Three weeks ago I made a final decision about something that’s irked the shit out of me for well over a year—I deleted my Facebook account. I know that many Facebook users jumped ship a couple of months ago because of the company’s new Big Brotheresque privacy policies. While I disagreed with Facebook’s decision to essentially share personal information with companies all over the Internet, this was not the Number One (or Number Three) issue that sent me packing. I understand that Facebook is an essential tool for many people, but here are my cynical views about why I chose to cut the cord with Facebook:

Facebook is a huge time-suck. Ever since I started using the Internet in 1995 (ah, good old dial up AOL), I have always found umpteen ways to waste my life away on the World Wide Web. I’m a researcher by nature, so I find it exciting to look up trivial information all the time and usually at the expense of doing something much more productive. Wikipedia, IMDB, blogs, Twitter updates, etc. all provided hours of distraction from a term paper, freelance assignment, or my full-time job. I have garnered delicious recipes, article ideas, book recommendations, funny videos, academic research, or at least some trivial knowledge (Meryl Streep played the Rabbi in Angels in America!) from these sources. But Facebook was the worst online black hole because, at least for me, it provided nothing of value. Sure, it was nice to see a video of a friend’s son taking his first steps or photos of another friend receiving her PhD. But more often that not, I found myself reading personal information about a friend of a friend or stalking a crush I had in the 7^th grade. I am the Queen of Wasting Time, but even I couldn’t justify it any longer.

Facebook made me feel like an adolescent again. And I’m not talking about the good parts of the teenager years. I’m talking about the catty, jealous, lonely, low self-esteem, Mean Girls moments of adolescence. In the real world, it stings less if you don’t invite me to your party, baby shower, or night out on the town. I probably won’t even notice, since as adults we’re so busy and lucky to see each other once a month. On Facebook the proof is splashed all over the screen of my computer, whether I want to see it or not. Wedged between Farmville announcements and status updates about potty training toddlers, I see dozens of photos from a 30^th birthday party of someone I consider a good friend. Look at all those people having fun! Why wasn’t I invited? I hate myself!

Facebook was getting awkward as more people joined. In the months leading up to the deletion of my account, I had received friend requests from clients at my full-time job (a big social work no no), co-workers (umm, no thanks), staff I directly supervise (no way!), people who I never met but who worked once or twice with my fiancé (why?), and many relatives (thanks for the offer, distant cousin twice removed, but I’ll pass).

When I’m bored, I still find myself automatically clicking the space on my iPhone where the Facebook app once existed. And some of my friends have no idea how to contact me outside of Facebook; several left Happy Birthday messages for me through my fiancé’s Wall. But overall, I’m really happy about unplugging.

Sunday morning, as I read the New York Times on my iPhone (there’s an app for that!), I squealed with delight when I came across the best news ever—Scholastic is reissuing the first two volumes of The Baby-Sitters Club with a new prequel written by the series’ author Ann M. Martin!

As a child who followed the public library’s summer reading contests with a religious fervor, I devoured these books and still hold them in high esteem.  I always connected with the characters Mary Anne (the shy, organized one) and Claudia (the creative one–though I lacked her fashion sense) and longed for a tight knit club of my own.

Many times I have thought about collecting the series from used bookstores, but I’ve never found the space for the 100+ that I read before I moved on to Christopher Pike, R.L. Stine (none of that Goosebumps crap…only Fear Street), Stephen King and Dean Koontz.  I was a dark and sullen middle schooler, huh?

However, my excitement was immediately taken down a notch when I read that the original volumes will be “slightly revised.”  According to the Times:

Editors at Scholastic updated some of the references to technology and outdated fashions in the reissued books. So a “cassette player” has become “headphones” and a “perm” has become “an expensive hairstyle.”

Seriously?!  Where’s the fun in rereading the series, or introducing younger generations to The Babysitters Club if some references to the 80s and 90s are erased?  As an avid fan of Laura Ingalls Wilder’s novels, I don’t recall Laura riding in a “vehicle” (i.e. horse drawn wagon) or the family moving into a new “neighborhood” (i.e. the prairie).

While I will definitely check out the prequel when it is published, I have no plans to purchase or read the revised volumes.  Used bookstores, here I come!

The fiance and I have moved into a new apartment–a beautiful, roomy two-bedroom place with a huge kitchen perfect for entertaining and cooking up gluten-free food.  The apartment is surrounded by woods, a river, a small village of shops and restaurants, the bay, and a farmers market every Saturday.  We couldn’t ask for a nicer place to call home.

Everything was perfect until, five days after moving in, I took a fall down the outside stairs and busted my leg.  A broken fibula, a fractured ankle, and a surgery later, I am facing another 3-6 weeks of bed rest before I can even start putting weight on my leg. 

I’m out of work for this whole time and am running out of ways to entertain myself.  Daytime television is driving me insane–did you know that The Jerry Springer Show is alive and well?  I think I’ve read the entire contents of the Internet and I am almost finished watching the lengthy list of silly 80s movies I’ve never viewed in our collection.  Erik the Viking = thumbs up; Iron Eagle = thumbs way down! 

But it’s not all doom and gloom and synthesized music.  I started reading Eat, Pray, Love (a book that really speaks to me so far…I love the author’s voice) and finally taught myself how to use Twitter.  Since finishing my pain meds, I have found stretches of time and mental clarity to work on my thesis. 

And now it is time to breathe some life into my writing–my favorite past time/vocation but the first thing I dump in case of emergency or times of stress.

While wasting my day away on the Internet, I stumbled upon this frame-by-frame parody of Shakira’s “She-Wolf” video:

This video led me to watch the original version by Shakira, which of course featured very different audience responses than the parody featuring a male.  Comments on YouTube for Shakira’s version included calling the singer slutty, sexy, hot, flexible enough for great sex, and a terrible dancer that has a nice body.  And those are the tame comments.  Almost none of the comments mentioned the song, the beat, the singing, etc.

I appreciate the parody, created by Washington State sophomore Andrew Foster, because it opens up the possibility of a dialogue about male versus female performance.  Also, if enough people create and/or consume these types of parodies I think it weakens the effects of the original message.  While Shakira’s dance moves and poses are a tad ridiculous, they contain many of the stereotypically “sexy” moves used by female performers–dancing in a cage or near a pole, sucking on their fingers, shaking their hips, women of color as animals, etc. 

However, viewers seem to find these moves not sexy and down right hysterical when performed by a man.  Most of the YouTube comments are either commending Andrew for creating a funny video or condemning him for acting “so gay!” 

As a culture, this is a stark example of our rigid gender roles–particularly around what is sexuality and sex appeal.  Frankly I find both performances to be awkward and unappealing (you have flexible shoulders–I want to sex you!  huh?), but I am clearly in the minority. 

What do you think?

A few weeks ago, I came across this really nifty contest to create an infomercial for Bitch magazine.  I pointed it out to my partner, who is a filmmaker and a producer of a hilarious improv troupe–Bring Your Own Improv.  Check them out, I guarantee you will pee your pants!

Anyway the BYOI group, armed with some amazing and funny feminists (and rabid Bitch fans!), created the following infomercial.  Kudos to Amber Guillet for an excellent, cheesy sountrack.  I guarantee this will make you pee your pants, too!  Good job everyone!

In other news, I finally figured out how to embed video into my blog posts…go me!

Check out my latest published work!

Review of Queer Youth Cultures

I don’t have much to say beyond these four words: Sarah Haskins was AWESOME!

I really appreciate WAM!’s choice to bring such a talented speaker to the conference.  Feminism doesn’t have to be all serious doom and gloom and comedians like Sarah Haskins prove that the media/pop culture can be taken to task in an entertaining way.  After spending the whole day discussing serious feminist stuff (gender oppression, lack of funding for independent media, corporate douchebags), it was refreshing to laugh. 

Please look to the right, under my Flickr feed, for pictures.  For some reason, Wordpress is feeling cranky about uploading pictures right now.

Wow!  I was totally blown away by the session “Queer Teen Filmmakers: Eradicating Homophobia Across the U.S. Reel by Real.”  With the help of moderator Indrig Hu Dahl, three incredible young queer women screened their short films and then opened it up for Q & A.  The presenters were really surprised to find 60+ people who wanted to hear about their work.  We had to switch rooms to accommodate more attendees, but some people still had to sit on the floor. 

Chicago native Zaida Sanabia showed her film A Fish (Almost) Eaten by a Shark , a documentary originally intended to give other teens a step-by-step guide on how to build a Gay-Straight Alliance in school.  When Zaida encounters homophobia from teachers and the principal, administrators try to confiscate her film.  Beyondmedia assisted her with the process of bringing the film to distribution.  We didn’t get to watch the entire documentary, but the piece that we watched was really powerful. 

Next was Genne Scott, originally from Los Angeles, who made Black Widow–a spoke word piece, set to visual images and video, about black men who can’t come out as queer because of the confines of black masculinity.  This video was produced during Genne’s time at REACH LA.  Although really short, maybe three or four minutes in length, Black Widow really effected me.  During Q & A, Genne spoke about her personal experiences of not fitting in.  It was difficult for her to come out, she experienced bullying from other black queer youth who saw her butch identity as too white, and her father kicked her out of the house.  Genne is only in her early 20s, but her advice and answers were well beyond her years.  I think we’ll see great things from her in the future. 

Finally we screened Coming Out, created by Seattle native Kali Snowden with the help of Reel Grrls.  I can’t give away too much about the plot, but this short comedy appeared like a really fun way to present issues of homophobia to youth.  Kali and Reel Grrls have created a discussion guide for the film and have screened it in schools throughout the country. 

As Zaida explained, youth have an incredible amount of energy, talent, and desire to thrive; they just need someone who believes in them and who are willing to help them along the way.

I just attended a really powerful breakout session called “In/Out of Focus, Broadening a Feminist Lens: Gender, Non-Conformity and the Media” which was moderated by Kate Bovitch and featured Jack Aponte, Miriam Zoila Perez, and Julia Serano.

Each panelist spent a few minutes talking about themselves and then started a discussion about how the feminist community can make room for gender variant people even if they do not identify with the word “woman.”  There was also quite a bit of discussion about the media and how it creates and perpetuates many of the transphobic assumptions found in our society. 

This session was so insighful and full of incredibly important questions about gender and feminism that I know I cannot do it justice here.  I took so many notes and know that I will be pondering these issues for quite a while.  However, there are some highlights I want to point out immediately:

• I wish everyone in the world could be exposed to the brilliant insight of Julia Serano, the author of Whipping Girl (if you haven’t read it yet, you must…right now!).  As a transwoman, she has experienced misogyny two ways–when people see her as a woman and when people see her as a transgendered woman.  Transphobia and sexism are deeply rooted and related to each other, so much so that feminists should be concerned about transphobia and other trans issues. 
• Gender variant people, like many other marginalized groups, are invisible in our society and media depictions help shape the way others see them.  Media and pop culture coverage of gender variant people often include objectification, exploitation of the body, intrusive questions, etc. 
• To loosely quote Jack Aponte, some people feel strong kinship with the female community, but don’t want to squeeze into a gender binary for the cause of solidarity. 
• There are many ways that transgender allies can show their support.  First, it’s important that if we’re writing about gender variant people, we do so without exploiting them or trying to come across as a trans expert.  As Julia pointed out, we need to educate ourselves and listen to the issues that the community raises–not the issues that people outside the community are interested in reading. 
• We need to have a large discussion about gender and feminism, not just in the context of gender variance.  Everyone needs to question and study their own gender. 

Cynthia Lopez’s presentation was very informative…what a great start to the day, in typical WAM! style.  Her overall theme was how we can use media to invoke meaningful conversation about a variety of issues. 

Lopez also spoke at length about the role of women in media and entertainment–particularly that while some positive steps have been made in terms of representation, there is still a long journey ahead of us.  Women, particularly women of color and women over 40, are noticeably absent from Sunday morning news shows, prime time television, radio, and newsrooms in general.  While some women have been successful in public broadcasting, this form of media continues to be grossly underfunded. 

Over the past 20 years, POV has created more than 250 films that represent a diverse collection of topics–poverty in Africa, white supremacy, police brutality, political corruption, discrimination in the Boy Scouts, etc. 

There were two previews shown for recent POV films.  The first was Made in L.A., about three Latina immigrants who helped rally other sweatshop workers to boycott Forever 21.  Made in L.A. has been screened hundreds of times, including at the Mexican consulate in Los Angeles and for Washington policy makers. 

We also had the opportunity to see a preview for POV’s next documentary to be aired on PBS–New Muslim Cool.  Focused on a Puerto Rican Muslim rapper named Hamza Perez, the documentary deals with Perez’s goal of lifting young people out of drugs and crime in Pittsburgh while under surveillance by the FBI (and other counter-terrorism organizations) for his religion.  It airs on PBS on June 23rd; I will definitely be watching.