Hi again, welcome to engVid.com.
I'm Adam.
In today's video, I want to talk to you about
social media.
Now, all of you are, I'm sure, are aware of
social media.
There're the big companies like Facebook,
Instagram, Twitter, etc.
Social media has basically taken over almost
everyday life for a lot people, so today I
want to give you some vocabulary that you
might need in order to be able to talk about
social media or understand people who are
speaking about social media.
So, the first things I want to look at are
- I want to look at a couple of pronunciation
issues, and I want to look at people, people
you need to know who are on social media and
who affect everyday social media use.
So, the first thing I want to talk about is
Twitter and tweeter, okay?
Twitter is a big company that you can send,
you can post short messages and photos and
videos, etc.
And when you send out anything on Twitter,
that's the company name, so Twitter is the
company, and a tweet is the message or the
picture or video that you send out.
And a person who uses Twitter is called a
tweeter, okay?
Someone who tweets.
So, it - ee.
A very slight difference, but it's important
to understand.
If someone is talking about a tweeter they're
talking about a person.
Anyone who makes videos on YouTube is a youtuber.
Now, generally speaking, when we talk about
youtubers, we're talking about someone with
a following, someone who has a lot of subscribers,
or a lot of followers, a lot of people watching
their videos.
Right now, there are about - there's millions
of people making YouTube videos, you can't
call all of them youtubers.
The ones who are a bit more well known are
youtubers.
So, I'm a youtuber, let's put it this way.
And all the other EngVid teachers are youtubers.
Now, someone on YouTube or Instagram or Facebook
or any social media platform, and it's very
important to know this - all these social
media sites are platforms where people can
engage each other.
So, a person on a social media platform who
is very, very popular and many people following
and many subscribers, we call this person
an influencer, okay?
Some people say "YouTube star", star, okay,
so maybe very popular, but the more important
word is influencer, because this person has
the power to influence a lot of people.
So, advertisers and, like, a lot of big companies,
they try to get in touch with these influencers
to help them promote a product or sell a product
or an event or information, etc.
So, influencer.
So next, we have trolls and haters, okay.
Very similar but subtle difference between
the two.
A hater is just like the word says, a person
who hates.
So, there are people who go online and they
look through social media sites and look at
posts and pictures and whatever, and they
just put something negative.
They put some sort of bad comment - "I hate
you.", "You look ugly.", "You're stupid.",
"You're this and that".
These people have absolutely nothing else
to do, okay?
They're sitting at home, they're bored and
- "What should I do?
Ah okay, let me write some bad things to this
person".
Why?
Because it's anonymous.
What does anonymous mean?
It means nobody knows the identity of this
person.
So, a hater is basically somebody with nothing
to do, who is bored, gets online, and writes
bad things.
The best thing to do with haters is ignore
them.
If you're putting things on the internet,
if you're posting things on your Facebook
page, on your Instagram page, on your Twitter
page, whatever, and somebody comes and says
something negative, let it go.
Just move on.
It doesn't matter.
Don't worry about what this person says.
Even this person doesn't care about what he
or she is saying.
But then you have a troll.
Now, a troll is generally similar to a hater,
will usually come and write something negative,
the difference is that the hater, once he
or she has written something, they just forget
about it.
A troll is trying to get a reaction, which
- this makes a troll a lot more dangerous,
okay?
A troll will come and say something that he
or she knows will annoy you or irritate you
or make you angry or make you sad, but he
or she is hoping that you write something
back, because then they can write something
bad again, and they want this exchange.
Again, the best thing to do: ignore the trolls.
And you'll hear if you listen to the news
or you read newspapers, you hear about "trolling",
this is the action of what a troll does, you'll
hear about people trolling each other, famous
people trolling each other.
They're acting like little children.
Ignore them, ignore the trolls on your site,
move on.
Both of these people are considered cyberbullies.
Cyberbullying is a very, very serious social
phenomenon.
Very dangerous; it's making a lot of people
angry, it's increasing the suicide rate in
many cities and many countries.
It's very dangerous but also very difficult
to fight because of the anonymity, because
these people are anonymous, so in many cases
you don't know who is doing it.
You have a lot of, especially teenagers, who
are doing bad things to themselves because
of cyberbullying.
If you see it, do something.
Act against it, write against it, try to stop
it, but ignore it.
That's the main thing if it happens to you,
ignore it, move on.
Now, again, if you're on social media and
you have a lot of people who come and visit
your page or your site or whatever, these
are called followers.
They're essentially your fans.
And when we talk about all of your fans or
all of a person's fans, that is called the
fanbase.
These are all the people who are following
you, who are fans of your content, okay?
And that's what social media is all about,
it's about content.
It's about articles, it's about vlogs and
blogs, etc., about things that people put
online to share with other people.
I'll talk more about that as well.
Now, a very cool part of social media is something
called a flash mob.
It used to be very, very popular a few years
ago but it still happens every now and again.
A flash mob happens when somebody puts on
their social media feed, their social media
page, that they want people to come to a specific
location at a specific time and wait for a
signal.
And when that signal happens, everybody who
got this message will get together and start
doing a dance, okay.
They've practiced this, it was all shared
through social media, they know the song,
they know the steps, they know where everybody
should be, and these are all strangers who
got together to have fun and it's actually
a very interesting and very cool sight, okay.
So - there's good and bad to the social media
thing, but we'll get more about that.
Now, you can often hear about social media
campaigns.
Now, what is a campaign?
A campaign is an effort to do something, to
achieve something.
So, you'll have a lot of campaigns like educational
campaigns, ad campaigns, where they're pushing
a certain piece of information to get people
to buy something, to act on something, to
go somewhere, take some action, etc.
But a very interesting and becoming more and
more popular campaign is called crowdfunding.
So, there's a site or there're applications
called Kickstarter or GoFundMe, where people
have a very good idea and they need money
to make this idea come alive, so they create
a crowdfunding page, they create a crowdfunding
campaign, and people from all over the world
send them a little bit of money, and they
collect all this money, sometimes it can be
very huge quantities, and they take this money
and they can pursue their product.
Now, some people start companies, some people
invent a new machine, new technology, etc.,
so it's a very positive use of social media.
However, there are also a lot of scams.
A scam is like a trick to try to get something
from you, so a lot of people will get on these
sites and say, oh, you know, "My wife, she's
pregnant, but she has cancer and I need a
surgery for her but I don't have money, will
people please help me?"
And people are nice, they're generous and
friendly, they're helpful, they send money
to this person, but this person is not married,
is young, has nothing going on but, you know,
just taking the money and going on vacation.
So, you have to be very careful about the
places you send your money to.
Be very, very careful where you're sending
your money.
Now, crowdsourcing is very similar to funding,
but it has nothing to do with money.
Let's say I want to start a new website and
I have a very, very good idea for a service
to provide people.
The problem is that I have all the content,
but I don't actually know how to build a site.
I don't know how to make functions on the
site.
So, I can go to crowdsourcing sites, especially
social media sites, and I can ask people to
help write the code or look for people to
do the coding to help me build this site and
create my vision of the website.
So, crowdsourcing is getting people to help
you with actual work, with tasks, with their
knowledge, with their skills, which is actually
a very interesting thing.
A very good thing.
And now there's also something called Creative
Commons.
So, what social media has done is it connected
the world.
It made everybody be able to reach basically
everybody and work together.
So, Creative Commons, a lot of people are
sharing photos and videos and articles for
free, and they say you can use this information,
you don't have to pay me anything, there's
no license, if you want to use this picture
in your website, go ahead, it's free.
So, you get a Creative Commons license.
I'm going to go to black because I lost my
red [marker].
So, you get a Creative (Commons license.
You can go to some website where they have
some kind of really beautiful pictures and,
of course, there are websites where you have
to buy the picture and they're a little bit
expensive.
There are Creative Commons sites where you
can take the picture and use it and you have
a Creative Commons license, it means it's
not copyrighted.
It's free for everybody to use and share,
so it's a very nice thing.
Now, very common, very popular thing to do
on social media is a blog, which is a web
log, and that's basically people - you know,
it started off as people just writing their
ideas and thoughts and whatever.
It was like a journal and they shared it on
the world wide web.
Now, more common is vlog - video log, which
is essentially YouTube and other streaming
services where people can share videos about
anything and everything.
Now, clickbait.
Very interesting little situation here.
Click, you know, on the mouse, you click.
Bait, this word, bait, if any of you have
ever gone fishing, okay, you have your rod
and you have your line and at the end of your
line you have your hook.
If you throw this into the water, the fish
won't come.
They won't care, you know, it's just a piece
of metal.
But if you put a worm on the hook, or a piece
of bread, or another little fish, then other
bigger fish will come and bite it.
So, that's the bait.
The stuff you put on the hook to attract the
fish is called the bait.
So, clickbait is headlines, very powerful
headlines or pictures that really, all these
people want is for you to click on them.
The more you click, the more money they get.
The more visitors to their site they get,
the more advertising money they get, so be
careful about clickbait.
It's very, very tempting.
Now, I personally have clicked many things
that were just clickbait because you can't
help it, they're so attractive, you go to
them, you click, and then ah, clickbait!
And then you've wasted your time.
Feed.
Everything you put on your social media site
or social media platform is called a feed
or post.
On Twitter you put a post, on Facebook you
put a feed, and it goes up and down, and up
and down, and it keeps moving.
So, your feed is basically the collection
of posts, and they keep moving up and down.
The more posts people put on, the more crowded
the feed gets until nothing really matters
anymore.
And then, of course, unless something goes
viral, alright.
If it goes viral, it spreads very quickly
to a lot of people and it becomes very popular
until people forget about it and something
else becomes viral.
And then you have something that's trending.
Now, something that goes viral is one thing,
spreads very quickly.
Something that's trending is more of like
a topic and more and more people start talking
about it.
So, it's not one thing, it's one category,
and more people start adding things to it
to get the conversation going.
Trends last longer than viral posts or things.
Livestreaming is basically you're taking a
video and instead of recording it and then
posting it later, you're doing it live.
So, whatever the person is doing on the camera,
other people can see at the exact same time,
and then you can even communicate with people
who are livestreaming.
This is becoming more and more popular.
And that's why we have something, it's more
and more streaming media.
More and more live video broadcasting, okay?
Now, something that happens on a mass scale,
this is a very important phrase.
Mass means a lot or big.
Scale means size, so a big size.
So, anything that happens on a mass scale
means it affects a lot of people; travels
to a lot of places.
It's a very, very big audience, I guess you
could call it.
An app is short for application, so anything
you don't do on your desktop computer, you
do it on your mobile computer, it is specifically
set just for that platform.
For example, Twitter, you can do on your desktop
computer.
If you want to do it on your phone, you download
the Twitter application, and that application
is only for Twitter and it doesn't interact
with other things.
Hashtag.
Hashtags used to be very popular, they're
still popular, but a hashtag basically looks
like this: # and then whatever words come
after it.
A hashtag just connects this word to other
posts that have the same hashtag.
So, if you put something with a hashtag, it
will connect with all the other posts with
the same hashtag so it's easier to find information
about a particular thing.
A meme - the pronunciation meme, not meh meh
or mi mi or whatever, meme.
A meme is basically a picture or an expression
or a video, a short video, that is taken out
of its context, out of its original context
and lots of different things are added to
it and it gets sent back out onto the internet.
So, for example, somebody posts a picture
of a smiling baby.
And then somebody else takes that picture
of the smiling baby and puts that smiling
baby surrounded by lions and then they say,
"Who's happier?", right?
And then someone takes the baby and puts it
in a different situation; someone takes the
baby like it's speaking something.
They take one picture or one thing and put
it in many different contexts because they
think it's funny.
Okay, so lastly, we have something called
phishing.
So, like I mentioned before, it's similar
to clickbait but it's a lot more dangerous
and a lot more negative.
So, first of all, notice that I have phishing
with a "ph", so "ph" can sound like "f", so
it's phishing with a "ph" not fishing with
an "f" like the fish, okay.
So, what is phishing?
One of the problems with social media is that
people can interact with people directly and
they can sort of establish relationships.
So, what people do with phishing is they try
to connect with people who are -- maybe they
need a friend, maybe they're lonely, they
try to become friends with them.
They try to attract them and gain their trust
and then they will run a scam on them.
They will try to steal something from them.
Steal their identity, steal money, steal anything
they can, and that's the whole purpose of
phishing.
So, if you meet strangers online, especially
on social media, always have a little bit
of questioning.
Like, don't 100 percent trust any stranger,
just like you wouldn't trust a stranger on
the street that you just meet for the first
time, don't trust somebody you just meet on
the internet.
And again, some of these people will spend
months or years trying to gain your trust
until they can finally work out their scam.
So, be careful.
Always use common sense on the internet.
So, again, as you see, the social media.
Good uses, bad uses, use your common sense
to know which is which.
Enjoy the social media; be a little bit wary,
be a little bit careful and always keep your
eyes open.
Be sure you know what you're doing, okay?
So, I hope this was a little bit helpful.
You're going to be on the computer, social
media is getting bigger.
Know the words, know what's going on, take
care of yourself.
If you have any questions about any of this,
please go to www.engvid.com and ask me there.
There's also a quiz; you can practice this
vocabulary and make sure you understand it.
If you like the video, give me a like.
Don't forget to subscribe to my YouTube channel
and come back for more helpful videos on English
and other things, okay?
See you again soon.
Bye.
