College Writing

Reilly Pereira  

Holly Pappas  

English 101.A01  

December 8th, 2023 

 

     Facial recognition software helps detect anyone who has been involved with any criminal activity and then alerts those in charge so that they can address the situation immediately. Currently facial recognition technology is being used in big venues, such as airports and sporting events. The way in which it works is that there is a database of people who are on the watch list, and if the technology recognizes the face on that watchlist, an alert goes out and they are not allowed to continue into the airport or sports venue. It’s a way of capturing people who are on the watch list who have committed crimes in the past and pose a threat to danger. Although some people feel that it is unnecessary to incorporate facial recognition as a preventative measure, facial recognition is necessary because we’ll be able to catch people who have committed crimes in the past and plan to continue committing crimes. The advancing technology that has created facial recognition is the best solution for security and safety. 

     Software like facial recognition is a good preventative from keeping criminals out of very populated areas. There was a good demonstration of this kind of protective system when three thieves robbed a store. The owner, Simon Mackenzie took matters into his own hands by installing a software named Facewatch. He’d guarantee that if those three thieves came back the camera would spot the thieves (Satariano and Hill). The device works by having an image gallery of previous shoplifters who have stolen any items from a store within the database. The camera works all on its own and scans the face of the shoplifter who entered and stole from any store previously. It then sends an alarm to an employee’s phone so one would know the same shoplifter is in the store. This information allows the security from the store to remove the thief and/or have them arrested.  

     Airport security has the same kind of security as Facewatch, only stronger. This type of security is to prevent terrorists from attacking so that another event such as 9/11 will never happen again.  This allows busy security at the airport to have similar security as Facewatch. Once the A.I scans and matches the terrorist’s face, the image goes straight to the U.S Government. Facial recognition technology can be a valuable tool in fighting terrorism at airports within our borders. Different from Facewatch, the military uses biometrics as a security method that is even more advanced. This system uses the technique of identifying people based on some aspect of their biology (Bowyer). This takes some pressure off of security and military at airports.  

     People have said that in busy places like stores and airports that they’ve never felt more safe and secure. Simon Mackenzie, the store owner who has Facewatch claimed, “It’s like having somebody with you saying, ‘That person you bagged last week just came back in.’”(Satariano and Hill) At the airport all passengers have reported of feeling more relaxed and feeling safe within the U.S. Knowing whoever is planning to harm them will be incapable to do so, helps people feel safe. About 50% of terrorists wouldn’t even dare to go near the airport (Bowyer). Plus, it makes security much quicker to process through before taking a flight. Imagine trying to make a last-minute flight and you had to stop and show them your fingerprints or even take dna samples. That would take a very long time and you’d miss your flight.  

     The facial recognition software devices do have drawbacks though. For example, the cameras can mistakenly catch the wrong person. Facewatch is a reliable software, but it can make mistakes. A woman who was buying milk was mistaken to be a thief by the machine. She was then thrown out of the store and had to explain herself to the company. The machine worked perfectly but the reason she was in trouble was because her debit card failed to scan at self-checkout (Satariano and Hill). Another issue with this system is that the camera will not be able to identify a threat if the person only has his name and reputation without the image of the person’s face. If the system does not have their profile picture in the database that person will remain unrecognizable. Without the image to add to the gallery there is little chance of finding the criminal.  

     The public may feel uncomfortable being around this kind of security because they feel it is an invasion of privacy. When it comes to facial recognition there really is no consent. You’d have to be identified at the airport with a picture of you whether you want to or not. You’d also be watched over the security camera at a public place without even being asked to.  I agree about the unfairness of the police going after the wrong person simply because of the color of their skin incorrectly identifying them as a fugitive. The police fully relied on the facial recognition device that misidentified the person because their dark skin tones made it less accurate for the machine to scan them. This led the police to arrest the wrong person without going into detail and without any further questions. The actions of only relying on the machine shouldn’t be continued nor forgiven. 

     However, like most technology we can fix its errors and improve what’s wrong with them. The overall accuracy of a.i facial recognition is 99%.  Issues like poor lighting, shift in movement of the camera and blurry images are all common for facial recognition. So, to fix this, we need higher quality and resolution to make the image clearer and more accurate to see the image for exactly what it is. We could also use a device that has a much larger dataset too. This will result in a much clearer image despite the person’s appearance such as a change in plastic surgery, hairstyle, or when wearing a hat and sunglasses. We could also improve the machine’s way of deep learning, which is similar to the average human learning, only we need to figure out how to improve its own data. Sending information through peripheral devices is more effective than sending it through wi-fi. In case there are wi-fi issues or the wi-fi shutdowns entirely, you’ll have a separate device that will send info through there. 

      In conclusion, while privacy is preferable, the intention to have security footage recognize possible criminal behavior that is out of the ordinary will prevent dangerous situations such as stealing or harming someone from happening. This is a matter of keeping an eye on the public to guarantee its safety. True, it doesn’t work all the time, and this leads to distressful accidents, but the consequence of no security footage could be worse. Imagine having tight security but no camera footage. A burglar could have all the equipment to leave no trace of DNA evidence behind, such as gloves or cleaning substances. There’d be no camera footage for backup to catch the burglar resulting in the stolen object being gone forever. But that’s why we have to improve the solution to facial recognition devices. We have the technology, and we have the scientists to fix these problems. When you have a broken machine, you don’t just throw it away, you fix it. We always fix cars, why not fix camera security? 

 

 Works Cited 

“Beyond Face Value: Public Attitudes to Facial Recognition Technology,” Ada Lovelace Institute, September 2019 

 https://www.adalovelaceinstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/Public-attitudes-to-facial-recognition-technology_v.FINAL_.pdf 

 

Bowyer, Kevin W.,“Face Recognition Technology: Security versus Privacy, IEEE Technology And Society Magazine,” Spring 2004 

 https://www3.nd.edu/~kwb/Bowyer_Tech_Soc_2004.pdf 

 

Hill, Kashmir and Adam Satariano, “Barred From Grocery Stores by Facial Recognition,” The New York Times, June 28, 2023 

 https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/28/technology/facial-recognition-shoplifters-britain.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare 

 

Introna, Lucas D. and Helen Nissenbaum “Facial Recognition Technology: A Survey of Policy and Implementation Issues,” Unknown date. 

 https://nissenbaum.tech.cornell.edu/papers/facial_recognition_report.pdf  

 

Kutnyk, Stanislav, “Improve AI Facial Recognition Accuracy Using Deep Learning,” MOBIDEV, Jan 19, 2023 

https://mobidev.biz/blog/improve-ai-facial-recognition-accuracy-with-machine-deep-learning#:~:text=The%20ways%20to%20increase%20the,larger%20and%20of%20higher%20quality.  

 

 

How is the essay structured, and does it follow assignment guidelines? (If not, explain why and give suggestions for revision)

The essay has defined structured paragraphs. There is a clear introductory, summary, and response.

Is the summary complete and accurate? If not, please make suggestions.

I would include in the summary how the influencers live in collab houses together in order to make their content. There’s nothing about kids not going to college or students dropping out of college. Vivian points out that TikTok influencing is a very stressful job, to keep the viewers happy. But she doesn’t give any examples or reasons why. Vivan should include what kind of schedule they have and what they have to do to keep their business going.

Does the writer handle source ethically? (check to make sure that paraphrases are not unacceptably close to original wording; is there an in-text citation given for any material from the second source found by student; is Works Cited included?)

Vivan did not use any quotes from Jarvey in her second source. If there are quotes in there, she just has to put inquartation marks in her essay.

Are paragraphs focused, well-developed, and coherent? (Is there one clear main idea per paragraph? Identify any paragraphs that need revision for focus or coherence.)

I think Vivian can make her response at the end more personal. She should share her point of view of how influencers shape our understanding of social media.

Is the response substantive? (Does the writer make interesting, thought-provoking points or connections?) If not so much, do you see possible ideas that could be further developed?

In the response I feel like Vivian shows concern for influencers and how they have anxiety and depression. So, she talks a lot about the dangers of being an influencer. It’s a good focus and I think she can build upon it.

Brennan’s review is well-written, and I would consider it college work. Each paragraph has one main idea and is organized. He has his in-text citations but there is no specific area about where the in-text citation begins. Perhaps if he added a quote from the article or started off with “From what I’ve read about…” and then used his own words in his essay I would know which sentence his in-text citation is. In the first paragraph his list of uses for news sources on social media is confusing. It’s as if he merged the whole list and percentage of use into one sentence. In the first few sentences of the first paragraph instead of saying, “Over the years the number of people who are getting their news from social media sources has been increasing” I would say “The number of people who used social media to research the news have increased.” Another mistake in sentence he made was in “Of the social media sites people use for news, only two represent over half of the population of U.S. adults who use social media for their news needs.” Instead, he should turn that sentence into “Of the social media sites people use for news, only two represent over half of the population of adults in the United States.” I think this quote about the population of adults should be an in-text citation or a quote to show where this information was sourced from. In the second paragraph he doesn’t have any in-text citations or sources of where he got the information about fake news from. Is this all in his own words? The work he cited is alphabetized except for Bryanov, Kirill. He should be in between AЇmeur, Esma and Levy, Ro’ee. Overall, this is a well-constructed draft but with some editing, the essay will be written even better. Keep up the good work.

Reilly Pereira 

Holly Pappas 

English 101.A01 

December 8th, 2023

Facial recognition software helps detect anyone who has been involved with any criminal activity and then alerts those in charge so that they can address the situation immediately. Currently facial recognition technology is being used in big venues, such as airports and sporting events. The way in which it works is that there is a database of people who are on the watch list, and if the technology recognizes the face on that watchlist, an alert goes out and they are not allowed to continue into the airport or sports venue. It’s a way of capturing people who are on the watch list who have committed crimes in the past and pose a threat to danger. Although some people feel that it is unnecessary to incorporate facial recognition as a preventative measure, facial recognition is necessary because we’ll be able to catch people who have committed crimes in the past and plan to continue committing crimes. The advancing technology that has created facial recognition is the best solution for security and safety.

Software like facial recognition is a good preventative from keeping criminals out of very populated areas. There was a good demonstration of this kind of protective system when three thieves robbed a store. The owner, Simon Mackenzie took matters into his own hands by installing a software named Facewatch. He’d guarantee that if those three thieves came back the camera would spot the thieves (Satariano and Hill). The device works by having an image gallery of previous shoplifters who have stolen any items from a store within the database . The camera works all on its own and scans the face of the shoplifter who entered and stole from any store previously. It then sends an alarm to an employee’s phone so one would know the same shoplifter is in the store. This information allows the security from the store to remove the thief and/or have them arrested. 

Airport security has the same kind of security as Facewatch, only stronger. This type of security is to prevent terrorists from attacking so that another event such as 9/11 will never happen again.  This allows busy security at the airport to have similar security as Facewatch. Once the A.I scans and matches the terrorist’s face, the image goes straight to the U.S Government. Facial recognition technology can be a valuable tool in fighting terrorism at airports within our borders. Different from Facewatch, the military uses biometrics as a security method that is even more advanced. This system uses the technique of identifying people based on some aspect of their biology (Bowyer). This takes some pressure off of security and military at airports. 

People have said that in busy places like stores and airports that they’ve never felt more safe and secure. Simon Mackenzie, the store owner who has Facewatch claimed, “It’s like having somebody with you saying, ‘That person you bagged last week just came back in.’”(Satariano and Hill) At the airport all passengers have reported of feeling more relaxed and feeling safe within the U.S. Knowing whoever is coming to harm them will be incapable to helps people feel safe. About 50% of terrorists wouldn’t even dare to go near the airport (Bowyer). Plus, it makes security much quicker to process through before taking a flight. Imagine trying to make a last minute flight and you had to stop and show them your fingerprints or even take dna samples. That would take a very long time and you’d miss your flight.

The facial software devices do have drawbacks though. For example, the cameras can mistakenly catch the wrong person. A misunderstanding occurred with the use of Facewatch at one point by sounding an alert on a woman who’s debit card wasn’t working and failed to scan the item she was about to purchase (Satariano and Hill). The camera will not be able to identify a threat if the person only has his name and reputation. If the system does not have their profile picture in the database that person will remain unrecognizable. Without the image to add to the gallery there is little chance of finding the criminal. Facewatch’s program can make mistakes, such as scanning the wrong person for a crime. A woman who was buying milk was mistaken to be a thief by the machine. She was then thrown out of the store and had to explain herself to the company. The machine worked perfectly but the reason she was in trouble was because her debit card failed to scan at self checkout (Satariano and Hill).

The public would even feel uncomfortable being around that kind of security because they felt it was an invasion of privacy. When it comes to facial recognition there really is no consent. You’d have to be identified at the airport with a picture of you whether you want to or not. You’d also be watched over the security camera at a public place without even being asked too. 

The police station has had a lot of women of color arrested with the use of facial recognition technology. Black men and women have felt they were being racially oppressed by the police because the station had been arresting the people of color just by listening to the machine without giving a second thought.

However, like most technology we can fix its errors and improve what’s wrong with them. The overall accuracy of a.i facial recognition is 99%.  Issues like poor lighting, shift in movement of the camera and blurry images are all common for facial recognition. So to fix this we need higher quality and resolution to make the image more clear and accurate to see the image. We could also use a device that has a much larger dataset too. This will result in a much more clear image despite the person’s appearance such as a change in plastic surgery, hairstyle, or when wearing a hat and sunglasses. We could also improve the machine’s way of deep learning which is similar to the average human learning, only we need to figure out how to improve its own data. Sending information through peripheral devices is more effective than sending it through wifi. In case there are wifi issues or the wifi shutdown entirely you’ll have a separate device that will send info through there.

In conclusion, facial recognition does invade privacy but it does invade the privacy of the perpetrator.this is a matter of keeping an eye on those types of people and if you’re not that person, you’re most likely to be safe. Maybe not all the time, I agree about the unfairness of the police going after the wrong Black person simply because of what a machine told that cop without any further questions. Those actions can not be forgiven. But that’s why we have to improve the solution to facial recognition. We have the technology and we have the scientists. When you have a broken machine you don’t just throw it away, you fix it. We always fix cars, why not fix camera security?

Works Cited

“Beyond Face Value: Public Attitudes to Facial Recognition Technology,” Ada Lovelace Institute, September 2019

https://www.adalovelaceinstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/Public-attitudes-to-facial-recognition-technology_v.FINAL_.pdf

 

Bowyer, Kevin W.,“Face Recognition Technology: Security versus Privacy, IEEE Technology And Society Magazine,” Spring 2004

https://www3.nd.edu/~kwb/Bowyer_Tech_Soc_2004.pdf

Hill, Kashmir and Adam Satariano. “Barred From Grocery Stores by Facial Recognition,” The New York Times, June 28, 2023

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/28/technology/facial-recognition-shoplifters-britain.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare

 

Introna, Lucas D. and Helen Nissenbaum “Facial Recognition Technology: A Survey of Policy and Implementation Issues,” Unknown date.

https://nissenbaum.tech.cornell.edu/papers/facial_recognition_report.pdf

 

Kutnyk, Stanislav, “ Improve AI Facial Recognition Accuracy Using Deep Learning,” MOBIDEV, Jan 19, 2023

https://mobidev.biz/blog/improve-ai-facial-recognition-accuracy-with-machine-deep-learning#:~:text=The%20ways%20to%20increase%20the,larger%20and%20of%20higher%20quality. 

Reilly Pereira 

Holly Pappas 

English 101.A01 

November 11th, 2023 

How Is Social Media Used For Theater Marketing & Engagement?  

     There are many ways to help promote theater productions with social media. Social media has been a helpful tool to promote businesses. How does it promote theater though? We’re going to take a look at all the ways social media helps promote theater. Creating hashtags on social media can take the viewer to several links and websites that help to encourage common content and in this case, the show you want to promote. Sharing a service on social media brings together support about the project and also helps create an algorithm that will help expand your audience. Taking your audience along the journey of creating the project may be a great way to inspire the audience to see the finished project. Social media can help explain what inspired you to devise this show and help to explain  what it’s based off of. Sharing positive aspects of your project and how this musical came to exist can intrigue the audience to come see the show. By making information available on social media through a “link in bio” potential producers may become interested in the project. In order to reach a large audience that wants to come see your show, you can post information on your personal social media page that’s interesting. Taking your audience behind the scenes of the show and seeing the cast have a good time on social media can help convince the viewers the staff behind this project has worked hard to make the show entertaining. By tagging anyone on social media who might be interested to see the show, this strategy helps spread the word about the project. Another easy way to use social media for a theater project is to post a production schedule in advance. With these ideas to promote your project on social media one can gain a lot of popularity and become a successful actor and or director in no time.

     What kind of impact has promoting musical theaters had in social media? Huge impacts! Here’s how. A conversation between several companies and younger generations is called a frequent interaction. This will spread the word of a new musical coming out to a large number of people causing huge ticket sales. With social media, people around the world now have access to keep in touch with Broadway’s musicals being presented and buy tickets to their shows online. “As our world becomes more digital, the benefits offered to Broadway productions by having a robust social media presence include increased exposure and direct communication with fans” (Pontelandolfo). According to social media’s results, Facebook is the leading genesis of Broadway’s information for the followers online. Here’s a fun fact to know: Broadway’s most successful production followed in social media is Lin-Manuel Miranda’s production, Hamilton. Social media soon became the key major point in time to promote musicals in the theater industry. There is one problem to this however, “Getting a production to Broadway is extremely expensive and requires significant investment from a large number of producers. Additionally, this investment is decidedly risky, with only 20% of productions recouping their initial investment (Davenport 1). This leads to producers being wary of making investments in newer, unproven, or risky marketing trends or techniques.” (Pontelandolfo) The reason shows like Hamilton were so popular on Facebook was because its target audience consisted of people between the ages 35 to 44. On Facebook Live, each cast member had 30 minutes on stream to answer any questions from their fans about their work. This made fans overjoyed to get to know the actor in person and stay engaged online. YouTube has also made content for musicals popular. “Videos provide a public space for people to share their love for theater in a way that is accessible for all and is particularly attractive for younger generations who consume much of their media online.” (Pontelandolfo).

     On TikTok, each cast member had their own personal account related to Hamilton content. Their videos and their content consisted of what’s been going on behind the scenes of the show and what each cast member in the show did to inspire its work. With all of this being done on social media there has been hype and high requests for tickets to see Hamilton. Social Media wanted to gain a number of large audiences from younger people and people of color. Diverse groups want to see content that confront serious matters in a way the audience would inspire from and enjoy. “This effect creates a feedback loop—as more young and non-white populations purchase tickets and prove they are a valuable customer segment for Broadway, more productions will tell stories targeted directly at these groups, and more stories will be on Broadway that resonate with these audiences, leading them to purchase more tickets.” (Pontelandolfo) “Young people have also become tastemakers in a tangible way with the advent of social media, via Tumblr, YouTube, and Instagram… These Pontelandolfo 31 consumers of the show later converted into sold-out, screaming audiences.” (Pontelandolfo) With this potential within social media and the theater industry, any musical has a chance of creating something great.

     Social media has had many positive impacts in theater productions. However, that includes changes between the two. Several entertainment venues have had to restrict the usage of phones during performances, because people in the audience have been distracted by their phones. People who’ve worked in Broadway were upset about this because they feel that their work is being under appreciated. There have been ways to adapt to this however. “The use of digital technologies can positively influence how people witness theater and, in turn, make theater more accessible to those who previously could not engage with it. To make those stories salient to a diverse, 21st century audience, the theater industry must use digital technologies in some way — there’s no ignoring it anymore.” (Lewis) One of which is that some performance venues have opened tweet seats which is a seat for those who have a twitter account to tweet their followers how well the show is doing. This has been a valuable way for the younger generation of audiences to adapt to classic music organizations. Some Broadway centers even stream their productions online. With a site called Broadway HD which is a streaming service of musical theater online. The creators hoped “it would ‘whet audiences’ appetite’ to go see live performances.” (Lewis) When Hamilton tickets were too expensive for those who couldn’t afford them, he opened a twitter account for fans to check out and get a look at behind the scenes of the show. “Through the popularity of social media, theater as an art form has shifted from a one-sided experience to a multi-dimensional dialogue.” Lewis also states, “By providing a digital space for fans to gather around a show, theater-makers extend the experience of the show beyond the walls of the physical theater.” (Lewis) With these strategies musical theater can still be successful whether live on stage or live on your device.

 

 

Reilly Pereira 

Holly Pappas 

English 101.A01 

November 11th, 2023

 

How Is Social Media Used For Theatre Marketing & Engagement

 

Bibliography

Sources

Bree Hadley, “Theatre, Social Media, and Meaning Making,” Palgrave Macmillan Cham, October 18th, 2017. 

https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-319-54882-1

In this book written by Bree Hadley, they describe not only social media and how it relates to the theater industry, it also details aesthetic, critical, audience development, marketing and assessment uptake that will be helpful to scholars, students, and industry practitioners so that an understanding of theater reaches a wide audience.

 

Dills Amanda, “20 Ways to Use Social Media to Promote Your New Musical (at Every Stage of Development),” Musical Writers.Com  Feb 9th, 2023

https://www.musicalwriters.com/marketing/20-ways-to-use-social-media-to-promote-your-new-musical/

This article aims to teach someone who longs to be a theater director how to promote a new show on social media. This article includes new ideas such as updates, trailers, and release dates. The article shares wise ideas in how to promote a new show such as behind the scenes footage and creative personal posts. 

 

Lewis Julie, “How Social Media Is Revolutionizing Broadway,” Digital Living, May 9th, 2016

https://medium.com/digital-living/how-social-media-is-revolutionizing-broadway-3b5e8c3981eb

This article explores how Broadway was trying to balance the theater industry and social media. It explains how at first, for a time, people in the audience within the performing arts center had been on social media during  performances. This upset many actors and actresses, so the article explains how theater companies have taken measures to inspire theater through social media, such as video-on-demand theater productions and tweet seats, where twitter users sit to review a show while it’s live.

 

Pontelandolfo Jordan, “The Impact of Social Media Marketing on the Broadway Industry: A Study of Hamilton: An American Musical,” University of South Carolina Scholar Commons, Spring 2022 

https://scholarcommons.sc.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1509&context=senior_theses#:~:text=Social%20media%20usage%20can%20have,go%20viral%20(Craft%2058).

The scholarly article talks about the benefits that social media brought to the musical on Broadway titled Hamilton. This show has changed social media for theater and benefited the business on Broadway greatly. The article described unique ways of promoting theater shows such as live QnA’s from the cast, and updates from behind the scenes in their profiles on social media related to Hamilton. 

Patrick Lonergan, Theatre and Social Media, Bloomsbury Publishing, November 3rd, 2015.

https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/theatre-and-social-media-9781137463708/

This book written by Patrick Lonergan explains the relationship between theater maker’s engagement and social media. He writes about the interaction between audiences and production processes within social media.

 

November 7, 2023 

Reilly’s opinions on sources Larry picked out for his own essay about how the NBA uses social media.  

 

Larry’s Sources 

NBA Marketing Strategy 

In my opinion this article has got valuable information to explain how the NBA uses social media. Each section in the article has a heading above the paragraph. This is useful for organizing different reasons why social media is useful for the NBA. The only problem is each section is short and summarized with several sources within each paragraph. This is because I think gathering information should revolve around one article. However, I still think Larry could get what he needs for his essay from this article. 

 

The NBA and social media: How the league, players, and fans are affected 

I think this source would work for Larry’s essay too. The article uses a graph representing how many interests in certain countries the NBA has. There is also another graph that shows the amount of time the NBA audience has grown over the months on Facebook and Twitter. There are also images of promotional content from the NBA on Instagram to show examples of what the NBA does to promote themselves. 

 

NBA Teams Deliver Personal Experiences To Drive NBA Fan Engagement 

I like this article Larry picked out. Stories about personal experiences from each NBA veteran would definitely attract more fans. NBA fans would be so intrigued about each of NBA players backstories that they’d want to go on social media to find out what’s going on in their lives. 

The Impact of Social Media on NBA Players 

This is another good article Larry used. The article shows the results of the NBA promoting their business. A couple of examples would be what happened to each of the players’ salaries and their engagement with their fans. 

 

For better or worse: Evaluating the impact of social media on the NBA as Lebron James adds to China controversy 

This is an intresting article Larry picked out. I think this article could be used in the Essay to show what kind of controversy can be caused intentionally or unintentionally between the NBA players and the NBA fans on social media. 

 

The Societal Influence of the NBA  

I think that this article already has that kind of information from the first three articles from the list of Larry’s sources. It does add a little extra detail such as politics and exploring racism. 

Topics I’m going to use for Essay 3

How is social media used for theater marketing and engagement ?

Possible Sources & References

The Impact of Social Media Marketing on the Broadway Industry:
A Study of Hamilton: An American Musical (Check out sources later)

What Role Does Social Media Play In The Theatre?  (Tony Howell)

Theatrical Marketing and Social Media – An Important Part of the Ensemble, But Not the Star of the Show (Alex Freeman)

How Social Media is Revolutionizing Broadway (Julie Lewis)

20 Ways to Use Social Media to Promote Your New Musical (at Every Stage of Development) (Amanda Dills)

How social media earned “Be More Chill” a spot on Broadway (LEIGH SCHEPS)

BWW Blog: The Impact of Social Media on Modern Theatre; The Influence of Social Media on Theatre (Becca Jones)

Reilly Pereira 

Holly Pappas 

English 101.A01 

October 31st, 2023 

 

The Anxiety of Influencers Summary 

     In this article Barrett Swanson, who is a writer for Harper’s Magazine, spends a week with TikTok influencers and then writes about his experience in an article called, “The Anxiety of Influencers”. In his article he shows how these young influencers are being exploited and how he thinks this generation, also known as “Generation Z,” is heading in a bad direction. A lot of collab houses take place in Los Angeles. Young adults from across the United States, who aspire to become influencers, travel to these collab houses to become part of this social media community. Collab houses are where influencers in their mid twenties or teenage years live and create content together.  To be accepted into these collab houses it’s important that they have at least one million followers. A lot of these young adults are college dropouts who are committed solely to being an influencer. Since this is such a time commitment, these potential influencers must choose between college or make content for their millions of followers. It’s understandable that some young adults choose to be influencers because of the huge amount of money they make in just a week. 

     Swanson spends a week with these teenage influencers in a house they all share. The house is paid for by corporate sponsors. Swanson visited a specific collab house called Clubhouse FTB or “Clubhouse for The Boys.” The Clubhouse is one of many collab houses in the L.A area. Collab houses are usually lavash mansions where influencers live together and collaborate making videos for different social media platforms. The Clubhouse influencers make video content for TikTok specifically.  These influencers are strongly encouraged to make content every single day. There is a lot of pressure to make likable posts that helps them continue in their growth of followers. A lot of the influencers receive money from brands. TikTok influencers must maintain their popularity in order to keep their sponsors that pay them a lot of money to promote their brand. They can receive up to $50,000 for just a ten-second video that displays a particular brand.  Maintaining popularity may seem stressful but the payoffs make it all worthwhile in the end.   

     Swanson highlights several ways in which he believes the boys are being exploited. For example, each of the boys must be up by 10:00 am and hold house meetings at 11:30 am Monday through Thursday. He believes this commitment to waking up early is to prevent them from drinking the night before. The influencers must come up with new content every day, often several videos a day. One of the boys was quoted as saying “It’s like waking up every day trying to come up with a school project and impress your teachers.” The influencer was referencing some of the corporations’ expectations of Swanson. A lot of their content comes from creating flashy dance moves that go with an audio. This can take a lot of time to create, but getting likes is almost instantaneous once the content is posted. 

     Most of these teenagers do not go to school and these collab houses are often referred to as “influencer universities.” The owners of the Clubhouse take 20% of all the influencers earnings while they are living in this house. The clubhouse co-owners see themself as an influencer university. They consider themselves to be influencing professors. Chase Zwernerneman, the 21-year-old VP of talent management describes the clubhouse structure to Swanson. Chase explains The grad school is for seasoned influencers, the undergraduate program pertains to 16- to 21-year-olds, and then there’s the high school of the collab houses that is made up of the younger demographic of influencers. I think Swanson’s purpose of writing this article is not necessarily to put down or compare this new generation to the old. I think as he writes this essay, he stays fairly impartial so that the reader can make their own decision on whether collab houses are a good or bad idea for a career. 

     This essay made me rethink my ideas on what I’d want to do for my acting career. I was thinking about trying to make comedy skits on YouTube. The fact that the TikTok influencers must be so popular to make enough money to live off of, makes me want to pursue YouTube comedy as more of a hobby and try something different as a career. This essay was successful in explaining to teenagers the impact of being a TikTok influencer. After reading this article I think they may reconsider their choices of being a TikTok influencer before making this decision to fully commit. I think the essay helps open the eyes of the teenager reading this essay to stick with college and not throw away good opportunities before jumping to the career of influencing TikTok. In another article similar to Swanson’s, called Hype House and the Los Angeles TikTok Mansion Gold Rush, written by Taylor Lorenz, similar influencer details are described “If someone slips up constantly, they’ll not be a part of this team anymore,” Thomas said. “You can’t come and stay with us for a week and not make any videos, it’s not going to work. This whole house is designed for productivity. If you want to party, there’s hundreds of houses that throw parties in L.A. every weekend.”   

      In the original essay Swanson describes the lack of communication skills that the influencers have. One of the boys, Chrstopher says, “Fuck college! College can wait. I can always go when I’m like thirty so I’m just gonna ride this one out.” and even Baron says, “I don’t know if I’ll finish college. I might, but if I don’t and this is working out, then everybody else can just suck me.” I think the essay, however, fails to explain another three people who have had negative consequences involving what happened when they ditched college. For example, the founding members of FTB Daisy Keech, DaeDae Wilson, and Sam Dezz have all thrown away golden opportunities involving sports at their colleges, to join TikTok influencing. The essay never pointed out the negative impacts it had on their lives. This essay can be very useful when considering social media and careers within social media. 

 

Site Sources 

 Taylor Lorenz. Hype House and the Los Angeles TikTok Mansion Gold Rush, New York Times. Published Jan. 3, 2020 

Barret Swanson. The Anxiety of Influencers, Harper’s Magazines.

Published September 2020

 

 

 

 

• How is the essay structured, and does it follow assignment guidelines? (If not, explain why and give suggestions for revision) 

 The essay has defined structured paragraphs. There is a clear introductory, summary, and response.  

 

• Is the summary complete and accurate? If not, please make suggestions. 

 I would include in the summary how the influencers live in collab houses together in order to make their content. There’s nothing about kids not going to college or students dropping out of college. Vivian points out that TikTok influencing is a very stressful job, to keep the viewers happy. But she doesn’t give any examples or reasons why. Vivan should include what kind of schedule they have and what they have to do to keep their business going. 

 

• Does the writer handle source ethically? (check to make sure that paraphrases are not unacceptably close to original wording; is there an in-text citation given for any material from the second source found by student; is Works Cited included?) 

 Vivian did not use any quotes from Jarvey in her second source. If there are quotes in there, she just has to put quotation marks in her essay. 

 

• Are paragraphs focused, well-developed, and coherent? (Is there one clear main idea per paragraph? Identify any paragraphs that need revision for focus or coherence.) 

 I think Vivian can make her response at the end more personal. She should share her point of view of how influencers shape our understanding of social media. 

 

• Is the response substantive? (Does the writer make interesting, thought-provoking points or connections?) If not so much, do you see possible ideas that could be further developed? 

 In the response I feel like Vivian shows concern for influencers and how they have anxiety and depression. So, she talks a lot about the dangers of being an influencer. It’s a good focus and I think she can build upon it.