Affect of Komen

            Susan G. Komen for the Cure is dedicated to the prevention, treatment, and eventual cure for breast cancer. While both men and women are susceptible to breast cancer, the usual patients are women, so this organization is primarily aimed at women. Their signature color is pink, designed to appeal to women—and also likely to stick out when men wear it for an awareness or fundraising event sponsored by Komen.

            When a visitor to the website first loads the Komen page, a message from Nancy Brinker, the founder of Komen for the Cure, pops up: “What started as a promise to my sister inspired a global movement.” Aristotle writes that “Pity may be defined as a feeling of pain caused by the sight of some evil, destructive or painful, which befalls one who does not deserve it, and which we might expect to befall ourselves or some friend of ours” (II.8.1385b.14-5). Nearly 30 years have passed since Brinker founded Komen for the Cure in honor of her departed sister, and yet that feeling of pity is still aroused in others by a simple statement about a promise made between two sisters. Not only do women fear getting breast cancer themselves, but the fear of it happening to a loved one, perhaps even a sister, is even more a call to action.

            Longaker and Walker put it another way: “When we imagine an experience, our brains behave as if we were confronted with the object itself” (216). When faced with a website full of images of breast cancer patients and explanatory details about the life and death of Susan G. Komen, the visitor is led to imagine facing breast cancer—either herself, or in someone she loves. The mind, “imagining this experience” as Longaker and Walker say, begins to react with the same emotions as would be present if imagination were reality—terror, anxiety, and grief, all while clinging to hope that a cure can be found, possibly through Susan G. Komen for the Cure.

           How did Komen manage to get this message to spread? Slowly. Brennan mentions that “a difficult idea can spread as if it were indeed contagious” (52), something that Brinker had to use to her advantage, since “newspapers balked at printing the words ‘breast cancer’, [and] no one talked openly about the disease” (Komen).  Komen was not the first charity in existence, and it is hardly the only cancer-related charity around today; Kat Jones, the owner of the company that developed the Livestrong brand, calls the world of cancer charities “a very crowded space”. However, the foundation’s reach makes it seem larger than life. According to Komen.org, Nancy Brinker “pioneered cause-related marketing” with the result that it is hardly possible to walk into a supermarket without seeing pink labels, especially during October, which is Breast Cancer Awareness Month. Brinker started with $200 and a bunch of names, and within a year of establishing the foundation, she had already held enough fundraising events in Dallas (including the first Race for the Cure) to start giving out grants for breast cancer research. The Komen site mentions that most people who donate do so because someone they know asked them. It is this way—by word of mouth—that the message of Komen most spreads. Brennan says, “As anyone who has participated in social movements is aware, the effect…is to intensify emotions of collectivity” (58). As one person asks another to donate or to participate in a Komen event, the bonds between the two people are strengthened, as well as the bond that each individual feels toward Komen and toward the entire community that the foundation has gathered around itself.

            Longaker and Walker state, “Specific terms or symbols, if woven into emotionally powerful associative networks, can likewise lay before the audience something moving” (219). This is important to Komen in their two major symbols: the color pink and the running ribbon. Pink became Komen’s designated color in 1990; once innocently sitting around merely being a color, pink is now irrevocably associated with breast cancer, so that wearing anything that is pink gives the impression that the wearer is standing with Komen for the Cure. The pink ribbon first appeared in 1991, and has gone through a few makeovers to arrive at the signature Komen “running ribbon” that is now so well-known. Both of these logos added to the spread of Komen's message, since the mind now had an image to grab and onto which to attach the emotions drummed up by Komen’s marketing. As Ahmed expresses it, “a sign sticks to a body by constituting it as the object” (127), in this case, the object of both fear of breast cancer and hope for a cure. Because the pink ribbon and other pink paraphernalia are so pervasive in the culture now, it seems strange that either one is such a relatively recent addition to the world of breast cancer.

            However, the foundation didn’t stop with symbols; Komen copyrighted the expression “for the Cure” when they changed from Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation to Susan G. Komen for the Cure in 2007, and uses that phrase in every way possible: Race for the Cure, Sleep in for the Cure, Marathon for the Cure, Art for the Cure—any Komen event has the line “for the Cure”, with the intent being that no one can hear that phrase and not think of Komen. In fact, “for the Cure” is a trademarked Komen phrase. No other charity is allowed to use it, regardless of what they are hoping to cure. The reason behind this, according to Komen, is “our donors and volunteers work very hard … they deserve to know that when they see ‘for the cure’, it means their dollars are being used to support Komen research.” Longaker and Walker point out, “many corporate logos have been around for so long that they function as values. We feel strong emotions at the mere presentation of the logo, without a network of emotionally resonant images” (222). Komen has invested a lot of money and emotional capital into their image and their trademark phrase, and don’t want that investment going to waste. “For the cure” also has pathetic value, in that it appeals to people’s need to do something. Not everyone can work in a lab, not everyone can personally do cancer research, and not everyone can care for cancer patients. But everyone can donate or participate in some way.

            Founding the Race for the Cure in 1983 was a stroke of genius. From the 800 participants at the first race in Dallas, the Race has grown to a huge international series of 5Ks with over 1.7 million participants annually (Komen). Not only does every participant pay for the privilege, but many also do extra fundraising before and after every event. There is generally competition between teams—especially corporate teams—at each event to see who can raise the most money. Brennan says that “what ties the group together, what makes an individual a member of a group, hold regardless of whether the group is gathered together in one place” (52). Long before the race begins, and indeed long after it ends, participants in and supporters of a Race for the Cure have these bonds of belief in the cause that drive them to ask others to participate and, failing that, to at least donate.

            Massumi says, "Intensity and experience accompany one another like two mutually presupposing dimensions or like two sides of a coin" (33). Ruth Warren, a frequent Race for the Cure participant, explains that when it comes to a Komen event, participants expect an experience and they are not disappointed. There is always a great deal of energy in the air. As far as intensity, organizers do not hold back: they play loud music to get the crowd energized and ready to run or walk. With the nerves and the excitement, the crowd transforms from sleepy participants trickling into the event by ones or twos to a unified mass of fast-moving people swaying to a beat. Cheerleaders are on hand to up the energy level, and teams or groups of friends who decided to do this event together stand out in their brightly-colored clumps of matching t-shirts. 

            “Regular” runners themselves bring a certain amount of adrenaline to any running event, but even without their help, the air is electric. Many Komen participants only run or walk in Komen events, and generally some of the participants have trained extra-hard for this, their first race, so they bring a different kind of nerves in addition to the emotions already tied to a race with the stated purpose of ending breast cancer. This sort of event, with excitement, sorrow, joy, exhaustion, and enthusiasm all mixed together, is a perfect setting for “emotional displays being looked upon favorably” (Brennan 51). Plus, the music gives a background rhythm which "has a unifying, regulating role in affective exchanges between two or more people" (Brennan 70). No wonder the sense of excitement at a race spreads so quickly.

A breast cancer survivor at the national
Race for the Cure in 2008. Source.

            Before the walk begins, the survivors in pink hats gather, each with a pink balloon, to be recognized. In addition to the crowd cheering on these brave women, there is a balloon release, in order of how many years each of the women has survived. Warren remembers, "It seems a bit silly at first to see them all standing there holding balloons, but as it goes on, it becomes more poignant." One year – five years – ten years: The announcer calls out each time interval in turn, until all the balloons have been released. Brennan notes that "[an image] is transmitted as surely as the words whose sound waves or valence register physical effects in the air around the ears of those who hear" (70-1). For everyone who sees the balloon release, the image is received and the affect is transmitted; in this case, the crowd, already energized from the music, the mass of people, and the nerves, now has a very visual reminder of why they have assembled. If Miss Warren is any indication, participants take this image with them and have even more motivation not only to conquer the 5K, but also to continue raising money for Komen to allow more breast cancer patients to be survivors.

            Survivors are not the only ones celebrated at a Komen race. It is customary for participants to wear placards on their backs, which read “In celebration of” for survivors and “In memory of” for victims. A Komen race is an opportunity to remember those who lost their struggle against breast cancer. The atmosphere of celebration and joy is tinged with sadness and tears in remembrance of those lost ones, and that sadness is punctuated and underlined with every “in memory of” placard that goes by. In some ways, the race ends on a more sobering note than it began, even with the energy of thousands of people and the loud, fast-beat music, because during the race is the chance to see all those placards. All those lives lost. Especially for someone who trained specifically in memory of a loved one, crossing the finish line is bittersweet. Brennan notes that “one individual has the affect, other individuals see it, or sometimes hear it, they then drum it up within themselves, and so the affect, apparently, spreads” (57)—a perfect explanation for the spread of emotion at a Komen race.

            Massumi writes, “That is why all emotion is more or less disorienting, and why it is classically described as being outside oneself, at the very point at which one is most intimately and unshareably in contact with oneself and one’s vitality” (35). While running and exhausting herself, the participant has seen all these names of those who have lost or are still fighting, even while literally (depending on how hard she is running) feeling life pound through her healthy veins. Meanwhile, the pink-shirted survivors are standing nearby, the music is still playing, and the cheerleaders are still chanting and pressing for ever more excitement in the crowds. It is not difficult to imagine a runner feeling disoriented with all those emotions flowing through the air around her, even if she is unaware of how much emotion is being transferred. It is a small wonder, then, that Warren describes runners and walkers finishing the race with tears flowing down their faces, even if they were not showing any emotion at the beginning. Smith and Hyde note, “he evoked such emotions as fear, pity, helplessness, anger and joy in his audience while enhancing their ability to empathize with one another’s plight” (460). While they were referring to Jonathan Edwards, the principle is the same; the emotions evoked at a Race for the Cure advance a participant’s empathy and, therefore, the participant’s likelihood of continuing to support Komen.

             Brennan gives other possibilities for the spread of affect in a group, both of which are in place at Race for the Cure events. She mentions pheromones, which "are literally in the air" (69), especially in a group the size of a Komen race: even in small towns, these events number into the thousands of participants. She adds, "As chemical entrainment also involves touch, we should note that contagion by this means has been mentioned by group theorists from Le Bon to Blumer" (69). Again, in such a large group compressed into a space as small as a race starting line, it would be impossible for participants not to touch each other, even if they didn't want to. And since these groups do tend to be made up of more women than men, it's likely that many are touching willingly-- hugging, grasping an arm, shaking hands, and so on.

             Also in play at a Race for the Cure is the mass of images that the mind sees and must process. Massumi mentions that "it would appear that the strength or duration of an image's effect is not logically connected to the content in any straightforward way" (24). Some images are longer-lasting than others, so what each person brings home from the race will vary. In addition to these in-person images, Komen is not slow to take advantage of the power of photography: The first image a visitor to the Komen website sees is Brinker, standing with her back to the camera and facing the mass of people who has gathered for this particular race. Brinker is a breast cancer survivor herself and is wearing the survivor's pink shirt in the picture, with a placard on her back that reads, "In Memory of My Sister, Susan G. Komen". Massumi notes, "The qualifications of the emotional content enhanced the images' effect, as if they resonated with the level of intensity rather than interfering with it" (25). In this instance, the image is blurred after a few seconds for the "What began as a promise to my sister..." message mentioned earlier. In this case, the picture + words do exactly what Massumi suggests: the effect of the image is amplified by the qualification.

            In many ways, Komen opened the door for other charities to raise money in the same way. There is now a running charity for pretty much any interest or some sort of walking/running event for others: CASA Superhero Run, Walk for Diabetes, Run for the Water, and so on. Edbauer, in her description of the “Keep Austin Weird” phenomenon, remarks, “The phrase ‘Keep Austin Weird’ quickly passed into the city’s cultural circulation, taking on the importance of a quasi-civic duty” (16). Through their marketing, visibility, and word of mouth, Komen has cemented “running = charity” in the minds of many, to the point that not only will non-runners will often automatically assume that their running friends are supporting a cause, but also the same non-runners are likely to ask about the upcoming event, perhaps to see if it is a cause they can get behind and participate in as well. Running just to run in this era of charity runners is becoming an abnormality, something that should please Komen and other charities; they are the ones reaping the benefits.

            Not only are Komen events heavily marketed, but they also get the cooperation of visible parties in a community. It has become a tradition that college football teams wear pink at a home game during October, and they encourage their fans to do the same. Men who want to support their wives, sisters, mothers, and daughters are usually not shy about wearing pink for the same reason. This is especially true of men who are runners and support Komen or another breast cancer-related charity. In the same way that “a local business’s billboard vow[s] to ‘keep it weird’” (Edbauer 17), it is such a norm in our culture now to “go pink” that it is odd not to do so—at best, someone may think the non-participant doesn’t know about breast cancer, or at worst it seems that the person is somehow in favor of breast cancer, just because of his or her refusal to wear pink; he becomes Brennan’s odd “lone resister” (11).

Source.

            In this way, some of the Komen hype can backfire. For every gung-ho enthusiast who turns her Facebook page pink, there is a skeptic who might only be driven further away by this very public display of what is still, to many, a private matter. Awareness campaigns that arise outside of Komen, like the recently popular “Save the Ta-tas”, put a fun spin on a serious topic to make it more bearable. Like the variations on “Keep Austin Weird” that Edbauer describes (17-8), these side campaigns use the color pink and even a non-trademarked version of a pink ribbon, drawing on the established “strong emotions at the mere presentation of the logo” (Longaker & Walker 222) without actually using Komen’s logo. For others, such expressions may be seen as poor taste or as not befitting the seriousness of the disease. Crowley and Hawhee note, “People who are intensely invested in a position are less likely to change their minds than those who are not” (268), which may explain the intense marketing done by believers in the Komen cause. However, a negative attitude of friends or coworkers (“You aren’t wearing pink? Shame on you!”) does little to endear someone who already feels a bit put off by the over-the-top emotional appeals the Komen uses. The peer pressure employed by Komen supporters, while positive in some ways, can be a bit much. This is one of those “situations where people act as of one mind” (Brennan 52), which can annoy and alienate the non-believer.

            Komen for the Cure is an organization started by a woman that will mostly appeal to women. While they have given away millions of dollars in grants for research, the focus of the company is still a message of support between sisters who are in this fight together. Women who are struggling in their fight with breast cancer find comfort in this supportive, understanding, and nurturing community. The emotion of the original promise, the buzz and excitement of an event, and the intensely pink memorabilia associated with the foundation draw in some and push away others.

Works Cited

Ahmed, Sara. “Affective Economies.” Social Text 22.2: 117-39. Schedule: DDD’s Dossier. Web. 1 May 2011.

Aristotle. “Rhetoric.” The Rhetoric and the Poetics of Aristotle. Trans. W Rhys Roberts. 1954. New York: McGraw Hill, 1984. 1-218. Print.

“Breast Cancer Awareness: Save the Ta-Tas.” Advantage Bridal. Advantage Bridal, 2 Oct. 2010. Web. 4 May 2011.

Brennan, Teresa. The Transmission of Affect. Ithaca: Cornell UP, 2004. Print.

Crowley, Sharon, and Debra Hawhee. “Pathetic Proof: Passionate Appeals.” Ancient Rhetorics for Contemporary Students. N.p.: n.p., n.d. 251-86. Rpt. in Class Readings. N.p.: n.p., n.d. N. pag. Schedule: DDD’s Dossier. Web. 4 May 2011.

Donaldson, Bob. Race for the Cure. 2008. “More than 36,000 People Participate in the Race for the Cure.” By David Templeton. Pittsburgh Post-Gazette 12 May 2008: n. pag. Post-Gazette.com. N.p., n.d. Web. 4 May 2011.

Edbauer, Jenny. “Unframing Models of Public Distribution: From Rhetorical Situation to Rhetorical Ecologies.” Rhetoric Society Quarterly 35.4: 5-24. Schedule: DDD’s Dossier. Web. 1 May 2011.

Jones, Kat. Class lecture. UGS 303 Creative Problem Solving. FAC, University of Texas. 26 Apr. 2011. Panel.

Longaker, Mark, and Jeffrey Walker. Rhetorical Analysis: A Brief Guide for Writers. N.p.: Longman, 2010. Schedule: DDD’s Dossier. Web. 1 May 2011.

Massumi, Brian. Parables for the Virtual: Movement, Affect, Sensation. Durham: Duke UP, 2002. Schedule: DDD’s Dossier. Web. 4 May 2011.

Smith, Craig R, and Michael J Hyde. “Rethinking ‘The Public’: The Role of Emotion in Being-With-Others.” Quarterly Journal of Speech 77: 446-66. Schedule: DDD’s Dossier. Web. 4 May 2011.

Susan G Komen for the Cure. Susan G Komen for the Cure, 2011. Web. 4 May 2011.

Warren, Ruth. Telephone interview. 4 May 2011.

Cycling and Twitter

Something about Twitter that I haven't touched on much is how some groups use it for activism. I follow a handful of charities and a few advocacy organizations, and the reason I haven't mentioned them much is because they don't use Twitter much. It's possible that I'm following the wrong groups and that other organizations are making much better use of their Twitter accounts than the ones I'm following. Or, perhaps they are too all busy doing their advocacy/charity work to bother much with Twitter, a luxury that I think has probably already passed them by.

Bike Texas' profile page and most
recent tweets.

One organization that I both follow and volunteer for is Bike Texas. They tweet mostly about events or if a crucial vote is coming up, when it's a good time for cyclists to contact their legislators to ask for cycling-friendly votes. Bike Texas may not tweet a lot, but they are extremely well-connected; one tweet from them gets retweeted by cycling organizations all over Austin. And by cyclists, of course-- I retweet them a lot, not only because I work for them (although that is part of it), but also because they do save their tweets for important things.

An funny thing happened back a few weeks ago: We were working on our projects during class time, so I was logged onto Twitter when Bike Texas tweeted about the grand opening of San Antonio's bikeshare program. I clicked the link and saw that the map was messed up; anyone trying to follow it would have been hopelessly confused! So, I emailed a coworker right away about the issue, and as far as I know they corrected it. That never would have happened if not for this project, so that was a nice side outcome of the class.

Recent tweets from Austin On
Two Wheels. In case you're
wondering, yes, I am the Susan
Wilcox mentioned in the second
tweet. ;)

Another Austin cycling organization that I follow is Austin On Two Wheels. They aren't an advocacy group so much as an online magazine for cyclists in Austin, and they are much more active on Twitter than Bike Texas (including being one of the organizations that retweets anything that Bike Texas tweets). However, as an online magazine, they do advocacy in their own way, by hosting events and keeping Austinites aware of cycling issues. Plus, the editor of Austin On Two Wheels is one of the few cyclists who is willing to go onto online forums and engage with complaining motorists, fielding their complaints and making points of his own. Most cyclists would rather put that energy into cycling rather than bothering with online forums, so in that way, Austin On Two Wheels is standing up for all of us.

Thanks, guys! This has been a fun semester! I was really nervous about this class at the beginning, but you guys have never made me feel too old to get what you were talking about. :) Have a great summer!

Cybersubculture Report: Twitter

            Twitter is a social networking site and information stream that connects people who may or may not know one another personally, but who generally have mutual interests. Users post real-time updates (tweets) of 140 or fewer characters to announce to their friends (followers) what is going on in their lives at that very second.

            Twitter’s main feature is the immediate update of where people are and what they are doing (the main page asks, “What’s Happening?”), so many users are drawn in by the quick, thought-sharing side of it. Users can also add a location to their tweets, which is a perk for someone who is in a cool place and wants to awe his friends, or someone who just really likes where she lives. Due to this ease of use and quick updating, Twitter draws users of all age groups from everywhere in the world. Plus, Twitter can be connected to a wide variety of other social media sites, like Facebook, foursquare, or blogs, allowing users to update multiple sites at once.

            I use Twitter exclusively on the computer, but any mobile phone or internet-enabled device will also allow Twitter use. For the serious user, TweetDeck will pull all social media together in one Twitter-sponsored space, thus making a social desktop that streamlines the flow of information. Besides the various ways of accessing Twitter, most content producers like news sites or blogs have a “Tweet this!” option, allowing readers to do promotion for them by sharing articles with a click of a button.  This is good for the user if enough followers appreciate the stories being shared, since it enhances one’s reputation of being a savvy and discriminating source of information, and of course it benefits the original source by driving more eyes to the site to read the interesting article.

             Twitter’s “About” page describes their mission thusly: “Twitter is a real-time information network that connects you to the latest information about what you find interesting. Simply find the public streams you find most compelling and follow the conversations.” The site casts itself not merely as a social networking site, but also as a source of information. One way Twitter keeps users apprised of the latest news is through Trending Topics, ten or so links in the sidebar that are generated based on what most users are talking about.

RIP Typewriters.

            Many users do exactly what the “About” page suggests: they follow, and possibly join, any conversation in progress. This can lead to some trends in the sidebar that seem bizarre to those not participating, such as “RIP Typewriters” which, when clicked, leads to a discussion about the closure of the world’s last typewriter manufacturer: Some celebrate, some mourn, some dispute the facts, some mock the business for bothering to stay open this long. Just by choosing a trending topic, one can see an entire range of viewpoints. 

             Major news stories tend to hit Twitter pretty quickly because of so many users wanting to share their opinion. For example, before the president's  Bin Laden speech on Sunday night, Twitter was already ablaze in updates and various forms of "Osama Bin Laden" had already hit the Trending Topics list. The lag between the news arriving on Twitter and the president's speech was so long, in fact, that comments were divided between giving an opinion on Bin Laden and making jokes about what was taking the president so long. Generally speaking, the traditional news outlets lag behind regular users in releasing their stories on Twitter, since they have to verify sources and make sure their reports are professional, while the average Jane can say whatever she likes with far fewer repercussions.

            However, one drawback to news on Twitter is that the 140-character limit does not give a lot of space for information. If there is a link included in the tweet, then it’s easy to get to the story thus referenced; if not, then a user must often go to a regular search engine or news site to find out what all the fuss is about. The average Jane being able to freely share on Twitter does have a downside; since regular users need not verify information before sharing it, what comes up on Twitter may be largely inaccurate, as evidenced by the frequently-conflicting updates about any particular topic. This was evidenced by the "RIP Typewriters" trend, when many users only tweeted to say that the factory that had just closed down was actually not the last typewriter factory standing. Twitter makes a good starting point for news, but not a good finishing point if a user wants more information.

            Trending topics are customizable by region, and Twitter adds new cities fairly frequently: In just the past couple of weeks, Austin has made it on the list, as have Indianapolis, Indiana, and Glasgow, Scotland—three cities that I’ve lived in and am likely to click on to find out what local users are talking about. (The other city I’ve lived in—Lubbock—has yet to receive such a promotion.) Generally speaking, though, I keep my list of trends set to Worldwide, so I can see what everyone is talking about without any particular regional bias.

My avatar.

Twitter allows the user to customize the look of his or her page in a few ways: First, each user has an avatar. Rather than stick with the generic egg picture that everyone starts with, users generally post a picture of themselves, or their children, or a cartoon. Some use that space to promote a cause or a company; for example, I opted for a blacked-out picture for Earth Hour, as did many of my friends. In April, my avatar was a One Day Without Shoes poster, to promote an awareness campaign early in the month. For May, I've changed my avatar to the National Bike Month logo.

Sara Hall's page.

Users can also customize their background. Twitter has a few backgrounds available to choose from, but any user can instead upload a picture, a design, or anything else the user wants to share. Sara Hall, a professional runner and a philanthropist, has a yellow background with a design of blue and black crosses and Omegas across it, and her avatar is a picture of herself. Pauley Perrette, the actor who plays Abby on NCIS, has a plain white background with a picture of herself with duct tape over her mouth, wearing a dress that reads “NOH8”, presumably from an awareness campaign. Her avatar is a similar picture, with the duct tape in place and “NOH8” drawn on her cheek. 

Pauley Perrette's page.

Pauley’s avatar is a bit disturbing—after all, it’s hard to look at someone whose mouth has been duct taped shut—but that has not lessened her popularity, at 95,498 followers. Early in April, CBS ran a “tweet week” promotion, in which actors from various shows would answer questions on Twitter during that week’s episode. Pauley answered questions from fans and also pointed out important things in the episode for us to notice. During this live chat, I was also chatting with my real-life friend menieatrandom, and we were both delighted when Pauley answered our questions: I asked about a small toy in front of Abby’s computer in the lab on the set, and menieatrandom asked what Pauley studied in college. Pauley used to tweet infrequently, but ever since the chat session, her Twitter usage has increased: Perhaps she enjoyed interacting with her fans, or maybe she has found out, as so many others have, that Twitter can be addictive.

Answer to my question.

Answer to menieatrandom's
queston.

jefishere's avatar. Source: jefritz.

Chat with jefishere.

Non-celebrities can be just as creative with their backgrounds: One friend, jefishere, has a dark blue background with a seemingly-random pattern of black lines across it. Her avatar, on the other hand, is a Venn diagram that she made herself. We can find jefishere at the intersection of snark, irritation, and creativity.

Wisely, Twitter’s timeline portion remains white with black print for ease of reading. Each user’s avatar appears next to his or her latest tweet. Across from the timeline is the user’s (mine, unless I’m looking at someone else’s page) basic profile information, including total tweets, most recent update, followers, the list of Twitter trends, and a Twitter fact or event that the site wishes to highlight. Instead of the main timeline, one may choose to look at a specific search term or a hashtag: any word or phrase, when preceded with a #, turns into a link that is instantly searchable. For example, sometimes I will tag my tweets with #doinghomework and then click on the link thus produced to see a page with other #doinghomework tweets.

            Many Twitter users begin with only following people they know in real life, thus drawing offline and online relationships together. Over time, however, users generally end up with more online-only than real-life relationships on Twitter. It is certainly possible that people who meet on Twitter may eventually meet up in real life as well: During South by Southwest, for example, there were many users announcing their location and encouraging followers to come meet them there. This phenomenon is hardly limited to massive festivals in Austin; many events attract Twitter users to organize real-life meet-ups. Or, a real-life meet may come just because a user is traveling to another city for the weekend and announces his or her plans for the evening in the hopes that a follower may turn up.

            As with many message boards on the internet, identity on Twitter may or may not be someone’s actual identity. Celebrities and companies may have their identity verified by Twitter (and get a blue check mark by their name), to assure the fans that this particular account is truly the person the name says it is. For example, I follow Tom Hanks (actor), Reba McEntire (singer/actor), Andy Murray (tennis player), and Charity: Water (company), all of which are verified accounts. On the other hand, most of the professional runners I follow (among them Kara Goucher, Josh Cox, and Usain Bolt, all of whom have some degree of fame) are not verified—I don't know whether this is because Twitter doesn’t know they are celebrities, or if it's because the runners themselves haven’t bothered to become verified. Conversely, Paula Radcliffe, the current women’s marathon world record holder, does have a verified account. Runner’s World magazine, who also has a frequently-updated Twitter account, kindly provides fans with the Twitter usernames for professional runners, so that fans can be sure they are following the correct account.

            It is against Twitter policy for anyone to create an account in someone else’s name, and any user who does so risks suspension of his or her own account. This is probably not enough of a deterrent to prevent some from trying it anyway. On the other hand, Twitter does allow parody, commentary, or fan accounts, as long as the account is clearly marked as not being the actual person in question and the user is not attempting to deceive followers. Fictional characters fall into this category: a casual search reveals 20 accounts under Hermione Granger, for instance, while Emma Watson, the actor who plays Hermione, has a verified account. 

            I follow Lord_Voldemort7, whose real name is listed as “The Dark Lord”; I began following this fictional account because so many of my friends were retweeting (reposting) many of his quips, which are usually very funny. This user has over one million followers, mostly because he (presumably) mixes dark humor, current events, and snippets from the Harry Potter storyline in a way that draws in fans. For example, one recent tweet read, "Bellatrix Lestrange, Fred Weasley & Remus Lupin are all trending. Voldemort is banned from trending. Twitter knows not to speak my name," mixing Twitter trends with a reference to the Harry Potter books.

Garcia_BAU, better known as
Penelope.

            It’s possible that an actor may also tweet as his or her fictional character. Penelope Garcia, the computer analyst on Criminal Minds, live-tweets in character during each new episode. It is generally accepted by Penelope’s 19,319 followers that Kirsten Vangsness, the actor who plays Penelope, is the one responsible for her tweets.

            Penelope’s avatar is a picture of herself (in character, of course), with a background that Penelope’s fans can recognize as suiting her character perfectly: Lots of pastel images reflecting her various interests, such as horses, cars, bicycles, robots, and dice. This fits in with the multiple pictures and brightly-colored objects that cover Penelope’s office on the set.

            For non-actor, non-professional athlete, “normal” people who use Twitter, there is much less attention paid but no less potential duplicity. Any user may use his or her real name, or may choose not to. There are no restraints on image uploads (except size of the image), so the user’s picture may be him or herself, a neighbor, a cartoon character, or just the no-picture egg that is standard on new Twitter profiles. In other words, it is up to each user just how much he or she wants to make public on Twitter, or whether he or she would prefer to make up a new identity altogether.

            This possible level of anonymity on Twitter means that the only age, race, gender, or class markers are the ones the user chooses to display. Of course, one may always read between the lines: Does someone frequently post about their job? Their children? The awesome party he/she went to last night? Even for those who choose not to display their life conditions, many clues can be hidden in the most innocent of tweets.

            On the surface, Twitter appears to have no management apart from self-regulation: Users may say whatever they want, share whatever they want, as long as they remain below 140 characters per tweet. The self-regulatory part comes in when a user is offensive or annoying to others and so is ignored or unfollowed. However, this surface appearance of anarchy is not truly the case. Twitter has guidelines about how many accounts one user may open, and specifically prohibits threats, copyright infringement, impersonation, and breaches of other users’ privacy, among others. Twitter also takes spam seriously and has a constantly-evolving list of actions that are considered spamming and may result in a user’s account being permanently disabled. Any user may report spam to Twitter; in fact, doing so is likely to result in the dubious user being evicted sooner rather than later.

            Another area of control the Twitter headquarters has instituted is in the area of followers. Anyone may follow up to 2000 accounts, but above that number, the user has to have a certain following-to-followed ratio. This is another way that Twitter prevents spam, since spammers tend to follow large numbers of accounts in a short period of time. There are some words that seem to attract spam tweets (iTunes, for instance, as I discovered by accident), and some spam accounts that follow multiple users in an attempt to get a follow back. Because I do not follow someone back unless I find their tweets to be interesting, I tend to gain and lose followers quickly: Someone, presumably a spam user, will follow my account, only to unfollow within a few hours if I don’t begin following them in return. Twitter calls this behavior “follow churn”, and it is prohibited.

A fail whale page from over the weekend.

            In short, the only way for a user to be kicked out of Twitter is to engage in bothersome behavior that diminishes the quality of the site and the experience for other users. It is essentially the logical extension of the primary-school rule to keep one’s hands, feet, and objects to one’s self: Have fun, but not at the expense of other people’s fun. Other than acting as the traffic court, as it were, and responding to user complaints, the Twitter employees stay in the background, keeping the servers going and sorting out technical issues before they become full-blown “fail whale” moments (when a message reading, “Twitter is over capacity” appears on the screen, accompanied by an image of the Twitter birds air-lifting a whale over the ocean).

pj_hoover's response to my congratulatory message.

            Social status in the world of Twitter happens in much the same way as offline: Those who are both outgoing and interesting get the most attention. As previously mentioned, real-life celebrities bring their celebrated status online with them. As a social networking site, Twitter is a good way to get information in front of a lot of eyes, no matter what the person’s field. I belong to a community of writers, and we use Twitter as a way to get acquainted with one another, offer support, and also to find new writing and get our hands on new books as a member of the community is published. pj_hoover, an Austin-based author, has a new book coming out in May; since we follow one another on Twitter, I was able to send my congratulations via Tweet.

A particularly
persistent user
took advantage of
Finding Nemo
trending.

While fans mourn the
passing of Elisabeth
Sladen (actress), a few
spammers take their
chance to latch onto a
trending topic.

            At the other end of the spectrum, a great way to be ignored is to publish useless and/or offensive links, or repeat the same links multiple times. Another irritating habit that some users engage in is to add a trending topic to one’s update, in the hopes that anyone who clicks on the trending topic will also see the non-related tweet in the timeline. The Twitter community is aware of spam, and many users are not shy about using the “block” button to rid themselves of an annoying follower, or even to go so far as to report the abusive user to the Twitter Help Desk.

            New members need not remain new for long; it doesn’t take long to search for one’s friends and acquaintances as a starting point for followers. Another way to find accounts to follow is by looking for interests, such as “cycling” or “running” or “harry potter”, and following users who seem interesting. Many Twitter users will follow back if the follower has something interesting or useful to share, but those who follow many people just for the sake of getting more followers will usually find it to backfire. The Twitter guidelines page puts it very succinctly: “Twitter isn’t a race to get the most followers. If you follow users that you’re interested in, it’s more likely that legitimate users will find you and read your updates.”

            Word usage on Twitter runs the full gamut from complete, grammatical sentences with perfectly-spelled words to text speech that can be nearly incomprehensible to non-users. While Twitter does have its own language to some extent, with "tweets", "retweets", "hashtags", "following/unfollowing", or the "fail whale", the lingo is very easy to pick up, and new members need not learn the words before joining in. Due to the 140 character limit, tweets are short and usually to the point, although a user will occasionally continue a longer thought across several tweets. This tends to be irritating to other users, however, so it does not happen much. Plus, spreading out a thought over multiple posts decreases the likelihood that the entire thought will actually be read; with so many people updating at one time and the lull required between updates to type another tweet, there may be a large gap between the parts of the thought.

            Another potential pitfall for users is too much whining or complaining. If someone updates hourly about how horrible his or her life is, it’s not likely that followers will stick around for long. Sympathy turns to irritation just as quickly on Twitter as in real life. Nor does it help the user to then complain about people unfollowing him or her—this is another type of tweet that is likely to lose the user followers in a hurry. On Twitter, it is expected that the user will update with what they are doing, preferably something interesting they are doing, and not with the same sob story every time.

#bostonmarathon chat on April 18th.

            It is also expected that a user will learn how to use hashtags. This is particularly important when taking part in one of the various chats; for the session with Pauley Perrette, for example, she asked questioners to tag their posts with #NCIS so she could find them easily. Other chats that I frequently join in on are #runchat and #kidlitchat. Special events also get their own hashtags, like the Boston Marathon, but any user may invent a hashtag by putting a number sign in front of any word or phrase (although the phrases cannot contain spaces or punctuation if the whole thing is to be made into a link, such as #icantfindmyglasses).

            Twitter has around 200 million users, so there’s a good chance that any user can find what he or she is looking for. News, pop culture, sports, what the family is having for dinner tonight: It’s all available in the information stream. Twitter also provides a voice and a platform for people who have things to share, but that platform can only be enlarged by being consistently interesting and informative. It is a flexible enough space that it can be used by millions of people for many purposes, and shows no sign of getting old or tired, possibly because each user can find his or her tribe and shut out the extraneous voices, if need be. As the Twitter staff continues to add features and make it ever easier for people to connect, users will continue to come to Twitter for information, entertainment, and networking.

We Don't Talk This Much in Real Life

There's a young man on Twitter who I'm friends with in actual life. To be fair, I'm more friends with his parents, yada yada, you know how it goes. The short of it is, we've known him since he was about 9, he's a really sweet kid, but in public, he's very reserved. If I want to talk to him in person, I have to come armed with a list of questions that can't possibly be answered with a 'yes' or 'no'.

Not so on Twitter. We chat on Twitter pretty frequently, and he almost always initiates the conversation. Sometimes it's to tell me about his life events (like when he told me he's going to Boys State), sometimes it's to let me know his parents said hi, once it was him asking me how to connect his Twitter account to his Facebook account (and I gotta tell ya, it's a sign of the end of days when a 17-year-old asks me how to do something computer-related). This weekend, it was to talk about Scotland.

Somehow he's known me all these years without knowing about my obsession with Scotland, which is amazing enough in itself. The thing is, I wrote about Scotland on my blog on Saturday (my real blog, not this one), but didn't mention it anywhere else. So I'm thinking that either he read my blog Saturday or somehow the topic of me and Scotland came up in their house. Either way, I'm totally flattered, but also really amused that it takes the internet for us to have a conversation. On the other hand, given the short answers he usually gives in person, it may be that he's found his conversational niche with a 140-character update.

Trending Topics May Be the Enemy

I do some poking around Twitter beyond my own circle of people I'm following, but not a lot, because I tend to regret it if I were to, for instance, click on a trending topic. That's where all the pornography and swearing hangs out. (I wish I were making this up.) (And yes, I have innocent eyes.)

But two trends that come and go fairly regularly are "things black people say" and "things white people say". And when I have ventured to click and find out what's going on, there are inevitably a few things that I find:
1. A lot of the tweets are more along the lines of things parents say. It's like a little trip down memory lane for some people.
2. About half the tweets are correcting other tweets ("no, white people don't say that!").
3. And there are a handful of people complaining that the trending topic is racist.

Even when these topics aren't trending, they are still common enough hashtags to be searchable; I looked just now and found a page of each, all posted in the past couple of hours.

Boston on Twitter

Last year, when I had a regular job that required my 8-to-5 attention, I was reduced to surreptitiously checking the Boston Marathon updates on the Runner's World site. This year, from the relative comfort of the University Writing Center, I was instead able to follow the masses of #bostonmarathon tweets on Twitter. Much better system, in my mind.

I left Twitter open when I went out this morning, and
this is what I came home to.

It's nice that runners have this instantly-updatable forum-- not only were race updates shared, but also thoughts, excitement, and funny stuff: Corcorama said, "Wishing I was running #bostonmarathon but the donut I just ate helped me get over it. Maybe next year. #rwboston." Or, from davidzprice: "I've been training for this my whole life. I can't wait to run the #bostonmarathon next Monday." (Pity there isn't a sarcasm font.) And my personal favorite, from JennBarry13: "The person who won the #Bostonmarathon ran it in 2 hours. It takes me that long to motivate myself to get out of bed."

My UWC colleagues heard the race updates whether they wanted to or not as I "watched" the final miles count down-- an American woman came so close to winning for the first time in 20 years (but finished 2nd by two seconds), and the men's race ended in a world-record time. And I was "watching" when Joan Benoit Samuelson (winner of the first Olympic women's marathon in 1984, still running at age 53, and as a bonus, ran the Austin Half Marathon in February) finished in 2:41:39. Plus, as a side diversion, I was also logged on to the Boston Athletic Association site to track a friend who was running Boston for the first time (and running it really, really quickly--she got faster with each 5K split).

There were also some who didn't care about the marathon, and so to express their not-caring, tweeted to tell the world that they didn't care. Being of the "if I don't care, I won't bother mentioning it" persuasion myself, I always find it odd that people are able to summon enough caring to let us know they don't care. I suppose that's one of the wonders of Twitter.

Then there were those who used the occasion to post about their own issues: "#bostonmarathon Why so many people running? Oh, yeah,not allowed to carry a weapon (not even pepper spray) in MA: http://tinyurl.com/3wfn3hl" (from sqcomic). This tweet was at least mildly related to the hashtag attached to it, unlike the times when users attach a trending hashtag to their spam messages that have nothing to do with the topic at hand. Then there was this rather, um, interesting tweet: "Running a marathon is by far the least interesting way to have a midlife crisis. Grow up and get a hooker like a real man. #bostonmarathon" (from m_shea). Again, at least it's on topic.

For these kinds of massive events, Twitter is a good resource for updates and conversations. It's not just runners (and running fans) who use Twitter, of course, but we were definitely clogging the airways on Monday morning.

We're Willing to Risk Overexposure

I was at the Austin Bike Summit this weekend, and one of many things discussed was how to make cycling more mainstream, so that cycling is seen as normal behavior instead of as an aberration (the reasoning being that if cyclists are considered normal and acceptable on the road, drivers are less likely to engage in hostile behavior towards us, thus making cyclists safer). Among the ideas were examples of intentional advertising in cities with a successful cycling programs: bicycles are seen in advertisements for completely non-related products, for example, much as many adverts include cars regardless of what is being advertised, because cars are already a normal part of life. Then on Sunday morning I happened to see an ad for paint with a cyclist in it. Pretty cool, I think, although if I hadn't heard the previous day's discussion I'm sure I wouldn't have thought twice about it.

This fits in, I think, with what Edbauer says about rhetoric: "Rhetorical situations involve the amalgamation and mixture of many different events and happenings that are not properly segmented into audience, text, or rhetorician" (20). Was the paint ad designed to convince people to ride bicycles? No, the intention is to sell paint. The cyclist, along with other traffic pictured in the ad, contributes to the rhetorical situation of a busy city and thus the busy life of the woman (the paint in the ad is very pink, and only women are shown using it) who needs a hard-working paint. Was the cyclist a happy coincidence, or an intentional plant into this rhetorical framework? It could go many different ways: Perhaps the PR firm is trying to reach cyclists. Or city dwellers. Maybe they were greenwashing the paint, by subtly showing a green transportation at the beginning of the ad but not calling attention to it. Or someone responsible for the ad is a cyclist, and put in this little shout-out to him or herself.

To borrow what Edbauer says about "Keeping Austin Weird", the cycling message "is distributed across purposes and institutional spaces. It circulates in a wide ecology of rhetorics. To play off Shaviro's words, the force of 'messages,' as they accrete over time, determine the shape of public rhetorics" (19-20). For the cyclists gathered on Saturday, this would be the best possible outcome toward making cycling normal, visible, and accepted.

(By way of warning: If your comment is about how cyclists annoy you, then I will delete it. That's not the point of the post.)

M*A*S*H, 1984 and the Rhetorical Situation

Bitzer writes, "Rhetorical discourse is called into existence by situation; the situation which the rhetor perceives amounts to an invitation to create and present discourse" (9). Being a person who looks for the humorous or outrageous in pretty much every situation for my own amusement, I have to agree (at least in that sense). Generally speaking, when dumb things happen, I call it an invitation to make fun of something. My comments are generally not required and frequently not wanted, but as the rhetor, I see the situation and present my discourse. My siblings and I can have entire conversations this way-- we were trained early by watching endless episodes of M*A*S*H. We don't even think about it any more, since being smart alecks is our modus operandi, but others still do: One day my sister and I were in the car with our nephew, who interrupted our conversation to ask, "How do you guys do that?" We were confused and asked him to clarify, so he said, "You say funny stuff all the time." Clearly, our 11-year-old nephew is our niche audience.

Bitzer goes on a few paragraphs later, "Imagine a person spending his time writing eulogies of men and women who never existed" (9). Remember the scene in 1984 when Winston Smith had to do that very thing? He created a war hero, who immediately existed because the Party said he had existed. In this instance, as Bitzer says, "through the oddest of circumstances" the obituary "fit the situation" (9). Of course, in the context of the book, Smith isn't quite engaging in writing an obituary just to do it, as Bitzer is talking about; the Party creates a rhetorical situation that calls for fictional writing. And it doesn't seem odd to anyone that Smith should meet it.

I'm not entirely in line with Bitzer's claim that the situation always comes first; as discussed in class (and evidenced by the Party in 1984 deciding they needed a war hero to celebrate), sometimes the rhetor creates the situation. Even when it comes to my sister and I dazzling our nephew with our wisecracking skills, the situation is partly already in existence-- something happens or something is said that we can laugh about, plus we have an appreciative audience in our nephew-- and partly sustained and extended by whatever we say next. So, as with most other things in life, I have to say that it's both.

Crowdsourcing Grading

I like a lot of things about Davidson's idea of grading. I like making the student responsible. I like using her course as a practice ground of sorts for evaluating and judging discourse, as students will have to do for the rest of their lives. I like that the one doing the evaluating one week will be evaluated the next, which does diminish one of my concerns somewhat. And I definitely like blogging for class, since this semester has given us all a unique way to share our thoughts and see what everyone else is thinking.

My concern is that the grading could get vindictive, or-- as one commenter described-- that classmates might gang together in Survivor-type alliances to ensure good grades for members of the group, whether warranted or not. While the provision that revising earns full marks helps to alleviate this, the possibility that someone will be hurt by a classmate's needlessly-harsh comments still worries me. Learning to take criticism is important, but I don't see how conversation and mutual respect could be fostered in an environment where some students are being harsh.

The expertise of the reviewer also comes into play here. As much as I like and appreciate the peer review process, it tends to result in divergently different feedback. I see the benefit in having to evaluate the feedback. However, when it comes to peers who have similar levels of familiarity with the subject, the possibility arises that a reviewer will give bad advice that the writer will then accept, with the net result that the writer's finished product is actually worse than the original.

So, in theory, a lot of things are good about the idea. In practice, I would be really uncomfortable with it.