I grew up in a time before social media. As fantastical as it sounds, there was a time before social media existed, where all socializing happened live and in person. Relationships were developed through physical and organic interaction—the old-fashioned way of getting to know someone. Bonds were built slowly and solidified over time. But as social media platforms and apps have entered the scene over the last two decades, the ways we connect were transformed, shifting to focus on increasing…
social media
This Is Your Brain On FaceTune: Why Self-Manipulation Pervades in the Body Positivity Era
Posted on July 26, 2019Queer people spend a lot of time online. To be more exact, queer folks spend 35 percent more time online than their heterosexual counterparts, and according to a recently published study from Stanford, 65 percent of same-sex couples surveyed met online, compared with 39 percent of their straight peers.…
Bitter, Brown, and Femme: Meet the Founder of Popular Feminist Page Xicanisma
Posted on September 25, 2018Cassandra Alicia, the 29-year-old founder of the popular Chicana feminist social media page Xicanisma, isn’t afraid of making her 106,000 Instagram followers uncomfortable. In fact, her tagline is “dismantling oppressive isms through tears.” Her Instagram posts highlight an array of social justice issues through photos, art, memes, and screenshots. One post, for example, is in the popular bingo meme format that points out how violent anti-sex work rhetoric can be, especially in light of recent events where a border patrol…