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Illustration by Anson Chan
I WAS SITTING in a large auditorium full of market researchers. A speaker suggested that, by selling wrinkle cream, we were helping to make the world a better place because women would feel better about themselves. I looked around the room, thinking, “Is everyone buying into this? Do people really think this is true, or do they see that it’s just a corporate pep talk?”
I had worked in the world of international market research for nearly 10 years. Though there were a few moments like this one when something just didn’t feel right, in many ways I still didn’t see the issues I see so clearly now — marketing techniques are the air we breathe.
I eventually left my work in marketing to pursue a master’s in social justice and a doctorate in theological ethics. I began to investigate how marketing practices negatively impact how we live as human beings and how we think about marketing in the church. In contemporary society, we tend to view marketing techniques as neutral tools that can be applied in different contexts — whether for businesses, nonprofit fundraising, or church communication. But can we adapt tools that have been developed in the context of capitalistic profit maximization to the mission of the church? Are there fundamental differences in how the church views and relates to human beings?
I had worked in the world of international market research for nearly 10 years. Though there were a few moments like this one when something just didn’t feel right, in many ways I still didn’t see the issues I see so clearly now—marketing techniques are the air we breathe.
THE PAST DECADE has seen an endless trickle of negative stories about social media—data breaches, Russian bots, cyberbullying, digital radicalization, etc.—so by now almost everyone knows that the amusement and convenience those platforms offer come with a downside. But now a new Netflix documentary, The Social Dilemma, is here to tell us one big thing: It’s worse than we thought. In fact, it’s worse than we could have possibly imagined.
In the film this alarm is raised by many of the very people who helped create the systems they now decry. We’re talking about the guy who invented the “Like” button for Facebook, the guy who designed the recommendation engine for YouTube, the fellow who invented the infinite scroll. One after another these mostly white, mostly male characters come on camera to tell us how badly their proudest accomplishments have gone awry.
The big problem these folks warn us about is that our smartphones constantly collect data (what we buy, what music we play, where we are, who we talk to, etc., ad nauseam) and that data is used to fuel a system of targeted alerts, notifications, and recommendations designed to keep us on a site for as long as possible and deliver us to advertisers who also have that data about us.
Illustration by Michael George Haddad
I CAN NAME Emma’s favorite foods: roasted sweet potatoes and acai smoothie bowls. I’ve spent hours with her two sisters and classmates. We’ve traveled across the country together and danced to all her most-loved songs.
Week after week, with one tap on my screen, I instantly enter Emma’s world. As we laugh and smile at each other, it feels as if I am spending time with a friend, albeit a virtual one.
Emma Abrahamson is one of the countless Generation Z video bloggers on YouTube (some with tens of millions of followers) who are re-creating the nature of human friendship and experience.
The next presidential election will include a wave of Gen Zers voting for the first time. Who are they? What do they care about?
Beginning with those born in 1995, the same year as the commercial internet, Gen Zers only know a life of navigating multiple realities. While I (a millennial) am part of the generation shaped by the arrival of instant communication, Gen Z is the generation shaped by the arrival of instant experience. They are constantly living on the cusp of the virtual and the physical—and, just like Emma, draw the rest of us in.
Some worry that such a technology-centered existence, filled with YouTube friends and instantaneous everything, leaves young people isolated and ill-equipped to live with uncertainty. Researchers claim it is leading to the highest rates of anxiety, depression, and suicide ever recorded.
1. What Is the Church’s Responsibility in a Constitutional Crisis?
Historically, the church has stepped in to offer a word on what the tenets of Christian faith look like in troubled times.
2. What Would a World Designed By Women Look Like?
For thousands of years the profession of architecture has been male-dominated — and a close look at our structures makes that clear. But now more than 40 percent of architecture school graduates are women. What does that mean for the future of design?
Image via RNS/Reuters/Jonathan Ernst
For some, the choice is not clear. Clinton-Kaine may be the more personally religious ticket, but Trump-Pence is more cozy with the religious right, aka the evil empire among atheists. Then there’s Green Party candidate Jill Stein, who has no chance of victory, but is the only candidate who reached out to nonbelievers and asked for their vote.
So what’s an atheist to do?
Cindy Lee Garcia speaks to reporters after a court hearing in 2012. Photo via REUTERS / Bret Hartman / RNS
An appeals court has overturned a controversial ruling that required YouTube to take down a video that disparaged Muslims.
One of the actresses in the film sued to take it down and won, but an appeals court ruled May 18 that she didn’t have the right to control the film’s distribution.
When it was released in 2012, the short film, titled Innocence of Muslims, sparked violence in the Middle East and death threats to the actors.
A scene from "Ballast," one of many independent films available to a larger audience because of internet sites such as Fandor. Image courtesy of Andy Zito
2013 WAS ANOTHER year when the future arrived. We’ve been having a lot of those lately. First there was 2010. According to the Project for Excellence in Journalism, that year more Americans got their news online than from reading a newspaper. Next, 2011 was the year when the internet started replacing not just the local bookstore, but books themselves. That’s when Amazon made more money from e-books than from real ones. The same thing happened in 2012, when revenue from music downloads surpassed that from the sale of recorded discs.
The newest future dawned last year when the American Academy of Television Arts and Sciences officially recognized that the internet was replacing TV. They didn’t say that, of course. The Academy just said that online streaming series, such as Netflix’s House of Cards andArrested Development, were eligible for Emmy Awards. For a little perspective here, the Emmys were once only for broadcast TV—the stuff you can get from a roof antenna. Cable productions became eligible in 1988, and last year not a single broadcast production was even nominated for the best drama award.
In the first year of internet eligibility, David Fincher won the best director Emmy for House of Cards. In case anyone still thinks that web TV is for has-beens and wannabes, in 2011 Fincher was nominated for the best director Oscar for The Social Network. Last fall, Doonesbury creator Garry Trudeau produced a series (Alpha House) for streaming on Amazon. For the record, Trudeau’s last television venture was Lucas Tanner for HBO, in 1988.
Petronas Towers, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Photo courtesy RNS/Auswandern Malaysia/flickr.com
The government of Malaysia expelled a group of Singaporean tourists for chanting Buddhist prayers inside an Islamic prayer room where they erected a large Buddhist painting on the wall facing Mecca.
The government also revoked the permanent resident visa of the businessman who allowed the Buddhists to pray at his beach resort in Johor state, about 185 miles south of Kuala Lumpur, the capital of Muslim-majority Malaysia.
The government’s response is the latest in a series of crackdowns on behavior deemed disrespectful of Islamic traditions and beliefs.
A song about ascending to heaven written by a dying 18-year-old, has gotten 7.7 million YouTube hits and at one point reached No. 1 on the iTunes music charts.
Zach Sobiech, who died in late May, wrote the farewell song "Clouds" as an ode, in part, to his unwavering faith in God.
He is remembered for providing hope to people around the world, many of them facing similar situations.
God Girl's New Favorite Thing for Oct. 25, 2012: Two Irish boys cover Rihanna's "We Found Love (in a Hopeless Place)"
Now who are these talented young lads?
UPDATE: WE FOUND 'EM!
More info from the singer's father inside the blog...
Director Wes Anderson's new film will be "The Grand Budapest Hotel."
The world's most dangerous hiking trail, some underwater streets, skyscrapers cleaning our air, and having a cold brewski with President Obama. And then 2,601 people collaborated on a song. Today's links of awesomeness are pretty awesome.
The Apple.com website pays tribute to founder Steve Jobs upon his death in 2011. Photo by Annette Shaff/Shutterstock.
When her 91-year-old aunt passed away in 2010, Diane DiResta videotaped the eulogies to create a record of the moving words spoken. She wasn't ready to talk about her aunt at the service, so she used an online tool for publishing audio to record her thoughts, then e-mailed the audio file to close family.
And when a cherished 89-year-old uncle died in Las Vegas in February — and there was no funeral service to follow — the New York City resident again turned to technology.
"Since there was no way for the family to share his life and express their grief together, I created a blog," she said. "I added pictures, and family members were able to post their memories of him."
This is Mourning 2.0. Technological advances have dramatically altered how we grieve for and memorialize the dead.
In this new era, the bereaved readily share their sorrow via Facebook comments. They light virtual candles on memorial websites, upload video tributes to YouTube and express sadness through online funeral home guest books. Mourners affix adhesive-backed barcodes or "QR code" chips to tombstones so visitors can pull up photos and videos with a scan of a smartphone.
The lesson for me, as the parent of a middle school child, was to pay closer attention.
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Indie music darling, Jeff Mangum, who rarely plays in public, surprised #OccupyWallStreet protesters in New York City earlier this week with an impromptu concert. A New Jersey singer-songwriter pens two songs for revolutions. And an order of Catholic nuns offer free mp3 downloads of a protest song inspired by the life of St. Francis of Assisi.
When President Barack Obama laid out his deficit plan Monday, he wasn't just trying to sell a policy. When he pressed for tax hikes on the rich and announced, "This is not class warfare," he was trying to exorcise a demon that has bedeviled the Democratic Party for decades and in the process deprive the Republicans of one of their trustiest weapons. The reaction from the right was swift and sure: "Class warfare!"
The recent British film In Our Name is a returning-soldier drama featuring a married woman, Suzy, who leaves her husband and little girl to fight in Iraq. Because she's involved in the killing of a little girl during her tour-this part is based on a true story, but it happened to a man -- she returns home only to steadily fall apart under the stress of soul-destroying anxieties.
I was in Baghdad in March 2003, where I lived as a Christian and as a peacemaker during the "shock-and-awe" bombing. I spent time with families, volunteered in hospitals, and learned to sing "Amazing Grace"