#writingtechnogenesis

[writingtechnogenesis]

Blog Post 2 - Tyler Whitlock

For those unaware, Reddit, the so called “Frontpage of the Internet” is essentially a news aggregate site. Content is voted to the front of this page  based on users deeming it good or bad (called upvoting and downvoting respectively.) There are hundreds of thousands of little communities called pages that are dedicated for certain topics. Some are broad like r/gaming which is supposedly dedicated to only content related to gaming (but related in this page is used extremely liberally.) whereas others are very specific like R/GlobalOffensive which is only for content related to a game called Counter Strike: Global Offensive. Reddit is extremely diverse with many people offering different opinions depending on the pages you go to. In my opinion it is great for many things like learning about new topics or immersing you in something, however it has many flaws as well.

Utilizing McLuhan is a great way for me to explain a bit about these pros and cons of Reddit, but funnily enough it also shows how these can sometimes be a problem. McLuhan talks about a “Global Village” where in the new age of technology the underrepresented and often unheard groups can finally have a voice because these things can be talked about or seen almost immediately (McLuhan 63.) This is especially true for Reddit, with the ability for users to create new pages you can see many created specifically to raise awareness for certain things and many posts created that give these members their voice. Many times videos of policy brutality towards minorities will be posted and users spurring others to contact their local police departments and figures of authority to voice their extreme dissatisfaction. Topics advocating for gay Marriage when it was still a heavy topic of debate were frequently seen on the frontpage. I won’t publicly talk about certain groups where I find this a problem because I feel bringing attention to them only gives them more attention which is not good but one advocates that the only way to get a girl in todays age is to, basically, be an asshole and be controlling. Clearly not okay in my book.

 Another topic McLuhan brings up is that these new technologies could create a unified mass of people McLuhan 69-71.) This is often the biggest issue cited with Reddit, and is even often parodied in certain pages. Often times members on Reddit so strongly believe the same thing to the point where it almost becomes ridiculous that some things become so similar it gets silly. Whenever a reddit admin (Ellen Pao) took control of a popular page on Reddit (R/AskReddit) because a user-admin quit due to said Admin not doing her job then did a horrible job the hatred was ridiculous. Almost every post on the frontpage of Reddit was something attacking her, just in different ways and got to the point where anything involving her being attacked was sent to the frontpage. This is problematic because the frontpage is supposed to be for the “best” content, but here it was just any content that involved hating Ellen Pao.

 Reddit is a great example of things that McLuhan talks about, but I feel like oftentimes especially in the sense of the “Global Village” they are usually regarded as a good thing. I think in Reddit we can see that there are exceptions to these topics leading to only good changes.

 References

McLuhan, Marshall, Quentin Fiore, and Jerome Agel. The Medium Is the Massage. New York: Bantam, 1967. Web. 3 Sept. 2015.

[writingtechnogenesis]

Blog Post 15 - Tyler Whitlock

I am someone who does not blog often, though I do frequently read blogs posted by others because I enjoy reading their thoughts on specialized topics. These topics often involve player blogs by League of Legends players and other gaming personas because they tend to understand domains far better than someone who is inexperienced can. They do something at a very high level – whether that be playing a game or analyzing aspects of the game. These blogs have quite a few key components that are useful to the experience and make it better for me. Tumblr has some of these key components but not others, so I’ll be talking about that with my experience.

One thing most of the blogs have is something that explains who the author is at the very top. It’s usually below the title in a distinct place, but for that site/format it’s always in that same place. This is very nice because I can quickly see who wrote it. Tumblr unfortunately does not have this feature if you are posting onto a page like our class has been. This can lead to some people posting their names in the post body (difficult to find unless I view the entirety of the text, which can be irrelevant unless it’s written by the person I’m looking for) or in the top of the post. The problem with writing it in the top of the post (aka the title) is that it doesn’t seem to stand out, and to a lesser degree detracts from the title. This is a smaller issue if the name is in the body, but it still detracts from the aesthetics.

Which brings me to the next point of a blog – aesthetics. Now, aesthetics aren’t exactly one of the biggest parts of a blog but they are crucial. A good blog in my opinion should have a minimalist aesthetic, but more importantly needs to have a theme/color scheme that makes reading the text easy and allows you to highlight certain portions of the text (author, title, body) distinctly and quickly. The blog for our class does a moderately good job of this but I sincerely wish there was a spot where it automatically filled in the author/poster’s name. On the left side of the posts, there is an icon of the page and then another icon. This secondary icon is the icon of the poster, and if you hover over it then it displays the name of the poster. I suppose this might be a decent option if the majority of the class had changed their default icons, but since we haven’t I find it very difficult to see any differences between the majority of the posts. Even still, someone’s icon may not meaningfully represents their name so I would still need to hover over it to figure out their name. I understand that this is a conscious choice Tumblr made for their design, but I can’t help to disagree with it. Then again, perhaps Tumblr just wasn’t the best choice for our class to use.

I personally think it would have been somewhat easier if instead of having a class tumblr, we just all posted onto our own pages and sent an email with our link to the professor or all of the blogs could just be checked. This would represent a typical blog a bit better and maybe even allow me to search someone’s blog a bit better. You could also gather a more wholistic view of the person by being able to quickly (or carefully) read all of their posts in one area. It could also be checked at the end of the course quickly because there are timestamps on each post by clicking the top-right corner. Somewhat unintuitive, but it works and fits their aesthetic I suppose.

[writingtechnogenesis]

I took a picture of some plants that I found outside of the department of art. The two most prominently seen plants are some form of bluegrass on the left-center as well as some buttercups I believe on the right center of the picture. I believe it is appropriate to call it natural but with some caveats. These plants were of course planted by someone at Ohio State. I am not sure about if the particular form of bluegrass is native or not (but I do feel like I’ve seen it around before) but I’m leaning towards yes.  Buttercups can definitely be seen in many other parts of Ohio so I think they pass that test as well. So the plants are definitely real and not fake, and probably native but they did not naturally get there. In my opinion that still counts as natural though.

Something that is natural does not have to be wild though. Whereas conversely if something is wild, I think it is almost always natural. Wild plants and animals are definitely natural whereas the only way I could see that not being true is if it was a very different species than normal for that area.  This plant does still have an agency, and can affect the area around us. It helps to give us oxygen and is an integral part of the environment for that reason. It also can affect its immediate environment by proliferating and spreading, even if those efforts may often be thwarted by Ohio State’s gardening squad.

I think this example does fit into an anthropocentric category because we specifically put it somewhere, so we clearly gave it value. That means it would fit into the useful/domestic category of plants, because we believe it to have use in that it gives the environment a bit more color and helps the buildings and the square the plants are in to look nicer. I don’t think that this animal or plant has done too much to adapt to human dominated environments, at least not the specific plant in the picture. It is very hard for that to happen because humans can control a plant so well due to a strong understanding of its reproduction abilities.

I think there have probably been a lot of human projects shaped by the presence of these plants. Being near the art building a lot of artists are constantly looking for inspiration on paintings, projects, and other works of art. I can’t guarantee it but I know whenever I’m looking to create a work of art I use the environment for inspiration, and these plants being so close would be a quick source of inspiration that does make sense in a lot of ways to use.

So, in conclusion despite these plants being planted in this location I think they have enough pros to be considered natural and that despite them being planted they still have had an effect on their surroundings and helped shape things. As human life continues to exponentially increase the number of pure wild plants not shaped by people will continue to decrease, but we still need to remember these plants have meaning and are useful even if they are placed by people. Blog Post 14 - Tyler Whitlock

[writingtechnogenesis]

Blog Post 15

Going into this semester I was unsure of this class. Writing classes are something I dread. It is not something I personally enjoy and I only chose the class because it seemed to touch on technology which I enjoy. No classes really wowed me. Over the course of the semester however, I came to enjoy this class. I think Seth has done a good job on finding a lot of different topics and ways to discuss a lot of things in society and the world in general. I think the discussions have been great and those seemed to translate into people’s blog posts. Everyone has also been very civil with discussions. I cannot recall a time when people fought out their viewpoints. You either added onto and agreed or you respectfully stated your own opinion and gave some reasons for why. Those opinions and the general topics discussed in class translated into people’s blog posts. On the topic of Hufford and spirits and other visionary experiences I myself used topics I discussed in class in my blog post to state my opinion and view and I read Amanda’s post on the topic and found she also found some use for that information in her own blog post. I think the use of Tumblr for our class has been a good tool every week. It allows everyone to take the week’s discussions and people’s viewpoints and expand on them in agreement or disagreement in their blog post. I think this has been useful. I have not read many people’s posts over the course of the semester but I sometimes have skimmed over other’s posts to either see how they were writing their post or what they may have been writing about. I think the nice part about Tumblr is that since it is a popular blogging site it has a lot of useful tools for people to really change or expand upon their writing if they so wished with pictures. The format is also very well done I think. Tags make it easy to search for certain topics if you so wish to. I also think it is nice to have all of our post’s in one location and available to the public if they wish to actually read them. At least for me it made me more self-aware of what I was writing and if I should write something or not. Most of the time I went ahead and shared my thoughts anyway because the chances of people actually reading my posts are slim and I wanted to be as true to my opinions as possible. I think that being able to share exactly what you think is a good thing. I think one ineffective part of tumblr is the format in which you scroll through one post at a time. There may be a way to change that but the site while accessible and providing plenty of tools I find myself a little overwhelmed. Like whenever I leave the technogenesis group page I am unsure how to get back to the specific group page and so I had to bookmark the technogenesis Tumblr page in order to access it every week for my post. Overall, I like the decision to use Tumblr, especially because I was able to use a social media site I most likely would never have touched before. I mainly use Reddit and the general perception of Tumblr users over there is not great, I have not used this site much outside of this class’ purpose so I cannot agree, but I am sure this site has some great users and some really great people with great ideas. It is an effective medium for communication.

Alex Speelman

[writingtechnogenesis]

Blog Post 13

I think that overall I agree with Hufford’s statement about staying in between on the matter of spirits and supernatural occurences. There is no reason to fully believe in them yet but also no reason to say they are not real and do not occur. Many people are nonbelievers until it occurs to them and usually such experiences are personal and not witnessed or felt by multiple people, though as in our discussion in class some people may both see the same figure on the ladder of their trampoline for example. Those kind of stories make me very much believe that there is some sort of supernatural events that occur and we cannot explain no matter how much we would like to try. And there are others that also make me believe as well and I will get to those in a moment. I myself have never had any sort of experience. I think most of my experiences were fear induced and psychological based off of me being afraid and looking for scary things to pop out at me after watching a very scary movie. One such experience was when I was young enough to still be in a crib. I know that you would think, how do you remember such an event at such a young age, but I think the general shock of fear and how real it seemed have allowed me to remember it. I know one night I was watching a Simpsons episode and in the episode there was this cowboy that killed Homer and everyone else on the plane. Later that night, after already falling asleep I either had a dream or I woke up in the middle of the night, but either way the vivid image of this cowboy person jumped up from beside my crib and yelled at me and then shot at me. The reason I know this happened is because I started yelling out for my parents in the next room over and they came in very worried and asking what was happening. Again, unless spirits can sense a fear and change their shape to match that fear, and also do evil acts, then I believe that this was more of a psychological event than a real spiritual event. Besides that one event I cannot recall any other significant events that truly made me think there was something else going on. Other people’s events as well as historical items have made me at least think that the supernatural and a higher power (be it God, or any other deities or beings) exist. The first is a book called Heaven is for Real where a young boy has a near death experience and comes across information that he never learned and never would have known but somehow possessed. This boy describes his mother’s miscarriage child who would have been his brother, the name he would have been given, what he looked like. He also saw his great grandfather and Jesus as well as other family members. All of these people he was able to describe. He described to his father what his grandfather had looked like at age 20, nailing it on the head, even though he had never seen any pictures of him at that age. He found a picture of Jesus which was drawn by a young girl across the country on the internet and immediately pointed to the picture describing it as what Jesus looked like. This follows what Hufford stated about what others experience with near-death events, it is very hard to say that it is all made up when the child learned so much that he never knew before. Another Christian example (there are examples in other cultures and religions as well) is the Our Lady of Guadalupe. The image of the Virgin Mary placed onto a cactus fiber poncho in Mexico. It defies science in several ways, first the poncho was made in the 1500s. Cactus fiber does not last that long, 20 years is the average. Second the image of Mary is not directly attached to the fibers of the poncho, the image seems to be almost hovering above the fibers and has been tested by several scientists including a Nobel winning scientist in chemistry. Other scientist have looked at the image itself and have stated that for the time the resolution or detail of the image is above anything possible at the time. These sort of supernatural events and items make me think that there is a supernatural world that exists but I also am still skeptical until science can latch on to something or I have my own experience.

Alex Speelman

[writingtechnogenesis]

Blog Post 12

I think the concept or race and racism is slowly moving away, at least I think it is. Moving away from the idea of race being biological I think that race is more based off of culture and how that person behaves. Though I will agree skin color also plays into us labeling someone as a certain culture when the case could be far from the truth. I can think of a few examples of this. A black man can be from the United Kingdom but if in America most people will think he follows American black culture, the ghetto or rap styles (generalizing, not all black males are like this but it is the stereotype). This black man from the United Kingdom could dress similar to black Americans but behave entirely different. As soon as you see his behavior you may change your attitude towards him. Same with a white male, you may have certain assumptions about him but as soon as you hear he is from Australia or some other foreign country your perception changes. I think that because of these reasons race should only be used as a tool to help identify someone. There should be no issues with saying “yea that black guy is really good at that sport”. No one should have a problem with someone because of their skin color. That does not make sense. If Jesus or any other religious figure turned out to be a different skin color than what people thought would they instantly just turn him away and not accept him? That is not right at all. People should be judged based on their actions and behavior. That is what I always strive to do. To make sure I give everyone a fair chance to impress me with their abilities and manners. Those are the people I want to be around. Just because I am a white male does not mean I have some sort of connection and brotherhood with all other white males. I judge them the same as everyone else, I am not a fan of the stereotypical “white trash” just like everyone else. People who cannot take care of themselves and display horrible manners I will not like, even if they are white. So in a way I think that we should eliminate racial classification because it is not a good way to judge a person. I think we need to classify people based on their culture and their manners. And when I say culture I look towards the good parts of a culture. You could think of Islam or Middle Eastern culture and most people will instantly think of terrorists in America. That is a very small minority and those peoples manners even in their own culture are rude. Most people are very kind and peaceful. I think the problem with becoming totally and fully racially blind is that we gain peace among people (hopefully) but we also most likely lose a lot of cultures that are amazing and allow the world a great diversity of ideas and ways of life. The world would become bland I think without people having differences. It is a very hard topic to talk about and really figure out and I am sure I am probably not the best or most qualified person to talk about it.

-Alex Speelman

[writingtechnogenesis]

“Game-time decision” - Blog Post 11

I’ll be considering the phrase “Game-time decision” for this blog post. While I’m not entirely convinced philosophically that this is a meme I’ll still be analyzing it as Dawkins would classify it as a meme. The phrase is also usually used as part of a longer statement like “I’ll make a game-time decision.” I believe it’s mainly prevalent in college students, and potentially then even only in certain colleges.

I believe this meme/meme complex replicates from one person to another. It mainly does this through people simply hearing it, and then those people decide to use it themselves. So it moves directly from person to person. I think part of this reason is because the phrase itself is a way to basically say that you haven’t decided yet while not appearing like you’re hesitant to make a decision or indecisive. Society currently is one in which being indecisive is, in my opinion, considered a negative trait. We’ve been conditioned to try and not associate ourselves with negative traits for various reasons but mainly because it hurts our image to others which in turn can hurt our friendships and or romantic options.

The phrase “Game-time decision” works perfectly because it does not give off that you are indecisive. You can confidently say the phrase and it comes off like you have made a decision. Your decision is to follow the “game-time decision” which actually just means you’re going to do whatever you want at the last possible minute when you need to decide. This is one of the reasons why this phrase has such good longevity and fecundity. The phrase has good longevity because it’s used for a very good reason, and it also sounds good whenever you say it. In order for a phrase to become popular in the college world it needs to sound cool whenever you say it, be funny, or your friends need to keep using it so it makes you want to use it. So far so good for the “Game-time decision.”

In terms of Fecundity, I believe this phrase does have good fecundity because I’ve seen multiple people quickly start using it after hearing it once. In that way it is quite quick to reproduce. However, it may be a bit limited because not everyone needs to use this phrase and it is unlikely to often be used among non-college friends because they won’t understand it very well.

The phrase also has good copying fidelity because it’s unique and not a difficult phrase to remember or say which leads to there being less errors in recognizing/hearing it. Since this phrase mainly circulates via people directly talking to each-other than the biggest ways it could be messed up are due to hearing it incorrectly. You can’t eliminate some base level of people barely being able to hear it and mess it up, but it is much more simple than some other phrases which will help it’s copying fidelity.

The phrase could be circulated via computer as well, but I think it has a better ring in person and thus will mostly be used there or in communication between friends who are already used to the phrase.

- Tyler Whitlock

[writingtechnogenesis]

Blog Post 11

 Two memes, or at least my ideas of what memes are include the company Apple and politics in general. I will start off with Apple because they are a solid idea of what a successful replicating meme is. Apple has found the golden sweet spot of what any company could ever hope to be. They have followers who praise the ground they walk upon and buy every product they release and state how amazing and revolutionary it is when in fact other companies have done the same things better and earlier. Apple has become such a successful meme that represents quality, lifestyle, position in society, being cool and so on. Most people once engaged into the apple ecosystem will most likely stay withing the ecosystem and slowly start replacing all of their products with their Apple equivalents; whether it is iPhones, Macs, Macbooks, iWatch, the list goes on. And as I said before people want to so much justify their decision to go with Apple that they raise them up and see no faults as they dismiss other companies. The meme has successfully replicated and attached itself to its host. That host will most likely keep defending Apple while trying to push Apple onto others, either aggressively or passively. Examples of this meme influencing people can be seen with products such as the iPad Pro with the Pencil. When that product was revealed a few months ago, people praised it and said it was amazing. Like they have never seen something like it before, when Microsoft had released 3 years ago the Microsoft Surface with their own stylus that actually has more functionality and better price as well. People dismissed this. The meme clogs their minds. Apple has nailed the meme and gained valuable followers. I do not have a problem with Apple products, they are great products but their price is unjustified for each product and people defend Apple still. I believe last year or just half of this year alone Apple’s smart phone profit margin accounted for more than 90% of all profits in the world. 90% profits means the costs to develop the phone, make the phone, market the phone is 10% of the cost of each phone. There is no reason for this and it is absurd people just accept it.

Now that I am done with Apple, politics is another memefield. Democrats and Republicans are all guilty of using memes to gains voters and followers. Donald Trump using a meme for the removal of illegal immigrants is one example. Ben Carson using memes related to Christianity is another popular one in order to gain voters who are like-minded and where the idea of Christianity spreads is another example of a meme. However, and I am an example of a follower of this meme is the one that Bernie Sanders uses, the idea of being a regular guy who wants to fix politics. Many people had this idea and now with Bernie Sanders at the center of this meme it is replicating very quickly. It is a very successful meme that, as I said even I fell to. It uses communication between people in person, reddit and the rest of the internet, as well as social media. It has so many ways of replicating and is trying its hardest to replicate itself using television but cable companies are resisting the meme and trying to force their own memes of Hillary Clinton, Ben Carson, and so on.

-Alex Speelman