It's a match!: Visual Self-Representation on Tinder

Tinder is an online dating app. Connected through Facebook, the app allows users to swipe through people in their general geographic location (user sets range from 2-160 kilometres). Users set the age range (18-50+) and gender they wish to view. Users will swipe right ("like") or left ("nope") on each profile that appears one at a time like flash-cards. This app is usually accessed through a mobile device (i.e. cell phone). The profile, linked with Facebook, allows users to upload up to five photos (chosen from their Facebook profile): it includes the person's first name, age, any shared interests (indicated by pages "liked" on Facebook), or mutual (Facebook) friends. The app allows you to add up to 500 characters under an "About Me" column. In this section, users are encouraged to participate in self-reflection: they have a short amount of space to sell themselves to strangers. If you swipe right ("like"), and the user also swipes right for you, then it's a match and a conversation application is opened between both users.

                                 

Unlike most dating sites, this app relies predominantly on images: users must tap on an image in order for shared interests, mutual friends and "about me" columns to appear. It is easy to swipe left or right without opening each profile. Similar to Michael Wesch's anthropological study of YouTube, Tinder can be seen as an example of media mediating human relationships. A basic visual anthropological analysis would note users are presenting themselves in a certain way, to attract attention from others in hopes of connecting with someone they are interested in. Each users methods will vary. Expectations are influenced by the visual aspect of the app: some users believe, since the match is based almost solely on physical attraction, that connections will be mostly shallow or sexual. 

             

 
Many users are on Tinder as a way to boost their self-esteem - to see how many people who they find attractive will feel the same way about them. These users usually have no intention of meeting people they match with, or even engaging in conversation. In this sense, the app does not only involve self-representation but also self-affirmation. Using such a small amount of information, with stakes fairly high (i.e. self-confidence, approval of others), the images users choose to represent themselves are interesting to examine. In constructing a profile and using this app, there is a negotiation of identity which focuses primarily on surface elements given the visual characteristics of the game. The surface is an important arena in which meaning is made and identity can be negotiated.

An Amateur Sketch: Visual Representation of Race and Class in Local TV News

News has become increasingly sensationalized, and visual imagery plays a big part in maintaining the entertainment value of news. On TV, news segments are often divided into short segments using similar to tactics of advertising. The reports often include an anchor’s address to the camera, a newscaster’s interview with citizens and video or photographic footage that fill the screen accompanied by an anchor’s voice-over report. Some news segments have been deemed so entertaining that they become internet sensations. An example of this phenomenon would be a local NBC news report covering a leprechaun seen in Mobile, Alabama.

This clip relies on, and reaffirms, racial and class stereotypes persistent in and of the southern states of the US. The citizens interviewed are presented as the butt of the joke. The amateur sketch of the leprechaun visually illustrates the mockery of the citizens presented by the news segment. There are countless news segments that present similar problematic imagery, which in turn have become viral videos and have been parodied into songs and music videos. (see “The Bed Intruder”) I chose the Leprechaun in Mobile Alabama report in particular because it became so popular that is spurred a parody sketch from the comedy show Key & Peele.

The TV comedy sketch successfully engages in parody and satire in order to draw attention to, and destabilize the persistent racialized imagery of TV news. As a TV sketch, it is self-reflexive and nods to the construction of the televised image. In the sketch, the news program becomes the butt of the joke.

What are you looking at?: Self-Representation/Regulation in Public

Presumably we dress ourselves on our own accord, perhaps preoccupied by taste and weather. But it is all informed by outside sources – we must buy our clothes from somewhere. Someone must design the clothing, someone must create it, and someone must distribute it. Appearance (dress, attitude, movement etc.) can be seen as a form of self-representation. The focus here is on the surface. Postmodern notions see the surface as an important site to decipher meaning and negotiate identity. The majority of my people-watching experience occurs on my commute to school. Buses and subways are plastered with uninteresting ads, and yet passengers become enthralled in staring at them in order to avoid looking at (or being caught looking at) fellow passengers. Phones are another thing passengers stare at during their ride to avoid one another or any potential awkwardness. The effects of a panopticon culture can be witnessed here, in this self-regulation in public space. The way passengers sit is gendered: women tend to take up much less space compared to male travellers. This is informed by gender inequality, more so than size and physical need for space. Younger, teenage passengers tend to dress very similarly to one another: girls often wearing leggings with a comfortable boot, and boys wearing sneakers and a cap. When the teenagers are in a group they are much more open about having a conversation and speak more loudly than when they are alone or with one other person. Passengers with activist pins attached to their bags, or laptops tend to exit at York University on my particular bus route. Increasing popularity and use of mobile devices, I would argue, contribute to this panopticon culture. At any time someone could take a photo or video of you and upload it onto the internet. In my observation, people regulate their behaviour in public as if they are under constant surveillance. This notion is not new, but it is interesting especially considering the increasing means of surveillance available to a vast amount of people.

Welcome II the 'hood: A Collaborative Documentary

The best way I would imagine a film about my home community would be a collective effort. Historical contextualization is important. I imagine old images of the neighbourhood juxtaposed against current footage. The moving image would reflect the present-day context of the neighbourhood, and the stills would show the historical context from which it is built. The present must be contextualized as it is shaped by the past. Interviews with citizens, while personal, would add an emotive dynamic to the representation. In its inclusion of personal memory, the documentary would gain sensory elements to its audio-visual medium. Perhaps citizens could create and contribute imagery such as home videos, personal photos or art pieces.

Anyone who contributes their texts must be involved or in charge of editing the segments which include those pieces. Unfortunately this may create a class-divide to those in the community who have, or have had, access to recording technology. I imagine citizens of the community on both ends of the lens: as the creators and subjects of the film. Community members would interview one another all within the frame (no unseen voice-overs). I would avoid unseen voice-overs and invisible creators in order to destabilize the power dynamic of representation. The film would use only diegetic sound. This would be difficult to put together so collectively, however those who contribute will be reflexive in their participation on both ends of the lens.

Khaleesi navigates Cultural Difference in Game of Thrones

Daenerys Stormborn, also known as Khaleesi ('Queen' in Dothraki), acts as a navigator through cultural difference in HBO's Game of Thrones. All the visibly racialized bodies are presented in her storyline.

 In the series pilot, Daenerys is married to Karl Drogo of the Dothraki. This is audiences first introduction to visibly racialized bodies in the show. They are presented as violent, hyper-sexualized, primitive and exotic. They have darker skin, dark hair and features, they are dressed in minimal clothing, with body and face paint. They do not use swords nor wear armour, and they do not have a word for "thank you". When they do speak, it is not in a discernible language so there are subtitles. Khaleesi, her brother, and her right-hand man are all white. Khaleesi and her brother are extremely fair-skinned with very light-blonde hair and light features. They are said to come from a long line of in-breeding. In the image above, we see Karl Drogo on a dark horse and Khaleesi on a white horse highlighting difference with stark colour contrast. As a result, there is a stark visual contrast between Khaleesi and these racialized bodies (the Dothraki, and later the slaves she "liberates"). Since the story is told from Khaleesi's perspective, the Dothraki and later the slaves are otherized, even though they vastly outnumber her. Karl Drogo is the only Dothraki given much of a part in the show. For the most part, the Dothraki have little-to-no lines, and are thus reduced to props. Most attention is paid to Khaleesi and her white right-hand man.

 The Dothraki and the slaves are represented as the stereotypical brown-skin other, reminiscent of colonial images of native or indigenous populations. The Dothraki are presented as primitive, sometimes called "savages" and hyper-sexualized. 

As a fantasy genre and fictitious culture, these representations exploit this voyeuristic exoticism without fear of offending people. This representation of cultural difference is highly disappointing. As a fantasy genre, there is room for the show to present an entirely new and different image of cultural difference. Unfortunately, these representations of cultural difference are informed by, and rely on, existing racist, problematic, exoticized, eroticized, stereotypical tropes persistent in representations of otherness.