Dear James R. Trebilcock,

The other day I read Salon’s article about your new Dr Pepper Ten Campaign. After investigating your Facebook app and watching your commercial, I have a few concerns that you need to hear.

Screenshot from Dr. Pepper Ten Facebook app

I know you’ve expected some sort of backlash from women. (“Oh those Feminists, getting their panties all up in a bunch.”) Let’s be honest: The campaign is overtly sexist, homogenizing women’s identities into the most stereotypical gender role possible and actively discriminating against it. There’s no denying this. According to Salon, you’ve said that you’re “not worried that [women will] be offended by the campaign. The drink and marketing were tested in six different markets across the country before being rolled out nationally, and women weren’t offended.” This is ridiculous. Women of all identities have long suffered from male-supremacy and this is yet another ignorant display of douchebaggery which essentializes women into a pretty little package set aside from (and below) men. This is offensive.

But having worked for years as a caregiver of mainly young boys, I’m especially interested in how messages of shaming – like that which your advertisements condone – affects our larger society. Judging from your ad campaign, it seems you have forgotten that there’s an increased suicide rate for LGBTQ teens, especially young boys. It’s rooted in bullying that these kids endure both in their community and on the Internet, and it is most often enforced through shaming. The most recent suicide was Jamey Rodemeyer, a 14-year-old boy in Western NY who was shamed at school and on the Internet. After his death, Jamey’s mother spoke out: “He hung around with the girls a lot, so then the teasing started happening like ‘Oh you’re such a girl or you’re gay’ or whatever and that bothered him for many years.” Similarly, 15-year-old Justin Aaberg committed suicide in May 2010 after he “suffered sexual and gender-based harassment by his peers, including harassment based on his nonconformity to gender stereotypes.” In both your commercial and your Facebook app, I read the following phrases: “What, are you a woman?” “Lose your skirt and step your game up,” “You’ve got 23 seconds to take out all the girly stuff,” “If it’s girly, shoot it” and “This shooting gallery is no place for a woman like you.” These statements are eerily similar to those which I imagined were used to oppress Jamey, Justin, and boys all over the country.

According to Salon, your ad for Dr Pepper Ten “will air on all major networks, FX and ESPN during college football games.” A lot of young people, just like those who shamed Jamey and Justin, watch these networks and interact daily with Facebook where they learn phrases that they apply both at school and on the Internet. After his son’s suicide, Jamey’s father said in an interview, “To the kids who are bullying they have to realize that words are very powerful and what you think is just fun and games isn’t to some people, and you are destroying a lot of lives.” This is exactly what your advertising campaign is doing – turning the shaming of boys and men into “fun and games.” Words are very powerful, especially to young children. Since you’ve had two boys yourself, Mr. Trebilcock, I would hope this would be a concern of yours.

You’re fostering a culture of douchebags – the aggressive, homophobic, anti-woman, hyper-masculine man from whom I can confidently say much of my daily street harassment comes. I’m really tired of this model of a man and I would hope that, as a father of two sons, you wouldn’t want to have a hand in reinforcing it, Mr. Trebilcock. Whether or not your intention is to create shock-value in your advertisements, I refuse to pardon the implications of your messages especially for children who consume them. They re-enact these messages in their daily lives not only as young people, but as grown men.

Your notion that “women get the joke” shows me just how ignorant you are. Maybe you used to be the same hyper-masculine jerk in your target demographic, but I would hope that by your age that you’ve gotten a grip, or at least some social awareness that tells you that this type of advertising is idiotic and unintelligent. Your excuse for the joke is that, “‘Is this really for men or really for women?’ is a way to start the conversation that can spread and get people engaged in the product.” That literally doesn’t make any sense. You see, I don’t get the joke because there isn’t one.

In conclusion, I encourage you to contact The LAMP and schedule a personal Media Literacy class for you and the entire Dr. Pepper Ten marketing team. Clearly, you have a lot to learn.

Kind regards,
Emily Breitkopf

Emily Breitkopf is a contributing writer to The LAMPpost. You can read more of her work on her blog, Kids and Gender and follow her on Twitter @emilybreitkopf.

Was this your cell phone ten years ago?

Recollections and thoughts on the pending 10th anniversary of the September 11, 2001 attacks are everywhere. It’s hard to visit a website, open a newspaper or listen to the radio without hearing about that fateful day which forever changed the United States and, in some way, the lives of millions around the world. All of this reflection is cathartic, healing, binding, and, fairly natural for our time, a lot of it is being done with the help of social media. But ten years ago, we didn’t have social media. Our collective grieving process is largely dependent on media that looked very different in 2001–and many didn’t exist at all.

How would 9/11 have been different if we had social media? The question is partly a lazy game of What If, but also points to a reassessment of how and why we respond to disasters and tragedies in an era of media saturation. In 2001, we didn’t live in a society where cell phones were a given, and even laptops were pretty novel. Now, smartphones are everywhere, making it easy to snap photos, video and audio and then post it all somewhere for the world to see. We tag photos on Flickr to make a crowd-sourced photo album, we can tell people we’re safe by updating a Facebook status, we can quickly spread both information and misinformation with Twitter. We get news and emergency alerts on our phones, GPS can help us locate someone, and you don’t need to paper a wall in Greenwich Village seeking information on missing persons. And then, we can easily support rescue and recovery efforts just by making a donation via text message, grieve together with online memorial spaces, and much more.

In contrast, when I was a college student at the University of Illinois back in 2001, I didn’t learn about what happened until at least an hour after the towers fell–and that was okay. I didn’t need to know everything instantly, as I feel I do now. For someone like me, who had never been to New York City or the Twin Towers, I was disconnected from the personal stories and the nature of the city. Today, how many thousands of faces, stories and voices would I have to choose from to help me understand 9/11 and the aftermath?

At the same time, I wonder what is lost by not knowing. In a way, I think that what happened inside the Towers, the Pentagon and the hijacked planes was something more complex than I could understand from an outside view, adding an air of sanctity to those experiences. Yet on the other hand, many remaining questions of what really happened should be answered, and, as we are reminded by recently released audio tapes, media can help.

I don’t know if the existence of more cell phone calls, texts, pictures or video would close the books on every 9/11 mystery or conspiracy theory, but based on how we react to news today, people would still be interested. Whether they would satisfy a voyeuristic curiosity, yield valuable information or do something else entirely will never be known. Of course I want answers about many things that happened that day, but, unlike ten years ago, there are some things I’m okay with not knowing.

–Emily Long
Follow The LAMP on Twitter: @thelampnyc
Follow me on Twitter: @emlong

To tweet is essentially to make public what would otherwise be considered private information. While some use Twitter to comment on a particular topic, share jokes, quotes or random insights, many Twitter users take the site’s prompt quite literally and share, with varying degrees of specificity, “what’s happening” in their lives.

The Twitter homepage includes a link titled “Privacy” which explains, in short, that if privacy is what you’re looking for, you’ve come to the wrong place. Fair enough, and indeed, rather obvious. Twitter is perhaps the least restrained and least complicated social media outlet. What you see is what you get. Even when we know that to be true, it’s easy to get comfortable—particularly if you use Twitter from a phone, and frequently. This, however, can lead to compromising the safety of personal information beyond what even the most loose-lipped Twitterer may have intended.

Many people who post their photos online are just becoming aware that a photo can contain information about where it was taken. Technology writer Kate Murphy addressed the issue of the geotagged photograph in the August 12th edition of The New York Times. In the article, Murphy explains how the default setting for devices that are GPS enabled is to attach longitude and latitude coordinates to any photo taken with that same device. This information does not show when the photo is uploaded or shared, but on many websites that data remains available to anyone willing to apply the very simple (and free) browser add-on technology it takes to locate the photo’s subject. According to The Times, Facebook does not upload such data and Flickr is working to disable geotagged photographs. Twitter is not the only site where photos containing geotags can be posted, but it does present a particular risk when photos are often accompanied by additionally compromising and up-to-the-minute information such as “Leaving my house” or “Out at dinner.”

It seems unlikely to me that I would be stalked. Anyone looking to break into my house would be seriously disappointed. Nevertheless, this particular privacy matter is a good reminder to double-check what I put online. For me, that means asking myself if what I share online is something I would be comfortable saying aloud in a crowded subway car. While others may have a more liberal take on what can be safely posted, everyone should have a line that cannot be crossed when it comes to maintaining privacy (and managing a public identity) on the web.

Fortunately, it is possible to disable the geotag setting on your smartphone or PDA. Still, doing so reminds me that if the information I post to the internet conceivably compromises my safety or the safety of people I care about, it probably isn’t worth it.

–Sarah Brown

Michaele Salahi getting friendly with Joe Biden

Now, aside from the obvious stupidity of publicizing pictures of yourself posing with leaders of the free world at a very exclusive party to which you were not invited, I have to say I disagree with part of David Segal’s criticism. He points out that by posting photos on Facebook, the Salahis erred by making public the traditional, time-honored Power Wall (i.e., physical wall of photos of yourself with important people). The Power Wall used to exist only in offices or homes, but not anymore. Years ago, if a photo was to be seen at all, it had to be printed, so the print itself was not a big deal. Now, choosing to print a photo indicates that it is something special, and so the pictures you display in private are carefully curated by you or someone close to you. For the purpose of striking awe in someone sitting across from your desk, a traditional Power Wall is still effective, but the days of owning your image are long gone. That client can walk out of your office, find you on Facebook or Flickr, and see any old picture they want; the word ‘authorized’ means very little. Your real power wall is on Facebook, and you demonstrate power by making sure you are not tagged in photos you don’t like. One would think this would be understood in an Administration which was put in place due largely to its wielding of social media.

While a large part of this has to do with social media and technology, another part of this has to do with media itself. One of the basic points of being media literate is understanding the power of imagery, which is something we generally take for granted. The Salahis certainly did. I have plenty of friends who have posted photos on Facebook from the time they met a famous actor, shook the hand of Barack Obama as he campaigned for President, and even one friend who snapped a shot of herself with the Dalai Lama, but the difference is that no rules were violated in the process. It’s really the very well-known context of Michaele Salahi’s shot with Joe Biden that makes it so inappropriate to share, and the fact that she shared it demonstrates idiocy, naivete, lack of foresight or all of the above. But if Biden–or any other White House officials who allowed personal cameras into the event–didn’t think that photo would turn up later, he was not much better.

–Emily Long

Now, a Florida student by the name of Katherine Evans is facing a similar predicament. Evans was suspended from her school for an alleged crime of cyberbullying after posting a rant about her English teacher, Sarah Phelps, on Facebook. But while Evans’ case is similar to Layshock’s, in many ways, it is even more outrageous.

According to The New York Times, Evans’ rant was triggered by her frustrations with Phelps for “ignoring her pleas for help with assignments and a brusque reproach when she missed class to attend a school blood drive.” She posted a short message on Facebook—a little heavy-handed but no worse than a complaint aired over lunch with some friends:

To those select students who have had the displeasure of having Ms. Sarah Phelps, or simply knowing her and her insane antics: Here is the place to express your feelings of hatred.

The response was minimal, and mixed; some students agreed with Evans, some defended Phelps. Evans removed the post after a few days, only to be notified two months later of her suspension. Now she is suing the school district to remove the offense removed from her record.

This whole episode reminds me of Gossip Girl, the CW’s hit show all about a group of ridiculously good-looking high schoolers at an elite Manhattan private school. The show is not only arguably one of the best teen dramas to ever grace our airwaves, but it also deals pretty explicitly with the issue of cyberbullying—after all, the show’s titular character is the author of a snarky blog that chronicles the lives of our favorite Upper East Siders, which fuels much of the show’s drama.

Case in point, the most recent story arch: a naive young teacher defies Blair Waldorf, a rich, powerful, and villainous brunette,by giving her poor marks on her English paper. Enraged by the grade, Blair declares war on Ms. Carr and sends a tip to Gossip Girl, accusing Ms. Carr of having an inappropriate relationship with a student (who also happens to be Blair’s best friend’s boyfriend, but that’s not really relevant here). After being turned in by one of her friends, Blair is expelled, her early admission at Yale revoked.

The point here is this: Blair falsely accused her teacher of something illegal with the intention of getting her fired. By all accounts, that qualifies as slander, whether she is saying it in a crowded lunchroom, printing it in a newspaper, or, yes, even writing it on a blog on the Internet. But Evans’ Facebook post made no allegations against Phelps, nor was her impetus for the rant malicious. In fact, it was completely reasonable. As a student, Evans felt neglected by her teacher and had every right to air her grievances. Expressing “feelings of hatred” was hyperbole at best, and tasteless at worst, but in either case, it certainly did not violate the school’s rules “against threats of physical violence, verbal threats, nonverbal assaults and disruption of the school’s function” that assistant director of the school district Pamela Brown noted in her interview with the NYT. What happened here wasn’t an incident of cyberbullying—it was hardly an incident of bullying at all.

The case here seems simple to me: Katherine Evans never should have been suspended. Add to that the fact that she’s only suing for a clean record and attorney’s fees—no monetary compensation—and the answer is clear. It doesn’t take Gossip Girl to solve this mystery.

But what are these Internet memes, and why is this one so popular?

The word “meme” actually comes from a book written by Richard Dawkins, a science author most well-known for his books about evolution. Memes in Dawkins’ work parallel genes in that they are replications, but instead of DNA and RNA, memes replicate cultural ideas or themes. The term “internet meme” is used much more loosely to describe anything from a catchphrase to a viral video to a questionnaire that spreads quickly throughout the Internet. Chain emails were the first evolution of Internet memes, but we’ve since graduated to more sophisticated products–Obama Girl was an Internet meme, as is the classic bait and switch prank, Rickrolling. It’s easy to write memes off as fleeting, sometimes annoying fads of the digital era, but I feel there’s more to them. After all, the Internet is a big place with a lot of users and a lot of content. To make your way through all of that to the point that you’ve saturated our cultural material as much as, say, LOLCats is nothing short of incredible.

There’s no formula for a successful Internet meme; indeed, most of them happen by complete accident, as I’m sure is the case with this most recent Facebook meme. But I think there’s something here that might’ve helped the “25 Random Facts About Me” meme take off. It’s easy. Many memes involve long lists of obscure questions; others involve combing through your iTunes library. I can only imagine that they are just as, if not more, mind-numbing to complete than they are to read. 25 is a big number, but random facts are a dime a dozen, especially when in regards to one’s own life.

But Facebook memes (and, I would argue, this meme in particular) are indicative of two of the most pervasive trends of our Internet culture that are two sides of the same coin–narcissism and oversharing. Both have been documented problems on the Internet, most notably by Gawker writer Emily Gould in this article for The New York Times, so I won’t belabor the point. But suffice to say, the Internet is now being used to fuel our culture’s self-involvement to the point of awkward. After all, it’s one thing to spill-all in the physical world, over lunch with a friend or on the phone with your mom; it’s another to do it on Facebook where using the word “acquaintance” to describe your friend list can be a stretch. And maybe we should all think twice before sharing our “random” facts with the world. After all, Girl-Who-Dated-My-Best-Friend’s-Roommate-Two-Years-Ago, I didn’t really want to know that last summer, you went nine days without showering. That’s kind of gross.

Most of them are surprising, so it’s definitely worth a look. A few have been referenced by us at the LAMP here regarding the offering of more and more free content by brands and artists. It appears that youth are growing more and more indifferent to brands, and the prospect of loyalty to one merchant isn’t so reliable.

However, the most surprising trend was their #3 in the list:

Facebook fatigue.

It appears that the once exclusively youth-focused social networking site has been overtaken by all the 30-somethings and their profiles. This happened as Facebook tried to capture more of the market, relaxing the once student-only restrictions. Our youth, being ever-resilient and adaptable individuals,  are choosing to stick with MySpace and Bebo.

I like that youth seek a social media and networking site all their own, but what I think is important to glean from this trend is their ability to accept and integrate new technology and media into their lives. This is a skill that their parents and educators should also have.  This way, adults can keep pace with the youth they care for and teach, and they can also keep the dialogue fresh.