This topic of this article is really important. I’m only beginning to understand.
https://www.vox.com/2018/8/3/17644704/sarah-jeong-new-york-times-tweets-backlash-racism
Fuck whales, save context. This article and others I’ve read related to the story (with a variety of views) of Sarah Jeong and others makes me hope that I learn fast enough how to educate my kids on context, internet literacy, consent, research, and critical thinking. Also, art critique skills could be useful, it’s the same questions: Who is the audience? What is the intent? How successfully was it executed? How else could it be interpreted?
The internet is scary. It’s also amazing. It’s all the things, and it’s embedded in my life.
I’ve been blogging since 2002 and posting photos of my babies and life on Facebook since 2009. Two things have given me pause lately. One, I sent a link of an old 2012 blog post to a friend and I noticed that in the post before it I had used the word “ghetto” in the title. That made me cringe. I was tempted even to change or delete it. But I didn’t; a reminder that language and understanding changes, that I learn and grow is a good thing.
Second, I was recently enjoying a fluff story trail of “Where Are They Now?” about memes and I noticed a majority of the images were of young people or children who are now—zip—adults. First, wow that was fast, kids grow up in seconds. And second, crap, what would Viv think at age 13 of some of the photos and captions out there of her at age three? Do I have a right to do that? Does she have a right to privacy before junior high?
Oh god, she’s going to have to go to junior high. Delete delete delete