On Being a Press Expert

When my quotes first appeared in press in 2003, i was an ecstatic bunny bouncing up and down. Since then, appearing in the press has lost its mystique (except of course when the irony is bleeding). Back then, i knew nothing of what it meant for someone to be a press expert. In the last few years, i’ve become one. Now, some folks tell me that i’ve become famous as a press expert. I.Want.To.Scream. Instead, i decided to address some of how i’ve seen this process work for those who don’t get to deal with press so often, those who will and all of you who read the press and wonder how it all works. These notes are a little scattered, but i think they’re still interesting. For those who can’t stand my long articles, here are some of my key points:

Dealing with the press takes a LOT of time and is completely exhausting and often doesn’t help you get your point across.
There are many “experts” who have a lot to gain from being in the press all the time.
American press competition does not produce better articles, but instead encourages scary articles that will entice readers to read more.
“Fair and balanced” promotes experts who can keep scary or emotional stories flowing.

Reporters seek experts on “both sides” of a news story in order to give balance. If you happen to be publicly arguing something in opposition to something that everyone else is arguing loudly, you’re likely to end up as a target for press. The more credentials you have, the better you are for their story. Normally, academic experts are professors because that looks much better than being a lowly PhD student. This is how i become things like “cultural anthropologist” — it’s a way of giving me a title that is not “student.” You also end up as a target if you know a lot about a particular topic and can verbally provide them with all of the background material they need so that they don’t have to research it themselves.

I first became an expert on Friendster. Press would call me up to find out what it was. This made me feel so special and i’d spend hours talking to reporters about the details of how the site worked, walking them through everything. I was rarely quoted in those articles. I was doing their work for them. This was exhausting.

At this point, i get very irritated when reporters ask me to explain MySpace and i often make an excuse to get off of those calls fast. It’s a waste of my time if they don’t know about the site – none of my arguments about what’s going on will stick if they’re learning about it for the first time.

Talking to reporters takes a LOT of time. If you see a single quote by me in the paper press, you can guess that it came from an hour long interview. Only about 70% of my interviews result in a quote. Articles that feature me in any way take even longer. The New York Times article back in 2003 that featured me involved over 40 hours of interviewing. Photos are another layer. If you see a photo of me in a newspaper, it probably took 1-2 hours of photographing to get there. If you see a simple one in a magazine, it probably took 2-3 hours. One national magazine (not yet published) is supposedly featuring me; that photograph involved four hours of hair, makeup, clothing and cameras. Five people came to my house and ran around primping me.

Radio and TV are even more time-intensive. With paper/magazine press, you can call them at a time when you’re both awake. Radio and TV news both require you to be available during the scheduled time of recording. You don’t get any flexibility on that. Often, you have to appear at a location as well, requiring travel time. The 3-minute appearance on Bill O’Reilly took 3.5 hours of travel, makeup, sitting around waiting, camera checks, interview. And this was recorded in-time (no second takes). I got 3 hours of warning for that piece – i had to appear at TV’s beck and call.

Radio and TV features both record ahead of time which means that you have a little more flexibility regarding timing (at least you get some warning). These also take much much longer because they can afford to do re-recordings. I recently did a recording for a TV feature. I will probably appear for 2 minutes or so. It was 4 hours of _taping_ let alone the pre-interview, travel, getting ready, etc.

Talking to press can be a full-time job. This is why those who make PR their living or those who seek to gain from the attention are more likely to appear in the press all of the time. For example, the people who from organizations that run around talking about how scary the Internet is…. they appear *everywhere* because they will appear at the beck and call of all press. When reading the news, you should think about what the person has to gain from speaking to the press. If a person’s job security is wrapped up in being in the press, worry. This is why academics are such good experts – we have little to gain from talking the press except for the excitement of seeing our name in print and feeling like someone listens to us (cuz goddess knows our students don’t). But, personally, i’d rather the MySpace fear shit go away so i can get back to my research. Most of the people speaking for the fear rely on that fear to keep their jobs. It is unbearably frustrating to have to face off in the press with people who have more time, can jump higher and at all hours, and have a lot to gain from keeping the topic going.

This is why reporting is often so problematic. It’s not about truth, it’s about what all of the relevant players have to gain/lose and who can out-do each other. Scary stories work much much better for press than statistics. Fear sells better, it makes better stories, and more experts have something to gain from it.

I talk to press every time i’m in my car, in the airport and walking around. I spend a good 15 hours a week addressing press right now. It’s exhausting. I can only get back to a fraction of those who contact me and i’ve missed most TV and radio opportunities because i can’t just jump when people ask me to jump.

At first, i felt really badly for those who were coming from non-national press. Most experts only want to talk with national press because you have more of an impact. Unfortunately, i’ve learned that there are other reasons. National press understand that your time is precious and rarely keep you for more than an hour. They get to the point ASAP – they are looking for a handful of quotes. They know their material better, having done the research (or used some poor sucker who was stoked to even get to talk to a press person). Talking with smaller papers can be very frustrating at times because they are not that savvy at dealing with experts, they are often looking to repeat a story that national news has already done, and when it comes to stuff like MySpace, they simply don’t understand it. I feel guilty that i too have gotten in habit of being more responsive to national press than to local press, but considering that i can only respond to about 40% of the current contacts, i’d rather deal with people who know their stuff and will engage me in a new and interesting conversation. Of course, not all national press do this, but your chances are better.

With most print reporting, they are just looking for a single quote. People more savvy then me tell me to make my quote and go on auto-repeat with slight variations so that the press won’t be able to get you to say something else. I’m not good at this. I’m trying.

When reading the press, you often see that XYZ refused to comment on the story. This is usually someone the story is focused on and usually someone who is going to be getting a call from every press on the planet. There are a couple of reasons. First, many public figures know that they cannot change the story the press is writing. (Many of us stupid experts still think that we can and we try really hard, often meeting failure regularly.) The public figures often have nothing to gain and a lot to lose. They also simply cannot deal with the influx so it’s better to just say no universally, missing both good and bad opportunities. For example, if Tom Anderson would respond to every press call about MySpace, he’d spend over 500 hours a week talking to press. There AREN’T 500 hours in a week. Considering he already works 80+ hours a week doing his job, adding press to this doesn’t sound so great. Of course, MySpace should have PR faces but they’re definitely still acting like a startup on that one. (When you hear Company XYZ says “blah blah” this means that the reporter talked to the PR person not anyone who works on the product.)

Reporters get to key figures either because they have press junkets or by promising the person something special. Front page photo. A certain angle. Something that makes it enticing. Of course, if the reporter fails to deliver, they can end up on a blacklist. Likewise, many experts keep a blacklist of reporters who misquote or otherwise are not worth your time. We also share these lists and check in on reporters. As someone reading the news, you’re better off following reporters who cover an area repeatedly in detail. They cannot afford to piss off all of the experts in the area and so they are better by them. There are exceptions, especially insidious reporters and talk show hosts that have impressive coverage and attention.

The competition component of the press is quite problematic. Most American reporters are freelancers – they need to sell new, unique stories to the outlets. Outlets buy stories that will sell more papers/ads. They want juicy stories. Fear, crime and personal struggle stories sell well. Fact of the matter stories do not – this is a huge problem for getting “truth” out there. Foreign press are a lot more sane. First, most of their reporters are employees who are not terrified about losing their job if they don’t find a hyper juicy story. Second, most of the top press outlets are government funded which means that they’re not psycho-obsessed with selling papers/ads at the detriment of getting news out there. Americans think that government funded news would be deceptive. Ha! Try corporate/ad/paper sales funded news. It’s all about addicting you (the public) into buying more more more regardless of truth. Of course, some competition is good because it makes people look more closely… but often, with 24-hour news, it means making news outta nothing and maintaining stories that keep people’s pulses high so they come back for more.

Anyhow, these are just a few notes from what i’ve learned talking to reporters. Hopefully they provide folks with a new eye for thinking about what you read. (And a new appreciation for why i’m so goddamned exhausted and frustrated – truth can’t prevail in this system and that’s just painful to experience.)

P!nk: beautiful and political

Although i had heard P!nk’s music on the radio over the last couple of years, i didn’t pay much attention to her until her latest video Stupid Girls started popping up all over MySpace. I was floored by the no-bullshit strong feminism coming out of a mainstream artist and utterly ecstatic to see young girls share her video on their pages. So i bought her latest CD. I’m Not Dead unapologetically political and extremely beautiful and i have just been playing it on repeat all night. One song in particular – “Dear Mr. President” – really got under my skin. Featuring Indigo Girls, it’s an open letter to Bush. Here’s a sample from the lyrics:

How do you sleep while the rest of us cry
How do you dream when a mother has no chance to say goodbye
How do you walk with your head held high
Can you even look me in the eye

Let me tell you bout hard work
Minimum wage with a baby on the way
Let me tell you bout hard work
Rebuilding your house after the bombs took them away
Let me tell you bout hard work
Building a bed out of a cardboard box

It’s been a long time since i wanted to celebrate a mainstream artist, but P!nk’s latest album really blows me away and i wanted to share that with those of you who haven’t been paying attention to mainstream music. Wow.

captcha gone very very wrong

Spam sucks – we all know that. While captcha certainly helps, it also alienates lots of folks. As a society, we’ve never been good at recognizing disabilities. I remember watching a near-blind computer user try to get past captchas and i felt terrible for what our industry does. Yet, i had never felt the frustration. Until today. The Webby Awards uses captcha on every vote. I wanted to vote for Cute Overload (omg… sooo cute) so i created an account to vote. It took me only 2 tries to get passed the first captcha. But the captcha that i got on Blog-Culture took me SEVEN tries to get right. I tried voting for two more categories – i got past the second one after 5 tries and then took another 8 to get past the next one. I gave up on voting. I wonder how many people stop participating because of stupid stuff like this? I’m trying to imagine my grandmother on her model dealing with captcha – that would so never happen (unless it looked like a Solitaire game).

Since i’m thinking about Cute Overload, i might as well share the picture from today that made me ooh and awww:

medical marijuana

Today, the FDA issued a statement saying that there is no scientific proof that medical marijuana helps patients better than other prescription drugs. This infuriates me. In 1994, i broke my neck. I was given valium (and a lot of other things) and became extremely addicted to it. I was in a constant fog. To make matters worse, it made my body unable to register pain so when i tossed and turned at night, i made everything worse. I kept losing vision and hearing, even while drugged out of my mind. Weening off of valium was hell and i was super resentful towards the medical establishment for getting me addicted to it. Without valium, the pain was brutal, but i refused to go back on that evil drug.

In 1996, after extensive research, i decided to try using marijuana for medicinal purposes. Whenever the pain got unbearable, i smoked a small amount and went to sleep. I didn’t toss and turn; i didn’t wake up groggy; i didn’t get addicted; i didn’t lose vision and hearing. Well-rested, i was able to develop an exercise process that strengthened the supporting muscles, relieving the pain more permanently. Because i was not in a painless daze, this process was far more beneficial than the physical therapy i did while addicted to valium. Because i was able to heal and strengthen, i was able to stop smoking. As i realized the difference this made, i became rabidly agry at the medical system (having no insurance didn’t help).

Today, i smoke marijuana rarely, and only when the pain is really dreadful. Sure, i could’ve stayed addicted to valium to kill the pain – i’m sure the FDA and pharmaceuticals would’ve prefered that. But i chose to take a different path, an illegal one, and i don’t regret it. I genuinely believe that marijuana saved me from more extensive long-term pain and from years of being dazed.

There is a reason that healers have used marijuana for centuries. It is a natural plant with medicinal qualities. The side effects are minimal compared to FDA-approved drugs. But the problem is that you don’t need a bloated pharmaceutical apparatus to use marijuana for treatment. (Translation: there’s no money for the pharms in it and they are big lobbyists.)

It royally sucks that i have to feel like a criminal for using natural plants to heal while there’s nothing criminal about the $600+ i spent per month getting addicted to an FDA-approved drug. I hope that one day we’ll look back on this move with cultural condescension at how foolish and greedy the FDA was in the early 21st century.

now let’s get talking reefer madness
like some arrogant government can’t
by any stretch of the imagination
outlaw a plant
yes, their supposed authority over nature
is a dream
c’mon people
we’ve got to come clean
— Ani

is MySpace safe for predators?

Things on MySpace have taken a funny twist. At first, the media was all about the harm predators on MySpace could do. Yet, in the last month, the media has taken a new angle and is now reporting stories about how law enforcement has used MySpace to lure out predators and take a bite out of all sorts of other crimes. While Dateline’s perverted justice reports poorly convey the likelihood that teens will respond to predators, they do show just how stupid predators are about believing that they are talking to teens. Following this same model, LAPD and other police groups have been logging on, pretending to be sexy 14 and 15 year olds and happily responding to all sexual predators who approach them, without making their profiles private. I’ve lost count of how many predators have been lured out by these raids. Of course, my favorite is Brian Doyle, a high-ranking homeland security official.

I find this turn of events really cool because no cop could pretend to be a 14-year old and go see a priest or turn up in a school to see if they’d get molested. Online, they can! Cops: 1, Predators: 0. People often tell me that online worlds make it easier for predators to find kids, that they couldn’t lure kids in otherwise. Sadly, the arrests have showed us that this too isn’t true. So many of the people who have been arrested have been pediatricians, teachers, rabbis, etc. 🙁 They have access to kids and i don’t even wanna think about how many they’ve fondled. Luckily, the online arrests are stopping them both online and offline! I hope that the cops keep it up.

While predators have been arrested, i’ve stopped hearing about teens getting themselves into trouble. At this point, MySpace is safer for teens than for predators! This makes me smile. If anything positive can come out of all of this moral panic predator hype, it will be an increase in predator arrests and a decrease in the frequency in which predators reach out to youngins for fear that they might be cops. Predator arrests are making the world safer for teens everywhere. Tis a much better approach than asking teens to go further underground. MySpace is so much safer than the AOL/Usenet/BBS world of my day. I’m super glad to see both law enforcement and the folks at MySpace work to rid the world of predators rather than trying to stop online interaction. I really really hope that parents and legislators follow suit.

Of course, teens still do stupid stuff on the site. They bully each other, put up risque photos of themselves without realizing that teachers are watching, spread gossip, etc. There are also quite a few teens who are trying to get dates with folks in their early 20s, even when that’s illegal. But, for all of the fear of predators, things don’t seem to be getting worse.

Unfortunately, though, lying also appears to be on the rise. The problem isn’t the predators. With parents banning participation or stalking their kids’ profiles, teens are being smart. They’re creating new profiles and lying through their teeth. ::sigh:: An entire generation adept at lying to cope with super publics and fear of mom. (Of course, this is precisely what has saved my ass from the ghosts of Usenet past – mommy fear stopped me from using my own name and now you can’t find those old posts!)

On a related note, i want to take a moment to discuss Justin Berry. For those who don’t know he is, read the NYTimes article. Make sure you read the ENTIRE article. Seriously. I’m really stoked that he’s been standing up to Congress for how bad law enforcement is around child porn. That said, i’m a bit concerned that folks think that what happened to him can happen to anyone. There’s no doubt that he got himself way in over his head and that people took advantage of him. But the worst part is that his own father took the worst advantage of him, really pushing it over the edge to pimp him out, drug him up and make certain that the cash kept flowing. Prior to his father’s involvement, he wasn’t having sex on camera, he wasn’t doing cocaine, he wasn’t having sex with the men who who paid for his cams. He went to his father when he realized that he had gotten in over his head. Rather than helping him get out, his father pushed him down further. This sickens me beyond any of the webcam stuff. While we’re going after predators, can we please please please go after the sick parents who are molesting and taking advantage of their children too? This part of the story gets too little attention, but most molested children in this country are abused by the hands of their own family members.

Vizster on Numb3rs

On March 3, the CBS TV show Numb3rs used Vizster in a thought sequence about how social networks can be used to solve crimes. Vizster is the prefuse-driven network visualization tool that Jeff Heer and i crafted to look at Friendster data. Obviously, they are not using any real data, but instead using it as a backdrop that looks all snazzy and sophisticated (they even added sounds). Anyhow, it’s a trip. Take a look:

on being notable in Wikipedia

Back in July, Justin Hall created a Wikipedia entry for me. I found this very peculiar. I was also mildly intrigued by how i was described in such a setting. Since then, some of my colleagues have edited the entry and my advisors have taunted me continuously. The most that i could say was weird weird weird.

A month ago, a discussion emerged in the Talk section about whether or not i was notable and then i was nominated for deletion. My colleagues (who are also dear friends) were accused of crafting a vanity page. People wanted “proof” that i was notable; they wanted proof of every aspect of my profile. Then, when people in my field stood up for my entry in the discussion for deletion, they were attacked for not being Wikipedians. This was really intriguing to me, especially when Barry Wellman (who is an expert on social networks and online interaction) stood up for me. (I was completely honored.) Wikipedia is not prepared to handle domain experts. Of course, this is a difficult issue – how do you know someone is a domain expert? Still, something felt strange about the whole thing.

As the conversation progressed, people started editing my profile. While the earlier profile felt weird, the current profile is downright problematic. There are little mistakes (examples: my name is capitalized; there is an extra ‘l’ in my middle name; i was born in 1977; my blog is called Apophenia). There are other mistakes because mainstream media wrote something inaccurate and Wikipedia is unable to correct it (examples: i was on Epix not Compuserv and my mother didn’t have an account; i was not associated with the people at Friendster; i didn’t take the name Boyd immediately after Mattas and it didn’t happen right after my mother’s divorce; i didn’t transfer to MIT – i went to grad school at the MIT Media Lab; i’m not a cultural anthropologist). Then there are also disconcerting framing issues – apparently my notability rests on my presence in mainstream media and i’m a cultural anthropologist because it said so on TV. Good grief.

Why does mainstream media play such a significant role in the Wikipedia validation process? We know damn well that mainstream media is often wrong. In the midst of this, the reference to my fuzzy hat had to be removed because it couldn’t be substantiated by the press and because i didn’t wear it on O’Reilly. Of course i didn’t wear it on Fox – i was trying to get across to parents, not be myself. As much as i don’t think of the hat as core to my identity, i’m very well aware that others do. Hell, just last week, John Seely Brown decided to start his keynote wearing my hat, talking about how the hat is the source of all of my brilliance while i turned beet red and scrunched down in my seat. As embarrassing as that was, it’s more embarrassing that Wikipedia is relying on Fox over JSB for authority.

What really weirds me out about all of this is that everyone acts like i’m dead and incapable of speaking for myself. It is culturally inappropriate for me to edit my entry, even when there are parts of it that are dead wrong. No one asks me to fact check – journalists matter more than me. I understand why i shouldn’t have the right to get rid of negative commentary about me, but wouldn’t it make sense to allow living “notables” correct facts? Am i not the leading expert on the biographical facts of my life? I wonder who else is looking at their entry and shaking their head at the biographical inaccuracies.

I can’t fully put my finger on why the media-centric thing bugs me, but it does. The media has decided that i’m an expert because of my knowledge in a specific domain; Wikipedia has decided that i’m notable because i’m on TV. Why is Wikipedia not using transitivity and saying that i’m notable because of my knowledge in a specific domain? Why does it matter more that i’m on TV than why i’m on TV?

Now, i love Wikipedia. But i think that there’s something broken here. Personally, i would rather my entry been deleted than have this very inaccurate and media-centric entry written. (Deletion would’ve been far more entertaining.) I think that this approach to notability makes Wikipedia look downright foolish. Personally, i’m embarrassed by this public representation full of mistakes. There has to be a better way to handle living people. The “no original research” approach is really not working here.

I’m posting this both because it’s interesting and because i can’t fully get a handle on why this situation is really bugging me (other than the fact that it’s weird to be an object of inspection). Anyone have any thoughts?

(Here’s a proactive thank you to those who are inevitably going to correct my entry because of this blog post. For those who are looking at the entry after this correction, look at the April 13 version to see what i’m talking about here.)

sex in the MRI

Pharyngula just wrote this blog entry about experiments done a few years back where couples (who all seemed to be amateur street acrobats) had sex in an MRI tube to help researchers understand how all of those parts fit together. The research is definitely fascinating, but the experimental method is utterly hysterical. Thank goodness for viagra, right?

why i oppose HR 4437

When i posted about the teen walkout, i wanted to highlight how excited i am that students are speaking out for something that they believe, for something that they know is wrong. Embedded in my post was my disdain for HR 4437, but i did not fully articulate my own views. The comments that followed made it clear that i need to explain why i oppose HR 4437.

The status of undocumented workers in this country is very tricky. Over the years, we have looked the other way as immigrants enter our country illegally and work doing the most grueling labor that no citizen will do. We have turned a blind eye because our economy depends on that cheap labor. Some employers have taken this to a new level and slavery in this country is at an all-time high. The abuse of immigrants is atrocious. There are no labor laws to protect them, no social security, no social services. In most places where undocumented workers live and work, there is a social contract: behave, work hard, and no one will turn you in. Undocumented workers stay because, even with these atrocious work conditions, their lives are better here than where they came from; their opportunity is greater.

Our approach is not sustainable, nor is it morally just. Thus, the question emerges: what do we do about the 20 MILLION illegal aliens living in the United States? This question is both a moral and a practical question.

Many of these people have been living in the United States for decades. They no longer have homes in their country of origin. They have children who are citizens of America. They have obeyed the laws, paid taxes and worked harder than most of us can imagine. There is nothing morally just about treating these individuals as criminals and expelling them. They have done their time, they have paid their dues. And we have always treated them like the trash of the earth.

Some people argue that these people don’t deserve to stay because they did not get visas, did not follow the rules and that it is unfair to legal immigrants. Unfortunately, this argument misses the class dynamic that is critical to the story of undocumented workers. The American visa system is set up to welcome wealthy, educated individuals into white collar jobs. Take a look at how many people get visas to work on farms, in meat packing factories or as janitors. These are not the visas that we offer; most undocumented workers are not eligible for the visas we do offer.

Once an individual is in the United States illegally, it is very difficult for them to begin the process to become a citizen. You cannot apply for a green card if you are here illegally. Thus, there are people who have been here for 20 years and have not taken the steps to become citizens; they have simply worked hard to remain undetected because they do not know of a better way.

HR 4437 is not the answer. While the adjustments to penalties for child abuse and other atrocious acts are logical, what makes HR 4437 problematic is actually its adjustments to employment. By requiring mandatory employment identification, people who have been working in this country for decades will be forced out of jobs with no recourse. This section aims to starve out the population, to force law abiding undocumented workers to leave. Certainly, there will be an even darker underground and many desperate undocumented workers will be forced to turn to more dangerous work in an attempt to stay in the country. There is no doubt this will also increase gang activity and other illegal activities. Racial tensions will rise and violence will erupt, all because of desperation.

I can respect that we need to move to an above ground market, but we cannot turn our backs on those who have been working hard for years. We need to provide ways in which law abiding undocumented workers can come forward without fear of expulsion and apply for citizenship and visas. As we move towards an above-ground system, we need to temporarily forgive undocumented workers for certain crimes committed out of desperation to stay in the past (such as social security number fraud).

I am also very concerned about the sections on “gangs.” What is the legal definition of a gang? It worries me greatly that people can be deported or refused admission for presumed association with gangs. It also worries me that the Attorney General can designate any group or association as a street gang. (Why do i have a sneaking suspicion that i would be considered a gang member for my affiliation with Burning Man?) I completely understand why the government wants to deport people for illegal activities, but i worry about the guilty until proven innocent framing of this section of HR 4437. And i really worry about the guilt through association implications. Didn’t we learn anything from the McCarthy era?

People ask why it is so significant that teens walked out. These teens are legal; they are citizens. They are speaking out for a population that is silenced, a population that cannot be visible. They are doing so on school hours because that makes the most impact. Even with the knowledge that they will be fined and given detention, they walked out. Frustrated teachers argued that this is foolish, that their parents came here to give them an education and they aren’t even trying. While these teachers have the best intentions, students have a better grasp on reality. They know that their parents are at risk of being deported. They know that they are mostly not eligible for good jobs that depend on an education; they are going to do the kinds of work their parents do. They are living a working class reality and are completely alienated from it. It is the saddest aspect of our failed education system and our unacknowledged class hierarchy.

Unfortunately, this political regime is doing an amazing job of approaching world politics with brute force and xenophobia. HR 4437 is no different. No wonder the world hates us. I am glad people are thinking about how to handle undocumented workers; i just wish that folks would have more compassion and understanding of the dynamics and lives of people who have worked fucking hard to fatten our privileged asses. Most undocumented workers are not criminals and they should not be treated as such. They are good people, trying really hard to make their lives and the lives of their families better.

On a personal note, i spoke with a neighbor about this bill. She’s been here illegally for almost a decade; she has two small children that she works hard to support. When i brought it up, her eyes got wide with fear. I told her not to worry, that i am on her side; this gave her much relief. It is clear that she’s very scared. She told me she didn’t understand this bill. She pays taxes, she works hard, she obeys laws, she is trying really hard. She doesn’t know what to do. I wish i could tell her not to worry, that everything will be OK. But i have to admit that i’ve lost faith in the humanity of this country.

danah boyd | apophenia

making connections where none previously existed