University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses

How to be Indian: a Tumblr experiment

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How to be Indian: a Tumblr experiment

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Content How to be Indian – a Tumblr Experiment by Anisha Jethwani University of Southern California Interactive Media and Game Design Master of Fine Arts August 2015 2 TABLE OF CONTENTS DEVELOPMENT .......................................................................................................................... 3 BACKGROUND OF THE PLATFORM ................................................................................................ 4 Tumblr Glossary .................................................................................................................... 5 THE PLAN ................................................................................................................................... 5 EXECUTION ................................................................................................................................. 6 PROBLEMS FACED .................................................................................................................. 10 CONCLUSION ............................................................................................................................ 15 3 The goal with my thesis project was to create a multimedia epistolary novel that was smoothly integrated into the target demographic’s current online experience. Taking place entirely on the social blogging website Tumblr, the story followed second- generation high school student Apeksha and aimed to highlight the differences and similarities between the cultures and generations of the characters. As an ethnically Indian person who has never actually lived in India but who felt the effects of her race regardless, I am one of millions of immigrants who grew up in a state of ambiguity with regards to their cultural identity. While there are plenty of stories in every form that deal with the issues that crop up through adolescence and high school, there is a dearth of ones that deal specifically with what that may be like as an ethnic minority, and more specifically, a person growing up in a culturally different household. As a female, this representation is even smaller. Having representation in media is tremendously important, especially in those tempestuous years, as it gives teenagers someone to relate to. There are challenges experienced as the child of an immigrant that are unique and underrepresented. With my thesis I aimed to tell a story that fit in that gap and gave teenagers of a similar ilk a sense that they are not alone in facing them. While I wanted to create a character certain audience members could directly relate to, I also wanted to illustrate to others what that life is like in the hopes of dissolving some of the misconceptions that lead to ignorant comments and outright bullying. DEVELOPMENT The original concept for this project was actually a television show entitled Generations. Borne out of reflections on my own family, Generations followed the parallel stories of a girl, her mother, and her grandmother as they went through adolescence. The grandmother, of course, has the most culturally traditional story – married off at 16 to a man ten years her senior. The mother immigrates with her family to the United States and faces the challenges of learning a new culture. And the girl, her challenges come from not having a clear path to follow. The point of showing all three stories in parallel, interwoven amongst each other, was to highlight not just their differences but also their similarities as three 16-year-old girls. Television shows are, of course, expensive endeavors. As my education progressed and I learned more about different platforms for storytelling, it seemed that a different approach would be better. I scaled down the story, turned the focus to just the lead character and her relationship with her mother, her culture, and her identity. This was a story I could tell in shorter snippets, fit for the web, and with the audience I had in mind, I turned to Tumblr. 4 Background of the Platform Tumblr differentiates itself from more traditional, older blogging services like Wordpress, LiveJournal or Blogspot by putting more importance on interactivity and community. The nature of its content means that users tend to spend more time on the site than other social media networks like Facebook and Twitter. i Most users on Tumblr are ‘curators’ – they reblog others photos, text posts, and gif sets as per their particular interests. Recurring themes tend to emerge and Tumblr has become a popular base for advocacy and debate on gender, LBGT issues, feminism, body image, and mental health. Figure 1: A sample of topics from Tumblr's official 'Year in Review 2014' ii The visual focus of the platform also means that a lot of these issues come up in relation to how they are represented in the media. The fandom side of Tumblr in particular, which is one of the largest, places great importance on representation in the shows, movies, and comics that they love. The project aimed to explore character-focused storytelling on a multimedia platform that discourages long wordy posts. It tested audience understanding of character and narrative through the character’s online presence. The goal was to have audience members engage with the character directly in a way that would change their personal experience of the narrative. 5 Tumblr Glossary Reblog – sharing another blogger’s post on your own tumblr Notes – a counter on each post indicating how many likes and reblogs it has received Followers – users that are subscribed to a particular tumblr Dashboard – the news feed that aggregates every post from every blog a user follows Tag – keywords that bloggers attach to posts to categorize their content The Plan After a lot of back-and-forth and budget planning, I focused on developing three characters – Apeksha, the lead, Harrison, her best friend, and Mrs. Dusani, Apeksha’s mother. Eventually, due to casting difficulties, the mother was scrapped. Figure 2: Sample character bios I would spend a few months developing the characters’ online presence before actually posting and of the main story content. The main story arc was then to play out over a series of short, 2-3 minute webisodes. In each one, Apeksha attempts to do something she thinks a ‘proper Indian girl’ would do – cooking Indian food, dressing in traditional clothes etc. – and in each one, she crashes and burns. Eventually, she learns that The episodes would be shot with a handheld device, vlog style. 6 EXECUTION Harrison Chang – the supporting character I launched the first part of the project in June 2014. This was the blog of Harrison Chang, the best friend of the lead character. Harry was a 16-year-old gay Chinese American who played on the school soccer team so the timing of the World Cup was fortuitous. Figure 3: A screenshot of Harry's tumblr: harykiri.tumblr.com Harry mostly reblogged things related to soccer, fashion, and relatable high school text posts. His blog existed more as one for Apeksha to bounce off in cyber space. Apeksha Dusani – the star of the show Apeksha joined the site a few months later, in early September, at Harry’s urging. Figure 4: Apeksha's first post on Tumblr and Harry's response 7 Stage 1 – Fandom (followers gained: 2) To ease Apeksha into the community and to allow the proposed narrative to address the lack of representation in entertainment, Apeksha first joined Tumblr through a fandom. Her first url, as seen in the screenshot above, was kamala-khanned, which is based off Marvel’s teenage Pakistani-American superhero Kamala Khan (aka Ms. Marvel). She read the comics at Harry’s suggestion and joined Tumblr in her joy in finding a piece of pop culture that she felt related directly to her. While this was partly an attempt to find audience members in the target demographic, participating in the fandom side of Tumblr also gave the audience another peek into Apeksha’s character and furthered her narrative arc. Stage 2 – Brown community (followers gained: 8) As Apeksha spent more time on the site and got further into the community, the focus of her blog inevitably expanded from comics to general posts about feminism, race, and diversity. She also began to follow blogs such as brownpeopleproblems iii and justyouraveragedesi iv , which feature posts from the point of view of Indians and specifically on the unique issues they face. The discovery of these blogs was a doorway for both Apeksha and I into the existence of the ‘brown side of Tumblr’. Here was a community that had put into words everything Apeksha had been dealing with in her sixteen short years, whether consciously or not. At this point, there was enough content on the blog that a user could browse through for a few minutes and form an opinion on the character. Testing of this was largely successful, with users hitting on most of the points of Apeksha’s character that I wanted to get across. The biggest issue was in her age – most people, especially those who were not active on Tumblr, thought her quite a few years older than 16. Adding a few high school humor posts into the mix of reblogs seemed to fix this problem. Figure 5: Both the banner and icon for Apeksha's blog feature Marvel superhero Kamala Khan 8 Stage 3 – Original content (followers gained: 6) The goal for the initial two stages – from reblogging fandom-only posts to broader more Tumblr-popular posts as well as Indian-specific posts, was to gain some followers and have eyes on the blog before the actual story begun, since the aim was to have followers as the story was unfolding, not after the fact. Since just reblogging others’ posts did not achieve this, the next method I tried was creating my own relatable meme-like images. Apeksha’s url changed to justbrowniethings – a play on the justgirlythings blog that was popular amongst teenage girls – and she began posting these images. It wasn’t really working, partly because these kind of jokes already had existing platforms in tumblrs that had a lot more followers. There wasn’t anything really fresh there. I moved on to plot anyway, starting with vague posts and then delving into actual plot. Still, because of the lack of interaction and real-time audience members, it felt more like I was writing a novel. 9 I had plotted out a series of webisodes and even filmed the first one but never posted it. The story felt contrived and the atmosphere of the website by that point had discouraged my excitement for the platform. Figure 6: Some of the personal 'diary' entries Apeksha made 10 PROBLEMS FACED Gaining followers As mentioned above, the biggest issue was getting eyes on the blog. At least half the followers I had were colleagues, most of whom were not active on the site and none of whom were in the target demographic. The project evolved as I had to try a few different methods to go viral. Over the year and a half spent on the site, through development and execution, I learned through observation that the posts and blogs that went viral had certain features. First mover advantage Just like in economics, in social spaces such as Tumblr, creating a following is easier to do near the inception of a platform. The users who have the largest followings on the most popular social networks either have a huge marketing budget behind them or, simply, have been around since the beginning of a trend. Popular vloggers such as PewDiePie and Jenna Marbles have been on YouTube since 2010, and PewDiePie is, in fact, currently the most subscribed channel on YouTube vii . Similarly, Ashton Kutcher, though a famous actor, seems disproportionately popular on Twitter, largely in part due to the fact that he was one of the earliest celebrities to embrace the platform. He was the first user to reach more than one million followers, beating out CNN for the honor viii . 11 The prevalence of blogs like brownpeopleproblems and justyouraveragedesi and the well-established existence of the ‘brown community’ on Tumblr show that the space Apeksha’s blog would fit in has already become saturated. Romantic appeal – the popularity of ‘shipping’ One of the decisions I made early on in crafting Apeksha’s story arc was to not have any kind of romantic aspect to it. My target audience of teenagers, however, seem to respond most to narratives that fit into the typical romance tropes. This is especially true in the fandom side of things – audience members look for any chance to pair two or more characters up into a ‘ship’. Aspirational, not inspirational As much as they clamored for more diverse representation from a race, sexuality, and body image perspective, what the members of my target audience really responded to and made viral were still the same narratives they had always seen. While the text posts people wrote and reblogged seemed to cry out for characters more like them, the images and video they reblogged featured traditional good looks and cute idealistic romances. Accessibility As mentioned above, the initial plan was to have a substantial number of followers before the actual plot began to unfold. The nature of the platform makes it difficult for users to dive into the story in the middle and the experience itself was meant to unfold in real-time for the audience. Commentary through tags Tumblr etiquette dictates that users should not add their own thoughts or commentary directly on to the post they are reblogging. Instead, commentary is written in the ‘tags’ for the post. These tags, while originally meant for categorizing and sorting (as seen on Twitter), are a unique way for Tumblr users to share their thoughts with their followers without permanently altering a post that is then passed on. This method of communication is not immediately evident to those not deeply entrenched in Tumblr and it makes part of the character’s narrative inaccessible to them. I attempted to mitigate it by making the tags as clear as possible on the blog but it was still obvious, when interviewing users, that audience members who only have a cursory relationship with the site were missing out on this crucial bit of character information. 12 Figure 7: Tags as seen on the Tumblr dashboard ix So while users seemed to get an idea of Apeksha’s view of the world through the posts she was reblogging, they missed out on the additional layer of her personal experience that was relegated to the tags. There was a conflict here between keeping the blog realistic and making sure all the information was being clearly conveyed. Time-scaling Unlike films or books, a day-to-day blog does not allow for time jumps. As a result, character arcs have to be rather minor or unrealistically truncated. The kind of arc I wanted for my lead character was one that happened over years, not weeks. As a result, all attempts of writing the webisodes and diary entries felt forced. 13 The negativity of tumblr Long before I began work on this project, back when Tumblr was still in its early days and I was an overworked and overstressed undergrad, I used to browse the site for inspirational quotes and soothing images. Though that side of it still exists, somewhere over the years the community that many used to see as a place of comfort has become more visibly cynical and vicious. The website initially drew a large LBGT+ and minority fanbase because it was seen as a safe haven but the current atmosphere seems to have shifted in the opposite direction. The post shown below x was made on March 1st 2015 and has accumulated 86,503 notes as of March 30th. Of particular note are the third and fourth bullet points. In my time on the site, I saw more than one instance of a user being bullied off the site because of a small mistake they had made. The ‘anonymous ask’ feature on Tumblr, which allows users to send anonymous messages to any other user who has this feature enabled, grants people a freedom not seen on any other social media platform at this scale. 14 Figure 8: Sample anonymous messages sent to two different users xi xii Time (and YouTube comments) have already shown us that people become nasty when they have a computer screen to hide behind. The ‘anon’ feature takes that a step further, allowing users to disassociate from their url completely when talking to another user. Figure 9: A snippet of a larger post on the current toxic atmosphere of the site xiii The image above is part of a post made up of a series of images all with similar taglines. The post, with 49,697 notes as of March 30th, 2015, clearly resonates with a large number of users. Made just a few months ago, this image in particular summarizes the general sentiment seen more and more. 15 CONCLUSION In the time since the initial inception of this idea September 2013, the pop culture landscape has changed quite vastly. Empire, which features an entirely African- American cast, is the first primetime show in 23 years to actually grow its audience each week for the first 5 weeks. xiv Fresh off the Boat, the first sitcom to feature an Asian- American family since Margaret Cho’s in 1994, has been met with praise from all directions and strong ratings to match. Gina Rodriguez won a Golden Globe for her portrayal of the titular character in Jane the Virgin, a show that does not shy away from switching fluidly from Spanish to English with its lead family. Then there are shows like Brooklyn Nine Nine, which do not explicitly address race issues as sitcoms like Fresh off the Boat and Black-ish, but rather that feature a realistically diverse cast in refreshingly non-stereotypical roles. Though these shows are still in their freshman season and though it’s not the first time television has seen a cycle of ‘diverse’ shows only for it to revert back to the same old patterns, I remain hopeful this time that these changes will stick. My initial goal, even before Tumblr came into the equation, was to tell a story about a kind of character that wasn’t being seen enough. Already, that’s changed. Though Fresh off the Boat is about a Taiwanese family, I see a lot of my own parents in the Huangs. And watching Black- ish has given me insight into the idea that even families who have been in this country for generations feel the same sort of cultural disassociation that second-generation kids feel. I knew going in to this project that it was risky – to do a long-term project that relied so heavily on audience engagement on a platform that had been around for a few good years now was a long bet to make in a world where the next best thing is always around the corner. Still, what made the project exciting and educational was the constant shifting of the platform beneath my feet. As methods of storytelling change, grow more dynamic, and become more and more saturated, it’s clear now more than ever that flexibility is important – flexibility, timing, and a whole lot of luck. 16 i Smith, Cooper. "Tumblr Offers Advertisers A Major Advantage: Young Users, Who Spend Tons Of Time On The Site", 13 December, 2013, Business Insider. Business Insider, Inc, http://www.businessinsider.com/tumblr-and-social-media-demographics- 2013-12 (accessed March 29, 2015) ii "Tumblr 2014 Year in Review." Tumblr Year in Review, 2 Dec. 2014. Web. 29 Mar. 2015. iii http://brownpeopleproblems.tumblr.com/ iv http://justyouraveragedesi.tumblr.com/ vii Cohen, Joshua. "Sorry Rihanna, PewDiePie Now Most Viewed YouTube Channel Of All Time." Tubefilter., 07 Aug. 2014. Web. 29 Mar. 2015. viii "Inside Ashton Kutcher's World of Twitter." The Guardian, 20 Apr. 2009. Web. 29 Mar. 2015. ix "European Accents (and in General White People..." Web log post. Lose Fear Go Crazy, 4 Oct. 2014. Web. 29 Mar. 2015. <http://drunklosthelp.tumblr.com/post/99160517798/european-accents-and-in-general- white-people>. x Jean, Aia. "Actual Tumblr Social Justice Problems." Web log post. It's My Blag,1 Mar. 2015. Web. 29 Mar. 2015. <http://gordonfoodservice.tumblr.com/post/112457896634/actual-tumblr-social-justice- problems>. xi "Your Art Is Actually Really Bad and It's Annoying..." Web log post. Just Glass In The Trees, 28 Mar. 2015. Web. 30 Mar. 2015. <http://kuitsukuse.tumblr.com/post/114849194384/your-art-is-actually-really-bad-and- its-annoying>. xii "Some Anons I Have Got Recently." Web log post. Keiten-subby, 28 Mar. 2015. Web. 29 Mar. 2015. <http://keiten-subby.tumblr.com/post/114815452727/some-anons-i-have- got-recently-some-people-just>. xiii "I Swore I'd Never Let These Get Cynical, But..." Web log post. Le Fantôme De Mauvais Graphiques, 25 Aug. 2014. Web. 29 Mar. 2015. <http://badgraph1csghost.tumblr.com/post/95742515329/i-swore-id-never-let-these-get- cynical-but>. xiv BIbel, Sara. "FOX's 'Empire' Is The Only Primetime Broadcast Series To Grow In Viewers in Each of Its First 5 Telecasts in at Least 23 Years." TVbytheNumbers, 06 Feb. 2015. Web. 30 Mar. 2015.

Abstract (if available)

Abstract The goal with my thesis project was to create a multimedia epistolary novel that was smoothly integrated into the target demographic’s current online experience. Taking place entirely on the social blogging website Tumblr, the story followed second-generation high school student Apeksha and aimed to highlight the differences and similarities between the cultures and generations of the characters.

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Creator Jethwani, Anisha (author)

Core Title How to be Indian: a Tumblr experiment

School School of Cinematic Arts

Degree Master of Fine Arts

Degree Program Interactive Media

Publication Date 07/09/2015

Defense Date 08/09/2015

Publisher University of Southern California (original), University of Southern California. Libraries (digital)

Tag interactive,OAI-PMH Harvest,social media,Tumblr

Format application/pdf (imt)

Language English

Contributor Electronically uploaded by the author (provenance)

Advisor Kratky, Andreas (committee chair), Bushman, Jay (committee member), McHugh, Maureen (committee member)

Creator Email anishaj@gmail.com

Permanent Link (DOI) https://doi.org/10.25549/usctheses-c3-589803

Unique identifier UC11299517

Identifier etd-JethwaniAn-3579.pdf (filename),usctheses-c3-589803 (legacy record id)

Legacy Identifier etd-JethwaniAn-3579.pdf

Dmrecord 589803

Document Type Thesis

Format application/pdf (imt)

Rights Jethwani, Anisha

Type texts

Source University of Southern California (contributing entity), University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses (collection)

Access Conditions The author retains rights to his/her dissertation, thesis or other graduate work according to U.S. copyright law. Electronic access is being provided by the USC Libraries in agreement with the a...

Repository Name University of Southern California Digital Library

Repository Location USC Digital Library, University of Southern California, University Park Campus MC 2810, 3434 South Grand Avenue, 2nd Floor, Los Angeles, California 90089-2810, USA