Midterm Blog Post

When reflecting back upon the first half of this semester, I think about how I really enjoy this class more than most of my others. I really enjoy the intellectual discussions we share on pieces from Rereading America and any other kind of opinionated discussions we have on other topics. It’s really interesting to compare ideas on different subjects, and from the things we have learned about so far has really given me an insight to today’s culture in a whole new way. 

There is nothing in particular that I would change about the class, I like the setting and the way it’s structured and I really like the curriculum. This is probably the most interesting writing class that I’ve ever taken. You kind of learn in a different hands on experience, and I’ve enjoyed the papers we have written thus far. My favorite paper I’ve written probably has to be the “Analyzing Popular Culture” paper. When I picked the Levi’s Legacy campaign commercial for my basis, I liked being able to research the background on how it all started and I could relate the freedom and liberation of the idea. That has definitely been my favorite overall.

I like the overall vibe of the class. We all respect each other and our opinions in a great way, and I feel like I’ve personally taken on some great skills since I’ve begun the course. I really like our teachers style and I enjoy the company of the class as well. I think my grade does correspond to the effort I put into the class, definitely. I think it’s important to immerse yourself in the curriculum of the course because I feel like you learn best that way in the end. It’s been great this first half the semester, and I’m looking forward to the next following half.

Blog Assignment #3

Twitter is one of the biggest social networking websites on the Internet to date. Who knew 140 characters of space to write whatever the hell you want could actually be so efficient? Celebrities all across the nation are using Twitter as an outlet to connect with their fans in a more personal and intimate way. I think pretty much anyone who has a favorite celebrity would like to know what they’re doing that day, or week, or month. Twitter has also been a way to hold giveaways to give to fans, information on touring and new releases of music, etc. 

A celebrity that comes to my mind when I think of who I follow on Twitter is Katy Perry. Her following is incredibly impressive and also conveys how large her fan base actually is. At this moment, Katy Perry has a whopping 27,249,704 people who are following her to find out the infamous question to Twitter’s overall question, “What’s happening?” In the last five minutes I’ve refreshed the webpage, her following has gained by 200. This shows how fast people are joining the site, discovering the access they have to a celebrities life, and how easy and quick Twitter makes it accessible to do so. 

One of the things I love about Katy’s presence on Twitter is the realness each tweet has to it’s text. You can tell that it’s actually her behind the screen by the honesty and quirkiness she has to her personality in general, and not just another person who works for her who handles her social media publicity. On September 28th, she expressed her gratitude to her Japanese fans, “Excited to hang out with my Japanese fans tonight & FINALLY premiere my movie PART OF ME! Saved the best for last of course..” It’s a great thing to see a celebrity with such a huge fan base and success behind her that still takes time out of her day to thank her fans and express her love for all of them around the world. 

On September 6th, Katy tweeted, “Success isn’t about how much money you make, it’s about the difference you make in people’s lives.” I think this says a lot about her image as an artist and individual. You can recognize the goodness in her as a human being, and I think tweets like this make people in all want to know more about Katy, which essentially makes it easier for people to want to know what she’s going to say next. She also gives fans a better outlook in her personal life by using TwitPic as an outlet as well; while browsing through her tweets, she is sending out TwitPic’s to followers a couple every tweets. You can tell her political views in one TwitPic she posts of her standing in front of a screen with Barack Obama giving a speech; she tweets a long with the photo saying, “Yes we can!” 

I think personally, she balances out all the aspects of her life on Twitter in a really great way. She showcases personal tweets, tweets about her touring, tweets about her music/singles/accomplishments and one thing Katy Perry especially showcases is her gratefulness for her achievements and the amount of love she has for the people who have been there with her every single step a long the way.

Blog Assignment #2

Divorce is a huge part of a majority of our generation’s lives. Looking back on the rise and fall of my parents marriage, the bad outweighs the good. A certain kind of paranoia rushes over me. Suddenly I feel five again. I live on 16th avenue and my dad lets me skip school and the only thing we do all day is listen to the 1968 version of Glen Campbell’s “Wichita Lineman,” and eat Chinese food. I remember marriage. I remember writing on the walls and baby corn and naps on the couch. The first time I got the chicken pox. I remember it all so well and I was so small, not aware of the feelings that consumed me the way they did others.  The curls on my head grew, a long with my mother and father. It was the prime of my childhood. It was the constant reassurance that I was loved - and it came unconditional. It did not have any rules. It breathed on it’s own. It swallowed up every fiber in my body, structuring me, molding me as I am now. 

Even though my parents love for each other failed, the love they had for me did not. Seven years later now, and things are a lot more clear than before. When divorce happened, when I didn’t know much about it other than the fact that is bad, forbidden; “a sin.” I look back it now as a small chapter in the life that I will and have been leading. My love for my parents has never altered. It’s stayed healthy since I was small. The disbelief I went through when it happened was normal but even then I knew that everything essentially happens for a reason. I didn’t want to have something that I knew I had no control over rule my life, but I did. Let’s face it: Divorce is hard. It’s hard for anyone. It’s hard even when it’s supposed to be the, “easiest way out.” My parents didn’t pick the easiest way out, but they picked the fastest way out. I’m sure there are things that I don’t know about the way it ended, and I’m not sure if I’ll ever know, but if there is something I do know it’s that it makes sense now. 

When it happened it was completely beyond my understanding. I didn’t see how it was possible to love someone with your whole entire life and then one day not have it be enough. I didn’t understand what it meant to live in a whole different home after it happened, from being picked up on the weekends with a different parent, two christmases, two family birthday parties, two cakes, it was too much. I was young and I didn’t want to understand. Screw understanding. I was 10, I was 11, I didn’t need to be blaming myself but I did. 

It’s important now that I recognize the struggle they went through as human beings, as responsible parents, to keep their marriage alive as long as they could for their only daughter. After all my terrible adolescence and misunderstanding that eventually turned into teen angst, something inside me switched on. It said, everything happens for a reason. You need to stop blaming yourself, your parents even, just let things happens the way they are supposed to happen. That was the day I began to live for what’s going on right now, not the past, and not even the future. I knew that whatever kind of life I was going to live one day was going to be a great one; a life without regrets, without tension, and I most definitely wouldn’t be asking myself, “What if?” 

Blog Assignment #1

My familiarity with blogs in general has been something very close to me. A majority of my high school years was spent on the Internet, whether it was social networking sites, or networking with editors of magazines and publicists of bands and artists, I was always everywhere on the Internet. In 2009 I found Tumblr from a friend, which is now a larger site than it was back then, and I became completely immersed in the types of blogs and personalities it had to offer. Whether it featured photography, poetry, cultural and political views, activism, I was so intrigued. I spent most of my time on there, making myself knowledgeable in different things, and meeting and talking with a lot of people who had shared things about themselves with their followers and so forth. A few months after I created my personal blog, there was a trend on Tumblr where people would put, "fuckyeah-" in front of things in their URL blog and their blog would be solely about the thing they were representing. Whether it was a famous TV show that everyone loved, an artist or band, author, or popular demanded trendy quotes, it had "fuckyeah-" before it. I came across a blog that was just about skinny girls. Seeing as how people have opinions about most things these days, it caused quite a big controversy with a lot of people who were on Tumblr at the time. All types of people opinionated their voice about it, and people felt hurt that a site was dedicated to a certain kind of physical appearance. I decided to open a blog with a friend that focused around every type of female; size, ethnicity, sexual orientation. With the opening of that, people were able to submit themselves to our blog through email (which later on escalated to being able to submit on the actual blog itself) and you would be posted on the site for our followers of the blog to see. As soon as we knew it, the blog became very popular over night. People liked the idea of liking and enjoying themselves on a different kind of level, and I felt as if it were very liberating to some which was so nice to see. Currently, the blog has over 45,000 followers but I don't keep up with it much anymore. The theme of the blog got out of hand a few years later, and sadly most of our followers became greedy with the idea so we had to shut it down for a little while.

But on my adventure of discovering blogs, personalities, and even opening one that changed my perspective on a lot of things - I've kept up with quite a few that I still read and enjoy from time to time. Here are the URL's to a few of those blogs.

http://dearstevencraige.tumblr.com/
http://dearscarlet.tumblr.com/
http://www.joshweed.com/