This week of our Social Media class we discussed and were introduced to topics that are a bit more controversial. First I read an article on called The Atlantic: Emoji Don’t Mean What They Used To and then viewed a Black Mirror episode which are always very interesting to watch; the viewing was called Black Mirror: White Christmas with Jon Hamm, Rafe Spall, and Natalia Tena starring in the episode.
In the article The Atlantic: Emoji Don’t Mean What They Used To, it talks about the original emoji and how it was created. The Japanese took first on the creation of them from the telecom NTT Docomo in 1999, and ever since then emojis are always being added and used with smartphones and other technology across the world. With the addition of more and more it can be an easy way to communicate without words which back then would almost seem as something that wasn’t intended to happen. But with specific meanings people are communicating with ease and the use of them are going to continue to skyrocket, especially with the newer generations like the Millennials and Gen Z.
The Black Mirror episode starts on Christmas morning with Matt cooking and drinking in the morning, where Matt opened up to Joe about his hobby of hooking up with awkward singles, which did not go as planned. After we see how Matt and his colleagues used Zed Technology to start conversations and keep them going, but one of the colleagues went to get a woman who ended up having mental issues. The woman mistook what Zed Technology and thinks that it means they will both be taking their lives together. After hearing this Matt is quick to cover up and erase the evidence, but in the meantime this makes his partner end their relationship with him. He also goes one to explain about the digital clones and what they can do.
The next we see Matt is further in the future and where these clones are breaking their programming and wanting to feel and be “themselves” as an individual. Then we see Joe opening up about his past and his relationship with Beth. With an unexpected pregnancy she thought about an abortion and hates Joe, blocks him, and then leaves him. This makes Joe uneasy and hurting because of her leaving with no trace and no way to get into contact with her. Joe ended up going to Beth’s father’s house every Christmas Eve to see his child from a distance, but after a few years Beth passes away and he sees this as a way to meet his child and give her a gift from him from himself. About to give the gift to his daughter he realizes that he is actually not the father and that Beth had an affair with his best friend, which Joe ended up hitting Beth’s father with a snow globe that ended up killing him. Joe fled from the scene and the young girl sought for help in the cold snowy winter and froze to death. Joe did end up confessing to what happened and then Matt leaves a cookie with Joe’s clone, and ended up making a deal with the police to not get prison time, but he is now a registered sex offender and is blocked from everyone not allowing contact to anybody.
News Article: Evolving Emojis: Designing for the New Face of Messaging
This article talks about the usage and how emojis are always changing.
SOCIAL MEDIA & SOCIETY 
Hello, you give a very informative content about the book and how people use social media during the days of election. Social media has been a place where different people share their thoughts and politicians get benefits from these social sites during the days of election. People are supporting their parties on the internet and get to know more about what is happening all over the country during the days of election.
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Hey, you explained in quite an informative way about the book. The use of social media is as different for people as there are people with different natures. Many use social media for entertainment purposes and many people use it for political purposes. Especially, during the days of elections the online campaigns were become a thing for whole of the America to talk about. Because people are so eager and got emotional to regarding their country and social media gives them the opportunity to open their mind up and share their thoughts.
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It was very interesting to see how far the emoji has come since it was first made and how much effort has been put into them. Emojis have been made it easier communicate how you feel about things and to actual give you text message the right meaning. What I mean by that is having the ability to say something sarcastically and have it be picked up that way in a text by adding emojis to it. With sarcasm being really easy to pick up when talking face to face due to changes in tone but that change can’t be picked up in texted and could lead to the wrong impression being set but with emojis that has changed.
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