Since I was a little girl I was lucky enough to see myself, or characters I identified with, all over the media. I am a twenty year old, American, white, heterosexual, female, from an upper middle class family. Until recently, I never really thought about my identity. That is in large part because my whole life I have fit with the mold of the majority, and I have not been alienated or discriminated against for the categories I identify with. However, in recent years I realized the aspect of my identity that has impacted my life the most is being a woman.

I found a meme on the internet of Donald Trump and I immediately questioned its validity. Since Trump was elected president, and throughout his entire campaign, people have infamously created memes of him that are not accurate. Someone posts quotations and a picture, and people take it as truth. As a result, my initial reaction to the quote, “If Hillary Clinton can’t satisfy her husband, what makes her think she can satisfy America,” was that it was fake. First, it appears unrealistic because the commentary has no connection to Clinton’s skills as a politician and is instead, a low blow insult. Consequently, I used INvid to reverse search the image. I found that the image, without the quote on top, had been used many times on the internet and in articles. In fact, the image was originally taken while Trump was hosting The Apprentice in 2005. This is interesting, because further research showed the meme was not made until 2017. The video stated that date and time in pictures is very important, and using a twelve year old photo makes the image seem inaccurate. I also checked the validity of the quote itself. Donald Trump did in fact tweet that quote on April 14, 2015. It is curious why this quote was used in a meme from a picture taken in 2005, instead of a screenshot of the tweet itself. Nonetheless, research showed the quote was actually tweeted by Trump. Even though this quote was real, with so many inaccurate posts circulating the internet, it is important to always check validity.

As part of an assignment I tracked my media consumption for twenty-four hours. Prior to the assignment, I never thought about the time I wasted on my phone or the damaging effects of social media on my psyche.