One of the biggest celebrity on our time right now is 24 year old, Selena Gomez. This past year she was diagnosed with lupus. Shortly after, Selena stated to have a hard time and struggled with depression. Mid-October Gomez checked herself into rehab seeking for help. This led to the star being absent from social for 14 weeks. Just a few days ago, Gomez made a return to instagram to thank her fans for all of their love and support this year. She posted this just a few days after her first public appearance since taking care of her physical and mental health. Selena Gomez got almost half a million likes and counting. Her message touched thousands of Americans and tons are supporting her through this time in her life.
-Josie Clark
As everyone knows, Kim Kardashian has a traumatic experience as she was robbed while in Paris. Her use of social media is most likely what is to blame. Kim made it easy to figure out where she was at all times by her constant Instagram and twitter updates. After all of this went down, Kim decided to start scaling back from her social media usage. Some people have been referring to it as "Blackout Period". It is more like Kim Kardashian got a reality check and realized she has a lot at stake. Kim is one to flaunt her wealth and where she is. Kim admitted this makes her an easy target. For the time being she has been laying low. The latest news with her and social media is she was seen following 3 old friends of her. People wonder if she will ever come back social media or if this "Blackout Period" is for good.
Josie Clark
This year's election was like no other for various of different reasons. However, one thing in particular changed this election. This one thing being social media. Social media took the election and made it into an entire different thing than it was. It was a modern election. Let's start by looking at facebook. One could hardly scroll through their feed without seeing either a sponsored post about the election, or a friend/family member weighing in on their view towards a candidate. This started some feuds among people. Someone who you thought was your friend, you could no longer stand due to their views and constant need to share them. Many people commenting things such as, "Unfriend me now" or "If you support *insert candiates name* we can no longer be friends." It is safe to say social media created this new tension between the people. Now moving onto twitter. People constantly sharing articles about their favored candidate and then getting backlash and having a friend "subtweet them". This leads to tweets such as "@ me next time!!" Not to mention, twitter was a way for the presidential candidates to speak to the people directly. However, this was not always in Donald Trump's favor. Being the loose cannon he is, he was known to tweet things out spur of the moment. Lastly, there is some false advertising with social media. While scrolling through your feed on whatever is your social media app of choice, often times you come upon articles that appear to be legit. However, there are many articles out there that are full inaccurate statements. This leads people to believe the wrongs ideas. In conclusion, elections as we knew it will forever be changed due to the use of social media.
Josie Clark
The results of last Tuesday's election were obviously not anticipated. A huge factor in the entire nation's surprise was the overwhelming media coverage suggesting that Mr. Trump had virtually no chance of winning. Some news sources gave Trump a measly 5% chance of winning, while the most generous of sources gave him no more than 35%. This information begs the question, did the media's extreme amount of bias contribute to Hillary's loss? The answer is almost definitely yes. The fact that almost every news source besides Fox News was projecting a landslide victory by Hillary may have lessened some people's urgency to vote. When you wake up every morning and all you hear is "Hillary is going to win, Hillary is going to win" you may not understand the importance of your own vote. It is very possible that a number of citizens figured the rest of the country would handle it, after all, Hillary was going to win, right? If the media portrayed a closer race than they did, perhaps more voters would have turned out to ensure Hillary's victory. Alas, it was not so. So the entire nation has learned two valuable lessons from this election. Firstly, your vote matters, regardless of how one sided the race seems, you need to cast your vote anyways. Secondly, do not always believe everything you see online and in the media, because your information bubble could quite possibly be your downfall.
Joey Arzeno
