W 
 

hen I arrived at the 
University of Michigan 
at the beginning of 
freshman year, my friends and I 
discovered Bird electric scooters on 
the Diag. I’d never ridden e-scooters 
since they had not yet made it to 
my native New York City, where 
Citi Bike and Uber reign supreme. 
“Pick up and drop off anywhere,” 
the app promised, for only 15 cents 
per minute. We took them for a spin. 
Soon we were hooked. We used Bird 
to get to class on time, explore the 
Ann Arbor downtown scene and visit 
friends on North Campus, all for only 
a dollar or two a ride. Birds solved the 
busy student’s central problem: how 
to quickly get to a destination that 
is beyond a walk for a low cost. We 
kept saying to ourselves, “Why hadn’t 
somebody come up with this years 
ago?”
After weeks of Birds popping up 
everywhere in Ann Arbor, the city 
began confiscating them off the 
street. Riders had driven Birds on 
sidewalks in violation of ordinances 
and left them parked in the street. 
Then, in September, the city of Ann 
Arbor talked about limiting Birds 
further. In an instant, it seemed the 
app that had given us inexpensive 
freedom and utility for weeks 
was now the vice of delinquent 
troublemakers. I set out to better 
understand the Bird: What are the 
dangers? Do e-scooters bring more 
benefit than harm to Ann Arbor? 
What I found is that Bird is the 
future of transportation for students 
at the University of Michigan.
First, financially, Birds are for 
everyone. It is possibly the most 
egalitarian transportation available 
on campus. College is expensive 
and an Uber or Lyft comes with set 
minimum fees and a calculated route 
that can add cost. It’s hard to take an 
Uber anywhere on campus for less 
than $7. Bird offers point A to point 
B transportation for a dollar to start 
and only 15 cents per minute! You 
can get from the Hill Neighborhood 
to the Diag for slightly more than 
a dollar, and you’ll never miss that 
lecture again. Furthermore, Birds 
are far less expensive than bicycles. 
An average “lifestyle” bicycle is 
priced upwards of $250, and more 
specialized mountain bikes go for 
$2,000 and more. In addition, you 
have to account for maintenance, 
repair and a bike lock or two. During 
Welcome Week, we’re told that one 

of the most frequently stolen items 
on campus is a bicycle. So, for the 
hundreds of dollars you’d need to 
sink into a bike and accessories, you 
could just take Birds for the semester. 
Second, Birds are one of the 
most 
environmentally 
friendly 
transportation services on campus. 
The watts of electricity used by 
a Bird is nominal, so even if the 
energy is originally created by a 
fossil-fuel-burning power plant, the 
environmental harm is negligible. 
As electric generation in the state 
of Michigan gradually transitions 
to natural gas, solar and wind, the 
environmental argument for Birds 
becomes more compelling. E-scooters 
can also persuade people to use public 
transportation because most scooter 
trips are in the last mile of transit, that 
one to two-mile gap from the station 
to the final destination.
Third, 
Bird’s 
e-scooters 
are 
the 
most 
consumer-oriented 
transportation choice. You pay only 
for what you want and for as long 
as you want it. Birds don’t have a 
waiting period of upwards of seven 
minutes which typical for an Uber, 
taxi or bus. Just scan it with your 
phone and go. Birds take you exactly 
where you want to go, right to the 
front door. Because of the à la carte 
nature of Birds, there is no obligation 
to maintain or lock it up when you’re 
finished. Just park it on the sidewalk, 
out of the way of pedestrian traffic, 
and go about your day.
But what are the downsides of 
these e-scooters? The most frequently 
cited concern is the potential for 
accident and death. Major city 
newspapers, like the Los Angeles 
Times, report alarming upticks in 
e-scooter-related 
hospital 
visits, 
from scrapes and bruises to severe 
head injuries. As Bird and Lime, two 
dominant e-scooter providers, both 
launched their multi-city expansions 
in 2017, reliable statistics for these 
incidents have not yet been compiled. 
For the meantime, all we have to 
go on are anecdotal, often alarmist, 
news reports of e-scooter accidents 
and fatalities.
Since their launches in two 
dozen cities over a year ago, 
Bird reports approximately 10.5 
million rides and Lime reports 11 
million rides. From the combined 
companies’ 
recorded 
deaths 
involving their rideables, e-scooter 
usage involves approximately one 
death for every 10.75 million rides. 

By comparison, bicycles appear to 
be quite dangerous and expensive 
from a health care perspective, and 
yet remain a celebrated mode of 
transportation. The medical journal 
Injury Prevention at the University 
of 
California, 
San 
Francisco 
recently reported there were 3.8 
million bicycle accidents and 9,839 
deaths in the U.S. from 1997 to 2013. 
In 2016, there were approximately 
470,000 bicycle accidents and 840 
deaths in the U.S. The majority 
of those deaths (30 percent) were 
caused by being struck by an 
automobile and the next largest 
statistic 
(20 
percent) 
involved 
bicycle riders not paying attention or 
suffering rider error. The majority 
of bicycle fatalities (58 percent) do 
not occur at intersection locations 
and only 4 percent occurred in 
bike lanes. The time period of 6:00 
p.m. to 9:00 p.m. had the highest 
frequency of bike fatalities (26 
percent) and alcohol involvement 
(BAC of .01) was reported in 35 
percent of the crashes that resulted 
in bicycle fatalities. Despite these 
rather gruesome statistics, there 
is no local or national call to 
eliminate bicycles in our country. 
Virtually all of the responses to 
the dangers of bicycle use propose 
the imposition of stricter safety 
regulations, changing user habits 
or improving transportation laws 
and infrastructure. Apply these 
precautions to Bird and you’ll make 
them just as safe as bicycles.
Similarly, the approach by the 
University and the city to the arrival 
of the e-scooter should be to find 
ways to encourage e-scooter usage, 
admittedly with improved safety 
and security. The University and the 
city government should encourage 
a scenario in which e-scooter 
companies like Bird unite with 
bicycle manufacturers to advocate 
for a shared solution. As scooters 
operate at much slower speeds 
than bicycles, the use of scooters 
on sidewalks should be evaluated. 
Electric rideables should be allowed 
wherever bicycles are legal, like 
bike lanes and protected paths. The 
statistics from decades of bicycle data 
should be used to craft sensible policy 
that recognizes the brilliant potential 
of an 
electric scooter future in 
Ann Arbor.

Opinion
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
4A — Friday, October 19, 2018

Emma Chang
Ben Charlson
Joel Danilewitz
Samantha Goldstein
Emily Huhman

Tara Jayaram
Jeremy Kaplan
Lucas Maiman
Magdalena Mihaylova
Ellery Rosenzweig
Jason Rowland

Anu Roy-Chaudhury
Alex Satola
Ali Safawi
Ashley Zhang
Sam Weinberger

DAYTON HARE
Managing Editor

420 Maynard St. 
Ann Arbor, MI 48109
 tothedaily@michigandaily.com

Edited and managed by students at the University of Michigan since 1890.

ALEXA ST. JOHN
Editor in Chief
 ANU ROY-CHAUDHURY AND 
ASHLEY ZHANG
Editorial Page Editors

Unsigned editorials reflect the official position of the Daily’s Editorial Board. 
All other signed articles and illustrations represent solely the views of their authors.

EDITORIAL BOARD MEMBERS

HANNAH HARSHE | COLUMN

Marketing to Gen Z
I

t seems that all people 
can talk about lately are those 
pesky millennials and their 
consumer habits, whether it means 
buying avocado toast or Kylie 
Jenner lipsticks. What we often 
seem to forget, however, is that 
the millennial generation is now 
comprised of adults and Generation 
Z is no longer comprised of babies. 
In fact, Gen Z, or the demographic 
group made up of those born 
between the late 1990s and around 
2015, will account for 40 percent 
of all consumers by 2020. This 
means that we’ll likely see a vast 
change in mainstream forms of 
advertising in the next few years as 
Gen Z’s consumer preferences are 
fundamentally different to those of 
millennials.
One 
example 
of 
such 
strategies is Dote, a shopping app 
that’s targeted mainly at Gen Z 
consumers. Dote works as a virtual 
mall: It allows users to select items 
from over 140 retailers, pay only one 
time (rather than pay separately to 
each retailer) and receive all the 
items in one package. According to 
Fashionista, “the typical Dote user 
is a female between the ages of 13 
and 22 years old. She visits the app 
about four times a day and spends 
an average of 40 minutes on it.”
How did these users find out 
about Dote? It wasn’t through 
traditional advertising. I learned 
about Dote through my younger 
sister, Brianna Harshe, who, at 12 
years old, is smack in the middle of 
Gen Z and an avid user of Dote.
“I watch a lot of YouTubers 
like Hannah Meloche and Summer 
Mckeen,” Harshe explained to me. 
“I got Dote because I saw them 
talking about it. They went on a 
bunch of trips because of Dote and 
they would advertise for Dote on 
their trips. It didn’t really matter to 
me that it was advertising because 
they were still going to Fiji and stuff 
because of it.”
What is she talking about? 
Well, Meloche and Mckeen are 
high-school-age 
social 
media 
personalities who avidly post on 
Instagram, Twitter and YouTube 
about 
everything 
from 
their 
makeup routines to their inside 
jokes with their friends. They 

recently went on a luxury vacation 
to Fiji with several other social 
media personalities. All expenses 
of the trip were covered by Dote. 
As members of Gen Z tend to do, 
they posted countless photos on 
Instagram and videos on YouTube 
of their trip. In every photo and 
video, they made sure to tag Dote, 
or at least thank them for the trip. 
Boom: Every Gen Z member who 
already watches Meloche’s and 
Mckeen’s videos has now been 
exposed to Dote. This isn’t the first 
trip that Dote has sent girls on. In 
the past, the “Dote Girls” have been 
to Miami, Aspen, Colo., Malibu, 
Calif. and even the music festival 
Coachella (or “Dotechella”).
The reason that Dote appeals 
so much to Gen Z is that its founder 
and CEO, Lauren Farleigh, chose to 
advertise in a way that truly reached 
this segment. Gen Z is often called 
the iGeneration because it’s the first 
generation that can’t remember 
a 
world 
without 
smartphones 
and social media. Because of 
this, according to Forbes, “While 
traditional celebrities once had a 
monopoly on influence, ‘regular’ 
people are now gaining influence 
online based on their unique voices, 
opinions and perspectives.”
Harshe affirms this sentiment: 
“I trust the YouTubers I watch 
because they’re a lot more genuine. 
It seems like they’re showing their 
true selves. With a lot of celebrities, 
it seems like they just put on a mask 
to please people. … I usually find out 
about products from YouTubers, 
even if it’s on Instagram or 
another app. It’s more like a friend 
recommending me a product than a 
commercial.”
Members of Gen Z are generally 
cognizant of this generational gap. 
They see traditional advertising 
techniques 
and 
celebrity 
endorsements, but they tune them 
out fairly easily. Dote was able 
to catch onto this difference and 
use it to its advantage. “From our 
perspective, we see these retailers 
who haven’t fully identified or 
caught up with that shift,” Farleigh 
told 
Fashionista. 
“They 
really 
are trying to use old marketing 
techniques for this new generation, 
but not authentically engaging 

these social creators and their Gen 
Z followers.”
A good example of Dote’s ability 
to market to Gen Z is its partnership 
with 
17-year-old 
YouTube 
sensation 
Emma 
Chamberlain, 
who is practically a household 
name among Gen Z, thanks to her 
sarcastic personality that shines 
through in her videos about thrift 
shopping, going to school and 
drinking 
coffee. 
According 
to 
Forbes, 
“(Chamberlain’s) 
social 
media engagement — the amount 
of likes and comments of a post 
divided by the total amount of 
followers — is averaging around 25 
percent on Instagram. If you’re not 
in the social media world, you might 
not understand how mind-boggling 
that is. To give you a comparison, 
Kim Kardashian and Selena Gomez 
are averaging 9 percent and 5 
percent engagement, based on their 
last five posts.”
Chamberlain might not be a 
typical celebrity, but she has an 
incredibly loyal following, and Dote 
made a smart but unusual move in 
partnering with her. Chamberlain’s 
store, which is called High Key by 
Emma, was the first brand to be 
sold exclusively on Dote and sold 
out in just two hours. Clothing lines 
by celebrities don’t usually have 
that kind of success rate, but the 
personal connection that Gen Z 
members feel with YouTube stars 
creates an indescribable loyalty.
Harshe confirms, “I follow 
YouTubers more than celebrities 
because they’re more relatable. Like 
Hannah Meloche lives in Michigan 
and she just lives a normal teen 
life and goes to school, which is 
attainable for kids like me if we 
wanted to follow in her footsteps.”
Sending a group of teenage girls 
on a trip to Fiji might seem like an 
odd way to advertise your product, 
but if you know Generation Z, 
then you know how important 
social media is to them. Put a 
group of teenage girls in Fiji, and 
the Instagram photos will come 
automatically. As long as they know 
to tag Dote, that’s all the advertising 
you need.

Let the Bird fly

My body isn’t mine

MILES STEPHENSON | COLUMN

Editor’s note: The author’s 
name was omitted to protect 
their identity.
I 
 

was sitting in Biology 172 
on a Friday morning in 
November 2014 after my 
first semi-formal when I got an 
email from a woman involved 
with Title IX at the University 
of Michigan asking to speak 
to me about an event that had 
been reported. Then came the 
text from my resident adviser, 
who had apparently been on 
duty when I’d been locked out 
of my dorm and crying the 
previous night, explaining he 
was a mandatory reporter and 
that I’d said some concerning 
things.
I had flashes of what had 
happened in my mind, but I 
couldn’t remember what I’d 
said to my RA. I panicked. 
Everything felt fuzzy, and I 
couldn’t face the memories 
threatening to surface — the 
drink from a boy I never 
should have accepted, how 
I felt like I was looking and 
speaking 
through 
a 
fog 
afterward. 
So 
I 
decided 
nothing 
had 
happened, 
emailed the woman back and 
asked her to never contact me 
again and told my concerned 
friends and RA that I’d just 
been drunk.
That wasn’t the only time 
something 
happened 
my 
freshman year. Two nights, 
two different guys. The shame 
often threatens to swallow me 
whole.
On New Year’s Eve, I was in 
Ann Arbor and went to a frat 
with a friend. She met up with 
her boyfriend, and I was with a 
boy who seemed nice enough. 
Until he wasn’t. To this day, I 
can feel the visceral terror that 
came when I realized what 
was about to happen, and that 
I couldn’t stop it. When I tried 
to scream, he put his hands 
on my throat and told me to 
shut up because he knew I 
wanted this. I froze, and my 
memories from that point feel 
like I was watching it happen. 
The sound of metal clicking 
sends me into a panic, even 
now, because of the sound of 
his belt buckle. I remember 
crying in a bathroom, and 
when I called a friend from 
home, 
they 
laughed 
and 
told me I sounded so drunk 
they couldn’t understand. In 

reality, I was crying so hard 
and was too panicked to be 
coherent — I’d been sober for 
hours at that point. So, again, 
I decided I had to be fine. I 
pushed it away, told myself it 
had just been rough sex and 
that I needed to get over it.
I pretended I was OK and 
that nothing had happened for 
years. I’d developed an eating 
disorder in high school, which 
had 
gone 
untreated, 
and 
after these events, I spiraled. 
I had panic attacks almost 
daily, missed class because I 
started to cry and my heart 
raced when leaving my dorm. 
I rarely ate, and when I did, I 
threw up, desperate to be so 
small that I would disappear. 
I eventually had to withdraw 
that winter semester, blaming 
the escalation of my eating 
disorder on poor body image, 
perfectionism and academic 
stress. For the next two years, 
I went in and out of treatment, 
plagued by impossible anxiety, 
poor sleep, jumping at small 
noises and a constant need to 
be in “survival mode.” I would 
exercise for hours, desperate to 
feel some sense of control over 
my body. After six months in 
treatment in 2016, after being 
nourished for long enough 
that my brain was working 
properly, 
I 
began 
having 
nightmares every night. I 
kept trying to say everything 
was fine, but my re-emerging 
restriction 
and 
exercise 
addiction said otherwise. I 
finally said, “Yes,” when my 
doctor asked me about abuse, 
and things spiraled from there.
My therapist found out and 
told me I needed to talk about 
it. I couldn’t. I froze, unable 
to speak every time I thought 
about it. I lived on steamed 
vegetables, 
convinced 
that 
everything else was “dirty,” 
and that if I ate “clean,” then I 
would finally feel clean again. 
I didn’t care that I was dying. I 
thought I would never get past 
this, and that the constant fear 
wasn’t worth living through. 
I 
barely 
slept 
between 
nightmares and hunger. My 
mom and doctor threatened 
me with a psychiatric hold 
and a court-ordered hospital 
stay if I didn’t voluntarily 
receive treatment. I stayed in 
a hospital for a week before a 
residential treatment center 
declared me medically stable 
enough to receive their care, 

and then had to go through 
the 
process 
of 
evaluation 
after evaluation, again. But 
I couldn’t pretend nothing 
had happened anymore. I still 
couldn’t talk or think about 
it much, but I tried getting a 
word out here or there about 
how it made me feel.
I returned to Michigan 
after that last treatment stay 
and still hadn’t dealt with the 
post-traumatic stress disorder. 
I still avoid the streets where 
things transpired. I won’t go 
to Pizza House because I went 
there one of those nights. I’ve 
done a decent job of avoiding 
the 
memories 
whenever 
possible, even though I still 
have nightmares every night. 
When the #MeToo movement 
started, I once again missed 
classes, but kept eating. When 
the Kavanaugh case hit the 
news, I felt so much anxiety 
that I couldn’t breathe unless 
I curled up in a ball and 
used a weighted blanket. 
I missed three classes in 
one week because I just 
couldn’t feel safe outside of 
my house. I go to therapy 
twice a week, and still freeze 
and have flashbacks when 
we approach the subject of 
those nights. The Kavanaugh 
case sent me spiraling. I’m 
finally beginning to actually 
try 
a 
form 
of 
trauma-
therapy called EMDR, or eye 
movement 
desensitization 
and 
reprocessing. 
I’m 
terrified. But the past four 
years of my life have been 
defined by these nights. 
I’m so tired of being tired 
from lack of sleep — tired 
of feeling like my body isn’t 
mine.
It’s hard being a survivor, 
right now. It’s hard calling 
myself a survivor. It’s hard 
being a survivor, period.
I’ve built up grounding 
skills 
— 
essential 
oils 
in 
silly 
putty, 
carefully 
crafted playlists, breathing 
exercises — to keep me 
present instead of spiraling 
into 
memories. 
There’s 
no neat end to this story, 
because this will probably 
still affect me for the rest of 
my life. But I’m hoping that 
I can get to a point where 
it’s part of my story, not the 
defining factor.

The author is an LSA senior.

ANONYMOUS | SURVIVORS SPEAK

EMILY CONSIDINE | CONTACT EMILY AT EMCONSID@UMICH.EDU

Miles Stephenson can be reached at 

mvsteph@umich.edu.

Hannah Harshe can be reached at 

hhsarshe@umich.edu