Since nothing much new in the tween world has been occurring on Facebook or on Allykatzz, I decided to turn to Twitter and to a new web forum, gurl.com, in order to to gather some new material for my practicum project.I decided to be a little bit stereotypical in order to find the tween world on Twitter...so I decided to follow Justin Bieber's Twitter account and start from there. The thing about Twitter, though, is that people are not encouraged to share their personal details, including age. Though I found a multitude of Twitter users on Justin's account who fit the posting styles of the tweens I studied on Facebook and on Allykatzz, I did not know for sure if they really were tweens. Thus, I decided to scrap my plans to study the tween Twitter world, and I signed up for a web forum called gurl.com.
Gurl.com describes itself in its About Me page as "an online community and content site for teenage girls that is all kinds of awesome." Though the majority of its users are teenagers and even some 20+ year olds, I found a community of younger girls using the forums as well. There were some girls as young as 11--definitely tweenage--and many 13-year-olds (still tweens). I saw that gurl.com users were more mature than Allykatzz tweens or Facebook tweens (either in the content they talked about or in the way they typed). I think part of the reason why is because younger girls on the forums are exposed to older opinions, more mature issues and to the way older people talk all the time, and so adopt those ideas and ways of posting as their own. The discussion boards on gurl.com cover many things; topics run the gamut from love & sex, body issues, money & jobs, drugs & alcohol, travel, spirituality, other passions, to support & recovery (like rape support, abuse support). Here is a screenshot of some of the boards, and you can see "Hot Answers" on the side as well as top tags.
The similarities to tweens' posts on Facebook and on Allykatzz are few. Forum users here are definitely more mature, and though the "survey" boards are definitely the most popular on the Younger Girls board (which can be compared to both the chain mail posts and to the answering of questions), most tween users focus on posting or replying to posts focusing on body image, boys, and general support for personal problems. Tween posters are less likely to have spelling mistakes, grammar mistakes, or use a lot of question marks/exclamation marks. As well, the abundance of older girls on the boards at gurl.com appear to have a big sibling type influence on the younger girls--younger girls look to older girls to advice, and sometimes give advice of their own. Here is a screenshot of a tween giving advice to another girl on whether or not she was date raped.
I have noticed that due to the maturity of some topics discussed (like sex, suicide prevention, body image issues, etc.), tweens are basically pushed to swallow older material, whether they are actively looking for the material or not. I have not decided if that is a good thing or not--on one hand, I'm all for being mature at a young age, but on the other hand, maybe tweens are missing out on some of the innocence they should be entitled to, being a tween? Not completely sure. Thoughts?
This was a really interesting post, and I like how you have utilized a bunch of different websites for your research. This particular post caught my eye because I remember that I used to be a member of gurl.com when I was about 12. I was literally obsessed with the website and everything that came with it. I remember really liking how there was some sort of community built around the site that was filled with girls just like me that were around my age. However, it has been 8 years since the last time I used that website and they STILL email me newsletters all the time, even though I deactivated my account a long time ago.
ReplyDeleteI noticed through your post that in the time that has passed since I used to use gurl.com, the website has definitely upgraded aesthetically and in the way in which it's organized. I also think there are a lot more options and features now that we it didn't use to offer a couple of years ago.
I think the idea of checking out a tween online world is so interesting to begin with, and I never heard of the website Allykatzz or gurl.com before. I also think it was a good idea for you to follow Justin Bieber on Twitter in order to check out how tweens are reacting. Because Twitter is not age-based, I understand you not being able to figure out who is truly a tween.
ReplyDeleteGurl.com, although I have never heard of the website previously, seems like the perfect website to join when studying tweens…because it is “all kinds of awesome.” I am surprised that teenagers and 20+ year olds use this website because, even by the website name, it seems pretty amateurish. It is interesting that you noticed that the tweens using this website seem more mature than those using Allykatzz and Twitter. They probably want to fit in with the more advanced nature of the site, which allows them to act and type in a more mature way. Also, the topics covered in the discussion boards seem more mature, which is probably another reason these tweens are acting this way.
I think it’s also interesting that you noticed that the older girls give the younger tweens advice on these boards. I feel like they created this online community and tweens are able to trust the advice and opinions from the older girls on the site.
I think the Internet and the many options of these online sites definitely make tweens mature more quickly than they would have in the past. When I was younger, I was playing computer games, but now young girls are writing about sex and body image issues on websites such as this one. I think that tweens are missing out on some of the innocence they should be entitled to as a tween, but with today’s day and age I no longer think that is possible.