Facebook

The assignment for today was to look at a page on facebook of someone who you loosely know and tell how it relates to things learned in Ethnic Studies. The individual, who will remain anonymous is a former teammate of mine on my high school soccer team. Things such as race, class, gender and sexuality are evident throughout his facebook web page. Though there is not a lot of information, the viewer can made generalizations about the page on their own.

First, the person is a male and according to his listing is attracted to women. It is also evident within the pictures that are on facebook that he prefers women. In addition to the pictures, while viewing them it can be seen that there are no people of color in any of the pictures. This could be simple coincidence or it could be very much a preference. the person who owns this profile is Italian American and is very proud of his ancestry because of the pictures of his tattoo's and the groups he joined. To relate to gender, he has chosen very masculine things such as working out to put into his profile. Of course, it is a generalization to say that putting ESPN as your first TV show is masculine but for the most part it applies in this situation.

One question that I have is why this person did not have a picture of at least one African American in his pictures? After graduating from a school where 25% of the population is African American, it seems almost unreal that he would not have at least one picture with an African American in it. Also, the profile in general is very sparse. It could be that it is a masculine way to keep things personal and inside.

I enjoyed this assignment because it showed a different aspect of how you can judge people's responses to questions. Noticing how people respond to questions such as music and other forms of entertainment can really speak volumes about the person you are studying.