Avatars

In today's culture, avatar has 3 different meanings.  Most recently, and for the most people, Avatar refers to the blockbuster James Cameron movie. For those of us who used to enjoy cartoons, Avatar refers to the animated Nickelodeon series.  My wild guess is that most people who used to enjoy the Avatar cartoon series also recognize avatar as a word used in the gaming community.  In the gaming community, an avatar is a representation of yourself used in a game or online community. More often than not, the player can earn points or buy customizations for these virtual characters.  Some people choose to make their avatar similar to themselves, while others use their avatars as alter egos, such as the girl in the article who plays as a guy.  Using an avatar as an alter ego allows the creator to have qualities they might not otherwise have, such as super strength.  Avatars allow their creators to create customizations essential to the environment they're in, especially in game settings.  In Call of Duty, players don't create full avatars; the general player looks the same, but the creator can choose weapons, camouflage, and face paint.  In other games, customization of avatars allows players to easily identify themselves and others.  If avatars weren't customizable, everyone would look alike.

Using avatars in the classroom..... that's an interesting application I've never thought about.  I guess avatars could be used to have a semi anonymous online discussion, or do anything online with a degree of anonymity, if the right medium is chosen.

How well do we know our friends?

I'm new to social networking. I completely missed the whole Myspace fad, and joined Facebook in November of 2010, shortly after new privacy changes sparked widespread controversy.  The Facebook I joined is more or less the same Facebook we have now, except for the the changes to the chat and message systems.  I can't imagine a Facebook where there is no news feed; the news feed is the heart of Facebook.  That is what truly allows us to know everything our friends post.
Within two days of creating my profile, I'd added close to 150 people; I was amazed I knew that many people.  It did help that my finally creating a profile was major social news.  At the time, I personally knew and interacted with each of these people frequently.  As time progressed, I began adding people I was familiar with but did not personally know.  After I joined the Clemson Class of 2015 Facebook Group I began adding people that I interacted with on the group page.  At that point, my friends list began increasing exponentially as my personal connections to these people began decreasing exponentially.
However, the title of this article, I'm So Totally, Digitally Close to You holds special meaning to me because Facebook is my primary method of communication with several friends.  Facebook has allowed me to "meet" members of the Clemson Class of 2015.  Through our group, which has over 2,000 members, we've found roommates, had questions answered about orientation, move in, and Clemson Connect stuff.  Now, we're using it to make connections and seek homework help.  Facebook allows me to keep up with what my friends are doing, even those who live hours away.  Over the summer, I was able to reconnect with 2 childhood friends I hadn't talked to in 10 years.  I have several friends that live many hours away; I have almost exclusively digital relationships with these people and have Facebook to thank for that.
One year ago I didn't have Facebook.  Nearly a year later, I've reached the point where I'm constantly checking it, making sure I keep my notifications clear and my messages read, reading nearly everything which comes into my news feed.  Facebook is a social networking tool; it's up to the user to decide how to use it.  It's experienced massive growth and essentially led to the death of Myspace.  Facebook has changed from a small social circle of close friends to a large tangled web of people all over the world, allowing users to utilize it to the full potential, finding people from all over, or simply "friend" those that are present in their lives.
While our friends lists are rapidly growing, and our intimate knowledge of these people is decreasing, we are using Facebook for its intended purpose: true social networking, becoming aware of and familiar with people who will be useful in our lives for some reason or another.

1500 words on an ad.....

When we were first given this assignment, I was a bit shocked.  The idea of writing 1500 words about an ad -a single picture- terrified me.  However, now that I'm 2/3 done with the paper, I'm realizing it's not quite as difficult as I thought it would be.  That, in combination with these blogs, are a good introduction to college writing.  This essay is manageable enough to be the first major assignment, but is still definitely a college assignment.  It has purpose and does not seem to be randomly chosen.  The topic of the essay ties in with the class discussion material.

This class in and of itself is definitely not what I was expecting from my first college English class; this is a good thing.  I was expecting this class to resemble my high school english classes, not realizing just how focused on writing it would be; I imagined another semester of perpetual reading.  I'm glad someone realized you can write about more than books.  It's much less time consuming to write about an ad than it is a 200 page book, even if it is more difficult.  This is college; difficult is to be expected.  At this level, writing becomes a fine art, like learning difficult pieces of music.  Actual teachers are useless; the writing style hopefully has been developed by this point.  Higher level writing isn't something that can really be taught; it must be developed.  Teachers become mentors, providing tips on how to refine writing style and transition to college level writing.  We need practice in order to utilize these tips, and these blogs as well as the rhetoric essay are excellent opportunities to practice.

Critical Response to Orbach's essay

     Young children are very impressionable people.  They imitate who and what they see; they are sponges.  Boys see the men are all strong; they begin to imitate them and want to become strong.  When girls see that the girls on TV are all slender, naturally, they will want to be slender.  They want to look like the girls on TV and in magazines.  Girls who are younger siblings often want to be exactly like their older sisters.  Beauty and teen clothing companies have realized this and are using this to their advantage.  Teen clothing companies such as Aeropostale and American Eagle have created clothing lines for children.  Bonne Bell makes Lip Smackers as well as other cosmetics for children.  It's no wonder young women have eating disorders and low self esteem.  In a society that is promoting what seems to be perfection, good will never be good enough.  There are a plethora of ways to explain why this is, but that's the simple truth.
     While some companies exploit women's' insecurities, Dove decided to take a radical path, which I believe was a genius move.  The people at Dove realized the power they have to start change and decided to utilize this power.  I commend their efforts to change the conception of beauty and make it more applicable to the general public, not just the top percentile that's beautiful enough to become supermodels.  I really appreciate the fact that Dove's team began to ask and seriously think about how TV ads impact the females close to them and take a personal approach to their advertising rather than simply trying to make money.  Step by step, Dove is changing the picture of beauty.

Chapter 14 synthesis part 2: Technology and Photography

Over the years, technology has become more prominent and has become an integral part of photography, from the way the picture is taken to the way the picture is shared.  Just 10 years ago, taking a picture involved lots of luck and hoping the picture turned out just right.  Sharing it involved having the entire roll of film developed, which of course meant it could be months before you got the first pictures on the film.  Also, you waited until you had the film developed before knowing exactly how your pictures looked.  Now, we have instant gratification; we can see the picture within seconds of taking it and retake it if needed.  Once moving the picture to the computer, we have the ability to edit it: enhance the colors, make it black and white, tint the picture, or add text.  We also can share our pictures with everyone in the world who has internet.  As more people have started sharing their pictures online, different services have evolved for different people.  Photobucket was the leading photo sharing site for a while until it became cluttered with everyone's personal snapshots of themselves and other various things they wanted to share.  Quality of pictures on Photobucket decreased dramatically.  At one point, Myspace was a popular method of sharing pictures.  Privacy controls made it easy to allow pictures to be shared with only your friends or everyone.  Facebook and Flickr are currently 2 of the most popular photo sharing methods.  Facebook is mainly for social networking, but many professional photographers are using Facebook pages as their main website.  Many amateur photographers post their photos on Facebook to receive feedback.  Flickr is aimed at the semi professional to professional photographer; photo quality on Flickr tends to be on the high side.

Synthesis of Reading

Some see photography as an art; others see it as a means of self expression.  The advent of technology allows photography as an art to be offered to the masses rather than the select few who can afford the equipment.  The iPhone 4 recently because the most popular camera used to take pictures submitted to Flickr.  This shows just how diverse and accessible photography has become.  The iPhone 4 camera can be used to create almost professional looking photos as well as typical "taken in the bathroom mirror" blurry pictures.  It all depends on who has the camera.  Also, the fact that good cameras are so accessible means that more photographs are being created; more people are calling themselves photographers.  Also, mass pictures combined with mass media means that anyone with an internet connection can access and critique these photos.  The range of quality of photos has increased dramatically as more people gain access to cameras.  Some people take a multitude of pictures of almost anything; others take a select few of a select few subjects.

Before photography became available to the masses, photographers had to carefully select their shots.  Everything had to be set up; nothing was automatic.  Some argue that automation of photos takes the life and spirit out of them. However, others argue that automation of cameras allows greater access to good photography.  The photographer is allowed to focus solely on how the photo will look rather than what must be done to achieve this look.  The advent of digital photography means that certain moments in time can captured just as easily as they can be deleted.  It has become so much easier to delete a photo.  Before digital photography, each picture had a cost associated with it.  Now, that cost only really kicks in once a print is made, and one can choose to only make prints of specific photos.  Digital photography means that the photographer has multiple chances to get that one, special shot.  The photographer can also get rid of undesirable shots.  This reflects the human desire for perfection and happiness, the desire for all things to be good and none to be bad.

 In addition, photo editing software is becoming available to the masses.  Piknic allows users to edit pictures online.  Programs such as Picasa allow amateurs to learn how to properly enhance (without over editing) their pictures.  Technology and photography now go hand in hand; most of the photos we have today would not exist without modern technology.