Since my last practicum blog I have removed myself from Quepasa. Like I stated during my presentation, being part of the site was kind of creepy because I felt like I was stuck in the middle of a dating site even though I had listed that I have a boyfriend.
Today I attempted to add some more friends on migente because I still only have one. My main attempt is to get some friends that are girls so I can talk to them about their experiences on the site. I say I want to add females because I feel like every time I chat with a male they think I might be interested in more than just talking on the site. The norms with Latinos are different than those displayed by other minority groups.
While I was on the site noodles123 started talking to me on the chat option of the site. He said he was a 27 year old male that was living in FL but was originally from Puerto Rico. Once he shared that information with me I began speaking to him in Spanish. Not only is speaking in Spanish good practice for me but like I said in my presentation it is also a popular norm on sites dedicated to the Latino population online. noodle123 asked me if I was Hispanic and I said no. He complimented me on my Spanish but then called me a gringa (basically means white girl). This is not an offensive term but it made me think that for future research I want to see if this is one of the reasons as to why I am struggling to make female friends on migente. One of the questions that is running through my mind is if there are stereotypes against "gringos" being on a site dedicated to the Latino population. Are Latina girls against being friends with white girls? My plan for the rest of the semester is to try to take a more active research approach instead of just spending my time observing other users with the hopes of making friends and figuring out if in fact stereotypes of this sort exist on these sites.
On a side note: Does anyone know how to copy and paste text into the new post test box?
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