Derek E. Baird, M.Ed.

Dear Evan Hansen, Teen Broadway fandoms, and Mental Health on Tumblr and Instagram

Dear Evan Hansen (DEH) is a social media-centric musical that has been widely celebrated by a show-specific online fan community, known as ‘Fansens’, on Instagram and Tumblr, having won the Tony Award for Best Musical in 2017. 

The growth of this fandom, on these platforms, is unique as Fansens have adopted plot points and thematic elements from the musical relating to how social media affects social anxiety, depression, and suicide to create fan art and fanfictions that, in turn, result in a community of care on social media where fans can discuss their own encounters with social anxiety, teen suicide and cyberbullying.

Though most Fansens would not have been able to see the musical performed on Broadway or live in-person, their fanfictions, personal posts, and fan art reflect and refract the difficulties that young people have with mental health, social anxiety, and suicide.

Using both digital methods and post-structuralist textual analysis, written by Derek E. Baird and Jarrod Walczer, analyses numerous fan cultural artifacts collected from DEH-specific hash-tagged posts on Tumblr and Instagram.

In doing so, this article provides a new perspective on the role that fan communities, their artifacts, their use of digital media, and their fan activist and upstanding techniques can play in providing avenues of self-care and modeling positive online support for those dealing with mental health issues.

By examining the emotional resonance between the characters, plot points, and music of DEH, and the fandom that spontaneously grew around it, we maintain that fandom studies scholars can gain a richer understanding of how visual media and fandom can be used to foster unity among young people and combat social issues both on social media and in the corporeal world.

You can read the full article here, or you can read a synopsis of our research over on Medium. You can access the full article on the Journal of Fandom website.

The Gen Z Frequency Translated into Chinese Language Edition

I'm so proud and excited to announce that my book, The Gen Z Frequency, has been translated into a Chinese language edition by Blue Lion Press and Zhejiang University Press.

Just like the original version of the book, the Chinese language edition offers a comprehensive guide for any youth brand or organization trying to reach Gen Z.

"Many books talk about Gen Z, but this is a definitive playbook for modern marketers and business people to authentically engage an emerging generation."

-Stefan Heinrich, Head of Global Marketing, ByteDance (TikTok)

The book covers content creation, connecting with youth culture, online community and content engagement strategies, and tactics such as social media, experiential, emerging technologies (like AR and VR), kids' privacy law, building online communities, embracing youth culture, and much more.

 

 

Nickelodeon #KidsTogether Guide: Talking With Kids About Coronavirus

 Kristen Bell is hosting a Nickelodeon special with a “kid’s-eye view” of the coronavirus pandemic to address youngsters’ concerns and help families weather the crisis, the channel said Friday.

Bell and her guests practiced social distancing, using video to connect for the hour long program airing 7 p.m. EDT Monday. Dr. Nadine Burke Harris, California’s surgeon general, and Dr. Vivek H. Murthy, former U.S. surgeon general, offer advice on how to be healthy, while kids and parents around the country share how they’re coping with disruption.

“I feel like right now, kids’ questions and worries might be getting overlooked,” the “Frozen” star said in explaining why she participated. “I wanted kids to feel empowered to ask questions, and create a place where they are heard.”

Because of the impact of COVID-19, kids and grown-ups alike may find themselves feeling more anxious or stressed than usual. Nickelodeon offers this guide to give kids, parents, and caregivers advice on ways to support each other in these difficult times.

Check out this guide on how to support each other in these difficult times.

 

Gen Z Culture Report: Mini Keanu, Finsta, Song for a Whale, Gen Z Social Impact [June 2019]

Gen Z Speak: "Finsta" 📷

Teens have always had their own language and Gen Z is no different. Keeping up can be difficult. I'm here to help you out.

A "Finsta" is a second (or third or sixth) "fake" Instagram account used for posting photos you don't want to post on your "real" Instagram or that you want to keep away from your parental units.

 

Meme Culture 🤣

The latest meme to hit the socials? Mini Keanu Reeves. Here's what you need to know.

 

Gen Z Social Impact 💖

At 11 years old Jahkil Jackson is the CEO of Trophies, a streetwear brand that champions positivity and education, and the Executive Director of 'Project IAM,' a philanthropic endeavor that raises awareness and support for the homeless.

Learn more about this amazing young social changemaker. 

 

Teaching Gen Z 🏫

While there’s much hype around the use of VR in education, how are teachers using this emerging technology in the classroom? What do students think? Those are just some of the questions Foundry 10 asked teachers and students in their VR in Education Pilot Program.

 

Gen Z Book Pick 📕

Full of heart and celebrating the things that make us different, ‘Song for a Whale’ by Lynne Kelly shows how, with a little determination, kids can make big waves and change the world.

Trend Watch: Kids, Technology and Privacy

Many parents are under the impression that it's just Google or social networking companies that are tracking and collecting data on their kids.

However, it's not just social and gaming apps who are collecting data on your kids.  There are many unseen players in the kids' media ecosystem--ranging from edtech companies to connected toys and digital assistants (hello, Alexa) and educational marketing companies, who are harvesting data on children and teens.

And while the new GDPR-K regulations (and the forthcoming CCPA) are a step in the right direction, in the U.S. it's time for our COPPA laws to be extended to protect the privacy of all minors.   

In recent years we've seen many high-profile data breaches, some involving children’s personal data, resulting from insufficient protections built into the emerging generation of smart devices and toys. 

Dr. Sonia Livingstone, a professor at London School of Economics, has authored a new study, "Children: A Special Case for Privacy" for the International Institute of Communications, that takes a deep dive into kids privacy. 

"Children’s voices are particularly absent, being rarely consulted or included in national or international deliberations. -Dr. Sonia Livingstone"

As this study points out, it's likely that the technology industry will get better at protecting the data of all its users, but their needs to be a conversation about the bigger issue of the "datafication" of our lives---especially when it comes to kids and teens---how or if their personal data should be used for commercial benefit.

 

Blocking Bad: Protecting Teens on Instagram

Yesterday, during the annual Facebook F8 Developer Conference, Instagram announced that they had launched new anti-bullying & comment filtering AI technology that will automatically filter out comments that “harass or upset people in our community.

As the number one social network for Gen Z teens, Instagram has been increasingly proactive in developing both technology and wellbeing programs that improve the lives of the teens. In addition, the new comment filter is focusing on protecting teen celebrities and influencers who are often the recipients of brutal attacks in the comment section on their social feeds.

We first got a sneak peek at this new filtering technology last summer when Instagram co-founder and CEO Kevin Systrom sat down with CBS News to talk about how the social network is betting that limiting hate speech will encourage more expression on the platform.

"Is it free speech just to be mean to someone?" - Kevin Systrom, CEO Instagram

According to Instagram, "This new filter hides comments containing attacks on a person's appearance or character, as well as threats to a person's well-being or health. The bullying filter is on for our global community and can be disabled in the Comment Controls center in the app.”

As teens  increasingly turning to social media platforms, like Instagram, to talk about their mental health and find resources to help them through their personal struggles, it's more important than ever that social media companies realize that they play an increasingly vital role and responsibility in promoting kindness and supporting the mental health of teens in their online communities. 

 

Related: Instagram #KindnessProm

Trend Watch: How Gen Z Use GIFs to Convey Emotion and Celebrate Shared Cultural Moments

In the last few years, there’s been an explosion in the use of GIFS – those little-looped videos that seem to be everywhere. The GIF is often misunderstood as a component of modern communication. 

Gen Z navigates their anxieties by relying on visual-centric social media platforms, like GIFs, emoji, and memes, wherein they can both create and share visual content to express their emotions. 

On social platforms, they embrace memes, visual narratives, GIFs and emoji to create fan art and provide their visual interpretations of shared cultural experiences and project their own emotions into their social media feeds. The visual narrative content posted on these platforms can largely be employed, remixed, and re-appropriated across one another and be reused for multiple purposes across multiple moments in time.

This creates a form of unity in social narratives, situating visual materials as both conversational and archival, across the platforms while also positing disunity and the breakdown of platform exclusive vernaculars.

This episode of the Australian podcast, Future Tense, host Antony Funnell talks to digital researchers and linguists about the ways that people are using GIFs, emoji, selfies and other visual communication tools as narratives to express their ideas, emotions or as visual expressions and celebrations of shared cultural moments.

 

 

Related

Giphy builds transparent GIF library for Instagram Stories

Trend Watch: Facebook Freebooting

Here are all the new Animojis coming to your iPhone X (AAPL)

STUDY: The Role of Social Media and Technology in Peer Bullying

Top 10 best meme generator apps Android 2018

Educator Perspectives: Virtual Reality (VR) in the Classroom

 Technologies like virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR), especially for Gen Z students’, provides avenues that allow them to engage in a social, collaborative, and active learning environment.

VR, especially when combined with storytelling, enable the student to participate in the story, develop empathy to experiences outside their current realm of understanding and fully immersed in their learning.

While there’s much hype around the use of VR in education, how are teachers using this emerging technology in the classroom? What do students think? Those are just some of the questions asked by research conducted by Foundry 10, a Seattle-based non-profit. 

Foundry 10: Students & VR Pilot Program

In 2015, 2015, Foundry 10 launched a pilot project to study the impact and student sentiment towards the use of virtual reality in their classroom and curriculum. Foundry 10 reached out to educators who expressed an interest in utilizing VR in their classes and provided them with headsets.

I've written a summary of the findings, for VR Pop over on Medium. You can read the entire Foundry 10 report on their website.

Related articles

Facebook opens social VR app to rival platforms (FB)

STUDY: The Role of Social Media and Technology in Peer Bullying

VR is Taking the World by Storm Over 1 Million Headsets Sold

Camp Google

Trend Watch: Augmented Reality Apps for Education

Last summer, millions of kids discovered the power of Augmented Reality (AR) while using apps like PokemonGo, Snapchat and Instagram.

In light of these socio-cultural changes, educators need to “keep abreast of change” and embrace curriculum design which integrates the authentic ways that students use AR in their “out of school” experiences as a tool that connects them with peers and content as a means to achieve, both short and long term, learning goals.

Like other technologies, AR has the potential to be a powerful tool that support the personalized learning goals of students by bringing scannable content to life in an engaging and cost effective manner.

For a generation that’s been raised on interactive technologies, bringing AR into the classroom and curriculum can also help encourage active engagement and contribute to student retention.

Read the entire post on VR Pop on Medium.

How Kids Content Will Drive Adoption of Virtual Reality

I stumbled across this really terrific  article on the life cycle of virtual reality in the kids education and entertainment market--well worth reading for anyone involved in the kid/tween/teen media and education worlds. 

"Once the VR space takes hold, kids will ultimately become "world-smiths," as they create immersive social experiences utilizing powerful, easy-to-use tools found on 3D user-generated content platforms.

These platforms will empower children to create and distribute VR content for consumption by their peers."

 

 

REPORT: Ads and Media Contribute to Boys' Body Image Pressure

Credos, the advertising industry think tank, surveyed 1,005 boys from primary and secondary schools around the UK to explore their attitudes towards advertising and body image; focus groups with boys aged 8 to 18 and with teachers, youth leaders and parents added to understanding the roots, effects and solutions to boys' body confidence.

This report focuses on the way male models are portrayed in advertising and the media – particularly, whether boys are aware of digitally enhanced imagery and whether this impacts their behavior. 

The subsequent report, Picture of Health?, revealed that 53% of boys felt advertising was a major source of pressure to look good; only social media (57%) and friends (68%) exerted more influence, while celebrities (49%) were slightly less persuasive.

"This new research shows boys are increasingly worried about their appearance," said Karen Fraser, Credos director.

"We have to recognise that advertising and the wider media play some part in shaping how young people feel about themselves – both positively and negatively."

Key Insights

• And while most (80%) were aware of image-manipulation in the media, most appeared to associate this with the female form, as the study reported that they were surprised at the extent to which male images are altered
  
  
• Two thirds (67%) said it was not acceptable for brands to use digital techniques to change the body image of a model in their advertising
  
  
• But some secondary school-age boys (aged 11 to 18) suggested the way media portray men in their images could be healthy (33%) or even aspirational (22%)

• More generally, the study found that boys hold advertising in high regard, with 73% of secondary school boys agreeing that ads are important in letting them know about products

•  69% of 16-18 year olds said they had tried new products after seeing an advertisement

• Around one in four (42%) boys who thought the male images they saw were realistic also believed there is a "perfect body" to strive for, compared with just 16% of those who think male images are unrealistic

Picture of Health: Boys, Advertising and Body Image by Derek E. Baird via Advertising Association

Trend Watch: 60 Million Teens Going Crazy for Musical.ly App

Move over Vine and Instagram! Musica.ly is the newest hot app among teens and tweens. How big? Nearly 60 million t/weens are using musica.ly to make their own music videos.

And like Vine and Instagram, teens are using musica.ly to become Internet stars and amass huge followings. 

Watch as "Muser" star Baby Ariel joined GMA to explain to the appeal of the app and teach the hosts how to make a musical.ly video.

 

 

UPDATE: Musical.ly has merged with TikTok (8/2/2018)

Trend Watch: Utah Valley University Creates “Texting Lane” for Students

STUDY: The Role of Social Media and Technology in Peer Bullying

Recently published research in the journal Psychology of Violence,  from the University of New Hampshire Crimes Against Children Research Center (CCRC),  – “The Role of Technology in Peer Harassment: Does It Amplify Harm for Youth?” (pdf)  conducted a survey  of 791 young people aged 10-20 to find out the role of technology and social media in peer bullying.

The big take away from the study is that the negative impact of online bullying is "significantly lower" than bullying behaviors that occur face-to-face.

• "...That those seeking to prevent the most detrimental forms of peer harassment might focus less on cyberbullying per se and instead [consider] prevention programs that teach youth to handle negative feelings and to de-escalate tensions."

• “Compared with in-person incidents, technology-only incidents were less likely to involve multiple episodes and power imbalances.”
   
• “They were seen by victims as easier to stop and had significantly less emotional impact.” So, no, the idea that tech amplifies harm, is not supported by the data."

While many researchers have been concerned that cyberbullying could actually be worse than facing a victim offline and in person, the study actually provided opposite results.

"Technology-only incidents were less likely than in-person only incidents to result in injury, involve a social power differential and to have happened a series of times," Kimberly J. Mitchell, lead author of the study, said in a news release.

"Mixed episodes, those that involved both in-person and technology elements, were more likely than technology-only episodes to involve perpetrators who knew embarrassing things about the victim, happen a series of times, last for one month or longer, involve physical injury and start out as joking before becoming more serious. It is these mixed episodes that appear to be the most distressing to youth."

This study represents a big shift in thinking about social media bullying and should make everyone involved in working with kids and teens shift more focus on to the bullying behaviors that take place in the classroom, home and playground.

The Role of Technology in Peer Harassment: Does It Amplify Harm for Youth?

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Cyberbullying is harmful. But old-school harassment feels worse, study finds.

In-Person Harassment Is More Emotionally Scarring Than Cyberbullying

 

A Winning Strategy for Instagram Marketing

Flashstock has put together a really good snapshot of how brands can use Instagram as part of a winning social marketing plan! It's definitely worth a read.

A Winning Strategy for Instagram Marketing by Derek E. Baird