Wiki Reflection

Wikis are fun. I like how Professor Morgan pointed out, on Tuesday, that Wikis provide much more than just a simple definition of the word/topic. This week I used Wikis in order to provide a broad definition of the word, but I also threw out different ideas/links/things to consider when considering the word/topic of the Wiki page.

This week, my group and I choose to work on WikiLurker and OnFirstEnteringAPage. Firstly, I focused on WikiLurker. This WikiWord was used before, but there was zero content to be found. While in class, I discovered that googling “wiki lurker” basically resulted in zero results, except for A Guide to Conducting Online Research. While it didn’t really dictate what I put into the Wiki, it did solidify some of my thinking regarding the term WikiLurker. So what did I do next? Well, I did what I thought I was supposed to do, I simply jumped into editing the Wiki with whatever first came to mind. (Are we supposed to tell you step by step what we editied? I tend to edit, store, and then find random typos so it’s hard for me to exactly say what I did). Over the few days, that I worked on this Wiki, I wrote the basics of the first 8 bullet points. I commissioned my best friend who is an artist to draw the image for the WikiLurkers page (it took her all of five minutes). I did this because finding images without copyright/were 100% free for me to use was difficult, especially because of the topic itself. During the week, I added the links to the Wiki page on Wiki culture and the link to Neal Gaber’s essay on Wiki culture. That is when I began to realize that I was shifting into this idea of Wiki culture so I linked the WikiAsCulture page.

When I began working on WikiLurker, I decided that WikiTroll deserved its own page, so I went a head and created it. At the same time I asked my friend to create the image to WikiLurker, I asked her to create the image for WIkiTroll. I went a head and added that to the page, along with a brief paragraph about hows trolls are prominent to Wiki culture. Two days later, I was just clicking around on our class wiki and I discovered that there was a page called TrollsAreGoodForTheInternet. I added that link and did not consider that there might be a Wiki page called TrollsAreBadForTheInternet. Claire went ahead and added that link for me, and she also went off and created several offshoots of the WikiTroll page called HumorTrolls, GrieferTrolls, and ShockTrolls. I thought this was pretty cool. I noticed today that they were not linked on the main WikiTroll page so I went a head and linked those.

Finally, I worked on OnFirstEnteringAPage. I began work on this page a little bit later than I did with the other Wikis. I began work on 2/22. This page was already created and it had a lot of content, so I began looking at that content and I noticed some things that I could make better. The page itself was informal in its writing style, which was fine. Some of it just didn’t flow right though so I changed it. It used to look like this:

I’m here. Now what?

If you are new to the world of wikis. Take a breath; things are about to get a little weird (hopefully in a positive way).
Read the page to get a feel for what is happening here. It’s a draft. It’s a mess. Don’t be discouraged. YOU can bring order to it.
– Become a WikiParticipant, not just a WikiLurker.
Reorganize stuff on the page to bring the similarities and distinctions into focus. This is a good place to begin to see if you have an inherent structure so far.
Use what’s there as source material for ReFactoring. Quote that material worth quoting. Block quote using a tab. Summarize less notable stuff. Move other stuff below the double line.

And now it looks like this:

I’m here on a Wiki. Now what?

If you are new to the world of Wikis, then take a breath; things are about to get a little weird (hopefully in a positive way).
Firstly, read the Wiki page to get a feel for what is happening. Often, Wikis might look like a draft or a mess. Don’t be discouraged. YOU can bring order to it by becoming a WikiParticipant and not just a WikiLurker.
Secondly, find somewhere on the Wiki where you find yourself confused. Chances are if you are confused, then somebody else it too. Take away that confusion! Wikis are supposed to be informative, simple, and quickly read and digested. Try adding links or other information that backs up what the Wiki is stating. Reorganize the information on the page to bring the similarities, argument, or differing points into focus.
Use the content there as source material for ReFactoring. Quote that material worth quoting. Block quote using a tab. Summarize less notable stuff. Move other stuff below the double line.

I also added these two paragraphs:

Use the content already featured on the Wiki as source material for ReFactoring. Quote the material worth quoting. Block quote using a tab. Summarize less notable stuff. Move other stuff below the double line.
Add content to a page. What? Yes, YOU can add your thoughts into a Wiki and make millions of internet users see the evidence that your provide. You can write in response to the the current content or in response to another entry point, such as an external source. Add your own interpretation to the cluster and then look for commonalities and distinctions.

Take advantage of the resource we have gained by being students who grew up during this technological revolution. We inherently understand the collaboration, discussion, linking, and ever-changing cycle of the internet. Become a part of it. Wikis are one of the many ways that we can document this moment in time.
Strive to become a part of the Wiki community. The Wiki community thrives on newcomers, return users, and people dedicated to informing the masses about what they are passionate about.

Quick Summary:

I felt proud of the work I did this week. I was the first to contribute to WikiLurker and I created the page WikiTroll which lead to many more pages being created on the topic. I worked throughout the week and didn’t have to play catch up during the weekend. I didn’t like having to record everything that I edited (and I failed to do so), because sometimes the edits were minuscule or I was changing a little bit, clicking store, changing it back, etc. I also worked on OnFirstEnteringAPage. I thought I made the page a little bit more approachable and clear in its wording. I felt like the content I added was worthwhile. I didn’t really have trouble with anything this week. I edited the Wikis as the week progressed and was able to make my edits valuable. I really like working on Wikis. I like how they can be formal or informal and that  collaboration clearly produces the best content.

Quick Links: WikiLurker  +Its History, WikiTroll +Its History, OnFirstEnteringAPage +Its History, Shanna’s Wiki page

Week 5 Reflection

So, this week’s assignment was much harder than I thought it was going to be. The reading was difficult and while I understand the basics of the purpose of Wikis, I am a newbie when it comes to the technicalities of it. I watched videos that explain Wikis, but I felt that I was lost in translation. In other words, when I thought that I understood something, I couldn’t see how it applied to the Wikis that I was exploring.

I found it really interesting to learn about how to interact with the Wikis that I regularly explore on my own time. I didn’t ever really understand how to edit Wikipedia and I appreciate it even more now, because it does really take a lot of work from people all over the world to build the vast amount of knowledge that Wikipedia has accumulated.

I hope to be able to explore Wikis more in terms of their use for education. I’m sure there have been cases where Wikis haven’t really worked well for a class because of the way it was set up, but if a teacher puts the time and effort into building a Wiki and teaching their students how to use it, it really can be a valuable tool. 

What I really don’t understand is how…Wikis are marketed as being “easy”. They are as difficult as we make them out to be, but they are not really “easy”, which I think is evidenced by this week’s posts from my classmates. I don’t think any of us that are new to Wikis feel even close to comfortable with them, even after a few hours of research. I mentioned in my post that I thought the whole “camping trip” concept was a bit silly..and I don’t think that went over very well. I got what the point they were trying to make…but it seemed as though they were making Wikis more simple and mundane than they really are. Realistically, I don’t think people are going to start using Wikis for simple manners. They are going to be used for bigger scale projects that seek to collect and reflect on a lot of information.

My Post- Wiki Notes

Wiki Notes

Here’s what I learned about Wikis this week.

• So, basically Wikis are interactive and open websites that allow for continuous editing in order to gather information from multiple people. Obviously, the most famous Wiki is Wikipedia.  Because of Wikipedia’s popularity, Wiki’s have gotten a bad reputation because it’s information may or may be valid and because “anyone can edit it”. Though, for some teachers, they are recognizing Wikipedia’s importance and accepting that student’s use it to begin their research. Even Wikipedia’s founder had to acknowledge Wikipedia’s validity within academic research. Comically, he said that he gets emails from students who got into trouble by citing incorrect information that they got from Wikipedia.
• Wikis are usually much simpler than Wikipedia. This common craft video shows how Wiki’s can be used for even things as simple as planning a camping trip. However, I do not understand the practicality of this. I consider myself to be a fairly tech savvy person, but I have no idea how to set up a new Wiki (even after reading this Ehow article).  I don’t quite understand how setting up a Wiki would be easier than creating a group chat on Facebook, or creating an editable Google Docs file, or even *gasp* using Email.
• The formatting of more basic (i.e. regular Wikis) is confusing to me. We were supposed to take a look at Meatball Wiki and I have really no clue what kind of information that this Wiki is supposed to be giving me. Feel free to clue me in.
• I have always wondered how they keep all the spam off of Wikis, even Wikis as big as Wikipedia. I’m not sure what they do on smaller Wikis, besides edit/delete the spam out, but on Wikipedia they can lock certain Wiki pages that attract a lot of spam. Lana Del Rey’s Wiki page is locked. You can tell by looking at the lock directly above the main picture. When you click on the lock, you see this:
• Linking is the most important aspect of Wikis. When I go on a Wiki that I find interesting, I can go on a Wiki-binge by following link after link. I challenge you to go onto this list of list of lists on Wikipedia. You’ll see what I mean.
• Wikis can be useful in the classroom. This page shows many different ways that Wiki’s can be used in the elementary classroom, which I really found interesting. Specifically, a great idea that she has is using Wikis as a way to provide students with safe links for research and studying.
• Wikis are all about collaboration. Whether students are collaborating on a project, or scholars are collaborating on gathering information about a certain subject, Wikis are probably the best way for people to gather, collect, and reflect on information on the internet. While some knowledge and skill is used to navigate a Wiki, editing a Wiki is a fairly simple way for people to put input into an online project. They don’t need knowledge of HTML or any thing to in depth.
• Pages/information can be restored. By going on the “History” tab, people can revert back to the Wikis’ previous stages.
• If people are editing the same page at once, the person who hits save last will override the person who hit save first.

Overall, I think Wikis are all about the discovery of information. The internet is full of information, but the validity and usefulness of a lot of that information should be questioned. Wikis allow anybody to collaborate to gather and generate information based on a topic.  They have an increasing value in education, as classes can collect information and work together in building resources for their subject.

Problems I have:

• How does a regular person set up a small Wiki for purposes like planning a camping trip?
• I need a tutorial for more basic Wikis, like Meatball Wiki.

Interesting Links:

Wiki Index

A Guide to Creating Your Own Wiki

Firm publishes guide on appropriate Wikipedia use

Wikipedia is “preserving” celebrity voices

Week 4 Reflection

So another week has gone by. I thoroughly enjoyed reading Chapter 3 of Rettberg to the extent that I wanted the chapter to be longer in order for her to expand on some ideas that were merely touched upon. There were a lot of topics in the chapter, but I didn’t struggle to find a topic that interested me. I chose to write about performance and internet fame. It was an interesting topic and I immediately recalled news articles and links that I wanted to include. I suppose, I was writing about a topic that I already knew a little about, but yet I really enjoyed expanding on my ideas and leaning/researching as I went along.
I am proud of the way that I organized the post. It took me a really long time to try to streamline what I really wanted to talk about and to somehow organize that information. In composing the post for our assignment, I had many drafts. My intention was to post throughout the week and update the post as I went along, but it didn’t work out because it took me a while to condense what I was trying to say. I think my post was a little bit different than that of my classmates. I used Rettberg as a stepping post for what I ultimately wrote about and I hope that’s okay. Honestly, It’s just kind of the way it worked out,

Next week, I’ll try to be a little bit more “technical” about the way I approach the assignment. Perhaps, I didn’t approach the topic in the right way, or maybe I did. I think I’ll follow a Whitney’s model a little bit. She really knocked it out of the park this week. I liked how she was able to organize her thoughts into three different informational posts.

Overall, I think I did good this week, despite my uncertainty about it all. I did work hard on my post and I think my biggest strength was searching and providing links to back up what I was talking about.

My posts:

The Performance Behind Social Media Fame

How I Feel Scrolling Through My Facebook Feed

How I Feel Scrolling Through My Facebook Feed

As I grow older, I find myself hating social media a bit more each and every day. Okay, I don’t hate it but I definitely am becoming more aware of the little things that annoy me about it.

But seriously, I can’t be the only one who feels like the Grinch while going through their Facebook feed, right?

How many people are actually my friends on Facebook? People I talk to regularly? If I were to actually count that number, it would be embarrassingly low. Still, I can’t look away. One of the worst things about Facebook right now is the trend of “facts” placed on terribly low quality images that are shared millions of times in order to influence the gullible.

What about all the casual racism, sexism, body-shaming, and just all around jerk-ish behavior that people spread around and encourage on a daily basis? While I normally just ignore/un-friend these people, sometimes I feel like stepping into the war-zone.

What about all of the selfies? Hey, let’s take a selfie while driving, eating, drinking, studying, etc! Why not? My personal favorite is the girl I know who posts selfies regularly…except she takes them from the same angle with the same lighting, smile, and in the same room. She could have taken them all on the same day for all I know.

What about people who write four line status updates without punctuation?

And let’s not forget about the Facebook “philosophers”. People who think they have all the answers to life’s questions in a status update.

And finally, my personal favorite is when people post a vague status update about how they are mad or sad about something and somebody asks why and all they say is “I won’t talk about it on Facebook”. Seriously?

The Performance Behind Social Media Fame

While reading Chapter 3 of Jill Walker Rettberg’s Blogging, I instantly felt connected to the idea of social media as being a type of performance. Rettberg writes, “there is a performance aspect to social networking sites that is also present in blogs, though it may be a little more subtle in the latter. When we blog or use social networking sites, we not only present ourselves as individuals, but we also publicly claim our relationships” (82).  While I understand Retterberg’s point completely, I was hoping that she would delve further into the performance aspect of social media in relation to David Weinberg’s idea of “on the internet, everyone is famous to 15 people” that she briefly mentions on page 62. Specifically, I am interested in the phenomenon of “internet famous”, a trend I first noticed back in the day on MySpace and has since been continued on Youtube, Twitter, and Tumblr. Why do younger people strive for internet fame? How does it even happen? Well, I’m here to give a brief history of the internet “famous”.

First, there was Myspace. I kind of grew up in the time where I was able to see Myspace at the height of its cultural impact and participate in its downfall and the move to Facebook. Back in the days of Myspace, having a massive friend count was the thing. Merely being friends with every person at your school wasn’t enough. Only having your closest friends comment on your pictures made you look like a loser. People participated in Myspace “trains”, in which people posted “bulletins” (messages that were sent out to every friend) with a massive list of people that you should friend, in exchange for being added to the train. It seems silly, looking back on it now, since social media has since moved on to the concepts of followers and tweets. If you’re interested in taking a step into a time machine, you can check out this post which shows the silliness of the massive friend craze of Myspace.

So, what did the Myspace friending craze have to do with the performance aspect of social media that Rettberg mentions in her book? Well, the Myspace friending craze resulted in a select few teenagers who actually became quite well known in the internet world for their comments, pictures, and “performance” on Myspace. These people, dubbed “scene queens” were girls who looked like this. While most have them have fallen into obscurity, I think that they started the whole performance aspect of the internet that millions of teenagers have carried on since then. They also provided cautionary tales about the horrors of the internet. Many have failed to carry on their internet fame into profit though, but the YouTube generation has changed that and heightened the importance of putting on a performance in order to gain internet fame.

After the Myspace craze died down, the dynamic of internet fame changed a bit. An example of the transition is the show Gossip Girl, which premiered in 2007, and showed how the internet could follow and chronicle a person’s real life and the consequences of it. As a result, internet celebrities became people who chronicled their life and could virtually write their own biographies, as Rettberg points out when she writes, “When a piece of software…presents such traces of your life in chronological order, these traces become an autobiography created on the fly. This is an automatically generated biography, though. You wrote it-after all…but you didn’t shape its narration…today’s technology can write a story automatically from all these scraps of information about ourselves” (88).

For a while, Facebook was the most prominent way for people to “write” their autobiographies, but it seems as though platforms like Twitter and YouTube have become better ways for people to become renown on the internet. Popular YouTubers can now  build successful companies stemming from their YouTube popularity and many young people desire to become one of those elite YouTube celebrities. But how did the popular YouTubers gain all of the subscribers and fans? First and foremost, they must be great performers.

A good example of this is Jenna Marbles.  According to her Reddit AMA, she makes enough money off of YouTube for it to be her full time job. And let’s not forget she’s a college educated woman who jokes about the fact that her degree has been useless for her current career path. That’s pretty impressive and is a result of her dedication to performance. She posts new videos every Wednesday and keeps her fans interested not just on YouTube, but through her twitter, tumblr, blog, and even her  online shop for merchandise. She’s one of the biggest success stories of internet performance. She lets people into her life just enough to make them care, but she still remains intriguing enough to keep the following year after year. Here’s an interesting article by the New York Times that gives a lot of insight into her internet celebrity. In summary, I would say that Jenna Marbles is a perfect example of how people seek to “perform” on the internet. For those who want to gain internet fame, they need to be inherently funny, relatable, silly, and give just enough insight into their life to keep the allure of a celebrity.

On another note, Twitter is an interesting platform because its obvious that its users are striving to gain as many followers as possible and that having followers from real life friends is not the goal. I like to think about Twitter as the meeting place for those hopeful for some level of fame. I don’t mean that in a bad way, but think about it in this way; Twitter is the platform for celebrities and the possibility of interacting with a favorite celebrity is the appeal behind Twitter for a lot of people.  Celebrities love Twitter because it’s an easy place to promote their projects and to heighten their popularity. An example of the power of social media for celebrities is Ariana Grande. She became one of the most famous young adults in America by slowly building a fan base to jump start her music career. While she had the backing of Nickelodeon, she was merely a sidekick character on her show Victorious, but her massive Twitter following translated to her getting her own show and her album debuting at No.1 on the Billboard charts. By comparison, Miranda Cosgrove was on two Nickelodeon series from 2004-2012 and only has 6.3 million twitter followers compared to Ariana Grande’s 13.3 million followers.  How did she do it? Well, by interacting with her fans, being positive, showing off her talent, and making people intrigued by her personal life.

Overall, I think that being active on social media is performance and those who wish to become prominent on social media must be internet savvy people who use their humor, talent, unique life style, etc in order to make people eager to see what they will write/vlog/tweet about next.  While I think it’s great that seemly ordinary people can make careers about of making Youtube videos or other online ventures, the realization is that not everyone can be internet famous, and a lot of the time the next viral video/tweet/blog will be from somebody who never expected to gain attention. That’s the beauty of the internet.

Some random interesting links that I found influential in writing this post:

• The tag for “Internet Famous” on Tumblr- Gives insight into how being internet famous is a goal of today’s teenagers.
• EHow’s “How to be Internet Famous” Article- Shows that people actually google “how to be internet famous”. What?
• A recent business article about Bethany Mota, an 18 year old who makes about 40,000 dollars a month from YouTube and also has an Aeropostale clothing line as a result.
• A Buzzfeed article about Anna Kendrick’s amazing tweets. Another example of how a celebrity can up their star power by being relatable and hilarious on social media.
• Guru Gossip– This is an interesting one. It’s a forum that posts gossip about YouTubers. Exemplifies how “regular” people made known by the internet can be subject to the same scrutiny and obsession as regular celebrities.

Weekly Reflection

How well do you feel you completed the requirements of the week’s assignments?

• I think I completed the tasks fairly well. I didn’t post as much as previous weeks but I focused on quality over quantity. This week I posted Untitled, The Different Types of Blogging, Fandom Problems, and Separating Art from the Artist.
• Specifically, we had to pick one the many choices for our weekly assignment I chose the first choice, not because I perceived it as easier but because I really wanted to have the chance to discover new blogs and when I initially read Rettberg, I didn’t quite understand/believe the categories that she choose. It seemed like there should be more categories than three, but I discovered through the assignment, that for the most part, every blog should fit into a category.

What gave you trouble? How did you work your way through that What did you enjoy most? What did you learn? What else did you learn?

• Embedding tweets. I thought that you copied the embed code that twitter gives you, but it turns out all you need is the link for the specific tweet. What is the embed code even for then?
• I enjoyed taking my blog a little bit more seriously this week. It wasn’t a conscious decision, but the way that my blogging evolved over time. Don’t fret though, I’m sure I will have plenty of weird posts to come. Specifically, I have a Star Wars post planned. I’ve never seen Star Wars before so I’m going to do a pre and post watch post.
• I learned, through the weekly assignment, how creative blogging can be. I got really excited about 2Today.com and all the possibilities that the site will bring to the future of blogging.

What would you do differently? What questions do you have?

• I would have posted more often. It was harder to find things to post about this week. I’ve had a burst of inspiration though and I might even make another post tonight. Hopefully this week will be better. I’m trying. I got burnt out during the first couple weeks and began doubting the value of the posting I was doing. Despite doing fewer posts, I am prouder of the work I did this week.

How does your work connect with the topics and issues we’ve looked at already? With the topics and issues of the course as a whole? Where does your work this week fit into the whole?

• We talked about Twitter a lot and incorporating it, and I used twitter as a source in a couple of my posts. Rettberg talks about twitter a little bit and twitter really does have a huge impact on culture. When a notable person tweets an controversial/inspiring opinion, it will be noticed and will make news. Using tweets as a source is a pretty valid way of incorporating general opinions of the public. It’s pretty crazy that when I’m considering an issue I can just go on twitter and come to a consensus quickly about what the general population thinks about something. I am definitely going to be using twitter in future posts.

On a side note, my personal goal for the week is to do less of this:

Happy Blogging! Hopefully this next week will be just as fun.

Separating Art from the Artist

Hollywood is a pretty messed up place. Recently, it has come to my attention just how far celebrities will go just to remain in the spotlight and keep their career going.  This week, Dylan Farrow published an open letter in which she for the first time, gave an account of the abuse she suffered at the hands of Woody Allen. While some celebrities have come out in support, hardly any actors have spoken out in support of Dylan Farrow, presumably in fear of being blacklisted by one of the most celebrated director’s in Hollywood.  While some people have, of course, accused powerful people of heinous crimes for their own agendas, it’s despicable that we live in a society that would rather believe the accused than the accuser. This Woody Allen issue  is hardly the first time that things like this have happened. Pop culture has always conveniently forgiven celebrities for their crimes in order to validate their appreciation for their art.  However, I really appreciate those few celebrities who have spoken out against the people in the industry who have abused their power.  Marina and the Diamonds (coincidentally one of my favorite musicians) hit the nail on the head with her tweets over the past few days.

Human beings are more important than art. http://t.co/JigFs5Ty7M

— MARINA (@MarinaDiamandis) February 2, 2014

Woody Allen is a creep.

— MARINA (@MarinaDiamandis) February 2, 2014

Terry Richardson is a creep.

— MARINA (@MarinaDiamandis) February 2, 2014

R. Kelly is a creep.

— MARINA (@MarinaDiamandis) February 2, 2014

Yet the fashion/ music/ film industries celebrate & support these people, justifying their actions because they are 'talented, though…'

— MARINA (@MarinaDiamandis) February 2, 2014

In any other industry their behaviour would be viewed differently.

— MARINA (@MarinaDiamandis) February 2, 2014

But at the end of the day… Who can resist a good pop song/ movie/ music video…

— MARINA (@MarinaDiamandis) February 2, 2014

And who cares if the person who wrote it raped young girls/ beat up their girlfriends when you can go buy it on iTunes NOW!

— MARINA (@MarinaDiamandis) February 2, 2014

We all have the capacity to be fickle & bought. But you dont have to be – and you don't have to work with creeps. Call them out instead.

— MARINA (@MarinaDiamandis) February 2, 2014

How amazing is that? I mean, really. Somebody needs to call out these people. R. Kelly has been accused time and time again of going after underage girls and even married Aaliyah when she was just 15 years old. But he’s still around, even featured on the new Lady Gaga album on a song disturbingly titled “Do What U Want”. Terry Richardson, a photographer, has been accused of sexually harassing models and just being an overall creep but yet the likes of Miley Cyrus pose nude for him consistently. (Here, Lena Dunham, who has posed for Richardson, addresses the complicated nature of the issue by tweeting “I responded asking that my feminism not be picked apart because of one PR experience. You don’t learn to say no overnight.”)

Honestly, I’m not sure how I feel about all of these issues going on in celebrity culture right now. I do, however, think its sickening how actors/musicians/celebrities continue to work with those who have a plethora of incriminating evidence against them. They shouldn’t be out there praising the likes of Woody Allen, R.Kelly, and Terry Richardson and building up their status so that they are given the power to potentially hurt others.

But how should the public perceive these people? Can you truly separate the artist from the art? For example, should I never watch another WWE Royal Rumble that features Chris Benoit because he murdered his wife and son?  Should I delete all of the As I Lay Dying and Austrian Death Machine songs off my computer because Tim Lambesis hired a hit man to kill his wife? What about people who grew up listening to the popular Welsh band, Lost Prophets, whose lead singer Ian Watkins was recently convicted of absolutely horrific child sex crimes and sentenced to 35 years in prison? Should they stop listening to the music that the other (presumably) innocent/unaware members of the band spent half their lives creating? Should you not watch the episodes of Sons of Anarchy with the actor Johnny Lewis who (most likely) murdered his next door neighbor? The answer: I honestly don’t know. But the difference between these people and Woody Allen, Terry Richardson, and R.Kelly is that they are dead or in custody and won’t be able to hurt another person again. I, for one, won’t be supporting these people and will judge the celebrities who ignore the evidence against them and continue to do it. But in reality, I don’t think I’ll start hating Emma Stone because she is the lead in Woody Allen’s next film, and I already own the newest Lady Gaga album, and I like musicians that have been photographed by Terry Richardson. It’s a tough call, but I wish the people in the entertainment industry would take a stance against these people so that us consumers weren’t tempted to buy into the works of these people again and again.

What do you guys think about this tough issue? Can you separate the art from the artist?

Fandom Problems

I’ll be the first to admit it. I’m a fangirl. I get really wrapped up in the movies/tv/books that I like.

This week I was really intrigued by J.K. Rowling’s revelation that she wished that she hadn’t put Hermione and Ron together. The fandom exploded. Some were disturbed…after all, she can’t go back and change it now.

https://twitter.com/realjohngreen/status/429797089569439744

John Green had an interesting perspective on it. The Harry Potter books are done now and the fans are what keeps them alive. Harry Potter has inspired a lot of fanmade work from music (wizard rock), to crafts, a real life sport (Quidditch), and creative writing projects (fanfiction-including the popular Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality). To say that J.K. Rowling is the only one who created the culture of Harry Potter would be a complete disregard for the love and passion that fans have fueled into the fandom over the years.

However, we as fans have changed our minds about the Harry Potter cannon several times over. There are after all, people out there who ship Hermione with Snape, or with Draco, or pretty much any character you can imagine. Why can’t J.K. Rowling do the same? If anything, I’m kind of happy that J.K. Rowling is looking back on the amazing books that she wrote and considering them in a new light. Heck, if J.K. Rowling tweeted tomorrow “Jk! Fred’s not really dead!” I would be jumping on that bandwagon without a second thought.

We Harry Potter nerds shouldn’t be so disturbed by J.K. Rowling’s post-Harry Potter revelations. If anything, we should be happy that this amazing writer gives us insight into her process. But really, we all know J.K. Rowling is just trollin’ us, right?

The Different Types of Blogging

Disclaimer: I discovered a lot of these amazing blogs from this article by time.

In Jill Walker Rettberg’s book Blogging, Rettberg attempts to sort different types of blogs into three different categories; filter blogs, personal blogs, and topic driven blogs.

First, there is filter blogging. Now, filter blogging can be a little bit confusing because well, not a lot of bloggers focus exclusively on collecting and aggregating links. What I discovered is that a lot of filter blogs follow a theme and they exclusively collect links that fit their theme. Usually, there posts will be smaller in size, unlike a personal blog where every post will be expanded. They want people to read the headline, click on their sites content, and to explore the outgoing links. If you’re still confused about what filter blogging is, think of a site like Reddit, where tons of links are collected together and the visitor gets to chose what they will do. They can either follow the link, read Reddit’s comments, or read the original poster’s thoughts.

A few filter blogs I found are:

TechMeme– I consider TechMeme to be a filter blog because of it’s focus on collecting, linking, and reporting technology news with a focus on quantity. From their homepage, you can see a variety of different stories and the it is the visitors job to figure out what links interest them. It’s a collection, or scrapbook, of the day’s most important news.

Marginal Revolution– This is a filter blog focused on aggregated and annotating news stories. I would say that this blog focuses on quality over quantity and isn’t meant to be a complete news source like TechMeme. It still has plenty of value and its goal seems to be to present overlooked news stories and where to find more information about that story.

LongForm– This is my favorite filter blog that I found. Longform basically collects links, very simply, that lead to long editorials, articles, or fiction works that are worth reading. It’s kind of like the contents page of a magazine, where the links lead to the articles themselves. Very cool.

OhNoTheyDidnt– OhNoTheyDidnt is basically a celebrity news site which gathers stories from other sites. The outgoing links aren’t as highlighted here, because people go to this site for the community that lives within the comments. It’s a filter blog nonetheless.

Conclusion: Filter blogs usually have a clean and simple layout, without many pictures to highlight the importance of the outgoing links. A filter blog’s goal is to collect links focused on a certain interest and give people a chance to discover stories they wouldn’t have found otherwise. Confusing, but very useful.

Secondly, there is personal blogging.  Personal blogging is what most people think about when they hear the word “blog”.

Some personal blogs:

TheBloggess– The Bloggess is a woman who comically discusses her life as a mother. I think blogs like hers are the reasons why blogging really took off in the first place.  She even wrote a book! Crazy.  When you look at her site, you can see how different it looks from a filter blog. Each post is expanded fully and features pictures and media.  The site is colorful and is designed to reflect her personality.

SleepTalkinMan– This is one of my favorite blogs. This regular English dude says absolutely crazy things in his sleep and his wife records him every night and posts the transcripts and audio. It’s hilarious. The wife also ocassionaly posts more personal updates, but the focus is on sleep talking, which is why the site is simpler in style.

UndressedSkeleton– A blog run by a girl who lost a lot of weight and learned a lot about healthy living a long the way.

Conclusion: Personal blogs are casual in tone and are usually written for either comical or inspirational purposes. Still, personal blogs often follow a theme and a person reflects on that theme consistently. Visually, the blogs are colorful and cheery and the posts are meant to be read in chronological order, like a diary. The posts take on the assumption that you have been following them for a while. The comments of these blogs are usually by people who feel like they identify with the problems, goals, or observations that the blogger makes. Popular personal bloggers are people who have big and inspirational personalities but yet care about the readers of their blog and the comments that they make on the posts.

Finally, there are topic driven blogs. I’ll admit, I am still kind of confused about how to differentiate topic driven blogs from personal blogs. Why aren’t any of the blogs that I posted under personal blogs considered topic blogs? Well, according to Rettberg topic driven blogs are more similar to filter blogs because “they provide a filter to the vast amount of news, information, and conversations on the web…Often such blogs  prioritize debate, both between the posters and between posters and commentators”(pg 24).

Some topic driven blogs:

InkyFool– InkyFool is a blog where Mark Forsyth shares his vast knowledge of the English language in a clever manner. From his blog, you get some sense of who he is as a person, but he’s not going to give the details of what he ate for breakfast. It’s more about the content than the person.  The blog’s set up is simple, but the content is expanded like a personal blog. He really wants the articles to be read fully and appreciated. They are scholarly.

TechCrunch– While this seems similar to a filter blog, the content is original and is exclusively about technology. There are several contributors who write the articles for the site. There content is more condensed, but each article has a few lines of preview on the homepage. The website has it’s own orignial content, so they don’t want to focus on the outgoing links.

2Today– This site really shows the power of blogging and the hard and valuable work that goes into it. This site acts like a news site for World War II, where they recount the events of World War II daily. It’s really amazing.  Because the focus is on the day-to-day, only the daily post is expanded and the previous days are featured un-expanded below.

Conclusion: Topic driven mix filter blogs with personal blogs. They report the news, but feature original content. There is a lot of variety within topic driven blogs and the possibilites are really endless. Typically, the blogs are not personalized like a personal blog, because there is a good chance that more than one person blogs for the site. Within a topic driven blog, there is a possiblity for the feeling of “knowing” the bloggers, but the focus is primarily on the topic of the blog.

Overall, I understand why Rettberg categorizes blogs in this way, but yet I found trouble sorting every blog into a category. A category that would have made sense to me would be something like “Business Personal”. A lot of blogs mix business related posting with personal posts, with the goal being that they become closer to their audience/people buying their product. An example of this would be Blogilates.

While I already read a few of these blogs, I discovered a few that are really amazing and I will definitely check out here and there.