3/2

I found it interesting that content creators among adolescents are largely suburban girls with relatively high family incomes. This makes me wonder about the nature of the content and the degree of materialism and class bias present in this content. Specifically, I think about Instagram and the ability to tag various brands of products. Is this the creation of an art form or just informal advertising? At what point does this crossover into the realm of planning marketing and ad creation comparable to that produced by an ad agency? I feel this is very problematic in terms of defining creation in new media forms and what the impact of this is on the development of children.

This phenomenon seems to counteract the author's initial observation that new medias may be an answer to the defunding of arts programs in under-resourced schools. If suburban, high income children are those who are engaging most with these platforms and actually creating the content, where does that leave their lower-income peers? Are these children now just the consumers of their content? And what if their content promotes suburban moneyed values? I'm curious about what impact this could have on the psyche and self-valuation of children from under-resourced communities and feel that the author's argument about equal access is somewhat flawed. This thought makes me feel somewhat cautious about content consumption and makes me think closely about Baym's statement, "digital media aren't saving us or ruining us. They aren't reinventing us. Bit they are changing the ways we relate to others and ourselves in countless, pervasive ways."