Author Archives: Jessie Zhang

Week 11

This week I got to read about public shaming and what happens when it gets too far. Frankly, it is not surprising to me at all. it is sad but true to say that online shaming and cyber bullying has been part of our generations for quite some time. There are all kinds of movies and tv shows being made that talk about this topic. And unfortunately, real life is just as cruel as the fiction.

In Jon Ronson’s ted talk, he talks about Justine’s tweet and the public shaming that followed with it. Her life was fully destroyed because of one tweet. And in his opinion, it was taken too far. No one deserved what she got, even for one badly landed joke. He talks about how social media used to be a democracy, a place where the voiceless gets a voice. But it has turned into a monster. It has become a surveillance society. Everyone is watching, and everyone is trying dig up deep dark secrets of others. This is such a scary thought to process. I would like to believe that social media has done more good than bad, but unfortunately the negativity that it creates is undeniable. A lot of people change their behaviours online because of dissociative anonymity and invisibility. They think that because no one can trace back to what they are saying, and no one knows where and who they are, they can do whatever they want. It is a naive thought since no one can hide away from the data we create. But people use these excuses to hurt and shame others, which then get taken too far sometimes.

I then think about my own behaviour online. I don’t think I have ever participated in a part of a online shaming. But I am still affected by the fear of that happening to myself. Since my instagram is public, I’m always so careful with everything I post and share. I am so afraid of the possibility of online shaming that a lot times I would rather be silent than to voice my opinion about certain things. I am aware that it is a very passive way of handling things, but unfortunately in this day and age, it is sometimes the only way.

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Essay 2

The past few months has been life-changing for me in all aspect of life. And one of the best things that has happened is that I’ve finally built my own blog. Having a blog has been a dream of mine for quite a while. I have tried multiple times to start one, but always ended up forgetting about it, and giving up. But this time, with the help of PUB 101, I was finally able to keep up with my blog. Frankly, I’m quite proud of what I’ve built in the past three months. And through this process, I’ve also learnt a thing or two about myself, my blog, website design, and more.

Comparing to the beginning of the year, I’ve gotten to know my online self a bit better through PUB101 and the blogging process. I’ve noticed my behaviour changes when I’m on different media platforms. When I am on instagram, which is where all my friends are active, I am very cautious with my every move. From the perspective of the Online Disinhibition Effect, I treat my Instagram account as the “true self”. It is supposed to represent who I am in real life. And especially since my account is an business account, I HAVE to be on my best behaviour on Instagram. In my mind, everyone is closely watching and judging me on Instagram, which is why I always overthink and analyze everything I post and share. What ends up happening is that I would not post anything for weeks, sometimes even months, because I don’t consider anything being good ENOUGH for my feed.  But when I am on my blog, I behave very differently. I am affected by “You Don’t Know Me dissociative anonymity)” and “You Can’t See Me (invisibility)“. I feel much more carefree when I’m posting on my site. Yes, my blog still has my name on it, but people who visit my website are not necessary people that I encounter with in real life. I don’t feel that my audience has an existing expectation of me, and I don’t need to be actively matching that exception. I feel that I could post whatever I’d like, and no one could judge me or define me over it. That is why I did not promote my blog to anyone on Instagram for quite a while. I wanted to keep my blog as a safe space, away from all the opinions from people that I care too much about. It has been quite an interesting journey seeing the different sides of my online self, and slowing learning to understand and accept that they are all me, and I don’t need to shy away from certain things or hide certain parts of me.

Not only have I started to understand my online self, I’ve also realized what my blog is really about. In the beginning of the semester, I envisioned my blog being a lifestyle/personal blog. I wanted to write about fashion, dance, travel, life. I wanted to share my stories, advices, and thoughts about everything that I’m interested in. Now thinking back, this plan was a bit unrealistic, unorganized and lack of focus. Going through all my post, I realize that I never ended up posting anything about dance or travel. I have mainly been focusing on posting some of my projects in fashion and photography, and as well as in the topic of wellness. Learning and researching about different types of blog and their definitions has helped me re-define my blog. I’ve learnt that lifestyle blog covers a variety of topics and it is mainly advices and suggestion based. And personal blog is more about the author of the blog and her/his personal stories, experience, and daily life. Now, I consider my blog more as a personal blog, with a focus on wellness and personal growth plus a part of my portfolio. Wellness and personal growth is something that I’ve been focusing in my own life for quite some time now, and posting about it has been very beneficial for myself. So I’d love to continue on that path and see where it would take me and my blog.

Through building my blog, I’ve also gained some knowledge and experiences in website design. I’ve spend hours and hours on WordPress trying to build my site into what I wanted it to look like. One of the biggest challenges was selecting a theme that fits my every need, which has been proven absolutely impossible. This problem is mentioned in the reading of “Design machines” .These website building services don’t care about the content or the individuality of the websites. Design machine’s example is squarespace, and how “its entire business model relies on the fact that you can paste any ’ol passage of slop into their system and it will look acceptable.” But thanks to the restriction of themes, I was able to dive into the learning of plugins and more design rules.Through class and readings, I have learnt about things like whitespaces, balance, rhythm, and more. It has also help me realize how much I’d like to master this skill, and I am planning on taking a few graphic or website design classes in the future.

Overall, this has been one of the most relevant, beneficial, and fun classes that I’ve ever taken at SFU. I’ve really enjoyed learning about my online self through the process of building a blog. I am definitely going to keep this blog going, starting with an re-design of the whole site, since I’m now more clear about the direction of my blog. And once my upgraded site is finished and running, I am planning on incorporate more content between my Instagram and the blog. I would like to show a more 3D and true version of myself to people in my life through my online presence.


 

Reference

 

The Online Disinhibition Effect

Design Machines: How to survive the digital apocalypse

Revealed: Which are the Most Popular Types of Blogs?

 

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My Top 3 Influencers For Style Inspo

Do you ever wake up feeling some type of way, wanting to look good but have no clue where to start?

Well, if that’s ever the case, I’ve got you covered! These are my top 3 influencers to turn to whenever I’m feeling fashionably uninspired.


#1. Kicki Yang Zhang

 

 

This Berlin-based Chinese girl is changing the game of fashion and style. She is fearless, fun, colourful, and doesn’t take herself too seriously. On top of that, her Instagram feed is so on point. Everything is so visually pleasing, and colour coordinated. So if you ever feel like you don’t have enough colour or art in your life, just check out Kicki’s Insta!

 

 

 

 

 

#2. Yourgirlneens

Yourgirlneens’ full name is Nina Huynh. She was raised in San Francisco, and now li
ves in Vancouver, BC. The first unforgettable thing about her is her beautiful pink hair. On top of that, her style is ON POINT! Puffy jacket, bucket hat, thrift items, she could pull of anything! Nina’s instagram includes mostly her styles and things that she is working on. But if you want to really get to know Nina, you got to check out her youtube channel. It has lots of different content, from lookbooks, to Q&As, to Vl
ogs, to challenges, and more! Her video editing skills is amazing, and so is her boyfriend!

 

#3. Song of Style

 

Aimee Song is one of the most elegant ladies out there. She is classy, flawless, and living her best life. Whether you are going on a date, or attending a gala, or even packing for Europe, whatever it is that you are planing on doing for the day, you could find some inspirations from scrolling through her Insta feed. Aimee was actually one of the first fashion influencers that I’ve ever followed. I remember how proud I was about her Asian heritage, and how I felt i finally had someone more relatable to myself to be inspired from. She also has a fashion lifestyle blog if you are looking for more of her and her style!

 

 

 


Who are your favourite fashion influencers? Comment below and share with me!!

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Week 10

This week, we had a guest speaker during lecture to talk about multi-channel marketing.

I found it super fasinating that how many channels actually exist in our world. There are so many more channels than just the typical tv, newspapers, magazines, online, billboards advertisement that everyone thinks about. And not all channels are equal. They all tell stories in different ways. When we have different goals and want to attract different kind of audiences, different channels would be chosen. The guest speaker also talks about the challenges that companies and brands face when comes to marketing. There are too much noise in the world and so much competition. And now that advertisement has become so accessible for everyone, it is becoming harder and harder to attract more and good-quality attention.

Now when I’m on social media these days, I would sometimes apply these perspectives scrolling down my feed. I follow quite a few fashion houses’ Instagram accounts. I’ve noticed how these fashion brands have integrated advertisement with editorial shoots, short films, etc. A lot of the times, it is hard to tell whether certain posts are editorial or ads. In my opinion, the purpose of these Instagram accounts are not to sell anyone anything, but to raise brand awareness, build loyal followers who might one day turn into actual buyers.  Because the majority users of Instagram users are young professionals who might not have the money just yet, but are interested in learning more about whatever they are interested about. And if fashion is one of them, they for sure will follow lots of fashion brands. By posting these editorial style ads, brands are slowly immersing themselves into the mind of these followers. Again, it is more about awareness, not selling.

As for my blog, and what media platform I choose to focus on, Instagram is for sure the number one channel. I think my intended audience demographic would most likely be active Instagram users. On top of that, most of my own online activities are on Instagram, and I’ve created most of my followers on there as well. It only makes sense to start my promotion there. Besides Instagram, I would also look into promoting my blog on Facebook and twitter at the same time.

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15 Things that I am grateful for

  1. I am grateful that I am breathing.
  2. I am grateful that I have a healthy and functional body that allows me to do whatever I’d like.
  3. I am grateful that I have a roof over my head.
  4. I am grateful for dance and everything that it has helped bring into my life.
  5. I am grateful for my mother and everything that she has done for me.
  6. I am grateful that I have enough money in my bank account to never starve.
  7. I am grateful that I have friends in my life that support and understand me no matter what. They make me feel belonged and loved. (If you know you know)
  8. I am grateful that I am living my dance dream at the moment. Being a part of the 247 fam has brought me nothing but joy.
  9. I am grateful for all the resources that I have access to for my learning in life.
  10. I am grateful for the city I live in, a place full of opportunities. I am exactly where I need to be at this moment.
  11. I am grateful for the sunshinewalking into the sunshine
  12. I am grateful for all the ‘mistakes’ ‘failures’ that I’ve ever encountered, and how they have led me to where and who I am today.
  13. I am grateful for every connection that I’ve made living this life, even the ones that I no longer hold onto. Every single person has contributed to my growth in some sharp or form.
  14. I am grateful that I am overwhelmed at the moment. That means I am being challenged, and I am powerful enough to push through. Because the universe only hands me what I can handle.
  15. I am grateful for this moment, right now.

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Week 9

In last week’s lecture, we learnt about analytics, audiences and marketing. It was very interesting for me to see how the numbers in analytics translate into the audience online engagement to our website.

Looking at my blog’s google analytics, I notice that Monday and Tuesday seem to be the peak of traffic. And I think that definitely has something to do with the fact that our lecture is on Tuesday, and I tend to upload all my new posts on Monday night or Tuesday. The bounce rate of my blog is around 51%. People averagely spend around 5 min on my site. From what we learnt in lecture, the lower the bounce rate, the better. Because that means people are actually taking time reading my blog. That is definitely something I could improve on.

Another interesting thing that have come up in my analytics is where my audiences are located. Most of my audience are from United States, and the second most are from Canada. In the ranking of city, most of the visitor of my websites are from Vancouver, which is not surprising. But the second city in ranking is New York, which makes me quite happy since it is my favourite city in the whole world. I also get a few random users visiting from Spain, Belgium, Brazil, etc. It is exciting to think how someone across the world are visiting my blog. Another part of the demographic of my audience that has surprised me is the fact that there are more users are in the age of 25-34 than the ones in the age of 18-24. Since I fall in the category of 18-24, I’ve assumed that would be my audience’s demographic as well, but apparently it’s not the case.

I also notice that posiel.com of course is my main referral. But ever since I added my website address onto my own Instagram account bio, I’ve noticed an increase of incoming traffic from Instagram. In the future, I will definitely try and promote my blog posts on my social a bit more often, in order to drive up the traffic. I also get analytic report from my Instagram account since it is a business account. And it is very interesting to compare my website statistics with my Instagram’s.

In my opinion, these analytic statistics are so important because it helps us to understand our audience better, so that we could tailor the content better to our intended audience. But at the same time, it is quite a scary thing thinking about how  every step we take on the internet every second is recorded and analyzed by others.

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Peer Review #3

This week, I had the pleasure to visit Jill’s Book Blog.Jill's Book Blog Homepage

Jill’s Book Blog — Adventures of Accessible Reading, as it states quite clearly in the title tag, is all about books. Reading through Jillian’s blog, I learnt so much about her and her favourite thing to do EVER — Reading!! In 2018, she read 96 books in 365, which is so crazily impressive. Jill’s Book Blog at the moment features three categories: Book Reviews, Accessible Reading and Posiel. From the type of content that Jillian has been constantly posted, i think the intended audience of the blog are book lovers like Jillian herself. People who would be frequent visitors of Jill’s blog are people who love reading, who also love to learn more about certain books and how others think of them. And since most of the books that have been reviewed are mostly fictions, romance, thrillers, etc, I figure the demographic of Jill’s blog are the demographic of these books, which are mostly teens to young adults and young professional, predominately female. And lastly, in most of the post, Jillian’s tone of voice seems quite lighthearted, excited, and playful most of the time, which also leads me to believe that the age of the intended audience of Jill’s Book Blog are around 17 to 30.

In my opinion, Jillian has done a great job in terms of keeping her audience engaged with her constant and high-quality content. The design of her website is fairly simple. There is quite a lot of white space, which is a great thing, since it makes the blog seems way less cluttered. On that note, the fact that there are not too many menu options also makes the blog seems less overwhelming. When I visit Jill’s website, I always find myself feeling calm and collected. And a lot of that has to do with the timeless design that Jillian has chosen. One thing that I do wish Jill’s blog could improve itself on, would be the homepage. At the moment, when users of its site opens the homepage for the first time, it has all of the most recent posts on one page, positioned vertically, and it causes the homepage to be quite long. Since most of the audience of Jill’s blog are around our age, I think it would nice to make the homepage slightly shorter with more directions to the posts. In that way, her audience could find what they want a bit easier, and it would decrease the bounce rate of her site. Another thing that I think could be improved would be finding some way to break up some of the text-heavy content. Since it is a mostly text-based site, it would be nice to see some more breaks in between paragraphs, it could be by highlightin certain quotes, adding images, or just adding simple lines and subheading, in order to keep her audience even more engaged with her content.

Overall, I’ve really enjoyed Jill’s Book Blog, and I am excited to see where this blog would develop and process in the future.

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Mini Assignment – Remix

With VFW fast approaching, I thought it only made sense to create my own vision of the VFW poster by remixing a few images together. One of the most special things to me in the poster would be the Vancouver skyline that I photoshopped in. I wanted to make sure the poster not only represents fashion, but also Vancouver as a city. Hope you guys enjoy it.

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