ShhhKrystal is the handle I created for my blog as it is an abstract way of describing my personality. However, only I and people who have read my biography know the real meaning behind the name. As I did not want to use my real name for my blog, I opted for a handle that included my name but had an abstract beginning. Shhh is a sound people make when they want others to be quiet. Being an introvert, I prefer being alone most of the time but I do enjoy company once in a while. When I am in a group of people, I tend to be the quiet one. I prefer listening over speaking. My blog is an outlet for me to share my style with the public. Thus, requiring me to “speak” but through a blog as a medium. ShhhKrystal is a girl who prefers to not speak but speaks in another medium.

My blog was originally for myself. To keep track of how I have changed and how my style has developed throughout the semester. I realized that through this blog I am able to share my experiences and my style at the same time. Although my blog posts are solely on clothing pieces, I include brief explanations on how I decided what to wear and some random facts about what I encountered if something interesting arises. I also try exploring design trends I find and use them as my featured image instead of posting a picture of myself in different clothes (which readers will end up seeing inside the post anyway). My audience is those who are linked specifically to my website through Instagram. I imagine that most of my audience is interested in fashion and are interested in specific pieces I wear, which brings them to my blog.

Designing my blog took me the longest as I had no experience with creating a platform about myself. I had a few Tumblr accounts in the past and was actively posting and reblogging for a few years. Since the blog was not about me but about interests that I had at the time, I had more freedom with how I could design my page. I did not have to introduce myself, show my followers what I looked like, or share specific details about myself. The disinhibition effect worked well for me; I had the choice to conceal my identity and live a separate life (Suler, 2004, para. 5). I also used a very minimalistic theme with a navigation bar aligned to the left, and a one or two column post area; no images whatsoever that related back to my true identity.

I started with a similar theme when I first created this blog and I realized it was not working. Following conventions, most fashion bloggers have an about page and share details with their readers to build a connection and earn their trust. With ShhhKrystal, however, I included an about me page to introduce myself to my readers. As I show my face in my posts, it seemed like an introduction was necessary. I did not include a full close-up image of my face to “draw [a] boundary between [myself] and others” as “managing the shifting public/private continuum is also an important part of a blogger’s experience” (Chittenden, 2010, para. 26).

The goal for the overall appearance of my blog was to incorporate the use of grids. I always enjoyed grids with pictures as I found it really enjoyable to look at and it “gives [audiences] a hint about what’s inside [the post] and teases out [their] emotion” (Gertz, 2015, para. 64). The landing of my blog is a statement introducing exactly what my blog is about. I particularly like how it teases readers and pushes them to scroll down to view more. I made sure to incorporate affordances in my blog to guide readers through my site as “designers should be concerned about informing users about the outcomes of users’ actions (Kaptelinin, 2013). This gave me an opportunity to incorporate more colour into my blog as the background colour is white, the headings are black, and body text is grey; too minimal for my liking. The affordances are displayed when links are hovered to indicate to readers that it is a clickable entity.

My definition of publication has changed drastically after this course. Courses I have taken at Simon Fraser University and working at SFU’s school newspaper gave me the perception that publication was mostly on print materials. The publishing course I have enrolled in prior to this course required us to print out everything for submission, and the school newspaper is printed as well. I never knew publication included the online spectrum; I thought there was another category for it. I have learned that publishing is a lot more than just words. The secret behind a successful publication is the collaboration and harmony between text and design simultaneously (Gertz, 2015, para. 63).

Moving forward from here, I do not plan on continuing this blog as posting consistently is extremely difficult for me. If I do try my best to post consistently, the quality of the posts would not be where I want them to be. Instead, I will try incorporating what I have done on my blog to my Instagram account. Being extremely wary of how others perceive me, I do not post as much as I would like due to insecurities. However, after this course and gaining more experience with being photographed and pushing out style content, I am a bit more confident.

References

Chittenden, T. (2010). Digital dressing up: modelling female teen identity in the discursive spaces of the fashion blogosphere. Retrieved from https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13676260903520902

Gertz, T. (2015). Designing Machines: How to survive the digital apocalypse. Retrieved from https://louderthanten.com/coax/design-machines

Kaptelinin, V. (2013). Affordances. In The Encyclopedia of Human-Computer Interaction. Retrieved from https://www.interaction-design.org/literature/book/the-encyclopedia-of-human-computer-interaction-2nd-ed/affordances

Suler, J. (2004). The Online Disinhibition Effect. Retrieved from http://truecenterpublishing.com/psycyber/disinhibit.html

As my site revolves around fashion, appropriate community guidelines should allow my audience to comment on my post to share their opinions and ideas. Of course, I would expect trolls on my site. There really is no way to prevent trolls from surfacing unless interaction was cut off completely. I will allow trolls to express how they feel about me, however, it has a high possibility of being deleted by myself as I do not want to promote argument on my blog. I want to create a platform where others interested in fashion can share their own opinions on my outfits and how they would alter it to suit their style. Although my self-esteem will be hurt by trolls, my main goal is for my audience to connect with myself and each other. I wish to create a safe platform for those interested in fashion can connect. For that to happen, comments must be open; which also opens the doors for trolls. However, I knew these are the correct guidelines for myself as receiving messages from trolls can help me grow into a stronger individual and learn and completely understand that the only people I need to please are those I care about. There really isn’t anything to implement for this to take place. All there needs to be is discourse in the comments of my blog posts.

featured image retrieved from https://i-h1.pinimg.com/564x/42/3e/e6/423ee66105bb21adce4db73e64e49f7f.jpg

Throughout this course, I have learned an abundance of strategies that can be used to create a successful blog. Although I haven’t got as many views, I have to start somewhere. Using a social media platform is definitely more effective than a website as people are on their phones for hours in a day. If I were to continue my blog, I would attempt to grow my Instagram follower base to gain more engagements. If more people look at my Instagram page, they could possibly click the link to my blog. I would give myself a 4 for my self-assessment. At the beginning of the course, I had no problems with keeping up with the workload just because the course load for my other classes was also pretty light at the time. Near the middle, however, is where I began to fall off. I became swamped with projects and I became more inactive. Though I was consistently taking pictures of my outfits. I began to pick it up near the end, but page views went down significantly as I was not as active.

Aside from having a well-designed blog, consistently posting is just as important as ensuring your blog is appealing and having interesting content. By enrolling in this course, I had to push myself to blog about what I am passionate about. Style. If it wasn’t required in this course to start a blog, I would have never started it. My blog required me to become more comfortable in front of the camera and now I can say I am; not completely comfortable, but more than I was before. I want to take this experience and bring it to my Instagram. I want to upload more frequently and upload content that I like. I’m one of those people who cares about what my feed looks like, but with the experience, I got from being in front of the camera, I’m more open to more options now.

I have been listening to Billie Eilish a lot recently and my favourite out of all her songs has to be bellyache. Her voice sounds so mesmerizing throughout the entire song and that’s why I enjoy it so much. I also really enjoyed the music video. The colours used are so bright unlike the lyrics of the song. I just had to gif a section of the video.

Prior to this course, I only thought of data trails as data given to me from people by tracking engagements on my website. I never thought about how I also contribute to others’ data analytics. I’m on the computer all the time and I never realized I was feeding companies with information about myself. That’s kind of scary. I remember talking about how ads are curated to each person in lecture and I find that amazing, but creepy. Especially how ads show up depending on what you search, but they can also show up if you just talk about something in person. I feel like if I get to learn the algorithm behind it I would be somewhat scared to use the internet so I’m better off not knowing how it works exactly.

I do not try to avoid getting tracked by these programs just because everywhere I go (on the web) they ask me for my information. Information that seems harmless like my name and my e-mail. After listening to Suzanne’s Amazon experience, I honestly had no idea data trails include card payments. Now I’m wondering, where does the card information go to. With all the information companies are receiving about us daily, the fear of having one of those company’s systems hacked becomes greater.