Midterm Week Meditation

 Like a wise man, Bon Jovi once said, “we are halfway there.” It is almost the end of my sophomore year. I honestly cannot believe that it is already time for midterms for the second semester of my second year in college. I have learned a lot in such a short amount of time, especially when it comes to social media and myself.

The most interesting concept in COMM 373 is definitely the newest topic of cancel culture. The idea of cancel culture is extremely prevalent today and has been, I’d say since the 2016 election. We always act so fast when trying to cancel someone, but I’ve noticed that no one really pays attention to the facts or try to understand the other side. This generation is full of wanna-be heroes and posers that do things just to stand out on social media. Since cancel culture and internet shaming are fairly new concepts, I find it interesting to see its evolution unfolding in front of me as I am actively learning about it in class. Now, I am more aware of it and my own actions on social media platforms. Though cancel culture often gets a bad reputation, it can be beneficial if done in a tasteful way to people who actually deserve it. I know this is easier said than done as there are so many different perspectives and opinions that people hold on certain things. Hopefully as time moves forward, we as a society can come up with a better way of serving justice to those who deserve it.

As for things that were not so enjoyable in class, I can honestly say that we did spend a bit too much time exploring activism on social media. Though it was an interesting concept with a fascinatingly abundant amount of theories and concepts, we spent a lot of the time learning about the same things. I thought it was a bit funny that a majority of the guest professors all decided to speak about this topic. It was not boring, but there was a lot of time spent on it.

Finally, we get to the deep stuff; connecting what I learned in class to my real life. Everything is applicable to real life as our life is becoming increasingly controlled by social media and technology as a whole. Movements and opinions are shaped by what we see online so it is important to be aware of where we get our news. Learning about impression management is one of the most useful things that we could learn in social media, especially since we are approaching adulthood and a professional life. I hope to not get cancelled, so these lessons will help with preventing that.