When you think of the Fourth of July, what comes to mind? Grilling food, having picnics, watching fireworks? Do you think of exploding rockets? Or exploding space shuttles? Apparently American Apparel thought exploding space shuttles was a festive way to celebrate the Fourth of July holiday in 2014, when they used a picture of the space shuttle Challenger on their Tumblr feed with the hashtags #smoke and #clouds.
2014 American Apparel ad on Tumblr of space shuttle Challenger.
For those who don’t know, the Challenger shuttle had generated much excitement because a civilian was included, Christa McAuliffe from New Hampshire, who was to be the first teacher ever in space. But in January 1986, just 73 seconds after the Challenger launched, it exploded. The disaster cost all seven crew members their lives, and grounded the space program for 2 ½ years.
Left: Christa McAuliffe. Right: Challenger shuttle crew.
What makes this tragedy even more horrific is that of all the people watching live, the vast majority of them were school children. NASA had arranged for many public schools to view the launch live on NASA TV, so that they could witness teacher McAuliffe making history.
Although most of American Apparel’s target audience was too young to have witnessed the Challenger tragedy firsthand, it didn’t take long for angry remarks to start showing up on social media. Below are some examples of the responses on Twitter.
American Apparel removed the ad, and issued this statement:
“We deeply apologize for today’s Tumblr post of the space shuttle Challenger. The image was re-blogged in error by one of our international social media employees who was born after the tragedy and was unaware of the event. We sincerely regret the insensitivity of that selection and the post has been deleted.”
This social media disaster highlights the importance of not only knowing your audience, but also being culturally aware. Even if the international employee knew nothing about the Fourth of July and it’s significance to American identity, it would take very little time to do some research to discover this. If you Google the Fourth of July, several images of fireworks, the American flag, the Statue of Liberty, and bald eagles come up (and a disturbing picture of Elvis in a flag costume). No smoke or clouds. Therefore, it’s unclear why that employee chose smoke and clouds - if those images were meant to represent fireworks or not, or some other unknown interpretation of the holiday.
A picture of what fireworks should look like.
The choice of picture is even more disturbing when taken in context - it is an ad campaign to celebrate an American national holiday by an American company - with America in the name of the company. And since the purpose of the campaign was celebration, it is in very poor taste indeed to use a picture that represents people dying. The fact that the employee was born after the tragedy happened should not excuse the error.
To avoid this kind of social media disaster, companies need to be more vigilant in what they post on social media. This wasn’t a post from an employee’s personal account, this was from the company itself, so controls should be put into place within the company to have all social media content reviewed before being posted. If a company has employees of different nationalities, then the company must be responsible for making sure that cultural context is taken into consideration. Research is an important component of this. It would have taken the American Apparel employee very little time and effort to have avoided this mistake.
The Challenger memorial in Arlington Cemetery.
Escape from Troublesome Reality Books have been the most important literacy technology in my life. When I was in first grade, my parents were getting a divorce, and I spent all my time watching TV, trying to block out the real world. My reading and writing skills basically stopped progressing, and my first grade teacher, Mrs. Schmidt, talked to my mom about how to correct this. My mom decided to get rid of our TV, so I had to find a new escape, and that’s when I discovered books. I could lose myself in all kinds of different adventures for pure escape, or I could face my own problems by reading about people who were going through tough times like me, and find out that I wasn’t alone. Books helped me to make sense of the changes within my own little world, to gain understanding of my situation and my emotions, and to find ways to express my thoughts and feelings about such a complex topic as divorce. As I have continued reading over time, I believe I have gained a greater understanding of the human condition, and am more empathetic than I would be without books. The Power of Words Books also taught me new ways of communicating and thinking. I remember reading “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings” by Maya Angelou, and a particular line stood out to me. The author was describing a meeting with a teacher, who was trying to find the right words to say to illustrate her point. Instead of stating that the teacher was hesitant, the author said the teacher was “testing the taste of her words.” I remember being floored by that line - words had a taste? What a beautiful and lyrical way of putting it! It was at that moment that my eyes were opened to the incredible power of words, and that you could play with them in new and interesting ways to evoke emotions and drive thinking. Forced to Unplug When I was in Europe this summer, there were many times I didn’t have access to the internet, which showed me how heavily I rely on my phone and social media in order to be connected. I always thought that social media brought me closer together to people, because I could use Facebook to stay in touch with family and friends that live far away. While this is partly true, I found my phone and social media also disconnect me from my surroundings. When we had no access to internet, our study abroad group spent time talking to each other - really talking - and learned a lot about each other and our reasons for doing study abroad. Conversely, when we had internet access, everyone was silent and scrolling on their phones. Instead of being engaged in the present and forming connections, we were catching up on moments in the past that were already done and gone, and usually weren’t all that important to begin with. It seemed a little silly to spend time finding out that my friend got a latte at Starbucks that morning back home in America, instead of discussing the ancient city of Ephesus that our group toured that day while I was sitting there with them. While Facebook can be a great resource for archiving moments in our lives, I think the ease and convenience of it also compels us to add too much of the mundane. It can be a lot of clutter that pushes out the more important connections we could make if we were more invested in the present. Photo taken by me at Ephesus in Turkey, June 2015. A Picture is Worth…? It’s strange to think of photographs as a digital “literacy,” because I always think of literacy as being able to read, which in turn is for acquisition of knowledge. But I guess you can acquire knowledge from photographs as well, and they can tell stories too. Maybe that’s where the phrase, “A picture is worth a thousand words” come from? For me, I treasured pictures of my dad, because when my parents divorced he moved to another state. I spent summers with him, but during the school year I didn’t get to see him much, so pictures made me feel like a part of him was with me and watching over me. As I look at pictures from my life, I can see the ways in which I’ve grown, not just physically, but mentally and emotionally too. I can see the things that are important to me. But someone who doesn’t know me would also be able to gain a sense of the person I am from my pictures. A few years ago my aunt started working on a family tree, and collected pictures of family members. From those I got a glimpse of my dad’s life growing up, and could see how his childhood on a farm in rural South Dakota was vastly different from mine. Sometimes I think some of his ideas are old-fashioned, but when I saw those pictures, it helped me to understand the reasons why he believes them. Pictures can bridge the gap between what you imagine and what is reality. My dad and me.
How Do I Want To Represent Me?
My personal website reflects the things that are important to me, including family, friends, reading and writing, and travel. I created the website using the template from the HTML Tutorial from class, and by asking questions of a couple of classmates and the professor. I was able to add background pictures because of a classmate’s help. I also used the resources available on the class website such as the W3 Color Picker and Creative Commons photo search. This Is Confusing... I have never had any experience with HTML code before, so just understanding some of the terminology was a struggle. The CSS Properties link helped a lot with understanding how to make style adjustments to the website. Once I started to get used to the way the code was formatted, things got easier. I just had to remind myself that some of the code was on the HTML index and some of it was on the CSS style sheet. Sometimes my problems were solved simply by adding a semicolon, quotation marks, or other minor formatting element that I had forgotten. Other items weren’t so easy to fix, including things that needed javascript to run, so in the end my website is more simplistic than I was initially planning on. If I knew more about the code, I would arrange some of my pictures in a more artful way, including overlapping some of them for interest. The header would be more complex, possibly with a picture behind my name. I might also try to include some sort of animation. Essentially I would like it to look less simplistic, although I am pleased that I was able to do as much as I did, given that it was my first attempt. I keep comparing it to the Weebly templates I’ve used in the past and wishing it looked a little more professional and streamlined like they do. Give Me Strength The biggest strategy I used when completing the website was PATIENCE. Creating the website was time-consuming, and accepting that there would be limitations, and some trial and error attempts, helped me to keep moving forward. When things didn’t go as planned it was frustrating, but when I tried something new and it worked, it was very rewarding! Design Dilemmas I thought a lot about spacing and proximity in the design, trying to keep the website from looking too cluttered, and yet trying to make it look as sophisticated as I could. I used a lot of pictures for visual interest, and headers to give a quick overview of my main points. I relied heavily on visual and linguistic modes, mostly because they were the easiest to code. Color and contrast were very important because of my limited knowledge, and hopefully showcase the content in a pleasing way. I Meant To Do That I believe that anyone looking at my website will think that I am “old school” since I don’t have all the bells and whistles of a normal website, especially since I’m lacking social media icons. I tried to play into this to make it look intentional by using an old style font for the headers, and old-style pictures such as the fountain pen and mahogany library.
All images from the NBCF website.
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Heather HartselA self-confessed scaredy-cat who has gone skydiving, traveled solo thru Europe, and lived in Berlin for a month without being fluent in German. Motto: Never let fear keep you from living the life you've imagined. |