Author Archives: Sarah

Writing Sample – Blogs

Body Shaming

Body shaming is considered a big social problem today. Nowadays, if you start to judge a person about their body, you would get critic pretty harshly. Following social standards has ingrained deep inside our subconscious, so it is hard for anyone to get out of social norms. A few years ago, it started the trend to love your own body and self, and more people start to embrace the differences in each body shape. However, it is hard to erase the social standards due to images from models and idols, especially Kpop idols, the industry where many idols have to lose weight and keep fit in an unhealthy way. It also influences the audience because they would love to have a body that is beautiful as their idol. It is not a new trend on social media but a year ago, at the Oscars, Will Smith slapped Chris Rock for body-shaming Will’s wife. Social media see that a lot of people support Chris Rock because Chris is a comedian himself, so joking is inevitable. Of course, not everyone supports the use of violence but they also don’t feel pleased when people take lightly body shaming someone with alopecia areata. But no matter what, I still feel that body-shaming is not advisable even though the joke may be harmless. However, I can see some of the brands are trying to change for example The Parade, a lingerie brand has marketed its brand by having models with a different types of bodies and colors, which got a lot of praise from the customers who have got used to seeing same body type models for lingerie for some famous brand such as Victoria’s Secret.

Essay Two

My Experience as An Online Publisher

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

References:

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

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

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

Body Shaming

Body shaming is considered a social problem today. With social standards due to images from models and idols, a large part of them have become inferior to their bodies. The story would have nothing to say if recently, at the Oscars, Will Smith slapped Chris Rock for body-shaming Will’s wife. I see that a lot of people support Chris Rock because Chris is a comedian himself, so joking is inevitable. Of course, I do not support the use of violence because everything can be solved in a different way than using violence. But I also don’t feel pleased when people take lightly body shaming someone with alopecia areata. Hair loss syndrome may not be so serious that it is life-threatening, but for a woman, of course, she will not be happy to be compared to everyone because of her hair loss. shaved head. I knew for sure that Chris Rock’s joke was actually a good one because the person Chris Rock compared was G.I. Jane, a brave woman. But no matter what, I still feel that body-shaming is not advisable even though the joke may be harmless.

The Tragedy of Macbeth (2021)

Image from IMDb

I have always been curious about how a classic play is on screen nowadays. I know there are some plays already on screen like Hamlet or Romeo and Juliet, but “The Tragedy of Macbeth” is using the black and white film technique with a ratio of 4×3 of the old television movies. I really like the way A24 tries to bring the old movie technique back since other directors try to bring new techniques but it did not go well.
Macbeth is also one of Shakespeare’s famous plays, I cannot say anything about transition and cinemaphotography in this movie because all of them are good and give good metaphor images about along with the character dialogue.

The Lighthouse (2019)

Image from IMDb

Robert Pattinson is always impressed me with his acting. The Lighthouse is the movie that was produced by A24. The movie is set in the 1890s when the job of the lighthouse keeper was paid really high for anyone who needs money, but this job is very risky and could get psychological effects afterward.
Black and white filmmaking has become popular in recent years, and this movie brings back the old movie ratio making the movie became scarier and feels cramped, which fits the movie a lot.
For anyone who watches this movie as leisure, you will not understand the plot that well. This movie needs time so you can think and analyze every single moment in the movie.
Even though this movie is more psychological horror, I think it is worth trying and watching it once or twice at least.

Spencer (2021)

Image from IMDb

But the film recreates the life of a businessman, a famous singer, etc. has become a trend in the filmmaking world today. Movies about celebrities are mostly about recreating the hardships that these celebrities have gone through.
Spencer is a film that recreates the life of Princess Diana, who I believe when mentioning her name, everyone feels sorry for her because she passed away too soon but left the public with beautiful images and her kind heart that no one can forget.
I must say that I was pleasantly surprised by Kristen Stewart’s performance. She looks a lot like Princess Diana and the acting in this movie is also very good as she can express her feelings of despair, pent-up, depression well.
Since it is a film that recreates a person’s life, I will skip the plot part, but about the cinematography and color in the film, the frames are shot properly, as well as the colors are very suitable. in the ’70s and ’80s.

Batman (2022)

Image from IMDb

This is probably one of the best movies I have watched at the beginning of this year. Even though a superhero movie is not really considered an art film. However, this movie is just too beautiful, I and my friend have praised the movie for being too beautiful so many times to our friends. But this movie can be a bit bored for anyone who cannot stay in one place for a 3-hour movie.
As I told you that this film can be considered an art film, the colors of this film are very well adjusted, and the colors that need to pop will come out at the right time, in the right situation. The color theme of the whole movie is black and red so for scenes with red, that red color stands out but makes perfect sense for the situation.
The cinematography is top because each frame is so beautiful, I thought if you pause suddenly, you can still have a pretty picture for your phone. The editing also needs to be praised because, without editing, we cannot see all the smooth transitions from scene to scene.
The plot of this movie will probably be a bit bored to some of you who like action, this movie is more about solving the puzzle in the movie. If you are a fan of Batman, I am sure that you will not be disappointed when you watch this, or even if you are not a fan, I think it is worth trying and watching it.

Essay One

Freedom of Speech on Social Media

Gossiping and discussing have appeared for a long period of time, the only thing that changed is the ways the news spreads. If in the past, the fastest news you could hear was from mouth to mouth as a rumor, then nowadays, you can easily access all sorts of social media platforms to know about the latest news. But because everyone has their freedom of speech, it causes lots of issues about fake news, racism, violence, and hatred on these social media platforms. With the era when human rights are put first, everyone’s freedom of speech becomes more difficult to control.

Last year, Donald Trump becomes one of the people who have been banned from using social media platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, etc. The reason is simply that his speech was not accurate and it started an unwanted protest that harmed many people. Freedom of speech is for everyone but Trump was banned to speak on these platforms was an ironic matter. It would not be bad if social media was used for the right purpose, but in these few years, as the internet outgrow, it is harder to control what people write on the internet. Why would social media become a place where everyone easily expresses themselves to the world? It is because on the internet, we, the users are nobody. This online disinhibition effect is called “dissociative anonymity”. According to John Suler, author of The Psychology of Cyberspace, dissociate anonymity means that the identity on the internet can be anonymous, no one could know who is writing behind the screen and even if the anonymous do something bad on the internet, they would convince themselves that it was not their action, they did not do it (Suler, 2004). So because of these people, social media become a toxic place. A few toxic comments can actually shape public opinion easily, especially if you only listen from one side. A few months ago, an author, a YouTuber I know, Lindsay Ellis has quit being a YouTuber and deleted all of her accounts on social media because of harassment and bullying she received on the internet after on post of her on Twitter about “Raya and the Last Dragon”. She was being harassed on social media platforms to the point that she mentally breakdown because her explanation was not being heard, but backfired her with even more toxic comments.

From Twitter
(Mustafa, 2022)

There are some extends that a person can withstand bullying from social media. But in Lindsay Ellis’ case, it grows out of control just because she writes about her own thought on Disney’s animation movie and cancels culture related. It would not be too toxic if anyone who has an argument with Ellis on her ideas listened to her explanation until the end. Social media is a good place to express your own thought but in Ellis’ case, the opinion that being pleased by people can be eliminated by society.

Freedom of speech on the internet can shape public opinion easily because the human mind is easy to sway. The way that can easily sway a person that involved with personal freedom. If any of the politics violate freedoms, the public would not stand for it. Because of the pandemic, many of the restrictions as well as rules have violated the freedoms that the people usually have, for example, their own choice in vaccination and wearing masks. Recently, the truck convoy has made a big protest in Canada about vaccination and vaccine passports. Most of them make their opinion about how unnecessary the vaccination is since the people who got vaccinated can also have a high chance of getting covid-19 and vaccine passport did not help much in preventing the pandemic. On CBC News around February 19, because of the protester, who have blocked the way on the street and causes many disruption to the neighborhood, the polices have to do their best in order to arrest truckers (CBC News, 2022).

This is a serious matter on social media because the way the protester where trying to delivers where quite convincing. It is hard for anyone who got mental health issue during the pandemic can pass the opportunity to protest against the government and get back their own freedom.

It is more serious when most of them were thinking that anyone who believes in the governments was actually being brainwashed. In the eyes of others who are not protesting, this is the action of selfishness. But to the truck convoy, it was because of their freedom in democracy. During this period of protest, many people took advantage of the opportunity to create fake news that made many people worried. Not only in the countries but fake news can also be possibly created from outside of the country. There are many people who use fake news with fake accounts to stir the politics inside the country, according to CBC News: “A former official in the State Department and Department of Defence under George W. Bush, Kristofer Harrison, said in an interview that Russia uses dummy profiles to promote all sorts of polarizing content across the political spectrum, from Black Lives Matter and defunding the police to white supremacists and yellow-vest protests.” (Panetta, 2022)  

Why is freedom of speech more severe and violent in highly democratic countries? Because they value human freedom more than countries that are democratic but control human freedom. Countries where they control the source of information easily gain people’s trust because they believe that the government is always right and for the people. So like in China, free speech is allowed, but sensitive topics will not appear on social networking platforms. Therefore, it is easier for the government to control information, and public opinion will not be easily distorted or changed by an individual or an organization. Countries like the US and Canada place great emphasis on freedom of expression and human rights, so it’s completely normal for leaders to be mocked.

In conclusion, the role of social media nowadays is very important, but anyone who use it need to have sense of responsibility. Because the internet is unpredictable, there are no saying when your word would hurt someone you do not even know. Social media can be toxic most of the time but it is not mean that it was not good. Using social media for expressing your own thought is good but everything that is post on these platforms need to be checked as many time as possible so social media can be come a place where everyone can enjoy and looking for different opinions.

References:

Suler, John. 2004. The Online Disinhibition. Retrieved from: https://truecenterpublishing.com/psycyber/disinhibit.html

Panetta, Alexander. 2022. U.S. Congress asks Facebook: What role did fake overseas accounts have in promoting Canada convoys?. Retrieved from: https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/congress-convoys-facebook-1.6357381

Mustafa, Filiz. 2022. Why did Lindsay Ellis Quit Youtube? Twitter Explained. Retrieved from: https://www.hitc.com/en-gb/2021/12/28/lindsay-ellis-twitter/

CBC News. 2022. Protesters against COVID-19 measures march in Toronto after gathering at Queen’s Park. Retrieved from: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/protest-saturday-toronto-closed-roads-1.6358087

You, The Living – Du Levande (2007)

Image from IMDb

Last week, I and my friend went to The Cinematheque to watch You, the Living by Roy Anderson. This film is a black comedy-drama from Sweden about humankind, sometimes people can have joy, but also sorrow, everyone has their own problems.

The film is made with a humorous angle but when you think about it, the whole movie is a very subtle and humorous satire from director Roy Anderson’s point of view.

Even though the film is filmed in 2007 but the scenery and image make me think about the years’ the 90s. The music is, not dramatic but can give the audience an understanding of what is happening at that moment.

One thing I love in this movie the most is how many times Roy Anderson break the fourth wall.

Bo Burnham: Inside (2021)

Image from IMDb

Bo Burnham: Inside is a comedy special from Netflix. Some of you may or may not hear of his name, but after watching this I was pretty much impressed how talented this man is not only as a comedian. After 2 years of staying at home because of Covid, I am pretty sure that most of you feel very stuffy, tired, and bored, so if you feel that way, go and watch this comedy special on Netflix right now. Because this one is for you.
Bo Burnham: Inside is quite similar to stand-up comedian talking but for this comedy, there will be no laugh from the audience, no hand-clapping, only Burnham himself. You will follow Burnham to experience his struggle during the quarantine from the Covid-19 pandemic, his topic is all about the present, from trending news to the newest social media posts.
This comedy is not only about talking, Bo Burnham will also treat your ears with songs as well. These songs are very trending on Spotify and Tiktok right now but I won’t tell you about the name so please experience it yourself.
What impressed me most is that this is a one-room set, he did everything in one room and all the editing, camera, and production was him, the man did mostly alone.
I think that at the present, everyone can go out for work and for school now. However, this is still a good comedy to watch and reflect on what happened during these two years. This film is not only about comedy, but it can also help anyone, who have the same situation during the pandemic can have someone understand them, and make them feels that they are not alone.