Former "Jeopardy!" champion and digital media commentator Arthur Chu addressed several issues Internet users face during a presentation Monday in Elon University's Lakeside meeting rooms.
Students packed the room to hear The Daily Beast writer deliver the inaugural speech of the Lauren Dunne Astley Memorial Lectures 2016 — Changing the Conversation: Tackling the New Frontier of Online Harassment.
Chu gained notoriety after an 11-game winning streak on "Jeopardy!" But that fame brought an onslaught of media attention — both vehemently positive and negative. His experiences have led him to crafting his speech and popular article, “Your Princess is in Another Castle: Harassment and Bullying in Gaming Culture and Digital Media,"
The article was a reflection on the historical understanding of terms such as cyberbullying and the foundations of sexism and racism that act as the foundation of harassment.
"Internet is a tool, one that is neither positive nor negative but by definition a force multiplier — an object that gives a person the ability to do something they were already doing with greater intensity and efficiency." Chu said.
Chu added that the Internet has heightened a problem that has long been an issue: bullying. He said bullying was a live interaction from which victims often had a period of respite when they went home. With the Internet, that period of respite is reneged by the potential for the bullying to go viral. This allows for 24/7 real-time connectedness in which the bullying can follow the victim home and be around all the time.
Giving the example of “Star Wars kid”, a video of 15-year-old who used a plastic rod to pantomime wielding a light saber that went viral, Chu noted more people can participate in cyber bullying today because social interaction was previously limited to people known or seen daily.
Chu provided an example of an article written by Washington Post reporter Ann Hornaday in response to a video posted by the culprit of the 2014 Isla Vista killings stating he was seeking retribution from women who rejected him.
Hornaday’s article explained the video reflected a message often seen on screen and received 23 percent positive response, whereas Chu wrote a more profane article of the same message and received 75 percent positive response. This example was used to show how women are seen on the Internet today as a punch line rather than an equal.
Chu’s presentation that delved into the history of sexism and cyber bullying resonated profoundly with students as they left the room pondering his statements.
Tony Weaver, a senior strategic communications major and founder of Weird Enough Productions — a multimedia company dedicated to creating positive media content of people of color — was upset about the injustices Chu mentioned during his speech.
"The most important thing was just understanding that representations have an effect on the way people live their lives," Weaver said. "From a consumer, you have to realize that what you’re looking at isn’t how the real world is. From a creative perspective, artists need to understand that the content we create doesn’t exist in a vacuum and it does have an active effect on how people are treated."