reading response .. I need A+ in it to pass my class!

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4. If you are unfamiliar with the following words, use a dictionary to check their meanings: menacingly (para. 1); unwieldy, insomnia, way- farers, dismayed, indistinguishable, dicey (2); hallucination, perpetra- tors, solace, alienation, entity (5); lethality, retrospect (6); bravado (7); perilous, posse, labyrinthine (8); affluent, cursory (9); credentials (10); warbling (12).

READ CRITICALLY

1. What, specifically, is the cause-and-effect relationship that Staples is describing in the essay? How well do you think he shows this relation- ship? What is the effect of the situation on Staples himself?

2. Why do you suppose Staples opens his essay by referring to “my first victim”? What is the effect of this language?

3. Who would you say Staples imagined as his audience for this essay? What vision of himself does he seem to want his readers to come away with?

4. Why do you think Staples refers to the experience of another black man in paragraph 10, when all of his other examples are drawn from his own experience?

5. What is your response to Staples’s final two paragraphs? To his final sentence? How would you evaluate this conclusion?

WRITE AN ESSAY

Write an essay, based on your own experiences, about the causes and effects of stereotypes and mistaken perceptions. You might focus on mis- taken perceptions others have had of you or on mistaken perceptions you have had of others—or on both kinds of mistaken perceptions. You might also focus on instances of mistaken perceptions and stereotyping that you have witnessed. Be sure to establish clear cause-and-effect relationships.

Caitlin Seida

My Embarrassing Picture Went Viral

Caitlin Seida has been writing professionally since 2006. Her work has appeared on Livestrong, the Daily Puppy, and Case to Case, among other online publications.

This article appeared on Salon in October 2013. In it, Seida chronicles her experi- ences when an unflattering photo of her was spread around the Internet, inspiring her to take action and confront her anonymous adversaries.

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Guiding question How carefully do you think about what you post on a social site?

COURTESY © CAITLIN SEIDA

1 I logged onto my Facebook one morning to find a message from a girlfriend. “You’re Internet famous!” it read. She sent a link to a very public page whose sole purpose was posting images that mock people’s appearances. There I was in full glory—a picture of me dressed as my hero Lara Croft: Tomb Raider for Hallow- een—but written over the image were the words “Fridge Raider.” 2 Funny enough, I wasn’t even angry at first. I was actually kind of amused. Who doesn’t laugh at unfortunate shots of poorly dressed strangers? I’ve cer- tainly done it before; the Internet runs on this kind of anonymous scorn. There are entire websites dedicated to the poor fashion choices of random people. And just like me, most of those people are fat. 3 I don’t generally view my body size as positive or negative—it simply is. I eat right (most of the time) and I exercise (an inordinate amount), but it does little, thanks to a struggle with polycystic ovarian syndrome and a failing thyroid gland. I’m strong, I’m flexible and my doctor assures me my health is good, but the fact remains: I’m larger than someone my height should be. 4 None of this played into my decision to dress up as Lara Croft, one of the most kick-ass female video game characters ever. Croft is feminine but danger- ous, well-educated but athletic, and she’s also easily recognizable, which makes a Halloween costume fairly easy. That picture was taken late in the evening—I was red-faced from the heat, my makeup was sweating off and I was lacking proper boob support (a problem the pixelated Croft has never confronted). But I was having fun, and seeing the image again on that website, I still thought it showed. 5 So I laughed it all off at first—but then, I read the comments. 6 “What a waste of space,” read one. Another: “Heifers like her should be put down.” Yet another said I should just kill myself “and spare everyone’s eyes.” Hun- dreds of hateful messages, most of them saying that I was a worthless human being and shaming me for having the audacity to go in public dressed as a sexy video game character. How dare I dress up and have a good time!

Pause What do you think the essay will be about? Identify what the “cause” may be and what the “effect” may be, based on the introduction.

Pause Underline the places where Seida ex- plains what caused her situation.

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7 We all know the awful humiliation of a person laughing at you. But that feeling increases tenfold when it seems like everyone is laughing at you. Scrolling through the comments, the world imploded—and took my heart with it. 8 I called my friend Terri Jean, a photographer. She reminded me that I was beautiful, and told me I would get through this. And then, like any kick-ass hero- ines, we came up with a plan. 9 The first thing I needed to do was figure out where the picture came from. That wasn’t hard—it came from me. I’d posted the image on Facebook, but like so many before me, I’d failed to pay attention to my privacy settings when I uploaded it. Instead of restricting access to my friend network, I’d inadvertently given access to the whole world. 10 But Facebook made it easy to find people who had commented on the images. By now, the picture had metastasized through reposts on Twitter, Tumblr, Reddit, 9Gag, FailBlog. But looking through the Facebook “like” function, I could track down the most offensive commenters. 11 Most of them were women. Shocked? I wasn’t. Anyone who’s survived high school can tell you how women slice each other up to make ourselves feel better. I sent several of those women a message. 12 “You’re being an asshole,” the note said. “Why don’t you just do the right thing and delete the post and stop sharing it?” 13 The most common response was not remorse or defensiveness but surprise. They were startled that I could hear what they’d been saying. Their Facebook pages were set to private, after all. Most didn’t realize that when you post to a public page through your Facebook account, it doesn’t matter that your own content is restricted: The whole world can read your words anyway. 14 And of course, they hadn’t really thought of me as a person. Why should they? These images are throwaways, little bursts of amusement to get through a long workday. You look, you chuckle, you get some ridicule off your chest and move on to the next source of distraction. No one thought about the possibility that I might read those words. Far less, that I would talk back. 15 Next, I began the monumental task of sending out copyright violation notices to the websites hosting the image—I would have to issue hundreds of them. My work as a paralegal had given me some training in this regard, but it was tedious, like pulling weeds out of the planet’s largest garden. I had to seek out each instance of the image and sift around until I could find contact information. 16 I got a fair number of them taken down, but once something like this spreads, it’s out there forever. Friends still send me emails asking if I know about this, and I can hear the anxious balancing act in their voices, trying to be a good friend and alert me to this danger while still trying to shield me from the hurtful attacks. I still go through the less tasteful side of the Internet monthly and issue take-down notices for new instances, but it’ll never be completely gone, which is part of why I decided to post the image in this story. On my own terms. To own it again, without shame this time.

Pause Think of a time when you have posted something online and received an unexpected response. Why did it happen?

Pause Why did Seida and her friends feel it was necessary to find out who had made com- ments on her photo?

Pause Why do you think people were sur- prised to hear from Seida about the comments they had left on her photo?

Pause Seida says that the people she contacted hadn’t thought of her as a real person. What does she mean by that?

Pause Seida notes that even though she has issued hundreds of copy- right violation notices, the image will never be completely gone. Can you completely delete something from the Internet? Does anyone think about that ques- tion before they post something to a social media site?

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17 But along the way, in my journey to control something that was ultimately uncontrollable, I encountered something that cut right through the haze of shock and depression: People were actually defending me. 18 Perfect strangers pointed out that there was nothing wrong with a woman of large size dressing up to have a good time. Some commenters even accu- rately guessed that I had polycystic ovarian syndrome. The disease is char- acterized by an accumulation of fat in the stomach, making it look, as one insensitive doctor told me, “like you’ve got a basketball shoved under your shirt.” For every three negative and hateful comments, there was at least one positive one. 19 In the months since, my attitude toward these throwaway images of mock- ery on the Internet has changed. I no longer find them funny. Each one of those people is a real human being, a real person whose world imploded the day they found themselves to be a punch line on a giant stage. I speak up whenever a friend gets a cheap laugh from one of these sites. I ask one simple question: “Why do you think this is funny?” Very few have a good answer. Mostly they just say, “I don’t know.” Reminding people of our shared humanity hasn’t exactly made me popular, but it feels like the right thing to do. I know what it’s like to be the person in that horrible photograph. I can’t inflict such pain on someone else. 20 I’ve also learned to keep a tighter rein on my privacy settings online. I don’t always succeed at keeping my content private, but I’m certainly more guarded now. 21 And while my self-confidence took a large blow from the experience, I’m getting over it. My photographer friend Terri did a photo shoot with me after it all went down. She’s a retro pinup photographer, and I’ve been posing for her for a while now, but that particular shoot felt great. Just to be seen a little bit more as I wanted to be. 22 But I refuse to disappear. I still go jogging in public. I don’t hide my flabby arms or chubby ankles for fear of offending someone else’s delicate sensibili- ties. I dress in a way that makes me happy with myself. And this Halloween, I’m thinking of reprising my role as Lara Croft just to give all the haters the middle finger. 23 And no, I won’t be putting the pictures online this time.

SUMMARIZE AND RESPOND

Summarize the main idea of “My Embarrassing Picture Went Viral.” Then, go back and check off support for this main idea. Next, write a brief sum- mary (three to five sentences) of the reading. Finally, jot down your initial response to the selection. Did you find any of what Seida relates surpris- ing, or have you had similar experiences online? Did reading about Seida’s experiences change your attitudes in any way? How do you feel about shar- ing photos online?

Pause Seida uses terms here like “throw- away images” and “punch line on a giant stage.” What is she talk- ing about when she uses these phrases? Do most people stop to think about where viral pic- tures come from or who is in them?

Pause Put brackets around the places where Seida identifies the ef- fects of her post.

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