Sarvnaz Michel, a 28-year-old nurse who works in St. Jude Medical Center’s COVID-19 unit, video chats with her grandmother, Acar Sharifi, in her home July 14, 2020, in Garden Grove, Calif. Michel’s career has forced her to blur and blend her two lives. She juggles decisions like breastfeeding during a pandemic and whether she should move out of her home to keep her son and husband safe. “The thought of infecting either of them or my family,” she said. Her voice breaks and her husband, Cody, rubs her back. “It’s crazy.” (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)
In an insanely challenging year, many have found joy in an uncommon place: the internet. From skateboarding while drinking cranberry juice to “Rate My Zoom Room” twitter accounts, content creators and regular folks have found ways to get creative online.
This hour on Disrupted, we talk about this phenomena and the growth of Tik Tok. We also hear about how joy can be an act of resistance; and, how we can incorporate play into the monotony of pandemic life.
GUESTS:
Rebecca Jennings – a reporter with VOX covering internet culture
David Dennis, Jr. – Writer, Adjunct Professor of Journalism at Morehouse College and author of The Defiance of Black Joy in an Especially Anti-Black Year
Ian Bogost – Contributing writer at The Atlantic, Ivan Allen College Distinguished Chair in Media Studies and Professor of Interactive Computing at the Georgia Institute of Technology and author of “Play Anything: The Pleasure of Limits, The Uses of Boredom, and the Secret of Games”
Viral Moments of 2020:
- Nathan Apodaca’s Fleetwood Mac and Ocean Spray Tiktok
- Dancing videos
- “Blinding Lights” Challenge
- Cottage Core sub-culture
- Tabitha Brown
- Among Us memes and tiktoks
- Megan Thee Stallion dancing video
- Leslie Jones commentary
- Rate Your Zoom/Skype Room
- Korean Dad tik toks
- and “Is it cake?” memes
