Bemused

1. bewildered or confused
2. lost in thought; preoccupied
3. mildly amused, especially in a detached way (Dictionary.com)

Concepts

• early-mover advantages (“first”, preferential attachment, trending)
• information asymmetry (reviews)
• semantics (“4/5 stars, save my son’s life”)
• choice, Fredkin’s paradox, & paradox of choice
• Implicit Association Test (IAT)
• context (collapse & hypotextual)

What is “comment”?

. . .

• reactive
• asynchronous
• short
• inherently contextual

First comment badge

Preferential attachment, anchoring, & herding

Trending

Though YouTube removed trending page in 2025-July.

e.g., Thunderclap

11 is one louder

How much does it hurt?

Stomach pain: “I’m an 8 again”

Universal Pain Scale

Replacing stars

In popular culture

• Professors Read Mean Reviews
• One Star Reviews, VICE Youtube
• Beach Too Sandy, Water Too Wet

Fredkin’s paradox

Fredkin in politics

Paradox of choice

Hunger games

IAT explained

IAT controversy

• “automatic preference for …”
  • may not mean bias, could mean salience
  • only weakly predictive of some behavior; no better than other measures
  • changes with familiarity with test; can be faked

You can demo it by here, and quickly skip survey questions: https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/

Where else might we such differences online??

Weiner’s lewd picture

Questions

• Have you seen other examples of “oops”?

#CancelCorbert

Satire – out of context?

What bemuses you??

• Is there a social/cultural phenomenon that amuses/confuses/bemuses you?
• Can others offer an explanation?

Wrap up

• Create two high-order questions about:
  • early-mover advantages (“first”, preferential attachment, trending)
  • information asymmetry (reviews)
  • semantics (“4/5 stars, save my son’s life”)
  • choice, Fredkin’s paradox, & paradox of choice
  • Implicit Association Test (IAT)
  • context (collapse & hypotextual) ▶