Tip of the Hat: Social Media Edition

Alice Ramos, Entertainment Editor, Photographer

Snapchat
Narayanasamy: What I can’t stand is going through people’s boring stories. They’ll be like five minutes long. No one is that entertaining.
Ramos: It’s like when people go to a party and start snapping every second of it. I highly doubt 30 minutes of funny things happened at that party.
Narayanasamy: I was talking to my dad and trying to explain Snapchat to him. As I scrolled down he saw the little news site circles and asked me what they were. When I showed him, he was like, “What type of horrible news is this?”
Ramos: It’s all trash.
Narayanasamy: How many people genuinely get all their news from Snapchat? When you think about it, it’s probably a lot of people. It worries me that their main source of information on current politics is Snapchat.
Ramos: Well, I like how sometimes they interest you on reading more about the topic. Some of them are very inaccurate and just provide gossip though.
Narayanasamy: I don’t trust anything anymore. Luckily, Mr. Brown showed us all these fact checking websites you can go to and check if the news is real or biased. One of them is Politifact.com. Take notes guys!
Ramos: Yeah. A lot of news now a days is so far off from the truth. Like on Snapchat, the Cosmo circle has one page of actual news and it’s all biased.

Instagram
Narayanasamy: I’ve never had Instagram and honestly, I’m not a fan of it.
Ramos: I’m insulted. I love Instagram! It’s where I post all my photography and see other peoples’.
Narayanasamy: If I ever get an Instagram, I’m gonna follow all my acquaintances and scroll down all the way to their first picture to like it. That’s it.
Ramos: You’re horrible. You’re gonna lose friends because all you’re gonna do is troll.
Narayanasamy: Someone get me an Instagram so I can do this.
Ramos: Oh my god! Well, there are a lot of purposes to Insta. If you’re public, I feel like you need to have a purpose to your Instagram. A lot of news sources, modeling, traveling, photography, or even service organizations have Instagrams. I don’t get those accounts that post selfies and pictures of their friends because why not just send it to them? There’s just so many things you can make public on the app, so why waste that opportunity just to post your face.
Narayanasamy: Yeah, like aesthetic or purpose is so important for an app made up solely of pictures and videos.
Ramos: I love those traveling accounts because they have all that, but it is sad that so many of the girls posing end up having issues because of the expectation and pressure put on them to be perfect. Everyone knows how hard it is to get the perfect picture because every aspect in it has to be perfect, yet no one realizes how stressful it is to post constantly. I don’t understand why someone would go through that much trouble and end up becoming super insecure or even losing touch of reality just to gain followers.
Narayanasamy: I remember this one picture where one side was the picture she posted with photoshop and filters and the other was the real picture. They looked completely different. That just seems so detrimental to your body image and even mental health.

Youtube
Ramos: Oh, I hate the people who always tell you to subscribe in the beginning and end. The ones who say it nicely at the end and keep it to one sentence are fine because I get that this is probably their source of income, but the ones who literally spent a minute just repeating it in different ways are so frustrating. Also, I understand sponsored videos because you need to make money somehow. I just hate it when the sponsorship is completely unrelated to the video.
Narayanasamy: Yeah! At least make it fun and a part of the video. The lack of integrity with sponsors is also so annoying. When you do a sponsored video, you’re required to tell the audience that product is sponsored. Or when they sponsor a horrible product.
Ramos: There are few people who test out the product before and give their full and honest review. I totally appreciate them but I’ve only ever seen two of those truly genuine people.
Narayanasamy: It’s honestly not even that hard to make it short and sweet and to the point. Also, DON’T USE ZAFUL.COM!
Ramos: That website is such a scam!
Narayanasamy: Another thing I hate is when someone tries to make a super serious video but the whole thing is monetized with five ads on it. Like, you can’t make a video about the Las Vegas shooting and also try to get money out of it.
Ramos: That’s so frustrating. I don’t understand why some people are allowed to put so many ads on their videos and others get demonetized by YouTube.
Narayanasamy: It’s so annoying because it’s all based on the title. I just don’t like it when they make money off of tragedies.

(To read the rest of the story, pick up a Hawkeye near the main office or the media center!)