Monte Carlo simulations of aqueous surfactant solutions have been performed on a two-dimensional lattice in a canonical ensemble. The simulations are based on four different models of surfactants with chainlike geometry and several types of interactions between the surfactant headgroups. The effect of number of headgroups (N HG) and the types of interactions between them (short-range versus long-range) has been examined on the surfactant aggregation. The simulations show that the aqueous solutions of surfactant chains with N HG > 1 and a short-range head−head interactions behave in a manner similar to that of the solutions of surfactant chains with N HG = 1 and long-range electrostatic interactions between the headgroups. The similarity of the results in the two models is discussed on the basis of free energy of micellization and is shown to be an effect of similar excluded volume of headgroups in the two models.

Drawing on branded tweets that linguistically appropriate slang, African American Language, and hip hop lyrics, this article examines how corporations rework black culture to create “corporate cool” as part of their advertising strategy on social media. We examine three processes that corporations engage in to associate themselves with “coolness” while managing levels of racial contact and proximity for their audience: 1) racially ambiguous voicing, 2) “bleaching” black bodies out of images, and 3) the forging of “racially tinged” intertextual connections. While previous scholarship has analyzed how acts of cultural and linguistic appropriation reap profit for white people and continue to stigmatize already racially marginalized groups, we describe how these seemingly innocent cultural and linguistic references harness a corporately constructed black cool to produce a sense of white comfort. We argue that white comfort is generated not only through the avoidance of overt references to racial conflict, as the term “white fragility” suggests, but also through well-worn, familiar, and comfortable reminders of racial difference and domination that are offered at a safe distance from actual black people and contexts of racial violence.