The Unbearable Invisibility of Being MENA in the Media
Growing up in Hawaii, despite its beautiful, multicultural communities, there was rarely a person around me that was Middle Eastern North African (MENA). My Iranian immigrant family practically took off sprinting after anyone if we heard even an inkling of Farsi spoken, just so that we could say hello. It was that rare and that coveted.
Decades later, those same combined, complicated feelings of yearning, heartache, and gratitude still wash over me when I find any media representation whatsoever that positively represents Persian culture. That’s why I was immediately diverted from my piled-up to-do list when I came across an Instagram video post of Britney Spears saying “Asheghetam” (“I love you” in Farsi) to Sam Asghari, her long-time boyfriend and now fiancé, who happens to be Iranian-American.
In fact, representation of Iranians, or anyone with MENA heritage has historically fallen short in Hollywood. Portrayals are often limited to painfully stereotyped characters which Meighan Stone, Former President of the Malala Fund, described as “negative, violent, and voiceless” in her report for the Harvard Kennedy School. In fact, her study of a 2-year period, between 2015-2017, found that there was not a single news story that highlighted positive coverage over negative coverage of Muslim protagonists.
Similarly, Jack Shaheen’s book Reel Bad Arabs: How Hollywood Vilifies a People analyzed 1,000 films across more than 100 years of filmmaking (from 1896-2000) and found that a whopping 93.5% offered negative portrayals, while 5% were neutral and a sad minority of only 1% were positive. A recent study by the MENA Arts Advocacy Coalition found that 242 primetime, first-run scripted TV and streaming shows between 2015-2016 underrepresented MENA actors. When including MENA characters in primetime TV shows, a majority (78%) depicted roles of terrorists, tyrants, agents, or soldiers, most of which were spoken with an accent.
MENA actors who break through MENA stereotypes are often still hidden and invisible in terms of their MENA identity. Among those with Iranian-American heritage: Yara Shahidi, Sarah Shahi (birth name Aahoo Jahansouzshahi), Adrian Pasdar, and others whose roles are often portrayed as a character with another non-MENA ethnic background (which sometimes coincides accurately with their own mixed heritage, but does not reflect their MENA side), such as Black, Latinx or Italian American.
Not enough has improved, but there are inklings of potential progress. Although the intriguing plan to launch a comedy about a Middle Eastern family of superheroes has yet to bear out, the TBS sitcom Chad made it on air after five years in development. Chad is about a teenage boy named Ferydoon “Chad” Amani, a 14-year-old Iranian-American played by Nasim Pedrad of Saturday Night Live.
In an interview with the Hollywood Reporter, Nasim Pedrad sums up how her personal experience motivated her vision for the show:
“When I was growing up, I did not see a half-hour comedy centered around, you know, a Middle Eastern family let alone specifically, a Persian one. In fact, so much of the representation of Middle Easterners on TV that I did see was predominantly negative, which was very alienating. I didn’t see Persian people on TV that seemed anything like the Persian people that I was surrounded by, not just in my family, but in my community. I didn’t understand. I was like, ‘Why are Middle Eastern people on American television only bad guys?’ Like what about those of us living here that are just like the rest of you, except for the specific cultural elements that we still celebrate and hold onto. So my hope is that people watch the show and actually can recognize that yes, this family is Persian American, but hopefully they can tap into just how many similarities we all have and how much we all have in common.”
Psychologists and other scholars substantiate the importance of representation. The failure to move past stereotyped, negative roles for a majority of MENA characters is deeply harmful. It contributes to what my colleagues and I described as a cumulative racial-ethnic trauma for MENA Americans, in an article published in the American Psychologist. MENA Americans live with chronic and pervasive experiences of hypervisibility related to negative portrayals, and utter invisibility when it comes to featuring the positive, or even just the normal. These chronic subtle, and sometimes overt, messages of hate build up, contributing to insecurity, alienation, hopelessness, and ultimately, physical health and mortality.
In contrast, the potential benefits of media portrayals that affirm the ways in which MENA and other diverse communities are interconnected, loving, and share common values, hopes, and dreams, matter to children’s mental health and well-being. They matter to creating a society that has compassion, empathy, and embraces the many strengths that diversity brings.
Actionable Insights
Do your homework. Watch and read authentic stories. Examples in the media are when Anthony Bourdain visited Iran on Parts Unknown, or when Brandon Stanton took his camera to Iran and other countries allowing his loyal HONY following to connect with the universality of human struggles and triumphs across borders.
Represent rich complexity, identities, and varieties. Feature MENA characters in television and film with non-stereotyped characteristics and roles. Pay attention to details such as accents, religious beliefs, immigrant generation, sexuality, and gender roles that perpetuate negative stereotypes, are often inaccurate, and do not represent the diversity within the MENA community.
Involve insiders. Involve MENA Americans in content creation to ensure authenticity of stories and characters. CSS Collaborator, Sascha Paladino, and his team offer a lovely model of inclusion and authenticity in Mira, Royal Detective, a Disney Junior show featuring a South Asian protagonist.
Amplify capable, compelling, desirable representations. Amplify MENA stories that represent the many societal contributions MENA Americans make. Oftentimes, when someone with a MENA heritage does something well, their race/ethnicity is suddenly invisible from the story, and may not even be reported.
Increase the sheer number of characters. Increase the MENA American characters in children’s programming. At only about 1%, there’s no place to go but up.
Be accurate about identities. Accurately and authentically depict MENA actors as MENA (or, when relevant to their actual background and not creating conflict with the storyline, upholding their mixed heritage) characters. Likewise, such as in the case of Prince of Persia, or Dune, when characters are supposed have MENA heritage, hire MENA actors.
Professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara
Collaborator of CSS
With a limited on-screen presence, autistic characters have emerged in another medium: fan fiction
This article originally appeared on The Conversation on December 13, 2018.
In one Harry Potter fan fiction story, Hermione Granger anxiously awaits the results from a recent test.
It isn’t her performance on an exam in a potions course that she’s concerned about. Instead, the higher-ups at Hogwarts had ordered she undergo some psychological tests. They had noticed how quickly she talked, along with her nervous tics.
Hermione eventually sees the results: “I stared at my parents, blinking my eyes. I knew the results would be here today, but I didn’t think the outcome would be like this. Asperger, the paper said.”
In this piece of fan fiction, Hermione Granger has been diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder.
As scholars of fan fiction and young adult literature, we started noticing how some fan fiction authors were incorporating autism into their stories – sometimes through new characters and other times by rewriting existing ones.
Since then we’ve been collecting and analyzing fan fictions in which young writers have created characters with autism.
These amateur writers seem to be eager to create the kinds of characters they aren’t regularly seeing in the media. The Harry Potter universe, in particular, has emerged as a popular setting.
The importance of autistic characters
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, approximately 1 in 59 children is diagnosed with autism, a word that covers a spectrum of conditions that psychologists refer to as autism spectrum disorder.
How autism manifests can vary greatly from person to person. Some experience significant disability, while others experience milder forms of cognitive difference and social discomfort.
But one thing is clear: Diagnoses have increased in the past 20 years, with the National Autism Association identifying autism as the “fastest growing development disorder.”
At the same time – outside of a couple of notable examples, like Dustin Hoffman’s character in “Rain Man” and Julia from “Sesame Street” – there continues to be a dearth of autistic characters in books, television shows and films.
Yet these media portrayals are extremely important: Accurate portrayals of autism can help people understand the complexities of this condition. Nonexistent depictions – not to mention misleading ones – foster misinformation and bias.
In 2015, Sonya Freeman Loftis, an assistant professor of English at Morehouse College, published “Imagining Autism: Fiction and Stereotypes on the Spectrum,” one of the few academic studies to take up the representation of autism in fiction.
Loftis critiques stereotypical depictions of autism in a range of fictional narratives, such as the character of Lennie in Steinbeck’s “Of Mice and Men,” a figure whose disability is linked to sexual violence.
But she also points out that positive representations of autism spectrum disorder can actually highlight some of the strengths that those with autism possess: attention to detail, high levels of concentration, forthrightness, dedication and strong memory skills.
Activists and scholars like Loftis have argued that people diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder should be more justly and accurately understood as “neurodiverse”: If neurological faculties exist on a continuum, theirs could simply be thought of as “different” from the statistical norm.
Young writers take the lead
If major studios and publishing companies express little interest in telling stories about people with autism, who can fill the void?
Fan fictions and other forms of do-it-yourself media-making are an outlet for people to explore issues that are often missing from mass market and popular entertainment.
Some of the most famous examples from fan fiction take place in the Star Trek universe, particularly those that imagine a gay relationship between Captain Kirk and Mr. Spock. In doing so, fans were able to integrate queer plots and themes into Gene Roddenberry’s science fiction universe at a time when few gay relationships were appearing on TV.
Given the paucity of mass media representation of autism, we wondered if young people might be using fan fiction to explore this complex topic.
Beginning in 2016 – and working with University of California, Irvine graduate student Vicky Chen – we started analyzing the writings that have appeared on a hugely popular fan fiction clearinghouse.
After selecting for categories such as “neurodiverse” and “differabilities,” we noticed that a number of stories set in the Harry Potter universe seemed to have autistic or neurodiverse characters. We collected and coded these stories, and are set to publish our findings in a forthcoming essay in the Journal of Literacy Research.
Most of the stories were written by young people who have siblings, relatives or friends with autism spectrum disorder. We concluded that, while some of these characters occasionally slip into stereotypes, most of them affirm the ability of people with autism spectrum disorder to confront bigotry and speak about their own conditions.
By extension, the stories promote an understanding of autism as something that isn’t scary or horrific.
In one story, for instance, the writer creates a new character, Albus Potter, the son of Harry Potter, who is autistic and newly enrolled in Hogwarts. In the story, Albus initially has difficulty forming relationships. But he ultimately finds friends in houses as diverse as Gryffindor and Slytherin.
His overprotective mother tries to shield him from ridicule by students and even some biased faculty. But she’s challenged by others, including her husband, who suggests that “Albus can do a great many things that people have said he couldn’t.”
The ‘magic’ of autism
Why the Harry Potter universe?
We reasoned that many of these young writers are still in school and likely huge fans of Harry Potter, so the choice of Hogwarts as a common setting isn’t surprising.
But many of the young authors also linked autism to a kind of “magic” or ability that could be understood at Hogwarts as special – even advantageous – in ways that “muggles,” or normal people, wouldn’t see. In all of the stories we analyzed, everyone with autism also has magical abilities.
In other cases, autism isn’t depicted as an impairment or a challenge to overcome. Instead, it simply appears as a “difference” – a portrayal that’s aligned with the goals of those who argue that autism should be thought of as a form of neurodiversity, not as an illness or disability.
Perhaps most significantly, this research points to the ways in which young people can craft complex representations of autism that the media shies away from.
We can’t say when positive representations of autism will move from fandom to the mainstream.
But until then, these young writers are quietly doing the work to help dispel stereotypes and generate understanding – perhaps even appreciation.
Chancellor's Professor of English and Gender & Sexuality Studies, University of California, Irvine
Associate Professor of Informatics, University of California, Irvine
This article originally appeared on The Conversation.
Avoiding Mental Health Stigmatizations & Encouraging Help Seeking Through Entertainment Media
Mass media have the power to shape our perceptions, attitudes and beliefs toward certain groups, issues and individuals. For better or worse, most forms of media, including entertainment media, serve as primary sources of information for many viewers, influencing our understanding of those around us and in turn, our future behaviors and actions.
Unfortunately, for those struggling with mental illness, the depictions of characters with mental health issues often focus on negative and extreme stereotypical traits that portray these individuals as a danger to society and themselves. These depictions are not only inaccurate and unrepresentative of the millions of people worldwide who face mental health challenges, but they also reinforce preconceived stigmatizations which can lead to diminished self-esteem and social exclusion.
Mental health professionals are often portrayed as odd, unhelpful, unrelatable and/or unavailable, which can have major consequences on those affected by mental illness. These negative portrayals can interfere with help seeking behaviors and prevent individuals from receiving treatment due to factors such as fear, shame, embarrassment and discrimination. A startling two-thirds of individuals with a mental health disorder never seek professional help.
Too often, entertainment programs portray mental illness as something that destroys lives and fail to show viewers that mental illness is common and treatable. By depicting treatment and recovery, the media can help normalize mental health issues, fight stigma, offer hope, and connect viewers with resources for themselves or loved ones.
In a survey commissioned by the mental health organization Mind, based in the UK, findings showed that after seeing a news report or drama involving a character with mental health challenges, more than half of the respondents expressed that it had improved their understanding of mental health issues and a quarter said it had inspired them to start a conversation about mental health. Furthermore, out of the respondents affected by mental health issues, one third were encouraged to seek professional help and get assistance.
Several other studies have highlighted the power of the media to reduce stigma, increase understanding of mental health and increase help-seeking behaviors. For example, one study found that participants who watched a film depicting an accurate portrayal of an individual with schizophrenia, were less likely to endorse stigmatizing attitudes toward individuals with the illness compared to participants who saw an inaccurate portrayal of schizophrenia. Another study found that having a strong relationship to the main character of a television series who had obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) was associated with lower OCD stereotypes and greater willingness to seek and disclose mental health treatment specifically among participants with a mental illness.
It is clear that the media have the power to influence our perceptions, attitudes and beliefs about individuals living with mental illness and also to help those affected. Therefore, it is in the best interest of millions of viewers and their loved ones for content creators to portray characters with a mental illness accurately and positively.
Here are some actionable insights for storytellers:
Avoid perpetuating stereotypes about mental illness that may be stigmatizing and harmful.
Avoid including stigmatizing language in scripts, such as “crazy,” “psycho,” “looney,” “wacko,” etc.
Avoid making mental illness the defining feature of a character’s personality.
Introduce likeable and relatable characters who also might happen to encounter mental health challenges.
Portray doctors and therapists as helpful and supportive rather than incompetent or unavailable.
Model help-seeking behaviors such as talking to therapists, talking to trusted friends/adults and calling/texting helplines.
Model help-seeking behaviors not only for serious or diagnosable problems but also for common challenges such as stress, divorce and death.
Show supporting cast characters modeling supportive behaviors and describing options for seeking help.
Insert message of mental health treatment, hope and recovery.
Vicki Harrison, MSW
Program Director, Center for Youth Mental Health and Wellbeing
Stanford Psychiatry Center for Youth Mental Health & Wellbeing
Adrianna Ruggiero
Senior Research Coordinator for CSS
How Activist Audiences Are Changing the TV Industry
This article originally appeared on Shondaland.com
Television, like all other art forms, has gone through various eras over the years. Often the era corresponds with what is happening within the culture, particularly the generations coming of age during that time. We are now in the streaming era of television, the a la carte programming boom that allows users to watch whatever they please, whenever they please. Gen Z, the politically active and outspoken adolescents of today, have different TV habits than previous generations. Even when binge-watching Friends, this group is unafraid to poke holes in the television industry’s framework and call for content that respects their values.
I work with UCLA’s Center for Scholars & Storytellers (CSS), where we harness the power of storytelling to help the next generation thrive and grow. In the lab, we study adolescents to understand their media habits and the effects that media have on young minds. Social media is a fixture of daily life, particularly during the pandemic, and it has become a place for activism and political engagement that allows young people to become informed on causes happening around them.
Gen Z is more racially diverse, educated, and queer than any of our previous generations. This group uses social media to develop their identities and engage with heterogeneous peers that might not be living in their hometowns. As a result, this progressive group has become interested in representation in media and social impact entertainment, seeking diverse and authentic casting and storytelling on- and off-screen. They are vocal about wanting to see themselves and their peers reflected back to them on-screen, carrying the torch from Millennials and Gen X’ers — notably Black women — who spearheaded movements like #TimesUp and #OscarsSoWhite.
“Storytelling thrives when audiences sense the truth and lived experience driving what occurs on-screen.”
In recent years, content has been shifting to be more diverse and inclusive, particularly when looking at adolescent-focused shows. Diverse programming in this space is not new — I grew up with That’s So Raven and True Jackson VP — but these series did not capture the attention of adults. Now, spaces that have been vehicles for complex adult programming such as Netflix and HBO are producing shows that feature adolescent characters that appeal to wider-ranging audiences — and might even prompt parent-child conversations.
Some recent examples are Sex Education, Never Have I Ever, Euphoria, and We Are Who We Are. All of these shows feature people of color prominently in the principal cast and deal with mental health and racial, sexual, and gender identity. HBO Max’s most recent debut Genera+ion, is an intriguing addition, as it was created with significant contributions from a 19-year-old. As a new socially conscious generation comes of age, more change must be on the horizon for the industry, even outside of adolescent-focused programming.
In order for this to happen, entertainment companies have to take a hard look at their hiring practices and slates of content. One company that has been doing this is STARZ. While the global media company serves an adult demographic (with a majority coming from the 18-54 range), their programming captures the attention of some Gen Z viewers in the stage of late adolescence. Through my work with STARZ, I have come to see that their leadership team understands the necessity to make changes within their organization to be more inclusive of underrepresented groups, both in front of and behind the camera. STARZ recently launched the #TakeTheLead initiative, which kicked off in February with a research report that I co-authored, and will continue with a series of monthly “Transparency Talks” throughout the year leading up to an industry-wide summit in the fall focused on representation that STARZ will host.
In late 2020, STARZ asked CSS to assess the diversity within their shows — both in front of and behind the camera — and their leadership team, relative to the rest of the television industry. Our team began by reviewing all of the recently released industry reports analyzing representation in front of and behind the camera to get a sense of the landscape. We chose three reports to illustrate the comparative numbers for the industry: UCLA’s Hollywood Diversity Report 2020, Part 2: Television, the Writer’s Guild of America West (WGAW) Inclusion Report 2020, and Boxed In 2019-20: Women On Screen and Behind the Scenes in Television from San Diego State University (SDSU). We then dove into the numbers for STARZ, focusing on race and gender for their senior leadership, showrunners, executive producers, directors, writers, series leads, and series regulars. In order to provide more accurate comparisons to the industry, we used the criteria from the industry reports to better define the data analyzed for each category. We were encouraged by our findings.
The numbers showed that STARZ exceeded industry hiring practices for people of color by more than 123 percent at the showrunner level and more than 85 percent at the executive producer level. People of color also make up over 53 percent of the writers’ rooms on STARZ’s series and nearly half of all episodic directors. As a result, many of the stories that STARZ is telling — the Power Universe franchise and the upcoming series Run the World and Blindspotting — are refreshingly diverse and representative of communities often ignored by Hollywood.
A standout is the STARZ original P-Valley, which showrunner Katori Hall adapted from her play with an uncensored name, about the inner workings of a strip club in Mississippi, The Pynk. The show received critical and audience acclaim when it launched last summer for its nuanced depictions of the dancers and the southern strip club scene. The secret to the success of P-Valley is how the series puts the spotlight on women of color on-screen and behind the scenes, including in the director’s chair and writers’ room. The show demonstrates that when the people who are telling stories behind the camera truly represent the actors who bring those stories to life, what we gain is a richness often only seen in stories about white men.
Recent research reports from SDSU and UCLA have demonstrated that more diverse representation in leadership roles translates to more diverse representation at every level of production.
In our work at CSS, we analyze Authentically Inclusive Representation (AIR), taking a deeper look into the substance of the storytelling and noting intersectionality, tropes, and stereotypes. We used Mediaversity’s extensive grading system to create a sliding scale to rate where a work ranks relative to the norm of having some — often stereotypical — representation across gender, race, and LGBTQ+ or disability. Films and TV shows score above the norm for AIR much more often when members of underrepresented groups are heavily involved in the storytelling process, as with P-Valley.
What is most important is that executives and content creators work together to make AIR a priority within their shows or risk negatively affecting perceptions of self within audiences of color.
Viewer habits and appetites are changing. Content creators looking to capture the short attention span — about 8 seconds — of Gen Z need to focus on making their stories authentic reflections of the world as this young audience experiences it — diverse, inclusive, and honest.
Demand for this kind of content is also increasing rapidly amongst Millennial and Gen X audiences.
An important first step toward change is to invite underrepresented groups into the rooms where decisions are being made and to give these individuals real decision-making power.
Storytelling thrives when audiences sense the truth and lived experience driving what occurs on-screen. Actors, writers, directors, producers, showrunners, and executives all have a part to play here, and when their voices come together in a positive way, it can shift audience attitudes and promote tolerance. Organizations like CSS can offer guidance on how to make changes to promote more responsible storytelling, but ultimately it is up to the leaders in the entertainment industry to make the decision to start the process.
Program Director, Center for Scholars & Storytellers
Disclaimer: The views, thoughts, and opinions expressed in this blog belong solely to the author, and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Center for Scholars & Storytellers.
Anna, 14
How do you and your family interact with media and technology?
Lately, the biggest use of technology is using Zoom on the laptop, and my sister and I mostly use Netflix and other social media platforms such as Instagram and TikTok. My parents mostly use technology to watch TV and Korean dramas. We use technology much more than our parents.
How do your parents feel about you using media?
When we were little, they limited our use of technology in terms of time, but now they are open to me using any kind of social media. When I tell my parents that my friends aren’t allowed to use certain platforms, they find it weird because they believe we should be able to use them if we want to. They trust that I’m not doing anything bad, but sometimes they worry that it’ll be a distraction from school.
How do you and your friends interact with media/technology?
My friends and I use TikTok the most. We send each other TikToks, and the screen time is really bad because of it. When I start watching it, it’s hard to stop watching.
Do you have different views towards media use than your parents?
Even though my parents use social media, they don’t view it as something that is necessary. I find it an easy way to interact with my friends. TikTok allows me to see what influencers and other celebrities are doing, and most people I know around me feel that way too.
What is your favorite and least favorite thing about media and technology?
When I’m bored, it’s something that I can do, and I can spend a lot of time on it for entertainment. It’s really fun to see a variety of things. A bad thing I guess is that people get bullied through social media, and it’s kind of hard to prevent it.
Is there anything else you don’t like about social media?
Not really.
Do you think you use the media too much?
Definitely too much, but when I try to limit it, I end up failing. It’s kind of hard to control it.
Have you ever felt the need or want to get away from technology?
Yeah, I thought about it, but I never did it. I think it would be nice, but I never actually tried it.
How did you feel about this interview?
It was interesting to talk about my media use because I never really think about the things you asked me. It made me think a lot about how the media is really affecting me.
Interviewed by: Yejin Ban, UCLA Student
Joshua, 18
Media Consumption: 10 hours per day (school and leisure)
How are you using media during the COVID-19 pandemic?
Well, it has definitely increased because when I was on campus at UCLA, I would spend most free time hanging out with friends on campus, but now I have to interact with friends through social media — Instagram, Facebook, and Snapchat — and my YouTube time has gone up a lot. Just overall an increase in social media use.
How many hours a day do you use digital technology?
I would say a good chunk of my time. Most of my day — at least 10 hours a day on-screen, which includes school and everything else. For school-related activities, at least 6 hours school because I have coding which is online, and I can’t do any of it on paper. For personal use, probably 4 hours.
What are some social media channels that you use? What are their purposes? What are some pros and cons about each?
I am on Instagram a lot. I usually see what people post and what they are up to. But most of the time I’m on TikTok because it’s so addictive. The scrolling option is really addicting. I don’t know if it’s a pro or con but it consumes a lot of my time. More than I would like it to. So I would say probably 3 out of my 4hours — if I spend 4 hours a day — would be on TikTok because you get that addictive scrolling. It’s not the same with Instagram because TikTok allows you to see 6-second videos and you scroll and get hooked on something else again and again. I first got into TikTok at the start of quarantine because I wanted to feel more connected to people. And it's just another outlet to do that.
Do you try to limit your media use? How?
Since I’ve been at home, I know I’ve had too much screen time so I am trying to limit my time for both personal and school use because I do not want to ruin my eyes. Most of the time, I try to cut down my personal use because I can’t help my school-related stuff. I try to cut off my TikTok time as much as I can. On the TikTok app, a guide pops up every so often and says “You’ve been on here for a while. You probably need to get some rest,” which is helpful. I do have notifications on YouTube for if you watch for too long (1 hour) or if it’s your bedtime. For TikTok, I don’t have anything set up, which tells me how much time I’ve been on it. So 3 hours can go by and I wouldn’t notice. So I should probably set up an alarm now that I think about it.
When did you get your first phone? What type of phone was it?
This was back in the day, so I was probably 8-years-old; 2010. It was a BlackBerry. It was one of those that had a wheel on it with the plastic keyboard. So there wasn't much functionality to it. I just played a game where you bounced the ball and hit stuff. I didn’t really contact anyone with it besides my parents because my peers did not have phones at that age. For smartphones, I got my first one in 2013/14. I did more than press plastic keyboards.
How did your parents regulate your technology usage growing up?
Once I came to college, funny enough, they encouraged me to install an app. I forgot what it was called but it basically tracks your location. So wherever I would go, they would monitor where I was at. So I guess they were paranoid of how much freedom I had in college. But before that, in high school, they would monitor messages without me knowing. So I thought that was kind of weird. I don’t think they cared about the content. They didn’t give me murder games but as long as it was within a reasonable range, they won’t care about what I was playing. In terms of screen time, they were responsible parents and limited my screen time when I was on my PS3 or tablet or phone.
Have you been influenced by ads you saw on social media?
I noticed that after I looked something up, they had popped up for that thing I looked up. So whenever I see ads, it's for something that I’ve already seen or looked up so I don’t really pay much attention to them. I actually installed an ad skipper for YouTube. So every time a skip ads button pops up, this ad skipper automatically clicks it so I don’t have to deal with clicking it, so I don’t even watch the ads.
How do you feel about big companies taking your data and feeding it to advertisers?
I think it’s kind of creepy and more annoying than anything. I’ve seen these things and looked it up and it’s just really annoying.
What is your favorite/least favorite thing about media/technology?
I like how many different perspectives I get to see. Not so much from Instagram and Snapchat because the media you consume is based on who you follow. But TikTok is personalized to you in a way that it gives you content that you like but not necessarily [have] seen before. So I like that I get to see a lot of different people that I wouldn’t have otherwise seen because I don’t follow them.
Do you have any thoughts on Facebook?
Before college, I thought that Facebook was only for old people. But now that I’m in college, I realize the importance of it. Because for the Dragon Boat Team, we really utilize all the features such as Facebook messaging, announcements, and discussions. So I like how all of that is intertwined with one another and we could create events on Facebook and send reminders to people. I don’t really use the Facebook platform for anything other than that. But I have been using Facebook messenger a lot more recently. I use it as my main source of communication with people.
What is one thing you want the people who create the media you like to watch/play/interact with to know?
I appreciate those messages that pop up for TikTok. I haven’t put something in my settings where it's like I only want an hour of screen time. So I appreciate those messages from TikTok saying you probably spend too much time on this app and it’s probably time for you to go to bed.
Do you think screentime is bad before going to bed?
I think it might be for some but for me, it's kind of a routine now. It’s my routine so it gets me in the mood to sleep. I try not to let social media dictate sleep, but it often does if I’m hooked on the content. Especially TikTok when it seems like there’s an endless void of content to go through, as opposed to YouTube. When a video ends, after you watched for 40 minutes, you kind of know it’s time for you to go to bed. But for TikTok, there’s no sense of direction or time. So it’s kind of difficult to dictate when I sleep when I am on TikTok, but for other apps, I feel like it’s fine.
When the notification pops up, what do you do?
For YouTube, I know that I’ve been on there for one hour, so I should probably get off, but for TikTok, it doesn’t tell you a certain time. It feels like it's only been 5 minutes. So I feel like I could do it for a little bit more. [With YouTube] usually, I disregard the message, but I do keep it on my mind so I get off a couple of minutes later.
Interviewed by: Quynh Vo, UCLA Student
Anna, 13
How do you and your family interact with technology?
We usually watch something together in our parents’ room or sometimes we text on the phone.
On your own time for fun, how do you use digital media?
I watch YouTube, call my friends, and read comics. I call my friends every day from morning until night.
Are there any rules around media use in the house?
On the weekends, mommy makes us start playing only at 9 or 10 in the morning. That is when we are allowed to start. And then we have to stop at 9 or 10 at night to do something else. She tells us to get off our computers and phones, and if we don’t then she will yell at us.
How do you use social media?
I use Discord. I barely use Instagram and Twitter. I use Discord the most to call and text friends. If one of our friends wants to stream their homework for help or stream YouTube or Netflix. I also did Secret Santa. One of my best friends had a bunch of mutuals on Twitter and I was invited and we all gathered together. I was part of the organizing. Everyone filled out a form and everyone had to fill it out to match people depending on what they wanted and what they could make. It was pretty hectic but I got through. It was pretty cool.
How has your media usage changed during the Covid-19 pandemic?
Before I was only on Discord for an hour a day but now I’m on it every day at every hour.
How do you feel about celebrity influencers online?
I only watch them when they pop up on my recommendations. Some of them are kind of problematic. They get into scandals. They’re just people who I watch, not really role models. They say “don’t wear this, it will make you look fat.” It’s sad and mean. All those girls, especially models. You just have to be like them — shave, no body hair, have a thin face, and have all this stuff appearance-wise. It’s sad.
What lessons have you learned from Covid-19?
Be more aware of your surroundings and follow the rules.
Interviewed by: Adela Tran, UCLA Student
Mia, 18
Media Consumption: 2 hours a day (4-5 if not at work)
Favorite Media/Technology: TikTok
How do you and your family interact with media/technology?
We use WhatsApp, since my dad lives far away in Lebanon this is the only way I can speak with him freely. Other than that, none of my siblings live together so we FaceTime and keep in contact mostly through there especially because of COVID.
How do you and your peers interact with media/technology?
We mostly text over iMessage, not as much as we used to talk in high school but that is probably because everyone works now or is busy in college. Oh, we also all use Insta (Instagram), we comment on each other's pictures and support each other on there.
What do you use media for?
I mostly use media to keep in touch with my family, like my dad and siblings. Or occasionally I will drop an Instagram picture to let everybody know I’m still doing well and I still exist, mostly because everyone else is still using that. Snapchat is dead now so I don’t use that and Twitter is something I will occasionally use. Oh, and I watch Netflix a lot - does that count?
What is your favorite/least favorite component of media/technology?
My favorite thing is talking to my family that I otherwise wouldn’t be able to talk to. Also seeing what my friends from high school are up to this past year, and being able to entertain myself on TikTok for hours. My least favorite thing is that it feels like a competition. We are always competing to post the best pictures and see whose life looks the most glamorous. It sounds weird but you kind of want to have the most likes and the most comments, to know people still care or are interested. You also compare yourself on media because since everyone posts their best pictures you only see that side of them and you constantly feel like you’re not good enough. Or maybe that is just me.
What is one thing you want the people who create the media you like to watch/play/interact with to know?
I want the people who create media to know about vulnerable people on their sites. And yeah they aren't responsible for people’s mental health or anything but maybe put some disclaimers? Like younger kids use their sites and it would be helpful to include that not everything is real - or that could be the parents’ job. Maybe they should make the age requirement stricter because you just have to say what year you were born and anyone can do that.
What media are you using more now because of COVID-19?
Because of COVID-19, I stopped going to school so I mostly stay off my computer and only use it for Netflix. On my phone, I use TikTok a lot. Like for hours, but other than that social media is a little toxic so it’s best to just not scroll through Instagram or anything for hours. But TikTok is funny, I am so grateful for it.
Interviewed by: Rassile Jamaleddine, UCLA 4th Year Student
Mia, 15
Media Consumption: 6 hours a day on phone and computer
Favorite Media/Technology: TikTok on her iPhone
How do you and your family interact with media/technology?
Every day my mom uses her Apple Watch to count her steps when she goes on runs and hikes. My dad uses his Alexa as an alarm to wake him up for work every day. I use technology in many ways. I set alarms to remind me to feed my puppy 3 times a day and I watch TikToks when I’m bored. My sister uses technology every day as well by using her laptop for school and she also uses her Apple Watch when going on walks. As a family, we always watch TV in the living room together sometimes.
How do you and your friends interact with media/technology?
My friends and I communicate by Snapchatting each other and sending text messages throughout the day. I also send many TikToks to a lot of my best friends and send funny pictures. We also FaceTime almost once a week by using our phones. We send many snaps to each other almost like a vlog daily about how the day went or what we did that day. With some of my friends, I also have streaks which are when you send a snap — a picture on Snapchat every day — and eventually, you earn a streak.
What is your favorite/least favorite thing about media/technology?
My least favorite thing about media/technology is how toxic it can be at times. Women and men tend to compare themselves to celebrities or social media influencers and that can be a very toxic environment. It can also lead to anxiety and depression, I know this because it has also given me much anxiety seeing other people's better lifestyles and just better appearance which can make your self-esteem very low. I have had a few anxiety attacks because of my appearance and comparing myself. It can also be very exhausting to post pictures on Instagram because of the pressure of the anxiety of everyone looking at your picture and judging you and the amount of life or comments can determine how popular you are to some people and overall it is extremely toxic. I have stopped posting and sometimes deleted Instagram to get less anxiety.
What do you use media for?
I use the media for a lot of things, I like to use Pinterest for room decor ideas. I love YouTubers who promote healthy lifestyles and give mental health advice. I like to watch ASMR youtube videos and breathing exercises when things are stressing me out and I can't sleep. I also use Twitter to catch up on the latest news of everything that is going on. I use TikTok for fun entertainment with quick videos that are very fun. I use Instagram to see what everyone is posting and sometimes can get news about new music or other things. I use Snapchat to communicate with people. It's the same thing as messages but more fun.
How are you using media during the COVID-19 pandemic?
During the COVID-19 pandemic, I use my phone for alarms and entertainment. I also use my computer daily for Zoom and to do homework. I use my TV to watch YouTube videos after school. I also use my Apple Watch when going on runs. I also use my phone to look up Apple News.
What media has been helping you stay busy/calm during this difficult time?
During this difficult time, my Calm app has helped me stay calm and relaxed and although TikTok is a fun app it can also be very helpful. It can reassure that people are going through this as well.
Have you learned anything about how you use media and technology because of COVID?
I never realized how much I rely on it by using technology for alarms or music and because of how much my screen time has increased. It's also made me realize how many hours a day I use my phone and how helpful it can be daily.
What is one thing you want the people who create the media you like to watch/ play/ interact with to know?
I would ask Emma Chamberlain to make more videos on meditation and mindfulness. Her videos help me a lot and I wish she focused more on mental health. I also wish she did more fashion videos because I love her style.
Interviewed by: Natali Delgadillo, UCLA Student
Maya, 15
Media Consumption: 7 hours and 48 minutes daily average
At what age did you first start using these devices
I shared an iPad with my sister starting age 5 and got my own iPhone when I was 9.
What are your most-used apps and which is your favorite?
Instagram, TikTok, and Snapchat are my favorite. I would say my most favorite is TikTok.
Why is that one your favorite?
The TikTok algorithm brings up videos that have to do with my interest without me even having to search anything. It is a way I have formed some of my favorite friendships. If I meet someone at a party and we make a TikTok together that basically makes us best friends.
Are there any negative parts of TikTok that comes to mind when you think about it?
People like to post videos that have to do with their music taste, clothes, hobbies, or opinions and sometimes this causes a divide among classmates, and cyberbullying is common with the app.
I see Instagram is your second most used app. What can you tell me about your use of it?
I mostly just follow celebrity figures, school friends, animal accounts, and a couple of weight-loss accounts to motivate me.
What do you and your friends usually use Instagram for?
I love the app because it allows me to know what my friends are up to. I mostly just post because if I don’t then people will get bored and unfollow me. I only have two posts right now though because I stared at them for so long that I started thinking I looked weird so I deleted them, and they barely got any likes anyway.
Can you tell me any reasons you have to believe that Instagram can be problematic?
People usually talk behind each other’s backs about their Instagram posts, and a couple of times other students have anonymously made accounts aimed toward posting unwanted pictures or things about other students in the class. Anytime I take a picture my friends force me to delete it, crop them out, or even photoshop them.
Do you ever buy the stuff you see on one of your social media accounts?
Not that much because I have to use my mom’s money to online shop so I can’t do it too much but my friends and I have a few times. Like there is a TikTok dancer named Charli D’Amelio who has a Dunkin Donuts signature drink named after her, and we have all gotten it and posted pictures of it even though I hated the taste of it.
Does social media impact your productivity?
I do spend a lot of time on my phone. I’m pretty addicted to it and I have put settings on TikTok and Instagram so it locks me out after I have used each of them for three hours to try to limit my time on it, but I always end up changing the settings to use the apps again until late at night.
Does the social media you use get monitored in any other way by one of your parents?
My mom used to slightly monitor my phone use when I was 12-13, just to make sure nothing dangerous was going on, but now that I’m in high school my mom does not take part in any kind of monitoring or control of how much I use technology.
Interviewed by: Melanie Aghayane, UCLA 4th Year Student
Madison, 18
Media Consumption: 4-5 Hours per day
Favorite Media/Technology: TikTok and Instagram
How do you and your family interact with media/technology?
My family and I use iMessage to communicate, and my mom uses Instagram and Facebook, but my dad doesn’t use any. We used to use an app called Life360 to know each other’s locations, but now we just use Find my Friends since we all have iPhones.
How do you and your peers interact with media/technology?
We all use most of the social media platforms, the most popular being TikTok, Snapchat, and Instagram. We always message each other using various apps, but mostly with iMessage. We send each other funny videos and posts all the time through the direct messaging features on the app. Some of the videos and posts are very relatable and bring us small bursts of happiness.
What do you use media for?
Primarily out of boredom, or when we are simply procrastinating schoolwork or other work. It’s a great source of endless entertainment. We don’t really have any other need for it other than communication and staying in touch/contact with our friends/peers.
What is your favorite/least favorite thing about media/technology?
My least favorite thing would definitely be how toxic the social media community is. As funny as it can be at times, there’s also an extreme level of toxicity that exceeds cyberbullying. Some people are so cruel and have no regard for others and it can so sad to read some people’s comments as “trolls” can be ruthless. There’s no way to put a stop to it either which sucks.
What is one thing you want the people who create the media you like to watch/play/interact with to know?
Try and do whatever you can to limit the cyberbullying and trolling online, as it can really be detrimental to the mental health of a lot of users. The internet can turn from a helpful and resourceful place into a toxic one real quick.
What media are you using more now because of the coronavirus (COVID-19)?
Definitely TikTok and some streaming platforms. Boredom has been at an all-time high, so anything to cure that boredom is what I look for, and that includes streaming and binge-watching shows, as well as any funny videos from creators I like.
Where do you get most of your information to learn more about the coronavirus (e.g., news, internet, parents, etc.)?
Honestly, TikTok has a lot of doctors and medical health experts, so they provide a good amount of information, but I also check the news and I make sure not to watch any biased news networks.
What media has been helping you stay busy/calm during this difficult time?
Like I mentioned earlier, TikTok has been great, as well as streaming services like Netflix, Disney+, and Hulu have helped cure a lot of boredom, as well as provided me with mindless entertainment.
What lessons have you learned from COVID-19?
The biggest thing I learned isn’t even media-related, but a huge takeaway I got was to not take any time I spent with my friends and family for granted. I really miss not being able to see or hang out with them a lot, so going forward I will cherish our time together much more.
Have you learned anything about how you use media and technology because of COVID-19?
I didn’t learn much but I realized how difficult it can be to put the phone down, as well as how much control social media has over our lives. We may not realize it but social media has a huge grasp on our daily online interactions, internet usage, and is a pivotal part of our culture. It’ll be interesting to see how it develops over this decade.
Interviewed by: Christian Beltran, UCLA 3rd Year Student
Ivan, 17
Media Consumption: Around 5 hours a day
Favorite Media/Technology: Instagram, Snapchat, and TikTok.
How do you and your family interact with media/technology?
Through the social media app Instagram, I sometimes find relatable videos or videos that I would like to share with my mother and/or the rest of my family and it ultimately serves as a bonding experience at times.
How do you and your peers interact with media/technology?
I interact with my peers through social media apps like Instagram and Snapchat, where we send each other funny videos, or news involving what’s going on in our surroundings. It serves as a way to bring us closer together through the videos, or simply to inform ourselves of what’s going on in the world.
What do you use media for?
I use media in order to learn about global and local events, as well as to distract myself with what’s going on in the world around me. It’s a good escape from reality if one can find funny videos online.
What is your favorite/least favorite thing about media/technology?
My favorite thing about social media is how much it can bring people closer together through entertainment. For example, I’m able to bond more with my friends because of funny videos, or through a political discussion based on a post that we find on the internet. However, this very thing that brings people together has the potential to tear people apart because of the dangers of abusing social media.
What is one thing you want the people who create the media you like to watch/play/interact with to know?
One thing I want the people who created social media to understand is the impact of social media on people’s everyday lives. For some people, it is their only form of taking in information, and if their platform is full of conspiracies, it’s ultimately going to cause some sort of danger to society. Additionally, it’s difficult to measure the dangers it poses to young and vulnerable minds.
What media are you using more now because of the coronavirus (COVID-19)?
I’m using Instagram more as a result of the global pandemic because it’s the platform where I have most of my friends on and it’s the most convenient way I have to understand what’s going on in their lives and if they’re doing ok. Additionally, I use Instagram to find information about how the coronavirus is doing on both a national and local scale.
Where do you get most of your information to learn more about the coronavirus?
I get most of my information about the coronavirus from the governors of California and the mayor of LA, as well as from news channels such as CNN and MSNBC.
What media has been helping you stay busy/stay calm during this difficult time?
Through the use of Instagram and discord, I’m able to converse with my friends, sometimes all day long and I find myself being busy and focusing on my relationships with them during this difficult time. Additionally, Tik Tok is a good way to distract me because of how personalized one’s experience is.
What lessons have you learned from COVID-19?
From this pandemic, I’ve learned to not take any experience I have with any person for granted, because we never know when something can change within their lives or our own. I also understood and found a new way to process my emotions that I didn’t have before.
Have you learned anything about how you use media and technology because of COVID-19?
I’ve learned that I have to rely more on media because of the pandemic because I no longer have other people as a new source outlet and have to seek information out on my own.
Interviewed by: Brandon Le, UCLA 3rd Year Transfer Student
School Closures, Stay-At-Home Orders, and Screen Time
The Importance of Educational Television Programs to Children’s Learning During the COVID-19 Pandemic
We’ve all been there…whether it’s with your own child, a younger sibling, or the kid you are babysitting, we have sighed in exasperation while handing over our cell phones or turning on the TV so we can do our daily tasks without distractions. Turning to media as a form of a modern day “babysitter” is all too common when caregivers are in a pinch and need a last resort to keep kids busy and happy. Since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, more parents and siblings are working from home while their young children attempt remote schooling and look for ways to fend off the boredom of quarantine.
Unsurprisingly, there has been a substantial increase in total TV usage in the US since the beginning of the pandemic, with daytime TV viewing for kids (ages 6 to 11) and teens (ages 12-17) both increasing around 300% on average. Throughout COVID, kids have been using media as their primary source of entertainment, information, social connection, and education. Young children and teens say their use of media is mostly due to boredom and other options being inaccessible to them. This is especially true of TV consumption, particularly for preschoolers who have less autonomy in manipulating technology but can passively sit in front of a television screen. As quarantine has stretched on, the attitudes of parents about limiting screen time, social media usage, and engagement with online entertainment in general have eased considerably, with many entirely giving up on trying to regulate their children’s media habits. How many hours a day your child is watching TV is less of a concern when you are trying to work from home and juggle the demands on your attention around the household. Now, with young children spending more time on screens during the day than ever before, it is the responsibility of adults and content creators to ensure that the programming available to children is approached with an understanding that the content is central to life as a kid during the pandemic.
Another area of a typical child’s daily life that has been drastically altered by the coronavirus is education and schooling. School closures and the rapid shift to remote learning have created gaps in access to social and educational resources, rendering many children vulnerable and struggling at home. Numerous K-12 schools and school districts, for example the Los Angeles United School District, have recently announced plans to remain closed for in-person instruction until January 2021. Educators have projected that students who remain enrolled in school this fall without in-person instruction will lose 3-4 months of learning, even with access to an average quality of remote instruction. The outlook is bleaker for those with connection to low-quality remote instruction or even none at all. As a result, glaring inconsistencies in educational availability and quality, both with regard to resources of schools and in the home, have made the gross inequities in the US education system difficult to ignore. With this in mind, what steps can be taken to facilitate the continued learning and development of children and teens during quarantine?
Here is the basis of what we know so far: (1) school-aged children are spending significantly more time watching daytime TV and (2) many children will not have access to in-person schooling this fall, which will result in unequal and exacerbated learning gaps. So, what if stations started broadcasting high quality educational media content created for children of specific age groups more frequently during the day while parents are busy working? Would this make the increased time children are spending watching TV during the pandemic worthwhile, by simultaneously increasing their opportunities for learning? As it turns out, the answer is yes!
Media technologies have positive effects on the social and cognitive abilities of children, provided that media content is developmentally appropriate and emphasizes active engagement. For example, engagement with PBS educational media content resulted in academic improvements across the disciplines, including English language arts, mathematics, and science. Additionally, popular educational programs such as Sesame Street and Blue’s Clues have been shown to improve academic achievement and school readiness of children. These educational TV shows designed around a narrative curriculum are successful in teaching children intended lessons about both cognitive and social skills. Storytelling is a crucial medium for children to keep learning through the pandemic, but it is the nature of the content that they are watching which determines which, if any, educational gains they are making.
The opportunity for learning through educational media is not limited to academic lessons, but also applies to the development of social skills. This provides a promising avenue to teach children about new norms and expectations during the COVID outbreak, such as wearing a mask in public and using hand sanitizer. Another feature of educational media that is well suited to the pandemic, is that it has been found to be most effective when it encourages children to be active rather than passive viewers, creating a connection between on- and off-screen activities. This connection could be established through supplemental activities inspired by the narrative of the media content, such as completing a hands-on, creative project or by encouraging outdoor exploration after watching an episode. Such activities and active engagement with media in general are not only beneficial to children’s academic learning through educational media, but also to the facilitation of enriching off-screen activities that can be done in the home during the current period of quarantine.
Actionable Insights
Here are some actionable insights for children’s content creators during the COVID-19 pandemic to keep kids who are unable to attend in-person classes learning by capitalizing on the large increase of TV viewing among children during quarantine:
Keep in mind that school-aged children are spending upwards of 3 times the amount of hours watching TV since the pandemic. Developmentally appropriate television content is even more important now that kids are spending more time at home in front of screens.
Don’t rely on parents to monitor and regulate children’s media habits during the pandemic. Ensure that the options available to them are high quality and support active engagement from the viewer.
Educational programming is successful in teaching viewers intended lessons, both related to cognitive and social gains. This suggests that new norms and conventions surrounding COVID-19 can be effectively taught to children through television content. Focus on incorporating simple language and easily understood examples when featuring the pandemic in storylines. Click here for our child-friendly COVID-19 Lexicon.
Children who watch educational television programs have greater academic success and higher levels of school readiness than those who do not. Therefore, incorporate educational content into narratives to keep kids learning during school shutdowns. This has the potential to help combat learning loss associated with remote instruction.
Educational programming should engage children with both the world on-screen and off-screen. Create opportunities for children to connect the narrative they are watching on-screen with the world they are living in.
Emily Raich
CSS Intern
How the Pandemic Can Teach Kids About Compassion
What if this crisis became an opportunity for children to deepen their sense of care?
As a homebound parent with a preschooler, I’ve felt an array of emotions over the past few months during the coronavirus pandemic. I’ve felt sadness and worry about how many people are becoming ill, while being confounded by trying to juggle homeschooling and my own work responsibilities.
But I’ve also felt a great deal of gratitude for the kindnesses that have punctuated so many of my days lately, like when a neighbor left herbs from her garden at my gate or when a faraway friend whom I haven’t heard from in years sent text messages of love.
These positive experiences have affirmed to me that when times are difficult, our common human response is not to show reckless disregard of others but to show compassion.
We often assume that emergencies automatically lead to panic, but research consistently shows that people tend to act in solidarity and turn toward each other with a sense of togetherness. They volunteer, donate supplies, and spread goodwill, strengthening social bonds and helping everyone be resilient together.
“Affiliative, supportive, prosocial behaviors are more common, where widespread sickness and debility evoke acts of mutual aid among members of a community in crisis,” explains Steven Taylor, professor and clinical psychologist at the University of British Columbia, in his book The Psychology of Pandemics.
Compassion—noticing others suffering and being motivated to provide relief to them—grows early on in life. Five-month-old babies prefer helpers over hinderers. When babies between eight and 10 months old see people bump their knees or hurt their fingers, they already show the seeds of empathy with facial expressions, vocalizations, and gestures that reflect concern and a desire to understand others’ distress. By 14 months old, toddlers help others by handing them objects out of reach.
How can parents help their children realize their instinctual capacity for compassion during the coronavirus pandemic? Scientists have suggested three ways that children develop compassion that are relevant to these times.
1. Show compassion to kids so they experience receiving it
During the pandemic, many of our children are feeling uncertainty and upheaval, just like us parents. They miss school, their friends, and playing sports like they did before. For young children who don’t have the breadth of words to express their worries and fears, or older children who don’t have the emotional agility to get through tough moments, it can be overwhelming.
As a result, our kids may be irritable or have more meltdowns and tantrums than usual. But rather than seeing children as uncooperative, parents can consider whether their behavior is simply an indication that they might be suffering, too.
If we offer children warmth and tenderness when their routines are turned upside down, we can soothe them in their own time of need. Parents can extend compassion by making space to help their children become better aware of and process their feelings. Acknowledging and being sensitive to our children’s emotions can act as a salve and help them to see that this moment of hardship will eventually pass.
Parents can also frequently talk to their children about all the members of their extended family and broader community who have cared for them both recently and in the past. For example, parents can tell and retell their children stories of neighbors who brought gift baskets after their pet died or dropped off dinners when a grandparent was in the hospital. These conversations serve to remind children that they are connected to a network of people who are a generous source of compassion from which they can draw strength during times of suffering.
Receiving compassion offers kids a firsthand experience of what it feels like.
2. Teach kids to practice self-compassion
In turn, just as children receive compassion from parents, they can also learn to offer it to themselves.
When children are having a hard time during the pandemic, parents can encourage them to listen and respond to their bodies and minds with greater awareness, acceptance, and kindness. For example, parents of older children can teach them to take self-compassion breaks to handle stressful moments.
For younger children, this might mean guiding them to first pause and notice their tense muscles, rapid heartbeats, and racing thoughts. Ask them to recognize that they’re having a moment of hardship and children all over the world are having these kinds of moments, too. Teach them to breathe deeply from their bellies and offer themselves words of tenderness like “May I feel calm.”
Parents can also encourage their younger children to cultivate self-compassion by planning enjoyable activities to look forward to after a hard day of homeschooling or after realizing summer vacation plans are cancelled.
Self-compassion allows children to process and cope with difficult emotions. Eventually, it can help them see their common humanity—that everyone suffers sometimes—and know that it’s all right to feel bad.
Tending to their intense emotions helps children be restored and renewed, which in turn prepares them to serve others. Overwhelming personal distress can make children singularly self-focused and less able to attend to others’ suffering. Self-compassion practices can help them be more able to orient toward others and extend compassion to them—which is the last step.
3. Encourage kids to extend compassion to others
During the coronavirus pandemic, even though children are inclined to help, it can be hard for them to know exactly what they can do.
Children can start with small acts of compassion as a family—sending kind thoughts to essential workers, regularly FaceTiming with isolated older or immunocompromised family members, or helping gather canned goods for the local food bank. Parents can also review these other ideas from Youth Service America to help inspire children toward compassionate acts.
Research suggests that small differences in language matter when we’re encouraging our kids to help. Parents can nurture young children’s motivation by inviting them to “be a helper,” which can instill in them a compassionate self-identity. But there’s a catch: When tasks are too difficult and children experience a setback, those who were asked to “be a helper” are less likely to try to help again compared to children who were simply asked “to help.” So, in circumstances when children might not succeed at helping with something, it’s better to just ask them “to help.”
Even young children have undoubtedly picked up on their radar that life right now is quite a bit different than it used to be. What if this pandemic became an opportunity for them to learn that being human during hard times involves transformation and resilience, and that compassion helps us all to thrive?
Maryam Abdullah, Ph.D.
This article originally appeared on Greater Good, the online magazine of the Greater Good Science Center at UC Berkeley.
Five Ways to Reduce Racial Bias in Your Children
How do we combat racial prejudice? New research reveals how parents influence the formation of bias in children.
Children notice difference across racial lines. Even from a very young age, babies scan a face differently if it belongs to someone of a different race, suggesting that racial bias may be hardwired.
But noticing difference is not the same as having negative or positive beliefs around difference. Those types of judgments develop over time and are influenced by many things, including the social climate children grow up in and the experiences they have that confirm or disprove their biases.
This is where parenting comes in. Though it’s clear that parents are not solely responsible for biasing their kids one way or the other, science suggests that they do play a role—and an important one. In fact, their influence may extend well beyond a child’s early years and into adolescence.
Though how this works is not totally clear, recent research has shown that the process starts early and involves both explicit (deliberate) and implicit (unconscious) messages that parents send to their children. This is the good news: Parents can be a positive force in combating prejudice in their children. But the “bad news” is that kids can easily pick up prejudice from society at large unless parents do something about it.
Here are some of the ways that parents can help reduce negative bias in their children.
1. Expose kids to more positive images of other racial groups
Kids are immersed in negative stereotypes perpetuated by the media and culture, just as adults are. To counteract that, parents can expose kids through stories, books, and films to more positive, counter-stereotypical images of people from different racial and ethnic groups—including moral exemplars like Martin Luther King Jr. or Dolores Huerta. In studies with adults, this type of intervention has been shown over and over to be one of the most effective ways of decreasing bias.
Though less is known about how this might impact children specifically, at least one study suggests that they benefit, too. Researchers presented white and Asian children ages 5-12 with four positive vignettes involving admirable black people (such as firefighters or doctors), admirable white people, or flowers and then measured the kids’ implicit biases towards black people. Being exposed to the positive vignettes significantly reduced implicit bias in children nine years of age and older—though not in the younger children.
According to lead author Antonya Gonzalez, this study suggests that showing older kids positive images of black people may counteract negative stereotypes in society.
“Hearing these stories, the kids are internalizing an association between the group they’re hearing about and positivity, and that counteracts the stereotypical associations that they may already have,” she says.
However, just because younger children were not moved by the stories in her experiment doesn’t mean we shouldn’t expose younger kids to positive images, as well, Gonzalez believes.
“If there were more exposure and more exemplars, there’s a chance that might be enough to change associations” in younger kids, too, she says.
2. Help your kids develop cross-group friendships
Research suggests that cross-race friendships are an important factor in decreasing prejudice, probably because they help decrease stress and fears of rejection that may occur in cross-group situations. Having a friend from another group may also remove barriers to empathy and caring, which in turn decreases prejudice.
Research shows that having contact with different racial or social groups—especially when that contact is warm and positive—helps to decrease prejudice and to encourage more cross-group friendships. In a study with school kids of various ages, students who had higher levels of cross-race contact—including cross-race friendships—were more likely to see the way race plays a role in social exclusion and to view that behavior negatively.
In a longitudinal study with adolescents, those who had cross-group friendships were less likely to develop biases against immigrants in their community, even if their parents or peers were biased. These studies suggest that cross-group friendships might help mitigate biases that could otherwise form.
In one study, German teens who established a cross-group friendship during a three-year period demonstrated lower prejudice toward immigrants at the end of the study than those who hadn’t. In addition, the teens were more likely to develop cross-group friendships when there were more kids from different groups and more positive social norms concerning cross-group friendships in their community. This suggests that opportunity—meaning, living in diverse neighborhoods or going to integrated schools—is important.
Psychologist Rodolfo Mendoza-Denton encourages parents to take an active role in supporting cross-race friendships in their kids by organizing play-dates, inviting kids over to their houses, offering rides to sporting events, and creating other opportunities for their kids’ cross-group friendships to form.
“The default is to do these things with people with whom you already have an affinity,” he says. “You need to help scaffold these social experiences for your kids and be more intentional if you want to be sure that cross-group friendships happen.”
3. Cultivate cross-group friendships yourself
Parents can help normalize cross-group friendships by role-modeling them for their kids. This may seem superfluous, but research has shown that children’s racial attitudes are less tied to parents’ explicit messages around race than to the racial makeup of the parents’ social network.
Why does having cross-race friendships have such a strong impact on bias? Mendoza-Denton says that when you develop a cross-race friendship, you incorporate your friend’s struggles, motivations, and thoughts into your own self-concept—not in a way that’s confusing, but more expansive. For example, he says, you start to feel what they feel and empathize with them: maybe sweating when they give a talk or suffering when they experience heartbreak. And that experience of “inclusion of the other in the self” decreases bias against that person’s social group.
“It’s so much more organic to reduce bias by developing intergroup friendships, because it changes your attitudes through a very human mechanism, which is the interpersonal,” says Mendoza-Denton.
Though adding people to your social group based simply on race is probably unwise, it’s possible to search for common interests with people of different backgrounds, making it more likely that a friendship will happen naturally. Once friendship grows, empathy develops organically, says Mendoza-Denton.
4. Talk explicitly about race and the effects of racism
Many black parents give explicit instructions to their kids about the importance of race in society and what they can do to mitigate any bias they encounter. But well-meaning white parents are less likely to bring up race with their children, perhaps fearing that doing so would mean they don’t value egalitarianism or believe in a “post-race” society. The problem with that approach is that not talking about race can create a vacuum of information, which leads children to absorb biases around them—often in ways that are counter to parents’ own held values.
In one study, researchers had white parents read books depicting racial issues to their preschool-aged children (under the guise of studying the effects of literature on learning) while being videotaped. Racial attitudes were measured and compared afterwards in both parents and their children.
Later analyses of the videos showed that many parents avoided mention of race—even if their children asked about it—and used “colorblind” approaches to the issues raised in the book. For example, they might say, “It’s important to be nice to everyone” rather than something about race. Though the parents assumed their kids would absorb their colorblind ideals and hold favorable views of African-Americans, the children’s views weren’t in line with these expectations, suggesting that a colorblind approach does not decrease biased attitudes in kids.
In fact, research suggests that parents need to be much more explicit about racism and its effects. When white parents were asked to have race-related discussions with their kids—either with or without watching educational videos about race—their children showed more favorable attitudes toward racial outgroup members only if their parents discussed race directly. Interestingly, though, the researchers had trouble getting the parents to have these discussions—even when instructed to do so as part of the study. Apparently, there are psychological barriers to discussing race among many Caucasian parents.
How can parents overcome these? It’s not easy, says Mendoza-Denton, because if you aren’t comfortable, you will avoid the topic. He suggests that parents need to increase their own comfort first by developing connections to people from other racial groups. That will make it easier for parents to have these conversations without resorting to fear and avoidance.
If you can overcome your own discomfort, there are many children’s books that expose kids to the values and experiences of different groups and could be conversation starters. Or you may want to follow Allison Briscoe-Smith’s advice on how to use the movie Zootopia to talk to your children about racial prejudice.
5. Work to combat biases in yourself
Research clearly shows that the impact of parent bias on kids shouldn’t be underestimated. Although explicit biases have negative effects on kids, implicit bias can also impact children.
In one study, researchers found that very young children exhibited more explicit negative bias if their mothers held implicit biases—regardless of their explicit messaging. There can be a mismatch between what parents say and their unconscious reactions toward minority groups—and children seem to pick up on this.
Though implicit biases may seem an impossible thing to control—after all, they are supposed to be unconscious—they are quite changeable with conscious effort. Research suggests that automatic biases can be countered by deliberate attempts to counter them, exposure to moral exemplars, or positive cross-race interactions. In other words, much of what influences children may also influence you.
Becoming more aware of subtle prejudices may be the first step, and you can always take an implicit bias test if you want to learn about yourself. But Mendoza-Denton believes that this information is most useful in parents who are truly willing to attend to their biases; otherwise, learning about their implicit biases could possibly backfire, making them feel exposed and defensive and increasing their avoidance of the issue.
In addition to developing cross-race friendships, he advises parents to read books, watch films, and consume media not aimed at them. For example, to understand the viewpoints and experiences of blacks, a white parent might read Ta-Nehisi Coates’s book Between the World and Me, or see the movie I Am Not Your Negro. Doing so may counter bias by enriching understanding of another’s point of view, especially if they are motivated to foster that understanding.
Parents may think that there is very little they can do to influence their children’s biases or feel that prejudice-reduction is a daunting task. But if we are to impact bias in the long-term, we must come to grips with how bias is transmitted early in life and fed by a system of segregation and negative societal views. Parents, it turns out, can make an important contribution.
Jill Suttie, Psy.D
This article originally appeared on Greater Good, the online magazine of the Greater Good Science Center at UC Berkeley.
Foster or Otherwise, Parenting is Parenting: Love, care, and try your best
Media content has the power to shape perceptions and views on a mass scale. Unfortunately, media portrayals of youth in foster care are often negative and perpetuate unhelpful stereotypes. In this special blog series, The Center for Scholars and Storytellers is exploring this topic from multiple perspectives to inform and inspire the creation of accurate, empowering, and socially responsible media portrayals of foster care.
Marianne Guilfoyle, Chief Innovations Officer at LA-based Allies for Every Child and a key foster care advisor to the Center for Scholars and Storytellers, often remarks: “If I had a nickel for every person who said they had considered being foster parents…” And she is right. It’s not that people haven’t considered fostering, it’s that they’ve never seriously considered it. And far too often, their reason is that they don’t think they could do it. Indeed, multi-racial, same-sex couple Ching-chu Hu and Jim Van-Reeth, who have adopted four children through the foster care system, say they constantly hear comments such as “Oh, I could never do that” or “You’re stronger than me!” Their thoughts on this? “We believe most people on the planet naturally have the necessary tools to be foster parents -- to love and nurture a child.” Positive media portrayal of fostering can play a large role in empowering people to see that they can indeed foster. We need to see more of these stories.
Another honest response they get from people interested in adoption are fears that adopting from the system is too “dangerous”, and international adoption will get you “safer” children with “less issues.” To this, Hu and Van-Reeth remark; “Children are amazingly resilient, and the issues we all face as parents are strikingly similar, whether a child is from the foster care system, international adoption, or is a biological child. The primary difference is that we came into it expecting challenges, whereas those with biological children may be caught off guard by difficulties if they arise.” Rich Valenza, founder of Raise a Child and himself a father of two children he adopted through the foster care system, echoed this sentiment, reflecting on how the conversations with other parents at school drop-off were often quite therapeutic. He noticed, “Whether raising your birth children or children through foster care, the parenting problems you face are pretty similar! You have expectations of what raising a child will be like, but the reality quickly sinks in for both scenarios that it’s often not the way you planned. You’ll never be fully prepared. You likely won’t hear “thank you for giving me an amazing life” from your foster children as you tuck them into bed, but it’s a safe bet that you won’t hear that from your birth children either.” Content creators should strive to show the parenting commonalities in raising children, from the struggles to the joys, regardless of how their children entered their lives.
But this is not to dismiss the trauma that foster children experience in leaving their home, and whatever difficult life they may have endured previous to entering foster care (or within foster care). And this needs to be appropriately reflected in media, too. Valenza is a proud proponent of family therapy and removing all associated stigma, “Whether you have birth or foster children, all families can benefit from therapy-- it needs to be seen as a bonus to your life, an education into yourself.” In addition to recruiting foster parents, Raise a Child makes an effort to continually support parents throughout the foster/adoption process. They are currently partnered with LA-based Allies for Every Child on a pilot program that provides extra support and training to remind parents, for instance, that when problems arise, “this is not about me, this is about the needs of the child.” Portraying counseling as normative in fictional media could go a long way in reducing the stigma of seeking professional help, both for parents and children.
One of the biggest lessons that Hu and Van-Reeth encountered over the years was learning, accepting, and supporting the perspectives of the foster children’s previous lives, and not judging the biological parents (who often grew up in similar situations). They explain, “No matter how horrific we may find their previous life, it was still their home, their reality, their “comfortable” environment. It is the lives they were used to, and anything different, no matter how safe, how loving, how supportive, is still different, unusual, and unfamiliar to their world. And it takes a lot of time and nurturing for them to trust a safe and loving environment.”
Worrying that a foster child you hope to adopt might be reunified with their birth family is another fear that can lead people to pursue private or international adoption instead. Indeed, Hu and Van-Reeth went through this in the most heart-wrenching way; “Losing our 18 month old son-who we had had since day one- to his birth parents who we knew were falling back into drugs, was the hardest moment in our fostering journey. Especially the fact that as foster parents we felt we had no voice, no “seat” at the judicial table. Those scars left indelible memories.” Ultimately, their son did end up returning back to their home, and is now adopted by the Hu and Van-Reeth. Those interested in fostering and adoption and those creating media about foster care should understand that there are different paths to take, depending on the long-term option desired, and the amount of potential heartbreak you are willing to risk. Media content can help by portraying all types of fostering, including:
A foster parent that just fosters with no intention of adopting (roles which are very much needed since reunification with the birth family is the primary goal for children entering into the foster care system.)
A foster/adoptive parent who takes in foster children who might become available for adoption (and therefore would adopt the child if it was a good fit), but the child could instead be reunified with their birth family.
An adoptive-only parent who will only take a child into their home if they are already classified as “adoptive,” meaning the birth parents have terminated their parental rights.
Finally, another reason people are hesitant to become foster parents is because they’re afraid they won’t be good enough, or they will mess up as a parent. But ultimately, as Velenza correctly puts it, “Worrying about being good enough parent is exactly what will make someone a good foster parent. This shows that they are conscious of their role, and it shows they care. And ultimately, that is what it takes.”
For foster parents, there are countless instances along the way that remind you you’re doing a great job. For Valenza, as his children get older he finds he gets immeasurable pride from seeing them thrive, and even beginning to realize and appreciate the work he does for the foster care community. As Hu and Van-Reeth reflect; “It’s the small things: it’s seeing them come out of their shells, adjusting, being nurtured, opening up, and giving a hug. It’s seeing them bring their defenses down, grow, and become stronger and more comfortable with the world around them. It’s giving them first-time experiences, whether that’s flying on a plane, going to a park, or even, shockingly, giving them breakfast.”
Actionable Insights
Write and cast realistic, everyday people as foster parents who aren’t perfect people, but care and are doing their best.
- Media that gets it right: Instant Family - the couple is refreshingly honest in their uncertainty and process to fostering, making them extremely relatable.
Show the similar joys and struggles that parents face, regardless of whether their children are biological, adopted internationally/privately, or from the foster care system.
Normalize seeking counseling and therapy, show how it is beneficial and healthy for the entire family.
Colleen Russo Johnson, PhD
Senior Fellow of the Center for Scholars & Storytellers
This blog series is supported in part by the UCLA Pritzker Center for Strengthening Children and Families.
The Fun of Empowering Girls
For over 20 years, I worked in public broadcasting making shows for young people. We made television and digital content and even hosted events in communities across the country. As a public broadcaster, I was keenly aware of what we needed to work hard on, particularly gender stereotypes and gender roles — and, less overt gender bias — in Hollywood movies and TV. We needed to empower children — especially girls. We knew from research that if girls saw positive girl characters and women characters in television and film, it could have an incredible impact. But no matter how hard we worked, we couldn’t control what happened after they saw a program. We knew that the impact would be higher if the ideas in the shows were talked about at home. And even higher if a parent watched with them.
As a parent, I want great role models too. Like most parents, I feel a lot of pressure to try to make all the right choices. We’re fighting gender stereotypes in the media and gender bias in the culture. It can be a lot. So, I think it’s time to make a switch and take the pressure off.
I say let’s have fun empowering the girls (and boys!) in our lives. Instead of trying to find all the right everything to introduce them to, let’s make it an adventure together.
With your own kids, try to think outside of the box to find amazing female characters in your own movie and TV watching — and women and girls in your own neighbourhood or town, too! Make it a quest. A Mission. Make a chart. Or just do it for fun. Find what works with your family dynamic but make the goal finding awesome women near where you live. Here are some suggestions:
Make it a challenge to see who can find the coolest girl character in a TV show. And then watch it together. Why is she cool? How does she conform to gender roles?
Go to the library and see if any women authors are speaking. Or reading from their picture or chapter books.
Check out cool women running for office where you live and go and hear them speak. Even if your kids are too young to understand the issues, all the clapping and sign waiving will make it fun. A great way to combat gender bias is to see women being supported by other women and men.
In your play- whether it’s with stuffed animals, dolls or action characters- make the role-playing about inventing or leading (hey let’s find a way to invent a colour changing t-shirt or create a cardboard starship to fly us to the stars!). Remember that young kids’ imaginations are way better than ours as adults, so let them run with it.
Celebrate the women in your extended family who have interesting jobs- in science, architecture, a small startup- and have them tell your kids about it
Go old school. Kids still love to play board games. Print off pictures of powerful women- from politicians to pilots- that you can glue to cardboard and use as pieces in any of your favourite family games instead of the regular pieces.
And remember moms, research shows that this isn’t just about our kids. A study in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology found that working women who viewed images of powerful women succeeded in stressful leadership tasks. So have fun with it!
Kim Wilson
Media Advisor & Consultant of The Center for Scholars & Storytellers
Disclosure: This blog post was written independently and reflects the author’s own views. It was written in support of the Dream Gap project and was paid for by Barbie.
Dreams of a Six Year Old Girl
Have you ever spoken to a six year old girl? Seemingly the epitome of confidence,the world is her oyster, and she believes she can be anything:
An astronaut;
A ballet dancer;
The President;
All at the SAME TIME.
Moreover, young girls frequently do better than boys in elementary school, where their abilities to sit still and follow rules often makes their teachers give them plenty of gold stars.
The traditional thinking is that young girls’ confidence doesn’t drop until they hit puberty. But something else is happening during the ages of five to seven, as children develop cognitively, becoming aware that others are evaluating their behavior.
As a well designed experiment found, at five years of age, girls say that both genders are smart, but by six years old, they classify boys as belonging to the “really really smart” category at a higher rate. Thus, what children see and hear during this developmental stage shapes thinking in ways that adults may not always see or recognize.
In fact, even at younger ages, children quickly absorb the stereotypes we communicate about activities and skills associated with each gender. Children learn in the context of their social and cultural milieu and the messages they are given (from parents, media, teachers and other socialization agents) promote gender identities, sometimes with stereotypes attached to them.
The good news is that in the US, things may be starting to change. One study found that when asked to draw a scientist, kids in the United States increasingly draw women. Back in the sixties and seventies, when asked the same question, less than one percent of children drew a female scientist. Today the average is twenty eight percent. But still, as kids get older, they begin to draw more men in this role. At five or six girls draw the same number of men and women, but by seven and eight they begin to draw more men.
So there is still plenty of work to do. Luckily research has helped us become more aware of these biases. Moreover, companies who create media and product for kids are helping change entrenched patterns. Many companies are focusing on creating strong female characters, and their audience is responding – even boys!
What can you do to help encourage your child to dream big and help your girl recognize that boys and girls are equally “really really smart? One answer: Play! Play helps girls understand the possibilities because this is when children practice the gendered behaviors they see from role models. And young kids like to play with the objects that will teach them the most.
Here are a few ways caregivers can support their children so they start to internalize gender equality:
Choose media that highlight strong female role models.
Why? Because research shows that representation shapes the way we think.
2. Highlight real life female role models, including yourself if you are a woman.
Why? Because connecting to the real world helps make children understand what’s truly possible. And young girls focus on what their female caregiver is doing.
3. Encourage boys to diversify their play patterns. Support their play with dolls, and help them recognize that women are equally brilliant to men.
Why? Because until we recognize that boys can enjoy more “feminine” pursuits, masculine stereotypes of strength and brilliance will persist and undermine progress for women.
Yalda T. Uhls, Ph.D.
Founder and Executive Director of the Center for Scholars & Storytellers
Disclosure: This blog post was written independently and reflects the author’s own views. It was written in support of the Dream Gap project and was paid for by Barbie.
Gen Z Slang: From Coast to Coast
Despite being connected online, no matter what state you’re from, each city still retains its own language, slang, and vernacular. At my public high school in Los Angeles, we had our own secret language. A party was a “yart,” and if it got busted by the cops it was “rolled.” A beer was a “brewsky,” an uber was an “ubis,” and school was “skizz.” The way some of the boys from my high school talked was a little bit ridiculous [or maybe a lot ridiculous]. If I tried to use these words in front of anyone that didn’t live in Los Angeles, they would have no idea what was going on.
When I came to college and used these words around my roommate from the East Coast, she would look at me with a blank stare. It’s interesting to note that people around the world all have different terms for everyday things. Teenagers are often blamed for dismantling standard linguistic patterns, but I have often found it’s a way we connect with the people we live around. When I found other friends from the same place I was, it felt comforting that they knew the way I talked.
Although I’m not a linguistics major, I find it fascinating how we all make up words and phrases that become a part of our day to day speech.
Last year, I stumbled upon a British show called Love Island, which is a reality show that mixes people from different parts of the United Kingdom in a villa for about eight weeks. As a bystander, the way they talked felt so elegant and fun, but to them, it was just normal.
From the West Coast to the East Coast to the United Kingdom, here are a few English words or phrases that have different meanings to Gen Z depending on the place:
When Someone is Good Looking
A typical American thing to say when you find someone attractive is to call them hot, but in California oftentimes people will say “he or she is ‘fire.’” However, on Love Island, people will call a person “fit” if they find them attractive. Typically, when I think of the word fit, I would think they were in good shape, but in the United Kingdom it might mean you find them super attractive.
When You Agree With Something
In California, when someone agrees with what you are saying, a typical response is to say “I feel” or “I feel you” or “I feel that.” When I started college, I noticed all the East Coast kids would say “word” every time they agreed with what I said. I thought “word” was something people said in 2006, but I guess I was wrong.
Not Sure Why We Call Water This…
Something that both East and West Coasters say is “wince” for water or adding “ince” to the endings of things. I have no idea why people do this, other than the fact that they think it sounds cool when in reality, it doesn’t.
When You Want to Go to a Party
Another difference between the East Coast and the West Coast is the words we use for parties. On the West Coast, a party during the day is a “dayge” but on the east coast it’s called a “darty.” If you’ve ever seen the Real Bros of Simi Valley, a show about four young men who live in a California town in the Valley, they call their small get-togethers a “kickback.” While I thought this was widely known, my friends on the East Coast had no idea what I was talking about when I used the term. Instead they call it a “hang out.”
This One’s Pretty Shocking!
This one may be universal for English, but whenever I would feel shocked about something I would say “I’m shook” or “I’m shooketh.” The most surprising word I learned, though, was from my roommate who said “wig” if you were ever surprised by anything. Essentially it means that you are so shocked that your wig fell off.
When You’re Not Feeling Too Good
This one is kind of disturbing, but in Los Angeles, if you had to throw up people would either call it “yak” or “boot.” In other places, they would most likely just call it “vomit,” but it was more fun this way. If you were able to “rally” then you’d call it the old “boot and rally,” which is more of a universal English phrase, but teenagers love to make it their own.
This One is Trouble
Whenever someone got in trouble, a typical thing you would say is that person is grounded, right? At my high school, if someone or a party got in trouble, we would call that being “rolled.” On the East Coast people called that “busted.”
When You’re Upset
If you’re angry, a way you would express that is by saying “I’m heated” or “I’m fuming.” In Love Island, if someone was upset, they would say “I’m pied off” (similar to “I’m pissed off”).
Getting Along With Someone
Typically, Americans would say “we hit it off” when we get along with someone we are interested in, but in Love Island they like to say they had “banter.” They also say we “crack on” or “get on,” meaning they got along well with the person and can make jokes with them.
In Conclusion…
Why do different regions across the world have different lingo that they use? How does this even start? Our lingo and the way we speak constantly changes over the years and is dependent on who we are around. The way my parents used to talk isn’t the same way that teenagers in high school talk now. Our virtual world has caused Gen Z to start trends across the country with what phrases and words we say. After living in my hometown in Los Angeles and going to college with people from all over America, I have learned that each region still has its own English lingo. Midwesterns say “pop” but I say “soda,” East Coasters say “seltzer” but I say “sparkling water,” Southerners say “y’all” but I say “you guys.” Whether the way we talk is regional or from online, our communication is what keeps us connected to other people.
Chloe Uhls
Former CSS Intern
Article adapted from “English Slang at It’s Finest,” as it appeared on Flique Editorial.
The Importance of Authentic Asian American Representation in Hollywood
The Importance of Authentic Asian American Representation in Hollywood
Ages 5-10 were my Full-House-obsessed years. I considered myself an honorary Tanner. Then it was what my parents referred to as “The Inappropriate Show,” also known as Saturday Night Live. They thought it was too mature for my little sister and me, but we loved it. The Office got me through stressful high school times and now I quote it without thinking. However, amidst the joy these shows brought me, as a Korean-American I have been continually let down by the lack of representation of Asians in Hollywood. It makes me angry -- shattering the meek, silent-in- the-midst-of-unfairness, and the rarely impassioned portrait that the media has painted of people like me. Despite attempts at diversity in Hollywood movies and TV, Asian characters have often been portrayed as weak, nerdy, exotic, incompetent, powerless, and are seldom in the spotlight as leads, just like black television and film characters.
Notable progress has been made, however, in the past few years with the successes of Crazy Rich Asians, ABC sitcom Fresh Off the Boat, and Netflix’s Patriot Act with Hasan Minhaj. Asians in Hollywood are portraying the Asian American community in a more authentic light than before; but while progress is exciting, there is still more to do when it comes to true representation of Asian TV characters and Asian movie characters on-screen and behind the scenes. What we view on-screen reaches far beyond entertainment; diversity in film and TV also impacts mental health, identity, and race relations as they pertain to Asian Americans. Content creators and industry decision-makers must change how Asians are portrayed in the media, as they have an opportunity and a duty to yield this powerfully influential medium in a more responsible manner. Avoiding racism, gender stereotypes of girl and boy characters, and other negative images are key.
Effect on Children
Personal identity is heavily influenced by the media, starting from a young age. Film and television have become avenues for imprinting stories in history. When it comes to authentic Asian movie and TV characters, the absence is noteworthy. The pride I felt watching Crazy Rich Asians’ all-Asian cast surprised me as if the sudden surge in representation alerted me to its prior absence in Hollywood. Asian children will subconsciously internalize an omission of Asian faces in the content they watch as an indication of their perceived invisibility or the box they are subjected to in the workplace and the world. Research shows that people exhibit feelings like shame and anxiety when viewing stereotypical representations of their racial group, even those framed as exaggeration or parody, and Asian stereotypes in movies and TV have been far too visible for far too long. While Hollywood has since moved away from the glaring racism of characters such as Long Duk Dong, the foreign exchange student in 16 Candles, Asian actors continue to be typecast and are still underrepresented in major film roles.
HIGHLIGHTS
• Personal identity is heavily influenced by the media, starting from a young age
• Content creators and industry decision-makers must change how Asians are portrayed in the media
Model Minority Myth
In today’s society, Asian characters in movies and TV are often stereotyped as over-achievers who obtain financial and educational stability: the 4.0 students, doctors, and Tiger-parents. Asian-Americans have been framed as the “model minority” within American culture -- the minority group that worked its way to success. This myth implies that other minority groups are lesser-than or do not work as hard, and also negates the ever-present discrimination that Asians and other minority groups experience. Such Asian stereotypes in film and TV shows also suggest that Asians belong to one homogenous group that shares the same attributes, when in fact, there are many subsections of the Asian community - composed of individuals each with their own stories and struggles. The effects of this perpetuated stereotype in the media, depicted by Asian actors but often driven by white writers and directors, jump from the screen into reality. Racial bias, even nonverbal, can be imprinted on people through the screen. It is perplexing how Asians are viewed as diligent and hardworking, yet rarely with strong leadership qualities or charisma. The scarcity of positions of power among Asian film and TV characters is reflected in many aspects of life. In fact, according to Harvard Business Review, Asians are the least likely group to be promoted to management in the United States. While this can also be attributed to different cultural values and other factors, a lack of diverse representation in media is influential in reinforcing these attitudes and perceptions.
Tokenism Behind the Scenes
What we see on-screen should not be the only aspect of representation examined. The majority of successful endeavors featuring Asian actors and stories were backed by Asians in Hollywood behind the scenes. More Asian studio heads, casting directors, producers, writers, showrunners, and filmmakers means more advocacy and support for Asian stories and Asian TV and film characters. Great strides have been made and writers’ room representation has significantly improved; however, discrimination still exists here. To promote more diverse representation in media, large networks host diversity training programs in which writers of color have the opportunity to be staffed on television shows. The networks and studios subsidize writers’ salaries, incentivizing shows to employ these essentially free “diversity hires.” It is common for showrunners to let these writers go after their wages are no longer paid for, communicating that Asian writers are only hirable when free. Diversity in numbers is insufficient as long as Asians in Hollywood are not receiving the same opportunities to succeed in this industry.
On YouTube, people produce their own content with virtually zero gatekeeping. It is no coincidence that Asian content creators have become some of the most popular and prevalent faces on the platform, with millions of subscribers and views. From beauty guru Michelle Phan to comedy YouTuber NigaHiga, there is tangible proof that when given a fair opportunity, the Asian community thrives and reaches incredibly far.
Financial Benefits
If the moral facet of equal Asian representation in Hollywood is not enough to motivate content creators and gatekeepers, there is data that supports financial incentives for more Asian TV characters and Asian movie characters. Asians are the fastest-growing racial group in the country with a buying power of $1 trillion in 2018. They lead the nation in internet connectivity, enabling them to consume Asian stories on TV (and Asian movies via home video) via broadband and subscription video on demand faster than any other group nationwide. An average Asian household will watch about 23 hours of television per week, and the percentage with subscriptions to services such as Netflix and Hulu surpasses that of the remaining population. It is clear that Asians possess considerable buying power in the US and make up a large, expanding segment of media audiences.
Hearing Bowen Yang, SNL’s first Asian cast member after 45 seasons, refer to himself as the “Lizzo of China” while playing a government official on Weekend Update, filled me with pride. It was not until I saw myself on-screen that I realized I had been missing this feeling my whole life, and I needed to see, hear and read about more Asians in Hollywood. There is more work to do, more stories to tell, always. There’s great power in representation. My Asian-Americanness is of value, and I expect the country in which I live to reflect the same.
Actionable Insights
Write Asian movie and TV characters that defy stereotypes, even if stereotypes are seemingly “positive.”
Portray more Asian diversity — all groups that are part of the Asian community are unique with distinct stories, cultures, and struggles. This includes groups like the Bhutanese and Burmese that suffer from a poverty rate that is twice as high as the national average, yet experience the repercussions of the model minority myth.
Feature more Asian TV and movie characters in positions of power and leadership on-screen.
Hire more Asians in behind-the-scenes positions: writers, directors, studio executives, casting directors, producers, showrunners, filmmakers. Rich and authentic stories come from those who can speak from experience and incorporate essential nuances to the characters and their interactions with the world around them.
Avoid framing content created by and featuring Asians solely as “Asian films.” While still taking their cultures into account, remember that Asians are normal people who have more to offer than just the fact that they are Asian.
Nicole Park
CSS Intern