I wanted to talk about my favourite anime, Neon Genesis Evangelion, but more specifically Shinji, Here is a little character study.
Shinji Ikari is the main protagonist of the anime series “Neon Genesis Evangelion.” He is a young boy who is forced to pilot a giant bio-machine called an Evangelion to fight mysterious beings known as Angels that threaten humanity’s existence. Shinji is a complex and multi-layered character who is often regarded as one of the most relatable and human protagonists in anime.
One of Shinji’s defining characteristics is his lack of self-confidence and his struggle with depression and anxiety. He is introverted, insecure, and has a low sense of self-worth, which makes him hesitant to engage with others and often leads to him running away from difficult situations. This inner turmoil is rooted in his troubled relationship with his father, Gendo Ikari, who abandoned him as a child and who he feels he can never please.
Throughout the series, Shinji is forced to confront his fears and doubts as he faces increasingly difficult challenges. His initial reluctance to pilot the Evangelion gives way to a growing sense of responsibility, as he realizes that his actions can have a direct impact on the fate of humanity. As he becomes more involved in the fight against the Angels, he begins to develop deeper relationships with his fellow pilots and begins to question his own identity and the meaning of his existence.
Shinji’s character arc is a powerful exploration of the human condition, highlighting the struggle that many people face when trying to come to terms with their own sense of self-worth and purpose in life. His journey is a relatable one, as he grapples with the complexities of growing up, forging his own identity, and making sense of the world around him. Despite his flaws and struggles, Shinji is ultimately a sympathetic and likable character who viewers can root for and empathize with
Anonymity can be a very useful, but harmful tool on the internet. It is a complicated topic that has proven to enhance things like participation, but also encourage more hateful comments. Today I would like to discus both the advantages and the disadvantages to anonymity and how it may or may not be useful for a website.
The first great thing about anonymity is that it encourages participation. Maria Konnikova states that “forty per cent of people in the eighteen-to-twenty-nine-year-old demographic have posted anonymously” (Konnikova, 2013), as this disconnection between a person’s identity and text allows users to feel less fear about what they say since it can’t be tied back to them. Anonymity can also support freedom of speech on the internet which can be very helpful in getting people’s voices heard. However, the lack of repercussions and judgement that comes with anonymity encourages more hate speech on the internet and increase the cases of online abuse. It can also lead to the spread of misinformation due to how easy it is to lie, which means we are generally less trusting of information we find on the internet.
Regarding a blog or any public social media account for that matter, anonymous comments are very likely to occur, but there are some things to do about it. According to The Gaurdian“Some say it is simple – “Don’t read the comments” or, better still, switch them off altogether. And many have done just that, disabling their comment threads for good because they became too taxing to bother with” (Gardiner et al., 2016). Unfortunately, it is not always this simple as not all comments are hate comments, and enabling comments increases the response from users. The creators of online content (include myself for my website) must decide which is more important to them – user participation or not receiving hate. An alternative – which I might apply to my website If I start noticing comments – is to filter out any hateful words or statements so that they can’t be posted. This way, you can still receive user response, but your comments are less likely to be hateful or triggering.
As an up-and-coming blogger, improving my SEO or Search Engine Optimization, will have a huge impact on my website’s success, especially if I plan to monetize my content. Having a good SEO means your website is geared towards search engines, thus appearing higher up on the results page. Our readings this week emphasize the importance of building your SEO, to widen brand reach and website visibility, as most consumers don’t look past the first few results (Hollingsworth, 2021). Until now, I have been focusing mostly on creating content and finding my footing building a website–something I have never done before.
But, this inspired me to test my blog’s SEO. When looking up “Fridays with Frosty” directly in Google, my site came up first! Thanks family and friends for that boost. This is huge for my site, as our readings say, “If you’re not on page one, you’re not winning the click” (Hollingsworth, 2021).
But, when you change the search terms, even slightly, to something like “Fridays Frosty” I disappear right off the first page of results. It looks like I still have some work to do.
This week, I used google analytics to try to improve my SEO. It says that 92% of my site’s viewers come via a direct search and are located in Canada. (Shout out again to the fam jam!)
But, 88% of the viewers on my site come through desktop, something I wasn’t expecting. This posed a problem for the way I integrate videos into my blog. My site isn’t user-friendly enough when you are on desktop. This had to change, because good user experience improves SEO. Our readings talk about this, stating “Google has learned how to interpret a good or unfavourable user experience, and a positive user experience has become a pivotal element to a website’s success.” (Hollingsworth, 2021).
My issue is I have been making my videos on TikTok, then saving them to my computer before posting, rather than just embedding the TikTok directly. This means that on mobile, watching the videos is fine, as they are already sized to fit the screen. On desktop however, the video size and vertical proportions are too big for the screen. You can’t see the entire thing. You have to do quite a bit of scrolling to even get to the bottom of the video. It doesn’t making watching easy. So, I needed to fix this for my larger desktop audience and hopefully, it would boost my SEO.
I had to redo all my video blog posts and embed them directly from TikTok. I decided I could also improve my website’s marketability at the same time, by creating a Fridays with Frosty specific TikTok. Up until now, I have been posting on my personal TikTok account. Once I reposted all my videos to the new account, I uploaded them to my blog as TikTok’s. Although it was frustrating to have to post everything again, it was worth it. My site looks way cleaner, and I have a head start expanding my brand over multiple channels (Check out my plans for that here).
Learning about SEO made me realize that I may have been using tags on my posts incorrectly. I have been treating them like keywords, and have since learned they aren’t the same. I decided to enlist ChatGPT to help me improve this. I imputed my most recent post, about Caitlin Clark (She’s awesome, check it out here!), into ChatGPT and asked it to generate tags for me (and it came up with the tags for this post too). It came up with some basic stuff, like “Caitlin Clark”, “Iowa Hawkeyes”, and “women’s basketball”. But it also came up with a few things I hadn’t thought of, like “basketball records”, and “TV viewership”.
I’m anxiously waiting to see if AI can help improve the traffic to this post, and my SEO, through improved tags. If it does, I will be going back and getting it to come up with tags for all my older posts.
The readings did demonstrate a few things I have been doin well in terms of SEO. They say good SEO “offers users the information they are looking for in fewer clicks, quickly and easily,” and “builds trust & credibility” which a positive user experience is part of (Hollingsworth, 2021). By splitting up my content into written and video sections, navigation is easier, making content faster to find. I have also made decisions about comment modifications that will foster a positive user environment. Read about those decisions here!
In the future, there are many things I could do to improve my SEO, with the help of analytics, like improving code so my website loads faster. But, those changes seemed daunting at this point and I would be way out of my depth. If I continue my blog, it will definitely be something to think about. Until then, I’ll just keep telling everyone I know to check out “Friday’s with Frosty” and hope it boosts my SEO.
Works Cited
Hollingsworth, S. (2021, August 9). 15 reasons why your business absolutely needs seo. Search Engine Journal. Retrieved April 9, 2023, from https://www.searchenginejournal.com/why-seo-is-important-for-business/248101/#close
In the past few weeks I have previously been focusing on user accessibility and using design and marketing to encourage people to visit my blog. However what I haven’t thought about is what they see when they do visit my blog and how I can make it more intriguing. To do so, this week I changed the titles of all of my process posts to a summarizing statement that gives information about what content is in the post, rather than “process post x”, which is what I made my titles before. Even though my process posts are just for PUB101, I still wanted to make it a little more interesting for whoever may read it, as an actual title might bring more people to the post as a sort of ‘hook’ that intrigues the reader.
In this weeks reading: Pokemon as Transmedia Storytelling, the author discusses how Pokemon is still so popular after so many years, and how transmedia storytelling is part of the reason for that due to its marketing possibilities among multiple age groups. This evidence of such successful transmedia storytelling represents how useful interrelation can be, and how it can be implemented across many different areas. To apply this technique to my website, I think I would start including more visual aspects to my blog as most of it is currently just text. I could include photos, videos or even graphics to present information and hopefully enhance the transmedia storytelling of my website.
My star sign and online persona should have little in common but as a Gemini, the twin sign, my zodiac is representative of how my online self and ‘real’ person coexist. Geminis, for those of you that share my lack of obsession with astrology, is said to exhibit dual personalities with sociable, creative tendencies that contrast inconsistency and mood swings. Whether you believe in the lore or not, I find myself gravitating toward these characteristics and duality as an example of how my online self and physical person are similar to twins but are also two different entities at the end of the day. Reflecting on these differences allows further insight into why people post and how we present ourselves online, cultivating our own internet twin selves.
The justification behind my own posting could be attributed to my current class urging me to write, however, I have a choice over what to post and how to post it. Having this autonomy has provided a unique opportunity to explore my online style of self-presentation, one that revolves around elements like minimalism and introspection. The link between knowledge and internet is also a bridge that I aim to explore with studies, “f(inding) that many schools in our fieldsites recognize that social media simultaneously assists informal learning (UCL Home).” This furthers the importance of content legitimacy on my website and the clarification that all of these works are self-created and do not reflect the majority’s opinion and rather my personal views. I create content to entertain my readers but also offer insight into global perspectives on things like the Palestinian-Israeli conflict that I am passionate about. My blog also gives me the ability to execute Erin Hollenbaugh’s idea of “strategic self-presentation” with my curated content that fits the standard I set for my work and for self-publishing which motivates me to create more content (2020).
Presenting oneself online can be seen through the rise in, “creative reimaginings of blogs have quietly taken nerdier corners of the internet by storm” that offer unique insights into the full range of human expression and passion (Basu 2020). An example of such expression can be seen in Blogroll’s article on Pokemon being used to communicate across media forms through its diverse fanbase and related content being available on a variety of mediums (2013). Depending on the internet medium content creators are able to present themselves in a variety of ways from professionally via platforms like LinkedIn or in more casual contexts on a personal blog or social media site like Twitter. For the purposes of my own content, I generally appreciate a blend of professionalism and casual correspondence with the reader, using personal pronouns while also maintaining a language and professional standard that does not include the use of sarcasm or crude humor. In my self-presentation outside of internet presence, I find myself gravitating to more casual interactions with friends and contrasting professional attitudes with professionals different than my overarching presentation of a blend on my website. Such choices allow me to understand the difference and Gemini form of differences and similarities within my in-person and online self.
The combination of content creation and self-presentation has showcased all the decisions that go into putting an image of self online. This journey has also led to self-reflection and an understanding that while my physical self and online self exist as two entities they are linked and cohesive in many ways.
Works Cited
Basu, Tanya. “Digital Gardens Let You Cultivate Your Own Little Bit of the Internet.” MIT Technology Review, MIT Technology Review, 3 Sept. 2020, https://www.technologyreview.com/2020/09/03/1007716/digital-gardens-let-you-cultivate-your-own-little-bit-of-the-internet/.
Hollenbaugh, Erin E. “Self-Presentation in Social Media: Review and Research Opportunities.” Self-Presentation in Social Media: Review and Research Opportunities, Communication and Media Technologies, 24 Dec. 2020, https://www.rcommunicationr.org/index.php/rcr/article/view/71.
UCL. “For Some People, Social Media Does Not Detract from Education – It Is Education.” Why We Post, University College London, 9 July 2020, https://www.ucl.ac.uk/why-we-post/discoveries/2-social-media-is-education.
Week 7 is here, and we’re focusing on digital literacy. While social media provides more opportunities for voices to be heard, it also increases the risk of falling into the trap of misinformation and fake videos. As someone who shares travel experiences online, I find it challenging to ensure that the information I share is accurate. For example, when sharing my journey in Vancouver, providing correct information about its history, background, and location can be difficult.
The first reading by James Bridle, titled “Something is Wrong on the Internet,” sheds light on the dark side of the internet where automated algorithms generate disturbing and bizarre content aimed at children. This is a clear example of how digital media can be used to manipulate and harm individuals. It reminds me that we sometimes enjoy posts without fact-checking their backgrounds, which can lead to being easily influenced by others over time.
To combat misinformation and fake news, it’s essential to verify the source of the news article and fact-check the information presented. Fact-checking websites like Snopes, FactCheck.org, and PolitiFact can be useful. It’s also crucial to be aware of our own biases and consume news from a variety of sources to avoid getting stuck in an echo chamber. Lastly, reporting fake news and misinformation to social media platforms or news outlets can help combat their spread. By taking these steps, we can play a role in fighting the spread of misinformation and fake news.
We are now in the second last week of the course and I’m feeling good about what I’ve created so far in terms of the content as well as just the website as a whole. I think when I started the class I had a lot of creative visions of how to personalize my website and I tried some of them over the course of the semester, most of them didn’t work out or came with sacrificing accessibility. Overall I think with all the problems I’ve had since day one I’ve made tons of changes and tried all sorts of different ideas to make my blog what it is now and while it’s simple it’s pretty effective in my opinion. This week’s prompt is about transmedia and unfortunately I couldn’t access the reading. It pops up saying the content is blocked so i’m not sure what it was about. Instead I thought I could find another article online related to transmedia and use it. I think transmedia is an interesting thing to talk about from the context of a blog, specifically one like mine that is really informal and kinda random. Transmedia seems like it would make more sense in something that is telling a story. That being said, I think if I were to use different forms of media for my content I would do short videos that go a little more in depth about certain topics in my blog. I think this would work best because some of my posts are fairly informative and I think short videos are the best form of content to help people stay engaged and interested in the topic while learning something in a short amount of time. I have recently tried some new forms of content such as images and content focused on the reader but I don’t think there was enough time given to do anything more unique for content posts each week. I would have loved to do a video style content post but it would have taken easily twice as long as writing it. In the future if I decide to keep posting on my blog when there isn’t a due date on posts I might try something more unique.
References
Jenkins, H. (2007, March 22). Transmedia storytelling 101. Henry Jenkins. Retrieved April 6, 2023, from http://henryjenkins.org/blog/2007/03/transmedia_storytelling_101.html
This week I added a lot more to my about section of my blog. I added one of the main reasons I started my blog and the goal I had with it as well as a little more about me personally and what readers should expect from the blog. Since I didn’t want to add an image of myself I decided to add images of topics I’ve written about that way there’s still some images which I think are important. I took an idea from Victor, who I did my peer review #3 on, and put these images under a “gallery of topics” as I think it is a good way to visually understand the topics. This week’s reading was all about search engine optimization and why it is super important for reachability as well as the importance of mobile optimization. In terms of mobile optimization I believe I have that down as my site is just really easy to use and friendly for mobile. The navigation is all in a menu, the spacing of all the text and images work well, the font is readable and big enough, and overall I’m happy with it and dont think I’ll change anything anytime soon. As for SEO, I’ve thought about it for a while and I don’t think I really want to optimize my website for this. I really want my blog to be personal and connect to readers by using informal language and overall just a laid back tone. I don’t want to change titles or change wording in my content to be more friendly for search results. Basically anything that takes away from the actual content to be more optimized is out of the question for me. That being said I decided to add relevant tags to my posts as I don’t feel it takes anything away from the actual content but would help it appear more in searches.
References
data.ai. (2022). Posiel.com. State of mobile 2022. Retrieved March 23, 2023, from https://posiel.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/dataai__state_of_mobile_2022__en.pdf
I got some feedback about my website’s design and decided I’m going to stick with this for the rest of the class. I’m still a little bit behind on assignments but slowly catching up as I’ve had a break from midterms being over. I just noticed that I was supposed to have an about me section since week 1 and so I added that, it’s very small as I didnt know what to put and didn’t really want to put an image of myself. I might add more to it later on if I can think of anything but otherwise I’ll probably just leave it really short and simple as I want my content to speak for me anyways. I’m starting to run out of ideas for what to do for content and it’s making it really stay motivated. That’s pretty much all I’ve changed since last week. The reading/podcast this week talked about digital footprints or breadcrumbs which are essentially the details we leave behind when using the internet. I think It’s actually crazy how much information gets left behind just by browsing google. I have this app on my computer that searches for and removes trackers, essentially it just cleans up your computer. I run this program about once a week and every time there’s at least 1000 trackers it detects which is just insane because I know for a fact I’m not on that many websites in a week. The reading explains how the information collected on us is used to advertise products that we might be interested in. Their solution is to use ad blockers, a VPN and browse on a more secure browser. I think ad blockers are a great way to help with targeted marketing by just simply removing the ads that you see but it doesn’t fix the actual issue at hand it more so acts as a bandage to cover it up. The idea of a VPN would be great but I have yet to find a free VPN that works well and I’m definitely not going to spend money on one. For the point of using a more secure browser it’s a good idea but for someone who has been using chrome for years I really don’t want to switch. Overall I think the podcast brings up some good points about this problem but needs some more in depth solutions to it, for me personally I’m just going to continue to use this app that removes trackers as it works well enough for me.
ReferencesDigital Breadcrumbs: The data trail we leave behind us. Pod Academy. (n.d.). Retrieved March 22, 2023, from http://podacademy.org/podcasts/digital-breadcrumbs-our-data-trail/
I haven’t changed much about my website since last week, which could be a good thing in that I’ve finally found a style that I like. I just figured out how many assignments we need to have done by the end of the semester and realized I am very behind so I’m going to have to do some catching up. I think I’m going to try some different forms of content posts for the future because I’ve only really done writing up until now and it’s getting a little boring. The reading this week is all about AI which is something I’m incredibly interested in. The first reading talks about DALL-E and explains how to use it. I think that I’m going to try and do a content post using DALL-E, potentially create a story using it similar to the mini assignment #3 or just post a series of really unique and cool images it creates and include the prompts I put. I think that DALL-E has some really cool use cases for artists who could take an image generated by it and create something out of that or just simply use it as inspiration to create something from scratch. The other really popular form of AI used by the public is ChatGPT which I’ve been using a lot recently. I don’t use it to write things for assignments or anything but I do use it to reword sentences if they seem off to me and also to summarize websites to see if it’s what I was looking for. I wasn’t able to access “The elements of indigenous style” or “Traditional Knowledge Exists; Intellectual Property is Invented or Created” readings for some reason so I can’t really speak on those.
ReferencesAntonelli, W. (2022, July 14). How to use dall·e mini, the viral AI tool that can turn any prompt into a series of pictures. Business Insider. Retrieved March 17, 2023, from https://www.businessinsider.com/guides/tech/dall-e-mini
I’ve still been trying to figure out how I want to design my website but I think I’ve found something that I like and works well in terms of accessibility. I finally figured out how to add a navigation bar at the top that stays for every page so now you can get back to the home page. I went back to the first design I did with having all my content posts on the home page laid out in a way that they continue to the last week’s post once done reading this week’s. I thought about also removing all the buttons to get to all the posiel stuff but I thought it might get confusing to know which week is which so I kept it the same. The colours I went with are pretty simple with an off white background with black text but I also added a dark mode option that changes the background to a dark blue with white text which I think looks really nice. The reading this week by James Bridle, Something is wrong on the internet is pretty interesting to me. A few weeks ago I did a content post on ways kids have gotten rich quickly (essentially outlining some get rich quick schemes and saying what I thought about them), one I did not include was content creation on social media and predominantly Youtube. The reading talks about this indirectly but people have found ways to create content that generates a lot of clicks sometimes by using AI and they upload them to Youtube to generate money. This can be very effective because they target their content to children, who have a massive presence on Youtube and have lots of time to watch. The problem is that sometimes this content is very disturbing especially for children. I think this is a huge problem and think that Youtube has a responsibility to better monitor these videos being labelled as for kids. The reading about wikipedia was also very interesting because it made me think of a dilemma. In a class I had last semester the professors praised Wikipedia, not because they thought it was all amazing truthful information but because the purpose of the site was to provide a way for people to present their findings and knowledge for free and allow others to access this knowledge for free. Obviously with it being accessible to everyone on the internet some people are going to make up fake information or change things because it is funny and they can. Essentially what I’m trying to say is that wikipedia doesnt deserve all the hate it receives because its intention is good and if you know how to use it properly it can actually be extremely useful at providing information or sources very quickly. I thought that the other readings this week were good but nothing really piqued my interest and I mostly agreed with the points they brought up.
References
Bridle, J. (2018, June 21). Something is wrong on the internet. Medium. Retrieved March 17, 2023, from https://medium.com/@jamesbridle/something-is-wrong-on-the-internet-c39c471271d2 Tone, S. (2022, July 11). She spent a decade writing fake Russian history. wikipedia just noticed. #SixthTone. Retrieved March 17, 2023, from https://www.sixthtone.com/news/1010653/she-spent-a-decade-writing-fake-russian-history.-wikipedia-just-noticed.-?fbclid=IwAR3XFmfyFxVcZSNuxS9HSXqZG55mnN29vkX8E-LuR7-MEvnq0tK4ZK6Lo7A
Well, at least some of it. Cause when you clicked onto this site you left a footprint and I can see where you came from and when you left. This is the case for every site we visit nowadays. It seems rather odd, perhaps a little scary in the 1984ish way Big Brother is watching us. But should we worry? What are we actually leaving behind?
Well, after reading “On advertising – Maria Popvova” by Tom Bleymaier, I learnt that people can be really slick with how they go about using analytics and referral links. The article talks about Maria Popvova’s site which is run off of donations on the merit of it being an ad free site. However, Bleymaier notes that Popvova is also using amazon’s affiliate link program in which if a user uses one of the links off the site, Popvova gets 10% of the cart total amount from that purchase. Seems a little shady in my opinion. If you’re getting money from the amazon links, I don’t think you can call your site ad free, and Bleymaier points out the same thing in the article.
What I can promise here is that I won’t do anything sketchy like that. Not to mention them fact that I don’t plan on asking for donations nor using any affiliate links or advertising. This isn’t the place for that. But more so, in those amazon affiliate links, when you use them, the person who set them up in this case being Popvova can see everything you bought in that one trip to amazon. I really don’t like that. To be honest, it doesn’t make much sense to me why they would need to see that information, or even why they would have access to it in the first place.
Conclusion
Thus, what I am proposing for my site. No, what I will be doing for my site is this.
This site is a safe space. I am not tracking your data, and keeping tabs on you. Nor will I.
I will not be pasting adverts everywhere, nor ask you for donations.
To be honest, though I do have Google Analytics set up for this set, I never really even check it. I don’t really care for the data. After all, I’m not trying to sell you anything.
At the most, maybe I’m trying to sell you on watching a tv show or movie but then again, in the nicest way possible, this is more for me than for you.
Ends are not bad things, they just mean that something else is about to begin. And there are many things that don’t really end, anyway, they just begin again in a new way. Ends are Read More
This week I dedicated most of my time of PUB101 homeowrk to developing my ideas for essay that is comming next week. After this week reading I decided to pursue the topic AI and it use in our life. I like the fact that in the on a main page of ChatGPT that is created by OpenAi company there is a dedicated section for a its limitations that states that it could provide answer that is pausible-sounding but incorrect or nonsensical. It’s a nice point that acknowledge its user that he/she should not trust evrything that AI it giving back to user requst. Even on the starting line on this website it states that “ChatGPT is trained to follow an instruction in a prompt and provide a detailed response” and the word follow is in my opinion a key to its use, this AI is not an independed entity by itself, is comes up with a follow up respond that is based on input and should not be treated as a fact.
But considering all of it, I am curious to see where this new technology will lead us. By htis point there is already so many discussionaround it and how people are using it. There is already a signed pertiotion to postpone AI use signed by Steve Wozniak and Elon Musk, which already signals that it is not quite reafy to beimplemented in daily use. Never the less the amount of talking it causes, like all these memes on internet where professor at university assignes 50 page essay to his students cause half of the class already used ChatGPT on their last assignments or how some people uses AI to write a code for a game mode. The last example is interesting cause creator made a video about it and showed that beofre ChatGPT was able to provide a decent answer, he spent a lot of time an iterations to make AI give him a working prototype. Which is cohirant with my opinion that AI is a nice thing and only as a additional tool and it will not make any good in a long run if user does not have a required skills set and knowledge to understand what he/she been given.
References:
Introducing chatgpt. Introducing ChatGPT. (2022, November 30). Retrieved March 10, 2023, from https://openai.com/blog/chatgpt
It finally happened. Joel and his brother Tommy are finally reunited!
To be honest I was surprised it happened so soon. I thought for sure it would take longer for them to get back together than six episodes. However, I guess it’s not the main plot going on here, even though it was kind of the whole motivation for Joel.
The Plot Thickens
Okay… so there are a few we need to talk about. First of all, Tommy got married? And is going to be a dad?? You’d think that a whole fungal zombie apocalypse would be enough to put procreation on hold for a minute right? That’s just my thoughts. Yet, they are living in a very Wild West-esque little colony that seems safe and full of good people. This probably means it’s not gonna last. At least, if all other apocalypse tropes are upheld it’ll definitely go bad.
Also, Joel seems to have a heart condition and so he tries to get Tommy to take Ellie the rest of the journey. Then, she refuses and only wants Joel to go with her, and there’s frankly a bit of inconsequential and useless floundering before Joel decides to keep going after all.
Another thing is Joel himself. Slowly but surely, we’re finding out more about Joel’s character. It’s slowly turning out that he might not be the good guy we all expect him to be. All of the episodes we’ve seen so far tend to paint Joel in a more sympathetic light. Yet, when we finally meet Tommy, we learn there might be a reason why Tommy stopped answering the radio from Joel. Turns out, Joel has done some awful things to some not so awful, and awful people alike. Tommy, feeling a bit remorseful of what they did together, is trying to turn a new leaf. So, it would seem like Tommy doesn’t really want Joel there. I mean, I don’t think it would be too personal, but at the same time you’d think you’d want to hold onto your only living post-apocalypse relative. Maybe that’s just me though.
The end of this episode was a cliff hanger. Which I have to say, really sucks. I get it, they’re a tried and true method for leaving the audience wanting more, and keeping them thinking about the show all week until the next episode. Cool, it works. BUT…BUT… they’re such a pain. JUST TELL US!!!!
Me hating on the cliff hanger just proves their efficiency.
Anyways, here are some of my favourite frames from this episode.
The Two BrothersSomething out of a WesternA prospering yet doomed settlement
This infographic summarizes the most important aspects related to Spilling the Royaltea. These include the site’s tagline, navigation, community guidelines, and goals. At the beginning of the semester, I created a diagram explaining the site’s navigation, but a lot has changed since then. Therefore, using this infographic, I was able to reflect on these changes and create a more representative navigation scheme showing where I am now. In creating this infographic, I also reflected on some of the community guidelines I would like to enforce on my site, including respect, tolerance, openness, and connectedness. Finally, I set out three goals for my site, which includes the more measurable, numerical goal of posting 2-3 times each week, and the more ideological goals of challenging readers and fostering open conversation.
Since the beginning of the Internet way back in the late 1990s and very early 2000s, making online comments on blogs and chatrooms have been around within the Internet. Websites like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram were just starting to get popular, and more and more people started to buy devices that can connect to the internet. People started to realize that anyone can create an account and post what they would want to because they can put false information on their account. These are known as fake accounts, and whoever uses these accounts can get away from the consequences from the general public.
Since there is a sense of anonymity for these fake accounts when they post comments, the comments they post can get pretty cruel and concerning. An article called “The Psychology of Online Comments” by Maria Konnikova states that, “forty [percent] of people in the eighteen-to-twenty-nine-year-old demographic have posted anonymously.” (Konnikova, 2013). Hate comments can stem from many reasons, from a user not liking the other, to rumors’ being spread that make the public generate hate towards the user. Although it may not be nice to receive these comments, it is always a good idea to ignore them since it is just the internet; and if it gets out of control seeking support may be needed.
References:
Konnikova, M. (2013, October 23). The psychology of online comments. The New Yorker. Retrieved April 4, 2023, from https://www.newyorker.com/tech/annals-of-technology/the-psychology-of-online-comments
I decided to make an infographic that explains my behaviour on various online platforms. My online identity varies tremendously on each platform. For instance, my LinkedIn account is full of personal information such as where I go to school and my work experience, while my YouTube account has no personal information on it; I don’t even go as far as to comment on videos. I find it interesting seeing how my behaviour changes depending on the app I’m using and who I believe will see it.
This week I will be reviewing Kathy’s blog, Lucid Dreamer (uderrated.com).
First Impressions: Kathy’s blog does not have that much content, however, her About page gave me some insight into the type of content she is trying to convey! I enjoyed that she has a picture of herself because her blog is personal, where she talks about her dreams and (book) recommendations. This is a great way to market your blog, as when someone looks at the About page they will know this is a personal blog about her, and not about any other sort of content.
By posting personal recountings of her dreams, she is presenting herself in a vulnerable way that we don’t see often online! In Hollenbaugh’s article, Self-Presentation in Social Media: Review and Research Opportunities, they talk about ‘self-disclosure’, “Self-disclosure, the revelation of personal information (i.e., thoughts or feelings) to others (Derlega et al., 2008), is distinct from self-presentation, yet it is an essential tool for those attempting to present their actual or ideal image” (Hollenbaugh, 2020). By talking about her personal life, and her dreams, she is practicing self-disclosure, which is rare online.
Marketability: Kathy has not yet worked on many aspects of marketability. It is a little bit confusing navigating her website and the content that she is actually posting, which makes it harder to market to a specific audience. I would recommend having her “Dream Diary” as the first thing you see when you open the site. On top of that, I would recommend some more pictures or icons that allude to the type of content she is posting so that the audience knows what kind of blog it is!
Unfortunately, she has not posted any recommendations, as this would be where the marketability aspect can come from. If she started recommending some manga or books, she would be able to market that type of content to have her audience looking at the stuff she is recommending. This part of her blog could be pretty easy and laid back too, she wouldn’t have to go into detail but maybe just have Pinterest board-like grid of different manga, board games, and card games that she likes!
Conclusion: Unfortunately Kathy does not have enough content on her blog for me to make a good and accurate assessment of her content, however, I gave several recommendations and things I would like to see from her blog!
Citations
Hollenbaugh, E. E. (2020). Self-Presentation in Social Media: Review and Research Opportunities. Review of Communication Research, 9, 80-98. Retrieved from https://www.rcommunicationr.org/index.php/rcr/article/view/71
