Blog

Social Media/ Well Being Balance

Social media balance and well being is an important issue that is going on around the world right now. There are many articles that talk about these issues like an article from the website “Agora Pulse” about the importance of maintaining a balance between your life and social media. The articles explains how it is…

by joeyrbc34

Image Manipulation

Images from around the world and across the generations are being manipulated and photoshopped to make them appear as things may have happened differently than they really did. As an example, significant moments in history are having images changed to make it appear as though things happened when they did not.   Individual people manipulate their own images to make themselves look skinnier or prettier. From the website, Bleepingcomputer.com1, you can see the fake image of Tourist Guy standing at the top of the Twin Towers with an airplane photoshopped in as if it was the flight that hit the towers. It is a sick twist to a vacation photo which makes fun of the horrific events on 9/11. The same goes for celebrities that are obviously photoshopped. Some celebrities do the photoshopping themselves to appear, younger, skinnier, less wrinkly, or more fit. Other celebrities, like Zendaya and Meghan Trainor get angry at publications that alter their images and call them out on it.2

            To photoshop an image that distorts the truth is not a good thing. Like, when a celebrity distorts their image to look skinnier or younger, it sends a bad vibe to the fans that follow that celebrity. It says that you should not be happy with your looks and you need to always look skinnier. This causes many to start having eating disorders. The impact image manipulation has on body image is detrimental. “Critics of the beauty industry in the U.S. and Europe have long opposed radical photo retouching because of the effect it can have on the psychology of women, men and especially teenagers.” 3. When the photoshopped celebrity is seen in person, the real-life person looks nothing like the images transmitted on social media. It is sad to think that some people are not happy in their own skin to just be pictured without photoshop.

1 https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/forums/t/724261/is-it-live-or-is-it-memorex/

2 https://www.seventeen.com/celebrity/g19556064/celebrity-photoshop-fails/

3 https://www.montecatinieatingdisorder.com/about/articles/impact-of-retouched-photos-on-ed/

Intellectual Property and The Music Industry

YouTube and other online sites allow people to post videos and songs of musicians whenever they want. This is great for promoting the artist and making them more well known, but it does nothing for getting them paid when they own the rights to the song or video. The laws currently are so outdated, that they do not cover the current growth of the internet and social media, which allows people to share videos and songs readily.  The artists own the intellectual property of these songs or videos. They should be compensated every time they get played, but they do not when the song or video is shared many times over on a social media site like Facebook or on YouTube.  The laws are changing and as reported by CNBC.1 The European Union ruled that YouTube cannot be sued directly for these copyright infringements. The laws are changing so that social media sites can put filters in place to ensure that copyrighted material cannot be played on the sites. The company themselves cannot be held libel, if a user of the site posts a piece of copyrighted material. Going forward, as the law gets enacted, the sites will have a set amount of time to remove any copyrighted material. Artists will start to get compensated for the playing of their music or videos, as they should. What good is it to get something copyrighted, if the laws do not protect you when someone infringes on that protection.

1 https://www.cnbc.com/2021/06/22/youtube-secures-a-big-win-in-the-eu-over-copyright.html

Virtue Signaling in Media

Many corporations are backing social platforms to gain more followers. The general public is not watching as much television, which means that the corporate world is not in front of as many viewers for their commercials. Companies have to start new campaigns to bring around brand loyalty. Some companies focus on greenhouse effects, carbon footprints, or recycling. Companies, like Nike, have turned to more relevant social issues of our times. For Nike’s 30th anniversary of their “Just Do It” campaign, they created a commercial1 to show that no matter what obstacles you face or what you believe in, you must believe in yourself more to stand up for your own beliefs. The main person in this ad was Colin Kaepernick. Kaepernick was made famous as an NFL player that kneeled during the playing of the National Anthem to raise awareness for Black Lives Matter and Police Brutality. He risked his entire career and his livelihood to stand up for what he believed in. Everyone in that commercial has some form of discrimination that they face and Nike is promoting that they should face it head on and move forward. The message is that you must believe in yourself and then others will believe in you.

I was very impressed with this ad campaign. The messaging is there along with the content of the video to show the viewer that no matter what life throws at you, you can overcome it. It is a powerful message that resonates with me because I myself have faced some pretty serious challenges over the past 2 years and I am working hard to overcome them.

Here is a link to the Nike 30th Anniversary Colin Kaepernick Commercial.

1 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lomlpJREDzw

Get new content delivered directly to your inbox.

Design a site like this with WordPress.com
Get started