2011 contestant writes about social media comments on her appearance

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trainman
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2011 contestant writes about social media comments on her appearance

Post by trainman »

A second-place finisher's first-person account of the comments about her looks that were posted to social media when her episode aired.

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Re: 2011 contestant writes about social media comments on her appearance

Post by harrumph »

Thankfully on Jboard we are pretty much above the trivial aspects of the contestant's physical appearance and instead focus on their knowledge of trivia.
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Re: 2011 contestant writes about social media comments on her appearance

Post by bpmod »

As if I needed another reason to STAY AWAY from (so-called) social media. What assholes! oops. I'm sorry. Assholes are useful.

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gnash
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Re: 2011 contestant writes about social media comments on her appearance

Post by gnash »

What's more ridiculous? Writing 140 characters about how a J! contestant looks, or writing 1000 words about what anonymous morons said about you on Twitter?
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lieph82
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Re: 2011 contestant writes about social media comments on her appearance

Post by lieph82 »

gnash wrote:What's more ridiculous? Writing 140 characters about how a J! contestant looks, or writing 1000 words about what anonymous morons said about you on Twitter?
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Re: 2011 contestant writes about social media comments on her appearance

Post by Winchell Factor »

gnash wrote:What's more ridiculous? Writing 140 characters about how a J! contestant looks, or writing 1000 words about what anonymous morons said about you on Twitter?
Writing 140 characters about how a J! contestant looks. Not even a close call, IMO.
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Re: 2011 contestant writes about social media comments on her appearance

Post by Vanya »

Winchell Factor wrote:
gnash wrote:What's more ridiculous? Writing 140 characters about how a J! contestant looks, or writing 1000 words about what anonymous morons said about you on Twitter?
Writing 140 characters about how a J! contestant looks. Not even a close call, IMO.
Yeah, I didn't hear that criticism about Arthur Chu.

Gnash, did you read the article?

ETA: At first I didn't notice the bold in your post, lieph82.
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Re: 2011 contestant writes about social media comments on her appearance

Post by alietr »

I wonder if that's the difference between an un-moderated environment and a moderated one. If someone posted something like that here, I certainly wouldn't leave it up. But people don't do that here. And for that, I'm thankful. Yet another reason I've never figured out why people hang out on Twitter.
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Re: 2011 contestant writes about social media comments on her appearance

Post by MDaunt »

If you want to lose your faith in humanity, go on Twitter.
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Re: 2011 contestant writes about social media comments on her appearance

Post by Vanya »

MDaunt wrote:If you want to lose your faith in humanity, go on Twitter.
Long before twitter, there was Usenet. :)
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Re: 2011 contestant writes about social media comments on her appearance

Post by Turd Ferguson »

I don't know, I've always found the idea of a "public figure" searching twitter to see what people are saying about them, and getting upset about negative things is a bit "off".

To me, the twitterverse is like a bar... it's a public space, but people have conversations about other "public figures" knowing that (in theory) the subject of their conversation could hear them, but don't expect them to. Someone can complain about a politician, or an athlete, or an entertainer without thinking that said person is going to be hearing the conversation.

In this analogy, a person who searches to see what people are saying about them on twitter would be like someone going from table to table, listening to other people's conversation to see if people are talking about them. And that seems a bit... weird to me.

(Maybe a more direct analogy is when you hear about an actor or director going "undercover" to a screening of their film to hear what people have to say about it... it's not necessarily "creepy", but if you're going to listen in on other people's "private" conversations about you, you're going to get what you get)

But what amuses me about this story (and others like it) is the idea that a self-proclaimed "twitter fanatic" is even remotely surprised that people would say negative or inappropriate things on twitter. Really??? It's like a "youtube fanatic" being surprised that youtube commenters would get into a stupid argument.
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Re: 2011 contestant writes about social media comments on her appearance

Post by nserven »

I guess she's writing about it as a cultural phenomenon, but snarking about the people and things we see on TV isn't exactly new. It's just that now it can be done out in the open.

I suppose that's one privilege that players from past decades had that current players do not--the ability to have their experience exist in a vacuum. Used to be you could go a game show, maybe win some money, and then unless you did something extraordinary, you could be forgotten and go back to your life. And I think most people who go on game shows these days still carry that expectation. It's not like the olden days, when an aspiring actress might go on You Bet Your Life in the hope of getting noticed.

Celebrities, certainly, have their appearance critiqued all the time, but I think there's more of an acceptance that it comes with the territory of being rich and famous.
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Re: 2011 contestant writes about social media comments on her appearance

Post by Turd Ferguson »

nserven wrote:I guess she's writing about it as a cultural phenomenon, but snarking about the people and things we see on TV isn't exactly new. It's just that now it can be done out in the open.

I suppose that's one privilege that players from past decades had that current players do not--the ability to have their experience exist in a vacuum. Used to be you could go a game show, maybe win some money, and then unless you did something extraordinary, you could be forgotten and go back to your life. And I think most people who go on game shows these days still carry that expectation. It's not like the olden days, when an aspiring actress might go on You Bet Your Life in the hope of getting noticed.

Celebrities, certainly, have their appearance critiqued all the time, but I think there's more of an acceptance that it comes with the territory of being rich and famous.
Do you really think that many of the people who tweeted about her in 2011 have any recollection of what they said about her? She is certainly "forgotten" and could've gone back to her life without it affecting her if her husband hadn't searched twitter.

I'm sure that many contestants from past decades had many nasty things said about them in the living rooms of strangers, but they were able to go back to their lives because they didn't know what people were saying about them. Just as a contestant today can decide to not go searching to see what a random 13-year old sitting on his couch is saying about them.

(I'm sure there are cases where creepy twits find a contestant's twitter page and tweet "weird" things at them... that's a completely different animal, of course)
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Re: 2011 contestant writes about social media comments on her appearance

Post by Lampy »

This is relevant commentary on how people respond to different things as a knee-jerk (both twitter folks and the article's author). There's really no reason to brush off the perspective.
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Re: 2011 contestant writes about social media comments on her appearance

Post by Vanya »

Turd Ferguson wrote:I don't know, I've always found the idea of a "public figure" searching twitter to see what people are saying about them, and getting upset about negative things is a bit "off".

To me, the twitterverse is like a bar... it's a public space, but people have conversations about other "public figures" knowing that (in theory) the subject of their conversation could hear them, but don't expect them to. Someone can complain about a politician, or an athlete, or an entertainer without thinking that said person is going to be hearing the conversation.

In this analogy, a person who searches to see what people are saying about them on twitter would be like someone going from table to table, listening to other people's conversation to see if people are talking about them. And that seems a bit... weird to me.

(Maybe a more direct analogy is when you hear about an actor or director going "undercover" to a screening of their film to hear what people have to say about it... it's not necessarily "creepy", but if you're going to listen in on other people's "private" conversations about you, you're going to get what you get)

But what amuses me about this story (and others like it) is the idea that a self-proclaimed "twitter fanatic" is even remotely surprised that people would say negative or inappropriate things on twitter. Really??? It's like a "youtube fanatic" being surprised that youtube commenters would get into a stupid argument.
Well, it worked for Henry V.

I think she was more surprised at what the twits chose to comment on, rather than that they made negative comments.
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Re: 2011 contestant writes about social media comments on her appearance

Post by Austin Powers »

A valuable lesson: run your outfit by your friends before going on national TV.
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Re: 2011 contestant writes about social media comments on her appearance

Post by MitchO »

I agree; there are a lot of "this is how the internet reacted" perspectives out there; contestant on television shows seem like the right level of minor level famous to only hear this because of today's internet. I remember a specific story that ran well past it's expected lifecycle because some intern wrote an opinion piece about a guy she dated on OKCupid ... who happened to be a Magic: The Gathering world champ. She clearly underestimated the Venn diagram overlap of "Magic players" and "denizens of the internet"; her tone and snide were insulting and the back and forth way the story went on of various attacks and defenses gave content to some sites for weeks.
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Re: 2011 contestant writes about social media comments on her appearance

Post by dhkendall »

Best, and IMHO only, attitude to have towards such things is the following:

http://youtu.be/3HmizQEznFo
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Re: 2011 contestant writes about social media comments on her appearance

Post by Turd Ferguson »

Darn, I thought it was going to be the Taylor Swift video...
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Re: 2011 contestant writes about social media comments on her appearance

Post by dhkendall »

Turd Ferguson wrote:Darn, I thought it was going to be the Taylor Swift video...
?? I thought that was Taylor Swift ...
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