSIA] MEMBERS / 130 MILLION+ LAUNCHED / 2006 Russia is one of the few countries where Facebook does not reign supreme, possibly a result of VK’s unique features. VK doubles as a filesharing system that allows users to easily find pirated movies and illegally download music for free. Another interesting feature of VK is its most popular game, called Тюряга (Prison). The object of the game is to create tattoos and become a respected criminal. In Russia, criminal tattoos have a complex system of symbols and meaning.

MIXI [JAPAN] MEMBERS / 27 MILLION+ LAUNCHED / 2004 Mixi is one of the more exclusive social networking sites, allowing only users with a Japanese cell phone number to join. Furthermore, users are unable to customize their own pages. While the standard layouts enable the site to run quickly and effectively, it also limits self-expression. Finally, users are only allowed to have up to 1,000 friends — unless they’re celebrities.

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N O I T E U R L U T O L U V C E R OF FAN

E H T

NS, A F E WHER ES AND RITI LIDE B E L CE COL us A I D ME mcman L A I C SO tin s u d by

12 | january 2013 Photo by www.smcubedconsulting.com

he label of being a fan has become an increasingly important element of one’s identity. Fandom transcends the relative simplicity of just liking something and instead acts as a representation of personality and an indicator of social behavior. Fan culture is becoming a new American pastime, both for the religious viewer of a televangelist’s sermon and a hardcore Belieber — that’s the term for a Justin Bieber fan, coined by the pop star’s groupies. So what has enabled such a rapid growth of fan culture and expression while also fueling the insatiable appetite of obsessive pop culture followers? Social media, of course. Social media’s influence must be included in discussions of the evolution of mass media and celebrity culture. “Content makes up a large percentage of what people view and share in social media, and the more entertaining it is, the better,” noted Kelli Burns, associate professor at the School of Mass Communications at the

University of South Florida. Fans yearn for information about and interaction with celebrities in this social media-saturated culture. Now more than ever, individuals crave news about celebrities. Social media facilitate the spread of information about celebrities and also enable individuals to play more active roles and feel a sense of connection with these celebrities. This ability to connect with a celebrity is unprecedented and fuels the idolization of those individuals. Karen Hellekson, co-editor of the collection of essays Fan Fiction and Fan Communities in the Age of the Internet, said that fans “maximize the potential of these new tools” to their advantage. “Fans tend to be early adopters, and they tend to customize things to their own needs, so the minute something launches, fans squat on their pseudonyms and start playing,” she said. “Fans have appropriated many online technologies for their own use,” she added. “One new form of text that has evolved is the avatar image. These are small pixel images used to represent oneself, all meant to indicate something different: an emotion, a point of view, a political

“

it always seems that it’s easier to connect online than it is in real life.” — Karen Hellekson

statement.” Many fans will pick images of celebrities, sometimes even creating their own fan art, not only to display their love for the celebrity but also to create a fan identity around that celebrity in order to connect with similar fans. These avatars act as gateways to online fan conversation by establishing commonalities. With these new social media tools at their disposal, fans are creating universes of engagement and participation among other fans without having to worry about geographical boundaries. Fans’ ability to connect to one another more easily online, creating seemingly more intimate relationships, is one of the main attractions that lure many people to participate in online forums and sites, Hellekson said. “As with anything you feel fannish about, it always seems that it’s easier to connect online than it is in real life,” she said. Hellekson presented fan fiction as a prime example. Fans write stories about their favorite celebrities in roles they played in movies and television to expand the universe of those worlds beyond the confines

photo sharing. Beyonce is one of many celebrities who uses social media to connect with fans. Her Tumblr account gives viewers a peek into her private life. Photos from Tumblr.

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No other celebrity embodies the spirit of that synergistic relationship between fan and celebrity better than Lady Gaga.

The Mother of all Little Monsters has gone far beyond the confines of current social media platforms to engage and connect with her fans. Never one to conform, Gaga chose to forgo popular platforms like Facebook and Twitter to foster a more intimate relationship with her fans. Instead, she created her own social networking website specifically designed for them. The aptly titled Little Monsters social media site, launched July 10, 2012, is a polished amalgam of the most visible and pervasive social media platforms today. It was developed by Backplane, a private tech company led by Lady Gaga, her manager Troy Carter and CEO Matt Michelsen. The site borrows aesthetics and features from Facebook, Pinterest, Tumblr and forums normally found on fan sites. Little Monsters draws in people from all over the world to celebrate their devotion to the pop star and her lifestyle. The site encourages fan participation through submissions of art and video. It also allows fans to create personal profiles to connect with other fans, aggregates all news regarding Lady Gaga and establishes an online universe welcoming all like-minded individuals. The site’s primary focus is on the creation of content by the fans and being an entity that can accommodate such content — something all Little Monsters can raise their paws for. 26 | january 2013

of the show or movie itself. The power and popularity of fan fiction are evidenced on The New York Time’s Bestseller List. 50 Shades of Grey, the popular series of erotic novels, evolved from fan fiction about the Twilight novels. IS COMMUNICATION BECOMING LESS PERSONAL? Hellekson’s remarks echo the current trend of communication within our society. From fan culture to dating to reconnecting with old friends or relatives who live far away, online communication is outperforming more personal forms of communication because of its accessibility and scope. Advanced social media platforms facilitate this shift. “I’d say the biggest thing about social media is its ease of use, coupled with its customizability,” Hellekson said. With this ease and reach of communication through social media comes the ability of fans to connect with celebrities on a more in-depth and comprehensive level.

Photos courtesy Sheknows.com and Fanpop.com

AGA’S LADY G MASH ER MONST

Social media also foster a sense of connectivity with celebrities, a sense of proximity to them. It encourages fans to feel that they’re involved in a genuine relationship with the celebrity. Through social media, fans can create broad, intricate celebritycentered communities. Interaction is only the tip of the iceberg in terms of how fans are manipulating social media’s capabilities. Fans harness the power of social media through outlets such as fan forums and Twitter to disseminate information about their favorite celebrity across media. This ability to generate and disseminate information guides the public conversation, defining the public consciousness. Social media are becoming one of the premier news sources for celebrity culture because of their inclusiveness and unparalleled speed. Social media and pop culture possess a profound synergistic relationship, as Kelli Burns said in her book Celeb 2.0: How Social

“

social media use is triggering a power shift from producers to consumers and fans.” — Kelli Burns

Media Foster Our Fascination with Popular Culture. As technology continues to evolve, the connections between fans and celebrities will deepen. HOLLYWOOD GETS SOCIAL So how does this synergistic relationship benefit celebrities? The answer is promotion. When fans take to social media to disseminate news bullets regarding the career endeavors of these celebrities, they are in effect promoting that celebrity’s product and image. “Companies and celebrities benefit greatly through the grassroots efforts of their fans,” Burns said. According to Burns, the power of social media comes through sharing, and “we are seeing advertisers offering incentives for the sharing and creation of content.” There can be negative consequences to the celebrity with so much power placed in the hands of consumers. “Private lives of celebrities [can be] compromised when average citizens use the technology carried in their pockets to capture unglamorous and unbecoming behavior, which can then be easily posted to a blog or sent to a news organization,” Burns said. There have been a plethora of

examples from sites like TMZ that profit from celebrity gossip. Earlier this year, fans captured Green Day lead singer Billie Joe Armstrong’s caustic rant against Justin Bieber at the iHeart Radio Music Festival. The clip went viral and actually prompted Armstrong to enter a rehab facility shortly after. Celebrities can use social media to their advantage, though, to avoid incidents like that one. The normally private and stoic Beyonce created a Tumblr account to satiate her fans’ desire for peeks into her private life. She posted the first pictures of her baby girl, Blue Ivy Carter, on the account and revealed that she’d be performing at the 2013 Super Bowl halftime show by creating a picture of herself with her eye black. This kind of social media use is triggering a power shift in the culture industry from producers to consumers and fans, Burns said. FAME AT OUR FINGERTIPS “Before social media, and especially before the Internet, consumers were beholden to content producers who had the power and money to dominate not only production but also distribution of content,” Burns said. Now, many fans have devices at their fingertips that can capture sound, pictures and video, enabling them to produce content. In addition, social media have allowed some to find an audience for their creations and even profit financially. Myspace was a prominent forum for indie musicians to get their music heard and their careers jumpstarted. Singer Colbie Caillat used the site to upload her demos, and her career took off from there. She eventually achieved multiplatinum record sales. Caillat credits social media for providing a strong content distribution network.

KEEPING UP WITH THE WAVELENGTHS To remain relevant in such a competitive and ever-evolving market, traditional producers are having to tap into the resources social media provide to keep up with consumer usage. “They often scour social media sites to locate people or ideas that are trending,” Burns said of producers. Television in particular maximizes the influence of social media by placing Twitter hashtags within programming to engage fans and facilitate a controlled discussion. “This online discussion encourages people to watch television in real time and can stimulate viewing by non-viewers,” Burns said. In terms of celebrities and the unwavering thirst of fans for information about them, Burns said that producers and publicists must take action because “the migration of readers and viewers of traditional entertainment news products to social media sites as news sources makes it necessary to use the power of social networks to distribute celebrity fodder.” Social media empower the ordinary person and fundamentally alter the expression of fandom. Sites like Facebook, YouTube, Twitter and Pinterest allow ordinary consumers to generate, promote and disseminate information about celebrities. The continued integration of social media into daily life will only increase fans’ influence and facilitate engagement.

27 | january 2013

and

with shannon rankin and carolyn janssen Implications of digital culture as perceived by artists BY KINSEY SULLIVAN

NLINE, the three- and four-dimensional physical experience is flattened and filtered through a 2-D digital medium. This is especially important to careers and endeavors that rely on physicality. Art-making is one such endeavor. Zeitgeist spoke with two fascinating artists, Shannon Rankin and Carolyn Janssen, about the way the Internet affects artists and the work they create.

Photo by Shannon Rankin

28 | january 2013

S H A N N O N RANKIN, an award-winning artist who lives in Maine, plays with and reinterprets systems in her artwork. She explores the correlations between organic form and societal structure, between natural and constructed physicality. Many of her recent pieces, like an exquisitely delicate paper cutting titled “Synapse,” are made from road maps. These pieces raise questions about communication and the infrastructure of community. However, she’s been interested in the way the Internet and art interact since she began working as an artist.

Q: IN YOUR OPINION, WHAT ARE THE BENEFITS TO A FINE ARTIST OF THE INTERNET?

A: My earliest works were interactive “Net art,” so presenting my work online has been part of my process for some time now. I have always loved the idea of sharing my work with a larger audience. The Internet allows me to do that. It allows me to live and work in a rural environment while still being connected to the outside world. Of course, the downside is that sometimes ideas are blatantly copied, images are used without permission or shared without credit, and that’s disappointing.

Q: WHAT THEMES ABOUT THESE WORKS ARE MOST IMPORTANT TO YOU AND/OR WHAT FORMAL ELEMENTS ARE YOU MOST CONNECTED TO?

A: I enjoy working with patterns in nature and experimenting with various geometric forms. I have been working primarily with circular forms and have recently branched out into using the repetition of line for much of my recent work. Typically my palette is dictated by the color of the maps themselves, although I’m beginning to incorporate paint of varying colors a bit more. Currently I’m trying to push myself to explore different spatial layers and to allow more chaos into my work.

Photo by Shannon Rankin

Q: THE MAP SERIES IS A FASCINATING EXPLORATION OF ORGANIC FORM AND SOCIETAL INFRASTRUCTURE. COULD YOU TALK A BIT ABOUT THE JUXTAPOSITION OF THOSE IDEAS, THE PHYSICALITY, ESPECIALLY IN 2011’S “SYNAPSE” DIPTYCH AND OTHER WORKS OF THAT STYLE?

A: Combining these seemingly disparate ideas reveals how connected they truly are. The organic forms emerge from the societal infrastructure like fractals. In “Synapse,” bright yellow urban areas represent the firing neurons of the left and right hemispheres (of the brain). I’m interested in the passage of time, of geological processes and the patterns reproduced in all levels of the cosmos — like the structures of atoms, cells, veins of leaves, the internal workings of the human body, networks of roads, weather patterns and the invisible network of space.

Q: DO YOU FEEL LIKE YOUR THOUGHT PROCESSES OR INFLUENCES HAVE CHANGED AS THE INTERNET HAS BECOME MORE PREVALENT?

A: I have a more holistic view of the world now. When we are able to share and inspire each other, we all grow exponentially. The Internet helps make this possible.

29 | january 2013

CAROLYN JANSSEN uses her expansive, saturated photo-collages to play with issues of identity, community, anxiety and reality. It’s important to both the concept and the craft that her works are digital. Pieces like “Yonder Eternal” highlight the boundary between mental landscape and physical reality. Built of candy-bright colors and subversive imagery, her compositions are at once endlessly appealing and deeply unsettling.

Q: FIRST, COULD YOU DESCRIBE THE ARTISTIC VISION THAT BINDS YOUR WORK? WHAT ARE YOUR MAIN CONCEPTUAL CONCERNS, AND HOW DOES YOUR WORK DEAL WITH THOSE?

A: I am really interested in examining mythical storytelling tropes and sublime landscape painting. As a kid, I was fed a steady diet of science-fiction television, Bible stories and celebrity folklore. It caused me to develop a fascination with quirky epic narratives. As an adult, I began creating digital landscapes as stages to host and structure my own fables. I inserted environmental disasters, fake flora and fauna, and cities of inhabitants into these seductive and repulsive uber-worlds. As I formed this collection of worlds, I noticed that they were referencing video game levels, science-fiction tableaux and religious morality tales. I liked that they, as digitally produced landscapes, dwelt in this netherworld between photography and painting. I populated the pieces with roaming packs of women who acted out psychological mini-dramas in which they explored, fought and ritualized. I repeated these clone-like figures ad nauseum — represented as digital twins, triplets and quadruplets — piling them on top of each other, even banding together in self-immolation.

30 | january 2013

Q: HOW HAS THE INTERNET ALTERED OUR VISUAL AND VERBAL LITERACY, AND HOW IS THAT IMPORTANT TO THE ARTS?

A: The weird world of the Web blows my brain! I am really into “Internet camp,” which is an aesthetic that developed in the early ’90s when newbies first started using AOL. At that time, a creative subculture emerged that allowed for user-generated animated .gifs and memes, as well as a wasteland of awkward websites and LOLcats. This quick and dirty aesthetic boasts a creative absurdity and one-liner clumsiness that I find weird and wonderful. With my work, I try to take on the guise of the “naïve user” by breaking down the traditional structure of painting. I digitally adjust tones, hues and textures with a longing to re-create lush, seductive surfaces of “real” paintings. I love how the Internet continues to flatten creative hierarchies. I think it’s ridiculously inspiring that artists of any skill level, age or location can upload brilliant, crazy, strange new work and develop a fervent audience. I’m also intrigued by the structural symbols of the Internet — avatars, “like” buttons and Web 2.0 — and how they causing us to develop a new specific visual language. Whether we want to admit it, these digital structures and platforms are distinctly affecting our common visual aesthetics and our collective understanding of beauty. I think all these devices will continue to provide pretty wonderful fodder for the artistic poetry of our generation. I can’t wait to see what kind of weird art the kids of the 2000s make.

Photo by Carolyn Janssen

ght u o h t u en yo just wh ll . . . a t i n e se you had

FURRY FAUX PAS As if it weren’t enough to get a new dresser, this lucky buyer received two furry ferrets as well. Why were the ferrets in the dresser at all? So many questions.

SEE YA LATER, ALLIGATOR I can’t decide which is worse: having an angry wife or losing a necklace-wearing prize pig to a hungry alligator. Either way, Jimmy T. is definitely as good as pork chops.

craigslist crazies

by becky bush

any people use the Internet to search for information or to connect about conventional things. Others use it to search for information or connect about less conventional things, like gathering an army to help fight against the next zombie apocalypse, or looking for a way to get rid of the 5,000 ladybugs that you purchased while you were inebriated.

A GHOST OF A CHANCE Who ya gonna call: ghostbusters or your friendly neighborhood exorcist?

Luckily, there is a website that can help you karatekick the zombies outta here while helping you sell your 5,000 ladybugs: Craigslist. Craigslist, which is essentially an online version of a newspaper Classifieds section, has a “Best Of” section that regularly features the weird and wonderful. The following are some posts from the “Best Of” bit that are guaranteed to get you thinking ... 31 | january 2013

PURRSONAL ASSISTANT Having a human act as a kittycat around my house sounds almost as appealing as opening a dresser drawer and finding ferrets.

FREE . . . WITH ID Sounds too good to be true. Watch out, Fred!

Q uiz

Good luck figuring out which of the clips listed below are Craigslist postings and which are Backstreet Boys lyrics.

But now I see that my pride’s cost me a lot of things. I’m tired of pretending I don’t miss you. The whole world’s upside down, baby. But I try to get closer, and you always push me away.

Now it feels like it could be romance as we dance across the floor. Every move that your body makes only makes me want you more.

Every time I breathe, I take you in, and my heart beats again. I like you and how you are. I’m also pretty sure that something must go wrong here.

Every morning when I wake up, I forget for a fraction of a second that you are gone, and I reach for you. ‘Cause I can’t eat or sleep when you’re not close to my body. You’re a bittersweet delight.

32 | january 2013

You were the handsome black man in the police-escorted convoy on Sansome this afternoon. I was the girl on the sidewalk.

If I could change your mind, maybe you could help me wipe these tears from my eyes. Deep down inside, you don’t want to be alone for the holidays. You want someone to do all of those cute, snuggly things with. ANSWERS: 1. Craigslist, Backstreet Boys 2. Backstreet Boys, CraigsList 3. Craigslist, Backstreet Boys 4. Craigslist, Backstreet Boys 5. Backstreet Boys, Craigslist

z >> In this section 34

FIVE THINGS TO COME

DEMOCRATIZING FASHION

INTERNET COMEBACK KIDS

Predicting the future is risky business, but we’re up for it. Get ready How the Internet is dissolving the exclusivity of the fashion elite Sites and organizations that defy the Internet’s linear tra jectory

THE FOLLOWING are some of the remarkable and revolutionary developments in culture, technology and industry. An emphasis on social media, consumer-driven commercial experiences and accessibility underpin these changes.

33 | january 2013

5 THINGS TO COME

e-publisher GARY KAYYE shares his VISION of the world in 2023. BY BECKY BUSH.

ONSIDER THIS ARTICLE a time capsule, a metaphorical message in a bottle. This information will be ingrained into the core of your imagination. Zeitgeist has compiled some of the most meta changes our world will see in the next 10 years. These changes will alter our daily experience of reality. Isn’t that cool? We think so. BEWARE: You may get butterflies in your stomach when reading the words below, but don’t worry, that’s only the excitement of the future fluttering inside of you. These new technologies and new world are going to zoom by faster than Usain Bolt running at the Olympics. Zeitgeist caught up with Gary Kayye, the founder of rAVe, an e-pubisher of news aimed at the audiovisual markets. It would be an understatement to say he’s an expert on the future. We agree with him; it’s all pretty amazing. And soon, you will, too.

You won’t need a credit card, cash or keys ... ever. In the next decade, we won’t need to carry around our credit cards, keys and cash. These three household items will be completely digital, and this technology may even be integrated in our smartphones, according to Kayye. Right now, there is already the technology to put all your credit cards on a simple piece of plastic, according to an article on Mashable, a website. Eventually digital cash will be our only currency, and our keys will be an app.

34 | january 2013

Digital signage will be the new advertising. In 10 years, every sign, whether it is on the side of a dirt road or in the middle of a huge city, will be digital. What if your whole world looked like the center of Times Square? What if your bedroom did? The digital signage era will change marketing as we know it. Every piece of our world will be branded. The days of painted or printed billboards are officially over.

3 4

Marketing will be individualized. Let’s take No. 2’s concept one step further. What if every digitized sign changed for the person walking by it? In 10 years, this will be how we advertise. Kayye explained that these digital signs would be able to detect the gender, general age and personality of the passerby. Therefore, when someone walks by the sign, it can morph directly for them.

Surfaces will be made out of smart glass. In the past, we’ve used glass for our window panes, wine glasses and other household items. What if every surface in your house was actually made of glass? A company called Corning has come up with a vision for how it sees specialty glass fitting into the future. In its video, “A Day Made of Glass,” almost every surface is made of smart glass. To take that one step further, all these surfaces connect with each other. The countertop can turn into a stove at any second. The refrigerator has technology that senses what groceries you are missing, so that you never have to make a list. Your smartphone connects with your countertop to magnify what’s on your screen while you are cooking. The conveniences go on forever.

Location-based awareness technology. Location-based awareness technology already exists. Kayye said that in the next 10 years, the technology we use for navigation will be ubiquitous. Using location-based awareness technology, we will have driver-less cars and wear glasses that double as maps. You will even be able to put chips in your children to track their every move.

Michael Kaku’s book, Physics of the Future

The well-known theoretical physicist Michael Kaku wrote a book in 2011 that predicts how our world will look in 100 years. Heare are a few of our favorites:

1 2 3 4 5 6

There will be elevators that take you directly to space (yes, outer space). There will be sensors in your clothing and in places all around your house (like in your toilet) to monitor if you are completely healthy. There will be Internet-enabled contact lenses.

Cars will fly.

We will be able to bring back extinct animals.

Several ma jor American cities will be underwater because of global warming.

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Democratizing Fashion • Democratizing Fashion • Democratizing Fashion • Democratizing Fashion • Democratizing Fashion • Democratizing Fashion • Democratizing Fashion • Democratizing Fashion • Democratizing Fashion • Democratizing Fashion • Democratizing Fashion • Democratizing Fashion • Democratizing Fashion • Democratizing Fashion • Democratizing Fashion • Democratizing Fashion • Democratizing Fashion • Democratizing Fashion • Democratizing Fashion • Democratizing Fashion • Democratizing Fashion • Democratizing Fashion • Democratizing Fashion • Democratizing Fashion • Democratizing Fashion • Democratizing Fashion • Democratizing Fashion • Democratizing Fashion • Democratizing Fashion • Democratizing Fashion • Democratizing Fashion • Democratizing Fashion • Democratizing Fashion • Democratizing Fashion • Democratizing Fashion • Democratizing Fashion • Democratizing Fashion • Democratizing Fashion • Democratizing Fashion • Democratizing Fashion • Democratizing Fashion • Democratizing Fashion • Democratizing Fashion • Democratizing Fashion • Democratizing Fashion • Democratizing Fashion • Democratizing Fashion • Democratizing Fashion • Democratizing Fashion • Democratizing Fashion • Democratizing Fashion • Democratizing Fashion • Democratizing Fashion • Democratizing Fashion • Democratizing Fashion • Democratizing Fashion • Democratizing Fashion • Democratizing Fashion • Democratizing Fashion • Democratizing Fashion • Democratizing Fashion • Democratizing Fashion • Democratizing Fashion • Democratizing Fashion • Democratizing Fashion • Democratizing Fashion • Democratizing Fashion • Democratizing Fashion • Democratizing Fashion • Democratizing Fashion • Democratizing Fashion • Democratizing Fashion • Democratizing Fashion • Democratizing Fashion • Democratizing Fashion • Democratizing Fashion • Democratizing Fashion • Democratizing Fashion • Democratizing Fashion • Democratizing Fashion • Democratizing Fashion • Democratizing Fashion • Democratizing Fashion • Democratizing Fashion • Democratizing Fashion • Democratizing Fashion • Democratizing Fashion • Democratizing Fashion • Democratizing Fashion • Democratizing Fashion • Democratizing Fashion • Democratizing Fashion • Democratizing Fashion • Democratizing Fashion • Democratizing Fashion • 36 | january 2013 Democratizing Fashion • Democratizing Fashion • Democratizing Fashion • Democratizing Fashion • Democratizing Fashion •

Beaded Valentino dress straight off the Paris runway, $12,000. Givenchy leather satchel in night blue from Barneys, $2,020. Miu Miu crystal heel sandals in cherry red, $990. The cost of admiring these designer fashions through the digital medium? Only the Internet bill.

move toward less aristocratic fashion, the masses are empowered by their ability to affect change and the newfound value in their sartorial opinions.

herself. Even if you don’t have the funds, sites like ShopBop and Rue La La offer high-fashion products at discounted prices. Even those who gasp at the thought of paying more than $50 for a pair of shoes still have access to these styles because they can see and read about them online.

From fashion magazines to e-commerce The scope of fashion news first grew dramatically when traditional fashion print publications launched their digital counterparts. Most fashion magazines, like Elle and Vogue, have vibrant Web and print editions. With the shift to digital media, fashion news became something that audiences could be updated on daily, if not hourly. This online content, depending on who the provider is, was generally free. Fashion-related news no longer required a subscription, and it could be accessed more frequently than the typical monthly cycle.

In the post-millennial age, the Internet has brought us closer to almost everything, from people on the other side of the world to research on any subject fathomable and even to a digital consumerism that can take place in the comfort of our own beds. Fashion’s easily accessible online presence lets average consumers jump the high hedges into the elite, exclusive lifestyles defined by the industry. You don’t have to be Anna Wintour to sit front row at the Chanel fashion show. Instead, you can livestream the runway and get the best seat in the house. Designer clothing is no longer restricted to celebrities during red carpet appearances and other public events. Thanks to online retail, known fondly as e-commerce, anyone with the funds to afford couture fashion can order it for him or

The digital era has ushered in a revolutionary way to engage with fashion. New online startups use fashion as a jumping-off point for their business to spark buzz. Young men and women start fashion blogs to begin their personal branding and online identity. Instead of fashion flowing from the top down and having the people in power set trends, individuals with street style and a savvy way of documenting it are now reversing the fashion hierarchy and flow. While the couture bigwigs may not approve of this

The shift from an exclusive experience of fashion to a shared experience didn’t happen all at once, and there have been different elements and aspects to this shift since the early to mid2000s.

But while Elle and Vogue were looking to adapt to the changing times, some fashion news sites were founded on the principle of making fashion less elite.

Democratizing Fashion How the Internet took fashion from the elite and gave it back to the people. By Alison Ives 37 | january 2013

Photo by Rachel and Nicole Effendy

Refinery29 is one such website and uses fashion as an entry point into the online market. Philippe von Borries, co-founder of Refinery29, said that when the site was first launched, he was interested in capturing and empowering the new individualism that was developing in fashion and street style. Refinery29 was interested in exposing new designers to the industry and is known for launching press storms for up-and-coming fashion stars like Alexander Wang and Rag + Bone. Lucy Angel, a former e-commerce intern at Alexander Wang and current textile and apparel design student at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, said she reads Refinery29 multiple times a week. “I like the site because it’s very up to date with the current culture, trends and fashion topics,” she said. Refinery29 challenged the hegemonic norms in fashion by influencing ma jor industry entities like Barneys and Neiman Marcus. Von Borries said that the early boutique reviews that were included on the site caught the attention of the ma jor retailers.

38 | january 2013

Refinery29’s e-commerce launch in 2012 refers back to the idea that fashion is for everyone now. The interplay between fashion news and online fashion retail is an interesting one. In the case of Refinery29, a venture into e-commerce seemed like a perfect way to create space between its competitors, while also bringing in new audiences and keeping old audiences interested. A storm of online retailers has helped increase the availability of fashion to new audiences. Consider the premier luxury online retailer, Net-a-Porter. If your home isn’t in the center of a fashion-focused metropolitan area such as New York, London, Paris or Milan, physical access to the stores and boutiques that may carry high-end designer wear is limited. Even the biggest cities across the United States don’t necessarily have Louis Vuitton boutiques or Nordstrom. In theory and in practice, these limited physical locations limit high fashion to the privileged group that just so happens to live in one of the fashion centers of the world. But now, online retail has made it so that even the fash-

ionistas in the most remote and barren locations can wear Maison Martin Margiela, Lanvin, Oscar de la Renta and more. In addition to sites like Net-aPorter, ma jor department stores also have their own e-commerce component to expand audiences. Treena Lombardo, fashion director for Shopbop, an e-commerce site with over 700 vendors, said the site takes a great interest in engaging the customer in the shopping experience. “We don’t want you to lose the experience of an in-store sales associate just because you’re moving online,” Lombardo said in a “Fashion in the Digital Age” lecture at Teen Vogue Fashion University in October 2012. The lecture featured industry experts. Blogging style One of the most compelling innovations that works to remove the exclusiveness of fashion has been the advent of the fashion and street style blog. Street style blogs generally fall into one of two categories, though both types are usually run by photographers. These blogs either document the

A testament to the open doors of fashion blogging, Rachel and Nicole explain their success. How did you get into fashion blogging? We started our blog in November of 2010. To be honest, we weren’t really interested in blogging. It all started because we wanted to create an online lookbook to show our mom [who lives

in Asia; the girls are in New York]. Our mother was a fashion designer, and exposed us to fashion shows and runway trends since the tender age of eight, so it was only natural that when we left the nest for us to still run our

“ We’ve never really viewed ourselves as having ‘made it’ as fashion bloggers because that was never the objective. Our main goal is to share our views on fashion and create art to share with the world. ” — Rachel Effendy and Nicole Effendy, racheletnicole.com, one of Teen Vogue’s top 20 fashion blogs

unique styles of people on the street or document an individual’s own personal aesthetic. Through street style blogs, a new realm of celebrity has emerged, and a new agenda setter for trends has been established. Among the most popular street style blogs that influence the industry are photographer Scott Schuman’s The Sartorialist and Caroline Blomst’s Stockholm Streetstyle. Fast Company ranked Scott Schuman as one of the 100 most creative people in business in 2009. The images from these sites subvert the fashion advertising industry by showcasing the individual styles of real people without photo editing. These sites also inspire new trends in fashion but operate outside of the traditional industry infrastructure. A pivotal example of this can be found in Internet wunderkind Tavi Gevinson. At the age of 11, Tavi set out to start her own fashion blog as a creative outlet and because she wanted to be part of a community that shared a similar taste in fashion. Through The Style Rookie, Tavi gained fame as a trend setter for a younger gen-

eration, eventually being invited to Fashion Week shows and welcomed into an elite circle of fashion industry insiders. Tavi not only extended the audience of fashion, but also invited a younger set into an arena that was traditionally dominated by older folk. Communities de la mode Beyond personal blogs, an onset of fashion blogging communities emerged over the last few years, as well. Online cultures like LOOKBOOK.nu and Polyvore work as highly engaging fashion networks with online traffic stats that speak for themselves. The LOOKBOOK site allows members to upload their own street style images and rate others. Huan Nguyen, head of brand partnerships at LOOKBOOK.nu, said during the Teen Vogue Fashion University lecture that the site receives 4.4 million unique visits per month. Nadia Hussain, community manager for Polyvore, a site that allows members to make their own inspiration boards, said the site gets 18 million unique visits monthly.

The disintegration of high fashion’s exclusivity, accessibility of fashion news sites, prevalence of e-commerce platforms and the growth of blogging communities have revolutionized the fashion industry. Digitizing fashion and concepts of style have democratized the industry, giving both elite and entry-level consumers a say. “No matter where you are, you can set trends by mixing and matching apparel and accessories in our community,” she said. Thus, the Internet allows active participation in fashion regardless of location. So whether you are walking down the streets of San Damiano, Milan in denim-ondenim, capturing the attention of street style photographers, on Rue Saint Honoré in Paris shopping for a new Hermès bag, or following the most recent fashion show from your home in Pozna, Poland, you have the power to participate and influence an industry once reserved for a distant elite.

Hussain said online fashion communities like Polyvore “give everyone a voice in fashion.”

fashion sense by her. It was only later when we realized that others have caught on to the presence of our blog that we decided to take it more seriously.

originality. We try to bring something new to the table with every post that we create. If it’s not fresh or different, then what would be the point of the post?

How do you stand out from others? There are so many bloggers in the industry and only a lucky handful get to be trendsetters. We always believe in creativity and

In March 2012, we launched our very first DIY Editorial series. It’s tough, but we think it says a lot about what two girls can do, and also how everyone can be their own

fashion icon. Do you get recognized for your blog? We usually get recognized at Fashion Week. It’s really nice to meet the people who appreciate your blog. As cliché as it sounds, it makes all the hard work worthwhile!

39 | january 2013

refinery29 • refinery29 • refinery29 • refinery29 • refinery29 refinery29 • refinery29 • refinery29 • refinery29 • refinery29 refinery29 • refinery29 • refinery29 • refinery29 • refinery29 Fashion Innovator refinery29 • refinery29 • refinery29 • refinery29 • refinery29 Philippe von Borries refinery29 • refinery29 • refinery29 • refinery29 • refinery29 Co-Founder of Refinery29.com refinery29 • refinery29 • refinery29 • refinery29 • refinery29 refinery29 • refinery29 • refinery29 • refinery29 • refinery29 refinery29 • refinery29 • refinery29 • refinery29 • refinery29 refinery29 • refinery29 • refinery29 • refinery29 • refinery29 refinery29 • refinery29 • refinery29 • refinery29 • refinery29 refinery29 • refinery29 • refinery29 • refinery29 • refinery29 refinery29 • refinery29 • refinery29 • refinery29 • refinery29 refinery29 • refinery29 • refinery29 • refinery29 • refinery29 refinery29 • refinery29 • refinery29 • refinery29 • refinery29 refinery29 • refinery29 • refinery29 • refinery29 • refinery29 refinery29 • refinery29 • refinery29 • refinery29 • refinery29 From left to right, founders Philippe von Borries and Justin Stefano. Photo courtesy Philippe von Borries refinery29 • refinery29 merging • refinery29 • refinery29 • refinery29 content and commerce a chance to reach a pocket of What’s in Refinery29’s refinery29 refinery29 • critically refinery29 refinery29 • arefinery29 important to us.•It also consumers that stand-alone future? •More than you is will lead to a better user expesite can never achieve. refinery29 • refinery29 • refinery29 • refinery29 • refinery29 think. Von Borries spills. rience. Our mission is to inspire entertain people. We•dorefinery29 so How do you see content refinery29 • refinery29 and • refinery29 • online refinery29 every day through content but changing in the next few years? Tell us about your future plans. there’s no reason why amazing There’s an abundance of content 1) Launching verticals: We refinery29 • new refinery29 • refinery29 • refinery29 • refinery29 commerce experiences shouldn’t these days: everywhere you look, started as a fashion/style site, but refinery29 refinery29 • refinery29 • refinery29 • refinery29 also be a part of the equation. content gets produced at rates fashion has•expanded so much as far higher than ever in history. an interest area. Fashion nowarefinery29 • refinery29 How • refinery29 • refinery29 • refinery29 beneficial are social media That said, premium, meaningful days is beauty, is weddings, is in your audience?• refinery29 content remains• asrefinery29 important as wellness, and we have grown, refinery29 • as refinery29 • building refinery29 Critical. When you look at conever, but getting it out in front we have seen tremendous growth refinery29 • refinery29 • refinery29 refinery29 • hard refinery29 tent nowadays, it’s not just•about of people is the part. The in these other areas. Next year, the article or feature that you distribution of content matters we’re launching beauty, fitness refinery29 • refinery29 publish • refinery29 • refinery29 • refinery29 but, just as importantly, ever more, experiences matter, and probably one or two other about your distribution plan, how advertising will take new forms, stand-alone verticals. refinery29 • refinery29 will • refinery29 • refinery29 • refinery29 you market that piece of conpersonalities will be ever more refinery29 refinery29 • refinery29 • refinery29 • refinery29 tent. Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest: important. It’s not enough to hit 2) Content•and commerce: This These are all critical channels to publish on a story. That’s only is such an important area every refinery29 • innovative refinery29 • refinery29 refinery29 • refinery29 get your message out and•reach the beginning; the hard work of day. A truly media your consumers on their preferred getting the word out and making company needs to diversify its refinery29 • refinery29 mode • refinery29 • refinery29 • refinery29 of media consumption. You yourself heard has just begun. revenue streams and as a busihave to embrace every outlet as ness that drives desire every day, refinery29 • refinery29 • refinery29 • refinery29 • refinery29 refinery29 • refinery29 • refinery29 • refinery29 • refinery29 refinery29 • refinery29 • refinery29 • refinery29 • refinery29 refinery29 • refinery29 • refinery29 • refinery29 • refinery29 refinery29 refinery29 • refinery29 • Refinery29 refinery29 • has refinery29 With •the Web ever-changing, refinery29 • refinery29 • refinery29 refinery29 been •arefinery29 trailblazer. Von Borries proves•why. refinery29 • refinery29 • refinery29 • refinery29 • refinery29 refinery29 • refinery29 • refinery29 • refinery29 • refinery29 40 | january 2013 refinery29 • refinery29 • refinery29 • refinery29 • refinery29 refinery29 • refinery29 • refinery29 • refinery29 • refinery29

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Dead no longer! How a little cash and innovation revived eBay, Yahoo and myspace. By Caroline Corrigan

>> In 2004, eBay was an online retail mogul, with shares at a peak of more than $58. But by November 2007, its market value took a sharp downward turn. Stocks began sinking, and sellers began complaining about higher fees and poor support. eBay recorded its first loss as a public company when it wrote off $1.4 billion on its $2.5 billion acquisition of Skype. By 2009, its stock was barely over $10 — down 80 percent in only five years. It looked like eBay’s days as the emperor of e-commerce were coming to an end. But somehow, eBay is managing to rise from the ashes. In July of last year, John Donahue, eBay’s CEO since 2008, announced that the website’s profit had doubled, and its revenue had increased by 23 percent. So how has eBay managed to make such a comeback? Surprisingly, it’s not the site’s traditional auction business or its core e-com-

merce operations. The answer is rather simple: expanding the business to smartphones. In an interview with The New York Times, Donahue explained that smartphones expand shoppers’ access to eBay and that they have “blurred the line between e-commerce and off-line retail. Four years ago, you had to be in front of a laptop or desktop to shop online. Now you can do it 24 hours a day, seven days a week. We’re going to have to drop the ‘e’ from e-commerce.” The company’s financial growth was further invigorated by its PayPal online payments division, a business it acquired in 2002 for $1.5 billion. The smartphone app, PayPal Here, allows users to link their bank account, debit and credit cards to PayPal so they don’t have to waste time entering card information each time they want to purchase something. It’s shopping literally made as easy as a click of a button.

41 | january 2013

>> Once upon a time, Yahoo was the go-to for all things Internet. Email, online games, instant messaging, news, Web searches — you name it, Yahoo provided it. But when these niches were filled by other websites, including Google and Facebook, Yahoo gradually started becoming outdated. Its current market value of almost $20 billion is less than half of what it was in 2005. Over the years, Yahoo has made several attempts to pull itself out of cyberspace’s black hole by concentrating on media content deals, such as giving prime billing to ABC News or CNBC, or debuting Electric City, an animated web series starring Tom Hanks. Its most recent strategy, however,

>> By 2006, Myspace ruled the social network scene. But only two years later, it collapsed behind the shadow of Facebook. It has been steadily spiraling downward ever since. Over the last three years, Myspace lost hundreds of millions in revenue, lost both cofounders and laid off over half of its staff. It looked as if the former social media tycoon was on its way to the cyberspace cemetery — but Myspace isn’t ready to put the final nail in the coffin just yet. On June 30, 2011, News Corp. sold Myspace to brothers Chris and Tim Vanderhook and Justin Timberlake for $35 million. Their

42 | january 2013

has an entirely new focus. In July 2012, Marissa Mayer, who spent 13 years working for Google, Inc., became CEO of Yahoo, Inc. Her plan to save the website is to focus on technology rather than media. Steps will include making Yahoo’s properties more interactive, using social media tools to personalize the user experience and boosting advertising sales through new technology. Under Mayer’s leadership, revenue has risen from $1.07 billion last year to $1.09 billion. Yahoo also received a large profit boost from the $2.8 billion sale of its stake in the Chinese e-commerce giant, Alibaba. This propelled its net income from $293 million to $3.16 billion. Mayer has also made several management changes, hiring new CFO Ken Goldman, the

strategy to rebuild the site just might save it. The primary phase of their plan is to refocus Myspace’s attention on the musical component of the site and help musicians connect with their fans, which the Vanderhooks say was Myspace’s mission in the first place. They told The Hollywood Reporter: “We’re going after artists, right after this we’ll be talking to various artists to come on the platform. We want to give them a chance to help build it with us. We’re really far along, but we really want that last 20 percent to really be crafted by more people like Justin that actually know the tools and things that they need.” With its ma jor focus being on

former finance lead at Siebel Systems, Excite@home and Fortinent, and Henrique de Castro, Google’s former vice president of global partner business solutions. Other efforts include improving Yahoo’s alliance with Microsoft, redesigning Yahoo’s mobile search page, refining Yahoo mail and messenger and capitalizing on mobile opportunities by updating its apps. During Yahoo’s earnings call in California on October 22, 2012, Mayer said her outlook on the future is positive. “While we have a lot to do, the future of Yahoo is incredibly bright,” she said. “We believe Yahoo’s best days lie ahead ... We intend to win.”

music, Myspace will become a sort of Spotify alternative; in fact, with 42 million songs, its music library is more than twice as large as Spotify’s. Chris Vanderhook also said that the site will continue catering to unsigned artists, as well as established ones. In addition to a functional makeover, Myspace has also changed its looks. The site’s new design includes a toolbar on the bottom of the screen, the ability to import photos from other services and a layout that has often been likened to Pinterest. Posts are formatted in a grid and emphasize larger photo icons. Users can also scroll through posts horizontally, instead of the vertical format used by most social networks.

z 46 WE’RE CONCERNED with the positive and negative implications to the individual of Internet culture and digital reality. When discussing the Internet, “why” and “how” are critical questions. These are the questions we’re working to answer.

>> In this section 44

INFORMATION REVOLUTION

SQUARED, SHARED AND TARGETED

TROLLING

Investigating the implications of the global information glut

Decoding QR codes, the new marketing and advertising technologies Answering the questions “who,” “why” and “how much” of trolling

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R L

E U

O N A I

R M A O N 44 | january 2013

V O T I R

F O T

I by kinsey sullivan

HIS MORNING, I CHECKED my email and my Twitter feed on my phone before I even got out of bed. By the time I had a coffee mug in hand, I’d communicated with friends in London, Spain, Thailand and Chapel Hill. Before I got to classes, I’d read about conflict in the Middle East and knew that Ireland’s economy was looking stronger than it has in years. I can plug into the global sharing of information in less than 10 seconds almost anytime and almost anywhere. The Information Revolution is being televised, tweeted, uploaded, downloaded, streamed and shared. These days, the Information Revolution rides the rails of the information superhighway, driven primarily by the Internet. The Internet allows access to huge amounts of information, and that access is changing the way people perceive themselves and others. The phrase “Information Revolution” refers to the rise of information as an industry, from print books to mass media to the advent of Google. Instead of an Industrial Revolution, we are experiencing an Information Revolution. The information industry includes production, analysis, dissemination and editing of information. ACCESS TO INTERNATIONAL INFORMATION AND INTERNATIONAL AWARENESS Increased access to information defines modern, post-modern and contemporary societies. Picasso’s famous modern oil painting, “Les Desmoiselles d’Avignon,” 1907, was inspired by images of African cultures he encountered through the growing media. Without the burgeoning Information Revolution, that kind of deep crosscultural influence wouldn’t have been possible. The Internet is the vehicle of con-

temporary culture’s mass media, and allows that kind of cross-cultural influence to happen every day, every hour and every minute. Approximately 80 percent of the populations of the United States, Japan, France, Germany and the United Kingdom and approximately 30 percent of the world’s, are online, according to Go-Gulf Web Technologies. An American Internet user can access France’s Le Monde as easily as The New York Times. GLOBAL COMMUNITY AND THE DISINTEGRATION OF PHYSICAL PLACE In addition to increased access to international information, the Internet also fosters international communication. An American in Oxford, Miss., connects via Twitter to a friend in San Francisco exactly as he or she would connect to a friend in Rome. Wi-Fi increases the scope of Webbased information, allowing Internet access to be both more extensive and mobile. As Internet makes global communication and connections easier, it makes physical boundaries less important. In minimizing physical boundaries, it may also disintegrate our conceptualization of physical reality. We don’t have to be in a city to know what’s happening there or to be able to connect with its citizens. That’s not to say that our physical location isn’t important. It is. It’s just that it’s no longer a limitation. Through the Internet, we can connect with people and ideas from all around the world.

subcultures. Through the Internet, we not only connect but also establish a sense of community. WHAT IT MEANS Our experiences as Internet users and information conduits help increase our global awareness,

“

through the internet, we not only connect but also establish a sense of community.

”

alter our connection to physical places, and redefine our sense of identity and community. Like so much in new technology and Internet growth, we take changes for granted. We adapt, maybe because we know that we either swim with these shifting currents or are swept under. The ability to quickly adapt to changes and be an individual member of a global community defines us. These are critical elements of contemporary culture. I identify as a global citizen as readily as I do an American or a Southerner. Mine is the Internet Generation, even the Global Generation. What about you?

In the past, identity was often tied with a sense of place. Cultural identifiers such as aesthetic context and linguistics marked people’s origins. The Internet allows our identity to be defined more by global subcultures than regional ones. Social media also help bolster and bind these global 45 | january 2013

SQUARED SHARED & and

by kinsey sullivan

eb-based consumer culture is defined by the ability of consumers to customize information and products they receive, to create their own individualized digital utopia.

Music websites will play only songs you want to hear, and online retailers will recommend items based on your preferences. Not only are consumers determining what they experience, but websites are also targeting consumers’ tastes and catering to them. Much of this innovation 46 | january 2013

is happening in the digital marketing field. “Big data and the decreasing cost of computer storage and of bandwidth removed practically all barriers [to the growth of digital marketing],” said JoAnn Sciarrino, a Knight Chair in Digital Advertising and Marketing at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and former executive vice president of research analytics and marketing at BBDO advertising agency. Sciarrino has worked in marketing for most of her career, and in the past decade, she has developed an intensive, extensive awareness of digital marketing. Decreasing costs and innovations in technology, such as smartphones and Wi-Fi, have fueled shifts in marketing strategies. Organizations now utilize new ways to reach consumers. The

emphasis is increasingly on providing targeted information for consumers. Rather than appealing to broad demographics, digital advertising focuses on appealing to the individual. QR codes, one of the newer forms of digital marketing, exemplify these shifts. QR, or quick response, codes are usually small, black and white pixelated squares. Developed in the early ’90s by Toyota subsidiary Denso Wave, QR codes were originally used to track the production of cars and other goods. These days, they’re used for more commercial, public purposes. These codes are a modification of the traditional bar code and are able to contain more information and be scanned more quickly. Since QR codes can be scanned by smartphones, information is both more accessible and more

mobile. These characteristics lend QR codes to advertising because they redefine the consumer experience. A compelling element of QR codes is that they can be read easily using a smartphone application, making mobile, customized advertising more accessible. More than 55 percent of mobile users now use the mobile Web, according to a report by Global Information, Inc. published in The Wall Street Journal. “The focus of advertisers has shifted to the mobile market,” the report added. “This represents the future of advertising.” Most smartphone applications that scan QR codes, such as RedLaser or i-Nigma, work by taking a picture of the code to read it. After capturing the code, the consumer is then directed to a web-

page, a video, a graphic, text or other targeted digital media. That increased accessibility fundamentally changes the way information reaches the consumer. Advertisements exist as a secondary element of many digital experiences, but QR codes are the first example of mobile advertising as an end in itself. Full-page advertisements are common in magazines, and QR codes are the rough digital equivalent. QR codes facilitate a jump from print to digital marketing. By scanning a QR code, the consumer is self-identifying as someone interested in receiving more information from the company or organization. The consumer is also self-identifying as a member of the target audience, indicating a commitment to the organization or company. This is critical to

QR codes’ importance. Traditional advertisements are pushed onto consumers. With QR codes, the consumer seeks the advertisements. The marketing strategy of QR codes is distinctly different from conventional strategy. Lastly, QR codes are cheap. A quick Web search will find a host of sites that will generate a QR code for any user for free. They can be added to any print ad or exist independently and can be used in almost any medium. They’re accessible for both advertisers and consumers, which fueled most of their original popularity. Since they’re so cheap, any benefit they can offer outweighs their modest cost. With QR codes, advertisements can more accuratel y target consumers, spread to the mobile platform and offer more 47 | january 2013

customized information. These codes were widely lauded as the avant-garde of advertising when they first became prominent in 2009 and 2010, though that praise largely came from advertisers. QR codes show quite a lot of promise from an advertising perspective, but evidence indicates that they haven’t caught on with users. This is especially true in the United States. More than double the number of QR codes were used in magazines during the second quarter of 2012 than the second quarter of 2011, according to a report by Nellymoser, a Massachusetts mobile engagement company. For the study, analysts combed through the 100 U.S. magazines with the highest circulations from 2011 and

WHAT IS AN RFID? • An RFID chip can be installed into a smartphone or other digital media device. These chips are more common in newer phones. •When an RFID chip is near another RFID chip, they can share information. For example, the RFID chip in your smartphone can transmit basic details like your demographics and Web history to another proximal RFID chip. • The receiving RFID chip can then respond, either by logging that information or offering relevant information. In a digital marketing context, a nearby screen would show you advertising tailored to you. • Your digital experience is customized to your interests, theoretically providing you with only the information you really want and need.

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the first half of 2012, according to the study. Every magazine surveyed included at least one code in the second quarter of 2012, it added. Though the application of QR codes is increasing, there’s evidence to indicate that they don’t actuall y appeal to consumers. Five percent of Americans scanned a QR code between May and July 2011, according to a study done by Forrester Research. The study noted that the previous year, only one percent of U.S. smartphone users scanned a code. Although the increase from one to five percent is notable, it’s not exactly inspiring. The root of low numbers is difficult to pinpoint. First, consumer literacy about QR codes is generally low. Marketers also have not optimized the values of QR codes. QR codes often route to a company’s website or an ineffective promotional tool and sometimes to coupons for specific products. While some of the information they provide is useful, consumers may see QR codes as a waste of time, according to “QR Code Fatigue,” a Bloomberg Businessweek article by Mark Milian. Additionally, QR codes are effective for a very particular kind of consumer, specifically one who is already aware of the product and who is technologically savvy, Sciarrino said. QR codes’ application doesn’t accurately target that consumer, she added. Though awareness is low and use may be limited, QR codes indicate and represent a seismic shift in digital marketing toward increasingly targeted, personalized ads. QR codes may be among the first widely used strategies defined by

QUICK GUIDE TO QR CODES QR CODES: Quick response, or QR, codes, allow information to be shared quickly and easily. After scanning the pixelated square, usually with a smartphone, a user is directed to a website or video that offers more information. • Download an application that can scan QR codes onto your smartphone. If you have an iPhone, QR Reader for iPhone, Scan and RedLaser are good choices. QR code Scanner Pro works well on a Blackberry, and QR Droid is good for Android phones. • Open the application and focus on the QR Code using the smartphone’s camera. • The application will take you directly to a website or other digital information source. That’s it!

these new standards, but they aren’t the only ones. Recent technological developments, including increased processing capacity and lower costs of information storage, essentially removed the limitations on data collection and analysis, Sciarrino said. With the capacity to collect and analyze data comes the ability to target advertising to specific consumers and markets, she said. RFID chips and near-field communication have their roots in the industrial production and distribution process, like QR codes. RFID, or radio-frequency identification, chips allow information to be transmitted between chips in close proximity. They’re already common in credit cards and smartphones in Europe and China, Sciarrino said. RFID chips

and other near-field communication technologies have fascinating implications for marketing. Billboards and street-level signage equipped with RFID chips can read the chips in credit cards or smartphones and display an advertisement directly to and specifically for that consumer. The RFID chip in a smartphone, for example, might broadcast to an RFID chip in a billboard the smartphone owner’s information and interests. Some of that information might have been entered by the consumer and some collected from sources like Web history. If that user is interested in fashion, the billboard might display an advertisement for an online shopping site or a brand. This technology is already common in parts of Asia. RFID chips used to be too expensive for widespread application in the United States, but that barrier has been eliminated, Sciarrino said. The cost has dropped dramatically to under $.50 per chip, she added. The question seems not to be if but when this technology is implemented. Though RFID chips and QR codes both qualify as targeted advertising, RFID chips don’t rely as heavily on the consumer to buy in to the product. RFID chips work more like traditional advertising in the way media approach the consumer though the delivery method is strikingly different. It is this kind of marketing that triggers ethical questions about privacy. Arguably targeted marketing is both efficient and beneficial for the consumer, but it depends on a much deeper knowledge of the user as an individual. Privacy will be a huge part

of the future of digital advertising, Sciarrino said. “The consumer will dictate and control privacy,” she said. “Most organizations will do their best to protect that info, but some of them will not. In truth, the more personal the information, the better the targeting.” Sciarrino said she is “keen on getting consumers to draw the line.” The highest percentage of digital media users are millennials or younger, “digital natives,” accustomed to sharing information via the Web, she said. She said she encourages young people to question where and what kind of information they post online. “Consumers need to be advocates for policy so that their privacy is not abused,” she said. Sciarrino said one of the most difficult questions to answer is what constitutes personal or private information. That line may be able to be determined individually, but it requires an active and engaged consumer, she added. Though it will be important for consumers to be responsible for their own information sharing, ultimately, information will be better delivered, she said. Though QR codes may be little more than a blip on the radar screen of digital marketing and a small pop cultural footnote, they indicate a critical cultural shift toward increasingly personal and interactive digital experiences.

49 | january 2013

While QR codes typically exist as a digital marketing tool, they’ve also been deployed as elements of art, design and self-promotion. More than advertisers appreciate QR codes’ accessibility. The following are the top examples of QR code inspiration. LAST SPRING, the small Welsh town of Monmouth became the world’s first Wikipedia town. The huge project, completed through collaboration with Wikipedia, is an attempt to overlay an entire town with digital interaction in order to bolster tourism and enhance the quality of life. The project involved attaching QR codes to more than 1,000 significant items, landmarks and locations around town.

SQUARE FRANS BAVIERA’S Spring-Summer 2012 Collection, debuted at a fashion show in Barcelona, featured a familiar pixelated square on a gown. Baviera is known for incorporating new technology into his fashion shows, frequently including earphones and even iPads as accessories. The black and silver QR code emblazoned across the dress’s bodice, while definitely eye-catching, wasn’t his most wearable.

50 | january 2013

QR CODES allow the quick sharing of information, so the jump to QR codes as a form of messaging is not all that surprising. Harry’s Bar in Singapore introduced a new form of communication for patrons at the bar. A customer can enter a message for another patron to scan and read, and then place that QR code on, say, a fresh beer. It’s kind of like flirting, without the face-to-face contact or social cues.

a look back for the fashion-forward.

available only online at www.design149.com

A game of bait and hook *yo It’s u’re , sweetheart. An Investigation of the Art of Trolling and How It Has Become the Internet’s Peskiest Prank. By Dustin McManus

EMEMBER THOSE BEDTIME STORIES WHERE a handsome prince rescued a beautiful princess who had been captured by ugly little creatures called trolls? Those trolls are real.

Trolls have migrated to the Internet, but these aren’t your typical fairytale trolls. Those bedtime stories had crystal-clear heroes and villains. Today’s trolls are both, and that makes it all the more difficult to discern whether praise or condemnation should be heaped upon them. Internet trolls are people like you and me, but they can be just as annoying as the ones that plague the fairytale heroes. Instead of clubs and brute force, these Internet trolls use digital media and technology to cause confusion and chaos, all for the sake of their own entertainment. First, it’s important to know how the act of trolling has become one of the Internet’s most popular activities and the new meaning attached to a rather old term. “Trolling” is slang for creating conflict and/ 52 | january 2013

or parodying something online. It’s a creation of online culture. Remember Rickrolling, that annoying Rick Astley music video that seemed to be attached to every email and video? That’s arguably the pinnacle of Internet trolling. Most of the trolling you’re probably aware of isn’t even that thoughtful. Often, trolling borders on nonsensical and is needlessly inflammatory. For examples of elementary trolling, just go look at the user comments on a popular YouTube video. However, those who take pride in their status as Internet trolls will argue that trolling, if done cleverly, is only meant to draw out the fault or ignorance of the person they have targeted. A big question of trolling lies in the motivation of the act. A 20-year-old University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill junior who wished to stay anonymous said that he trolls to “point out errors in other people’s logic or grammar” when on sites like YouTube and Facebook. Unlike a journalist’s, a troll’s mission isn’t to correct factual errors; it’s to point them out

for the troll’s own amusement. “Mostly it’s for humor,” said this troll. “Goading reactions is fun.” To successfully troll someone is to play a delicate game of bait and hook. First, a troll wants to instigate a reaction with controversial dialogue. After a nerve has been struck, a troll will gradually continue to poke at it while remaining calm and collected. The person being trolled usually becomes aggravated until he or she explodes into diatribes or caps-lock-riddled rants that make him or her look hot-headed and rash. The UNC-CH troll exemplified this strategy when recalling one of his favorite trolling moments after UNC-CH won a basketball game against its rival, Duke University: “Once, I got a Duke fan to explode into expletives without cursing at all.” The UNC-CH troll noted that trolling can just be an extension of rivalries between competitive sports. “Trolling the fans of other teams is what really gets people,” he said. “The key to trolling is to find something someone cares about that is separate from themselves, like sports teams, and bash it.” Trolls who really know what they’re doing will get their victims to break the rules of conduct on online forums or commenting pages. The biggest victory for a troll is effectively banning the target from the forum by egging that person into the trap of reacting. In many cases, trolling can be a relatively harmless prank — think the online version of “Punk’d,” Ashton Kutcher’s popular television show. Still, not everyone is convinced that trolling is all fun and games. Jiwon Shin, a Columbia University graduate student, conducted a study both in America and Korea titled “Morality and Internet Behavior: A study of the

Internet Troll and its relation with morality on the Internet” in 2008. Shin’s study tackles trolling as a social problem, investigating the societal causes. Shin makes use of the self-awareness model, established by Kimberly Matheson and Mark P. Zanna, which states that people have higher levels of private self-awareness than public self-awareness when communicating online. Private self-awareness is defined as awareness of inner attitudes and motives, and public self-awareness is defined as being socially distinctive and possessing awareness that you may be evaluated. Higher levels of private self-awareness than public self-awareness cause people to communicate in a more unfiltered, less socially acceptable manner, such as trolling.

“

the key to trolling is to find something someone cares about that is separate from themselves, like sports teams, and bash it.”

Shin notes that though there are an abundance of opportunities to interact with others online, communicating via this forum can still be very lonely. “Instead of communicating, I can see many people are asserting [themselves] against whole online populations,” Shin said. “To do that, or by doing that, people are more immersed in themselves (private self-awareness) than how people react to or think about them (public self-awareness).” This cross-study anal ysis of American online behavior and Korean online behavior found that Koreans possess a stronger sense of what constitutes acceptable behavior both online and offline than Americans do. This may be due to differences

in values and morals between Korean and American societies. “Koreans have learned moral education since childhood,” Shin said. “We have a subject ‘morality’ in elementary schools and it teaches very rigid, concise and clear moral conduits. Before understanding what they mean, we are expected to take them as facts, memorize and follow.” However, this strong sense of morality hasn’t stopped some of the problems that trolling has created in Korea. In some cases, trolling on sites in Korea became so bad that some Korean celebrities who have been plagued by trolls have committed suicide, said Shin. In attempts to reduce this form of radical trolling, the Korean government mandated that real names be used online to prevent trolls, taking the choice of anonymity away. Still, many trolls have found ways to manipulate the Web to work their way around this roadblock. Shin said that “since trollings reflect the offline lives, taking legal remedy online without doing so offline is not effective.” Trolling itself transcends the boundaries of a computer because the psychological motivations that power it lie within the human mind. It is a behavior that most see fit to perform in reality, with the Internet only acting as a conduit to spread it widely and quickly. Many people are drawn to participate in trolling because of the anonymity, lack of consequence and flexible online etiquette. It is a devilish art form; if performed well, it can be a great source of entertainment and amusement. However, trolling can easily get out of hand online, making this behavior potentially dangerous. 53 | january 2013

Food + Friends since 1977.

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z >> In this section 56

#PLEASESTOP

THE MEDIA EFFECT

SUICIDE PREVENTION AND FACEBOOK

DATING ONLINE

A code of conduct for social media

This is your brain on the Internet

Dealing with the darker side of social media

An entirely new level of “putting yourself out there”

THE INTERNET establishes a global community, fosters connections and facilitates relationships. However, Internet communication is also fraught with issues of identity, anonymity in communication and perceptions of etiquette. Zeitgeist investigates those complications.

55 | january 2013

#PLEASE STOP

2 3 4

7 ANNOYING THINGS TO AVOID ON THE INTERNET BY DUSTIN MCMANUS

E LOVE THAT social media allow us to communicate so actively and so openly, but we hate when people abuse the privilege. If you’ve noticed your Facebook friend count dwindling or your follower count on Twitter dropping, you may be an obnoxious social media user. Here are seven things to avoid when using social media. If you’re guilty of any of the following, please, stop.

RE-BLOGGING INSTEAD OF ACTUALLY BLOGGING Congratulations, you’ve got a blog, but the only thing you do is repost content from other bloggers. In a sense, your main purpose and contribution to blogging and the online world is … plagiarism? Nothing looks more lazy or unappealing than blogs that sparsely update and do not produce original content. If you find you don’t have the time or focus to effectively manage a blog, leave it to the people who do.

Photo by Brittany Hendricks

56 | january 2013

OVERSHARING The No. 1 test of your friends’ patience on social media is when you post, tweet, like or comment as if the apocalypse is tomorrow and the Internet is your Last Will and Testament. An overabundance of inane contributions is the easiest way to alienate yourself from all your friends and followers. Remember to take a breath and ask yourself, “Does anyone really care about this?”

POKING People, the poking has got to stop. Let’s dissect the concept of poking for a moment: you’re prodding someone virtually with an imaginary finger. Poking is just plain creepy. It’s even worse that pokes seem to always come from that random person you barely talk to. Would you go around constantly poking people in real life? Didn’t think so.

CONSTANT SELF-PROMOTION Nothing is inherently wrong with self-promotion; in fact, social media are effective and essential tools for it. However, if all of your social media profiles come off as “me, me, me,” you look extremely conceited. Promote your own work and accomplishments, but be sure to give a shout out to a friend or two. This will attract people instead of driving them away like an angry mob.

6 7 5

BEGGING There’s nothing more desperate and pitiful than asking people to like or comment on your Facebook statuses or photos. This applies to your tweets as well. If people weren’t excited enough to actively engage with you in the first place, then browbeating them into doing so is not going to help your cause. It also means that you’re probably posting boring things. You’ve got to earn your likes, comments, favorites, retweets and shares.

UNINSPIRED INSTAGRAMMING Instagram is ingenious because it allows novice photographers to generate compelling images and express their creativity without needing any training. However, little is more uninspiring than seeing the same generic coffee mug and dense philosophy book in 20 different filters. Your thoroughly average lunch, anything Starbucks, awkward selfies, the sky and ugly shoes should all be banned from Instagram. Mix it up and get innovative with your photos.

AGGRESSIVE HASHTAGGING Hashtags are an essential aspect of the Twitter experience. But when you make every single thing into a hashtag, they lose their importance. Little is more frustrating than reading tweet after tweet with hashtags that are far too long or nonsensical, or that contribute absolutely nothing to an online conversation. If you’re unironically hashtagging full sentences, you’re doing it wrong. Make your hashtags concise and effective.

FINAL THOUGHT We didn’t address problems like making the “duck face” in photographs or still using “is” in your Facebook status because they are so outside the realm of social acceptability. If you’re still doing either of these, you just need to stop. Pretty please with megabytes on top. 57 | january 2013

@@@@@@@ @@@@@@@ @@@@@@@ @@@@@@@ @@@@@@@ @@@@@@@ @@@@@@@ @@@@@@@ @@@@@@@ @@@@@@@ @@@@@@@ By Michelle Lewis

58 | january 2013

Are media making us observe our lives instead of living them? David Zweig thinks so. Read on to learn more about his theory, FICTION DEPERSONALIZATION SYNDROME.

OG INTO your Facebook account. There’s a wealth of information there. Status updates about what you’re doing today. Pictures of what you did last weekend. Wall posts from your friends — conversations that would have potentially been forgotten and forever lost had they happened in person are now permanently enshrined online. You can view them again and again at your leisure. Scroll down through your timeline, and you can see your important events, like anniversaries, trips, moves to new cities, displayed with accompanying pictures for you to view. There’s even a map that shows you where you’ve traveled and where you’ve been most recently. Your interests. Your favorite quotes. Where you live. It’s all on Facebook.

participate in his or her own life. David Zweig, a New York-based author and lecturer, thinks so. Zweig’s theory, Fiction Depersonalization Syndrome, or FDS, states that being surrounded by media is increasing our self-consciousness and training our brains to become observers instead of participants in our own lives. We’re not living in the moment anymore, he said — we’re watching it.

Click back to your News Feed. Posts from your friends intermingle with your own updates, spinning a web of online content that displays your life. And you can watch it all happen in real time. This experience is mirrored on other social networking sites like Myspace or Twitter, even Pinterest. Through media, you become an observer of your own life. It’s almost as if you’re in a movie, and the scenes are displayed for you to watch.

“What I argue is that when you spend so much time in this observational mode … ultimately you begin to view yourself from afar as an observer,” he said.

Could viewing media lead to the ultimate state of observation: depersonalization? Depersonalization is a mental disorder in which a person feels detached from his or her own body, a distant observer unable to actually

“We live in a highly mediated environment today,” he told Zeitgeist. “The more we are immersed in this mediated environment, the more we become observers, because this environment is like a visual environment. Even [with] interactive media such as the Web and social media, you’re still in a sort of observational mode.

Zweig said that the effects of fiction depersonalization syndrome range in a continuum, starting with just being more self-aware and feeling self-conscious. “The extreme end of that is depersonalization,” he said. Depersonalization is described by the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-IV) as a dissociative disorder. Little is known about the exact cause of depersonalization, but it is thought to be triggered by stressful or traumatic experi-

ences. The difference between the idea of depersonalization and Zweig’s idea is that he believes there is a correlation between media usage and a heightened sense of self-awareness, which can eventually lead to depersonalization. The word “fiction” in fiction depersonalization syndrome doesn’t always mean things that are untrue. Zweig defines fiction as an umbrella term for all media, such as the Internet, social media, television, movies, smartphones, video games, advertising and the news. The idea of fiction comes from the manner in which peopletake in the content. “Even something like the news is still fiction,” Zweig said. “It’s not that it’s not true, but that there’s a filter when you watch news on TV or you’re reading something online — you’re still being told about an event rather than experiencing that event itself. This filtered reality is a mediated experience of reality rather than a first-person experience of reality.” Look back to your Facebook news feed. Your friend just posted pictures of the party she hosted last night that you couldn’t make it to. You can look at what the attendees were wearing, what they were drinking, whom they were talking to. But that’s not the same as attending the party. Knowing that your friend wore a black dress isn’t the same as seeing the dress in person. You didn’t drink those drinks; you just saw them on yourcomputer. And you didn’t talk to 59 | january 2013

anyone at the party. You’re just seeing them talk to each other, days, hours, minutes later. But it’s not just Facebook that lets us see a filtered version of reality. Watching a TV newscast about a fire in your neighborhood isn’t the same as being there to see the fire. Thousands of people “live tweeted” the presidential and vice presidential debates in October 2012, which they watched on television. But how many were actually there, watching the candidates bandy back and forth without a screen as a filter? It’s no secret that people spend a lot of time immersed in media in today’s world. A study by eMarketer said that the average U.S. adult spent more than 11 hours with media (including magazines, newspapers, mobile, radio, Internet, TV and video) per day in 2011. That’s one hour shy of being half an entire day. And with the ever-growing popularity of smartphones and social media,

BYTHENUMBERS

hours the average U.S. adult spent with media per day in 2011

we can only expect that number to increase in 2013. THE BEGINNINGS OF FDS Zweig has a vivid memory from when he was in college before social media existed. He was at a party, talking to his friends and enjoying himself. It was late at night. Suddenly, he had a strange sensation. It was as if he had been taken outside of his body to watch the scene from afar, as if he and his friends were characters in a movie or people interacting in a dream he was having. This sense of depersonalization eventually inspired him to write the book Swimming Inside the Sun, which was published in 2009. The novel tells the story of a fictional musician named Dan Green, whose self-consciousness eventually develops into neurosis and depersonalization, specifically caused by an overexposure to the “fiction” described above. Zweig wrote the book intending it to just be a book. But when a member of the Media Ecology Association, an organization that promotes the study of media and how media affect human lives and perception, reviewed Swimming Inside the Sun, he saw something more there. “This is new. You’ve really got something here,” the reviewer told Zweig, referring to the idea of FDS.

percentage of Americans who use social networking sites serveral times per day

“It’s a really interesting story, I think, that this idea that kind of started out in the fictional realm as part of a novel made the transition from that into being a realworld, viable idea,” Zweig said.

Source: eMarketer, Edison Research

From there, Zweig began looking more into his hypothesis. While he hasn’t performed experiments to prove his theory yet — “Com-

60 | january 2013

“

Being surrounded by media is increasing our self-consciousness and training our brains to become observers.”

munications studies tend to lack that kind of hard science studies,” he said — he has found research and studies that back up the idea. “There’s been no research specifically about my idea, but there is a lot of research that correlates with it to help support the idea,” he said. “When they’ve done MRI scans on people’s brains, your brain looks different … when you are communicating directly with someone versus communicating through a filter, a mediated device. Your brain functions differently when you are in this observational mode versus an experiential mode.” In addition to past research that supports his idea, Zweig has also had support from scholars who conduct similar research into how media affect our brains, he said. “I’ve communicated with a lot of scholars in a variety of different fields from neuroscientists to psychologists, people in communications theory, anthropologists,” he said. As the idea of FDS began to spread, Zweig began being contacted to present his theory at conferences and university classes across the country. He has talked about FDS at events such as the International Biennial Conference of the Society for Philosophy and Technology, the Media Ecology Association Annual Convention and the Annual Symposium of the Institute of General Semantics. He has also traveled to Germany, the Netherlands and Belgium to present his idea. Zweig’s FDS

The average U.S. internet user spends

32 HOURS online per month Source: GO-Gulf.com

theory was referenced in the academic book Drugs & Media: New Perspectives on Communication, Consumption, and Consciousness, edited by Robert C. MacDougall and published in 2011. FDS’S EFFECTS ON REAL PEOPLE But what Zweig says is most exciting about his theory is that regular people from all over the world have read about FDS and contacted him, saying that FDS describes how they feel. They say the more they’re online, the more they feel self-conscious. One high school student emailed Zweig, saying that he suffered from depersonalization and noticed that it happened more often after he was online for long periods of time. “[People] have been contacting me saying things like, ‘What you’re talking about really speaks to me. I’m incredibly lonely. I spend hours and hours at night sitting alone in front of the computer, and I’ve found that once I step away from the computer after many hours I actually feel worse than I did before,’” Zweig said in a video on his website. But Zweig isn’t proposing that media, or even FDS itself, make people feel lonely. It’s simply a

correlation, he said. “The main thing that I’m arguing is that there is a sort of distancing from one’s self when that occurs,” he said. “I think that generally if you connect the dots, when you’re distanced from yourself that’s a form of alienation, and basically people who feel alienated tend to feel lonely.” Zweig said he isn’t anti-media. He has an iPhone, he has a Twitter account, and he blogs at MeMyselfAndHim.com. “A lot of this stuff is great and wonderful,” he said. “But these are very real effects that people need to think about and be aware of.” Go back to your computer or smartphone. You may have several hundred friends on Facebook or followers on Twitter or Pinterest. Your news feed and Twitter feed are bubbling over with words, pictures and videos from them. And you may even be chatting with a few friends on Facebook.

Zweig’s words in the video on his website ring eerily true for us as people in the 21st century, the observers that we have become. Many have thousands of photos online chronicling their lives, but how many are actually living them? “There’s this inherent sort of irony in that the more technologically connected we are with each other today, in many ways, the more disconnected we feel,” Zweig said.

DEPERSONALIZATION DISORDER CRITERIA • Persistent or recurrent experiences of feeling detached from one’s mental processes or body. • During the depersonalization experience, reality testing remains intact. • Depersonalization causes clinically significant distress or impairment in social, occupational, or other areas of functioning.

But you’re not speaking. You’re typing. And your friend isn’t there with you.

• Depersonalization experience does not occur exclusively during the course of another mental disorder.

You’re alone with your screen, watching life as it’s happening.

Source: American Psychiatric Association

61 | january 2013

the internet and

suicide prevention

How social networks are addressing one of Americaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s greatest public health problems by caroline corrigan

62 | january 2013

N THE REALM OF MEDIA, Facebook is one of the most popular and versatile social networks. You can use it to meet or stay in touch with people around the world. You can use it to promote a business or organization. Or you can use it simply to share your thoughts and experiences with an extensive online community. But what if you could use Facebook to save someone’s life? On December 13, 2011, Facebook strengthened its partnership with the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline and the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) by announcing a new service that “harnesses the power of social networking and crisis support to help prevent suicides across the nation and Canada.” On its Facebook Safety page, Facebook explained that it discovered the power of communication as a means of intervention several years ago when young people began writing to the customer support team to report status updates that could indicate a suicide risk. The post said, “Confronted with this new type of intentional or unintentional cry for help, we realized that we needed to do two things — to engage with the expert community to learn how to best address these situations and to use the power of Facebook itself to mobilize friends and counselors to communicate with the person at risk.” The new service allows Facebook users to report a suicidal comment posted by a friend to Facebook using either the Report Suicidal Content link or the report links found throughout the site. The person who posted the comment will then immediately receive an email from Facebook encouraging the individual to call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline or to click on a link to

The post said, “Confronted with this new type of intentional or unintentional cry for help, we realized that we needed to do two things: to engage with the expert community to learn how to best address these situations, and to use the power of Facebook itself to mobilize friends and counselors to communicate with the person at risk.”

begin a confidential chat session with a crisis worker. Eileen Zeller, public health advisor in the suicide prevention branch at SAMHSA, said the decision to provide friends with the ability to report suicidal posts resulted from Facebook’s desire to help those in need without violating the privacy rights of its users. “Our first challenge was to define the problem, which was people expressing these kinds of feelings on Facebook,” she said. “We can tell people who post something suicidal that we would like them to call the Lifeline — but how do we find out about them? That’s when our focus became on their friends.” The solution became relying on users to reach out to their friends through Facebook. However, Zeller added that more drastic measures can be taken with posts that suggest a more immediate suicidal threat. “If someone is at a more imminent risk — for instance, they say they have a gun or have swallowed some pills — you can actually call the Lifeline, which has ways of getting a local crisis center to work with police to help find the person,” she said. “This is not always possible, of course, and calling the police is a last resort.”

More recently, Facebook demonstrated its commitment to suicide prevention by participating in the re-launch of the U.S. National Strategy for Suicide Prevention, alongside the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the National Action Alliance for Suicide Prevention. Surgeon General David Satcher launched the first National Strategy for Suicide Prevention a little more than 10 years ago, which helped to establish an organized effort to prevent suicide across the nation. Zeller said a revision of the strategy was necessary because there have been so many changes since its first release. “There has been a tremendous amount of research done since then, and we want to make sure that what we’re doing now works,” she said. According to the World Health Organization, more than one million suicides occur in the world every year. In the U.S., suicide is the 10th leading cause of death, and in 2010, more people died by suicide than in car accidents. The purpose of the strategy for suicide prevention is to help make Americans aware of the heavy burden suicide imposes on our nation and to inform people of the role they can play in preventing it.

63 | january 2013

“In general, people can see physical illnesses and can understand them, but they don’t understand mental illnesses, depression, substance abuse,” said Zeller. “If it’s not bleeding or broken, people don’t understand it. We want people to be able to reach out and get help without shame.” A ma jor addition to the strategy addresses the impact that media and social networking have on suicide and suicide prevention. Studies have shown that the media can contribute to suicide prevention by combating prejudice, providing opportunities for peer-to-peer support, and linking individuals in crisis with sources of help. On the other hand, the media can increase incidences of suicide and amplify suicidal tendencies. Both news reports and fictional accounts of suicide in movies and television can lead to an increase

“

because of increasing evidence that suggests the Internet and social media can influence suicide-related behavior. In November 2011, Dr. David Luxton and his colleagues Jennifer June and Jonathan Fairall released an article called “Social Media and Suicide: A Public Health Perspective,” which appeared in the May 2012 edition of the American Journal of Public Health. Luxton said that his interest in suicide and social media was sparked by the recent boom in the popularity of the subject. An increase in highly publicized cases of suicide that involve social media has brought national attention to this issue. “Social media has become such a ubiquitous part of everyday life these days,” he said. “There has been a lot of buzz in the media on the role of social media and suicide risk. I wanted to explore some of the things being done for prevention.”

if it’s not bleeding or broken, people don’t understand it. we want peo- The article references several studies that have been conducted ple to be able to reach in an attempt to quantitatively out and get help

without shame.” — Eileen Zeller in suicide by misrepresenting and normalizing it. The strategy expresses concern that these portrayals of suicide also perpetuate the misconception that suicide is not preventable, and it asks for a shift in focus to stories of those who have found help, received treatment and recovered. The relationship between social media and suicide or suicide prevention is becoming a widely researched topic, especiall y

64 | january 2013

measure this relationship. For instance, one cross-national study suggests that the prevalence of Internet users was positively correlated with general population suicide rates though results cannot be considered conclusive. Another study discussed in the article conducted a systematic Web search of 12 suicide-associated terms, such as “suicide,” “suicide methods,” “how to kill yourself,” etc., to simulate the results of a typical search conducted by a person seeking information on suicide methods. The study analyzed the first 10 sites listed for each search for a total of 240 dif-

BYTHENUMBERS

1 million suicides occur in the world every year.

Suicide is the leading cause of death

10th

ferent sites — half of which were pro-suicide Web sites and sites that provided factual information about suicide. The main focus of the article, however, was the ways that social media can influence suicidal behavior, both negatively and positively. One ma jor issue it addresses is cyberbullying. The term “refers to when a child or adolescent is intentionally and repeatedly targeted by another child or teen in the form of threats or harassments or humiliated or embarrassed by means of cellular phones or Internet technologies,” the article said. Luxton said that one of the greatest risks associated with bullying over the Internet is the potential for it to spread. “It’s a popular form of bullying because everyone is using social media — it’s a part of the culture,” he said. “Essentially, it’s old behavior on a new platform, and it’s even more harmful because the info is very public. The victim may think ‘Everyone knows about this, and now other people will see this and not like me.’” Luxton said that certain aspects of social media, such as chat rooms, discussion forums or video-sharing websites, can also potentially

pose a risk to vulnerable individuals by either normalizing or reinforcing self-injurious behavior. “Let’s say you have vulnerability and intend to harm yourself,” said Luxton. “You may go to a site and find other people like you, who may encourage your negative behavior. Social media is a double-edged sword. On one level, it can make you feel connected to people. The flip side is that sometimes those relationships are not real. Relationships are easily made online and easily broken.” Though social media can potentially increase suicide risk, it can also help prevent it. Currently, the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline Facebook page has more than 43,000 fans — an increase of nearly 13,000 since November 2011. Other websites are also committed to suicide prevention. YouTube has an abundance of videos dedicated to suicide prevention, and Google’s Internet search engine has a feature that displays a link and message about the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at the top of the search page when a keyword search suggests suicidal risk. “A lot of ma jor sites have made a proactive effort to get info out about these resources,” said Luxton. “They have public service campaigns and announcements, celebrities on YouTube talking about identifying suicide risk, anti-bullying announcements. They are really using technology to help people get connected to help resources.” Zeller added that social media’s potential to prevent suicide is great because people are comfortable using it.

HOW HELP to

1 2 3 4

Do not leave the person alone. Remove any objects that could be used in a suicide attempt.

Call the U.S. National Suicide Prevention Lifeline.

Take the person to an emergency room or seek help from a medical or mental health professional.

NEED TO TALK? You can reach the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-TALK (8255) or visit its website at suicidepreventionlifeline.org.

“People have their own preferred ways of asking for help,” she said. “Some people are a whole lot more comfortable on Facebook than on the phone.” Overall, Zeller said the connection between social media sites and suicide prevention is the inherent relationship between social media and the people who use it.

“Social media sites all feel a sense of social responsibility for their users,” she said. “They really want to know what they can do when someone expresses that they’re suicidal online. “One of the things we always say is that people who are feeling suicidal almost always have some ambivalence. There’s always a piece of them that wants to live.”

65 | january 2013

If the Internet can pay our bills, take us shopping and keep us connected to every person we’ve ever met, why don’t we let it play matchmaker for us, too? ONLINE DATING has been a fixture in society since 1995, when Match.com emerged as one of the first dating networks on the Web. Although online dating has been met with some social stigmatization and varying degrees of acceptance, one thing is certain: Online dating is here to stay. According to a study commissioned by Match.com, today, one in five relationships starts online. From blunders to real-life fairy tales, Zeitgeist exposes online dating stories that are equal parts humorous, cringe-worthy and romantic. The following stories come from three women across the United States who were open about their online dating experiences and happy to share them with us. Names and identities have been changed in some cases to protect the young romantics included below.

A Heavenly Match

ARA WAS RELUCTANT to join a dating website. She was 25 and happy with being single. But her work friends urged her to give Match.com a try, especially since they’d already found someone who they thought would be perfect for her. “When my coworkers showed me pictures of Matt online, I thought he was cute,” she said. She also noticed his strong faith and admired that he “wasn’t afraid to be a true man of God and show it.” So she made a profile and messaged him, and within a few hours got a response. After a month of emails, a first date of ice cream eating and park strolling, and a few more get-togethers, Kara and Matt took their relationship to the next level. They made it official. Matt had suggested that he wanted to date someone only if he knew there was marriage potential, so the next step was a big one. Soon after, he proposed! They fell in love quickly and married seven months later. In March, they’ll be celebrating eight years of marriage — talk about a wonderful love story.

“

WHen my coworkers showed me pictures of matt online, I thought he was cute. — Kara, 25

66 | january 2013

Cupid’s Broken Arrow N THE SUMMER OF 2012, Christie, a 21-year-old Brooklynite, met Charlie, 26, for a drink after some casual courting on OkCupid. She had had her account for only a few days and was already getting dinner and drink invites daily. “I was only on OkCupid because my best friend made me a profile,” she said. The date went well and ended with a sweet, PG-rated goodnight kiss. Christie saw Charlie three more times that week, once for dinner and drinks, another time when he dropped by her work for lunch and a final time when he stopped by her apartment bearing gifts and cookies. “He’s cute, right?” she asked, showing me his profile. After that, things got weird. On what would be the final date, he started revealing dark and bizarre things about his family. Since she was leaving the country for an extended family vacation, she figured she would just stop talking to him. But when she returned, she discovered a number of unsavory Facebook messages and texts from Charlie detailing his disturbing and explicit desires and fantasies. This led Christie to dub Charlie the “crazy cupid man” and to promptly deactivate her OkCupid profile … better luck next time?

“

I was only on okCupid because my best friend made me a profile. — Christie, 21

Love BYTES

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly ON THE WEB’S DATING SCENE. by alison ives

What The Profile Didn’t Say ARTA WAS 22 when she first tested the waters of online dating with the site Plenty of Fish. She found many of the people on the site to be unappealing, so she decided to try OkCupid at the advice of her friends. She went on six different dates, and everyone seemed to have weird quirks that she just couldn’t overlook. “One dude had a really long thumb nail, like freakishly long, and didn’t play guitar,” she said. She said another guy was covered with tattoos and was part of the Communist party, which was simply not the type for the fun-loving, Obama for America employee. On one occasion, she met someone she was interested in, but the relationship fizzled when they encountered issues in the bedroom. Because dating profiles can often be misleading, Marta realized the importance of meeting the people and getting to know them before attempting to date them. “Online blurbs don’t say anything,” she said. She added that from now on she’ll be sticking to the guys she meets in person if she is looking for something serious.

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ONe dude had a really long thumb nail, like freakishly long, and didn’t play guitar. — Marta, 22

Tell us your story!

If you have any of your own endearing, silly or completely wild online dating experiences you would like to share, we’d love to hear your story. Email us at ZeitgeistMagUNC@gmail.com and please include your age and location. Be sure to let us know if you wish to remain anonymous.

67 | january 2013