Author Archives: melissa wong

Peer Review #3 – Jellylift

For this peer review, I was delighted to find out I would be looking at Antalya’s blog, cleverly called Jellylift, for a couple reasons: 1) I’ve worked with Antalya in previous courses– she’s lovely!, and 2) I am also a hardcore Jellycat fanatic. I mean, what better way to spend (way too much of) your adult money on stuffed animals? (See my prized possession on the Indigo website.) So, when prompted about how Jellylift markets to their intended audience, I immediately think “well… that’s me!” Before getting into the marketability portion of this peer review, I’m first going to dig further into Antalya’s intended audience.

Who (else) Is the Intended Audience?

From the name “Jellylift” and also the About page, it is very clear that this blog is dedicated to two things and two things only: weightlifting and Jellycats. Side note: I have to add to the pre-existing compliment pile for this super awesome juxtaposition– it’s super awesome. Individually, both weightlifting and Jellycats have their own passionate counterpublics, a term discussed by Michael Warner. So, it seems that these groups make up Antalya’s intended audience. 

I know that the gym community, both online and in real life spheres, is quite a tight-knit and supportive counterpublic, usually circulating discourse around tips on form, advice on the best pre-workouts, flexing their personal bests, etc. (Is it painfully obvious that I’m absolutely NOT a member of this counterpublic?) On the other hand, the Jellycat counterpublic is bonded through obsessing over and collecting the cutest, softest plushes on the planet. Check out the Jellycat website to see for yourself.

So, Jellylift is clearly a hub for members of both of these counterpublics to enjoy. However, by combining the two comically different interests, Antalya may be single-handedly creating a whole third counterpublic through Jellylift– a counterpublic consisting of those who love to sweat and pump major iron AND embrace their inner child with cuddly toys. 

I’ve talked a lot about these people who surely would love Jellylift, but how exactly does Jellylift market to them to solidify this love?

Marketability Through Content and Design

I have determined that both the weightlifting and Jellycat counterpublics are part of Antalya’s intended audience, but this is not to say that you have to be a part of both / Antalya’s up-and-coming third counterpublic to be a Jellylift enjoyer. Take me, for example, who a) would rather die than step into a public gym, but b) has no problem dropping $40 on a hand-sized stuffed cauliflower with legs, and c) loves Jellylift. Antalya does a great job of balancing content about both interests– check out her content categories for Lifting and Jellycats– while keeping them separate enough for pure lifters and Jellycat lovers to enjoy one and not the other. This is important as it opens the door for more (regular) site visitors– I’m not sure the same effect would be achieved if Antalya’s content posts each featured an integration of both interests. 

Additionally, the overall ironic and casual tone used across Jellylift makes the content clearly suitable for Antalya’s audience, or at least a subsection of them. She talks about how Jellycat lovers and weightlifters could be generalized into a “youth” demographic in her process post Knock Knock… Who’s There? Antalya’s style of writing definitely sells to this demographic perfectly, as the language she uses is very Gen-Z-friendly, with dry humour, lowercase titles, and expletives used (tastefully and quirkily) in every post.

Jellylift’s blog design also contributes to supporting its marketability to these intended audiences. At first glance, the pastel text against the rich chocolate brown background is definitely not a conventional website colour palette, but it is undeniably aesthetically pleasing to the youthful eye. Jellylift is also very easy to navigate with the clearly-labelled menu, systematically organized and categorized posts, and use of tags. Although Antalya loves to use a fun title for her posts– such as “What the F**k is Content?”– all her posts can easily be located, and are additionally very readable and scannable due to her use of headers and links. All of these elements, according to our PUB 101 Week 10 lecture material, are ingredients for good SEO. And, according to Sam Hollingsworth, having a good SEO is extremely beneficial for marketability. He further explains how site performance suffers if these elements are missing, but Antalya’s got it covered.

Summing Up

Overall, Antalya’s content and design of Jellylift is all noticeably intentional and carefully executed, which evidently pays off in its marketability as well as user-satisfaction (cite: me). I can’t wait to keep up with Jellylift and see what Antalya has up her sleeve for the rest of the semester!

Bonus Content: A Short Response to Antalya’s Peer Review

If you aren’t Antalya, this peer review post ends here. Thanks for reading! If you ARE Antalya, keep scrolling.

Hi Antalya! I enjoyed your peer review for my blog so much I just had to respond to it here. Thank you for the kind words, I truly am so flattered that someone I admire so much academically and personally likes melatonin gone missing! I am obsessed with the justgirlythings posts you pulled for me, truly thank you so much. melatonin gone missing feels so seen. Keep your eyes peeled for when those make their appearance on the blog.

Me and you after our peer reviews:

Two buff guys, with their arms around each other, flexing for the camera at the gym.
Source: https://becomingajock.tumblr.com/post/145458793098/roided-as-fuck-bros-posing-for-a-gym-pic-yeah

References:

Hollingsworth, S. (2021, August 9). 15 reasons why your business absolutely needs seo. Search Engine Journal. Retrieved March 29, 2023, from https://www.searchenginejournal.com/why-seo-is-important-for-business/248101/#close

Norman, S. (2023). Data and SEO [PowerPoint Slides]. Department of Publishing, Simon Fraser University.

Warner, M. (2002). Publics and Counterpublics (abbreviated version). Quarterly Journal of Speech, 88(4), 413-425. 

My Favourite Fictional Man Has A Tail

Yes, you read that correctly.

In high school, my friend and I founded a book club, where we read a book every couple weeks and assembled to discuss it. Nothing crazy or out of the ordinary for a book club. However, this club changed my life because from it, I was introduced to one of my favourite series of all time: The Folk of the Air by Holly Black. Spoilers ahead.

Before reading this series, I was a proud non-fantasy reader. It was just never really my thing, I never even read Harry Potter when I was younger like every other kid. Instead, I stuck by YA fiction, always with romance. However, when the book chosen is by majority vote in our book club, I can’t really refuse. So, begrudgingly and honestly, with some difficulty, I forced my way through the first book of the series, The Cruel Prince. While reading, I remembered why I rarely ever gave the fantasy genre a shot. Made-up, silly sounding words filled the pages, and there were so many characters with similar sounding names that I could barely manage to follow the plot. If I skipped a page, I would miss crucial lore that seemed to be important, yet I couldn’t will myself to carefully read each word and comprehend what was going on in these immortal faes’ histories. Nevertheless, almost nearing the end of the book, I started to become interested in what was going on. Why? It was the scene where Carden, our careless, cruel prince (hah) was strapped into a chair with a dagger held to his neck by our protagonist mortal girl Jude, in a den of spies. Finally, after years of torment by him and his faerie friends, she was in complete control over her enemy and the throne. That’s right, the foundation of an enemies-to-lovers plot was building, and I was hooked.

By the end of the book, not much else had happened to further any potential romance between Jude and Cardan. Still, I was just intrigued enough to know what was in store for them that I told myself I would read the next book in the series.

Fast forward, and I’m reading The Wicked King and right from the get-go, I’m sat and invested. The Cruel Prince left us with Cardan as the king, and Jude as his secret puppeteer. Now, Jude is his seneschal and figuring out her place next to the throne while also holding all the power behind it. Through sly-tongued interactions between Jude and Cardan, we can sift through cruelties and riddles to find that perhaps Cardan feels more than just disdain towards Jude, and through her POV we know that she definitely does, although she refuses to confront this fact. Halfway through the book, Jude gets abducted and taken prisoner in the Undersea, and Jude is forced to realize what she feels for him and her life above the surface. And when she returns because of Cardan’s desperation to get her back, we finally see something between the two of them that is more than just between the lines. This inkling of hope doesn’t last long, when Cardan exiles Jude to the mortal world at the end of the book, and every shred of anything Jude ever felt for him other than pure hatred disintegrated on the spot.

As you could’ve guessed, at this point, I’m on my knees for this series. I’m enthralled by Jude and Cardan’s “two steps forward, three steps back” love and hate dynamic, as well as all the other subplots happening alongside them. Specifically, Jude’s personal journey of self-discovery, perseverence, and ambition in a world full of people who are different and better than her makes her undeniably my #1 favourite female book protagonist.

Back to the plot though, we’re onto the third and final installation, The Queen of Nothing. Oh, did I forget to mention? Before Jude’s shocking exile for killing Cardan’s last living brother, she and Cardan exchanged vows and she became none other than the Queen of Elfhame. A mortal queen, nonetheless, and the very first one. While this marriage could be narrowed down to mere practical and mutually-beneficial reasons, it is completely clear that when Jude and Cardan become wed, they do so under a veil of love for each other. A major win for the readers! Except now Jude is back in the mortal world, exiled and seething. It doesn’t take long until she risks it all and returns to pretend to be her twin sister in a murder trial (her sister is absolutely guilty… a win for rage-filled women everywhere!). Cardan, knowing her better than she thinks, catches Jude immediately and confronts her in his chambers, asking what took her so long (whaaaaat?). Before they’re able to get into the nitty gritty, Jude is once again taken away and does not return until much later, where Cardan is under the impression that she’s arrived to execute him. This turns out to be a miscommunication and a trap that Jude walks into herself, as civilians still believe she should be in exile and immediately are prepared to kill her. Fear not, all is sorted once Cardan exclaims, to pretty much all of Elfhame, that Jude is not in exile, but rather is his wife and their rightful Queen.

Now that Jude is properly on the throne, politics ensue and disaster strikes once Cardan falls under a curse and turns into a great serpent. (If you’re still with me at this point, you deserve a pat on the back. If you’re not, I don’t blame you. This sounds ridiculous, but I swear if you know you know.) Just before this, Cardan recites the most beautiful love confession you will ever see in a book.

“It’s you I love,” he says. “I spent much of my life guarding my heart. I guarded it so well that I could behave as though I didn’t have one at all. Even now, it is a shabby, worm-eaten, and scabrous thing. But it is yours.” He walks to the door to the royal chambers, as though to end the conversation. “You probably guessed as much,” he says. “But just in case you didn’t.”

Holly Black, The Queen of Nothing

Before Jude gets a chance to respond, Cardan is lost to his serpent form and it seems that the curse is unbreakable. Wracked with fear, guilt, anger, sadness, and love, Jude deliberates what to do with him and nearly makes many poor decisions. In the end, however, she knows that the only choice that would truly be out of love is to let him go. Against the nation’s expectations and wishes, she slays the serpent, and you know who walks right out of its carcass? Everyone’s favourite cruel prince. While this whole story unfolds, cryptic riddles and intricate prophecies are at work, and it is in this moment when everything clicks and all makes sense. If you read this book for any reason, I would recommend it for this puzzle-y element of the book. It truly makes the story unlike anything I’ve ever read before.

So, Jude and Cardan are reunited, and as she promised to herself while he was gone, she confesses how she really feels. Finally, after hate, lust, and loss, the king and queen finally get a chance to be truthful to each other and be together.

And that is pretty much where the trilogy leaves us. It’s a little more and a little less than a simple “happily ever after” ending, with the remaining effects of everything that happened still fresh and left on a note that leaves readers both satisfied and aching for more of Elfhame’s stories.

Luckily, Holly Black heard this ache, and has since released the first of her new duology, centered on Jude’s little half-brother who is on his way to the throne, but not before he has his childhood unlike Jude whose was ripped from her grasp far too young.

Check out all of Holly Black’s books. You will NOT regret it.

Oh, wait. I never talked about the tail. I guess now you’ll really have to check out these books.

Artificial Intelligence

AI is on a rapid rise in education. Professors and educators have been banning new softwares like ChatGPT and Dall-E with the fear that students will use them to plagiarize entire assignments and diminish critical thinking. However, the use of these technologies is inevitable and increasing in various everyday circumstances. As educational institutions continue banning them, they will just get more and more advanced, which means that at some point, we’ll all have to cope with them somehow. So this week, I tried out two of these technologies: ChatGPT and Dall-E, and found a few ways students might positively use it in the classroom.

What is ChatGPT?

ChatGPT is an AI software developed by OpenAI that is meant to generate almost-immediate, conversational responses to questions, prompts, and commands. It launched to the public in November 2022, and since then has been a topic of discourse in academia, ethics and technology, and general interest of the common person with free time and internet connection. Its impressive technology allows the responses to be detailed, articulate, and generally factually correct. User input also helps craft desired outputs, as the AI can “learn” and tailor its responses to reflect feedback and critiques. As mentioned, ChatGPT has faced rejection from educators and institutions with its negative implications for students, but there are ways that ChatGPT can be effectively implemented to aid learning and expression.

Idea Generation

Writer’s block is pretty inevitable for any class, especially PUB 101, where I write two or three posts a week. With a simple prompt, ChatGPT can generate ideas to take inspiration from for essays, assignments, and blog posts. This could yield excellent results, as each student would be able to spend more time on the execution of their project, rather than spending time brainstorming ideas that are often too simple to accurately and rigorously demonstrate their learning. To bypass the possible concern that this would limit creative thinking and be a case of plagiarism, I must clarify that in fleshing out projects from a mere concept to execution still requires a lot of creative thinking, and by referencing the software’s assistance it would steer clear of plagiarism claims since the ideas would in a sense still be the student’s own based on the prompt and information fed. 

Keyword Generation

In PUB 101, I’ve learned that inputting keywords in posts is extremely important. They help improve the SEO and my website’s reach. ChatGPT could effectively help generate some of these keywords to benefit each post on my blog. So, I decided to type the following into ChatGPT: what are some keywords to include in a blog post about reviewing Taylor Swift’s album “folklore”? Here’s what it generated.

A ChatGPT response to the prompt "what are some keywords to include in a blog post about reviewing Taylor Swift’s album “folklore”?"

What is Dall-E?

Dall-E is an AI software, also developed by OpenAI, that generates complex creative images from text prompts. Prompts can include things like recreating individual artists’ styles, using various art mediums, and ultimately absurd visuals that one would not expect to see in one image. Like ChatGPT, the use of Dall-E has been a controversial topic. Specifically, when is it ethically permissible to use it, especially in academic contexts? 

Creating Visual Interest

My content posts often use a lot of images from the internet. While this is useful in many cases, especially for posts that take on a more editorial-style, I think that adding pictures created from DALL-E could enhance the personalization of my posts. It could make the blog reflect me and my own personality instead of always relying on other people’s pictures and using generic-looking stock photos. For example, my post about crocheting could have included Dall-E pictures to create added entertainment, visual interest, and personality.

Oil painting of girl crocheting.
Dall-E generated image using the prompt “an oil painting of a girl learning how to crochet”.

Citing and Copyright?

Since ChatGPT is such a novel tool, traditional citation styles have yet to cohesively come up with solutions for ways students should properly credit the use of the technology in their work. However, as a student and a blog-owner, citing your sources is a critical step in ethical academia and success. Suggestions have been made for citation style from APA, for example, an online library guide for a university suggests, “This technology is new and we are all learning about generative AI resources and how to ethically use them. Consider making the ChatGPT conversation retrievable by including the text as an appendix or as online supplemental material.”

But then again, would we even need to credit the model if it’s not really taking from other people’s ideas? If things are written by ChatGPT, who owns the copyright? The human who generated the prompt, or the creators of the model? Only time will tell.

References:

Antonelli, W. (n.d.). How to use dall·e 2 and Craiyon, the AI art tools that can generate images from any text prompt. Business Insider. Retrieved March 23, 2023, from https://www.businessinsider.com/guides/tech/dall-e-mini

Dall·E: Creating images from text. DALL·E: Creating images from text. (n.d.). Retrieved March 23, 2023, from https://openai.com/research/dall-e

Introducing chatgpt. Introducing ChatGPT. (n.d.). Retrieved March 23, 2023, from https://openai.com/blog/chatgpt/

Johnson, A. (2023, January 31). Chatgpt in schools: Here’s where it’s banned-and how it could potentially help students. Forbes. Retrieved March 23, 2023, from https://www.forbes.com/sites/ariannajohnson/2023/01/18/chatgpt-in-schools-heres-where-its-banned-and-how-it-could-potentially-help-students/?sh=130da4506e2c

Research guides: APA style 7th edition: Chatgpt & ai tools. Humber. (n.d.). Retrieved March 23, 2023, from https://guelphhumber.libguides.com/c.php?g=716556&p=5279441

A Biased Review of The Eras Tour Set List

Last Friday (March 17, 2023), Taylor Swift kicked off the US leg of The Eras Tour with a bang. The show was highly commended by fans all around the world tuning in through social media, and also in major press reviews, such as Rolling Stone and The New York Times. The 3-hour show, split up into Swift’s 10 album eras from the past 17 years, clearly demonstrates her unmatched excellence in stage performance, and her love and dedication to her fans. Each era consisted of fan-favourite songs, stunning visuals and costumes, and jaw-dropping choreography. The concert attendees have said nothing but positive reviews on their experiences, which included watching the openers (Paramore and GAYLE), buying merch, and screaming along to their favourite current and nostalgic songs.

While I personally have little to no critiques to give on the show overall, and seeing the Glendale, AZ shows have only made me more impatient for the Seattle shows I’m attending, there are of course (probably controversial) changes I would make to the set list based purely on my own personal preferences. In a hypothetical world where she could realistically sing and dance for 8 hours straight, there are so many songs I would add to the set. Let’s get into some of them, era by era.

Taylor Swift

Taylor Swift sitting at a piano in a fuchsia dress on a stage with a packed crowd in the background.

Songs performed:

  • NONE 🙁

Songs I wish she would perform:

  • Our Song
  • Teardrops On My Guitar
  • Should’ve Said No

Fearless

Taylor Swift dancing in a tasseled gold dress holding a microphone her mouth, on a stage with a mega-screen behind her.

Songs performed:

  • Fearless
  • You Belong With Me
  • Love Story

Songs I wish she would perform:

  • The Way I Loved You
  • The Other Side Of The Door

Speak Now

Taylor Swift standing on stage in a large sparkly pink ball gown, holding a microphone in her hand.

Songs performed:

  • Enchanted

Songs I wish she would perform:

  • Mine
  • Back To December
  • Dear John
  • Mean
  • The Story Of Us
  • Better Than Revenge
  • Haunted
  • Long Live

Red

Taylor Swift dancing on stage in a Red-era themed outfit with a microphone held up to her mouth, and background dancers dressed in monochrome red outfits behind her.

Songs performed:

  • 22
  • We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together
  • I Knew You Were Trouble
  • All Too Well (10 Minute Version)

Songs I wish she would perform:

  • Red
  • Holy Ground
  • Begin Again
  • Come Back…Be Here

1989

Taylor Swift dancing on stage in a 1989-era themed outfit with a microphone held up to her mouth, and background dancers in matching outfits pose behind her.

Songs performed:

  • Style
  • Blank Space
  • Shake It Off
  • Wildest Dreams
  • Bad Blood

Songs I wish she would perform:

  • Out Of The Woods
  • I Know Places
  • This Love
  • Clean
  • You Are In Love
  • New Romantics

Reputation

Taylor Swift singing on stage in an asymmetrical body suit with snake decals, with red lights in the background.

Songs performed:

  • …Ready For It?
  • Delicate
  • Don’t Blame Me
  • Look What You Made Me Do

Songs I wish she would perform:

  • I Did Something Bad
  • Getaway Car
  • King Of My Heart
  • Dancing With Our Hands Tied
  • Dress

Lover

Taylor Swift smiling on stage in a rhinestoned bodysuit, holding a microphone.

Songs performed:

  • Miss Americana & The Heartbreak Prince
  • Cruel Summer
  • The Man
  • You Need To Calm Down
  • Lover
  • The Archer

Songs I wish she would perform:

  • Paper Rings
  • False God
  • Afterglow
  • Daylight

folklore

Taylor Swift standing in a house-like structure made of wooden planks and covered in moss on a stage, in a purple flowy dress singing into a microphone. The set is dimly lit with warm, dark colours.

Songs performed:

  • invisible string
  • betty
  • the last great american dynasty
  • august
  • illicit affairs
  • my tears ricochet
  • cardigan

Songs I wish she would perform:

  • seven
  • mirrorball
  • this is me trying

evermore

Taylor Swift on stage smiling while playing a piano covered in moss.

Songs performed:

  • tis the damn season
  • willow
  • marjorie
  • champagne problems
  • tolerate it

Songs I wish she would perform:

  • gold rush
  • ivy
  • cowboy like me
  • right where you left me

Midnights

Taylor Swift performing on stage, holding a microphone with one foot up on a chair and wearing a sparkly blue/black bodysuit with dancers behind her in the same pose.

Songs performed:

  • Lavender Haze
  • Anti-Hero
  • Midnight Rain
  • Vigilante Shit
  • Bejeweled
  • Mastermind
  • Karma

Songs I wish she would perform:

  • Question…?
  • The Great War
  • Would’ve, Could’ve, Should’ve

References:

Aramesh, W. D. (2023, March 18). Taylor Swift’s The Eras Tour is a 3-hour career-spanning victory lap. Rolling Stone. Retrieved March 23, 2023, from https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-live-reviews/taylor-swift-the-eras-tour-glendale-review-1234699496/

Caramanica, J. (2023, March 18). Taylor Swift, pop’s maestro of memory, returns to the stage. The New York Times. Retrieved March 23, 2023, from https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/18/arts/music/taylor-swift-eras-tour-review.html

Photos:

Aramesh, W. D. (2023, March 18). Taylor Swift’s The Eras Tour is a 3-hour career-spanning victory lap. Rolling Stone. Retrieved March 23, 2023, from https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-live-reviews/taylor-swift-the-eras-tour-glendale-review-1234699496/

Breaking down Taylor Swift’s ‘eras’ tour wardrobe – fashionista. (n.d.). Retrieved March 23, 2023, from https://fashionista.com/2023/03/taylor-swift-the-eras-tour-outfits-costumes

Courtneypochinmirror. (2023, March 18). Taylor Swift’s full setlist for the eras tour – and it’s bound to divide fans. mirror. Retrieved March 23, 2023, from https://www.mirror.co.uk/3am/us-celebrity-news/taylor-swifts-setlist-eras-tour-29459246

Iasimone, A. (2023, March 20). All the surprise songs Taylor Swift has performed on the eras tour (so far). Billboard. Retrieved March 23, 2023, from https://www.billboard.com/lists/taylor-swift-eras-tour-surprise-songs/this-is-me-trying/

Lutkin, A. (2023, March 22). All about Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour setlist and Outfit changes. ELLE. Retrieved March 23, 2023, from https://www.elle.com/culture/music/a43355124/taylor-swift-eras-tour-setlist-outfits/

Rudner, D. (2023, March 19). Photos: Taylor Swift Kicks Off ‘eras tour’ in Fine Fashion. News. Retrieved March 23, 2023, from https://www.expressnews.com/entertainment/article/taylor-swift-eras-tour-17848411.php

Staff, A. O. L. (2023, March 20). Here are all the outfits Taylor Swift has worn on her eras tour (so far). Click here to refresh. Retrieved March 23, 2023, from https://www.aol.com/lifestyle/outfits-taylor-swift-worn-her-221600475.html

The Rise of ChatGPT in Academia and How We Should Navigate It

Over time, artificial intelligence tools have been steadily developing and emerging into people’s lives. Now, many of them are now easily accessible to anyone with a decent wifi connection. While this seems like a feat of innovation for engineers, scientists, and technology as a whole, the implementation of AI in academia has raised concerns that could cause some to think otherwise. For example, ChatGPT is an AI chatbot developed by OpenAI that aims to generate immediate conversational-style responses to prompts– including but not limited to prompts regarding questions, text-translations, and summarization (Cotton et al., 2023). The software launched in November 2022, and has since seen growing popularity in the classroom, forcing both students and educators to reconceive traditional ideas of learning standards that have been complicated by ChatGPT. While ethical controversies have proliferated surrounding ChatGPT in academia, alternate suggestions for how to best take advantage of AI resources have naturally arisen as well. In this essay, I will address common concerns about students using ChatGPT, and offer suggestions for how to appropriately use it in consideration of both the challenges and benefits it provides. 

Concerns About ChatGPT

With ChatGPT being banned in schools across the world, it is evident that educators are worried about what students will be capable of with access to the chatbot. According to a qualitative study that evaluated the relevance, accuracy, originality, depth, and additional factors of ChatGPT’s responses to various prompts, it was well supported that it could easily assist students in cheating on assessments and exams (Susnjak, 2022). This impressive proficiency demonstrated in the AI’s output seems to have incited a widely-shared concern about its implications for academic integrity. For instance, as researchers describe, the ease of plagiarism with the use of ChatGPT seems to undermine the need for higher education (Cotton et al., 2023). As students can quickly complete assignments with a simple software, the focus on rigorous research and writing at post-secondary institutions seems to lose its worth, since much of the work can easily be written by ChatGPT– sometimes to a higher quality than students are capable of. Furthermore, ChatGPT can ultimately contribute to the loss of creativity and critical thinking, due to the fact that one can have their work completed for them, rather than needing to rationalize and create solutions themselves. This will lead to future failures, as it will prevent students from properly developing their researching and writing skills, and fields of study will be flooded with work that the software itself warns might include incorrect and biased information that is limited to a certain date or framework (OpenAI, 2023). Additionally, as students continue to use ChatGPT, it will inevitably create inequities in assessments (Cotton et al., 2023). This is due to the fact that some students will be making honest attempts at completing assignments, using their own background knowledge, experiences, research, and skills to conceive of their solutions, while other students will be turning to technology’s efforts, resulting in students earning higher or lower grades than they potentially deserved. Those who attempted to use their skills themselves will be at a disadvantage, putting in far greater effort than their ChatGPT-using counterparts. Ultimately, these concerns surrounding ChatGPT may lead to the “devaluation of degrees” (Cotton et al, 2023), due to the aforementioned impacts on post-secondary education. 

Benefits of ChatGPT

While these concerns thoroughly explain why many feel hesitant to accept (or outright reject) ChatGPT as a resource in academia, this does not mean that there are no conceivable benefits and opportunities that ChatGPT can provide to both students and educators. One benefit is found in its text translation feature (Lund & Wang, 2023). This aspect can aid individuals in language learning, since multiple studies have found it to be quite accurate, including Susnjak’s. This will help those attempting to navigate environments in which they are unfamiliar with the language, contributing to the expansion of global boundaries. Furthermore, ChatGPT functions to increase efficiency in research and literature review. This is done because it can extract, summarize, and analyze large data sets, faster than the time it would take for human individuals to do so (Lund & Wang, 2023). This aspect allows for the software to selectively synthesize documents within entire fields of study, greatly accelerating the pace at which potential advancements can be made and referenced. In addition, educators who have been using ChatGPT as a learning assistant in their classes have found that it has helped their students gain deeper understandings of the materials, and that it offers them a way to restructure and clarify their own ideas with the assistance of an external source (Roose, 2023). This gives them a foundation to be able to create their own work, and demonstrate their knowledge in richer ways. As explained, ChatGPT provides many benefits when being used as a tool to further education, rather than a direct source for plagiarism.  

Suggestions for ChatGPT

As described in this paper, the concerns regarding ChatGPT can be prevalent enough to outweigh the potential benefits, leading to the enforcement of restrictions on the use of ChatGPT in academic environments. Nonetheless, studies have shown that there are indeed ways to use ChatGPT in effective and educational ways while being mindful of the potential for plagiarism and unsavoury consequences. Warner (2023) emphasizes that “learning is rooted in experiences”, and it seems likely that ChatGPT can be used to enhance experience rather than replace it, as these concerns have suggested. When utilizing ChatGPT as a resource to deepen learning and provide different approaches to understanding, it allows for students to take advantage of such an innovative technology without sacrificing the authenticity of their work and the purpose of their education.

Additionally, as technology continues to advance, avoiding the use of these revolutionary resources would be unwise, since AI will only continue to progress and implement itself in various ways in people’s everyday lives. Choosing to altogether deny younger generations the use of ChatGPT and other AI tools like it would be to ineffectively counteract the natural progression of innovation and technology. While it is important to use AI appropriately– for example, in ways I have previously suggested– it is not productive nor realistic to discount AI on account of its possible misuses. 

With ChatGPT only beginning to establish its place in academia, this type of discourse regarding its upsides, downsides, and appropriate usages is important to have if there is hope for AI to be effectively used by scholars. Given what we have seen from AI thus far and the outstretched path of technological advancements, it seems we have good reason to remain hopeful. Despite the challenges it brings to academic integrity and education, the benefits of using ChatGPT to assist and elevate research and work should encourage people to use it wisely, rather than not at all.

References:

Cotton, D. R. E., Cotton, P. A., & Shipway, J. R. (2023). Chatting and cheating: Ensuring academic integrity in the era of ChatGPT, Innovations in Education and Teaching International, 1-12. https://doi.org/10.1080/14703297.2023.2190148

Introducing ChatGPT. Introducing ChatGPT. (2023). Retrieved March 18, 2023, from https://openai.com/blog/chatgpt 

Johnson, A. (2023). ChatGPT in Schools: Here’s Where It’s Banned-And How It Could Potentially Help Students. Forbes. Retrieved March 18, 2023, from https://www.forbes.com/sites/ariannajohnson/2023/01/18/chatgpt-in-schools-heres-where-its-banned-and-how-it-could-potentially-help-students/?sh=667ae6bd6e2c 

Lund, B. D., & Wang, T. (2023). Chatting about ChatGPT: how may AI and GPT impact academia and libraries?, Library Hi Tech News, Vol. ahead-of-print No. ahead-of-print. https://doi.org/10.1108/LHTN-01-2023-0009

Roose, K. (2023). Don’t Ban ChatGPT in Schools. Teach With It. The New York Times. Retrieved March 18, 2023, from https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/12/technology/chatgpt-schools-teachers.html 

Susnjak, T. (2022). ChatGPT: The End of Online Exam Integrity? arXiv Forum, https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2212.09292

Warner, J. (2023) How About We Put Learning at the Center?: Inside Higher Ed. Retrieved March 18, 2023, from https://www.insidehighered.com/blogs/just-visiting/how-about-we-put-learning-center

Photo:

Poth, R. D. (2019, September 3). Artificial Intelligence: Preparing students for the future with ai. Getting Smart. Retrieved March 18, 2023, from https://www.gettingsmart.com/2019/09/03/artificial-intelligence-preparing-students-for-the-future-with-ai/

An Oscars Sweep for Everything Everywhere All At Once

Last Sunday, the A24 film Everything Everywhere All At Once (EEAAO) swept up a total of 7 Oscar awards. Some of the winners even made history, as EEAAO’s predominantly Asian cast was celebrated by winning the most prestigious categories. Tears were shed for every speech, as people around the world seemed to grasp how important and these awards were for 1. the actors who’d worked relentlessly and suffered from systematic racism throughout their careers, 2. the Academy, whose winners do not include people of colour nearly as often as they should, and 3. for Asian people around the world who are being shown that achieving your dreams and being proud of your culture are not mutually exclusive.

I remember watching EEAAO in the theatres and crying the hardest I ever have for a movie, because the themes depicted in the film carry so much meaning to Asian cultures that goes majorly unspoken about in mainstream media. Asian representation, from both the cast and the messages being portrayed, in highly acclaimed films such as EEAAO is indescribably crucial for people of all cultures to see in mainstream media, and is slowly and remarkably becoming more frequent today.

Here are all the best speeches for EEAAO’s wins at the Oscars.

Ke Huy Quan Wins Best Supporting Actor

Michelle Yeoh Wins Best Actress

EEAAO Wins Best Picture

Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert Wins Best Director

Jamie Lee Curtis Wins Best Supporting Actress

Photo:

Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. (n.d.). Inside ‘everything everywhere all at once’s epic oscars night. A.frame. Retrieved March 16, 2023, from https://aframe.oscars.org/news/post/inside-everything-everywhere-all-at-onces-epic-oscars-night#:~:text=Everything%20Everywhere%20All%20at%20Once,course%2C%20won%20Best%20Supporting%20Actor.

New Hobby Alert: Crochet

Last week, I decided to take on crochet. This would not be my first attempt at sticking to a yarn-based hobby, as I’m a classic case of “too impatient to like arts and crafts”. However, maybe this time my determination was cranked up extra high, because now I’m addicted.

I am finding it supremely relaxing to be crocheting in bed while watching a movie or television show, and it seems to be the only thing that is keeping me going throughout long days at school. While I am nothing more than a true beginner at the moment, I am excited to progress to more complicated projects and document them along the way. For now, though, I thought I would share my first project I started with!

Hair Bows

Keeping it extremely simple (keep in mind, this is my very first project), I made a few little ribbon-type strands to tie as hair bows for my friend and I. This was a good way to learn the ultimate basics, including how to start off with a slip knot and chain stitch, as well as level up and try a half double crochet stitch. These bows were a perfect first project for me, because each one is not too time consuming, and you can choose pretty much any yarn you want. For the ones I made, I used scraps of yarn from my mom’s finished knitting projects, so these were also sustainable!

Top-down view of girl's dark, curly hair with pink and purple clips and purple knitted bows.
My friend Nava modelling her hair bows.
Girl with black hair braided into two braids with a light blue knitted bow tied at the bottom of each one. She is wearing a blue sweater, black jacket, and a red pin on her sweater.
Me modelling my hair bows.

The tutorial I used for these is linked below.

Photo

Editors, T. A. R. T. R. (2020, December 11). The best crochet hooks for multifarious projects. ARTnews.com. Retrieved March 16, 2023, from https://www.artnews.com/art-news/product-recommendations/best-crochet-hooks-1234577147/

The Eras Tour… She’s Coming

Tonight, Swifties around the world are preparing for the opening night of Taylor Swift’s long-awaited and highly anticipated tour, titled “The Eras Tour”. The first show of 52 in the US Leg is set to take place at the State Farm Stadium in Glendale, Arizona on March 17, 2023. To truly welcome Swift, the mayor of Glendale has even temporarily renamed the city to “Swift City”. While The Eras Tour has had its fair share of controversy in the press, due to the Ticketmaster Fiasco that occurred when tickets went on sale back in November, 2022, the excitement surrounding its start is astounding.

For a few weeks now, fans in Glendale have been standing outside the stadium, overhearing Swift’s rehearsals. From these videos that they later post online for other Swifties to rave over, a tentative set list has formed, and it is amazing. Fan-favourites from every album have made it onto the lineup, truly embracing the tour’s name and overall theme.

On a personal note, I am blessed to be attending two of Swift’s shows in Seattle, WA this coming July. Every time I think about it, I begin to cry. Spoiler alert, but when I saw earlier today that Enchanted from Speak Now, a.k.a. my #1 favourite song of hers, was being rehearsed for the tour, my heart nearly stopped.

Earlier today, Swift posted pictures on her social medias from her rehearsals, where she is seen to be taking control of the stage and looking fiercer than ever. These posts only made fans even more excited to for the first show tomorrow, whether they’re seeing it live or through content on social media.

On top of this, Swift announced four new songs that will be released at midnight (EST) to celebrate the tour’s commencement. All four songs were previously unreleased and immensely beloved by true Swifties, making this particular release even more special for fans. These new songs include:

  • Eyes Open (Taylor’s Version)
  • Safe & Sound (feat. Joy Williams and John Paul White)
  • If This Was A Movie (Taylor’s Version)
  • All Of The Girls You Loved Before

Be sure to listen to them, and don’t forget to keep updated on social media to see Taylor shine during The Eras Tour!

References:

Bendlin, K. (2023, January 25). Taylor Swift’s eras tour: A timeline of the Ticketmaster fiasco. Peoplemag. Retrieved March 16, 2023, from https://people.com/music/taylor-swift-eras-tour-ticketmaster-timeline/

Taylor Swift – the eras tour w/ girl in Red & Gracie Abrams (Extra Date). Detroit Metro Times. (n.d.). Retrieved March 16, 2023, from https://www.metrotimes.com/detroit/taylor-swift-the-eras-tour-w-girl-in-red-and-gracie-abrams-extra-date/Event?oid=31702967

Mini Assignment #4 – Remix

For my remix, I decided to photoshop my cat and my friend’s cat onto a Looney Tunes backdrop. This type of remix is something cute that my friends and I used to do, usually for each other’s pets. Plus, I figured that this aligns with melatonin gone missing, since it references both cats and media!

Reference Photo

Bvineyard. (n.d.). Hare tonic (Warner Bros.. Cartoons, inc..). Big Cartoon DataBase (BCDB). Retrieved March 14, 2023, from https://www.bcdb.com/cartoon-pictures/560-Hare-Tonic

Digital Breadcrumbs (Or a Whole Loaf)

Being a Gen-Zer, I learned about the concept of a digital footprint when I was ten years old in my 6th grade digital literacy class. The thought of all my online activity being traceable was and is still extremely daunting. I know people who have kept their social media presence to a bare minimum because of this. The article “Digital Breadcrumbs: the data we leave behind” reminded me a lot about my digital footprint, and exactly how it’s expanded over the course of my life to now, with melatonin gone missing. An FBI agent could likely easily be able to tell you my every move since I was 9 years old, ever since I was given my mom’s old iPhone 4s.

What are Digital Breadcrumbs?

The term “digital breadcrumbs” refers to the trail of data a person leaves that makes them trackable and traceable. The article discusses various apps that require your location to be turned on, and activities we do daily and willingly, such as paying with contactless cards and going out in public with CCTV monitoring. As we crawl deeper and deeper into the digital age, people are becoming more aware of this trail of breadcrumbs, and consequently wonder what this means for us.

According to researchers, digital breadcrumbs constantly connect us to our real and online environments. This is no surprise, as devices over time have increasingly found more ways to initiate wireless connectivity to things around us, including each other. For example, Dr. Norman’s article about realizing it was impossible not to leave a digital trail of breadcrumbs while simply shopping at an Amazon brick and mortar store. With our phones, laced with personal data, being connected to cell towers and wifi systems everywhere, it seems that almost everyone is always traceable.

This tweet, posted during the peak of COVID-19 in March, 2020, demonstrates this exact phenomenon.

What Does This Mean For Me?

Of course, when thinking about digital breadcrumbs and that my every move seems to be on display for others to see through digital data, my first reaction is to be concerned for the privacy of myself and those around me. I am not alone with this worry, as others have voiced their concern about this and have since then seen laws and legislation processes put up to protect people from breaches of digital private information.

However, to think that we can easily put an end to our digital trail of breadcrumbs would be naive, as the world only becomes more interconnected through digital media as time goes on. Instead of plaguing myself with worries about where my digital breadcrumbs (which are probably enough to make up a bakery’s supply of loaves at this point) will end up, I want to focus on making sure I am intentionally leaving some breadcrumb that I am proud of. melatonin gone missing, which has my name, school, a photo of me, and my IP address all over it, is probably another loaf of bread in and of itself. Nonetheless, I am proud to leave this blog in my lifelong data trail because it is something I created from the ground up, and is home to so much content that represents who I am.

So, FBI agent in the ether… if you’re tracking this blog right now, what do you think?

References:

Digital Breadcrumbs: The data trail we leave behind us. Pod Academy. (n.d.). Retrieved March 29, 2023, from http://podacademy.org/podcasts/digital-breadcrumbs-our-data-trail/

Norman, S. (n.d.). Trying not to drop breadcrumbs in Amazon’s store. Publishing | Graduate and Undergraduate Studies – Simon Fraser University. Retrieved March 29, 2023, from https://www.sfu.ca/publishing/news/editorials/trying-not-to-drop-breadcrumbs-in-amazon-s-store.html

Photo:

Bakery shelf with many types of bread. tasty German bread loaves on the shelves. Food Ingredient Facts. (2020, April 15). Retrieved March 29, 2023, from https://www.foodingredientfacts.org/why-food-ingredients-are-especially-important-during-covid19/bakery-shelf-with-many-types-of-bread-tasty-german-bread-loaves-on-the-shelves/