The article “Snapchat Wants You to Post. It’s Willing to Pay Millions” by Taylor Lorenz describes the relatively new Spotlight feature on Snapchat and how normal users, ranging from having no following to massive followings, can make millions in days. Spotlight shares similarities to TikTok and Instagram reels, with the same content, such as trends and viral videos, being posted and the majority of users being in either high school or within the age range of 18-24; however, Spotlight has proven to have much higher payouts than that of its competitors, with users making life-changing amounts of money. Andrea Romo, an average associate at Lowe’s making $12.50 an hour, is one such example. She made half a million dollars in two weeks from her video of her sister deep-frying a turkey for Thanksgiving. Another example would be Cam Casey, a Tiktok star with a following of seven million. By uploading a science experiment with a Coca-Cola bottle exploding, as well as numerous other short-form videos he consistently made, he was given three million dollars due to the views his videos received and Snapchat’s algorithm. Though Spotlight has proven successful with its generous payouts, the competition is evergrowing and in order to keep afloat, creators have created ideas of banding together, thus keeping momentum and sharing in their profits.
In my experience, social media is a double-edged sword. On one hand, social media proves to foster creativity, allowing creatives of all kinds to find inspiration and grow in their popularity, as well as talent. Despite that, social media platforms also can lead to negativity and hateful propaganda being spread like wildfire. By playing Fakey, I feel that it’s best for me to begin to do more research when coming upon articles or blog posts that I see other people sharing about current events.
3 thoughts on “Celina Malave – Conversation 3”
Hey Celine! I appreciate the way you worded this , I wish you would have expounded a bit more into the points that we discussed and listed on the graphic. I do though, agree with your view on social media and it being a double edged sword. Thank you for your contribution!
Hello Celina. Upon reading your response, I agree with you that social media can be a double-edged sword. In my experience, social media has done a lot of good for me; for example, I’ve found most of my friends on SM, and even though I found them there and made a lot of good connections, I’ve also lost them there. With that being said, I feel like we are also in control of how we experience SM, just like what we learned in the danger of a single story; it is crucial to be receptive to different narratives and to think critically about things before engaging or doing things although this doesn’t work all the times, I feel like it’s an important step to take when using SM.
I 100% agree with you, social media is a double edge sword. Social media is the greatest creation ever made but it can also be our undoing. It’s the only way we can connect with people, but not all words are meant to be said. We can only be given something and make the best out of it, that’s the existence of mankind lol. We always want things in our control, until it’s out of our control. Social Media can be used for the goods but the bad is equal to it.