Reflection on Map | DR/CC 2021

Mapping Project Reflection

How did you determine the topic and focus for the project? Did you come to this decision easily? What other possibilities did you consider, and how did you make your final choice?

We determined the general topic based on, I think, both of us having interest in how fans interact in online spaces, particularly social media. Britt had a lot more familiarity with the Taylor Swift situation(s) at hand at the start and we discovered more about the hashtag together as we were doing research for this map. I think it was tricky at first to narrow it down to the particular hashtag, as at first it was more of an interest in how Taylor Swift is discussed in social media that we talked a bit about, but once we found the hashtag and saw how it was circulating and being reused over time we realized that this would probably be a good object to focus in on for analysis and mapping, Some other possibilities that we considered included tracing fan edits of Swift songs and lyrics online—which would have involved kind of looking at how fans work with and manipulate images and videos to go along with Swift’s songs and trying to see how that has evolved / continued over the years. However, this seemed like it would have been a much more involved undertaking, trying to trace out this popular activity among fans that has been going on steadily for years now. We also briefly considered trying to trace through the phenomena of fans trying to deduce new information about Swift’s potential album releases and themes, making video essays and social media posts trying to piece together “clues” from Swift’s own social media postings, like a collaborative game. However, we didn’t pursue this because it again seemed like it could quickly become a lot of information to try and parse through, and we weren’t quite sure of how we would go about searching for posts and tracing the activity of fans for a particular album.

2. How did you collaborate on this project? What roles did each member play?

We both worked together on a Google Doc and then on a Prezi to create connected nodes related to the emergence, usage, and evolution of this hashtag over time. Britt started off with the basic format for the Prezi and the circular theme, and I added to that across the nodes with arrows and mini circles / bubbles pointing out recurring major themes across the nodes as well. I worked on the social media combing and hashtag / meme format background of the mapping as well, while Britt focused on the particulars of the John Mayer and Calvin Harris situations that came up in relation to the hashtag in both major emergences as well as giving background based off of the Miss Americana documentary and additional background knowledge and research about Swift and the various controversies that played into the creation and circulation of the hashtag (which we pulled from the Google Doc sources we compiled and just general background knowledge. We both tried to add and work with visual elements throughout, and I added some extra visuals to the Miss Americana subtopic as well to try and break up some of the extra needed background information a bit more.

3. What type of map with you make? Why was that the best choice for this project? What software did you use? Why?

We ended up making a map of circular, recurring nodes with Prezi. We wanted the theme, motion, and shaping of the map to focus on the re-emerging, not fully linear nature of the use of this hashtag, and the ways in which even its “original” form had predecessors that then fed into future reuses of the tag years down the line. In many ways, usage of this hashtag emerged from a particular context but quickly became about much more than just that initial context, calling backward toward other incidents (like with ex-relationships Swift was involved in) and predicting future relevance of the tag (sometimes subversively, as in pointing out how usage of the tag “backfires” when Swift continues to have successful album sales figures or tours). We wanted our map to reflect that and also to reflect that there are multiple points of entry to begin to understand the usage of the tag—you can skip around the map many different ways to understand how the tag is used, though wherever you end up will also end up pointing you to the other nodes for additional information and context of what could be going on in a given usage.

4. What did you learn about mapping and spatial modes of communication during this project?

I learned a lot about trying to use Prezi to move and focus in on topics in a less linear way than I had previously used it for. I tried to think throughout about whether form was corresponding well with the topic at hand and giving the sort of same impression that I felt as I was learning more about the usage of tag myself: that idea that everything was kind of feeding into everything else in how this hashtag was deployed, and that it was going around and around to become used in wildly differing contexts from where it first originated. It was a little bit dizzying, but I thought that was appropriate given how the interconnections can overlap so much and can get a little bit piled on, like that gag with the food conveyor belt that starts backing up because it keeps coming back and back around but we haven’t been able to fully process what was in front of us to begin with just yet.

5. What do you like most about this project?

I like the breadth we were able to cover given the usage of the tag, and I liked trying to search through Twitter to find representative examples of how the hashtag was circulated, even though it was a bit more challenging than expected to do so. I think that getting at least a snapshot, however, of how the tag was used and circulated in the moment was useful in understanding how a hashtag can continue to find new life and topics can become remixed and revisited through that tag, which makes it accessible to different audiences at different times. I also really liked all the bubbles and connections we were able to put between nodes, and I think we could have even put more, though that might have been too much for what the map aims to do: map / represent, not fully catalogue on a one-to-one basis.