Assignment #5- Dora Heideman

Dora Heideman

Fall 2013

Sociology 167

Assignment #5: “Meme’s” and Diffusion of Internet Trends

            “Grumpy Cat” is the hilarious meme that made its way into the online world in September 2012, that uses of a picture of a mixed breed female cat named Tardar Sauce (shortened to “Tard”), who has an unmistakable permanently grumpy face due to feline dwarfism in addition to an under bite, and then individuals create their own general or specific “complaints” and hilarious texts and ideas of what they believe the grumpy cat is “thinking” and write it in text over the picture of this grumpy looking cat. For example, “I WATCHED A VAMPIRE MOVIE ONCE.--------[GRUMPY CAT FACE]-------- MY FAVORITE CHARACTER WAS THE SUN.” (http://imageshack.com/a/img689/2778/egfi.jpg ). Or, one of my personal favorites, on top, a photo of an adorably innocent looking kitten saying “…Santa’s not real?”, and right below grumpy cat is pictured with the simple text beside her face, “NO.” (http://imageshack.com/a/img801/1410/v0yz.jpg ).

            The history of the now widely famous Grumpy Cat meme begins on September 22, 2012 when Bryan Bundesen, brother of Tardar Sauce’s owner Tabatha Budensen, posted a picture of the cat to the website Reddit (original Grumpy Cat image: http://imageshack.com/a/img138/2637/tsi6.png ). The post on Reddit quickly gained popularity within the first 24 hours with users creating photoshopped parodies and image macros of the grumpy cat photo, placing it on the front page of Reddit with more than 25,000 upvotes. The same day, Bundesen added three additional video clips of Tard playing indoors onto YouTube, proving wrong the claims that were being made that the cat was not real and was photoshopped. Meanwhile, the image spread to popular image-sharing website Imgur, gaining nearly 1,030,000 views within the just first 48 hours. Grumpy Cat’s instant viral status seems to have been a streak of luck for Tardar’s owners, as Bundesen explained in an interview with CNN, “‘It was an accident,’ said Bryan Bundesen of the viral stardom that followed [the original photo posted on Reddit]. ‘We thought it would get some laughs, with the Internet liking cats. And it just kept going.’” And it really did. Even though it was posted and gained quick popularity in September 2012, Grumpy Cat maintained it’s viral status online throughout the following year being featured on the cover of WSJ on May 30, 2013 as well as the cover of the October 7^th, 2013 issue of New York Magazine, and the popular cat even won Buzzfeed’s “Meme of the Year Award” at the 2013 Webby Awards. (See Google Insights chart below.)

<script type="text/javascript" src="//www.google.com/trends/embed.js?hl=en-US&q=grumpy+cat&cmpt=q&content=1&cid=TIMESERIES_GRAPH_0&export=5&w=500&h=330"></script>

            Grumpy Cat gained her quick and lasting popularity due to her overtly hilarious grumpy face, the Internet’s liking of cats (as mentioned by Bundesen above), and, as pointed out by Grumpy Cat fan Mason Peatross in an interview for a FoxNews article, “‘There's this great universal quality that Grumpy Cat captures,’ explained Mason Peatross, who waited in line more than 90 minutes for his 30 seconds with the snoozing kitty. ‘Everybody's got that grumpy moment where they just hate things. The cat just makes me laugh every time.’” As he perfectly explains it, this is why the grumpy faced cat became an instant hit in the day and age of Web 2.0 and inserting one’s own idea over a popular image to make it into a meme; in this case usually using text over the image to write what they feel should be said along said one of many hilarious photos of Tard (or what they feel Tard might be “thinking”).

            The popular meme also had a favorable precursor of presence the online public arena from the popular “so-and-so is not impressed” memes (which stemmed from a photo that went viral of Olympic gymnast McKayla Maroney) and other pictures of a variety of grumpy looking cats. However, nothing quite compared to the competitive edge behind the Tardar Sauce’s viral meme capacity, as his natural face was ridiculous and hilarious on its own, whereas other hilarious cat photos and videos were typically captured just at the “right” moment, depicting a face that was just a result of good timing rather than natural ridiculousness. “Grumpy Grandma” emerged on the Internet in January 2012 (9 months before grumpy cat), but only became viral and an Internet meme after the success and infatuation the Internet world had developed with grumpy cat and the simple hilarity behind grumpy memes.

SOURCES:

1. http://www.foxnews.com/tech/2012/09/28/internet-finds-world-grumpiest-cat-named-tardar-sauce/

2. http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/grumpy-cat

3. http://www.cnn.com/2013/03/10/tech/web/grumpy-cat-sxsw/index.html

4. http://www.grumpycats.com/about-grumpy-cat/gc-gravatar-copy/#.Upe2WBzkirw

5. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grumpy_Cat#cite_note-wsj-9

MORE OF MY FAVORITE GRUMPY CAT IMAGES/MEMES:

Grumpy Cat would prefer not to co-exist with vampires… - http://imageshack.com/a/img689/2778/egfi.jpg

How Grumpy Cat handles laptop over-the-shoulder lurkers. - http://imageshack.com/a/img811/1979/7trv.jpg

Grumpy Cat stars in the new hit movie… - http://imageshack.com/a/img40/9628/3lc3.jpg

Original Grumpy Cat - http://imageshack.com/a/img138/2637/tsi6.png

Grumpy Cat crushes children’s dreams… - http://imageshack.com/a/img801/1410/v0yz.jpg

Grumpy Cat is not impressed with Jon Snow. - http://imageshack.com/a/img19/5061/zoi5.jpg

The Grumpiest place on earth… - http://imageshack.com/a/img203/3538/4ez8.jpg

High School tries to utilize Grumpy Cat’s popularity to spread a Prom anti-drinking message via billboard… - http://imageshack.com/a/img850/8707/ekz2.png

The worst thing about waking up for Grumpy Cat… - http://imageshack.com/a/img689/3360/drwp.jpg

Description of the perfect meme. - http://imageshack.com/a/img713/4284/72e6.jpg

Grumpy Cat isn’t a fan of spring time…“A LITTLE BIRD TOLD ME IT WAS SPRING…I ATE HIM.” - http://imageshack.com/a/img713/4677/04bl.jpg

Assignment #5- Fatima Nasiyr

Casually Pepper Spray Everything Cop
Fatima Nasiyr


The "Casually Pepper Spray Everything Cop" meme originated from a video from November 18, 2011 that showed ten UC Davis students being pepper sprayed by UC Davis police officers, and it particular Lieutenant John Pike. The students were sitting on the ground with their arms linked in protest for the Occupy Movement. A photo was also taken of Lt. Pike walking down the line of the peacefully protesting students and pepper spraying them. This photo was uploaded onto the popular social news site Reddit the day after the incident where it gained popularity. Users quickly began to photoshop the image of Lt. Pike peppers spraying into many famous paintings, such as the one below. The image was photoshopped into various historical and famous artworks or events, especially those that had to with any type of human rights.

The Occupy Movement was widespread around the country at this point, and so was the news of the police brutality against the Occupy protesters. This led to the news of the pepper spraying, as well as the image, to be covered by many news outlets as well as it to be heavily circulated among people through various social media and social networking sites. Another meme, or technically a macro, was spawned from this meme when news reporter Megyn Kelly from Fox news tried to downplay the seriousness of being pepper sprayed by saying, "[i]t is like a derivative of actual pepper... it's a food product, essentially." 

The the meme as the image of Lt. Pike pepper spraying first came into use on November 19, 2011 when it was uploaded onto Reddit. Although searches for "pepper spray cop" began in September 2011 because of the rise of the Occupy Movement, the actually meme did not exist until the incident that took place on November 18, 2011. I believe the meme became so popular because it clearly showcased the brutality that the Occupy protesters were receiving for their peaceful protests, which was a big topic of discussion but often debated. Some people believed the police were acting within their rights in handling the protesters, but the pepper spraying at UC Davis obviously showed an intrusion on our right to protest. 

References (for information as well as pictures):

http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/casually-pepper-spray-everything-cop

http://www.google.com/trends/explore?q=pepper+spray+cop#q=%22pepper+spray+meme%22&cmpt=q

Assignment #5- Haksung Kim

Haksung kim

Sociology 167

Assignment

The Cinnamon challenge

l  Description

-          The “cinnamon challenge” is one of most popular game and viral internet challenge. The goal of this challenge is to swallow a tablespoon of cinnamon and inhaling powder without any drinking or vomiting in 60 seconds. Subsequently, upload the video including whole process to the internet.

l  popularity & famous

-          Since this challenge is extremely difficult and low percentage of success, over thousand peoples attempted to this challenge and have been uploaded on Youtube. This phenomenon became a viral on Youtube moreover, this challenge has chosen as a one of contents of reality television show and radio program in United Kingdom. Furthermore, some celebrities attempts and posted with this challenge. Due to this, “cinnamon challenge” became more catch on with the public. this challenge has been traced in 2001 by Michael Buffington and increased in popularity in 2007. Many people had not only posted Youtube, but also had posted other social networking websites by 2010. In particularly 2012, people’s posting and interesting peaked.

l  Influence on other meme

-           In my opinion, “the cooking challenge” and “the salt and Ice challenge” have emerged and directly influenced by “the cinnamon challenge” because this challenge is able to appeal people’s curiosity.

l  Picture & video

(Picture 1. Pipe attempts the cinnamon challenge)-the origin of “cinnamon challenge”

(Examples video clip of cinnamon challenge)

1. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EdM_u5y5m5A

2. http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=P__Ws3Pj3xk

3. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RwjK71VX5cU

l  Work cited

-          Know Your Meme (Cinnamon challenge)

(http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/cinnamon-challenge)

-          Wikipedia (cinnamon challenge)

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cinnamon_challenge)

Assignment #5- Hanshu Zhang

                                                      Hanshu Zhang

SOC 167

Memes and Diffusion of Internet

Meme: Nyan Cat                   

Description:

            Nyan Cat, also known as Pop tart Cat, is an 8-bit GIF depicting a cat with a cherry Pop tart as its torso, flying through outer space with a rainbow trail behind it. The figure was inspired by the creator’s own Russian Blue cat.

The popular video (http://youtu.be/QH2-TGUlwu4) stemming from its likeness had a loop of the Japanese Vocaloid song Nyanyanyanyanyanyanya set to its background.

Rise to popularity: 

Nyan cat was created by the account “PRguitarman” on LOL-Comics on April 2^nd, 2011(PRguitarman). The GIFs received over 3,000 notes on Tumblr after being reblogged on the same day(battosaix2l84u).

Three days later, the account “saraj00n” posted a video of the Nyan Cat on YouTube, set to the Japanese song Nyanyanyanyanyanyanya looping in the background. The video received more than 1 million views in its first two weeks(battosaix2l84u).

After the initial wave of attention, various popular blogs and social networking sites, such as Memebase, Tosh.0 blog and CollegeHumour etc. began reposting the Nyan Cat video(battosaix2l84u).

Dissemination:

The meme shot to almost instant, if not ephemeral popularity, as can been seen with the diagram below. According to Google Trends, the search interest for “Nyan Cat” reached its peak 3 months after its initial release, in July 2011, keeping a relatively high search rate up until November of the same year.

By April 13^th, 2011, the Nyan.cat website was set up and another single-serving website featuring multiple Nyan Cats gliding across the webpage, called Slowbro.org was set up the next day. Subsequently, game developers began to create Nyan Cat themed games or variations of already available games such as “Nyan Cat Lost in Space, Snake Nyan Cat, Nyanicorn (Robot Unicorn Attack variant), and Nyan Cat Fly”. A comprehensive list of such games can be found at nyan-cat.com.

Reason of popularity:

            Before the Nyan Cat, the Internet has always displayed affection for cats (i.e. Maru the Cat), other domestic pets, and cuteness in general. The Nyan Cat meme incorporates the elements of cuteness and 8-bit art, which effectively addresses a wider audience. The 70’s and 80’s generation can relate to the nostalgic look of the Cat and younger generations can relate to the surreal humor(battosaix2l84u) and the cuteness of the figure. In addition, the loop video is also a good way to kill time for all the YouTube “addicts” online.

Influences on other memes:

            The Nyan Cat meme has inspired a number of parody memes, the most impactful yet being the taC nayN, which is a black cat with a Belgian Waffle body, flying with a trail of gray rainbow behind it. It was created in the same year as the Nyan Cat by SenorGIF blogger Frankie Crescioni(Crescioni).

            While this meme has yet to obtain consensus on its independent status, another meme inspired by Nyan Cat, called Catception, has caught on with the online community fairly well. This meme features videos of cats watching the Nyan Cat video, and has since developed into a recursive chain of videos of cat watching cats watching the original video(Brad).

Work Cited

battosaix2l84u. “Know Your Meme: Nyan Cat.” N. p., n.d. Web. 24 Nov. 2013.

Brad. “Know Your Meme: Catception.” N. p., n.d. Web. 28 Nov. 2013.

Crescioni, Frankie. “TACNYAN: Destroyer of Worlds!” Cheezburger. N. p., 21 Apr. 2011. Web. 28 Nov. 2013.

PRguitarman. “Nyan Cat!” LOL_COMICS. N. p., n.d. Web. 27 Nov. 2013.

Assingment #5- Meghna Grover

Meghna Grover

Sociology 167

The “Imma Let You Finish” meme featuring Kanye West came about after the 2009 MTV Video Music Awards. Taylor Swift won the Best Female Video award for one of her songs, but Kanye West came up on stage and took the microphone from her. He infamously said, “Yo Taylor, I’m really happy for you. Imma let you finish, but Beyonce had one of the best videos of all time.” Because so many people watch the MTV Video Music Awards and were tweeting about it, it is no wonder that it became a meme.

Google Insight says that the Kanye West Meme became the most popular in September-October 2009, which makes sense because the MTV Video Music Awards were on September 13^th that year (Know Your Meme). Also, it shows a search of 100 (which is the highest) on Google Insight. It also became a trending topic on Twitter the night of the awards. It went viral, and many memes came about from it (from areas of politics to entertainment). 

<script type="text/javascript" src="//www.google.com/trends/embed.js?hl=en-US&q=%22kanye+west%22+%22taylor+swift%22,imma+let+you+finish,kanye+interrupts&content=1&cid=TIMESERIES_GRAPH_0&export=5&w=500&h=330"></script>

The meme itself features the image of Kanye West with the microphone from the music awards. It is usually combined with another picture, of whoever he is “interrupting.” The text is usually “Yo (person he is interrupting), Imma let you finish but (another person) had the best (whatever connects the two).” 

Example images:

http://sincenam.files.wordpress.com/2011/07/casey-kanye.jpg

http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m0lrhmQ9Ed1qm8cywo1_500.jpg

http://buzzworthy.mtv.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/tumblr_kq4duukkb41qa3i8u.jpg

http://d1uxo3lrkrg9rh.cloudfront.net/img/02935ee8ad54f0e3f884534966a33213

Sources (for all information):

http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/events/kanye-interrupts-imma-let-you-finish

http://www.google.com/trends/explore?hl=en-US#q=%22kanye+west%22+%22taylor+swift%22,imma+let+you+finish,kanye+interrupts

Assingment #5- Michael Cao

The "Nyan Cat" is a YouTube video of a cartoon cat with a poptart body with a rainbow being left behind in its trail. The background is of stars to show that the cat is flying and there is a track of a Japanese pop song being played. The video was uploaded on April 5, 2011 and soon became viral. The video itself is a bit ridiculous, but that is what makes it so special. It is cute, but annoying at the same time. Cats are very popular with internet memes and adding the body of a poptart just furthers this absurdness. The song completely tops off the video by having a vocaloid repeating "nyan" (the Japanese version of "meow"). The "Google Insights" interest kept rising until June 2011, and gradually began to drop. There is a small spike that occurs from 9/2011 - 10/2011, but then begins to gradually drop again up to this day. There are other very miniscule spikes at random times, but are not as noticeable compared to the 9/2011 - 10/2011 spike. 

The "Nyan Cat" meme did not particularly influence any other memes (directly at least), but of course there were soon numerous remixes spawning from this. Although, there was a free version of a side-scrolling game called "Techno Kitten Adventure" soon released after (eventually coming to Facebook games). This was originally created in 2010, but it began releasing free versions of this game less than a week after the upload of "Nyan Cat". This game features a flying kitten requiring its player to avoid obstacles (siimilar to Robot Unicorn Attack that arose in early 2010). 

"Google Insights" Interest: http://www.google.com/trends/explore?q=nyan+cat#q=nyan%20cat&cmpt=q

Original Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QH2-TGUlwu4

Assignment #4 Video Competition: "Hot Girls With 'Talent'"

Assignment #5 Chang Liu

Sociology 167

Chang Liu

November 19, 2013

Chocolate Rain

“Chocolate Rain” meme became viral in 2007 when Tay Zongday produced a music video called “Chocolate Rain”. He recorded his performance while portraying his song “Chocolate Rain” through singing into a condenser microphone in his apartment. He posted the video on YouTube on April 22, 2007, and soon the video began to become popular. It became popular because the Zonday, a teenager boy at the time, has a unique voice that sounds like a 40-year-old man. Since the song produced in an informal way, and Tay Zonday’s motion of breath in while he singing is so dramatic, so people thinks that is random and funny, and it can entertain people. In July 2013, the video had 92,709,059 views. (Wikipedia) The video was among the top 50 most viewed YouTube videos of all time at a point. (Know Your Meme) The “Chocolate Rain” attention started as a joke at 4chan. (Wikipedia)

Link of “Chocolate Rain”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EwTZ2xpQwpA

On July 11st, 2007, anonymous started to pay attention to “Chocolate Rain”.  Therefore, Tay Zonday created another video for his newfound audience on July 18th, 2007. He produced a karaoke cover on Rick Astley’s song “Never Gonna Give You Up”, which called “You Got Tay Rolled! ‘Never Gonna Give You Up’ Karaoke”.

Tay Zonday started his career by creating commercials, such as “Cherry Chocolate Rain”, “Firefox Rise Up” and “Last Laugh”.

After Tay Zonday posted “Chocolate Rain” and appeared on 4chan, many people imitated his singing styles or recreate his posted videos and posted them on the Internet, such as “Vanilla Snow (Chocolate Rain Parody)”, “Chocolate Rain 8Bit Remix’ and “Chocolate Rain by Chad Vader”

Some of Tay Zonday productions’ website: https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=u_aY7HZvFpQ

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=STbQFlYaewM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2x2W12A8Qow

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nCYuRA1N3tA

Some of the imitations and recreation of Tay Zonday’s productions’ websites:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=P6dUCOS1bM0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=caIBKOztlAo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=nTQOpibv_OA

References

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chocolate_Rain

http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/tay-zonday-chocolate-rain

Assignment #3- Michael Cao

Social Media Marketing Analysis: McDonald's

https://www.facebook.com/McDonalds

I decided to analyze a very large and well known franchise, McDonald's.McDonald's, as most people know is the largest in the fast food industry spread across numerous countries. Honestly, the page does have some interesting and cool pictures here and there with something new posted just about every day. Also, with their new "mighty wings" release, they have some promotions (such as free apps or a promotion on codes to win money), but no sort of discounts really offered aside from those. The pictures and videos are of people in many different situations carrying an item from McDonald's - an attempt to show that they have variety for every situation and that McDonald's can be seen in everyday life.

There are not very many engaging materials such as Prometheus with the forums or any free giveaways like other facebook pages. The closest to these giveaways are possible codes that you can get when going to the restaurants and ordering specific items. Mainly, the page is used for promotion on items on the menu and of course, the facebook page is spammed with comments of random comments that are not related to the fan page at all.

Assignment #3- Fatima Nasiyr

Social Media Marketing Analysis

https://www.facebook.com/sprint

The company whose social media page I chose to analysis is Sprint and their Facebook page. This company does an okay job of social media marketing in the sense that they have updates roughly every day, although it just may be as simple as an advertisements from one of their new products. The content flow all blurs into one as they only advertise new sprint products when they infrequently come out. Every once in a while they will post links to different forms of media, such as videos, that are still advertising their products. Once a month they seem to have a contest, a form of premiums, with the latest being a chance for users to win tickets to their favorite NBA team's game. This post, however, seemed to have a very small percentage of interaction (in terms of likes and comments) in comparison to the number of people who like this page. This contest blends in so well with the rest of the advertisements on the page that this contest could have easily been ignored by many.

Sprint's Facebook page also had a contest this past month for user submitted content, in which users were supposed to send in pictures of their favorite Chicago bands and nightclubs. This was a tactic to increase participation as well as giving a space for user-generated content. This tactic, however, was limiting to the since that only people who live in Chicago could participate. This seems to be the company's first attempt since May to have user participation. Sprint does succeed in one aspect in that they have a customer service portal for users to give feedback. This is a feature, however, of Facebook and not actively done by Sprint. Even though the customers have a space for Sprint to have a dialogue with it's customers, it seems that this does not actually happen.

Overall, Sprint does hit every key features of having successful social media marketing. They do this at such a sub-par level, however, that overall their social media marketing job is just mediocre.

Assignment #3- Meghna Grover

The company website that I am analyzing is Simple Pickup. Simple Pickup consists of pickup artists who are selling their advice and tactics. I believe that they are doing a very good job at social media marketing, considering their product.

When it comes to premiums, their Facebook page does not seem to have immediate giveaways. However, with closer inspection, it is obvious that they do offer certain free trials and access to videos (but not as often as other pages such as Yogurtland do, perhaps because their product is advice, not a tangible item). Their participation, however, is great. Simple Pickup has surveys and asks the users what they want, for example they had a survey about where they should donate an extra $100. They do not, however, have a venue for user-generated content. The entire page is run strictly by the manager of Simple Pickup, with whatever he finds or comes up with. Their customer service portal is immense because Facebook is one of the ways that customers interact with the company. Customers give feedback on how they view the pick-up line techniques and any issues they may be running into. Probably the largest feature they have is their content flow. Every day, they post on their Facebook page three times.  One post is a quote, one post is funny, and another one is a mix of the two. With consistent posts, they are able to see what the users want more of and the users and constantly reminded of Simple Pickup.

Assignment #3- Hanshu Zhang

Evaluation of A Commercial Page

SOCIO 167

Hanshu Zhang

Oct. 29th 2013

Link to the Page: https://www.facebook.com/Thor

Evaluation:

Overall, the Facebook page for the Thor movie franchise is doing a good job of social media marketing. Since its inception on April 30th, 2010, the Facebook page has received more than 8.1 million “likes” over a steady flow of movie trailers, sneak peaks, promotion tour photos and contests.

In the still on-going promotion period for Thor: the Dark World (which started in April 2013), the Facebook page has offered at least four opportunities to win free things, three of which offer free trips to LA for the US premiere of the second Thor movie. The contests asked Facebook users to perform certain actions (such as to vote between the two main protagonists in the upcoming film, to nominate an acquaintance who can look up to the heroine as a role model) in order to enter the contests. One of the contests offered a chance to win free Loki T-shirts for those who tweeted content with the tag #freeloki on twitter. This is especially worth mentioning because it crosses the boundaries between two social media networks and uses one to increase the film’s presence in the other.

These contests are interactive in nature, thus soliciting the audiences’ participation. The Facebook page also offers more frequent interactive opportunities such as posting survey or trivia questions about the franchise. Another form of participation it provides is again cross- or pan-SNS interaction. For example the page posted a link that allows users to record a question for the main cast and director via Skype.

Facebook pages naturally allow users to leave comments beneath posts, so the opportunity for dialogue is abundant. However, the page also goes out of its way to create portals for customer feedback via posts that specifically asks for viewers’ opinions.

Apart from the interaction and feedback, the Thor Facebook page also regularly posts user-generated content such as cosplayers in Thor or Loki costumes at different comic-con events. However, given the nature of a public Facebook page, the user-generated contents are not freely uploaded, but are posted by the administrator of the page, thus to some degree preventing negative material getting to those who “like” the pages.

The page also interacts with associated Facebook pages such as the Iron Man movie franchise, the Avengers franchise, etc, establishing a Marvel echo chamber which can resonate and converge their influences and merge multiple groups of audiences together to help the box office performance of the movies.

Assignment #3 Chang Liu

Analysis of League of Legends’ website

I would like to analyze League of Legends’ official webpage. League of Legends, created by Riot games, is one of the world’s most played PC game. Its webpage, http://na.leagueoflegends.com/, is effective of social media marketing. First of all, it provides free game to the players. The no cost marketing concept attracts the users to continuously find out more information of this game without worrying about the expense. The webpage is visually appealing. It gives a positive impression to potential players to join the Riot gaming community by providing vivid character role figures in game to attract users’ attention. This leads the users to move forward to install League of Legend.

Secondly, the website creates a player-participative venues to lead the players to keep interact with each other. It has an event call “Summoner Showcase” every two weeks, which allows players to submit the materials that relevant to the game that they create and shows them on the webpage. Every year Riot organizes a world championship to welcome gaming clubs from different countries to contend the championship for their countries. This motivates player to strive for high ranking in League of Legends, which solidifies the user-base of Riot. It also enables players from different regions to learn the game play strategy from superiors, and support their countries to become the winners.

Thirdly, users can help League of Legends to improve the gaming quality by submitting their comment through the webpage. They can also communicate their game play strategies and point of views towards League of Legends through the forums that the webpage creates. Riot will listens to the players’ reviews to make decisions to improve the game.

Finally, the webpage provides new and engaging materials daily to update relevant information about the new changes of the game, such as the new coming champions, agenda for competition of championships, and patch reviews. The information that it provides is informative and relevant, which helps the users to make decisions to participate in Riot’s community.

Assignment #2- Mazi Afshari (missed in inbox)

Apple’s fingerprint scanner has been cracked

In only two days after the infamous launch of Apple’s new iPhone there was progress about hackers who managed to hack into their new security feature, the fingerprint scanner. This is not only embarrassing to Apple but also a major breach in privacy for the consumers.  The fingerprints we have is supposed to be a unique identity for each individual, with this information being compromised, there is no limit of what hackers cannot achieve.

Of the different causes Suler identifies as generating "disinhibition" I would say the one that identify the most likely reason/cause for disinhibition which would motivate the criminal would be the “Minimization of Status and Authority”. Simply because the idea behind is to ensure here is no centralized control by not allowing the government to become more powerful, also to show them that their security system cannot withhold people like CCC from hacking it. Again a display of hackers vs security systems whereas they put their stance on the issue of privacy infringement.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/09/23/us-iphone-hackers-idUSBRE98M01X20130923

Assignment #2- Chang Liu (missed in inbox)

Chang Liu

Sociology 167

A Fraud from Tencent QQ

In February 2013, a Chinese citizen from Shandong, China reported an online scam to local security authority. He reported that he transferred 100,000 RMB (16343.1 dollars) to the bank account that his “son” provided on Tencent QQ, a Chinese social software, after his “son” claims for finical help. However, he found out that it was a trap after contacting his son on cellphone. His son told him that his QQ account was hacked by others who may illegally in use for frauds.

The polices investigated that the criminals secretly sent out Trojan virus to international students’ QQ account to steal their passwords - they sneaked into international students’ QQ groups, chatted with the group members, and then defrauded their relatives and friends’ trusts to swindle their money. In this case, dissociative anonymity was the biggest leading tool used in disinhibition that motivates the criminals to defraud through Internet. The criminals understand that applying QQ account does not require identity authentication, and people are not necessary communicate through video or audio chats. Therefore, they can provide fake information about themselves, and the students in QQ groups were not able to determine the criminals’ real identities. Consequently, they can take advantage through being anonymities to sneak into international students’ QQ groups and sent out Trojan virus.

Website: http://society.people.com.cn/n/2013/0619/c1008-21887032.html

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Article from People’s Daily (China)

Date: June 19, 2013.