If you have an Instagram profile, I’m sure the page “Kritički” has popped up at least once in the last few months. Nikolina, the girl who started this phenomenal story, does not expose herself on this profile, but keeps the focus on important topics she writes about and her (critical) opinion about them. It is unbelievable that she has been silent for so long about the numerous problems she opened the discussion about, and so many people have experienced them and continue to experience them. However, Nikolina shows by her example that there are those who do not want to be silent, who are brave enough to step forward and initiate changes in our societies.
Hi Nikolina! While I’m sure many people know about your Misli kritički/Think Critically page, I believe fewer know who is behind such an important project. Who is Nikolina and how did you come up with this story?
It’s always the hardest question for me to introduce myself! My name is Nikolina Pavićević and I am currently in my final year of undergraduate studies, studying Media in Slovenia. By the way, I am from Podgorica and I started Kritički at the end of August last year.
Before launching the site, I tried, without success, for a long time to get a job in media as a journalist, not only in Montenegro, but also in the region. I tried everything – I sent CVs, motivation letters and my work until then, because I wrote critically even before starting Misli kritički. I tried for several months, but I did not find a single positive answer. So, I decided to try something on my own and it all happened relatively quickly – I organized everything in the days before I opened the profile, which I will talk about, because I already had a list of topics and all that was left was to go out and write what I wanted to write.
I soon opened Misli kritički and it went really well, unexpectedly well. At the beginning, I thought that if I had 500 followers in a year, that would be phenomenal, that would be a success. And here, 10 months later, I have almost 60,000 followers, which is amazing. I didn’t expect it to resonate like that at all.
You mentioned that you tried unsuccessfully to find a job. We recently started a discussion in lonac about how often companies or organizations give feedback on the outcome of an internship or job application. What is your experience? Are today’s generations really more passive or is there another side to the story?
I rarely get feedback. When you are ignored or when you get refusal letter, it can be very demotivating. We constantly hear stories about how young people are lazy, how they do not want to work, and I know from my experience that this is not true. I thought maybe they were right, maybe really young people do not want to work, but I saw from a personal example that even when someone tries, unfortunately in most cases young people still encounter the same.
I just recently wrote in one of my texts about the topic you have just mentioned, how the situation is getting worse and worse. In fact, the situation is not getting worse and worse, but we are trying to talk more and more about these and many other things, and then they come to light. Most of them have been hiding for decades, if not longer. It’s hard to face it, but it’s certainly better when we face it and talk about it than to keep pushing them under the rug.
It can be said that your page is available on all channels – Misli kritički has a blog, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and Twitter account, but the most active account is on Instagram. Do you think Instagram is currently the best platform for such content?
I post on Instagram and Facebook at about the same time. I started first with Instagram, which for me is the best platform for what I do because it brings together a group of people who are concerned with this topic. It seems to me that a stronger wave can start from there, that something can change. Instagram is also good because it no longer gathers exclusively younger audiences, but various generations. It suits me quite well, because I deal with various topics related to different target groups. And because of the visuals, texts, stories that I post, this social network is currently the most practical and most effective for me.
Twitter is just as good for those topics, but it’s not as accessible as Instagram and it does not gather group of people I’m targeting. I started a Youtube account recently, because I think it’s good to post some content that can’t be written or that are better expressed through video format. Unfortunately, I do not manage to dedicate myself to that as much as I would like, due to exams and other obligations, but my plan is to get more engaged in the next period. Primarily because I do interviews with people who are experts in various fields, and that can help those who follow me to learn something useful.
Your posts, to say the least, trigger an avalanche of reactions and comments. For months now, you have managed to expose numerous topics, which have so far been mostly covered up or considered taboo. Was any topic particularly important to you?
The topic that had the most reactions was the topic of obstetric violence. When I started this topic, the media from Serbia, Montenegro, BiH, Croatia started reporting, but, unfortunately, the goal was not reached. The head of the Clinic for Gynecology and Obstetrics, Vesna Čolaković-Popović, refuted everything we talked about and stated that “approximately 97 percent of patients expressed satisfaction with the medical service provided.” I was sad and disappointed to read something like that after so many stories, shared experiences and everything that happened. If only she talked about the fact that there was a problem, just to admit that it was happening, and not leave so many women without any answer, support, solidarity…
One of the worst comments I received during that period was that I am scaring future mothers or those who are pregnant now, when in fact it is quite the opposite. I don’t want to scare them, I want to encourage them. It scares me more when people are ready to be silent and when they say “now it is much better, comparing to how women used to give birth before…“.
This is not a topic that I will only deal with once, it is something I plan to deal with in the long run. There are many men and women who do not admit that something like this is happening, so you need to work on consciousness first. Another very important thing is to involve some of the competent people and institutions, it is absolutely impossible for us to do everything ourselves. It is a very complex problem, rooted in our society, with numerous obstacles that need to be addressed. And that’s ok, I understand that we need to fight. I just think it’s wrong that the institutions are denying the problem, saying that something like that does not exist.
It is especially paradoxical that institutions constantly talk about the birth rate. Why are you talking about the birth rate if no one cares about the situation in hospitals, how women are treated before, during and after childbirth…? Secondly, so many women I talked to didn’t even know the most basic things about childbirth. Our education does not cover the basics of reproductive and sexual education and that must change.
We see that you raise very sensitive topics, which have rarely or never been publicly discussed. Although you have huge support from all sides, I guess there is another side to the coin. How do you deal with negative comments? Are you trying to educate them or are you just ignoring them?
It depends. When I see that a comment is not serious, just hatred behind a fake profile, I try not to pay too much attention to it and not to answer because I don’t see the purpose. I think it’s more a problem with them than with me or my content. I really believe that an individual can change, but it is necessary for him/her to want that. I can’t force him/her to do that, that person must wish to change.
On the other hand, when something really gets complicated and I see that people don’t want to stop writing insulting comments for days, then I usually post a few things on the story about it, maybe someone’s messages I received and comment on them, just to draw attention to my position.
Fortunately, there are many more positive and nice comments and messages that I receive. It means a lot when people send me messages that they have recognized themselves in my content, that they have found support in my content. I really don’t take for granted any positive message when I receive it and they really are the motivation and encouragement to continue my path.
I’m sure you have numerous examples of how some of your actions, starting a topic, had a positive result. Which one would you single out?
As for some results, every time the story resonates and the opinion of at least one person changes, it is a positive result for me. For example, I know about obstetric violence that daughters talked to their mothers about it for the first time, and until then they never mentioned the topic of childbirth. That may sound small and insignificant, compared to changing the law or passing a new one, for example, but to me all those reactions were phenomenal.
The topic of vengeful pornography also resonated. Several men were arrested, but a lot needs to be done on that problem, because groups where such content is shared still exist. To begin with, there should be a law on revenge pornography. The story of a regional law that would be implemented in Serbia, BiH and Montenegro has started, since Croatia is already on the way to passing it.
Another example is a girl who was raped in Podgorica. There were protests across Montenegro and the prime minister proposed a bill to make penalties stricter.
These are all some small victories for now. We are a society that does not admit many problems or pretends that they do not exist, and when I realize that I support at least one person, through my texts or my posts, when he/she thinks that he/she is not alone in that, it is already a victory for me.
I saw the sentence Think critically about the published content, mainstream media & pop culture on your website. Do you think that this is exactly the Bermuda Triangle in which the self-confidence of young people often disappears?
I haven’t thought about it in that way so far, but it really is the way you said it. It really is. When I started studying the media, I learned so much about the impact of all those little things that we don’t normally pay attention to. For example, the impact of videos that are often degrading for women, how much it actually affects women and how they see themselves, how they will see themselves later and how they want to present themselves to the world. And on the way to school, children are exposed to various advertisements. I just wrote about billboards that advertise casinos and that are mostly sexist. The ads on gambling should not be watched by children under the age of 18, and I think that it is also prohibited by law. On the other hand, we have sexist remarks, again something they should not be exposed to. And it all affects them little by little, even though it doesn’t seem that important, it actually is. These are all some things that seem irrelevant, and have a huge impact.
Another example of toxicity is parasocial relationships. It’s the way fans connect to favorite celebrities and it’s especially pronounced in this digital age because earlier, when there were no social networks, people couldn’t follow their favorite celebrities all the time and see where they were, what they were doing. Before, it was rare, mostly on TV. And now, when they can practically not separate from them, it can create an unhealthy, parasocial connection. And we return again to media literacy and the lack of it, which is one of the causes of this phenomenon. Many young people do not know that this is not the way they imagine and that they should not imitate public figures, especially if they show some unhealthy patterns of behavior, if they advertise smoking, alcohol, if they have degrading lyrics, music videos, etc. It is not something they should look up to, but they do not know about it and it’s not their fault because no one has ever told them that, that it is not right.
On one hand, I see you as a journalist, and on the other as an activist. These are two qualities that I would subjectively assign to you, and I believe that many will agree. And I think it’s a perfect combination and we need more journalists who are both activists. So, I’m interested in how you would motivate young people to study in that direction on the one hand, considering that we know the state of journalism and the entire media scene? And how would you motivate them to become socially active and responsible, to participate in some way in improving life in their communities?
First, they need to learn what journalism is because I didn’t even know what it was in the beginning. I thought, as I watched these tabloid texts, that this was it, that this was journalism. In fact, there is still this normal, investigative journalism, but it is not talked about it and not represented.
On the other hand, they don’t have to deal with these things only through journalism, there are a million other ways, it can be any form of media coverage. At my faculty, I was perhaps the least involved in journalism. We talked about the media in general and I learned many things that I try to convey, learn and verbalize to others. It can only be done this way through social media. I always say that it doesn’t matter how many followers we have, if we are talking about an important topic and if it can affect at least one person. Today, we all have some small platforms that we can use to make a positive change, to publish something that we think is important for us or for the environment, and then from there it starts with how to motivate young people.
We need to look at and become aware of how much of a significant impact we actually have on everything that is happening around us. It’s something I also didn’t realize in the past, that I can actually make a change and that we all have to get involved. Joint action and solidarity are needed.
Since we are talking about content, what is your favorite content?
At the moment, nothing is in my special focus, but before I started my page, I followed Džamila Džamil a lot. She is from the Great Britain and now lives in the USA. She has a very positive influence on women, and often deals with the influence of pop culture and criticizes public figures who publish content that can be potentially harmful for the readers.
And finally, what, in your opinion, should be changed in the attitude towards young people?
They always teach us that older people know better than us and that if they tell us we can’t do something, we really believe we can’t. I think that it can potentially jeopardize careers of young people, without us even being aware of it. I think that is the first place we should start in relation to young people. Let me go back to the story from the beginning, as I never received an answer to numerous jobs ads. I didn’t care, I thought they knew better, I’m not good at this and that’s it. It is often thought that young people do not know, that they are too lazy and uninterested, and that does not have to be the case. We need to listen to ourselves and stop relying so much on what others say, no matter how old they are.
