Newsflash: Your Social Feed is Pushing Ideologies. Yes, that Includes Grandma's Facebook Post.
In this module, the theory of Marxism is introduced to describe how pop culture and media push forward ideologies, whether hegemonic, occluded, or oppositional. Through the video examples including Titanic, Good Will Hunting, Pretty Woman, The Matrix, and many more, these texts describe how the world might be seen by the average person.
As I was watching these videos, I wanted to take the chance to reflect on how my feeds were pushing any of these Marxism concepts. With movies, they are bound to have themes, issues, or ideologies demonstrated. They have to be spotted in a movie, or else why are we even watching them?
It's obvious that much of the content we see online has some sort of view, ideology, or stance, but I was interested in the "average Joe" content or content that doesn't seem to have a reading on it - but alas, it does.
In recent years, as TikTok has pushed forward content with its thousands of new users a week, these Marxism themes have appeared in the content we are consuming, even by the average little 10-year-old girl or granny TikToker.
Back in 2020 and 2021, several news outlets were covering the story of how TikTok (specifically the company that owns TikTok: ByteDance) seemed to be pushing skewed beauty content to users by featuring, showing, and pushing videos onto feeds that included creators who were seen as "attractive" and rich. This included creators that were fitting what ByteDance thought were markers of popular content, viral abilities, attractiveness, and what users of TikTok would want to see. This content included creators with petite/slim bodies, those who were white, or creators who seemed to be "rich," just by the setting of their videos (e.g. filmed in a location that seemed rich, like a huge house with a white interior, on the beach, on a boat, etc.). This content was being pushed to anyone and everyone, even if TikTok had the ability to conform to what the user was liking and interacting with. Every once in a while, users would receive content that was out of the norm from their feeds.
The Guardian - TikTok 'tried to filter out videos from ugly, poor or disabled users'
The Oracle - Through the looking glass: Tiktok pushes a skewed beauty standard to new heights—and onto teens’ screens.
Fashion Journal - Why the ‘that girl’ TikTok trend is more sinister than it seems
The Roar - TikTok's Beauty Algorithm's Reinforcement of Pretty Privilege
The Observer - Changing your face for your following: The dark implications of the TikTok ‘beauty algorithm’
Body Image Journal - The body positivity movement is not all that positive on TikTok: A content analysis of body positive TikTok videos
While quickly glancing through these articles, it was appalling to me what content was being pushed forward with its ideologies of what should and should not be on the platform. As I scrolled through my feed, I began to look deeper than what was on the surface. Trends are not just trends anymore, but they are trends because maybe the ideal creators are posting about them, and their content is being pushed to the forefront. As Dr. Stein mentioned in the module video, "[Marxism] is messages that subvert the dominant ideology that capitalism reigns supreme..."
Often, as social media users, we try to stick to trends by posting, reposting content, and taking part of the conversation. I often see so many video content creators try to take part of trends, but their videos do not take off. Maybe this is where I realize that social media really is a business with so many tactics to get certain things to trend or stay in the news.
A brief real life example that I came across on my feed was the video of a little girl on TikTok taking part in showing her "Sephora haul." This is a trend to show your shopping purchases from popular stores, like Sephora, in order to showcase how much money you can spend on products, or that you are purchasing high-end.
TikTok user @criselle873; 2023
This young girl can be seen opening her Sephora haul to match the popular content that is getting thousands of videos and likes on other creator's accounts. She is even using similar mannerisms and sayings like other content creators. Here we can she that this young creator is looking to take part in the "rich" ideologies, without even knowing, and it is all starting at a young age.
Down below, we see a video of a bigger content creator who is doing the exact same type of content, but is garnering more engagement (her video has one million likes, and almost 80 thousand saves). Again, this is an example of certain ideologies, such as wealth equals happiness, overconsumption is "fun," or I need to look like the popular content creators to get views.
TikTok user @sonya_styles; 2023
With these various examples, I was able to see that even the smallest of texts or artifacts can push Marxism, even with the average content creator or post. So next time we see grandma posting a quote from someone else on Facebook, maybe there are certain Marxist ideologies in there being pushed. It might be a good tip to be weary of the content you are consuming.
How have you noticed messages being spread on social media or on the news? Should content creators be more careful with how they jump on trends?
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteI have noticed messages being spread on social media. It is either something political or, as you've shown, act a certain way. These have always been annoying since most of the time I just want to look and discuss things with my family and friends as if we are sitting in the living room. However, their posts do influence me to look at something they have found or some idea that they had.
ReplyDeleteAlso, my kids don't have social media but they are being influenced by the same things that I see on social media because of their friends. Amazing how the digital and physical worlds are interconnected so tightly that, without having a way to be influenced directly, my kids still want to do the things that their friends are doing because of the online world.