You’ve Got One New Friend Request…Your Mom
Oct 27th
Your mom may want to be your pal, but should you let her see your Facebook page?
Laura Miller was recently sitting at her computer, checking the friend requests on her Facebook page, including an old family friend, the best friend of her boyfriend and an old high-school classmate. One more request surprised her – it was from her mother.
Miller promptly rejected the request. “I told her I’d have no problem helping her use it as long as she didn’t expect me to be her friend. So why is she adding me?”
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Miller’s mother is just one in the fast-growing trend of older-than-Generation-Y users on Facebook, the largest social-networking website in the world. There has been a 60 percent increase in users ages 35-54 on social networking sites in the past year alone, according to the New York Times. Females over the age of 55 now make up 1.5 million of Facebook’s users, up by 550 percent from six months ago, CNN.com recently reported. What this means is that more adults are joining Facebook, and often adding their children, and even grandchildren, as friends.
Whether Facebook users find these requests to be unwelcome or simply awkward, there is no denying that older relatives on Facebook are changing the family dynamic. Anne Collier, co-author of MySpace Unraveled: A Parent’s Guide to Teen Social Networking and Editor of NetFamilyNews.org, believes that social media is forcing us figure out how to communicate in a healthy manner in a different setting. “Social media are getting us all to think about things like presence, community, courtesy, and how to communicate and have relationships in and with a new environment,” she said.
Miller, 21, like many of the site’s original, college-aged users, refused to add her parents (her father tried to friend her also) because she believed it would allow them into a part of her life that they don’t belong in. “Facebook is an extension of my life with my friends, my life at college, and other stuff like that,” she said. “Those are things my parents are not, and really don’t have any reason to be, a direct part of.” Read the rest of this entry »
The Electronic Umbilical Cord: A New Way to Keep In Touch
Oct 27th
Constant text messaging keeps Gen Y and their parents connected
“Straight to boogie and tequila.”
Farrah Aldjufrie, a senior at the University of Southern California, received that text message last week from her father who lives in Bali.
“He speaks broken English because he’s Indonesian,” Aldjufrie says. “He was asking me about my birthday, and I told him I was going out with some friends. That was his response.”
Aldjufrie, like many in Generation Y, constantly contacts her parents through text messaging, about five times a day to her mom, and every other day to her dad.
“It’s the easiest way to keep in contact with my dad because he lives so far away. I can send him a text message, and if it’s really late on his time, he can write me back when he gets up,” she says.
Lights, Camera, YouTube: Changing Celebrity for the Web
Oct 27th
Since its advent in 2005, YouTube has bred a new kind of celebrity. But, can these online personalities compete with tried and true Hollywood stars?
| TOP 10 YOUTUBE VIDEOS: 1. Girlfriend by Avril Lavigne – over 125,428,485 views 2. Evolution of Dance – 126,311,388 views 3. Charlie Bit My Finger – 121,186,703 views 4. Don’t Stop the Music by Rihanna – 98,199,012 views 5. With You by Chris Brown – 97,863,761 views 6. Achmed the Dead Terrorist by Jeff Dunham – 95,082,506 views 7. Hahaha – 91,672,741 views 8. Bleeding Love by Leona Lewis – 89,575,443 views 9. No One by Alicia Keys – 83,413,733 views 10. Apologize by Timbaland ft. OneRepublic – 77,611,669 views |
In 1968, Walter Cronkite spoke out against the Vietnam War on CBS. “It seems now more certain than ever that the bloody experience of Vietnam is to end in a stalemate,” he told America. As a result of Cronkite’s address, American opinion of the war shifted overnight. Lyndon Johnson is rumored to have said, “I’ve lost Middle America.”
For millions of baby boomers and their parents Cronkite was considered an influential celebrity; someone who because of his years as a journalist could be trusted. As media continues to democratize, generation Y’s concept of celebrity continues to change. Today, with the advent of YouTube, becoming a celebrity is easier than ever. YouTube not only promotes existing celebrities, but it also breeds its own stars.
Although YouTube makes it easier to develop a fan base, no modern celebrity matches the authority had by Walter Cronkite. “Our concept of ‘celebrity’ has become so diluted,” said Adam Penenberg, a journalist and author whose book, “The Viral Loop,” examines companies that survive by going viral. “Today, there is no one celebrity that has this kind of power.”
From Backyard Blogging
to Front Row at Fashion Week
Oct 27th
Fashion Bloggers Break Down Traditional Obstacles
Tavi Gevinson, from Illinois, describes herself as “a tiny 13-year-old dork that sits inside all day wearing awkward jackets and pretty hats.” Proud of her unique style, she instructs others to “dress however you please and embrace rude stares.” Last year Gevinson launched Style Rookie, a blog devoted to fashion. A few months later, she sat in the front row at Mercedes Benz fashion week, alongside Vogue’s Editor-in-Chief Anna Wintour, celebrity fashion icon Victoria Beckham, and actress turned designer Sienna Miller.
As one of Gen Y’s creative and techni-saavy bloggers, Gevinson used her blog to land among fashion’s elite. While Gevinson’s case is quite extreme, she is not alone. This year blogging is the new black, and more teen bloggers are gaining opportunities and visibility in the fashion world.
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