> [https://hackmd.io/images/media/HackMD-neo-og.jpg\]
Reading Responses Set 2 - HackMD “I placed this brick a long time ago,”
is the new trend on Tik Tok. This is a metaphor for curating your
personal “For You Page,” or the page you see content on, by your
previously liked videos. Humans are becoming more aware of how social
medias track their interests and disinterests to use when presenting new
media to you. Well, we also built our computers memory “click by click.”
hackmd.io ###### tags: `CDA` # Reading Responses (Set 2) ## Reading
responses 5 out of 5 ### March 17, 2025 “I Built These Computer
Preferences Click by Click!” “I placed this brick a long time ago,” is
the new trend on Tik Tok. This is a metaphor for curating your personal
“For You Page,” or the page you see content on, by your previously liked
videos. Humans are becoming more aware of how social medias track their
interests and disinterests to use when presenting new media to you.
Well, we also built our computers memory “click by click.” While it can
be frightening to think of how websites use cookies to track our data
because our personal searches and likes we tend to keep reserved. But,
as an average 20 year old girl with little to hide, the convenience of
cookies and tracking data is tremendous. I love that I can be watching a
movie clip on Tik Tok, go to the search bar, type in “part 2 of clip I
was just watching,” and, like magic, the continued part of my movie clip
is there. Reading Robe Stoke’s “Online Advertising” chapter 11, I wonder
what type of payment models illegal sites like “TheFlixer” use. I have
little streaming services so I often use websites like “TheFlixer” to
watch media. There are tons of pop-ups, interstitial banners and
floating adverts that advertise sexual interactions or the sites like
“OnlyFans” on “TheFlixer” and other similar “sketchy” sites. It can only
be expected that when I go to watch something on “TheFlixer” with
friends, someone makes a joke about how these advertisements are coming
up based on what I look at on my computer, referring to third party
cookies. But if I haven’t looked at any sites related to the
advertisements I’m getting on “TheFlixer,” why are they always there? Is
it because they sketchy sexual sites are only able to promote themselves
on other sketchy sites? Often times, “TheFlixer” opens a new tab any
time you click any button with an interstitial banner that if you
accidentally click, leads you to a sketchy sexual site. Luckily, my
adblocker has kept this from happening to me. But I also wonder, why
does my adblocker work so well on some sites and not at all on others?
In fact, I have the same adblocker as my friend, and on my computer Hulu
still plays ads, yet on his they don’t! Overall, as someone who takes on
an “ignorance is bliss” mentality when it comes to having my data
tracked and what the consequences of that may be, I appreciate cookies
for the convenience they provide yet I still will decline them when
given the option. ### 03/24/2025 Why do Ratings, Reviews and Grades
Never Feel Quite Right? “I never give A’s in this class,” says one
teacher in almost everyone’s lifetime. It’s incredibly frustrating,
especially when you thought you are doing excellent on assignments only
to receive B’s or B+, just on the cusp of an A-. Reviews, even more so
than grading, is subjective, creating confusion among people, as they
have “varied responses to online ratings, including questions of
expectations and competency” (Reagle, 2015). One person may never give 5
stars or only five stars to the most perfect experience, while another
person gives five stars to any place that moderately fit their
expectations. The more funny (and frustrating) reviews I have seen are
on Tik Tok. Someone will post a video of them making, let’s say, a
cucumber salad. Then some people, hopefully joking, will comment “1/5,
what if I don’t have a cucumber?” In this case, those who are unfamiliar
with this (again, hopefully satirical) commentary, feel that their
“confusion is replaced with disbelief” (Reagle, 2015). Almost everything
that can be rated is done so subjectively. People’s experiences and
personal beliefs affect how they will rate a movie, their pain levels at
the doctor, and a product. A small child may have their first cut and
say its a level 10 pain, because it’s the most intense pain they’ve
felt. A teenager with endometriosis might say a broken bone is a level
eight pain because they’ve experienced a wave of incredibly painful
periods, one’s a man will never know the experience of. As well, rating
out of five and rating out of ten is hard. This causes people to do
in-between numbers, giving us essentially unlimited levels of review. On
tests like the Meyers-Briggs test, I feel like I’m not given enough
options on the scales that you respond to, because I’m often between
“indifferent” and “slightly (dis)satisfied”. When taking this test for
the first time, my brother kept telling me to be as extreme as possible,
because this would give me more accurate results. But, as an indecisive
person with anxiety over making final decisions, I constantly find
myself near the most neutral answer, so I’m given more of a mix of each
trait, which to me, seems accurate! Being given the option of decimal
points in rating (for example: reviewing a product as 8.5/10) somewhat
creates a paradox of choice. With unlimited numbers and decimals to
choose from on a scale of 1-10, we become more confused with our choices
and ultimately, dissatisfied, leaning away from ever giving full 10’s,
as we can always find something wrong with anything. ### 03/31/2025
Artificial Intelligence is Scary and Inevitable My favorite videos to
watch in elementary school were the ones where people stitched together
different speeches of a political figure, like Obama, and create a song
out of the snippets. I thought it was so funny hearing Obama or Trump
rap a song, even if you could clearly tell the parts were stitched
together by the words abrupt endings and different vocalizations. 10
years later, I could create a video of Trump or Obama rapping that
sounds completely real through AI generators without even needing them
to say specific lyrics of the song. It probably would have made me laugh
even harder as a kid, but I wonder if I would’ve been able to tell they
were fake, the same way I clearly knew the stitched together videos
were. A similar issue came up when I recently came across a video of
Putin and Trump holding hands intimately and I totally (embarrassingly)
believed it was real and showed my friend. Even if I think I have the
media literacy to detect what is fake and real, I don’t always,
especially when I’m just mindlessly swiping through Tik Toks. As an
average 20 year old, I’m sure many other people my age or younger have
similar issues. This especially becomes an issue with AI generated
celebrity images or tweets and artistry originality. An Open Source
website, Stable Diffusion, limited AI generated porn on their website
and made it more difficult to mimic other artists work. This sparked
controversy– “One user on Stable Diffusion’s sub-reddit said the removal
of NSFW content was “‘censorship,’” and…“‘To choose to do NSFW content
or not, should be in the hands of the end user…’” (Vincent, 2022). Does
limiting what we can do on AI (specifically on an open source site) a
restriction of our first amendment? Personally I don’t think so, but
maybe that’s because I have a lot of sympathy for the original artists
and the celebrities who are being altered by AI. The same way i wouldn’t
want someone to put my face on a nude body using AI, I feel bad for when
that happens to celebrities, especially with how wide-spread their media
can be. It reminds me of the episode of Black Mirror “Joan is Awful.”
The episode follows a woman, Joan, who mindlessly signed a Netflix
document saying they could use her entire life for the contents of their
TV show and she would be played by the genetic adaptation of Salma
Hayek, a popular actress. Joan is portrayed horribly in the show to the
point where both Joan and Salma Hayek want the show to end because it
makes them both look bad. Salma Hayek is horrified at seeing “herself”
do such crazy, evil and gross things on television. I imagine
celebrities feel the same way when they see themselves in AI-generated
images or videos doing or saying something they never did. This was
apparent during the 2024 election, when AI-generated images of Taylor
Swift supporting Donald Trump circulated media and Trump even promoted
those posts. This causes Trump-haters to dislike Taylor Swift and
Swifties to possibly vote for Trump because their favorite artist does.
Although I don’t care too much for this or Taylor Swift, I felt bad for
her and scared for the influence this would have. While I understand the
Stable Diffusion user’s concern of censorship and wanting to have the
ability to do what they want on their own terms, I agree with Stable
Diffusion’s founder, Emad Mostaque that you “can’t have kids & nsfw
in an open model” (as quoted in Vincent, 2022). Elementary school,
internet-nosy me would’ve definitely come across lots of AI-generated
videos and images. Some people believe its a parent’s duty to keep their
kids online activity censored, which I somewhat agree with, but I do
think websites and companies should have a similar expectation. For
example, PBS Kids website probably shouldn’t have ads for porn. Even
though Stable Diffusion isn’t specifically made for kids, they know kids
find their website, so it is somewhat on them to censor their content.
### 04/10/2025 “The Power of a Period” My worst anxiety-induced spiral
came from a text message that read “k.”. How can a singular letter and
period cause me so much fear? Well, I had been conditioned by my peers
and friends to take it as a sign to be scared, to know the other person
is mad. One of my closest friends in middle school, Rachel, could be a
bit petulant. She would often get angry at me and others over little
things and she had to make it clear to the other person that she was
mad. This usually manifested in texts and Snapchats. If she was mad, she
wouldn’t give you the silent treatment, but instead would respond to any
text with “K”, “ok.”, and a period at the end of every sentence and
respond to Snapchats with black screens. Then, the person who she was
mad at would have to send a thousand texts saying sorry, while she would
continue to text “k.” until finally you said you were completely in the
wrong and then she would forgive you and act like nothing happened.
Through this and other relationships in middle school, I learned “the
New Rules of Language,” as Gretchen McCulloh puts it. I knew that “lol”
acted as “a filler that specifically indicates that there’s some sort of
double meaning to be found” (McCulloh, 2019), “haha” meant you found
something enjoyable but not necessarily funny, “HAHAHHAHAHAHHBDUUDB”
meant it was pretty darn funny, and “I’M PEEING” didn’t literally mean
they were peeing, but that it was extremely funny. My brother did not
like that people used “lol” when they weren’t actually laughing out
loud, so he made his own acronym “NE,” standing for “Nose Exhale,” since
that’s peoples most common reaction to seeing something funny online.
While this language worked for me and my peers, and my older brother for
the most part, it created miscommunication between me and my parents. If
my dad ever sent me a text saying “We need to talk.”, my mind
immediately went into a similar spiral to receiving a “k.” from Rachel.
The capital letter at the beginning, the period at the end, it was all
too much. I would begin ruminating on how horrible of a person I must
be, what I could have done, etc. Then I would get on the phone with my
dad and he would say “Oh I just wanted to ask if you liked this
picture,” and I would feel stupid for ever worrying in the first place.
When it comes to talking to my parents, I like to call rather than text
so they will randomly receive a call from me in the day, and my dad
would get so paranoid that something happened to me and freak out (can
you tell we both have anxiety?). It got to the point where my dad and I
had to set rules for each other on text. He now has to tell me what he
wants to talk to me about instead of just saying “We have to talk.” and
I have to say “Can we call? It’s not urgent” when I want to talk. As
McCulloh recognizes, “Maybe I shouldn’t be over-interpreting hostility
or passive-aggression … maybe I should just be interpreting this with
the context of ‘I know this person is older and so they’re not actually
being passive-aggressive at me.’” While I knew my dad was never actively
*trying* to scare me, he had to learn that my anxiety didn’t always
allow me to recognize that. While having to write extra context to not
scare each other may seem like a lot of work to others, it provides
comfort for us *and* helps him learn more about modern, gen-z texting
styles. Meanwhile, if I type any sort of acronym or shortened version of
a word to my mom, even if she understands it, she makes me rewrite my
text without them because she wants me to be more experienced in writing
professionally. For example, one time I texted her “okay i ordered some
off of ur amazon cuz of prime, do u want me to venmo u or danny?” and
she responded “If you can resend that text with all correct spelling,
you don’t have to pay me back. And I’m not kidding.” She was not
kidding! Learning to navigate texting styles in this day and age and
among different age groups causes anxieties, develops stronger
relationships and even induces a nose exhale here and there. Words will
always have meaning, whether intended to or not. Our environments,
contexts and experiences help us guide those meanings, but it’s not
always a perfect match. ### 04/14/2025 The Return of the Flip Phone!
Trends always cycle back around- whether it’s low rise jeans from the
2000s coming back in style or flip phones. My dad looked at me like I
was crazy when I told him I liked using a digital camera over my iPhone
camera for pictures. Similar to the journey of Luddites, there was a
trend on Tik Tok awhile ago where people bought flip phones to bring out
with them rather than phones. I wonder how Steve Jobs felt about that!
Society’s likes and wants are like a pendulum swinging from efficient
and high tech to simple and “vintage”. We beg for Apple to make Facetime
a feature, to be able to make our own emojis, just to want a phone with
only texting and calling features a week later. Social Media and iPhone
usage has it’s pros and cons. In a reading from earlier in this class,
we found that social media can be incredibly beneficial for women to
feel connected to their peers socially. I know for me personally, social
media can play that role, but I’ve definitely felt the effects of lower
self esteem from seeing the “‘curated lives of my peers with me wherever
I went’” (Lane, as cited in Vadukul, 2023). It feels almost unnatural to
see only a curated version of people’s lives, but it can also serve as a
“romanticization” of my own life when I look at my account. While I can
appreciate the Luddites, I feel bad for them because as Lola Shub
discusses in the article, phones are pretty much essential to life now,
especially as a college student. I need mobile ID to get into my
building, Duo Mobile to authenticate my Student Hub (every. single.
time. I sign in), and like Shub mentions, “‘I can do things easier’”
(Shub, as cited in Vadukul, 2023). It is nice to not worry as much about
“sketchy” neighborhoods or getting lost because so many peers and family
members have my location. It is nice to be able to remember an event 10
years later because I had my camera on me that day. It is nice to be
able to check my Email on the way to class if I forgot to check my
computer that morning. Phones are easy and efficient. Should efficiency
always be the goal though? Shub pulls from her own experience- “I feel
like I’m not trying as hard anymore. When I had the flip phone, I had to
put in effort to get to places, to talk to people…Now it’s easy to do
things” (Shub, as cited in Vadukul, 2023). It is nice that tasks are
easier to do, but it also causes a lack of critical thinking, empathy,
and connection to others. Through texting, we feel much more comfortable
making “loose” plans that can be cancelled day of. With apps like
“Google Maps,” we don’t have to be as aware of our surroundings. Phone’s
almost give us an excuse to not be as humane, which I believe the
Luddites feel as well. I appreciate all the bus rides I had to take
without a phone, writing down specific instructions on a piece of paper
on how to get from one side of San Francisco to another. I had to pay
close attention to the outside of the bus window, to make sure I got off
at the right stop. This taught me about my city, it’s layout, the
culture of different neighborhoods, the bus routes and schedules, etc.
It made me appreciate San Francisco more and helped me adapt to new
situations. If I did get lost on the bus without a phone, I had to find
my own way out and I always was able to. I think it’s important for
everyone to have a period of their life like that, where you have to
learn skills on your own and think critically. My family has such
different viewpoints on technology. I would consider my brother a
“Never-Better” (Morrison & Gomez, 2014); he likes the ease
technology provides and is excited about it’s inevitable improvements.
He understands technology, likes it, and is able to use it to his
advantage in school, work, and life in general. My mom is definitely
more a “Better-Never” (Morrison & Gomez, 2014); She doesn’t like the
mental health effects it can have, especially one’s she’s seen manifest
in me. She also doesn’t take much time to learn and understand
technology, and prefers “classic” ways of doing things (for example,
using a thesaurus rather than looking up synonyms for words). My dad
falls into the “Better-less” (Morrison & Gomez, 2014) group; In his
career, he was able to take advantage of the rise of technology. Now, he
sees more and more of the mental health risks it imposes and even
physical toll it can have on his body. He is older now, trying to take
better care of himself, and is learning more about technologies effects
rather than technology itself.
