Even though it’s black today (or perhaps because it is), stop by Wikipedia to check out their call to action. Share this article. Join the conversation, learn more and take a stand and show Congress you care about an open Internet.

January 1 – March 31 AND April 1 – June 30: General Mills “Big G Cereals”

This broken commercial ruled the LAMPlatoon arsenal for a full six months, and with good reason as the marketing of cereal–to children and adults–continues to be a hot-button issue. This commercial, aimed at parents, skews facts to tout the nutritional value of cereals like Trix, Cocoa Puffs, Cinnamon Toast Crunch and Lucky Charms. In truth, all four of these cereals are among the least healthy cereals on the market, and the most advertised to kids. Read more about it here.

July 1 – September 30: OMG Mayhem!

LAMPlatooners took issue with how All State portrays women and teens in this commercial, but they went about breaking it a unique way. Putting themselves in the video, they addressed both sides of the argument on whether or not this is using stereotypes in an offensive way. What do you think? You can also read more about the video here.

October 1 – December 21: Dr. Pepper Men

In probably our most controversial LAMPlatoon video so far, we took apart a commercial for Dr. Pepper Ten. The entire marketing campaign, including this commercial and a notable app on Facebook, is based on the idea that this diet soda is not for women, and leans heavily on degrading stereotypes about how both men and women should act. Read our open letter to the marketing team here for more opinion on what’s wrong with Dr. Pepper Ten’s advertising strategy.

And the most-viewed LAMPlatoon video for all of 2011 is…here!

Support another year of LAMPlatoon when you give $11 for 2011!

LAMP students made something special just for donors

LAMP staff aren’t the only ones who appreciate your $11 gift to keep our free programs running–our students are grateful too! Without your help, they might not be able to explore how to use and create podcasts, blogs, documentaries, news broadcasts, commercials and more as they get ready to thrive in a world where digital literacy is not optional, but crucial. So, they made a special video just for donors to our $11 for 2011 campaign! Once you make your gift, you’ll get a link to the site, and meet the young people who depend on your support. Click here to donate now!

LAMP students watch their finished video pieces

When you give $11 to The LAMP during our Annual Appeal, you’re supporting what we call ‘lightbulb’ moments–when a student lights up with revelation and empowerment at understanding how media shape the way we live. LAMP facilitator Jules Beesley describes one such moment with middle-school students while remixing an ad for the war video game, Battlefield 3:

“One group added to the commercial the text, “People can’t dodge bullets!” A few boys in the room replied, “Yes they can!” We worked hard to deconstruct this myth and explain the reality of warfare. I spent a good amount of time trying to get them to think about what is not being shown in a commercial like this: blood, bodies, suffering, pain, death. Many did not know that there are real wars being fought right now. Some students thought wearing a bullet-proof vest made soldiers invincible…These students had not spent much time examining how their views on violence and war have been shaped by media. They have been thoroughly desensitized to violence. It’s been both challenging and gratifying to help them begin to question their assumptions.”

This is just one example of how LAMP programs fill a void in learning, but lightbulb moments can’t continue without your help. All we’re asking for is $11–for you, maybe that’s one less cocktail at a holiday party, or a subway home instead of a cab. For our students, it’s an investment in their future. When you make your $11 gift, you’ll be added to an exclusive mailgroup to receive advance notice of upcoming public workshops, and news about how your gift is working through the year. Make your $11 gift right now!

However, none of this would have been possible without the support of people like you. When you make a gift to The LAMP, we take your investment seriously and turn it around to make a big impact on our programming.

We’re honoring our successes in 2011 by asking just $11 from you to help us keep going and growing. For you, that might mean one less cocktail at a holiday party, or taking the subway home one night instead of paying for a taxi. For us, it means we can keep bringing our programs right to the doorsteps of youth, parents and educators throughout New York City, and at no cost to participants. Click here and show your support with $11 for 2011!

Participants in The LAMP's podcasting workshop with MOUSE. Photo by mousesquad

MOUSE and LAMP Podcasting Workshop November 2011 by MOUSE Squad

You can read more about the event and other upcoming UnPlugged events on MOUSE’s blog, TheWire, and see pictures of students in action on Flickr.

Follow The LAMP on Twitter: @thelampnyc

Word cloud of how teens describe the way people act online, from Pew Research Center's "Teens, Kindness and Cruelty on Social Networking Sites"

Bullying is a problem. Not just cyberbullying and not just bullying among teens; nor is bullying the unique provenance of any particular social, racial or gender demographic. At least, that’s what I’ve gleaned from “Teens, Kindness and Cruelty on Social Network Sites,” a report released today by the Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project. The report that 88% of the surveyed teens said they had witnessed some kind of online bullying activity us certainly cause for alarm, but also of great concern is that 69% of adults using social media also reported seeing meanness and cruelty online. While 8% of the teens reported that they been bullied online, 13% of the social network-using adults in the survey reported that they themselves were the target of mean behavior within the last year. Cyberbullying: It’s not just for kids anymore.

Not that it ever was, which brings me to one of the most fascinating aspects of the report—the term ‘cyberbullying’ is used exactly once throughout the entire document. As noted by the study authors in the introduction, “Understanding bullying and what we call ‘social media meanness’ has gotten more complicated even since we began this project just under a year ago.” It certainly has. Amidst a tragic sea of teen suicides, ‘cyberbullying’ has become a hot term in the news media and among advocacy and policy groups, but as the conversation widens, the distinction between cyberbullying and bullying becomes pretty redundant. Is bullying on a social network any more or less hurtful than bullying on a playground? More importantly, why bother qualifying feelings of humiliation and pain? Using the ‘cyberbullying’ term implies a newness to the behavior, but the notion that new media somehow makes it slicker or more newsworthy is damaging. Just ask those 13% of harassed adults—bullying is a practice we have formed and tolerated, if not encouraged, for generations. The Internet may offer a new avenue for the cruelty, but so did the telephone, and I’ve (thankfully) never heard anyone refer to tele-bullying. Nor am I aware of any policy roundtables about crank calls, egged houses, rumors, flaming bags of poo on doorsteps, wedgies or swirlies, all of which are staples of the bully’s toolkit. The report’s choice not to use the ‘cyberbullying’ term, together with its inclusion of findings related to other forms of bullying, shifts focus to the issue of bullying altogether. This offers a more balanced–and, in my opinion, truer to life–snapshot of bullying in our society, which can hopefully lead to a more holistic approach to an evolving, complex issue.

Going through the rest of the report, I was relieved to read that parents are getting more involved in the digital lives of their children. 98% of parents with online teens have discussed what is and is not appropriate behavior online, and 87% of parents talk with their teens about what they do on the Internet. This suggests that more and more, parents and their children are adapting and growing together in a digital landscape, rather than becoming more isolated. Whether someone spends ten minutes or ten hours with the Internet on a daily basis, the presence of a perceived role model and confidante is integral to dealing with the experience of cruelty and meanness.

So, as before, bullying is a problem, for young people and for adults. Perhaps the Internet has made it easier to measure, by quantifiable counts of profiles taken down, photos posted, occurrences of fraud, YouTube fight videos, ‘likes’ and thumbs-down votes. I hope the study helps people realize that we can’t ask our kids to treat each other nicely online if we aren’t equally vigilant about how they treat each other offline. As anyone who has been bullied can attest, being told that “it gets better” is not so very helpful, and as the study shows, it’s not necessarily true. We have to demand, from ourselves and others, to be better.

Check out The LAMP’s free Guide to Developing Healthy Digital Relationships.

–Emily Long

Follow The LAMP on Twitter: @thelampnyc

Follow me on Twitter: @emlong

Dr. Katherine Fry and WWW's Shannon Sullivan recording Katherine's presentation for Globaloria

Tonight, November 8 from 6-7pm EST, LAMP Education Director Dr. Katherine Fry will join Globaloria’s Master Class webinar for educators for a special question and answer session on News Literacy. The webinar is open only to educators within the Globaloria program, but fear not! You can still check out Dr. Fry’s video about how to evaluate information you find online, using coverage of the ongoing nationwide Occupy protests as a focus.

If you’re not familiar with Globaloria, this is a great time to learn more–especially if you’re an educator. It’s a program from the World Wide Workshop and teaches how social media and gaming can be used to enhance learning, innovation, entrepreneurship and an understanding of the world in economically disadvantaged and technologically under-served communities. The LAMP is proud to be working with Globaloria in helping educators and students gain the digital and media literacy skills they need to thrive in a digital landscape.

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.