The passage of Net Neutrality is a victory for Internet users everywhere, but particularly one for minority interest and rights groups. As Costanza-Chock discusses in her book, immigrant movements avoid main media platforms because “they’re going to tell their story their way,” meaning that the dominant culture that is portrayed by the media will fit immigrants’ stories to fit their own determined narrative of who they are and what they want. With the rise of the Internet and social media activism, these immigrant and other minority groups have taken their grievances online, using it as a communication platform to rally for their cause on their own terms and in their own words. Net Neutrality maintains everyone’s access to these sites, allowing these peoples’ voices to be as accessible as the main media’s, in theory.

With this accomplishment passed, I think that the next goal online activists can work towards is learning and mastering the viral culture of the Internet. Certain groups have already done so, but it is much harder for groups whose interests do not have a direct connection to the popular media to garner attention. I wrote an magazine article this past week for Her Campus UCLA that questions our generation’s online interests, pointing out that #TheDress debate and the rogue llamas in Arizona dominated the Internet on the day that Net Neutrality was passed, stealing the spotlight from what was supposed to be huge news. (http://www.hercampus.com/school/ucla/net-neutrality-thedress-and-llamas-oh-my) These things that tend to go viral are seemingly so random, that it is our job as Digital Humanists to study and hopefully learn what drives certain things to go viral over others. With this knowledge, civil activists can better understand the target audience they would like to reach with their campaign, and ideally spread a viral message that can lead to real social change.

One of the trends that went through this community of girls during my study was the #20beautifulwomen campaign, modeled after Saba Tekle’s book 20 Beautiful Women, which shares the inspiring stories of twenty women on their road to self acceptance, transformation, and the common bond of sisterhood. When a girl is nominated through a tag in another girl’s post, she must post a picture of herself in which she feels beautiful in, then tag twenty new girls in her own post and challenge them to do the same. The ultimate goal is to raise confidence and self-esteem among these women by getting them to see that they are beautiful. The media was quick to jump on this campaign, arguing that it could do more damage than good. “It just promotes self centeredness,” “what if a girl doesn’t get tagged by a supposed friend?,” “this is just an excuse to post a selfie and receive more likes,” “this will be a cyber-bully’s favorite trend of the year.” But the girls I followed proved these grievances wrong with flying colors: they wrote inspiring messages of support to boost confidence in the description and the comments and they would extend this challenge to all their followers no matter if they were tagged or not (some didn’t even tag). I don’t think the media understands a typical teenage girl’s struggles with self-esteem, it only understands promoting the idea of teens as self-centered. This campaign addresses this drop in confidence that occurs in teenage girls; it allows them to know that their struggles are heard and that their peers are there to support them through it, not tear them down.

I found a humorous, yet insightful video on YouTube that illustrates an interaction between a white man and Asian American woman, where he tries to ask her “where she’s from.” When she answers “San Diego…,” he goes on to “correct” her by asking “No, I mean where are you FROM… where are your people from?” Once she reveals her great-grandmother was from Seoul, he goes on talking about very stereotypical Korean/Asian things that he loves (“Oh I love Kimchi!”). The woman turns the conversation around and asks the man the same exact questions, then goes on to do equally stereotypical and caricatured British acts. The humor of the video, and the biggest statement from the video, comes from the fact that the man does not realize the racism in his actions, yet is offended and confused by the woman’s.

The most insightful piece this comedy sketch has to offer is a follow up clip of the actors reading the comments on the original video. A few of the commenters again fail to see the man’s original racism in his statements, stating that the woman’s acts were racist towards white people instead. Perhaps these people are unaware because this racism is imbedded in white culture; it is normal for some white people to think of themselves as the “original” Americans and to automatically view other races as foreign. They fail to see the racism in their own actions because the media treats racism as isolated acts committed by a few individuals. Luckily with the onset of social media, minorities are able to take their representation into their own hands and point out these flaws in our culture. One can hope that this new representation will translate to mainstream media, a platform that has huge potential to push societal change, and make our cultural stereotypes and racism apparent to everyone, not just the victims.

The concepts of moral panic and the rift between teens and adults is everywhere in society, but you would think that adults would be more cognizant of the phenomenon since it serves as a main plot factor in so many pop culture and entertainment pieces. Footloose, The Breakfast Club, Risky Business, Titanic, 10 Things I Hate About You, The Little Mermaid, the list goes on and on. I took a trip down memory lane this weekend and watched the 2003 version of Freaky Friday with Lindsay Lohan and Jamie Lee Curtis. These themes of moral panic and adult misconceptions were central to the movie’s plot. The movie does a good job of portraying the parent perspective versus the teenage perspective in regards to teenage culture, and the resulting conflicts that arise between the mother and daughter characters as a result. The movie takes it a step further, having the mother be a psychiatrist for her profession who as a result constantly tries to psychoanalyze her daughter as if she was one of her many troubled patients. Its only when the two mysteriously switch bodies that the mother realizes the real struggles of teenagers as a result of adult misunderstandings.

It’s curious that parents would continue this idea of moral panic, despite it being so prevalent as a topic of humor and unnecessary drama in much of our pop culture media. What keeps them from changing this trend? I’m going to switch to psychology mode as I attempt to speculate: it is common for people to worry when they are faced with something that is unknown or out of their control. Worrying is a defense mechanism, giving the person a sense of power over the situation. Parents feel like they have no control over their teenagers when faced with a new technology they themselves are just getting used to. Their natural reaction is worrying about the safety and control over their kids, but being the authority figure in this dynamic allows them to take their worries a step further as they act upon their fears and strengthen their control over teen’s actions.

However, a New York Times article (http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/21/business/media/time-and-newsweek-magazine-covers-catch-eyes-and-clicks.html?_r=0) introduces a third angle to view this topic. These images are shocking, yes, and people choose to share them specifically because of this fact. Shocking images garner more attention from viewers and help spread the publisher’s name—it’s a marketing tool. The article cites other provocative covers and the huge spikes in readership that they produced. For example, David Remnant, the editor of The New Yorker, is quoted saying “the provocative covers sold like hot cakes” Perhaps people choose to share provocative posts or photos online for a similar reason—they gain more attention and stand out on social media. So there are three points of view to look at breastfeeding photos (or any provocative post) on Facebook: the argument to block them is oppressive, they are not suitable for public, and they are a ploy to gain more social media following/attention. It can be difficult to make executive decisions about these kinds of issues that have multiple sides, but I believe Facebook made the right decision. When people feel oppressed, it is important to consider their point of view. If others don’t agree, they can simply choose to unfollow those that do.

Then, last year in 2014, an organization in England called Save the Children U.K. launched a campaign called If London Were Syria to raise awareness for children living under war conditions. A part of this campaign was the viral video Most Shocking Second a Day Video, which portrays a second a day in a young girl’s life under the circumstances of a hypothetical civil war that unfolds in London. The events portrayed in the video are said to be based on factual accounts of children in Syria. This campaign capitalized on the past viral successes of videos in the photo/second a day format, and developed a way to format it to the equally popular trend of raising social awareness through online and social media platforms. This combination worked: the video reached 23 million views on YouTube in just one week.

It is interesting to discover the different evolutions of online trends and digital technologies through this class. Having grown up during this Internet boom, I probably would have never made the connection that these digital developments branch off of each other, often going farther back than before the creation of the Internet itself.