Saturday, February 28, 2015
The Dress
I was waiting to see if anyone else was going to post about this. That dress. No, I'm not even going to post a picture of it. One morning I innocently checked my phone as I turned off my alarm and saw four friends (without hardly scrolling at all!) on my Facebook news feed had posted about this dress that apparently is sending America into hysterics. Because some people see it as blue and black, and some people see it as white and gold. This doesn't make a lot of sense to me. It all depends on the exposure/lighting of the picture. If it's bluish lighting, the dress is white and gold, if it's heavy exposure, it's blue and black. I can see both. No one is right or wrong (although, the owner of that dress should probably come forward at this point just to put everyone at ease). It's probably one of the most pointless mass trends I've seen on the internet to date. I just have to wonder... who even decides the stuff that goes viral?
Sunday, February 22, 2015
Facebook Ads...Creepy
I know you all have noticed this. It's crazy, but you look at something once and suddenly the ads on Facebook with that item pop up EVERYWHERE. And they never go away. Once, back in August, I looked at engagement rings. For the next two months my Facebook feed was plastered with them. Ironic, because by the end of October I was engaged, but here is a sample of what my news feed looks like today:
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Are you sensing a theme here?
...Yeah. So I'm just kind of wondering... what happens in two weeks when I'm married?
The Walking Dead
My fiancé happens to be a huge fan of this show.
One day he turned it on and I decided to watch it with him.
He's studying psychology, which is also an interest of mine, so we had fun analyzing it and picking apart the behavior of the different characters.
We went back to season 1, episode 1, so I could catch up and we could watch the whole thing together.
Four episodes later, I was reading for this media class when they SPECIFICALLY mentioned the Walking Dead as evidence that violence is infiltrating even the most popular media.
It's seen as totally okay.
No lie, when I watch it I literally cover my eyes for large portions because I don't actually enjoy watching people getting ripped apart.
But it made me second guess myself.
Am I allowing too much violence in my life? I wish there were shows like this out there with a bit less violence so a person could watch a good plot line without sacrificing their peace of mind.
That is all.
Sunday, February 15, 2015
One Tweet Can Destroy Your Life
We've all been warned that these days our employers and schools look at our social media to consider our applications. I've always laughed it off. After all, what kind of incriminating evidence is a company going to find on a little blonde Mormon girl's Facebook? I mean, really.
This morning I read an article (link at bottom) about a woman who posted a satirical (somewhat out of line, but not serious) tweet before getting on a plane to Africa, and by the time she arrived there 11 hours later, her entire life was ruined. Her tweet had been discovered, gone viral, and not only was she being slammed by hundreds of thousands of people, she had threats on her life and safety, lost her job, and almost permanently shamed her family's campaign for health in Africa. She even had to cut her trip short because people were protesting outside every hotel she had booked for her trip. She was unemployed for a year and her career was ruined.
The scariest part is, her story isn't a fluke. There was a 22 year old girl who wore a rather tasteless Halloween costume and was completely demonized online, eventually leading to her termination at her job as well. A lady posted a photo of her (disrespectfully) mocking a sign at Arlington National Cemetery...but it was an inside joke with a friend about disobeying signs. It was discovered, brought to the attention of thousands of strangers, and the woman ended up fired, spending her days inside, suffering from depression and PTSD.
It certainly makes a person wonder, doesn't it?
How easy is it to jump in on a crusade and ruin a person's life...and then completely forget about it the next day, moving on with our own? How easy is it to forget that there is an actual human being at the other end of every twitter account, every facebook picture? In high school (I'm almost afraid to admit to this on here now) my best friend and I dressed up as hobos for Halloween:
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Notice the comments. Also that there are only two. We went to visit my sister at Duke that night and ran into groups of low SES kids trick-or-treating there and one little boy told us that his uncle was homeless. We were mortified and got home as fast as we could to change out of our ill conceived, yet innocently intentioned, costumes.
This is why these sorts of occurrences bother me so much. I was a goody-two-shoes. I was an LDS girl, volunteered at the soup kitchen sometimes, raised money for habitat for humanity--and in one small lapse of judgment we did something that may have offended some people. We're human and it happens. But social media takes these momentary, minor fails, and turn them into something unforgivable, and certainly something that can never be lived down.
It's a doubly tricky situation, because technically these people are operating under their freedom of speech. It would be difficult to make a case for libel when they are using a direct quote. But the punishment does NOT fit the crime. And how could we make a policy to protect those on social media? It's checks and balances! Without the ability to call someone out, people could do atrocious things and get away with intolerable offenses against people without consequence.
But could we all have a little more tolerance for others? Maybe a little forgiveness? In some ways I guess the message is to be careful what we post online, but it would be awfully nice if the bigger message was one where there was a little more compassion in the world. Reputations are hard to recover and we've all been there.
Social media is turning into russian routlette and we're all holding the gun.
http://mobile.nytimes.com/2015/02/15/magazine/how-one-stupid-tweet-ruined-justine-saccos-life.html?_r=2
This morning I read an article (link at bottom) about a woman who posted a satirical (somewhat out of line, but not serious) tweet before getting on a plane to Africa, and by the time she arrived there 11 hours later, her entire life was ruined. Her tweet had been discovered, gone viral, and not only was she being slammed by hundreds of thousands of people, she had threats on her life and safety, lost her job, and almost permanently shamed her family's campaign for health in Africa. She even had to cut her trip short because people were protesting outside every hotel she had booked for her trip. She was unemployed for a year and her career was ruined.
The scariest part is, her story isn't a fluke. There was a 22 year old girl who wore a rather tasteless Halloween costume and was completely demonized online, eventually leading to her termination at her job as well. A lady posted a photo of her (disrespectfully) mocking a sign at Arlington National Cemetery...but it was an inside joke with a friend about disobeying signs. It was discovered, brought to the attention of thousands of strangers, and the woman ended up fired, spending her days inside, suffering from depression and PTSD.
It certainly makes a person wonder, doesn't it?
How easy is it to jump in on a crusade and ruin a person's life...and then completely forget about it the next day, moving on with our own? How easy is it to forget that there is an actual human being at the other end of every twitter account, every facebook picture? In high school (I'm almost afraid to admit to this on here now) my best friend and I dressed up as hobos for Halloween:
Notice the comments. Also that there are only two. We went to visit my sister at Duke that night and ran into groups of low SES kids trick-or-treating there and one little boy told us that his uncle was homeless. We were mortified and got home as fast as we could to change out of our ill conceived, yet innocently intentioned, costumes.
This is why these sorts of occurrences bother me so much. I was a goody-two-shoes. I was an LDS girl, volunteered at the soup kitchen sometimes, raised money for habitat for humanity--and in one small lapse of judgment we did something that may have offended some people. We're human and it happens. But social media takes these momentary, minor fails, and turn them into something unforgivable, and certainly something that can never be lived down.
It's a doubly tricky situation, because technically these people are operating under their freedom of speech. It would be difficult to make a case for libel when they are using a direct quote. But the punishment does NOT fit the crime. And how could we make a policy to protect those on social media? It's checks and balances! Without the ability to call someone out, people could do atrocious things and get away with intolerable offenses against people without consequence.
But could we all have a little more tolerance for others? Maybe a little forgiveness? In some ways I guess the message is to be careful what we post online, but it would be awfully nice if the bigger message was one where there was a little more compassion in the world. Reputations are hard to recover and we've all been there.
Social media is turning into russian routlette and we're all holding the gun.
http://mobile.nytimes.com/2015/02/15/magazine/how-one-stupid-tweet-ruined-justine-saccos-life.html?_r=2
Virtual is the New Reality?
Let me begin by saying that I am NOT a gamer. I can count the number of games I've played on one hand, and the times I've played them on two. I an sometimes catch allusions to popular games, but even Mario Cart is beyond me. I don't know the difference between a Nintendo and a PlayStation.
So with that, imagine my bewilderment upon walking into the 1:30 segment of the video game conference, purely for extra credit (Dr. Coyne's was the one I genuinely wanted to see, and I was unfortunately working during that presentation).
I learned a lot of things during this hour.
First, the contrast between the gamers and the scholars in the room was almost comical.
Second, there are people that celebrate New Years virtually on a video game in Times Square, instead of in person at Times Square (or wherever else they may be).
Hyundai was the first to have an interactive advertisement in which people could play a video game on a massive screen in Times Square and the winner for the week won a car.
There were three boys sitting behind me that never stopped playing video games on their phones the whole time we were there (case in point?)
'Damsel in distress' themes are another way of unintentionally awarding women 'object' status.
And finally, our world is far too blended between the virtual and reality. If people spend a substantial amount of their lives in a virtual world, could it be considered real? What happens when they are presented with a moral dilemma? And to win the game they have to choose...wrong? What does that do to people?
I am content to keep my life centered on my own, physical world, but even those of us who don't play in the virtual ones cannot deny that they leave their mark on our lives.
So with that, imagine my bewilderment upon walking into the 1:30 segment of the video game conference, purely for extra credit (Dr. Coyne's was the one I genuinely wanted to see, and I was unfortunately working during that presentation).
I learned a lot of things during this hour.
First, the contrast between the gamers and the scholars in the room was almost comical.
Second, there are people that celebrate New Years virtually on a video game in Times Square, instead of in person at Times Square (or wherever else they may be).
Hyundai was the first to have an interactive advertisement in which people could play a video game on a massive screen in Times Square and the winner for the week won a car.
There were three boys sitting behind me that never stopped playing video games on their phones the whole time we were there (case in point?)
'Damsel in distress' themes are another way of unintentionally awarding women 'object' status.
And finally, our world is far too blended between the virtual and reality. If people spend a substantial amount of their lives in a virtual world, could it be considered real? What happens when they are presented with a moral dilemma? And to win the game they have to choose...wrong? What does that do to people?
I am content to keep my life centered on my own, physical world, but even those of us who don't play in the virtual ones cannot deny that they leave their mark on our lives.
Sunday, February 8, 2015
To be a SEAL
My cousin is at Buds. He's been on my mind a lot recently because sometime today--maybe already--hell week begins. Derek is in training to become a Navy SEAL.
I have a tremendous amount of respect for people in that line of duty. It's always been very interesting to me, and I have read multiple memoirs and biographies of Navy SEALs or other men serving in the special forces. But I have to say, there is something about reading these stories second hand that separates us from these people. When we read a story about someone, we put them on a pedestal, on a different plane from the rest of us. We hear what they tell us, but complete the picture in our minds without even realizing it. They create their story based off snapshots of their lives, and inevitably it is a biased rendition because there just isn't time to tell everything. We feel like we know them, but really we don't at all. We don't know the intimate details of their lives, we don't know what it really felt like to see the things they've seen and do the things they've done. In some ways it getting a glimpse almost feels worse because of the sense of entitlement we as readers feel, like we are authorities on their lives in some way.
Recently I have been rereading one such memoir called the Heart and the Fist (excellent, by the way), that was highly impactful to Derek's decision to become a Navy SEAL. The difference is that this time as I read it, I see Derek in his actions and I hear Derek's voice in my head as I read it instead of the man who wrote the book. I know him. He is human. He is one of the best people I know, but he is human. It feels much closer to home.
I'm really grateful for the opportunity we have to gain some amount of insight into the lives of some truly amazing people. We need to learn from their stories and apply what they have learned doing things we will (hopefully) never do to our own lives better. I admire my cousin Derek for his hard work, mental strength, and his commitment to being an upstanding individual in spite of extraordinarily difficult circumstances. Maybe it puts my life in better perspective. Maybe I can try a little harder.
(PS--He made it :) )
I have a tremendous amount of respect for people in that line of duty. It's always been very interesting to me, and I have read multiple memoirs and biographies of Navy SEALs or other men serving in the special forces. But I have to say, there is something about reading these stories second hand that separates us from these people. When we read a story about someone, we put them on a pedestal, on a different plane from the rest of us. We hear what they tell us, but complete the picture in our minds without even realizing it. They create their story based off snapshots of their lives, and inevitably it is a biased rendition because there just isn't time to tell everything. We feel like we know them, but really we don't at all. We don't know the intimate details of their lives, we don't know what it really felt like to see the things they've seen and do the things they've done. In some ways it getting a glimpse almost feels worse because of the sense of entitlement we as readers feel, like we are authorities on their lives in some way.
Recently I have been rereading one such memoir called the Heart and the Fist (excellent, by the way), that was highly impactful to Derek's decision to become a Navy SEAL. The difference is that this time as I read it, I see Derek in his actions and I hear Derek's voice in my head as I read it instead of the man who wrote the book. I know him. He is human. He is one of the best people I know, but he is human. It feels much closer to home.
I'm really grateful for the opportunity we have to gain some amount of insight into the lives of some truly amazing people. We need to learn from their stories and apply what they have learned doing things we will (hopefully) never do to our own lives better. I admire my cousin Derek for his hard work, mental strength, and his commitment to being an upstanding individual in spite of extraordinarily difficult circumstances. Maybe it puts my life in better perspective. Maybe I can try a little harder.
(PS--He made it :) )
The Apartment Downstairs
Of course, there is a place for TV within a relationship. Following a show with your husband or boyfriend (or even roommates!) can bring you together, provide a break from life, and be just dang fun. TV can be great that way. But when it is a constant presence, I have my doubts as to its benefits on anyone's life. To the couple in the apartment downstairs, I hope you enjoy your show together sometimes and I don't mind that it shakes the floor. But I'd be lying if I didn't say I'm looking forward to the end of the season ;).
Sunday, February 1, 2015
Internet--Good or Bad?
I have a feeling that if I were to poll BYU for opinions on the internet I would get a consensus that it's pretty terrible. There certainly is a lot of destructive content that has been made easily accessible. I was on the phone with my mom this morning and she happened to mention that she had copied some of our messages to each other on Facebook--as a journal of sorts--and they totaled 73 pages. It struck me as how remarkable it is that we can even communicate that way, and so instantaneously, from the complete opposite side of the country.
On Friday night I was on my tablet while my fiancé was doing homework, and I ended up on the Church's family search site, looking at the pictures and information I had inputted and copying some for a history book I got for Christmas. I happened to click on the 'reserved' tab, with a list of all the family ordinances I had reserved for my family to do. Spur of the moment decision, I 'shared' one of my Hungarian great grandmothers' names with my sister, and received the following day this text message:
"Thanks for sending that name to me! I keep thinking I should follow up on those emails from family search, but I still haven't done it. But now I've done a baptism for a family name for the first time!"
Turns out I sent it the day of a temple trip for her singles ward in Texas.
Basically, I can't believe the internet is bad. It all depends on how we use it! I don't mean to say that we need to be constantly listening to General Conference to make our internet time worthwhile, but there's a lot of good we can accomplish there. Let's do it right :).
On Friday night I was on my tablet while my fiancé was doing homework, and I ended up on the Church's family search site, looking at the pictures and information I had inputted and copying some for a history book I got for Christmas. I happened to click on the 'reserved' tab, with a list of all the family ordinances I had reserved for my family to do. Spur of the moment decision, I 'shared' one of my Hungarian great grandmothers' names with my sister, and received the following day this text message:
"Thanks for sending that name to me! I keep thinking I should follow up on those emails from family search, but I still haven't done it. But now I've done a baptism for a family name for the first time!"
Turns out I sent it the day of a temple trip for her singles ward in Texas.
Basically, I can't believe the internet is bad. It all depends on how we use it! I don't mean to say that we need to be constantly listening to General Conference to make our internet time worthwhile, but there's a lot of good we can accomplish there. Let's do it right :).
Textbook Bonding
It's funny to consider textbooks as a form of media, but they completely are. It's probably unusual, but Daniel and I have started doing some of his class readings together--the really interesting, deep, and somewhat-difficult-to-understand-if-you're-not-totally-focused-on-them ones. Probably counter intuitive and lots of people think I'm crazy because I have plenty of readings to do myself, but it's been really cool. I LOVE the way they generate discussions and we both learn, while he gets to practice explaining things to me he learned in class that I don't know :). As isolating as media use can be, using this one to bring us together has been strengthening to our relationship. Yay... school?
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