Ryan Sjoberg

Composition 101/12

Lora Strey

10 December 2014

Social Media’s Racial Influence

            Throughout social media’s brief history, it has had many influences on us in all aspects of our life.  It has impacted us on what we think about politics, sports, and race.  Sciencedirect.com recently looked into a correlation between frequent Facebook users and their willingness to accept messages from strangers.  The messages they received from these people tended to be extremely racist and rude.  Hate groups and their members often capitalize on social medial because it connects them to people they generally would never have connected with.  This gives them the opportunity to grow their organization and influence other people to believe their racist ways.  People may ask “Well what can we do on social media to stop the racism?”  It’s not all that easy, but things can be done.  First, people can flag or report people who say racist things to try and get them off the social sites for good and second racist slurs are monitored by some sites and taken down immediately if they are used in any context.  Also, there is a young PhD student in the U.S. looking for ways to censor all kinds of hateful tweets, not just the racist kinds.  Some people even think social media impacts what we think about other races, those people are right.  People are naturally wanting to belong to something so if they see a lot of people they know being racist, they might start acting racist.  This is essentially peer pressure, the same problem we’ve been facing since grade school.  Racism is prominent pretty much everywhere, and we have to do our part to stop it as soon as we can.

Ryan Sjoberg

Composition 101/12

4 December 2014

Lora Strey

Food We Eat

Food ads on social media are everywhere.  You'll see them on the top, bottom, and sides of the webpage you are visiting.  “What We Eat” by Eric Schlosser is basically about how fast food is growing at, well, a fast pace.  For example, in 1970, Americans spent more than $6 billion dollars annually on fast food.  However, in 2001, they spent more than $110 billion dollars (Schlosser).  Many questions have risen about how fast food markets itself on social media, do what people say on social networks affect what we eat, and how recipes found on social sites affect what we eat. 

Fast food markets most effectively market themselves on Facebook by having a company “page” where people can “like” them on their own personal pages.  Anytime somebody likes their page, it shows up on all their friends’ timelines (Yale Rudd Center).  This is a perfect, free marketing scheme for these companies.  All they essentially have to do is create a page, which costs nothing, and millions of people could potentially see it.

What people say on social networks can potentially affect what we eat in real life.  When people take pictures of their food such as Starbucks, it might make people actually think about it and want to go out and get one.  Twitter accounts such as @Foodporn might make people want to eat what they post.  Also, recipes on Facebook can lead to people making foods from certain eating places making it free marketing for that establishment.  Marketing is easy for social media.

Feminist is a 21st Century Word

Darius Swearegene

Professor Stray

Comp 101

2 December 2014

Feminist is a 21st century word

Feminism is often portrayed in a negative light on social media. You can visit almost any social media site and see feminism bashing. The social site with the most feminist bashing is twitter. Twitter allows anyone to share their idea whether it’s hate or positive. Social media often portrays feminism in a negative way. Social media is an outline where any and everyone can express their feelings. You often see males bashing feminism on social sites. the article “ Feminist is a 21st century word” its states that those opposing feminism had made “Feminism a synonymous with lesbian”. By all means not all feminist are lesbian, the hashtag #Womenagainstfeminism was turned around into something negative. Social media helps promote ideology biased or unbiased. AS you look on social media you see that men are the one attacking feminism and some women support these actions. Women are very active online when it comes to feminism. The blog states “women are adopting the F word with far greater ease”. Not only are white women active in the challenges of feminism but women of color have joined the fight. Women are tired of being use as sexual objects and their taking a stand against such things. Women want the same treatment men get women make less money than a man doing the same job. Celebrities like Emma Watson  and Laverne Cox joined the fight when it comes to feminism they've  had a big voice. Social media helped celebrities help spread their ideals when it comes to feminism on social media and social media in general.

Work cited

Morgan, Robin. "Feminist Is a 21st Century Word." N.p., 17 Nov. 2014. Web.

College, Melanie Dostis. "'How the Media Failed Women in 2013' Viral Video Spurs Youth Discussion of Feminism." USA Today. Gannett, 12 Dec. 2013. Web. 04 Dec. 2014.

https://twitter.com/hashtag/womenagainstfeminism

"Portrayal of Feminism in Media Is Often Wrong." N.p., n.d. Web. 04 Dec. 2014.