Communities found within eSports and Twitch

At first glance, you would think that video games would keep people from being sociable and hinder how they project themselves in public. However, the emergence of eSports and twitch.tv over the decade has proven that people can build relationships, connect, and even make a living off of being involved with video games and other forms of media.

Don't believe me? Then check out this video from a Twitch stream that made me feel both welcome and valued: LudwigAhgren plays Pokemon FireRed, Randomized Nuzlocke Challenge

This was a playthrough spanning a couple of weeks where Ludwig, the streamer, interacted with his chatroom by nicknaming Pokemon he would capture after us. However, there was a catch. If the Pokemon were to fall in battle, that user would be banned from chat until the run was completed. Over forty people were banned until the run was accomplished with my Pokemon shown in that clip achieving the end goal.

So why am I talking about this? Well, it is a way for passionate gamers such as myself to build relationships with other users across the world who share the same interest. I constantly go on Twitch when time allows it and watch a variety of streamers because I'm either interested in the game they are playing, am friends with them, and/or want to support their channel. In a couple of instances, I have actually met a few of the streamers I actively watch at events. Which leads to my next point, eSports.

For the uninitiated, eSports are focused on competitive video games. These games can range from popular shooters such as Halo to the community I have been involved with for four years now, Super Smash Bros. Melee. The Melee community has been a whole different network of people I have connected with over a game from 2001. The most recent eSports festival I attended was Shine 2018 at the Seaport World Trade Center in Boston in August (see the video below for an idea of what it was like).

Shine 2018 was where I got to meet up with Ludwig and other members of his chat that I had connected with other the weeks. I thought it was great to interact in-person because it allowed us to connect more rather than just Ludwig himself reading off our messages in Twitch chat and trying to interact with us all. Shine also let me connect with other attendees and grow my network within the Melee community. After graduation, I want to try and stay involved with eSports the best I can even with a full-time job. With enough experience in the real world, I may consider pursuing a Marketing & Sales focused eSports job to stay active in the industry.

I hope this post was a good read to anyone curious! I'm more than happy to discuss it more with any comments.

Social Media and Toxic Communities

To stay on topic with online community, I wanted to do research on some toxic communities online.  I was talking to a friend about where to find a good example, and he pointed me to Reddit.  Against my better judgement, I decided to dig around and see what I could find.  It didn't take long for me to run into a group that was so toxic, it scared me.  They were called Incels. 

Now, I'll admit.  I couldn't really explain what an Incel is, but from the short time I was on their page, it was not a happy, loving place.  Most of the users who identified as an "incel," were angry at the world, and particularly blamed women for all their problems.  This is a understatement.  Most members of the incel community hate women.  I saw in some cases a few members even advocated for sexual assault, which is when I decided to click off and vowed never to return again.

Perhaps Reddit gets a bad rep.  But from what I have seen and heard, it seems as though this is where most people can go to spread hatred towards groups of people.  One story I found on The Washington Post, titled "48 hours inside the Internet's most toxic community," only confirms that the toxicity of Reddit can be somewhat widespread.  The author spent 48 lurking in the section, r/S***RedditSays, a group devoted to shame offensive post on Reddit.  In short, members of SRS take posts that are offensive and re-post it with shaming comments to the original author of the post.  The strategy is to "fight fire with fire," which generally results with even more hateful discussion between users, almost negating the originally intent of SRS.

I am not on Reddit, nor am I on Facebook or Instagram, so I have no way of really comparing each, so I guess my question would be how do those Social Media outlets compare with Reddit in terms of toxic communities?  And does this concept of anonymity help give rise to hateful communities?  

Facebook's Growing Digital Graveyard

It’s not my intention to gloss over Technological Determinism, the Social Construction of Technology, or Mutual Shaping. That’s what our week focused on. But I wanted to share something else. Something morbid. It’s a fact that I read about a few years back.

Facebook is full of dead people.

There’s no recent estimate as to just how many Facebookers have ‘liked’ their last post on the site before logging out forever—both digitally and physically—but the number is likely quite large. Back in 2012, there were over 30 million dead users, their accounts silenced forever. According to some estimates from back then, as many as 400 facebook users were dying per hour. These days, the number is much larger—with estimates as high as 8 thousand per hour. That’s a lot of silent profiles. It makes you wonder how long it will take before Facebook becomes a mass digital graveyward.

I wouldn’t get too worried, though! Things aren’t as morbid as they seem.

Facebookers aren’t dying off at an accelerated rate. There are just so many users now (2.3 billion, in fact—almost one third the world’s population), that the numbers look larger than they really are. And as far as I’ve read, Facebook has no plans for deleting these digital grave markers. They don’t go anywhere, so they build up, becoming more noticeable.

Do you think these accounts should be closed? It’s strange to think about getting a notification about a deceased friend or loved one’s birthday. Or the site grabbing an old photo of you and them and showing it to you, years later. There’s something about the automated nature of Facebook that makes its attempts at connecting people—especially people who have passed away—almost cold and calculating, like trying to foster human love through an algorithm.

Personally, I think these profiles should be de-activated, and finally put to rest.

Are people addicted to getting likes?!

            Yes I know that this topic was in one of the examples on Moodle, but when I saw this I knew that I had to write a post about it because this is something that I am very passionate about. Why am I passionate about this? Well because I feel that YES people are addicted to getting likes, people feel gratification if there post gets a certain number of likes, and people feel insecure when they don't get a curtain number of likes on a post. Honestly I think that is very sad, because people should not care how many likes that they get, they should just be happy to share there pictures or posts with there friends, and not feel upset if they don't get a lot of likes.
             Another part to this which makes it even more irritating to me is that there are actual apps that you can download and subscribe to that will generate "fake" likes. I have seen some of my friends use them, and it amazes me that some people feel that likes are that important that they will use apps to make it look like they got more likes then they actually did.
               There are so many different parts to this one point about the gratification of likes on social media, and whether or not people are addicted to them or not. But this definitely reminds me of the reading that we did in class which was the reading about the ten tips for a good digital life written by Mark Deuze, and one of the tips is "don't over do it", and by using these apps to get fake likes that is definitely considered over doing it, because you feel that in order for you to be self gratified that you need all those extra likes.

Connection & Disconnection in Vacationland

I spent this past weekend hiking the Cutler Coast loop in northern Maine. Most of the time, I had absolutely no signal and was completely cut off from the network. This got me thinking about our class and our reading, most specifically boyd's Participating in the Always on Lifestyle.  While hiking around Cutler, due to inability to access the network, I wasn't (always) on. I used my smartphone, primarily, to take pictures. So. Many. Pictures. I had a blast. 

Thinking about connection and disconnection, I came across the article 4 Reasons to Take a Break from Social Media that Don't Have to do With Your Data. The Bustle piece nicely breaks down many threads of influence including social media's impact on happiness, how it can prioritize instant gratification, and at times breed toxic behavior. While social media affordances are copious, sometimes a break helps to highlight both the benefits and drawbacks. 

Considering our class reading(s), and the Bustle article linked above, what's your take on taking a social media break? If you have disconnected from the network, what social media benefits and drawbacks did it help you see with a more critical eye?