Monthly Archives: April 2022

Self Reflection 03

Summarize what work you completed for PUB448. In addition to the three mandatory self-reflections (this one included), how many of the other 13 assignments did you complete? Did you pass all of them? 

I am proud of the work I’ve completed this semester. I fell behind a few times due to sickness and some mental health struggles but I’m proud with what I’ve accomplished and proud that I made it through the semester. I completed all but 2 of the reading reflections (the second & fourth ones) I almost finished the fourth one this week but I have so many papers and a final due this week that I didn’t want to stretch myself too thin. That said, I passed all that have been graded so far. I submitted a few assignments that required revisions but I think that they will pass on the second go as I am in a better headspace than when I originally wrote them.

Return to your first two self-reflections. What did you identify as your goals, challenges, and areas for potential improvement? Did you follow through on your plans, achieve your goals, and see the improvement you were hoping for? 

I actually completed the biggest goal that I had for myself this year today (April 13)!!! I got a big girl job! It happened really organically and I am so excited for this next step in my life. I have really honed in on my skills this last semester and I’m really proud of the design work that I did. The creative outputs this semester were definitely my favourite part of this class and I LOVED getting to make a podcast. I think I might try and actually pursue something with podcasting because it was genuinely SO MUCH FUN. I was challenged by the reading reflections (as expected) but I loved that I was able to choose which assignments to do. I really struggled with my mental health this semester (finally found a great therapist though which is GREAT) and the ability to take breaks when I needed to was so so helpful. I am really proud of the work I did this semester and having to make revisions challenged me to think more critically and be proud of the work that I was putting out.

Tell me about the most important new ideas and/or skills you developed in PUB448, and how you might draw on them in the future. 

I learned how to make a podcast! That was for sure the coolest thing this semester and I’d love to explore that more and become even more skilled in this area.

Bragging time: what’s the one thing you’re most proud of in this course, and why? You are not allowed to say “nothing”! 

I sound like a broken record but I’m really proud of the podcast I created. I think that the questions I asked were engaging and fun, and thats a huge part of being a podcast host. I am proud of the creative outputs I made this semester the most though.

Final thoughts?

There is a light at the end of the tunnel. This semester was a really really tough one for me and I felt in the dark for a lot of it. But knowing it gets better and life ebbs and flows. Thank you for a wonderful semester Hannah, you are a wonderful professor and I wish you all the best on your sabbatical. I will miss your teaching and your many jokes 🙂

Photo by Ann H

Happy 4th Birthday, Wrigley!

Wrigley Turns 4!

Four years ago today, on April 4th, 2018, Wrigley was born!

 

If you know me at all, you’d know that I really (and I mean really), love my dog. I’m constantly snapping cute photos of him, updating his Instagram account, and doting over how much of a “good boy” he is! So of course, his birthday is treated as an extra special occasion.

 

This year, we picked up a cupcake from the Three Dog Bakery in Port Moody to treat Wrigley. And as you can see from the photos, he thoroughly enjoyed it. At Wrigley’s last vet appointment we were told he needed to lose 5 pounds, and since then, he’s been on a pretty strict diet… but birthday calories are exempt! The poor dog though, I wouldn’t let him eat the cupcake until he cooperated and let me put the party hat on him. He was not thrilled, but in the end, he got his cupcake, ad I got some adorable pictures!

 

Wrigley’s birthday has me feeling like an emotional mom whose child is growing up. It feels like yesterday my mom surprised my brother and me by bringing home a puppy, and I can’t imagine these last four years without Wrigley in our lives.

 

Happy 4th birthday Wrigley! May this year be filled with lots of walks, time spent playing ball, and yummy treats (but not too many treats… you still need to lose 5 pounds!)

Check out Wrigley on Instagram!

The post Happy 4th Birthday, Wrigley! appeared first on Sincerely, Gracie.

Creative Output 03

What topic did you choose, and why? Why was this topic an appropriate fit for this publishing medium, in your opinion? You might want to think here about form, audience, barriers to access, and other specific characteristics of the publishing medium.

I made a podcast for my final creative output and I actually had so much fun making it. We discussed life, balance, a little bit of mental health, and it was just a nice conversation with a friend. I think that this topic is very suitable for this medium as podcasts are often conversations between two people. As for my audience, I’m not sure I want many people listening to me talk because this was just my first attempt at making a podcast. I think that affluence in podcasting comes from experience and the thought of maybe actually starting a podcast sounds exciting. Podcasts are super easy to access, and if I were to pursue this I would definitely get it available on Spotify, Apple Music, etc. so more people would be able to listen

Describe a specific choice you made as a creator and explain why you made it. 

For my cover art, I wanted to find a pretty random photo of myself because thats what this podcast is about. I don’t actually know. It’s supposed to be spontaneous and unscripted and fun.

What did you learn about this medium by actually working in it (as opposed to just reading about it or analyzing it)?

I learned that the editing technique is very similar to that of YouTube videos. The functions are primarily the same, and it’s less stressful as theres less features, no colour correcting or any other video editing that is necessary.

Photo by KoolShooters

Media Analysis 04

The media that I chose for this weeks analysis is a video titled J.K. Rowling | ContraPoints and discusses the anomaly that has been the discussion of J.K. Rowling in recent years. ContraPoints is created by Natalie Wynn, and boasts a large 1.55M followers on YouTube. It works to combat the far-right online and open conversation challenging social and political issues.

This piece of content was created in regard to the controversial comments that have been made by J.K. Rowling about trans women over the years. She has spoken about opposing gender recognition reform legislation in Scotland, and rightfully so, was met with criticism online. While these tweets started in 2019, she has continued with this narrative even now in 2022. This video by ContraPoints was made in 2021, so the context of this creation is still relevant. Natalie Wynn is a transgender woman, so the motivation behind this content may be personal, but also opens important discussion about these hurtful words from a loved author. This discussion is important, and Wynn uses her platforms to discuss this in a playful way.

This video is very direct in its argument about the transphobia from J.K Rowling. Wynn’s discourse about this social justice issue does it in a way that is not attacking, but well balances facts with empathy. There is not much to imply when it comes to this video, as Wynn is very direct about her critique of Rowling. However, this topic does bring up the issue of transgender identity is overshadowed by JK Rowling being cancelled.

Having this content in this form was very useful, as a lot of people are looking for more long form content online, and this video is very descriptive and entertaining. This video has a high production value, and uses the Harry Potter theme which is a great selling point for viewers. Wynn’s offers lots of details, and easily breaks down the tweets, as well her content is easy to digest, and doesn’t require prior knowledge of the issue to interact with it. This content was published on an already well received channel with a large audience.

This piece of media inspires me to create content that is clean, well written and just genuinely looks good. For my final content creation, this can be applied by good editing, organizing, and preparation for my podcast episode. This medium was very appropriate for this social change issue. Wynn does a great job of connecting different platforms (i.e. connecting twitter to youtube) and creates content in a way that is entertaining and informative.

Photo by Melike Benli

Essay #2: Reflecting My Online Self

Reflecting on my online self I’ve realized the internal and digitally external growth I’ve had. I think my blog has definitely come a long way ever since I built it in the first few weeks of class. Prior to PUB 101, I had no WordPress experience. I honestly thought it’d be such a difficult platform to build a site out of, but as the weeks went by it grew easier to organize my posts. Initially, I didn’t even know how to add media to my website, but now I’d say I’m proud of what I’ve built knowing that I taught myself all the technical aspects of the platform.

 I created The Spotless Mind.com and came up with the name after watching Eternal Sunshine of The Spotless Mind during the first week of classes. It’s one of my favourite movies and the overall message was that the memories that we have, no matter how painful some can be aren’t files that can just be deleted. They’re part of the bigger picture of our lives and ourselves and it got me to reflect on my own experiences. For the past year and a half, I’ve been working through lots of inner development after coming out from a very painful past that I wish I could delete and I found this blog/website a great way to document all the growth I’ve been on.

Watters (2015), notes that when students have their own domains, they have freedom in what they present to the world through their professional, personal and digital identities. He notes that they begin to have a deeper understanding of the technologies that make up the Web and how their own work and information circulates on the internet (Watters, 2015). I think this website has taught me how to organize my thoughts on the internet as well as how to engagingly share my personal stories online. Using analytics has helped me determine which articles received more traffic and what type of content I should be posting about such as on harder topics about love and grief. This whole experience has been healing to my own self being able to openly share my experiences and advice but hearing comments from sources such as peer reviews has been very rewarding for me too. I really appreciate all the feedback I have received and applied them to my website such as adding menus and creating more content overall.

From the bare bones of my website, I really had nothing. For weeks I only had three menus, ‘Welcome’, ‘Contact’ and ‘Blog.’ All of my posts whether that be Process Posts, Mini Assignments, Content Posts were all under the one blog page which to me felt cluttered. It wasn’t until I found inspiration from my peers through their own websites that I created more menus and submenus/categories. So, I created a PUB 101 work menu splitting off into different categories for Process Posts, Peer Reviews, Essays, etc… I also decided to create categories for my actual blog playing off of my tagline into sections on love, lessons, life and ‘Everything in Between’ on more random posts. I also added more SEO words to my titles as Hollingsworth (2021) notes, “SEO is the most viable and cost-effective way to both understand and reach customers in key moments that matter (Para. 1). I think adding keywords such as ‘lessons’, and ‘love’ which are the main subjects of my site makes it clear what my content and intentions are online. 

My goal after this class is to eventually grow my online self to what The Rising Woman does. She mainly focuses on Instagram but has a great site with wonderful blogs on self-development and growth that are sometimes researched based and very advisable. She offers lessons and programs where she actually teaches you how to expand your mindset and performs certain meditations as well. While I don’t think I can get to that extent I hope to still be sharing my own advice and share my experiences in hopes to inspire others. I eventually want to rebrand by just using my name for the title as I hope to segway into using YouTube as my first place of content and my website as a more professional portfolio for my work experience and blog writing. I’m solo travelling in Europe after I graduate this semester and plan to start vlogging through YouTube, however, I’m excited to see how my website will change once I start that journey!

References:

Hollingsworth, S. (2021, August 9). 15 Reasons Why Your Business Absolutely Needs SEO. Search Engine Journal. https://www.searchenginejournal.com/why-seo-is-important-for-business/248101/#closeIn-text citation

Watters, A. (2019, June 25). The Web We Need To Give Students – BRIGHT Magazine. Medium. https://brightthemag.com/the-web-we-need-to-give-students-311d97713713#.4d7j8rs6x

www.therisingwoman.com

“I’m here for you”

Read Time:1 Minute, 4 Second

“Im here for you” is a poem I wrote a while back when I was having a bad day, and a friend reached out to me to check up on me. It made me think about how there are some people in your life that will sit through the storms with you. And while sometimes it’s hard to reach out when you are struggling, I promise you that there is always someone out there who cares for you and who is willing to listen to your concerns.

After a heavy night
The bags under your eyes
Want to be popped
The weight of the blanket seems impossible to take off.

You’re stuck again
Until eventually you get out of bed
And you stop
you get up to nourish yourself
But your body throbs

You change
wash up
Put your earbuds in
To silence the noises from outside to within
Somethings not right
When will it end

You keep skipping songs.
Until suddenly
You hear lyrics
That encompass your existence
That listen to you and become your assistants

Next thing you know
You get a notification on your phone
From someone you’ve known

They say hello
And things start to look brighter
Things start to unfold

You’ve wanted to distance yourself.
Until you realize their tone
Of wanting to soothe you
And it goes

“I’m here for you through the highs and the lows.” -nimra

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The post “I’m here for you” first appeared on NimrasCanvas.

Chocolate Bouchée

It was a couple of weeks ago that I found the recipe for this Chocolate Bouchée on Youtube through a channel named “HidaMari Cooking“. Bouchée is a pastry shell that is usually filled with a creamy mixture. In French, “bouchée” in “une bouchée de” stands for “a mouthful of”. And so, it was used to name the pastries for their savoury and mouthwatering taste.

Because of lacking ingredients, the recipes and instructions that I wrote below would be slightly different from the original. Please refer to the video here for original instruction.

Ingredients

  1. Bouchée
    • 2 egg white
    • 50g sugar
    • 2 egg yolks
    • 40g cake flour
    • 30g almond flour
  2. Chocolate filling
    • 80g chocolate (merci cholate)
  3. Topping
    • Dark chocolate

Let’s bake!

Step 1: Whisk the egg white until it forms a soft peak. Gradually add 50g sugar while whisking at medium-high speed. (Please use a hand mixer to make the work easier!)

Step 2: Add the egg yolk and continue to whisk until the mixture blended well together.

Step 3: Shift in cake flour and almond flour. Fold them well together with a spatula.

Step 4: Transfer all the dough into a pipe. Pipe the Bouchée mixture little by little on a baking tray and shape them like this (4.5cm diameter):

Illustration cut from the original video by HidaMari

Step 5: Bake in (pre-heated) oven at 170*C/ 340*F for 8-12 minutes.

Step 6: To make the Chocolate filling, I melt 80g of assorted merci chocolate using hot water. When the Bouchée is ready, I paste the right amount on one side of the pastries. For the drizzling, I melt about 10g of dark chocolate and transfer them into a pipe. Next, I cut only a little at the tip of the pipe then drizzle the chocolate on the top half of the Bouchée.

Don’t forget to wait for the Bouchée to cool down before putting the 2 halves together!

Cooling down~~

Have fun baking!

The post Chocolate Bouchée appeared first on Chii’s Sweet Home.

Finding Solace and Joy in Photography and Film

Read Time:56 Second

Since the start of 2020, I have been taking more photos than ever before. At first, it was to remember the moments during the pandemic, but I slowly wanted to take pictures of everything. I realized that I wanted to look back to see how far I’ve come in the later years. I also wanted to capture the moments in my life where I felt the most peace or got the most joy.

Some moments of peace between 2021 and 2022

I have recently been interested in making TikToks, and since I am trying to incorporate more media into this blog, I thought I would share!

I am trying to make one TikTok for each month of 2022. Below is one I made for February:

@nimbits

The good moments of February #february #life #vlog #browngirl #vancouver #muslimtiktok #hijabitiktok #vancity

♬ Lost – Album Version – Frank Ocean

Taking pictures, making films, and playing around with the camera are activities that make me happy. It also brings me peace to look back on those moments. It’s almost like self-care for me, and I look forward to capturing more moments.

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Essay #2: Reflection As An Online Publisher

One of the common misbeliefs that people have had surrounding the topic of blogging is that it is very easy to do. However, what some people do not realize is how much hard work and hustle it takes to produce quality and meaningful content on a regular basis; to design and produce visual content; and grow/find our own audiences. Since the beginning of this course, my experience as an online publisher has been both rewarding and exhausting. Earlier on in the course, our instructor Suzanne mentioned that when choosing a topic, it was important to protect our passions so that they do not become a chore since we would be producing content on a weekly basis on whichever topic, we would choose our websites’ to be about. 

Originally, I considered creating a website about books. I am a huge bookworm and a fairly fast reader, but I was concerned that reading would become a chore as she had mentioned. Although I am equally as passionate about film as I am about books, I have written papers on film in a critical and academic format, but never simply for the enjoyment of watching and responding to it. In addition, I have always been torn between creating a blog on film, and this course ended up being the perfect space for me to finally take that leap. Thus, the concept of The Household Box Office began to take shape.

My inspiration for my website initially came about through my passion for film. Ever since I was kid, I have loved everything about movies and TV, including learning about the inter-workings of the film industry itself over the years through my own research and studies. The Household Box Office is my own virtual movie theatre that provides me the same wonderstruck emotions that I would experience from watching in a movie theatre but from home instead, especially during the pandemic. My website’s content focuses on mainly movie reviews, but I also provide suggestions/recommendations for movie and TV series in all genres, as well as generate post on upcoming film news, such as new shows, and other film related topics. I created my own graphics using stock images and online design applications, such as Canva and Photoshop. My website’s design is focused on simplicity for clean and easy navigation, while its’ appearance is meant to reflect the colours of a box office/theatre aesthetic. 

The online environment that I have been envisioning since the early stages of my website’s development was to create an online community that was fun, open, and respectful for both myself and my readers/audience. As we saw towards the end of this course, we as online publishers are responsible for the type of content we publish and how our readers interact with our posts, such as on our comment sections. As publishers we are presented with the challenge of moderating our own comment sections and navigating social waters (Norman, Week 12, 2022). Although my readership is small, I have established a set of community guidelines in order navigate these challenges. Originally, I was going to not include a comments section, but ended up keeping them because of the importance of online publics. Publics are important because they provide a mechanism for how we construct our social world (Boyd, 2014), especially in terms of protecting reader identity. The use of online anonymity has both its positives and negatives. Online anonymity protects user/reader identity and often encourages them to participate more, however, it also allows for something called the “online disinhibition effect” where their online social behaviours differ from their in-person behaviours (Suler, 2004; Konnikova, 2013). By implementing community guidelines is one way to inform your readers about what type of behaviour is and is not acceptable or tolerated on your website(s).  

This experience has taught me a lot about the process of being in control of my own content in terms of how I choose what my posts are about and how I want them to be presented online. As Audrey Watters stated in her article on “The Web We Need to Give Students,” when students create and have control over their own domains, it allows them much more say over what they present to the world, especially in terms of positioning and presenting their public profiles, professional portfolios, and digital identities (Watters, 2015). In addition, by giving students the control over their own digital domains enables them with the opportunity “… to work with on the Web and with the Web,” (Watters, 2015). All together, these aspects have slowly come together through the development and further refinement for what it truly means to be an online publisher for my own publication of my everyday self. Despite all the trials and errors, I believe I will continue to blog and further refine my online social presence. While I do plan to continue to review movies and shows, my future blog goals would be to expand producing blog posts beyond reviews and watch suggestions/recommendations. Overall, I have enjoyed creating my own little virtual space within this vast network of cyberspace. 

References

Boyd, D. (2014). Searching for a public of their own. It’s Complicated. Wattpad. Retrieved from posiel.com

Konnikova, M. (2013). The psychology of online comments. The New Yorker. Retrieved from posiel.com

Norman, S. (2022). Week 12: moderating your commentariat and navigating the social waters. Lecture. Retrieved from posiel.com

Watters, A. (2015). The web we need to give students. Bright Magazine. Retrieved from posiel.com

The post Essay #2: Reflection As An Online Publisher first appeared on The Household Box Office.

Process Post #11: Developing Community Guidelines for My Website

Over the last few days, I have taken some time to consider and develop community guidelines for my website in order to try to further facilitate an open and respectful online space for myself and my audience/readers. At the end of this post, you will be able to find more information on what my community guidelines are and where they will live on this website.

Monitoring the Comments Section

In her article on “The Psychology of Online Comments” by Maria Konnnikova, she cited that “anonymity has been shown to encourage participation; by promoting a greater sense of community identity, users don’t have to worry about standing out individually,” (Konnikova, 2013). However, user anonymity can often create a disconnect between the commenter’s identity and what they are saying. By doing so, this may also change their social behaviour either for better or worse. This effect is known as “online disinhibition effect,” a concept originally coined by psychologist John Suler. In this course, we read an article by John Suler (2004) where he outlined six types of online behaviours that people engage in. It was most often seen that online users prefer partaking in the online behaviour known as dissociative anonymity (Suler, 2004; Konnikova, 2013). Both Suler and Konnikova draw from how the “protection” and or “freedom” of not being seen or known online for which enables them the opportunity to behave in specific ways that they would not normally engage in if they were face-to-face. There are two types of disinhibition effect: 

  1. benign (positive or neutral – e.g., feeling safe or open enough to reveal secret emotions, fears, wishes, wants, and or other personal information about themselves)
  2. toxic (negative – e.g., rude language, harsh criticism, anger, hatred, or threats)   

When it comes to commenting online, there appears to be an increase in negativing and or toxic commenting on social media and website post sections. However, turning off or removing comments also affects the reading experience itself because it takes away the motivation for readers to engage with a topic more deeply, and thereby, share it with wider groups of readers (Konnikovca, 2013). This is because of a phenomenon known as “shared reality,” in which our experiences of a particular event/topic are affected by whether or not we choose to share it socially (Konnikova, 2013). 

One of the ways that content creators (or anyone) can try to overcome this is by creating boundaries, or by establishing community guidelines. Community guidelines are a set of rules and regulation policies created to ensure a certain standard of behaviour is implemented online for the purpose of creating safe online environments for users to interact within. People do have the right to free speech, but it is important to be civil even when others disagree so long as there is no harm to others in any form is involved, such as threats, hate speech, inciting violence, misinformation, and disinformation. I have chosen to keep comment sections on my posts so that readers can interact either with each other and respond to the posts, if they so wish. Community is about finding your own place within a collective world or group of people where mutual interests can be shared. There are already enough terrible things in this world without having people trying to virtually tear each other down in the comments section or on any online space. We have very little control over many aspects of our lives and the events that place within in, but what you can control is how you behave and react. 

Here are my website’s community guidelines: 

  • Be respectful of others and their opinions
  • Respectfully disagree when opinions do not align 
  • Comments are welcomed and encouraged
  • Inappropriate behaviour will be removed and blocked
  • No self promotion of any kind

As of this moment, these guidelines can be found on my website under the “About” section titled “Community Guidelines.” 

References

Internet Matters. (2022). Understanding community guidelines. Internetmatters.org. Retrieved from www.internetmatters.org

Konnikova, M. (2013). The psychology of online comments. The New Yorker. Retrieved from posiel.com

Suler, J. (2004). The online disinhibition effect. Cyberpsychology & Behaviour. Retrieved from posiel.com 

The post Process Post #11: Developing Community Guidelines for My Website first appeared on The Household Box Office.

How it’s going #9

This week we looked at the analytics of our websites. Analytics are something that I am very familiar with, as I worked in a co-op with a Google Ads provider for a year. Determining your audience is an incredibly important part of any online campaign, and using analytics properly will substantially improve the marketability of your website. Knowing your audience will give you the ability to determine what is working and what isn’t on your website. Analytics provide information on a wide variety of website activities, such as who is coming to your site, how long they are staying, what pages they visit, and what are clicking on. Using this information, you can optimize your website to what your visitors are interested in.

Alternatively, there are numerous privacy concerns associated with tracking data online. Facebook had a massive fiasco a few years ago in which it was revealed that they were saving and selling a huge amount of information from their users. Since then, privacy concerns have been at an all time high. I believe that information about website activity and website duration is completely harmless, especially considering the content that is available on my site. I doubt anyone would be concerned they were exposed for spending 45 minutes looking at game reviews. Similarly, as this is a personal blog I have no intention of selling information of any kind.

How it’s going #8

Search engine optimization is a very interesting subject to me as I spent significant time working in the field of Google Advertising. Through this experience I became very familiar with the optimization of advertisements and Google Campaigns specifically, but I never got the opportunity to learn about SEO. SEO is the process of adjusting your site to be as ‘clickable’ as possible in Google’s algorithm. Improving your standing in Google’s algorithm will result in your page being far higher up on Google’s search results. Big parts of SEO are accessibility, page loading speed, mobile friendliness, and content accuracy when compared to what is displayed on the Google Search page.

With respect to SEO, my page is not great. Much of this is due to the name of the blog I chose and the market that I entered. Video game reviews are in no short supply on the internet, with enormous organizations like IGN and Polygon taking up a huge part of the market. Additionally, the name of my site – Weekend Games – will never come up in search results, even if the exact title is searched for. There will only be upcoming sports games, which still dominate conventional media. If I were to maintain my blog in the future, I would definitely be considering a change in branding.

How it’s going #7

This week I took a closer look at some of my colleagues’ websites, and was very impressed by what I saw. Some people have taken incredibly creative designs with their websites that have me thinking about future updates to my own. I was particularly impressed by Josh and His Stocks. It may be that I am a sucker for darker themed websites, but I loved the look and feel that Josh went with.

I also looked at some of the social media that have been set up for my colleagues’ websites. Many people have used their personal social media handles as their blogs are very personal, but seeing some unique social media setups are super interesting. One thing that I found fascinating was actually on a blog that I recently reviewed, She is Recovering. Alessia linked her Spotify to the website, which is a super cool idea in my opinion. I am considering doing the same, as including a music option can help set the vibe for a site. I am planning to set up a playlist specifically for the theme of my website.

How it’s going #6

This week I have been thinking of ways to update my website’s accessibility. Accessibility is something that I have actually dealt with online, and is something that I am often responsible for checking in my field of work. As someone with moderate colour blindness, I have a lot of trouble reading text on sites or documents when bad colours are chosen for text and background. Combinations like red/green, blue/purple, yellow/green and orange/green result in near invisible text for me, so I am often asked to double check design choices on public-facing documents and websites.

To ensure that there were no such issues on my own site, I went through and confirmed that all of the text on my website was easily visible with either light on dark text or dark on light. The shade of the text is far more important than the colour in my experience. The main piece that I needed to update was the title section. There are elements of my main background that are on the lighter side, making it a little difficult to read the headline. To resolve this issue, I played with the opacity of the background image to help the title text pop more. I am very happy with the result, and there should be no issues reading any content on my website going forward.

It Takes Two

It Takes Two is a game that I honestly did not have super high expectations for, but I am always open to a co-op game as I like to try to get my girlfriend involved in my hobbies. To my pleasant surprise, It Takes Two completely blew my expectations out of the water. To get this review off the ground, this game is obviously filled with passion from the developers, and you can feel that throughout the game.

The protagonists of the story are a husband and wife who’s marriage has significantly deteriorated, and they are considering divorce. When they are ready to go through with it, their daughter’s sadness ends up casting a spell that turns the husband and wife into dolls. As dolls, the husband and wife go through an adventure together in which they are forced to rely on each other to proceed through the story. I honestly was not expecting substantial character detail from this game as I had assumed it would be a typical co-op puzzle solving game like Portal by Valve, however I was surprised to find immense character depth and development throughout the game. You start out hating the parents (by design, they are meant to be as unlikable as possible), but throughout the game you see how they develop and grow and you will find yourself invested in the lives of these two dolls in ways you never anticipated.

But how was it to play? My girlfriend and I loved the game! It got both of us involved, tested our cooperation and communication skills, and held our interest throughout the entire process. The gameplay is incredibly creative, as each puzzle needs to be solved in a different way. Different variables and elements are introduced throughout the game that will encourage creativity and elaborate cooperation if you want to succeed. New elements are added so frequently that the gameplay never feels stale. Additionally, the relief and satisfaction that come with completing a challenge in a creative way with a partner was fantastic to experience.

I honestly have nothing bad to say about It Takes Two. It was an absolute joy to play. There is only one extremely minor complaint about this game that I can think of, and that is that it can only be played cooperatively. If you are looking for a single player experience, this is obviously not the game for you. However, if you have a friend, parent, or a significant other that you can play with, I would 100% suggest giving It Takes Two a try.

Essay Two

My Experience as An Online Publisher

As a person who was born in the 2000s, I have grown up in the blogging era. However, I have never tried writing a blog before, so PUB101 has given me the chance to be an online publisher.

It was not easy for me to write something every week because I am not usually written a diary or a blog before. Even creating one is a challenge for me. Writing a blog is like writing a diary, because in the diary, I can express what I think and how I feel. But the difference is that this diary are for public, anyone can read it and I also need to edit my diary many times before I can actually publish it. “The genius of the blog was not in the note-taking, it was in the publishing. The act of making your log-file public requires a rigor that keeping personal notes does not. Writing for a notional audience — particularly an audience of strangers — demands a comprehensive account that I rarely muster when I’m taking notes for myself. I am much better at kidding myself my ability to interpret my notes at a later date than I am at convincing myself that anyone else will be able to make heads or tails of them. Writing for an audience keeps me honest.” (Doctorow, 2021). I am actually at first not comfortable about sharing my thoughts on a public space like the internet, I also do not like to share my social media account because I want to be anonymous in an open space like this. But every week, I start to understand blogging a bit more, and I start to like it a bit.

I saw people use WordPress a lot, but their blog design is usually not easy to find the menu, and hard to see all the posts, after I tried it out myself, I can see how hard it is to use WordPress. I have some basic knowledge about graphic design but a blog is quite different from designing a book or a magazine. I am also not good with coding so I did not choose to create my theme. It took me at least a few weeks for me to find the right theme for my website and after a few tries, I can finally find the right theme that not only can change the color, but also the layout and typography. The color I try to approach is the color of tea, a bit yellow, orange and brown. At first, I choose a pink color because I want my blog to look cute, but I do not see this color as popular for the website to the audience so after researching, I found that the orange and brown colors are warmer like my website name “a cup of tea” and friendlier to the audience. I also change my layout that can help the audience easily approach any content and post I published, one of them is the menu that I have to categorize depending on the content and have to find the way the menu can show not only just menu but can lead the audience to actual post I published. After I change my layout and menu, I do personally found that it is easier for me to find things around my website and for my audiences as well. It is not because my audience does not know how to find a post, I want my website can be as friendly and easy to access as possible. The easier to access, the more audiences will willingly approach my blog.

“The best and worst thing about the information age is the ability and our penchant for sharing every damn thought that enters our minds. When designing, testing, and marketing our digital products, we feel compelled to blog our findings, tweet our opinions, and speak about the shit that works and doesn’t work. It doesn’t take long for opinions to morph from one organization’s experience, to industry-wide opinion, to black and white standards and best practices.” (Gertz, 2015). Throughout the first few weeks, I can see some of my peers’ blog designs quite similar to each other, and not only that we could have the same thought about ideas for our blogs. I am sure that not only do I have ideas for movie reviews and blog design. But the competition between me and other movie reviews blogs is the tone and the way they write the reviews. I can be quite behind in writing, but I hope that my design can keep the audience staying and reading my blog. I do try and test quite a few ideas, but in the end, choosing a design that simple and easy to see is the best decision I made for my blog design.

From the first week, I have set the ideal for my blog to be about movie and book reviews, so my target should focus on anyone who likes films and books but hesitates about watching or reading because they do not know if the films or the books fit them or not unless they read some reviews. But because I thought only movies and books are a bit dry and cannot approach a variety of the audience, so I also write blogs about my thoughts on what happened around me and the news. I imagined that there will be a large number of people who will access my blog because the movies I reviewed are mostly recently and still available in the theatre. However, after some weeks, the number of people who access my blog is not much, only one to two people stop to read the movie review. The reason for that is probably because my review is quite short and does not give enough information to the audience. So it does not help them decide if they should watch the movie or not. After six weeks, I do try to write a bit more on each of my blogs, but it is a challenge to recall what I watch and write down a review spoiler-free for everyone. But I do improve my blog with grammar and I try to use easier words that anyone can read and understand my writing.

I think I am providing artistic value to my audience because each film is artwork. I appreciate not only the art in the films but also the messages that each film has given to the audience, so that is why I want to share what I think about one movie with others and want them to realize the art behind each movie. Google Analytics did not give me much information about my audience, but from my peers, I learned quite a lot thanks to them. Whenever we have peer review, I always read what my peer say about my blog, and most say that they enjoy my writing about a movie review, but they hope that I can write a bit longer, so after every peer review, I always try my best to fix and change what I miss. For example, in peer review two, my peer says that my design is needed some change, so I do some changes hope that soon when she returns to my blog, they can see the change between the design before and after.

Twelve weeks is not long enough to improve something I have just familiar with, but it is also quite long to help me understand the publication. I have always been impressed at how an author of a book can think and write down one story, but as an online publisher, it is even harder because I have to write a blog every week which to some people, it is quite boring. I also need to look out for not only copyrights but also fake news. I would not want to be sued because of the copyright and spreading false news in public space. Also that because I know that some of my reviews are children’s movie so I always try my best to keep my words and information fits with children as well. These recent years, the internet becomes popular to also children. However, there are some contents that actually not fit the children like a creepy pasta, but using children’s favorite image as thumbnail: “Someone or something or some combination of people and things is using YouTube to systematically frighten, traumatize, and abuse children, automatically and at scale, and it forces me to question my own beliefs about the internet, at every level. Much of what I am going to describe next has been covered elsewhere, although none of the mainstream coverage I’ve seen has really grasped the implications of what seems to be occurring.” (Bridle, 2017). Because of these people who heartlessly aim at children frail’s minds to do something bad, I also have to be more careful when I review a children’s animation and check the credibility and authenticity when I cite something outside as well.

Overall, I can see that I am still improving every week, but I need more time to make my blog be more accessible to my audience and make it grow. But I can still see how I try to improve after every feedback from my peers so I think my blog will soon reach out to more audiences and grow larger with not only the number of access but also grow with the blog. At the end of the term, I think that I have done a great job in having something to write about every week and know what I want to do with my blog instead of aimlessly trying to write whatever I have in my mind.

References:

Doctorow, Corey. (May 9, 2021). The Memex Method: When Your Commonplace Book is A Public Database. Retrieved from: https://doctorow.medium.com/the-memex-method-238c71f2fb46

Gertz, Travis. (July 10, 2015). Design Machines. How to survive in the digital Apocalypse. Retrieved from: https://louderthanten.com/coax/design-machines

Bridle, James. (Nov 6, 2017). Something is Wrong on the Internet. Retrieved from: https://medium.com/@jamesbridle/something-is-wrong-on-the-internet-c39c471271d2

Essay #2

This semester has been quite a wild ride, and publishing ended up being a pretty refreshing aspect of it. I originally took this course purely out of convenience as it fell on the same day as another of my courses, limiting the number of trips into the city that I needed to make. To my pleasant surprise, the processes and blog updates that were the main aspect of this course ended up being a somewhat therapeutic part of my semester. I never expected to be writing a blog, and it was my first time writing about something that I was interested in rather than a report for school or work. I will be discussing what I experienced while running this blog, and how I felt throughout the process.

This course has filled a bit of a gap in creative need for me. The assignment to create a blog on something that we are interested in has been very refreshing. As mentioned above, I have never had the chance to write about something that I am passionate about before. Compared to many of the topics that I write about in most courses or at work, writing about my hobbies has been very enjoyable. Many of the ideas discussed in Corey Doctrorow’s article, The Memex Method (2021), resonated with me closely as I worked through my blog posts and updates. The nucleation of my ideas, that being the development of coherent thoughts and ideas based on pieces of information I have gained through my experiences, was something that was a major factor in my blog posts, and were a big reason that I enjoyed writing them. It wasn’t difficult to get my ‘thoughts onto paper’. While I wasn’t necessarily matching the pace laid out by the course, creating posts about games has allowed me to express myself in a way that I haven’t been able to before.

Regarding my blog, I decided to write about video games as they have been a very important part of my life over the past few years. While to many they may appear to be a simple hobby, video games have become an important stress coping mechanism to me in a way. The worlds within video games provide form of escape from the stresses of daily life, and were a big reason that my mental health remained intact through the duration of COVID-19. I posted reviews on the games I had played over the past few years, and I intended for these to be engaged with by other young adults and older teens. I wrote my reviews and recommendations in hopes that a reader may take interest in a game or two and that they may get the same enjoyment from them that I did. I also wanted to point out some of the games that I played that I would suggest others stay away from.

One of the most interesting topics that we explored in this class was design. While I didn’t necessarily agree with everything he said, Design Machines. How to survive in the digital Apocalypse by Travis Gertz (2015) was an extremely thought provoking article. The idea that we have become mechanical in our design process is absolutely true. As the internet has aged, there have been many winning formulae for website design. The current design trends on the internet are typically minimalistic, boxy, and feature substantial white space and imagery – creating a clean and professional look. Personally, I don’t see anything wrong with people mimicking successful design strategies. With that being said, I have come to understand that there is room for much more creativity if one allows themselves to stray from the beaten path. I used a template for the design of my website and based my design imagery and layout on a combination of themes from other video game websites and events. If I were to build a website in the future, I would likely try to find a graphic designer to work with to add a bit more personality to my website.

Another piece of the course that captivated my interest was Search Engine Optimization (SEO). I knew of bits and pieces of how it works, but I never truly understood its importance until reading the article 15 Reasons Why Your Business Absolutely Needs SEO by Sam Hollingsworth (2021). As someone who has worked closely with Google Ads in the past, I assumed that marketing played a much larger role in website traffic. That assumption was because I only had access to Google optimization information, and not Google Analytics data for our clients. Learning that more traffic comes from organic search than paid promotion was quite shocking. Keeping up with SEO best practices is vital if one wants their website to remain in public view. Upon reading this article, I was drawn to think about what was discussed by Gertz (2015) once more. Straying from common SEO principals with regard to website structure and user experience will result in a lower rating in a search engine’s algorithm. Finding the happy middle, in which a website has its own unique structure and feel while maintaining SEO standards is something that would be fascinating to explore in the future.

This course has completely changed my understanding of publication. It was not something that I had even attributed to the internet previously, as I assumed that publishing was strictly related to books. Learning about creating and designing a website has been an immensely fulfilling experience, and having an understanding of WordPress mechanics will be a great addition to my professional skillset. If anyone from class is reading this, put WordPress on your resume. It is honestly such an asset and many employers will look for it across a variety of industries.

Looking ahead, I am not sure what my plans are for my online self-presentation. I will likely continue this blog for a short while as creating posts about games has become somewhat therapeutic. I may extend my online self further by creating videos or streaming. As I will be graduating in the next while, I will be getting a sudden influx of free time, and a creative outlet would be an excellent way to use that time.