Final Reflection

I was pretty nervous to start taking a multimedia writing class this semester. I was not proficient in writing for the Web prior to taking this course. Running my own blog or submitting content to sites for actual publication was not something I ever thought I would be able to do. This course really changed that for me. It’s also pretty funny that none of my teachers (prior to professor Zigarelli during my final semester of college) had ever worked so extensively with me on writing better sentences. In my opinion, each of the eight objectives Jamie listed for us in the class syllabus was met, either solidly or partially. However, the three objectives that were most important for me were collaborative work, having my own content published, and learning how to write clear and concise sentences.

I’m not sure I conquered the first objective, which was learning to write clear and concise sentences. I think if you look at my blog, you will see that my sentence structures and quality do not seem to change for the better or worse. Also, I actually got more feedback about improving grammar and structure on the second project than I did for the first. However, I’m not sure this means my writing got worse. Instead, I think it has to do with the content. For my first project, I was playing the part of a newspaper columnist, so I was trying to be extremely clear and concise. On the second project, I was writing about Saturday Night Live (which is a normal everyday passion of mine) so I wasn’t thinking about it as something I needed to be meticulous with (this was my fault, though). I felt too relaxed while writing the second individual project. I liked how the sentences were put on the overhead projector in front of the class so that we could all work together to try to find the best solutions for fixing them. I learned a lot from other students in the class when we did these exercises aloud. I think I mainly stayed quiet during class because I enjoyed listening to others’ ideas.  One suggestion I would give for future classes is to make editing each individual project and reflection post after reading a section in Casagrande. That way, students could process one concept at a time and apply it to their own writing. This would also probably cause the material in Casagrande to be more relevant to them.

It was so fun to get one of my pieces published and moved to the front page of Spoof.com. Professor Zigarelli had a way of making me feel like my ideas were good for a piece and he helped me identify my voice as a Web writer. I was surprised how well my piece did on TheSpoof.com. It was on the “Top Stories” section for two days straight, which does not happen often on that site. Knowing that I was going to be submitting my writing for publication gave me more motivation to try to write an entertaining and clearly written story. If we had been assigned to simply write a piece and then email it to the professor, I don’t think I would have put nearly as much effort into it. The rhetorical analysis was tough for me because I had never done one before. I am now more confident and aware of where my writing will fit and be accepted and where it will not. I accurately predicted the primary audience that would visit TheSpoof.com and that helped guide me in my writing. I kept reminding myself of my audience as I wrote. I knew who would find a story about Newt Gingrich banging Ron Paul’s wife funny and who wouldn’t even get the joke or who would find it offensive.

This course not only contributed to my improved writing, but also to my overall ability to work with and respect others. I normally do not do well with groups of people and collaborative projects because I’m a weirdo. I am severely introverted, as was evidenced by the fact that I hardly ever spoke aloud. Having others read my writing is usually something that makes me feel extremely uneasy, especially something as bizarre as my piece for the final group project. However, over the course of the semester, I gradually became open about my writing as well as giving others feedback about theirs. I was wary about whether or not I would be able to function in a large group project, but I think I became comfortable once we were divided into groups of four. However, I do think speaking aloud is one area that I need to work on much more. I was encouraged to speak aloud in class more often at the midterm marker, but I literally could not bring myself to do it except for the last couple weeks of class when I was finally becoming comfortable around my classmates.

Although I do not have the goal of being a professional writer, I still think some of the aspects of this course will help me in my future career as an English teacher (I know–I can’t talk aloud with people my age but I can stand in front of younger students and feel fine). I will be teaching middle school English in Nashville this fall and I will be having my students do a lot of collaborative learning exercises. Many of the readings we did on group work will help me decide how to group people and why things may or may not be working out within different groups. The Casagrande readings (such as the section on active voice vs. passive voice) will help me explain how to teach the transformation of sentences. This was at least one of my favorite courses at Temple.

I Still Prefer Linearity

Everyone learns and processes information differently. Some learn visually while others learn with audio. Others learn from text and others from hands-on experience. I learn best from pure text, so stories such as Miriam, 21 Steps, and Underbelly serve to confuse me most of the time rather than help me understand something. I understand that the synapses of most of my fellow classmates are firing a lot more quickly and can process multimedia stories. That’s because my fellow classmates are adorable young womps, with spirits that are still young. I, on the other hand, am an old chunk of coal with a cold black heart.

I have always been someone who has to not only be sitting in complete silence, but also basically be competely alone to be able to concentrate on reading something. I know some people (like my mom) who can hold conversations with other people while still reading more quickly (and still effectively processing the information) than I. can read in silence. Similarly, I’m sure most of my young, sexy, postmodernist classmates were able to simulatneously deal with all the crazy visuals, moving screens, music, and sound effects, all while managing to hold multiple Facebook conversations and text their sexy robot boyfriends/girlfriends. I had to sit in a room with everything turned off except for a computer, and I still had trouble processing some of the information because I was being hit from different angles at once. This is why I prefer to sit and read a novel in silence. I get to control the cadence and I also get to make the setting up in my own mind based on the author’s clues and descriptions. That is part of the fun for me in reading. I’d rather use descriptions to use my imagination than be bombarded with so much visual overload.

Leave Mash-Ups Alone

I agree completely with Ryan B.’s assessment about how the Bridgeport decision is going too far in deeming all music mash-ups as infringing on copyright laws of artists. I can see how some mash-ups may possibly affect the marketing capabilities of certain artists (only if NOTHING original is being contributed to the ‘original’ work), but a blanket decision is not what is needed here. Some mash-ups do indeed create a new context for listeners and may even HELP some artists. As I have stated before, there is no longer such a thing as original art. Everything has been done and every new piece of art is, in one way or another, a mash-up of previous work created by someone else. Also, it is impossible to ‘draw a line’ for when a mash-up is ok and when it is not. For instance, whoever played the first “C” chord in a song created original content. From then on, countless artists have used the same chord. Is this copyright infringement? No, it isn’t. In fact, chords and progressions have been reused time and time again by various artists. This is where Ryan’s suggestion of “transformative” comes into play. Each artist reuses chords all the time, but they add their own lyrics, tempo, and effects. As long as SOMETHING original is being incorporated, I do not think anyone should freak out. Instead, we should all enjoy the content being BORROWED to make a modified, albeit new work of art. A good example of music samples being mashed-up, but creating something new is this. On a side note, I think artists should feel proud that their work is admired enough to be used in a mash-up rather than feel violated.

Project #1

My first project can be seen here.

Artists Have Been Stealing for a Long Time

Austin Kleon’s first point in “How to Steal Like an Artist” reminds me of this clip from a South Park episode. The episode is titled ‘The Simpsons Already Did It’. In the clip, South Park creators do a commentary and explain the reason they made this episode, which is basically that Matt Stone and Trey Parker were sick of coming up with great ideas and being told the Simpsons had already done them. It’s a hilarious episode, but I think it’s a good example of what Kleon is talking about.

Though I will agree that the Web has exponentially enhanced the ‘mash-up’ phenomenon, all purely new ideas had already been taken long before the Web, so it is incorrect to say that the Web is the reason for this. Music and television are great examples of how ideas have been borrowed and used for new things. An example of this is sitcoms. I don’t know what the original sitcom was, but there have been many, many sitcoms made since the first. Each of these has been a spinoff of the first. The concept of a sitcom itself has been borrowed by each producer or creator, and new ideas have been incorporated each time. The same goes for crime-dramas—we have: Law & Order, Law & Order SVU, Criminal Minds, Cold Case, CSI, etc. The original concept was “Hey, let’s make a show about solving crime mysteries.” Since then, the concepts have been more like “Hey, let’s make a show like Law & Order, but this time we’ll make them FBI agents and make it more about the psychology of criminals.” (Criminal Minds).

As I have said, the internet takes what I have just mentioned about television and makes the ‘mash-up’ phenomenon so much simpler. Now you can just take two songs and throw them together. You can go on YouTube look up a mash-up someone has done of just about any two songs. Also, people take original videos from YouTube, add music to it, mess with the editing, and call it a “remix”. Mash-ups have existed for a long time in many different ways; just not in the fragmented, postmodern sense in which they currently exist online. It hasn’t always been so blatantly apparent and obvious as it is now, but I don’t think it should be considered a new phenomenon—it has merely evolved more rapidly.

Facebook Makes Most of us Miserable

I have been a miserable sonofabitch ever since I created a Facebook account. At first I created it just to act douchy, but I understand what Daniel Gulati is saying when he talks about Facebook as being a ‘den of comparison’. I used to be indifferent to what happened in people’s lives. Now, I get angry when someone I know has something great happen to them. In fact, several times since I first created a Facebook account, I have caught myself actually logging onto Facebook and hoping I see bad news at someone else’s expense on my newsfeed.

I really think Gulati tapped into something when he said everyone is trying to one-up each other by uploading various pictures of their ‘accomplishments’ or other stupid shit. See? I’m getting pissed just thinking about it. It has gotten to the point where several of my ‘friends’ on Facebook have uploaded pictures of their fucking sonograms and pregnant bellies…it’s really gross and pisses me off. Also, I think it’s creepy when teenage mothers upload pictures of their infants and very small children.

An example of me becoming miserable from Facebook is seeing a new picture uploaded on my newsfeed of my ex girlfriend’s current boyfriend shirtless. You see, he has been working out at the gym, and let’s just say I don’t look too healthy. This makes me feel like shit because all I ever do now is log on and look at it and think, “no wonder she left me…she wanted to get with this hot piece of ass“. It makes me insecure and I began to hate myself for being fat and not having a cut body like the man my harpey left me for. Small examples such as this help make Gulati’s argument about Facebook being a ‘den of comparison’ reign true.

Otherwise, I do not necessarily believe his point about Facebook causing a decline in personal relationships. I do think communication is becoming odd and we are not as good at speaking to strangers in person as we used to be, but I think when it comes to actual close relationships, we are still plentifully talking face to face and maintaining important relationships grounded in real-life interactions. I know this varies from person to person, but my personal observations at bars and in places such as the tech center and the cafeteria, indicates that people still talk in person and at least SEEM to be having meaningful conversations.

Kakutani: He may be right, but let’s stay open-minded

Michiko Kakutani forced me to rethink Nicholas Carr’s piece. “Texts Without Context” has made me realize a huge reason for the growing partisanship in politics. The postmodern nature of the web is compartmentalizing and narrowing our political views because specific, subjective sites often reinforce many people’s biases and perpetually convince us that our own view is the correct view. There are, of course, exceptions to this, but many people refuse to cross-reference or look at “both sides”. Talk radio was already doing this (Kakutani points out Rush Limbaugh for the far-right and Michael Moore for the left), but the internet is grabbing us at the point where we are influenced by figures such as these. All we have to do is Google Redstate or leftwingr and we can keep building our own biases and ignore whatever the other side may think. Why not read a few history books about what has really happened throughout political history to help shape our views? Of course everything is biased in some way, including books, but not as radically biased as some of these sites. Maybe Carr is right. We may not be getting “stupid” per se, but we are at least making ourselves ignorant to objective history or current events. Either way, I think this can be dangerous. For instance, consider “9/11 Truthers”. Before the age of the Web, it would have been difficult to reinforce a speculation that the attacks may have been an inside job. Sure, we could have entertained the possibility, but many people are absolutely convinced because of certain online videos or sites devoted to the subject. It’s fine to be skeptical and to view these videos and visit these sites, but these people should have the wherewithal to do research from other points of view. Too often, this is not happening, and many people are convinced that 9/11 was an inside job because they visit the same few sites to come up with points for arguments. Since most of us do not know anything at all about that day except what the news media or sites have shown or told, it is irresponsible to form an absolute opinion about this topic without doing research from many different and diverse sources. It is interesting that although the Web is so broad and has so much information, that it actually seems to be causing us to be increasingly narrow-minded. We are too content with seeing and hearing what we choose. We are customizing our own political opinions and using blogs, sites, and videos from the internet to facilitate our own pre-conceived notions. These various forms of digital content in their own form are healthy for discussion. As they exist on their own, they could be helping us learn, debate, and discuss more than television or radio news are allowing us, but unfortunately, too many of us use them for the exact opposite reason. One of the main characteristics of postmodernism is the lack of a universal truth. But revisiting the “9/11” example, one absolute thing DID happen that day. We just cannot be positive about what that thing was. But now with the rapidly rising use of the internet for shaping our own views, there are several different narratives from people who do not really know. Just take a look at some comments on some of these sites. If there is an article written, it is difficult to find any comments with phrases such as “I see your point…” or “maybe you’re right, but this could also be correct”. Instead, these sites are full of comments like “Yeah, keep drinking that Kool-Aid” or “STFU you fucking idiot, do some fucking research”. Truthers are just one example out of many, but they are the most extreme example I could come up with. LOLZZZZZZZZ PPL are %*$(&^% DUMB LOLZZZZZZZZZZ!!!!!!

Am I Stupid?

I think Carr was irresponsible in using the term “stupid” to classify what he thinks is happening to the literacy of my generation. The title should not be “Is Google Making us Stupid?”. In fact, the title should not even be framed as a question. It should be something like “Google is Obviously Making us Impatient, yet Efficient”. This title would better identify the issues (not problems) with the relationship between online reading and intelligence or attention span.

I know countless grown adults who grew up with no internet and are absolutely retarded. Many of us say things like “I used to read so many novels but now with the internet I don’t”. Okay, but you are still reading, right? Why does’t anybody bring up people who have never read novels, but now go online and surf the Web? This happened to my father. He has never been much of a reader, but when he finally began learning to use the internet, he began to read a lot. Doesn’t that mean that Google may be making us smarter?

People are always so afraid of technology that rises while they are middle-aged or elderly. They always say things like “that internet is no good”. My grandparents think its just awful. But what did my grandparents’ parents think when television became popular? Probably the same thing. The only difference is, television actually DOES make us stupid. Internet is full of both useless, and adademic information. Some novels are pretty shitty too, so what’s the problem? We need to relax and see where this new frontier of the digital age takes us. Our brains are perfectly capable of evolving and adapting to new technology, just as we have seen all throughout history.

Introduction to Me

Hello classmates. My name is listed above this paragraph. I’ll start briefly by talking about myself. I am an extremely humble and modest person. Everyone says that I am the most humble person they have ever met, but I don’t want to claim any credit for that. I never complain about anything and have no enemies. My girlfriend says I am the best guy on the planet and I always say, “Nahhhhh I’m just a guy who wears a hat and works at WaWa.” Then she usually says something like, “Come on your so modest. Give yourself a little credit once in a while.” But I refuse to take credit. It’s all in a day’s work, being so humble. Sometimes it’s more difficult than others, but I have never strayed too far off the path of modesty. Also, just to be very clear, when I say I work at WaWa, I mean I am an assistant manager.

I detest narcissists. I refuse to stoop to their pathetic level. I have better things to do than worry about or cater to their imaginary personality disorders. I deal with enough of my own problems on a day to day basis. All narcissists are good for is getting in my way.

I think its annoying when teenage boys think that just because they are good at “Guitar Hero” they can actually play real guitar. The handicap is just ridiculous. That’s like me saying that I can become a great WWE wrestler just because I always pin my humongous father in livingroom wrestling every time he ODs on heroin.

I am a senior majoring in English and Relgion. I plan to pursue a PhD in religion; specifically in the fields of Death and Dying and the Philosophy of Religion. Otherwise, I consider myself to be a waste of time to read about. I’m not very interesting. I only enjoy doing nothing. Any time I am obligated or even asked to do something, I cringe. My favorite things to do are watch TV and watch movies. Also, I have to admit I love politics. So that’s about it.

I don’t usually write recreationally, so this is going to be a relatively new experience for me. I’m excited. I enjoy academic writing, but as far as multimedia writing is concerned, I’m a walk-on. Most of my writing is research papers and maybe a persuasive essay from time to time. I have written a few short stories and that is about the extent to which I have written outside of school. I also read a lot, but not any real classic literature unless it is required for school. For some reason, my favorite things to read are autobiographies. I read the autobiography of just about every celebrity and political figure who comes out with one. I also enjoy biographies. I know this doesn’t sound like what an English major should do, but the truth is, I really prefer writing and composition infinitely more than literature. Maybe this is because the books I’ve read for school have always been required rather than voluntary readings. I think maybe I just don’t like to be told what to read. I like to come across good books on my own.

Most of my favorite sites are politically oriented. Some of them are political satire and some are serious political news. I don’t really like any other sites except Wikipedia and YouTube.

Here are a few of my links:

http://www.theonion.com/
- The Onion is where I go when the news is too depressing for me. Its hilarious.
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/?state=nwa
- RealClearPolitics is where I go when I want actual political news and information.
http://www.prisonplanet.com/
- I go to PrisonPlanet.com a lot because I like Alex Jones’ voice and I enjoy entertaining conspiracy theories.
http://rt.com/
- I think RT news is just about the most unbiased, English-spoken news I can find in the world.