A blog post about twitter (which will be tweeted)

I've been on twitter for two years. Like with Facebook, I saw it as an utterly useless waste of time. Why would I want to let anyone know what I'm eating for dinner or what movie I'm watching? More so, who would want to read about the mundane details of my life? Under that logic, Twitter was dumb.

Almost 5000 tweets later and I've changed my tune. Twitter is neat. I spend tons of time scrolling through tweets and I routinely tweet things myself, both 'useless' things and thought provoking ones. Originally, I caved and got a twitter because, as someone living in the midwest, I wanted a way to find out when bands I listened to were touring and if they were maybe stopping within 5 hours of South Dakota. If you want to scroll all the way back to the beginning of my following, you'll see this reflected. The next step of my twittering was the adding of personalities and news: Stephen Colbert, YouTube personalities Charlie McDonnel and TheFineBros, comic artist Jhonen Vasquez. Then came the brands, Bioware, Dorkly, and Team Fortress 2. During this period, I didn't tweet. I creeped. My time on Twitter was spent going through the tweets of all these famous personalities I followed.  I was one of several thousand to them.

I went to a party over the summer between my Freshman and Sophomore year of college. It was a NARP for the online website and community Destructoid, a yearly Midwestern meetup. All of the people here were ones I had only met online and never in person. This party was probably the first place I was asked "do you have a twitter?" and the event that started my participation in twitter.  Now, nearly two years later, I'm connected with so many different people through twitter. People from my hometown, people here at DSU, and people I've never met in the real world yet talk to frequently.  My news comes from my twitter. My casual conversation comes from my twitter. What I had deemed a waste of time only a few years prior is now one of the primary fonts of my information.

I've found that when something is going on, Twitter is the place to be. When the Pope announced his resigination two days ago, I found out during class from Twitter. When there's a big gaming event going on (E3, PAX) the news from those press conferences goes right up to twitter. Even when I'm at an event like that, information on what's going on and where I should be to get the most out of my experience is up to Twitter.  Past-Me was wrong; twitter is pretty neat.

What started as a way for me to simply get information has become a social medium for me to communicate with others and become a cog in that information-passing wheel. Retweets, original thoughts, casual conversations; all of these are things I've experienced over twitter. And unlike facebook, my dad isn't following me on Twitter so I've got a little more freedom on that front as well. 

44interactive - My Impressions

I really like the way the 44interactive website works and their blog is no exception to this.Their blog has the logo and motto up in the upper left corner, making it pretty easy to see where you are and what 44i does. The page itself is incredibly simplistic, using a white background with mostly black text and green accents matching their logo.

Overall the simple layout makes it easy to focus on just the content. Categories are sorted along the left, with month by month archives below.

Guest Speaker: Cassie Marie Edwards

Cassie Marie Edwards, an artist and master of her own social media image, came to our class and spoke on how she uses the internet to promote her work. She talked about her blog, her Facebook  her website, and her twitter all in great detail.

I came away from the talk thinking more about the image I have out there on the world wide web.  My Facebook privacy is tight, but for people who are my friends everything is fair game. Those embarrassing pictures from high school? Yeah they’ve got their own album, named for a terrible song lyric. My 4500 tweets are all open to public eye as well. I use a username, but that name is so commonly used with my actual name that it wouldn’t take much snooping to find that Glitchy and Alissa are one in the same.  Maybe its time to do some virtual laundry; delete the tweets, hide the pictures. I don’t like deleting old things. To me it feels like I’m trying to bury a part of who I was. But I think what needs to be done now is more about making sure what is currently viewable on my internet pages accurately represents who I am as a person and who I will later be as a professional.

I’m also toying with setting up a personal blog again as a result of this talk. I like to write. I’d love to be doing something later in life involving writing, even if it is for personal gain and not for profit. But finding a opportunity won’t be easy if I’ve got no references of my writing out there. I’ve already missed out on one unpaid writing position as a result of my lack of prepared writing samples and I think keeping a personal blog will help keep that from happening again. Plus it’d be nice to have an outlet for some of the weird thoughts on my mind sometimes.

A Blog Post About My Blog Posts

I’ve made a whopping six posts in my blog so far. I am one behind where I’d like to be, having not made my post about the blogging chapter of the text book.  I’ve been trying to get a text post up once a week, followed by a link to an interesting or relating topic.

I’ve been running on the topic of English for New Media and related things. I’ve written chapters on Facebook and my electronic addictions, and I’ve posted links about Facebook Privacy and about anonymity / lying on the internet. I’ve tagged my posts for what they involve; facebook, english for new media, DSU, new new media and etc.

I’ve only posted two links so far. The first was about Facebook and their new Graph Search. We were talking about facebook in class so I felt it was relevant. The second link I posted was about someone who claimed to work with Microsoft, then sent out an annymous email claiming to be leaking information. Several major technology websites didn’t source check and used the false information. Interesting read.

I started out with one template (link to the creator is at the bottom of the page) but its become more than that. I’ve darkened the background, changed the color of nearly every font, edited the HTML to make the headings for posts come out in capitalization.  I like to tweak templates.

No comments yet, but comments on tumblr are done differently than comments on other sites. Tumblr comments are through reblogs or asks, neither of which I have gotten. Asks can be anonymous.

I just installed Google Analytics to my page about a minute ago. I had no idea that Tumblr had tracking potentional or that Google Analytics could track any website. Neat! We’ll see how this goes and I’ll report on it at a later date.

Facebook: My Most Useful Addiction

I hate turning things in last minute. This blog entry is being written at roughly 1am—10 hours before the class in which we’ll be discussing its subject matter. Usually my procrastination the result of some unnamed force, but here the culprit behind my distraction is topical. I blame Facebook.

More than just a social media site, Facebook has become an embodiment of everything New New Media stands to be. Through either Facebook itself or the many many provided “apps” for it, Facebook can do nearly anything you’d want to do. Back before blogging was accessible, or rather before I knew how, friends and I would post pseudo blog-posts through Facebook Notes. A good chunk of my online communication is through Facebook, either through chat or through public statuses. (Worth noting: I first wrote that as ‘public wall posts’, but as the chapter just reminded us, the wall is no more and has been replaced by timeline. Yet I know of many others besides myself who still use the term ‘wall’ in reference to Facebook ) I chatted casually with my friends via chat, I made a public post attempting to find a roommate for next semester, and tomorrow I’ll put out a public plea asking for a ride to Huron for the weekend. The short version? Facebook is really neat.

I am surprised that Facebook gaming wasn’t mentioned at all in the chapter. I understand that Facebook games are not exactly New New Media, but given their popularity I would have assumed they’d be mentioned in passing. Farmville, The Sims Social, and (my drug game of choice) Criminal Case are more or less a element of ‘socialization’ unique to Facebook. Playing a game and soliciting your friends to play amounts for something. My sister, and many other people, have befriended Facebook users simply because they shared an active interest in the game and could collaborate together. She even has gone as far as to make fake accounts for made-up people, simply to cheat the game’s requirement for socialization.

A Brief Biography of My Electronic Companions

I’m not exactly proud to admit it, but I almost have an addiction to technology. My phone is constantly at my side. Three or four years ago I upgraded to a smartphone and haven’t looked back since. At a small addition to my monthly bill, I’m connected to the vastness of the internet 24/7, so long as I remember to charge the phone nightly. Twitter, Facebook, Reddit, Tumblr, and G+ are all at my fingertips through various Apps. I can take a picture with Instagram and send it out to all my social networks at once. My phone notifies me of email the same way it would a new text message and I’m able to chat with pretty much anyone at any time through the use of Facebook Messenger. I’ve had a digital camera in the past, but my smartphone has eliminated the need for this. Capable of capturing in HD, my camera became quickly obsolete. of One simple device which started out as a phone has become a pocket powerhouse.

I’ve had my laptop since I started college three years ago and it rarely leaves my side.  Every morning I pack it and my other doodads into my backpack and they are toted around with me until I retire to my room that night. It even accompanies me on long trips from home where a computer is far from a necessity. The habit of returning home and checking my various website feeds has become a nightly ritual. Even if I’d spent the day socializing and sightseeing far from home, I found comfort in curling up next to my laptop before bed for some good old, mindless web surfing. 

My laptop keeps me connected in the same ways my phone does and more. Obviously all of my social networks are only a click away, but my laptop has much more creative power than my phone. Sure, I could sit down and fight my phone’s touch screen to write a blog post from it, but sitting in bed to hammer away at the keys on my laptop just somehow feels right. I’ve got programs on my laptop whose creation power is only limited by my creativity. And when I tire of reading or producing content, I’ve got access to my library of video games or movies. And when I finish procrastinating, I’ve only to log into D2L to have access to all my classwork.  

My laptop and phone combined can sate any desire I have for entertainment, but that doesn’t mean they are alone in my technological arsenal. I recently added another device to my portable media army: a Playstation Vita. In incredibly lamen’s terms, its a gameboy… But made by Sony.  The potential in my vita is great. It is primarily a portable video game system. It contains the capability for apps, so I can access Facebook and Twitter from there as well. An internet browser is also a feature. What I really love about it though is, given I have a big enough memory card, I can purchase games from the online store and download them to the device, right from the Vita itself. Any game you can buy on a store shelf, you can buy from the vita’s online store. I opted for the Wifi only model, but some users have their units connected to 3G meaning you are connected to a market 24/7. As a final note, it also works as a music player and has incredible battery life.

Aside from my portables, I don’t have a lot going on electronically. I’ve got my TV and everything attached to it, but that’s about it. …Actually, summarizing it like that may be a little unfair.  I’ve currently got a 37” LG TV, a graduation present from my mom I agreed to pay half of.

Connected to it is my Xbox 360. My 360 and I have had a love-hate relationship. My original 360, purchased during my sophomore year of high school died half way through my senior year. I was a victim of the infamous “Red Ring of Death”; an overheating problem all to familiar to 360 owners.  I bummed around, playing games on friends’ consoles until a couple years ago where, after finding out my system was too far gone for repair, my then employer gave me a used system free of charge.  That xbox 360 is currently under my TV and it has enjoyed my company many days this semester.

Ignore the dust. I actually spend a lot of time here.

My Wii is connected to my TV, but I usually just play Gamecube games on it so its not really worth mentioning. It has become my Legend of Zelda / MarioKart DoubleDash machine and it will probably remain so.

I’ve got a PS2 under there as well. Me and that PS2? We go way back—As in it was this console that 12 year-old me played Grand Theft Auto on way back when, under strict parental supervision of course. I’ve got that system and all the games I played as a child, setting right in my dorm room.

Directly above that is another important piece of my childhood. Way back when, I only played video games on a sub-par computer running windows 90 something. My mom and grandmother conspired to change that in the form of a brown paper bag brought home from a rummage sale. In that bag was a Super Nintendo and twenty games. I sunk serious hours into that thing as a child and on up through the years.  I never became obsessed, but every few days a family member and I would camp out in front of the TV to get our SNES on. That very same SNES from my childhood game nights is present in my room, accompanied by the games from that paper bag. Its been my companion of recently. I never beat Donkey Kong Country as a child; it seems like my responsibility to beat it now.

New New Media and Where I Stand

I was one of the last of my friends to embrace new new media. Back when Facebook became open to the public, I was attending middle school. My dad, a very tech-savvy man who had been on the internet since its conception, had raised me with an extremist outlook on internet security. No one online is who they say they are, everyone is after you, trust no one. While this rhetoric kept me from revealing my personal information online, it also kept me from seeing the potential positives that this emerging form of media had to offer. Stories of underage children being picked up by middle-aged men via MySpace only reinforced my negative views on the topic. I refuted every invite my friends sent me to Facebook, explaining that I didn’t want to be an entry in some would-be rapist’s shopping catalog.

  The Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Tumblr, Reddit, LinkedIn, and all the other accounts I now hold in my name show that I’ve experienced a change of heart.

I couldn't tell you what brought about that change in attitude, but I can accept now that the extremes I was taught as a child may have been a little, well, extreme. I joined Facebook during my Freshman year of High School, back in 2007…which is 6 years ago. I went from an avid hater of the service to someone who can’t go a day without checking my feed or refreshing my wall. Facebook Messenger has become one of my main tools for communication, both while at my desk and on the go via my smartphone. It has become both a viable tool for communication and my social link to many people I have never met in person. 

My Twitter follows a similar story. I hated the idea of Twitter at it’s first appearance in my life. I made an account to see what the buzz was about, but quickly abandoned it. It was like Facebook, minus everything that made Facebook useful. But my understanding of Twitter grew as the site’s popularity did. I had first used it to follow artists and musicians I liked. I didn’t really embrace it or even check it regularly until I went to a party and had people who were then strangers asking for my twitter handle. This was around 2011. I’m now following 400 people and have 220 people following me, assuming most of those aren’t spam bots. I’ve had casual conversations with people I idolized via twitter, fueled and read heated debates spread across multiple 140-character tweets, and been kept current on major world events all from the comfort of some silly little webpage. 

I’ve spent most of my life being socially awkward. I was never the one to initiate hang-outs, and favored tagging along with groups to making new friends. These last few years, however, I’ve found myself branching out—meeting people, going places, being generally adventurous. Society seems to think that a life socializing through computer screens limits us and chains us to a meek life indoors. In my case, the people I’ve met online and keep in contact with through New New Mediums have not only helped me to branch out socially, but have helped me to really look and define who I am in this world of ours.