Love Patterns: Bandwidth Affair

The human race has become more integrated than ever before. From a corporate standpoint, companies have become more socially aware of issues in communities to provide better services and opportunities. The data that has been collected through our engagement with social media, spending habits and third party information is collected for further use. This has led to higher interaction with consumers and other companies in the public eye. Sharing their concerns, promises and innovations to solve issues. Capitalism is still the backbone of our society and recently the social movements that have emerged from the injustices have exposed the true nature of these major corporations. 

Clothing pieces from Gucci & Prada sparked outrage in 2019. In 2020 companies voiced their support for the BLM movement with statements of solidarity and vague donations. These acts are corporate facades only to enhance their public image. The trading fiasco between Reddit users and Wall Street was a revolutionary uprising. Society coming together in numbers and sharing information was digital poetic justice, in response to the insane delays of stimulus funds, to the millions affected by the pandemic in the US.

Media outlets were the collective voice of the people. Sue Ellen Browder, the veteran journalist for the Cosmopolitan in the 1970s, admitted using propaganda to sell stories to women and encourage a fantasy lifestyle. This influenced the feminist movement in the wrong direction. 

"When you start betraying the truth it will come back to haunt you", she confesses years later. 

This same target audience was part of the success of talk shows 20 years later, which furthered the scapegoat mentality. Seeing the family and relationship dynamic fall apart on television will naturally cause viewers to challenge issues in their lives from a harsh perspective. If the shows focused on the mechanics to build a healthy relationship rather than the destructive factor for entertainment purposes, we would be having a different conversation.

Author Ali Shahrazard stated in her lecture on her book tour, The Blackmans Guide to Understanding the Black Woman. Single mothers that consumed family television shows, were their sole reference for seeing how families operated. The dysfunction would eventually be sought out in reality. Seeking out scenarios that would almost mirror their desired outcomes to get the happy ending, goes against the true nature of building a family.

60% of women are single, widowed, and divorced during the '90s.

We have mixed up our priorities, we can't go outside the home and fix the problems until we fix what's inside the home.

To submit means to agree, we submit to society's rules every day why not submit to him.

Popular romcoms have become more centred around fantasies which alter the narratives and perceptions when operating in relationships or considering partners. The issue is not the octane feeling of love but the themes in films as of late are being crafted around falsified scenarios. This can cause alterations in our minds when thinking about our futures and the partners within them. Films with the narrative of situationships have gained attention because of how long people are within them. 

R&B isn't showcasing the power of falling in love like it used to. The themes are moody and selfish, mirroring our dating experiences and relationships. Spotify's top R&B song of the decade was Ella Mai's single Boo'd up. It was the only song on the list specifically talking about the bliss of wanting to be in a relationship. This message was being broadcast through the airwaves and was well received by many of us, willing to embrace the frequency of love and unison.

Swiping to find the best deal on goods and services, has been applied to dating. Hyper scanning compatibility through physical features, traits and skills. Being disregarded for not being selected by our desired preferences can scientifically lead to depression and other negative emotions which will impair how we view ourselves. Viral internet social experiments conducted with the dating app formula are simply replicating the traumatic effect of rejection and showing the revenge pathology of men conducting the experiments. We are more accustomed to networking via social media than in person. Emotional guards are at an all-time high. 

The data collected from each swipe is used to calculate the best outcome to meet a success rate. Studies conducted by computer scientists Timnit Gebru & Joy Buolamwini prove that some of the world's largest search engines display biased results in their AI algorithms, which they claim are unethical. Miss Gebru was later blackballed by Google for her research in AI ethics. Proving that the lack of accuracy towards women and people of colour can discriminate against them. The program's error rates would increase by up to 20% when presented with dark skin women but only 0.8% with light skin men. Miss Buolamwini states that the same data metrics used to identify someone's gender are also used to search for a criminal suspect. Most corporations use the same AI software including dating apps.

In accordance with these findings, the more swipes on women of a particular complexion, the less chance of darker skin women being suggested as dating candidates. In hindsight, the data suggestions would alter our preferences to suit the quota of data used that is held within these company data banks. Our preference would be down to the AI and not us. This will continue to distort the connection we have with ourselves and each other.

A relationship is between two people and a third party. It used to be our family and close friends but now its social media, with unknown potential. In order for love to flourish in the social collective network, we must let go of the conditions we have placed on potential partners and ourselves to experience it's true bliss. "We are in the service industry", Chris Rock. We are social beings designed to serve each other but we have downloaded the wrong software. It is critical we upload the right software to change and maintain the correct influence that has been passed on from previous generations, to ensure we don't lose the true sense of our identity and appreciation for each other in this digital age.