I had a disappointing experience with apple’s tech support (surprise). And i admit, while i wouldn’t say i generally obsess over it (slick and functional design lets it slip into the background), my life is pretty preoccupied with the OS X, and when things go wrong i’d admit to obsession. Anyways, for this post, while hopefully i’m not cheating by maybe avoiding the software itself, i was thinking about the feeling of pre-programmed pleasantries and flattery. Personally I hate it at all times, and it just makes a bad transaction even worse. Maybe it’s a kind of uncanny valley thing. I was talking to my friend Nicole about it and she brought up the metroPCS customer service, where the real humans on the line seem to be forced to be extraordinarily complimentary (along the lines of, when you ask them how they’re doing, they say things like “well just GREAT now that I’m on the phone with YOU!!”), which I started to roll my eyes at, but Nicole admitted that it eventually seeped into her consciousness and made her feel better.

after arguing and going nowhere:

post-chat-window email follow-up:

update: follow up email sent around 6am this morning

For this week I was most interested in the interface of Discord and how it keeps the user addicted to the discussion going on between users.  Discord does this by indicating people are currently talking on a channel by having a white semi circle next to channels you have not read up on.  For channels that have consistent discussion this can be rather addicting as the white semi circle will constantly reappear reminding you that there is new chat to be read.  Also, while typing in a channel it will state which users are currently typing.  This is to help keep discussion going as the user knows someone is reading and conducting a response.  Sometimes if multiple people are typing at the same time the dialogue will read as Several people are typing.  For channels with a lot of discussion going on it can get quite addicting due to the constant updating, however if there are not a lot of users on a channel or not a lot of discussion then the channel is mostly dead till someone starts a discussion.

I thought I’d try my hand at crowdfunding some snack money off of Facebook, but I was a little bit wary from the start as I cruised down my timeline for the first time in about a year. All this evidence is anecdotal, but I was only seeing content about monumental life events (some of which were also asking for cash: totaled cars, lost jobs, etc., which made my request feel a little trivial and irreverent). It’s hard to say whether most of my peers on the site have moved on to only sharing these kinds of things, or if the newsfeed algorithm pushes that kind of content that hard, but I imagine it’s something like both, and probably something else I’m not thinking of. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that I haven’t been on here for a long time so it’s a kind of bangers-only playlist, if you know what I mean. After the third day of posting and scrolling I started to see less significant content, but the likes were also down on those (a dozen or so for an interesting photo instead of hundreds for generic babies and engagements). I intended my posts to be somewhere between so lackluster/monotone as to stand out against the usual content and extravagantly attention-grabbing, in other words, average. I have no idea how it fared algorithm-wise, or how many people actually saw it in their timeline, but I did only get one like from the series and that was when I tagged Ben. I had thought that Ryan Griffis donated to the snack fund, but when I checked my venmo account later I realized it had happened in a dream. I was interested in this project because while I was hoping for success, in my gut I didn’t really think that would happen. Which is interesting because I’m used to running these sorts of one-off barter/art-trade arrangements IRL, but I don’t think I’m too savvy at it online.

facebook recognized my call for donations

not sure if it was the “snaxxx” but I got this ad after that post, and maybe my image looked like a macro? Hard to say.

I mentioned that Instagram is the social media platform I’m probably most obsessed with, so I decided to conduct my project by creating a new account.

Background: Instagram is typically used as a way to connect with friends, family, and influencers by following them and getting a glimpse into their life via pictures and captions. You can like pictures, post your own pictures, create stories and even save a picture you like to your collection (only you can see this). More often than not, a user will usually only follow people they know along with a few accounts they’re interested in (celebrities, fashion lines, lifestyle accounts, etc.). They get likes based on their followers and like pictures with content that interest them.

Problem: Sometimes I catch myself scrolling through Instagram without being genuinely interested in any of the content because its either irrelevant or posted by a distant friend I’ve lost touch with. And while the mainstream use of Instagram has been similar to Facebook in the sense that you follow people you know and post pictures that you hope will get likes by your followers (aka friends), I started to wonder what it would be like if you used Instagram solely for it’s picture taking/editing properties.

Question: What if you used Instagram purely for your own satisfaction and as a platform to archive pictures that are important to you? What if you didn’t want to follow anyone? What if you wanted to search certain content when you were only in the mood and save it to your collection if you like it? What if you didn’t want to be subject to the posting algorithm of Instagram and your followers? Ultimate Question: If you created an Instagram account and used it in a “Pinterest” manner by not following anyone and only searching content that interests you, would it still be a social media site? Or in other words, would it still connect you with people by means of followers and likes?

Plan: to create a food account, in which I won’t follow a single account or like any other pictures. What I will do however, is search food related content and save it to my collection and post 4 pictures of food each of the three days. To keep things semi-interesting, in the captions of my posts I will include relevant hashtags that relate to the picture. I will also keep my account public instead of private. What outcomes am I looking for? Im curious to see if my account receives any followers or if my pictures get any likes if I don’t participate in any interaction (following accounts, liking content) except for making hashtag captions and locations.

The 3-Day Trial:

DAY 1 (Friday)- Created the the Healthy Happy Eats Instagram Account. First Post: Picture; salmon dinner. Caption; 14 hashtags. Location; The Streets of Wood-field. Outcome; received 5 likes and 1 follower. Second Post: Picture; lattes and a candle. Caption; 10 hashtags. Location; Grand Lux Cafe. Outcome; 12 likes and 2 additional followers. Third Post: Picture; fruit at European market. Caption; 13 hashtags. Location; La Boqueria Mercat. Outcome; 16 likes and 1 additional follower. Fourth Post: Picture; almond milk latte. Caption; 10 hashtags. Location; Galway, Ireland. Outcomes; 9 likes. DAY 1 REVIEW: the account has 4 followers and a total of 42 likes between the 4 pictures.

DAY 2 (Saturday)- Fifth Post: Picture; brunch table. Caption; 17 hashtags. Location; La Pain Quotidien. Outcomes; 11 likes. Sixth Post: Picture; tea in a museum. Caption; 12 hashtags. Location; Tate Modern. Outcome; 5 likes. Seventh Post: nuts at European market. Caption; 13 hashtags. Location; La Boqueria Mercat. Outcomes: 11 likes and 1 additional follower. Eight Post: Picture; carrot ginger soup. Caption; 11 hashtags. Location; Belfast, Ireland. Outcomes; 6 likes. DAY 2 REVIEW: the account has 5 followers and 75 likes between the 8 pictures.

DAY 3 (Sunday)- Ninth Post: Picture; fruit at European Market. Caption; 10 hashtags. Location; La Boqueria Mercat. Outcomes; 8 likes, 1 comment “Love this!,” and 2 additional followers. Tenth Post: Picture; banana oatmeal. Caption; 11 hashtags. Location; Carol Stream. Outcomes; 5 likes. Eleventh Post;  Picture; brunch table. Caption; 6 hashtags. Location; Galway, Ireland. Outcomes; 5 likes and 1 additional follower. Twelfth Post: Picture; quiche breakfast and latte. Caption; 11 hashtags. Location; Prague, Czech Republic. Outcomes; 14 likes and 1 additional follower. DAY 3 REVIEW: the account has 9 followers and a total of 107 likes and 1 comment between the 12 pictures.

Please View Account at this link: 

https://www.instagram.com/eatshealthyhappy/?hl=en

Conclusion: In my opinion, it’s pretty incredible that this food account I created received a total of 107 likes, 1 comment and 9 followers after just 3 DAYS and NO interaction with any other accounts whatsoever. This reveals several things about Instagram. 1) The power of the HashTag and Location: the accounts that liked or followed my account were generally in relation to my hashtag or location features. For example, user dan0964 commented “Love this!” on my photo of fruit at the Boqueria Mercat. In my hashtag I included #travel and I can clearly see from his profile that he is a world traveller and food enthusiast, who was just recently in Barcelona. Another example would be that I received a follow from Capones Restaurant Galway account after they liked the picture of my almond milk latte with the location of Galway, Ireland. 2) Instagram is meant to be a social media site. It has all the necessary features to get users to connect with one another, and on the contrary, it would actually be hard to create an Instagram account that didn’t receive any interaction at all, because thats not what its made for, it wants users to connect with one another. 3) Instagram is not just a “fun” social site, it is very much oriented to a business-driven market. The way in which users can search and interact with other accounts similar to them has a networking feel to it, in my opinion. For example, when I would post a picture of a healthy breakfast and #nutrition #healthyfood, I would have nutrition related accounts like and follow my platform. This is a great way for them to network and connect with users that are similar to them, and maybe sell a product or start a marketing contract.

What caught my attention this week was the addition of gifs for stories on Instagram and how people have been using them. This feature came out this week and when I read about it, I thought it was pretty dumb but this is likely due to the fact that I have never used Instagram stories so this feature would be useless to me. What I noticed from how people I follow have been using this new function is that there has been a trend where people “post their aesthetic in gifs,” or another one where you “search your name and the first gif describes you,” or things of that nature. I haven’t really seen anyone use gifs on Instagram in another way yet and I’m curious as to if this is just the people I follow or if this trend is on most accounts right now. Another thing that I think is interesting is that Snapchat added “animated stickers and filters” last year. Instagram has taken a lot of ideas from Snapchat, like stories for example, and the timing of animated stickers and gifs makes me wonder whether it was a coincidence or not.

Option 1: I was scrolling through Instagram when I came across a sponsored post. Sponsored posts appear by accounts you don’t follow and are often trying to sell you something. In this case, the add was by an account called optimumnutrition and trying to sell me breakfast oats. Instagram is driving me to act on this ad and hopefully click to buy some product. I think they particularly chose this ad because just previously in the day, I was surfing safari on whole foods looking at different products to order (oatmeal being one of them). I don’t think its a coincidence that this product was chosen for the sponsored post.

I feel like the social media I look at the most is my school email, because that is where important messages are sent. I check it constantly throughout the day, not wanting to miss anything that might be important to my school work or something. The things that I immediately check are 1, if there are any new emails, and 2. who the emails are from, because I will pay attention to important emails, but disregard and not read the unimportant ones.