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The Science Pawdcast
The Science Pawdcast breaks down the latest science happening in the human world AND the pet world.
Each episode will also bring you a guest to enthral you with their area of knowledge.
You'll learn, be captivated, and laugh along with host Jason Zackowski.
Pets and Science, it's the pawfect mix.
You'll also get episodes of PetChat which are the live shows from social audio.
PetChat is a live community gathering updates about the animals in our life, but also the animals in the wonderful community that supports us!
Heart and Hope.
Science and Shenanigans.
The Science Pawdcast
Scichat wtih Dr. Jess Maddox on the Power, Pitfalls, and Peculiarities of Social Media
Get ready for a fascinating journey through the complex universe of social media, with our special guest, social media expert Dr. Jess Maddox. We tackle the multifaceted aspects of this digital world, discussing its virtues, ethical dilemmas, aesthetic appeal, and the inherent potential for both harm and benefit. We've got intriguing case studies up our sleeve, shedding light on how social media can be a tool for social change or a purveyor of misinformation.
Venture into the bizarre with us as we unravel unexpected tech moments and the peculiar power of memes. The Burning Man festival and the conspiracy theories it spawns serve as our backdrop while we ponder the responsibility social media platforms bear for the content they harbor. We also dive into the 2017 YouTube demonetization issue, exploring the ripple effects caused when corporations found their brands associated with unsavory content.
We devote time to the power and pitfalls of social media in brand identity, data protection, and creativity, honing in on the seismic shift TikTok induced with the introduction of music. Dr. Maddox shares her insights about the shifting grounds of data privacy laws, the implications of our digital footprints, and the potential of political action to demand better data protection. We wrap up with entertaining anecdotes about the West Edmonton Mall, the role of celebrities in politics, and what it's like to be stranded in a mall during a snowstorm. Join us for this enlightening conversation with Dr. Maddox that reveals the vast and complex world of social media.
Dr. Maddox's Links:
https://twitter.com/drjessmaddox
Dr. Maddox's Newsletter
https://theinternetuserexperience.substack.com/
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Hello science enthusiasts. My name is Jason Zekowski. I'm the dog dad of Bunsen and beaker the science dogs on social media. Normally I have a co-host, chris Zekowski. She gone. She's meeting with the parents of the kids she teaches. I'm flying solo. Every week in SciChat we bring an amazing guest to enthrall you with their area of knowledge. Without further ado, I'd like to welcome our guest tonight. Social media expert, dr Jess Maddox. Doc, hello, how are you? I'm good. Thanks for having me, doc, where are you in the world? Where are you from, like what's? Where are you? Where are you calling in from? I'm?
Speaker 3:calling in from Tuscaloosa, Alabama, Any football fans in the US home with Alabama Crimson Tide football. But I'm at home home tonight sitting here petting my 12 year old dog while we chat.
Speaker 2:We do a live show called Pet Chat on Saturday and some people were listening to football and also trying to listen to the show and I guess that was a bit much. People were yelling about something. I apologize, I'm Canadian. I don't follow American football or college football or anything like that, but I know it's a big deal. It's a big deal down there.
Speaker 3:You're good and yeah, especially where I am, it's a big deal we lost over the weekend, so it's been a morose week.
Speaker 2:Oh no, Getting just kind of a bit of a downer after that.
Speaker 3:A little bit. Yeah, I feel that.
Speaker 2:I feel that I felt that way after some episodes of Game of Thrones. To be honest with you, that's very, very vibes, honestly. So, doc, could you tell everybody a little bit about your education, and then we'll get into some of the fun questions I've got for you, and after that, if some of the audience has questions, we'll open the floor to you to ask.
Speaker 3:So, to make a long story short, I graduated with an English degree, or I went to college for an English degree.
Speaker 3:I thought I wanted to be a high school English teacher, realized about halfway through somewhere in my sophomore year that not everybody likes the Great Gatsby the way I like the Great Gatsby, and trying to do that for my whole life would have been miserable on myself.
Speaker 3:So kind of bumbled through my undergraduate years, I graduated with an English degree at the height of the financial crash that followed 08. So I was working a lot of part time, freelancing jobs and a lot of contract gigs and wound up in magazines actually, and at the time businesses were like, hey, we are trying to figure out how to use social media professionally. You're the youngest person in the office, you figure it out. And I was like, ok, that's cool. And so kind of fell in love with it, decided to go back and get a master's in actually public relations to do social media stuff, and then a couple of weeks into that realized I had the questions I had about social media weren't actually public relations, they were more academic-y when I got a PhD in mass communication. And now here we are. Now I'm an assistant professor at the University of Alabama, where I research and teach classes in social media.
Speaker 2:Do you have like a syllabus where it goes through like Facebook, twitter or X or whatever this platform is called Instagram, like? Is that a thing? Like how do you teach social media? Do you get where I'm going with this?
Speaker 3:Yeah, ok, totally, and I don't even remember why this happened, but when I built the social media society class and I did it with a coworker of mine they wanted the class to have a humanities designation on it, so it would fulfill the humanities credit that people at the university have to take in college, and so if you do that, your course has to cover. Oh, and I'm blanking on it, it's values, ethics and aesthetics.
Speaker 2:OK.
Speaker 3:So are the three things your humanities class has to cover. So we structured the class around values, ethics and aesthetics. So it doesn't necessarily focus on one platform, but we have kind of those three units, and I start with values, then we go into ethics, then we go into aesthetics and look at social media that way.
Speaker 2:OK, I have a big question for you, right off the top, let's go. So no softballs. This is just like here comes In. Your opinion, is social media good or bad, or is that an impossible question? I have my own opinions, but I wanted to ask you that one right kind of as our guiding question.
Speaker 3:Yeah, no, I think that's a great question and it's actually how I start my class oh, graduating social society class Because I tell them you know we're going to, I'm their guide. I introduce, basically I tell them I am your guide through all things social media for coming to critically think about something that is so much a part of our lives and to challenge it and question it and demand better from the platforms and practices that structure so much of our lives. And so I tell them that in doing that, I'm not an apologist and I'm not an alarmist. So, in other words, I'm not going to apologize for the really bad things that do happen on social media, but I'm also not going to scare them with overblown hype and panic for things about social media. So I know it's kind of a cop out answer to say it's neither good or bad.
Speaker 3:I'm an academic. That's what we do. We talk around the question and give cop out answer and so, yeah, it's both. It can do really bad things, but can also do really good things, and sometimes it's easy to, you know, throw all of it out for the sake of the other. But I don't think we should do that necessarily.
Speaker 2:Do you do case studies in your class, like here is something really bad from social media or here is something really good, like is that some of the stuff you do?
Speaker 3:Yeah. So on the really bad kind of tackling, because I scare so many of my students when we it is always when we start talking about data and privacy.
Speaker 2:Oh God.
Speaker 3:When we start, because I will like pull up social. I will screenshot social media platforms, data and privacy policies and, like we put them on the screen and start like and you show them that, like did you show them?
Speaker 2:like, hey, did you see this part where you have to give away your first born child? Like did you see? Oh, okay.
Speaker 3:Yeah, oh, yeah, and then to and that's also in the cut of the class, like we segue into other ethical kind of quandaries of social media, like the internet, of things. We talk about data breaches and kind of the really kind of the scary ones that happen. So maybe I do become a little bit of an alarmist on that day Because I always like I tell them the stories of like I think it was in Florida, the state of Florida and the United States, like somebody, like a disgruntled former employee, hacked into a town's water supply and like changed the chemical levels to like a fatal level.
Speaker 2:Oh, my God Only in.
Speaker 3:Florida. It was the only in Florida.
Speaker 2:It was a Florida man, right.
Speaker 3:Florida, it always.
Speaker 2:It's always Florida, okay.
Speaker 3:But luckily they had enough safeguards in their system that like the system recognized immediately something was wrong and like shut down and corrected itself. So we talk about that, but they always leave that day their eyes like very wide because they never thought about and then. But then on the flip side of that, you know, we talk about social media in politics, which you might not immediately think of as a good thing, but we talk about it in terms of like mobilizing people into political actions, social media and activism, social media and protest, the Arab Spring from many, many years ago, black Lives Matter, protests and kind of talk about the power and the collective tool of social media as well and, of course, the fun of it as well. One of the assignments in that class is for a reading response. They have to make a meme and explain it.
Speaker 2:I love making memes Me too. There's a fun. I'm the department head for science at my school and my department meetings I do the entire department meeting with memes. So if I have to explain something like long range planning, it's a meme that introduces it. There's nothing to do. I love it so much.
Speaker 3:I used to print out memes and hang them up on our department and they were always very wholesome and funny memes, but then they well, I'm outing myself now and I think a lot of people knew it was me doing it, but I was told to stop.
Speaker 2:Oh, oh.
Speaker 3:Or I'm told to stop.
Speaker 2:You know the meme that keeps on giving, that is never, ever old. For me which one? It's the distracted boyfriend meme, because I can use. You know the one where he's walking with his girlfriend and another one a girl's walking by and he's looking at her and then, yes, yeah, that one. Oh man, I that I've made 50, 60 memes I've used in department meetings with that.
Speaker 3:I love that one. That's a good one.
Speaker 2:There's also the hands collapsing one. I could talk about memes for an hour. I love them.
Speaker 1:Oh same.
Speaker 2:It's tough though I teach the, the zoomers right, the Gen Z. Do you teach Gen Zs now, like the little little? Are you a millennial? Are you like a millennial? Would you consider yourself a millennial?
Speaker 3:Probably, I think, a squarely middle millennial. I'm 33. Okay, so yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm a Gen Xer and I know some people listening in. Or Gen Xers Shout out to Dr Liz Button, who's my ride, or die Gen Xer in the space right now. Yeah, and the zoomers, the kids, they the meat. They don't get memes. Sometimes, like I was talking to them about Charlie, bit my finger and they had no concept. The grade nines I teach. They didn't even know what that was.
Speaker 3:Oh, no clue whatsoever. You know, memes really peaked in my opinion. I mean, or the hay day of memes was like 2010. They were like 2013, 2014. It was like the wild west of meme creation and we've had some good ones since, but if you weren't around in those times, you missed out on some of the jokes.
Speaker 2:So a question I have for you, and I subscribed to your newsletter. By the way, I love it.
Speaker 1:Oh, thank you.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so you've been talking in your newsletter and I've been getting a kick out of it about like the absolutely bonkers conspiracy theories that have come about because of social media, like somebody, either on purpose or as a joke or through misinformation, posts something and it catches and it spreads. So I just from somebody who wrote about it and I think you did some research is there an Ebola outbreak at Burning man?
Speaker 3:No, there is not an Ebola outbreak at Burning man, even though there are definitely corners of the internet that want you to think that's what happened, and some that went so far as to Photoshop headlines from Forbes that said there was no Ebola outbreak at Burning man. They Photoshopped them to change it to say there is an Ebola outbreak at Burning man and then use that as evidence for their claim.
Speaker 2:I feel I learned more about Burning man in the last two weeks than I ever wanted to know. I didn't even know this thing was a thing until the conspiracy theory started. Can you explain Burning man for people who have no like? If they're like, what is Burning man?
Speaker 3:So I will try my best because it is a strange, strange thing, and one of the reasons that I even know about it is because, since I also study the tech industry and kind of key players of the tech industry, a lot of tech people like Burning man, so there's like this oh really.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 3:Burning man is a festival, but it's not a music festival. I think a lot of people thought it was a music festival. It's not. It's like an arts folksy festival that happens out in the middle of the desert in the US state of Nevada, I guess around this time every year. Admittedly, I also don't really keep track of what happens. It kind of pops up and I'm like, okay, cool, burning Man's happening, oh, you know who's out there this year. But and I guess I don't know if I can say this well, people engage in a lot of substances about Burning man.
Speaker 2:They expand their minds. Is that what you're saying?
Speaker 3:Okay, yes, and so like part and it was, you know, I found it as this like hippie artist thing, you know, originally near San Francisco and then moved out to the desert, and I am probably like butchering. You know what this actually is, but it's kind of like the gist. It's like a couple days experience of artsy things and expanding your mind, and then they build a giant like Wicker man statue and burn the statue at the end and yeah, and then what happened this year? Was it rained really hard, which I saw.
Speaker 3:It's like a swamp or something.
Speaker 2:I don't know what to describe it.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and it's like, well, it's a desert, it doesn't really ever get rain. So I thought like six inches of rain over like a day or two, which is absurd, and then turned the substance of the desert and I am not a geologist or a geographer, but turn, yeah, turn this like thick cement, like mud, and if, like you tried to drive through it, it destroyed your car. So like people would, yeah, so it's like people literally were trapped and so, to kind of minimize danger, they shut down the one road in and out of Burning man.
Speaker 2:Oh.
Speaker 3:Which I guess probably like enhanced the conspiracy theories right, like if there's one way in and one way out, and now that has been shut down.
Speaker 2:Well, that's like Canada we just have one main highway. Oh really, no, that's a joke. I'm sorry, keep going.
Speaker 3:We should ask my husband, I should ask my husband, but yeah, so like basically one way and one way out, and I think shutting that down enhanced the conspiracy theory that it was actually being shut down because of Ebola.
Speaker 2:Do we know where that started Like? Was that just somebody who posted, hey, it'd be funny to say, people are getting Ebola in the desert, and then it spread.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think this is. It appeared on this platform, so the news first appeared here On X. It's kind of hard to pinpoint. Yeah, here on X. And it's kind of hard to pinpoint who started it. But this is an interesting point too, because when people say social media are responsible for all these really bad things that happen and again I'm not trying to apologize for it, but just provide some other context is that the far right extremist news site, the Daily Caller, picked up the story and ran with it.
Speaker 2:OK.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so when we start talking about misinformation that's present in social media, it's also really important to take a step back and look at the entire media landscape of news and print and magazines and TV and who might be augmenting it and inadvertently enhancing it. So the Daily Caller was probably deliberately pushing that misinformation and when I was writing my sub-stack posts about this I was like I like to pull up just links to insert. And there was something from the local Fox affiliate station in LA where it was like rumors of Ebola at Burning man and I was like that's almost just as bad, because you're kind of drawing attention to this without substantiating the claim in the headline and to me that was grossly inappropriate.
Speaker 2:So I guess I could ask this question now, like when? And this one's a relatively harmless conspiracy theory, right? I'm sure the Burning man I don't know what you have to pay to go to Burning man, or if it's like a ticket master thing, I don't know, but I'm sure the Burning man, whoever puts it on, probably weren't super thrilled that there was a rumor there's Ebola there, but as a conspiracy it's not. I don't know, it's not aside from the people there that might be worried. It's not as bad as some. Like the lasers starting Hawaii fires. That's quite a bit more heinous as a conspiracy theory. But is it the job of a social media platform to squash that or like? Is that a very gray area?
Speaker 3:So it's a gray area because of in the United States we have something called Section 230 of the Telecommunications Decency Act, and I won't get all legalese here, I promise.
Speaker 2:OK.
Speaker 3:But Section 230 of this act says that platforms are not liable for the content hosted on them. So in other words, if you mail a pipe bomb, you cannot. The US Postal Service cannot legally be held responsible for what you chose to do via the mail. Or if you are calling somebody to commit and they're like committing wire fraud or planning something illegal on the phone your phone provider can't be held liable.
Speaker 1:Oh, I see yeah.
Speaker 3:So, when they were figuring out what to do with social media, they applied this logic of the Postal Service and the telephone to the internet, and that was in 1996. So almost 30 years now has been the law. So it's a gray area because, legally, platforms don't have to remove it right, because they are not held liable for people shouting fire in a crowded theater on their platforms. Ethically right is a whole other story. And then, too, the business of advertisers is what keeps social media platforms going, and it's often when advertisers threaten to pull money or fund to pull money from the sites then we see meaningful change. This was the whole thing in 2017, when corporations realized their ads were being run on really horrible content on YouTube.
Speaker 2:Like and that caused the big demonetization. I remember this.
Speaker 3:Yes, exactly so. It's sometimes so legally. Platforms technically don't have to, but when public pressure either enough from users or from advertisers mounts, then we typically see change.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so if you've got you know it's 100% Sasquatch stories around the clock you know, it doesn't really hurt anybody, but the advertisers might not wanna have their product next to a Sasquatch story all the time.
Speaker 3:Yeah, in the case of what happened on YouTube in 2017, it was like Delta Airlines and Coca-Cola and these other big companies were realizing. Their ads were being run on like terrorist recruitment videos.
Speaker 1:Oh God.
Speaker 3:And so everybody pulled their funding and then YouTube completely shifted into what we know it as today, and it's monetization system that they have today.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I don't know Like. I'm obviously a fairly rational, kind person, so I'm all for not rewarding people who have content that's not rational or not kind.
Speaker 3:That's just me, so I agree with you and you know it's the whole business model of platforms, though rewards the irrational and the super emotional and you know the anger inducing right, Because it's more clicks, more views, getting to stay on their platform longer, and so on.
Speaker 2:Well, that's literally the what's happening on Twitter right now. Like the algorithm changed and you can keep. The more people commenting and sticking around on your post, the more views you get, and the more blue checks that are looking at it, the more money you get. So creators are. Some of them are just finding unique ways to get key people engaged, and the easiest way to do it is to make people fight with each other in your comment section.
Speaker 3:Absolutely. It boosts your numbers.
Speaker 2:Yes, and we're not playing that game. We just ask silly questions every day.
Speaker 3:And you post adorable pictures of dogs. So that's like the opposite, very emotional.
Speaker 2:We're going for the emotions on the other end of the spectrum. Yeah, Exactly. Okay, so another question I have for you and people are listening, which is great, and if you have some questions, we'll get to the audience in a second. Do you appreciate it when companies have strong social media games? Like as somebody who studies it, do you see some social media or not social, like companies are just rocking it on social media?
Speaker 3:That's a great question. Sometimes I do, sometimes sometimes and of course now I can't think of any examples, but like there have been some where I've been like, yeah, that's funny, I appreciate what they're doing. And then of course I can think of the ones I don't like, and maybe I shouldn't put companies on blast, but I can think of some that are either cringe or just inappropriate. I mean so here in the United States yesterday was the anniversary of the September Lome with the Tax. Yeah, I have a lot of social media marketing friends who are like don't post about the anniversary from your corporate account. But that didn't stop people Like I think I saw I got a push alert news alert this morning where I think it was one of those online gambling sites had an issue in an apology this morning for doing like a 9-11 themed promotion and you're just like, oh, don't do that.
Speaker 2:Oh God, oh man, that's terrible.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so sometimes it's cringe, sometimes it's bad and then sometimes it's very offensive.
Speaker 2:There are a couple accounts I follow that are there's like one that's a Parks account I'm trying to remember the name of it here on Twitter and they are hilarious.
Speaker 3:Is it the Washington? So?
Speaker 4:I think it's.
Speaker 3:West Service, but I think the Washington State is it them.
Speaker 2:I think so.
Speaker 3:They're good, they're really good.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and then there's like Lake Michigan or something Like there's a lake, one of the Great Lakes or something has an account and it's actually quite funny Lake.
Speaker 3:Superior Okay, okay, that's awesome. I gotta check that out.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and then another one that I haven't checked it lately, but I love the sarcastic rovers from NASA.
Speaker 3:Yes, those are pretty.
Speaker 2:Those are quite clever yeah.
Speaker 3:I do have to say some of the brand TikToks I see aren't bad. It's more of a brand Twitter stuff to me that always feels like cringier. I don't know why. I think maybe it's because you're dealing with, like, the mood of a platform and Twitter's kind of. We're kind of a sometimes a dark and depressing place.
Speaker 2:Hey, can I ask you a question about TikTok? Yeah, of course, should we be worried about our data with TikTok.
Speaker 3:I don't think you should be any more worried about your data on tic-tac than you should be any other social media platform.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 3:I have researched and written about this extensively. Also, I have a piece out in Wired Magazine that came out back in January actually, about how banning tic-tac hurts higher education specifically.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, my students use it as Google.
Speaker 3:Oh yeah, it's the search engine, for you know the? Search engine yeah. Gen gamers now yeah, but no, I mean, everything we are worried about with our data on tic-tac has actually been proven to be done by US-based social media companies. So I do it's my professional opinion that when we are talking about this, there's a little bit of xenophobia going on as well?
Speaker 2:Is that because tic-tac is based in China versus the other ones based in the United States?
Speaker 3:Exactly, yeah, got you.
Speaker 2:Okay, yeah, bunsen and Beaker are on everything. I do love the ability on tic-tac to have music. That was pretty impressive.
Speaker 3:And it was a game changer, one of those things in hindsight you're like it's so obvious. Why did social media not have an easy way to do music? But it's awesome Completely changed the game.
Speaker 2:That's yeah, but it is quite cool. They have the little AI voices too, which is I love using those for Bunsen and Beaker. So I don't know, it's just oh that is cute dog voices. Yeah, I do have to give the people like there are people on tic-tac with millions upon millions of followers and I have to give them credit because it is. It is one thing to be witty with text, with a tweet, but that short form video stuff that is very hard to do.
Speaker 3:It is so hard. I have made a couple of tic-tacs myself, you know, maybe two dozen or so, and it's hard. Like you don't think it would be that hard. And it's not the I don't think it's necessarily like the editing interface on the app or, you know, I think in the beginning it was for me because I was just using it, maybe dumb, I don't know, but it's hard. It's hard to get it exactly right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's a different type of creativity.
Speaker 3:And the app. Allegedly this is some of the you know creator gossip for tools for success on the site is that if you edit off app in something like Adobe and then upload, the algorithm won't boost your content as much as if you edit in the app.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's. I heard that before. It penalizes you for like I use on my phone. I use something called splice.
Speaker 3:Oh, yeah, yeah, and yeah.
Speaker 2:So I make the Bunsen and Beaker, what's it's on there, and then I post it on a tic-tac. I read that and I was like that's kind of mean. That's kind of mean. It's not as handy as my app on my phone, anyways.
Speaker 3:Yeah, hey, have you ever? Have you noticed a decrease or not as much engagement?
Speaker 2:Um, I, we were doing really good on tic-tac and then, like during the summer, I tried some different things. That worked really well on Twitter, because I would just steal the video from tic-tac and put it on Twitter and Instagram, but it did not work at all on tic-tac. So our account just kind of stalled for the last two months on tic-tac so I got to get back to what was working before.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so in your, in your class, do you go over like strategies or just the the histories?
Speaker 3:A little bit. So it's more of you know, kind of theorizing social media for an undergraduate class through that like values, ethics, aesthetics, framework, um. I'm very excited, though, because I get to teach a class in the spring for the first time. Um called social media storytelling. What I really wanted to call it was how to be a content creator, but they wouldn't let me call it that, um, and so I will be teaching strategy and content production for social media in the spring, and I'm very, very excited, um. So I have a class I think it's 19 or 20 students um where, uh, one day a week will be lecture on how to do something, and then one day a week is, uh, practice, like you go out and make the thing.
Speaker 3:make a thing related to what we talked about earlier in the week.
Speaker 2:Do you have any tips for us?
Speaker 3:Cool.
Speaker 2:Um, sorry to put you on the spot, I'm not sure if I'm going to be able to do that without having to pay tuition.
Speaker 3:People find out what I do, though, like how do I go viral? And we were in Paris last year Uh, it was actually for a conference when my husband came with me and we were doing this like walking tour and my the tour guide asked me what I did. He's like how do you go viral? And I was just like jet lagged and half you know brained at that point, and it was just like blabbling on on my silly little tips. But what I said to him was be funny, um, which always works, but um, but no.
Speaker 3:But what I tell my students is, first and foremost, you got to know the platform you're making content for, like kind of like what you just talked about. Something that's going to do well on Twitter isn't going to necessarily do well on TikTok, and something that does well on TikTok isn't going to necessarily you do well on YouTube or on shorts or reels. So it's all about just um, because I teach in a department that's actually like television and film based, and so, just as we teach those kids, you know you've got to respect TV for what it is.
Speaker 3:You got to respect film for what it is not try to do make one or the other Same thing for social media platforms. You can't try to make Instagram content, pinterest content or YouTube content.
Speaker 2:You know it's so frustrating. I wish I was talking to my wife the other day. I'm like I wish I could just get all of our stuff to work at the same time, Right, Well, we were doing. It's so tiring. I, yeah, I, I, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3:The number of creators I talked to for my research and um who always talked to me about burnout, like the burnout is off the charts because you've got to be your own, you know, producer and director and talent and editor and manage your metrics and keep up with trends and do this. So it's. It can be a lot of work and it does lead to burnout for a lot of the people I talked to.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I was feeling burnt out on TikTok and they just started to do stuff that I felt was fun and I loved doing it and it did terrible. But, um, I repurposed it on uh tick or on Twitter and Instagram and it's the little for the people that are listening. It's a little Bunsen and Beaker, where Bunsen is saying something and then Beaker comes in like a chaos, whirlwind and anyways, it did terrible on TikTok but huge on Instagram and I think, yeah, I think people on, but it is they were it works completely different. It works there. It doesn't work anywhere else sometimes.
Speaker 3:Oh yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's, it's an odd one. So, doc, I have a question for you. That's a fun one and I think the audience might chime in too with this. So I like to think, and you know what I loved reading, so I feel you with the English teacher thing. Yeah, um, I was really good at English and I read vicariously when I was young. But I would always, and even today. I get so frustrated when characters make stupid decisions and I also think, like how differently would this be if they had social media? Like how differently would it be if Romeo and Juliet had cell phones or they followed each other on Twitter? Like how how much different would that story be?
Speaker 3:So this is actually also really funny, um, because the other, the class I'm teaching this semester um, one of those freelance jobs I worked before I fell into social media was actually in TV production. Oh really, I um not very long, but I teach television writing actually as well, so I'm kind of a jack of all trades, um, and so this is one thing I talk to my students about, and I have a meme on one of my PowerPoint slides which is like being a TV writer and I think this is a tweet actually like stole from somebody on here. They're listening, thank you. Um. Of being a TV writer in the 21st century is coming up with clever reasons why your characters can't reach each other.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 3:Yeah, Cause it's like stuff from you know, early mid nineties and earlier. It's like okay, well, we didn't have cell phones or like they weren't popular, right? So you can't just call somebody. So now you have to get clever and it's like there's no service. The phone Roke, you know just all the so. So it's kind of a strategy and a puzzle of thinking like, okay, why can't they get in touch? Or um, can they get in touch? Right, like you said, if Julia had phones or social media, this would have been a non-ish.
Speaker 2:So I bring this up because a lot of my students hated stranger things and I adored stranger things on.
Speaker 3:Netflix. Yeah, I love that show.
Speaker 2:And the reason why they couldn't stand stranger things is because they all the characters would be in precarious situations and not be able to contact each other. And they didn't get. They're like, how come they're not just texting? You know the the how come the kids aren't texting each other? Not to go over there. And I was like you guys it was the eighties, you had walkie talkies. They tried their best with the walkie talkie thing.
Speaker 3:You know Radio Dustin users to talk to his girlfriend.
Speaker 2:Oh, I love that, and they sing the song together.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah. Anyways go ahead stranger by random, completely random stranger things. Fun fact. So the mall from season three. Yep um, that was my high school mall. Really that the mall. So it is a. The mall is called Gwynette Place Mall in Duluth, georgia, where I was raised, and the mall went defunct you know when most malls did and, yeah, it got bought out to be the mall for stranger things. So, like my first high school job was working out an error possible in the mall where stranger things was filmed.
Speaker 2:Where that sketchy meat monster was, or whatever it was called.
Speaker 3:The amount of meals I eat in that food court. Yeah, anyway, that's my random stranger things fact I always have to bring up.
Speaker 2:Oh, my goodness, do you have any books or movies or TV shows or characters that you wish had social media, just to see what they'd be posting, tweeting, making TikTok videos about?
Speaker 3:That's a good question. Um, I think so. Just because I've seen a lot of talk online lately about the TV show Gilmore Girls, I'm thinking about Gilmore Girls very heavily right now. Oh, okay.
Speaker 3:And I feel like yeah that's the first thing that comes to mind, where I'm like huh, I feel like Gilmore Girls could have also been a completely different show, with cell phones and modern technology, because, like if Lorela ran away at 16 after she had her baby for those of you who watch the show Her mom could have just used like find my iPhone or like the life 360 after down right.
Speaker 2:I was more thinking like Rasputin making TikTok videos, Because you know like there's a whole song after him. There would be a little bit on the nose If you did a dance about that. But also like there's like a whole bunch of like toxic people on TikTok giving the worst advice, and I feel like Rasputin would be right there.
Speaker 3:That's hilarious. I'm also very much thinking of Rasputin as like Rasputin from the Anastasia movie. Right now, for some reason, that's the mental image I have. But yeah, in general, when I think about like social media and like film and TV and characters, I'm always upset with how bad social media is portrayed, like is portrayed in film and TV, except for the movie. There was this one horror movie that came out During the pandemic. I think it was called a host or something.
Speaker 3:Okay but it's a horror movie that takes place entirely on zoom, like a group of friends get together to do like a zoom, say on some Halloween or something. Oh my god, that is very covid.
Speaker 2:Framed, isn't it? Yes, isn't it.
Speaker 3:Um, but it's actually like the best use in discussions of technology I have ever seen in media.
Speaker 2:Off to check that out. So I don't have my uh co-host with. The most is. I don't know why Chris is listening. Chris, shouldn't you be talking to parents? I don't know Chris is listening to the space. I don't know what's going on. She's at meet the teacher night. Yes, hello, chris, I see you waving. Um, if you have some questions for our Our guest tonight, dr Jess Maddox is a social media expert. Maybe you just want to chime in with some some Comments about if people had social media of some famous or literary people had social media. We don't bring up speakers that we've never seen before, so we do try to get them to speak Before. So we do try to go through on the back end about that. Yeah, so we do some moderation there. Um, so I will do my best to DM some people that are requesting that I'm not familiar with. Uh, but, paula, go ahead.
Speaker 1:Hi dr Maddox, how are you? Hey, paula, I'm good. How are you Good? Thanks, um, I have a quick question and then I have a question about social media. Um, what is? What kind of dog do you have? That's your 12 year old dog, because we always want to know what kind of pets our guests have. Yes, and my second question is if you have, um, like you ever google yourself, oh and and the things that come up, and then you're like how do they get this information? Like they know your age, they know your place you live, they know you're next to kin. It's like is there something we can do to help minimize that? Or it's just a runaway train? It's like it does go with the flow, you know, and just yeah, yeah, learn about that.
Speaker 3:That's an excellent question. Um, I'll go with the dogs first. I I have two dogs actually. One is with me when's in the living room, um, but my 12 year old is samson. He's been with me Since I was in undergriding college, working on that english degree, um, and I'm just so grateful that at 12 he is still spunky and healthy and happy and very active. And he's a, according to the shelter, a corgi german shepherd mix. So he's about 40 pounds. He's got short, stumpy legs and a long body. Um, I love him to death. And then my crazy five year old is rudy, also a munt from the shelter, uh, jack russell, grayhound mix Thing, he's. He's tall and lanky, um, but he's. He's our chaos child, but I love him to death too, um, so those are my babies.
Speaker 3:Um but yeah, in terms of what's you know, search engines know about us. Um, you know, every time we do something online, we leave, you know, digital traces of ourselves, and more and more, these digital traces are becoming Interconnected, right? So, um, I think there was like a famous I remember this famous twitter thread and I always bring it up as an example in my class of a student, or this guy on twitter was like I started getting ads for this toothpaste I never used in my life, but then I realized what was happening is I had gone to my mom's house to visit and it's the only Toothpaste she uses and I was connected to her wi-fi and just the fact I was connected to her wi-fi led to me getting targeted advertisements based on what, uh, you know what is on the wi-fi network. So our digital footprints are deep, um, and sometimes that, you know, can be scary, and I don't think, um, I'm definitely not in the camp when a lot of people will be like oh whatever they always, they already have my data.
Speaker 3:There's nothing I can do about it, and I kind of disagree with that, because I do think we should constantly, um put pressure on platforms and demand better. Um, you know, in the united and you know I don't know where you're located, but here in the united states, where I am, we have very lax data privacy laws that allow Companies to do this and collect these, these digital footprints, and that's how, you know, everybody knows everything about you on the internet. But in europe, um, they have the gdpr, which is a european European union law that that gives individuals A lot more say and control over their data online. In the us, the state of california has kind of implemented its own version, but they're still kind of Hamstrung by the fact it's not a federal thing. Um, so it actually is possible for us to get more control over our data. We just got a demand better for it.
Speaker 1:Okay, thank you very much. I'm in, I'm in united states, I'm on the east coast, but, um, I just know if there was any steps or more precautions one Individually could take. But I guess you know because it's already out there. So how do you know? What do you do right to your congressman and demand that we have better? You know?
Speaker 3:yeah. So I mean there's definitely political action in terms of uh, you know, individual protections too. You can get things like vpns, um and other protection devices that kind of bounce your signal around so it becomes a lot harder to trace where you're coming from, um. So that's something you can always do in the interim as well.
Speaker 1:Okay, well thank you very much. It's been very interesting, all right, thanks for being here.
Speaker 2:Uh, so I was. I made a fake, not sort of real power point about a dog I really want for a chris. Oh, I saw this. You saw this kind it kind of blew up with I think quarter a million people saw it. Um, so, just to let everybody know, I have been getting no ads on any of my phones for this type of dog and I'm so disappointed. I'm so disappointed in all of the sniffer programs and the cookies and whatever supposed to be tracking.
Speaker 2:Right yeah because that is something I want on my phone. I want ads for these dogs, so I can get the dog.
Speaker 3:Or this is, you know, subterfuge, uh, to convince you to not get the dog.
Speaker 2:I don't know, maybe chris is going through my phone and deleting the ads. I don't know.
Speaker 4:I am absolutely not.
Speaker 2:Oh, you can talk aren't you with? Aren't you supposed to be with kids right now?
Speaker 4:No, it goes. It went from six thirty to seven thirty. So, I'm sitting in my classroom Um I'm doing complex math Systems of equations with quadratics.
Speaker 2:What are you doing? What? What what are you doing?
Speaker 4:Well, there's a quadratic.
Speaker 2:You're doing complex math at seven thirty at night.
Speaker 4:Seven forty eight at night. Yes, okay, yeah, but I got the right answer, so go me Uh.
Speaker 3:Oh, that's funny.
Speaker 2:I do want to give a it's actually a standard of excellence.
Speaker 4:Question.
Speaker 2:What okay?
Speaker 4:okay, yeah. Uh you can do this question. You can do any question, I think.
Speaker 2:Perfect, chris. Shout out to Kara who pointed who posted the National Park Service. I think that was the one I was referencing. It's in the chat, and then it's Lake Superior is hilarious. Their pin tweet is without me, they would be called the good lakes. It's just brilliant, just brilliant. So thank you for posting those really fun accounts. Yeah, all right. Well, anybody else have any questions for the doctor about social media? Do you have a favorite platform, doc?
Speaker 3:Great question. I get you know I'm a TikTok girly these days. I gotta say, oh really I well, I'm probably on TikTok as much as I am because I'm also a huge Taylor Swift fan and I was getting all of the when she was touring in the US all of my concert updates and surprise song updates from each show on TikTok. So I feel like it's you know some recency biases to why I've been on there so much lately.
Speaker 2:She's kind of a big deal. Hey, I didn't know she was such a big deal.
Speaker 3:Yes, I mean she, this is really exploded. But I'm just going to say I've been here since I've been a Swift since 2012,. Not that I'm gatekeeping fandom. We welcome everyone, right. You know it doesn't matter if you're new or old, Okay. But yeah, no, it's. She's really blown up. And you know, I went to the Ares tour back in April and it was awesome.
Speaker 2:Okay, okay, okay. As comedian made the point that Taylor Swift could run for president of the United States and she'd actually be giving up power to do that. She would have less power as the president of the United States if she was to win.
Speaker 3:I would completely agree with that which is so scary. Well, I remember Justin Trudeau got on, I think, twitter and was like Taylor Swift, you should come tour in Canada, like when she didn't have any stops originally on her international leg.
Speaker 2:Did she come to Canada? I don't know. I don't keep up with her.
Speaker 3:She will be next November.
Speaker 2:Okay, all right, come to Canada in November. Okay, that's pretty smart. Minus a thousand.
Speaker 3:Okay, I was in Canada for the first time in May of this year in Toronto, and lovely time, but also lovely weather.
Speaker 2:Yeah, may, and May in Toronto. Is that you're almost in the summer there? Yeah, funny story for you about Taylor Swift. My, my dad and my brother love baseball and I can't stand baseball. They are massive fans of the Blue Jays. They flew to Seattle to see the Blue Jays play the Seattle Mariners and met up with my sister who was traveling down the coast. So it was like this very cute meeting up to go see the baseball game and guess what was happening directly after the baseball game in Seattle.
Speaker 3:Oh, but oh no.
Speaker 2:Taylor Swift concert and it was, I guess, absolute gong show with the amount of people that were there. They were just like they couldn't believe the like. The first they were excited. They're like, oh man, all these like young people and women are going to go see baseball. Like they were just clueless. They're like, I guess, everybody's Blue Jays fan. Why is everybody so sparkly? And then they realized it was for Taylor Swift.
Speaker 3:Oh my gosh Well, and then all the people that are literally just like thousands of people sitting outside the stadiums who couldn't get tickets to like listen, and it's madness.
Speaker 2:Well, we don't have any more speakers and I think I'm kind of out of questions. Chris, do you have any follow up questions before we kind of round stuff out today?
Speaker 4:I missed the first half, jason, so I would be definitely.
Speaker 2:We were talking about Ebola.
Speaker 4:You talked about Ebola.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 4:Did you tell the story of I have Ebola?
Speaker 2:I do have Ebola.
Speaker 4:You do. I went to the science center in Edmonton. We used to. I used to plan the field trips for school, for my grade, and we would go to the science center and I came back with stuffy of the microbes. So they sold different microbes and I brought home Ebola for Jason.
Speaker 2:I was so happy to get Ebola you have no idea. I've been waiting to get Ebola for years.
Speaker 4:Yeah, and I found it and I bought it.
Speaker 2:And now I can give it to kids, like I give the kids Ebola, and it is the greatest.
Speaker 3:Well, hey, if you're a burning man, then it wouldn't be misinformation that there was Ebola at Burning man.
Speaker 2:Oh my God, Somebody could have made a mint by getting like a crate of them things and selling it to the people on the way out for like $150. Because they're all tech pros with a lot of money right.
Speaker 3:Exactly.
Speaker 2:Yeah, oh my God, like I went to Burning man and all I got was Ebola and it's like a little t-shirt that sells itself.
Speaker 3:Next year. Hey, there's next year.
Speaker 2:Some other different disease for next year? Yeah, I do have the HIV virus, but that's way too on the nose to like.
Speaker 3:A little bit yeah.
Speaker 2:Yes, I do show the kids that.
Speaker 3:But like it's really rare.
Speaker 4:Not so bad, I think. I give you a tapeworm too.
Speaker 2:Yes, I have. I have like 20 things. There's tape room, I got COVID.
Speaker 3:Oh yeah.
Speaker 2:I actually got COVID yeah.
Speaker 3:Oh no.
Speaker 2:But I have this stuffy too. No, I'm fine. Yeah, okay, good, I was like hey, some people don't think this exists, oh, and then we talk about misinformation. It's great.
Speaker 3:So that's a whole other.
Speaker 2:We can do a whole other hour on that one, yeah, but I don't feel that that would be your life if that's what you decided to do. That's Timothy Caudfield, oh yeah. I don't know if you follow Timothy Caudfield. That's the Canadian debunker.
Speaker 3:Yeah, you got to go, yeah, Cause it's. I mean I mean talk about, you know, platforms being completely ill prepared for misinformation really proved itself with COVID.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, they were. They were heroes in the science communication, like it didn't come from government. The government's absolutely failed they. I will say that right now. They absolutely got their butts handed to them. Yeah, and there were like real heroes, just random people who, who just stood up for public health and science and I take my hats off to them Absolutely Because it sure as heck wasn't coming from our government. We had, did we have uncle Covid? Chris, that was effective.
Speaker 4:What it was. It was uncle Mike.
Speaker 2:Uncle Mike.
Speaker 4:And it was an ad campaign through Alberta Health.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 4:And you invited uncle Mike over and uncle Mike was a caricature of Covid. He was a guy who had a Covid head.
Speaker 2:That was terrifying.
Speaker 4:It was terrifying.
Speaker 2:And he's like oh, and he was touching everybody with his Covid hands.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, that was a good idea.
Speaker 2:A little too late.
Speaker 3:I live in a part of the United States where Covid has never really Covid has never been real where I live, so it's been a you need to come and make. Yeah, apparently, apparently.
Speaker 2:Or uncle Mike, sorry.
Speaker 4:Yes, you can call him Covid Mike. I think it was uncle Mike and he comes coming over and he's spreading all his Covid and everybody was getting sick and it was terrifying and we were on like a lockdown where you weren't you basically, you had to remain with your family Like you couldn't be this is for Christmas, yeah like for Christmas, it was you could leave your house, Chris.
Speaker 2:It's not like you were locked in your house.
Speaker 4:No, you could leave your house. But like how we did, it is, you went. You were the essential person to go for groceries. The rest of us stayed home.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they took it off YouTube.
Speaker 1:That's not there I was trying to find it for everybody.
Speaker 3:Well, you know, I have knock on wood, never had Covid, I don't know.
Speaker 2:We can send you some Covid. I think I've got a stuffy.
Speaker 3:There we go. I'll take a stuffy of it. You know I had it and I managed to dodge it in the same house. But you know I will definitely take a stuffy over over the actual thing.
Speaker 2:And the stuffies are super cute, like they have like googly eyes and their little smile the the mono, one has kissy eyes, which is I love because it's because it's the kissing disease, it looks like, it's like, it's like very, very pretty Microbe.
Speaker 3:That's hilarious, oh my goodness.
Speaker 2:Well, Doc, we'll let you go. Thank you so much for being a guest tonight. This was a lot of fun, yeah thank you for having me. Yeah, I so appreciate you saying yes, and you can hear more of Dr Jess on the Science Podcast at a later date. We had a chat and the doc is a full fledged guest on the Science Podcast. I'm not sure when it's coming out, but in the next month or two, probably month. Yeah, awesome.
Speaker 3:Well, yeah, thanks for having me. This was great.
Speaker 2:Perfect, we'll do where we have a little wrap up and then we'll we'll shut her down, but you're free to go whenever you want, doc. Thank you.
Speaker 3:Sounds good and everybody. Have a good night hey thanks for coming.
Speaker 2:Everybody Really appreciate it. Special thanks to our guest, dr Jess Maddox, talking to us about social media conspiracies. I learned a little bit about Burning man, more than I knew before. Did you ever want to go to Burning man, chris? I didn't.
Speaker 4:And then it got flooded and people couldn't leave.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we were talking about that. Yeah, we were talking about that. I watched the documentary about the fire festival. Have you heard of that, Chris? I did.
Speaker 4:And it was a big flop. It was a huge investors nightmare. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Do we have anything like that that happens in Canada? That's just like people get trapped and it's awful Aside from winter, just like normal winter like, you go to the mall and you go to the mall and it's snow seven feet and it's a minus a thousand. We got trapped at West Edmonton Mall, Chris. Yeah, we did.
Speaker 4:It's not on your birthday.
Speaker 2:Why did we go to West Edmonton Mall on your birthday?
Speaker 4:I'm not sure. We probably went to Edmonton to go to White Spot.
Speaker 2:Yes, and West Edmonton Mall and West Edmonton Mall.
Speaker 4:For those of you who don't know, at one point.
Speaker 2:The West Edmonton Mall was the biggest mall in the entire world. It has a skating rink inside it.
Speaker 4:I will.