Class favorites

There have been many posts that I have enjoyed, especially Ashley’s. In the beginning of this course Ashely was in my group, so we read her pieces out loud and I have always thought she was an amazing writer. In her first piece, “The Need to Be Plugged In” I remember loving the way she set up her piece. She starts with a story of her and her friend betting on how old Robert Downey Jr. is. And that Ashely just googled it and there was the answer. “just like that, I was plugged into the vast and ceaseless world of the Internet.”Also, the use of the phrase “plugged in” is great because it relates to how technology is usually “plugged in” to outlets and how our focus is “plugged in.” Like most peoples post that day, Ashley goes on to talk about how hard it is to read now. And then she ends her piece bringing up the bet, and that is a bet ($10) really worth her inability to focus.

My favorite piece that moved beyond writing was Amanda’s Concept in 60 post about subtweeting. Amanda used a fast pace video with colors, shapes, and sizes. It is very pleasing to the eye as it also has a lot of solid information. She also has good background music to go along with her video. Lines her video also stick out to me, like when she says “beware” and “tweet responsibly.” This was a very well put together video that moved past the basic use of writing.

Remediation

For my remediation piece, I decided to go back to my social action piece. I thought this was a good choice to make into a video because I have a lot of information on it, plus I ended up having one guy comment on my post which I was not able to share with the class. I decided to add more information on the wage gap in my remediation, and show the comments from someone who doesn’t believe in the wage gap while telling you how I feel about it.

 

Profile Piece

I interviewed Kristin Saksa for this assignment. She used to work with me at Cafe Napoli, so I got to know her pretty well. She was always trying to make people laugh while working, so I knew she was a funny person. One day when she requested to follow me on Twitter, I saw her personality shine through her tweets. While waitressing together she would tell me funny or odd things that happened during work or at her tables and we would laugh. Once that I saw that she tweeted about these experiences- I was intrigued. I had to find out more. So here it is…

1. Is twitter your number one choice of a social media platform? Why or why not

I would say yes, purely because its super entertaining to me. My sense of humor makes me think that even the dumbest tweets are hilarious. It’s also the platform I am most active on; I don’t post on instagram super often and Facebook has gone completely downhill (since it was poppin back in 8th grade).

2. When you tweet, do you hope for a response?

Not all the time. If I think of a tweet that I think is super good or extremely funny, then yeah I want people to like it or retweet it or respond to it in some way, but I don’t send out every single tweet hoping that it gets a ton of likes and interactions.

3. I notice that you tweet a lot about your interactions at work. Why do you choose to tweet these experiences?

Work takes up a huge percentage of my time, and a fair portion of my interactions with the general public take place at work. A lot of the interactions or conversations that I have while I’m there just seem so bizarre to me – like the things some people say and do just blow my mind; you’re in public what are you doing, can you actually hear what you’re saying? And I don’t want to be the only one who knows about these comments or situations, I want to let people know about the sorts of things that I come across from day to day.

4. Most of your tweets are meant to be funny, do you intend to make people laugh?

I like making people laugh, it makes me feel good, like I am a part of something bigger. Plus the way I word certain things is more often than not meant to make it funnier. My twitter helped me get funniest employee 2 years in a row, so that counts for something right?

5. Why do you tweet? Do you want people to notice you on social media or do you tweet just to tweet?

I don’t think I tweet just to tweet. I’m not a big fan of super emotional tweeting, like when people just go on and on about pointless things like “I’m so upset someone text me” or “omg I’m so annoyed.” Cool? Who cares? As I said before, I see twitter as entertainment, so I’m on it to laugh and to try and make others laugh. If people notice me because of it, then thats cool, but if not I’ll still continue to tweet regardless.

6. When you experience something at work, do you think “I’m gonna tweet that tonight,” or do you just think of your tweets at the end of the night or whenever you decide to go on twitter? 

Sometimes, depending on the situation, I do think “this is gonna make a great tweet.” I’ve actually had moments where I tell other people about something that just happened to me at work and they ask if I’m going to tweet about it, or if its worth a tweet, cause they get it. Sometimes I completely forget until I get home, or even days later. I do take time to think over my wording though – sometimes its hard to summarize a situation and make it funny while staying within twitter’s annoying character limit.

 

I was very pleased with Kristin’s responses. I think she has a good attitude towards using social media and that it makes her happy, which is a good way to use it.

Social Action

Being a young woman, who of course wants to purse a career in the future, I worry about the gender wage gap. The wage gap is the average difference of pay between a man and a woman. Basically, when women get paid less than men although they are equal in quality. Since I have been in college, this is something that has been brought up many times in classes and by students. Also, I enjoy writing reported papers on issues like this, including maternity leave.
These are the reasons I decided to post about this, and to post it on Facebook.

I see Facebook as a platform for discussion. I can write as much as I want and people can reply without worrying about a certain amount of characters. This topic of discussion deserves to be talked about, at any length. I also know that I have a good amount of “friends” on Facebook that, I think, would be interested in seeing this topic brought to light.

 

Although I posted this pretty late, I got 2 likes and 1 share. I expected to receive more feedback on this, but I think I may once more time passes.  I think this is something people should talk about because it is such a huge issue today. This is talked about all over the country, but shouldn’t we do something small, like help our state, so that we can get the ball rolling? and maybe, eventually, the country will end the gender wage gap.

Ronson, boyd

Robson and boyd have one definite thing in common- their books about social media. This is very broad, so the topics I narrowed down are public shaming and being private vs. public. These topics are intertwined together with ideas, facts, and experiences by the authors, although they go about them very differently.

Painting a picture is an easy way to intrigue the reader, and this is exactly what Ronson does. Instead of him just explaining what had happened when he met someone, he adds in so much detail that you can picture Ronson sitting there across from the person. He even quotes conversations that he wasn’t even in, giving the reader all the information needed to understand a story- which is extremely important.

Ranson’s view of social media is through public shaming. This is done through Twitter, Facebook, etc., and it gives people easy access to publicly shame someone, however, it is the people doing the shaming and not the social media. I think many people do and say things online that they would never do or say in person, and social media gives them that opportunity to say mean things on the internet or even ruin someone’s life.

boyd mentions the difference between private vs. public. boyd’s writing is similar and different from Ronsons. She does interview many people, which is her “go to” way of backing up her ideas, but she doesn’t paint a picture as well as Ronson does.

She focuses more on teens and their use in social media. When she mentions the difference between private vs. public, which goes along with Ronson’s views, she mentions Facebook. boyd says that if you’re on social media your “public by default.” This is true, because anyone can see what you post. “Teens often inadvertently play into another common rhetorical crutch- the notion that privacy is necessarily only for those who have something to hide.” (pg. 63)

These topics between Ronson and boyd go hand-in-hand. You should know what you are posting online, and you should understand the difference between what is to be private or public. Some things posted on social media are too private for viewers, or too private for the person posting them, but they don’t see it that way. And in some cases, people have been publicly shamed because of this.