mmHMM, I see you! Smiling, sassy, living your best life.
Maybe you’ve got your favourite feel-good outfit on, are having the greatest good hair day of all good hair days, (and/) or have just caught a glimpse of yourself in the hallway mirror and let me tell you—you’ve got it so flaunt it!
Ain’t there no shame in any of it. That’s right, so go ahead and check yourself out again because this is the type of energy that you deserve to feel every day.
Sound on & strut.
I wanted to make these guidelines to promote a judge-free, discriminate-free place for everyone to communicate. I want to open the comments section up so a dialogue within our community can exist. I encourage everyone to share their thoughts and contribute to the conversation. That being said, I highly advise against hateful comments. I will promote free and open conversation so I will not delete many comments, but lets please try to keep our community honest. That being said, the only comments that WILL be deleted, are comments that state any personal information of business owners, employees of businesses, or any instances that may put someone in danger. All other discussions, whether postive or negative, I believe will contribute to the open discussion, and I will not delete.
Please also keep in mind that I am an independent, amateur blogger, and my blog posts are based on my own opinions and any information I provide is subject to change. While I highly encourage you all to go out and experience my recommendations, I recommend a wide range of businesses, so some may not be for you. Similarly, if you go out to experience my recommendations, please remember that any information I give off product/service offering, prices, or any information of any kind is based on my own knowledge at the time of the blog’s posting date. That means that information may not be up to date, and may have changed.
These guidelines are necessary for this blog because I want to encourage an open and honest conversation within our community. I also want to be upfront and authentic about my recommendations.
I posted my community guidelines directly on my home page, and in my “About Me” page so people can easily find and read it. I also monitor my comments section, a notification is sent each time someone comments, so I can quickly identify when comments do not follow the guidelines.
With Nix Navigates Vancouver, my goal was to create a community of people within Vancouver to share interesting finds around the city. Initially, I knew I wanted to highlight local businesses and entrepreneurs, but I didn’t know which route my blog would go in. While creating a roadmap for my website, I saw that most of my recommendations fits into three broad categories that summarized by overall interests; experiences, food, and shopping. With the theme of spending differently, and buying locally, I wanted to share unique local businesses that others might not know about. Before I move on, I want to quickly highlight some posts that features very cool local businesses. “2 Places to Shop That isn’t an Ordinary Supermarket” is a blog where I talk about two small independent grocery stores that are sustainable and promotes waste-free shopping. In the post “Unique Private Dinners with Independent Chefs,” I recommend two amazing chefs here in Vancouver that will actually come to your house and cook for you.
I aim for my website to appear more personal compared to other Vancouver related news outlets, so every post is written in my voice based on my own interests. The goal is that my audience can recognize I was the sole writer of my website, rather than a team of marketers in the city. This would hopefully translate into the content being more authentic and valuable for readers. Being authentic and connecting with people I like are two points that works to achieve success (Thorn, 2012). Since this blog, first and foremost, is a blog made for a class, the audience I’ve been envisioning from the start has been my classmates. Through the weeks, I began to view my website as an actual publication rather than a semester-long assignment and perceived my audience to be something bigger than just our publication class.
I picture my audience to be other young individuals in Vancouver who were also curious about what our city has to offer. Specifically, I wrote for counter publics of people who are interested in sustainability, promotes health and fitness, enjoys exploring, likes travelling, and loves to eat. I value I hope to provide are insightful and relevant recommendations that people are interested in. My mission is that people go out and tries my recommendations, and genuinely enjoys it. On the other hand, I also hope to bring value to local businesses by promoting and increasing awareness of their offerings on my platform. Though my personal experiences with these businesses, I hope I can bring insight into my website’s community.
To address my audience, I incorporate a lot of visual and design elements into my blog posts. I try to lay out my blogs in an engaging way that retains reader’s interest. For every business that I recommend, I try to include pictures and links to their social media. At the start of the semester, my blog posts were very minimal because I just used the standard format that WordPress provided for posts. After a couple weeks, I became more comfortable experimenting with WordPress plug-in’s and made my blogs more creative.
I found Google Analytics to be a great tool in viewing who my readers are, when they visit my website, and which types of posts gets the most visit. Since I want to make meaningful recommendations that my readers actually care about, the fact I consider to be most useful in Google Analytics would be seeing what pages my viewers visit. From this information, I can see that my posts “3 Vacations You Do Not Have to Fly to” and “2 Places to Shop That isn’t an Ordinary Supermarket” are the most popular. I can shift future posts towards topics that are similar to what is currently popular on my page.
I previously mentioned that with this website, I wanted to create a place where a community of like-minded people can come, engage with one another, share ideas, and communicate. For this reason, I provide and comments section in every post’s, and on my home page. I want this blog to be bigger than just myself, where others can share their recommendations or provide their own experiences to places that I recommend. Either at the beginning or the end of every blog post, I ensure to encourage readers to join the conversation in the comment sections. Allowing comments also motivates me to share real recommendations, because it would hurt my entire blog if I recommend something that everyone else has a negative experience with. With comments, there may be the occasional unexpected negative interactions that occur. Although it is an extra step to monitor my very quiet comment section for anything offensive, misleading, or hateful, I find keeping a comment section if more beneficial than hurtful. Writings and posts are actually enriched by the responses so I never did I consider disabling my comment section just to avoid the very small group of trolls and haters (Gardiner et al., 2016).
At the beginning of the term, I thought publications done in blog form on a website was only made by professional teams of educated writers. For ordinary amateur writers like me, I thought the only place I could create on online presence and share my ideas was through social media platforms. I now understand that, making a website is accessible to everyone. In a time where everything is becoming digital, I found it useful to learn tools and software such as WordPress, and Google Analytics.
Through this publication course, I learned a lot about how to establish an online presence. My experience writing the blog has been enjoyable, as I was able to write on topics I am genuinely interested in. However, regarding the future of this blog, I think this week will be the last week that Nix Navigates Vancouver will be updated. Through the semester, I learned that maintaining a blog, with weekly insightful posts, is very time consuming. I will still use everything I learned in this class and translate it into all of my future endeavours. I am active on my social media accounts, and this is where I will use the skills I developed on speaking to an audience. Social media is a stage for self-expression, communication, and self-promotion and is essentially where we create and display an online identity of our actual self (Dijck, 2013). This class will help me establish a presence on my social media platforms. Further, I am a student in marketing and entrepreneurship so I definitely see myself using the online skills that I developed while creating this website. That being said, thank you to the few of you who have been coming back to my website every week to see what I have to recommend and share. Thank you for being a part of this community. Let’s continue to explore the city and support small local businesses!
References
Gardiner, B., Mansfield, M., Anderson I., Holder, J., Louter, D., & Ulmanu, M. The dark side of Guardian comments. The Guardian. Retrieved from https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/apr/12/the-dark-side-of-guardian-comments
Thorn, J. (2012, November 4). Make Your Thing. Transom. Retrieved from https://transom.org/2012/jesse-thorn-make-your-thing/
Van Dijck, J. (2013, March 14). ‘You have one identity’: performing the self on Facebook and LinkedIn. Media, Culture & Society, 35(2). Retrieved from https://doi.org/10.1177/0163443712468605
a supernatural being belonging to the spiritual traditions of Algonquian-speaking First Nations in North America.
Names:
Depending on the many First Nations that speak an Algonquian language, including the Abenaki, Siksika, Mi’kmaq, Algonquin, Ojibwe and Innu, the spelling and pronunciation of the word “windigo” differs. Wendigo, wheetigo, windikouk, wi’ntsigo, wi’tigo and wittikka are all alternative versions of the same term. Other names, such as atchen, chenoo and kewok, are also commonly used to refer to the windigo.
In Legend:
According to most Algonquian oral traditions, a wendigo is a cannibalistic monster that preys on the weak and socially disconnected. In most versions of the legend, a human becomes a wendigo after his or her spirit is corrupted by greed or extreme conditions such as hunger and cold. In others, humans become wendigos when possessed by a prowling spirit during a moment of mental or emotional weakness.
Origin and History:
The wendigo legend existed in Algonquian oral history for many centuries, long before Europeans arrived in North America. Stories have circulated on the Western frontier in the 1800s, among Plains First Nations peoples and employees of the Hudson’s Bay Company (HBC). Some HBC traders’ records describe encounters with Indigenous spiritual leaders claiming to descend into “fits” of religious passion. Indigenous peoples often accused these people of being wendigos; HBC traders sometimes described them as mad. In some cases, community members or relatives of the accused killed the suspected wendigo as a precaution. In one example, three men killed Cree spiritual leader Abishabis after he became greedy and killed a First Nations family — which led others to believe that he was a wendigo.
Symbolism:
1. Legends of the wendigo coinside with the beliefs, social structures, and traditions of the people who tell these stories. For some, it serve as a reminder about what can happen when individuals are left outside of the community.
Extreme hunger, cold, and isolation were ever-present and threatening facts of life for many First Nations people living in the northern boreal forests. In fact, most wendigo stories begin with an individual or small group trapped in the cold wilderness without food for an extended period. Wendigos were said to kill lonely travelers or a transform into a member of a group before eventually killing other humans it encountered.
2. Greed and resource sharing.
Human survival often depended on communal cooperation. Any individual who refused to share local resources, especially in times of great deprivation, would be a social pariah.
3. The injustices that Indigenous peoples have faced in Canada.
A more contemporary symbol which encompasses the historical pain from residential schools, the restriction of rights in the Indian Act, the Sixties Scoop and similar policies. Armand Ruffo’s film, A Windigo Tale (2010), for example, uses the monster to tell a story about the inter-generational trauma of residential schools. For some Indigenous persons, the wendigo represents the forces of colonization.
The blog I created this semester is entitled “Melissa Hudson”. The website is a professional portfolio that showcases my work as a stylist and content creator. My website is divided into three sections “Editorial”, “Styling”, and “Posiel”. The Editorial section displays my work in graphic design and artistic directing. The Styling section shows my work in fashion styling and the inspiration behind my work. The Posiel section holds all of my work for PUB101 that is not directly related to the other themes of my blog. I created this blog to be used as a professional portfolio in my career outside of school. Thus, the posts I create are all portfolio pieces or pieces that allow viewers insight into who I am as an artist. The content is all directed to my desired field of interest and presents the blog as a representation of my brand (myself as an artist). Through the creation of this blog, I have been branding myself as a professional and therefore, my blog is intended for potential employers and admirers of my work.
My imagined audience is potential employers who are working in the fashion and art industries as well as young creatives who enjoy viewing the work of other young artists. This can be seen through my artist statement on the opening page which informs reader who I am an as artist and as a person and what my personal niche is in the industry. I have created my website so that my audience can easily navigate my work and sift through my content based on what appeals to them. This can also be seen in the design of my website as I have designed it to be very minimalistic so that the work stands out. In addition, the colour scheme (black, white, and a low opacity pink) is reflective of myself and my brand. The colour scheme is chic, fashionable, and simplistic yet bold.
My audience is also addressed through my content as the majority of my posts are accompanied by a work statement where I state the purpose of the piece, what it was created for, what my inspirations were, and why I took the direction that I did. This information is important for potential employers in understanding the work I have done and for what reasons. Other young artists are being addressed as the featured images I use as transmedia representations of my work are very artistic and true to my brand. Thus, I am catching their artistic eye through the use of this creative imagery.
I believe that I provide value to the fashion/art community as I am my own individual, with unique experiences, tastes, and interests. Therefore, nothing I do will be identical to the work of another artist. My websites value is not monetary, but it is valuable in networking. Not only can I use it to promote myself as an artist, but my audience can use my work as inspiration. They can use my Styling section as fashion inspiration/ advice, and they can contact me to collaborate or to hire me for a job. Thus, the value in my website derives from its ability to act as a driver for connections or inspiration.
My website is a portfolio intended to help with employment after I graduate in my field of interest. Since I am still a student, I have not yet been employed in my field, therefore, I do not have any professional work to showcase. In order to overcome this, I did quite a bit of research on things to include in portfolio’s when entering the workforce after graduation. An article on The Muse website argued that “Having something to show off—even if it wasn’t for an actual company or client—will still be powerful in representing your abilities” (Frost, N.d). Frost’s argument suggests that creating ‘mock’ pieces based on the type of work you want to do strengthens your portfolio. Thus, in my portfolio I have created and will continue to create ‘mock’ pieces of the type of work I hope to do. In addition, building up my online presence shows potential employers dedication to my intended line of work. This is suggested by John DiScala in the following quote about having a professional online presence; “By having one, you’re differentiating yourself and showing colleagues and potential employers that you’re dedicated to what you do. Don’t feel like you have to limit yourself either. […]Use the tools you have available to be the most engaging” (DiScala, 2019). DiScala’s quote highlights the importance in distringuishing yourself within your industry in order to stand out. He suggests that by creating a digital portfolio you are one step above the competition who do not have one.
When I first created a blog at the beginning of the semester, I had a completely different theme (Sustainable Design). However, after a few weeks I realized that this was not a good topic for me to choose for a blog. Even though I was very interested and passionate about the topic, I felt as though I had nothing to contribute to the current sphere of information regarding the topic. As I am a full-time student who is not currently working in a creative field, discovering anything new to contribute to the field was too time consuming and I did not feel motivated to do so. After much consideration I decided to change my website to a professional portfolio and fashion/design blog. As soon as I did so I found that I was much more motivated to create content and develop my website as it could potentially benefit me in my future career.
Due to this change, I found myself thinking more critically about my tone of voice and language in my content as I want to present myself as professional but still youthful and creative. I found myself critically thinking about who my intended audience was (primarily potential employers) and how I would want them to perceive me. This altered the kind of content I posted. Originally, I had intended to only post my work and nothing about myself besides a short artist description. However, after doing some research on e-portfolios I realized that allowing employers to get to know myself a little bit is extremely beneficial. This can be seen in Frost’s article as she states “While your past work is a critical aspect when someone’s thinking about working with you, it’s important to remember that said person isn’t looking to hire your work, but the person who made it” (Frost, N.d). Erin Greenawald also comments on a digital portfolios ability to help you brand and market yourself in the following quote; “As anyone who has contemplated shifting career gears knows, your resume is a great way to show off your past experiences, but it doesn’t always portray the future self you want hiring managers to see. On a personal website, however, the brand you put out to the world is totally up to you. You can use it to show who you are, not just what you’ve done” (Greenawald, N.d). Therefore, I will continue to create content that expresses who I am as an individual, outside of my work as an artist.
Going forward I would like to continue maintaining my site as a professional portfolio. However, I think I will remove the ‘weekly blog’ aspect and manage the site as solely a digital resume with posts only containing portfolio pieces. However, based on my research I can see that it is beneficial to create blog posts once in a while that are focused on who I am and my individual perspectives. This will help my ‘brand’ myself as an artist to employers and distinguish myself from other artists in the industry. I also plan to move my website to a different website builder (Wix) so that I can personalize and customize the site more thoroughly. Overall, I know that maintaining this website and continuing to develop my ‘brand’ and style through design, editorial, content, and tone will benefit me in my professional career.
Works Cited
DiScala, J. (2019, February 21). 5 Ways to Create a Professional Online Presence. Retrieved November 24, 2019, from https://www.inc.com/john-discala/5-ways-to-create-a-professional-online-presence.html.
Frost, A. (2015, July 6). How to Build a Portfolio That’ll Make Everyone Want to Hire You. Retrieved November 24, 2019, from https://www.themuse.com/advice/4-secrets-to-building-a-portfolio-thatll-make-everyone-want-to-hire-you.
Greenawald, E. (2014, July 23). How My Personal Website Helped Me Land My Dream Job. Retrieved November 24, 2019, from https://www.themuse.com/advice/how-my-personal-website-helped-me-land-my-dream-job.
My blog is meant to be a platform which I share my experiences with music. It is my personal blog that I am using as an extension of myself and sharing with others the way certain songs or artists impact me. I believe that music is something very personal and is an extension of one’s personality. Therefore, most of my efforts with this blog has gone into creating something authentic and that I can proudly say I own (Thorn, 2012).
“It’s well known that people say and do things in cyberspace that they wouldn’t ordinarily say or do in the face-to-face world. They loosen up, feel more uninhibited, express themselves moreopenly ” (Suler, 2004). I share my experiences and explain why it makes me feel the way it does, and if I can’t explain it, I don’t try to because there’s a reason it can’t be placed into words. I think my blog might be helpful in terms of helping people express their own opinions. As an introvert, I prefer to keep to myself, and this course has allowed me to open up and share a comfortable amount of myself, through a medium that utilities the experiences and feelings of others. Thus, because this blog is meant to be more personal, I write using my own voice rather than through a formal tone. My goal is to connect with an audience that face the same issue as I do expressing myself. The changes I made to my blog were to mediate this. I followed a design structure similar to my personal style as a designer, and I voiced my content in such a way that stayed true to how I felt about the music I was listening to. Although my audience base is rather small, I am addressing them through authenticity. To interact with my audience, I mainly use audio, mainly the songs I want to highlight, and sometimes accompany it with visuals.
Looking back, prior to and during the beginning of the course, I believed publication was content alignment with visual identity, simply because of print/digital media publication. I believed that the content itself needed to be rich and deep, and the visual identity needed to reflect that intensity. Creating an online presence is part of my academics and going into this course, I felt confident in my ability to create a brand identity for a company. Because of this, I wanted to challenge myself, and created this blog to help create my own online presence and see how it differs from creating a branding and identity for a company/group/collective. This course has helped me understand the importance of quickly establishing an ethos and pathos for an audience to base your content off of.
This course helped deliver methodologies in establishing oneself in a digital landscape and why online presences matter. Rather than just being synonymous to media, publishing is more about information’s integration as part of technology and its effects on non-digitized documents. As we enter a new era of significant technological advancements, “the world around us is increasingly mediated by screens and our understanding of it defined by digital information, we are rapidly losing touch with our undigitized past, left adrift in an ever-changing ephemeral world of bits and bytes without our physical past to anchor us” (Leetaru, 2017).
Moving forward, as a design student interested in branding and identity, this course has taught me the steps beyond establishing an ethos and pathos, and how to develop interpersonal relations through an online presence. I believe this course has taught us how to stay true to our individuality and our values, but also expressive about how the content of others can assist self-reflection.
Leetaru, Kalev. (September 29, 2017). In a Digital World, Are We Losing Sight of Our Undigitized Past?
Suler, John. 2004. “The Online Disinhibition Effect.” Available from: Cyberpsychology & behavior 7.3 (2004): 321-326.
Jesse Thorn. 2012. “Make Your Thing.”
At the start of the semester, I remember feeling a bit overwhelmed by the amount of content that I’ll have to publish online since this is my first time blogging. The word “publishing” had a serious connotation to me and I used to picture the mundane imagery of book publishers doing monotonous editing work at print companies. As I get to learn how to put up content online with WordPress, I realized publishing is a lot less stressful from what I used to think. Blogging on Half Milk and Sugar has allowed me to establish my online self as a friendly individual and create content that I am genuinely interested in.
I originally created Half Milk and Sugar to blog about cafes reviews so I could justify my unhealthy obsession with sweet drinks and dessert. After a few consecutive weeks of blogging, I realized caffeine and sugar don’t just satisfy my sweet cravings but they also keep me awake and alive throughout the week. With the amount of workload I have for taking 14 credits this semester, visiting and trying out a new cafe each week is a great way to treat myself. These sweet delights have slowly become my motivation to work, how I boost concentration during work, and how I derive relaxation from work.
What I want to share on Half Milk and Sugar is not only ratings for food but also the experience that I enjoyed. This is why I started to develop more content that describes the interior of the places I went. Cakes and drinks may be finished within a few bites or sips, but the spatial enjoyment of a place lasts. As someone who is enthralled by how the ambiance and design can promote a specific vibe for the cafe, I took the effort to research the rationale behind each interior design of the restaurants and strive to share information that goes beyond ordinary food commentary.
Targeting young audience that also derive pleasure from cafe experiences, I named my blog “Half Milk and Sugar” to make it sound like something you’d say when you order at a cafe. This helps me set a fun and conversational tone for my individual online self. To attract more audience on my site, I set up an Instagram account, linked my blog in the biography and posted photos of my food reviews where I use hashtags and tagged the restaurant location. By diversifying the platforms I use to publish my content and incorporating lofi cafe beats into my reviews, my bounce rate for these sites have decreased by 20%.
Looking from my Google Analytics, I learnt that most of my audience are other students from Canada. Although the geographic location expanded to Asia and even Europe after I started writing reviews on popular Asian desserts, the number of visitors from other foreign countries was still under 10. Knowing that there are already copious food bloggers with a large following on Instagram, I kept asking myself why would people want to follow my new account instead of looking at popular foodie pages like Dished Vancouver that’s already on the platform?
I felt quite out of place at that time and I even set my Instagram account to private to test out and reflect on what’s the best way to market my content. Gertz (2015) has however pointed out that we should stop chasing these superficial numbers of following. His words enlightened me to start thinking how I should treat my content and design to reflect my subtle personality instead. He raises an important point that the content we publish should speak to the few people who can identify with our personalities and interests because this is the only audience that matters. His inspiring advice reminded me why I created Half Milk and Sugar in the first place and pushed me forward to continue with my publishing work.
Reflecting on this struggle I had during the blogging process, I think I was restricting my role of a publisher as every other foodie. Thorn (2012) argues in his article that “rather than defining yourself by the medium you create, define yourself by what you offer to your audience.” By sharing honest reviews and offering quiet cafe suggestions for doing work, I am inviting a group of audience from my local community in Canada that resonates with my busy college experience to find comfort and motivation in desserts. Even though I can’t be physically there to support these audience, I think I am providing a kind of spiritual support to them by encouraging them to treat themselves better after a long week of class.
As Van Djik (2013) argues in his article, there is a noticeable change occurred in the organization and architecture of social media platforms where the centre of gravity have shifted from connectedness to connectivity. This suggests that millennials are more concerned about the actual numbers of ‘friending’, ‘liking’, ‘connecting’ and ‘following’ instead of the intimacy of relationships on social media platforms. I realized I should not be blinded by these numbers and focus on delivering relatable and useful content for my audience instead. I’m really thankful that my partners for my peer reviews gave me insightful and in-depth comments for improving the usability of my site. For example, I really took their advice and categorized all my content to just ‘posiel’ and ‘reviews’ blog posts so that it is easier to navigate content and enhance the user-experience for my audience.
I believe this is not the end of my blogging journey. From designing the minimalist theme for my blog to uploading weekly cafes reviews, Half Milk and Sugar sparked my interest in publishing content that I am passionate about. I would definitely continue my dessert reviews on my Instagram and I hope to reach more audience that also rely on sugar and caffeine as their fuel so that we can all celebrate our sweet cravings here together.
References:
Gertz, Travis. 2015. “Design Machines. How to survive in the digital Apocalypse.” July 2015. Available from: https://louderthanten.com/articles/story/design-machines
Thorn, J. (2012, November 4). Make Your Thing. Transom. Retrieved from https://transom.org/2012/jesse-thorn-make-your-thing/
Van Dijck, J. (2013, March 14). ‘You have one identity’: performing the self on Facebook and LinkedIn. Media, Culture & Society, 35(2). Retrieved from https://doi.org/10.1177/0163443712468605
During the semester, I learned a lot about my publication style as well as the value that my blog content can potentially add to readers. When I initially explored the idea of blog content creation, I knew that I had to pick a topic that I was passionate about and experienced in. I wanted to write about and publish a topic that I think about daily because of my own interest (and not something that I will find dreadful to think about). I decided to write about my passion for minimalistic fashion style, which is derived from my interest in neutral tones from my own fashion preferences. My blog is created for those in high school to college students as well as those who have recently entered the working field. It’s easy for students to fall into the repetitive school work pattern and lose interest in pursuing their own personal style. In an article by Tara Chittenden, the author states that, “Fashion provides a key source of empowerment for teens, offering a range of material and symbolic resources from which they can create identities” (Chittenden, 2009). I went through a difficult phase growing up while trying to find my perfect medium for fashion and style, and I’ve made many wrong purchases that did not stand the test of time and eventually get tossed to the back of the closet. I hope that by sharing my inspirations and ideas, I can help teens and adolescents discover their own style as well.
While creating content, I did not immediately choose the right design and use of space for my blog. A few lectures ago, we had a few guest speakers come in to talk to us about the importance of font usage as well as white space. I found that while the use of fairy light images accurately portrayed the theme of a, “everything sweet and cozy”, which is my blog name, it did not accurately represent the true intent of my blog: fashion. After further feedback from peers, I decided to re-do my webpage and re-designed the layout as well. This time, I left more white space and kept the colors light and neutral. This theme matches my style content, which is meant to be minimalistic. If I were to continue to expand my blog and monetize the content, I would consider making sponsored content and reviews. In recent years, “companies have begun to realize the benefits of using blogs as a marketing tool, as they are a targeted and inexpensive way to get publicity and reach potential consumers” (Halvorsen and Hoffman, 2013). Although YouTube remains the most popular platform for marketing and advertisements, blog reviews may seem more genuine due to the lack of over-exaggerated language and expressions.
I decided to open the comment function on my blog posts for any individuals who wish to express their opinions on my content. I think that it’s important for content (especially writing) to be critiqued and openly discussed. In order to improve and enhance my content, I would like to receive constructive criticism. However, I do have worries regarding unfiltered comment sections. During one of our early lectures, we discussed the psychology of cyberspace. Online, “people have the opportunity to separate their actions from their real-world and identity [and] they feel less vulnerable about opening up” (Suler, 2004). This can be both positive and negative. On the positive side, you can evoke true feelings and thoughts out of the commenter as they do not feel threatened by potential judgment. For those who are shy, they can choose to use the anonymity function to their advantage and voice their own opinions. On the flip side, the individual can choose to post malicious comments that are not constructive in nature. Without the accountability of face-to-face encounters, people may take advantage of the opportunity to become “internet trolls” and unleash negativity.
This blog is not only a place for me to inspire other people, but it’s also a place where I can explore my creative side. Being a Business major student concentrating in Accounting, I have found that I lost a great number of my interests to yield to school and co-op work. By writing the weekly blogs, I began to re-open my eyes to activities that inspire creativity within me. I hope that I can inspire others to find themselves as well. To many, fashion is vain and materialistic. To me and many others, it is a form of self-expression and discovery. We are all visual beings, and we make many assumptions based on an individual’s appearance. We should take advantage of this feature instead of avoiding it and embrace the impact fashion has on our identity and self-discovery.
References:
Suler, J. (2004). The Online Disinhibition Effect. Retrieved from: http://truecenterpublishing.com/psycyber/disinhibit.html
Chittenden, T. (2009, June 22). Digital dressing up: modelling female teen identity in the discursive space of the fashion blogosphere. Retrieved from: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13676260903520902
Halvorsen, K and Hoffmann, J. (2013, Jan 21). Can fashion blogs function as a marketing tool to influence consumer behavior? Evidence from Norway. Retrieved from: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/20932685.2013.790707
For Vogue India’s 10th anniversary issue in 2017, Vogue India commissioned photographer, Kristian Schuller, to photograph couture pieces by designers in which they were employed to create looks inspired by one of the 29 states in India.
Team Credits
Photographer: Kristian Schuller // Creative Diretor: Peggy Schuller // Fashion Stylists: Priyanka Kapadia & Anaita Adajania // Set Designer: Peggy Schuller // Model: Pritika Swarup
COMMUNITY GUIDELINES
IMPLEMENTATION
The guidelines will be displayed in my ‘about’ page where it provides easy accessibility. The ‘about’ page is the only part of the blog that is relevant to the website itself and not the content.
The guidelines will be further implemented by the comments be moderated. When one makes a comment, it will sends an email to me to moderate the comment. Based on my short, but hopefully effective guideline for comments, I will then examine each comment before deciding whether to post or reject.
These are the right guidelines for me, because…
Firstly, because my blog is image focused, people may want to share the images. The majority of the images are not mine, but I make sure to credit the original creator or photographer within the posts the images can be seen in. Therefore, making the guideline for crediting the originator is vital.
Like the article by the Guardian said about the ideal commentary space: “comments threads are thoughtful, enlightening, funny: online communities where readers interact with journalists and others in ways that enrich.”
My hopes for PLUTO is to have an open and safe space for people to enjoy the content that is being presented and discuss their likes and dislikes. People sharing their thoughts on the blog, the posts, and the content itself can help make my blog better and more tailored towards my audience. Essentially strengthening the connection between blogger and reader. It also makes it possible for the readers to be visiting the site more often if they enjoy what they see.
In addition, the Pluto Blog is not only a place for me to showcase my favourite creative works by people in the fashion industry, but also—hopefully—a place where readers can also share some of their favourite work in the comments by linking to editorials, photographs, biographies, videos, and other forms of media. As much as I try to learn and open myself up to new people, I absolutely adore discovering new things from people who are much more educated than me in subject of fashion photography.
Having a more rigorous moderating system and guidelines will help with targeted harassment and “trolls” that seem to find the most discreet websites on the Internet to infuriate and bamboozle the community. As stated by the Time article, “what trolls do for the lulz ranges from clever pranks to harassment to violent threats,” is not something I ever want to see in PLUTO. Arguably, the Internet is for an open arena of comments and it’s “undemocratic” to close off certain opinions. However, just like the everyday life, when we talk to people in person, we expect certain behaviours like being polite. By having a moderator system in place for comments will help implement the notion of ‘treat others the way you want to be treated’.
Featured image by Elizaveta Porodina for Vogue Arabia (2019), starring Adriana Lima.
This week’s class made me really think twice about ongoing website management.
We were broken up into groups and we each looked more closely into what the general public would consider as “credible sources”. My group had a chance to look closely into the New York Times, and to learn about their online community. I noticed comments on the first few generic posts but saw that it was not necessarily the case for posts with political affiliation. I was unable to find the comments section for posts relating to Donald Trump and the Hong Kong controversy. There was a generic article where the organization dressed what its community guidelines are resulting in a lot of critiques.
Generally speaking, I feel that the best type of online community guideline is one that is consistent with basic human rights. Freedom of speech is vastly important as there should never be any scenario where individuals need to bite their tongue. Organizations, websites, and blogs alike are all positioned in a way to attract their distinct audiences that may frequently revisit their sources. Muting comments or even worse removing comments midway is disrespectful to say the least, but ultimately pointless because anything that goes online can never really be taken off. For that matter, the comment section here will always remain open as I am open to critique and am also interested to hear about what others would like to say about my content altogether.
This week in the lecture, we looked at the different news platforms and their rules for comments. My group researched on New York Times, and I noticed that there are many rules and regulations regarding the posting of comments. First of all, New York Times has regular comment moderators who ensure that comments are relevant and appropriate upon submission. Comment sections are also limited in volume and posting time, as certain articles are time-restricted for comments and there are also restrictions on how many comments are allowed per post. I think that the moderation of comments is both positive and negative. Although it’s important for publication websites such as The New York Times to ensure the quality and authenticity of their comments (e.g. by requiring commenters to have a valid account), it may prohibit free speech as well.
My online publishing reflection, how to become a popular blogger?
To be honest, it is really grateful for me to have such amazing chance to become a blogger and online publisher in this semester, I have learned many valuable things from PUB 101, which taught me how to use WordPress and elaborated my online presence. For a long time, I have had a big passion on moments recording, writing is definitely one of my hobbies as well as photographing, but this was my first time to practice blogging in totally English, thus everything is fresh and exciting. In recent years, except the social media, blogging has become one of the most popular ways of communicating and sharing information, in this platform, people can talk about their interests, write about their life experiences or publish their thoughts subjectively in a more detailed way. As Tara mentioned that: “the discursive spaces of the blog as critical to the activity of trading cultural and social capital and, importantly, shaping expressions of emerging identity” (Tara, 2010), after our exploration of the world of blog during this course, I realized that blog is not only a great self-promotion tool to help you address and communicate with your audience but also a channel to make benefits. Also, the design and content of the blog are significant for attracting viewers, software like Google Analytics will help blogger to know their audience, running a blog is not an easy work that I thought before, the fact is plenty of things you need to make effort on.
Bloggers today are writing a blog for various reasons; some of them have their own story to tell, others may do the business to promote their own products. My blog was created for sharing my traveling stories and experiences with the world, which also included the introduction of my selective tips and cuisine. This is defiantly a valuable blog for supporting people who love traveling and gives them the best tips, besides, my blog is also very welcoming those who like beautiful traveling photos.
Design is also a key for a popular blog, my blog is mainly focused on the visuals and I believed that the atmosphere of the blog will change viewers’ emotion and feeling, this is the power of color-as the symbol of eye-catching. In the beginning, I designed this blog to present lively and fun, which showed an optimistic theme that uplifts readers rather than a traditional travel blog. But after I read some of my peers’ reviews, I knew that the original design might be too intense as a blog aesthetic, thus I took their advice and spent much time adjusting in order to match my blog content and online identity. Finally, I chose to design my blog in a pink background that creates a lovely atmosphere which is quite appealing in a more simplistic style. Moreover, viewers can various breathtaking travel photos in this blog, as Gertz states that: “The art direction isn’t a substitution for the content, but it begs us to dive in and get dirty. The cover gives us a hint about what’s inside, and teases out our emotion, begging us to read the rest” (Gertz, 2015), those pictures not only decorate the blog but also guide visitors into a reading world.
Google Analytics is an effective tool that helps nowadays’ bloggers, advertisers and marketers to analyze their online target audiences and adjust website content into the best results. Originally, I imagine my target audience group consisting mostly of girls who like travel and delicacy between the ages of 18 and 25, but according to the data which shows on Google Analytics, the age group is expanded broadly that beyond my imagination because the primary audiences are 25-34, and even include the elderly in 65. What really surprised me is that the data show 54.15% of my audience is male, but 45.85% are female. Pod claims that Data is big business, most of us accepted the idea that digital data equals money (Pod, 2016). Google Analytics creates a new chance for me to know the internet and data trails deeply, which gives me a clear idea of who my audiences are, how they behave and help me to improve my website and expand my marketing.
Furthermore, incorporating transmedia into the blog will contribute to connect your blog to the relevant audience and boost your traffic. In my own view, Instagram is a great online channel for me to attract the audience, according to my google analytics I knew that many readers of my blog come from my Instagram, visitors can drill deeper into the expanding world of their followed bloggers through these transmedia platforms. In addition, the rising global phenomenon of online harassment and online shaming needs to be noticed by all internet users, everyone should control their actions towards and reject online shaming appearing, thus I decided to set up some community guidelines for my blog to prevent horrible comments or shaming happening.
Overall speaking, after reviewing my whole semester’s experience as an online publisher, I have a deeper understanding of blogs rather far than before. As the semester comes to the end, it’s really hard to say goodbye, thus I decide to continue blogging after this course and keep recording my travel footsteps, which helps me to improve my writing and record all the beautiful moments in a journey. Additionally, the photos on Instagram will still be updated, Vlog may be coming soon in the future and I hope to attract more audiences to my blog ideally. Furthermore, marketing is another goal of my future plan, making some money from my favorite thing is literally a great experience. Regardless of what the future is going to be, I will insist to work on it and become a better online publisher. Blogger has taken over the world, but want to become a successful and fantastic popular blogger still needs much effort than we think. Lastly, I would say that this is the end of my PUB 101 class, but it’s just the start of my blog.
References:
Gertz, T. (2015). “Design Machines. How to survive in the digital Apocalypse.” Retrieved from: https://louderthanten.com/articles/story/design-machines
Pod, A. ( 2016). “Digital breadcrumbs: The data trail we leave behind us.” Retrieved from: http://podacademy.org/podcasts/digital-breadcrumbs-our-data-trail/
Tara, C. (2010). “Digital dressing up: modelling female teen identity in the discursive spaces of the fashion blogosphere.” Journal of Youth Studies. Retrieved from: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13676260903520902
Before I began using a blog, I decided to create a business Instagram, and started to upload #100daysofmakep, were I acquired some online presence. Then I had the opportunity to take PUB101, and I was not expecting to create a blog when Suzanne announced that we were allowed to use any topic, my head was spinning, and I was thinking of the topic that I could talk about. But I decided to write about something that I am passionate about, makeup. As Jesse Thorn enlist, the best way to success is to follow your passion, and it becomes thriving, and you enjoy it.
At the beginning I disagree with the topic I chose, I felt ashamed of it, especially after the speed date, I liked the topic that other of my peers chose, so I started to doubt my decision until I read an observation that Stephanie made about my blog “own it.” Since then I started to fall in love with my topic again, and then it when I decided to create a different path on my website, I wanted to create a blog where I address makeup differently from my social media, I wanted to create a space where I encouraged people to learn about makeup and be critical about the products that they consume.
When I started to write, I felt like my writing could influence someone to discover why am I passionate about makeup. As a communication student, I must write long argumentative papers about any topic that may be a concern to society, but I felt like my writing was a “waste product (Glass, 2015),” as those papers are not going to be available to the public. I always liked discussion and influence perspectives from my readers, Erin Glass encourage students to create a voice to unleash to the public, and that is the reason I create the section “Storytelling,” this space is to create awareness of consumer choices or a critique to influencers. And it feels empowering to be able to educate and have a conversation with people.
Looking at Google Analytics and see how my audience behaves was strange and new for me. In the beginning, I thought that my audience was going to be mostly feminine and at the age of 15-30. But checking into my statistics, it showed something I was not expecting, I have a more male audience with 54% of views, and most of their hobbies include sports and nature. After learning this new data, I decided that I had to make some editorial changes. These changes include writing style and image incorporation.
I had to be aware of my writing style because I tend to be short but not explanatory enough. So I decided to be as throughout possible. Some of my peer reviews mentioned that the information posted on my blog was clear and concise, as Keveren and Eric reviewed my blog and mentioned that the information helped them understand what makeup is. But I receive some critics from them; they recommended me to use more images, as it could help a more visual topic greatly. So, after I decided that I cannot create a blog only based on text, Hossein Derakhshan, in the article “The Web We Have to Say,” he concerns that users prefer to read less, and images/videos are more important to capture an audience. And that was something I missed on my post at the beginning; so after looking for photos, but then I had another concern, copyright. Going into lecture and listening to Jon Festiger talking about citing and giving credit to the authors and what content can be used and what content we cannot use. After that, I incorporated a lot of images but always giving credit to the author and linking the website/author that I took the picture from.
In summary, creating my website and being responsible for maintaining it was a tiresome project, but in the end, I must say that was an enjoyable experience. I am proud of the content of my website, especially my storytelling section, because I can have a conversation with my readers and share information that could be helpful and remind them to be more critical about the products that they consume. After reading Jesse Thorne’s article, I came to realize that it is the importance of being proud of your passion and share it with the world. Reading Hossein Derakhshan, I realize that we must keep this form of art alive and encourage more people to write and join into this community. And after taking PUB 101, I realize the impact that we create within the online world, and I have decided to keep on writing and updating my blog until I get tired or my subscription expires.
Derakhashan, H. (2015, July 14) The Web We Have to Save. Retrieved from https://medium.com/matter/the-web-we-have-to-save-2eb1fe15a426.
Glass, E. (2015, December 11) Why we need Social Paper. Retrieved from https://commons.gc.cuny.edu/papers/45249/.
Thorn, J. (2012, April 11) Make your thing: 12 point program for absolutely, positively 1000% no-fail guaranteed success. Retrieved from https://transom.org/2012/jesse-thorn-make-your-thing/.
Process Post.
Overview:
The goals of my community are to share personal wonderful dining experiences from eateries that serve vegetarian or vegan food items, to promote a healthy and non-cruel eating lifestyle, to approach readers who have similar favoritism towards eating (like I do), to tell audiences how tasty the seemingly non-mainstream cuisines could be like and to stimulate their interest towards vegetarian or even vegan cuisines. Of course, I hope that my readers could pay visits to the food places I’ve mentioned in my blogs and enjoy themselves thoroughly.
In order to meet the goals of this community, it’s crucial for audiences to feel like they are in a comfortable and safe place that is populated by people with shared interests. As such, we request that you read and adhere to the guidelines that follow.
Guidelines:
Consequences:
We would take action if we see anyone violating these guidelines. Sometimes that just means issuing that person a warning through mailbox; other times it means seeking further help from legal institutions. We request that all readers report behavior that violates my guidelines to janecheung726@gmail.com
Agreement:
By joining the community and leaving comments or other information on my page, you are considered to be in agreement with the terms and conditions listed above.
For my website I have implemented the community guidelines outlined below. Since my blog is mainly a professional portfolio, there is not much community involvement, however, comments are allowed (but moderated by myself). The guidelines are in place to ensure comments are respectful and that the content within my website is protected from plagiarism. These guidelines work for my blog as they are in place to keep inappropriate or harmful content off of the blog and to prevent users from stealing/ copying my work without giving credit.
By commenting on my blogs, you are agreeing to abide by the following community guidelines. I reserve the right to remove comments posted by users if they violate these guidelines.
Take responsibility for what you post. Would you show it to your mother? If not, then maybe you shouldn’t be posting it. This world already has so much hate, I don’t want any of it here. Just because you can’t see me, doesn’t mean your words don’t have an impact. Think before you post. I want this website to be a place of community, where artists and other users can communicate and grow from one another.
If you see a comment that violates these guidelines please direct message @mmh_portfolio on Instagram and please include the following
This week, we discussed some issues about nowadays’ online commentary and online shaming, we know that these problems can be easily found on social media platforms. Many people do not take seriously about their behavior on the internet, thus the conversations are not friendly but aggressive sometimes, as we usually said that the medium may be changed, but people do not. In class, we talked about a Twitter post from Justine Sacco, she posted that “Going to Africa. Hope I don’t get AIDS. Just kidding. I’m white!”, maybe It was just a joke, but this post evoked public’s anger and everything changed after she turned off the flight, her life was totally destroyed by Twitter in just several seconds, she lost almost everything. This event is such a tragedy, while it also reminds us to rethink online shaming. Sometimes Internet users do not care about the truth, they prefer to follow public voice blindly. I believed that the real name system rather than anonymous can heal this issue effectively in some cases, people will be concerned about their online behavior, not say things without thinking, but sometimes the real name may create limitations for voice out, generally it really depends on the event itself.
For me, I am happy to give my opinion on my favorite topic online and notice avoiding shamed people, I rarely comment on gossip because I do not care about the sensitive topics. I set public comments for both my social media or blog website, which open for every person online, honestly, I’m not worried or afraid of online shaming, if anyone judges me hurtfully, I will delete it and keep the community peaceful. This week’s lecture-discussion really inspired me a lot, thus I decided to set up some community guidelines for my blog to prevent horrible shaming happening. My blog is about sharing my traveling stories, I hope everyone feels glad to read it and communicate with each other friendly, I am so excited to see funny and interesting comments.
My community guidelines are:
Overall speaking, social media is more powerful than we think and impact our life deeply, everyone should control their actions towards and reject online shaming appearing, I hope to see all my audience follow my guidelines and participate in the communication positively and optimistically, let’s start our happy trip!
This topic is a little bit sensitive to me. There is a lot of hate on the Internet and a lot of trolls, and I kind of worry about this, especially after I get more content and more visibility. I am planning to put out a more sensitive type of content out, especially for storytime. I know that I am going to encourage hate because I am going to criticize influencers.
I guess my theme have pre-setting about the comments section because I don’t remember touching anything. But my comments are moderated and then published. Although I want to remove it someday and see what happens.
As per the reading, The Psychology of Online Comments, it points out some of my fears. Such as anonymity, that is the reason that is required to at least add an email account if you want to comment. Another concern is the responsibility that I have as an admin to moderate and eliminate hate comments, violating freedom of speech. And lastly, removing the comments on a specific post will decrease the engagement within those posts.
To be honest, I am just going to remove the restrictions and see what happens, if its too much hatred I will remove it; if not, I will leave it on.
Process Post Prompt: Make a plan for incorporating more transmedia integration into your online publication. What channels will you focus on? Why?
Describing food without pictures leaves a bit more to the imagination that I would like. My blog is set up and although there
I find that it may take a few more months, a lot of time, and headaches in between, But during that time, I will try to maintain blog post so the content is still there. After sucessficent changes have been made, then the next step I plan to take is to tackle the instagram world.
It simply makes the most sense because it would be used as a way to quickly gather interest with food pictures that would hopefully make people drool. Should their minds be just as curious as their pallet, they can then dive into this blog here to hear more about the business itself and the story behind the dishes they are desiring.
Transmedia storytelling. That was the challenge of the past week. More specifically, how can we integrate more of it into our blogs?
If you’re also kinda (very) lost about what exactly this concept is, you’re not alone. Admittedly, it did take me a few Google searches and some article scanning to figure out what we’re dealing with here. But luckily we’ve figured it out, and now we’ve got a plan.
In “Transmedia Storytelling 101”, Jenkins (2007) describes transmedia storytelling as “a process where integral elements of a fiction get dispersed systematically across multiple delivery channels for the purpose of creating a unified and coordinated entertainment experience” (para. 2). In doing so, “transmedia storytelling practices may expand the potential market for a property by creating different points of entry for different audience segments” (para. 6).
So, after this much-needed guidance, I began to consider different ways that my content can be viewed and engaged with, as well as which channels it can be accessed through.
At the moment, Moods & Mixtapes can be accessed via the domain itself, as well as through Spotify. However, as much as I would like to dip my foot into other channels, I don’t know which ones would be suitable for sharing this sort of content. Working with playlists, since they’re not image-based, platforms like Instagram or Pinterest don’t seem like they would be too effective, and while Facebook might be my best bet—it’s not quite my go-to. Heck, I don’t even know the last time that I logged in.
To level the scales, I hope to become more visible by rolling out new blog posts more frequently throughout the week, as well as to start putting my playlists up on other streaming services such as Google Play Music. A few users who don’t have Spotify accounts have mentioned this idea to me over the past month, so I think I’ll give it a shot. No harm in trying, right?
Me realizing finals are about to destroy me
