Blog 2: Social Media Articles

Dustin Ginsburg                        

Eng 254, 035                       

Green

           

The authors and subjects of these articles each use social media to create communities and identities for themselves. In the interview of Bev Goodman by NPR’s Audie Cornish, Cornish facilitates the discussion as a platform for hashtag activism. Following the release of Ray Rice’s domestic abuse video that became widely seen, Bev Goodman sent out the tweet, “I tried to leave the house once after an abusive episode, and he blocked me. He slept in front of the door that night. - #Why I Stayed.” The use of this hashtag draws attention to the commonalities in abuser statements and creates an opportunity for discussion on the topic. The article by Erin Zammett Ruddy titled, “Fakebooking: Why I didn’t post this photo to Facebook” was posted on a parenting blog. The photo in question depicts her three kids smiling around a snowman they had just built. In reality though, Ruddy explains that the events surrounding the picture were not as it seems. The children were bickering, whining, and needy during the snowman’s construction. By posting the picture, she would be posting a lie, but by not posting the picture she wouldn’t be able to share that moment with her friends. Ruddy declared that she would continue to post pictures like the one in the article, but with a disclaimer-type caption that was honest and accurate. As a result of this approach, she can relate to other parents reading her blog on a more personal level. Kima Jones believes that writers and poets of color have been told there is no audience for their work because it must be directed towards the universal human, which she defines as code for white person. In Jones’ article, she went on to give examples of writers of color who have used social media to create and sustain language as well as connecting with people who may not have found them otherwise. One subject, Roxane Gay, was an author who in her debut novel An Untamed State thanked her Twitter friends for, “making procrastination worthwhile.” Jones then used this point to describe how she has formed connections and found meaningful work through Twitter, a form of social media that allows for her to have access to the communities her message is directed towards. Joseph Harris explained the idea that, “ones aims and intentions in writing are thus not merely personal, idiosyncratic but reflective of the communities to which we belong.” Social media has become a staple of our society and as a result, online discourse, such as the articles provided in the readings, accelerate the process of creating the language to be used in that community that becomes, “our language.” An online community that I take part in is Facebook. The kinds of discourse within this community include sharing news articles and discussing day-to-day activities with friends. Those functions along with other forms of discourse on Facebook, shape the site by providing an environment of open communication with friends that people want to be talking to.