Yeah, I'm 6'2, From LA and Have a Mercedes, So What?

    Obviously thats not me.  But, what if I said that was?  What if I modeled my own little reality into making the image of that be what others perceive as my life?  WIth the way people are able to make avatars on the internet, we can produce an image that we want others to believe is us, who we really are, and what we are.
   Brad Paisley's song Online sums up the topic perfectly.  The video is even better.  If I'm some dweeb living in my parent's basement, I can create an internet profile that says I'm more than that; Im a model, an athlete, a musician, famous, rich, the world's most interesting man.  And if I back that up with information, faux facts and tidbit along with pictures or stories, would people believe me?  Ironically enough, when people make an online avatar, the adage of dress to impress or first impressions count, really do matter.  When you look at someone for the first time, or their avatar, you immediately judge them and make a note to yourself what qualities you think they have, or, if you investigate the person, what you think of their qualities.  And what happens if that person isnt who they say they are, and are in fact the total opposite?  In that case, the avatar has won the challenge; the person's avatar has successfully fooled you into believing that that person was at first something they werent.  The avatar is what we want people to believe when they first see us, truthful or not.
    Me personally, I prefer the honest avatar.  I model it after myself, usually with a backwards cap, some musical instrument or gaming system in the image, likewise jeans and converse are a neccesity.  That sums me up, a laid-back, musical gamer.  However not everyone is so open and honest with what they show as the real "them."  The song Online says exactly that, that people will say and do anything in their avatars to make friends, impress people, among al sorts of other things.  Avatars have allowed us to either hide behind lies after lies, or be simple and truthful about ourselves.
    In short, today's world is dominated by avatars, some honest and others not.  Avatars allow us to mislead or invite others to an image that can be a fallacy or the real us.  The creator of the avatar is the one who should be judged, not the avatar itself; that creator is honest or deceitful, you be the judge of him.

My Best-cyber-Friend

    The internet has unlocked a new potential for how people interact.  Relationships can be maintained from thousands of miles away, and people who have never met before can speak to each other cleanly and clearly as if they were in each other's very living rooms.  But how and why is this mass communication possible?  Social networking, the internet, media, and all other sorts of contact between total strangers or the closest of friends has revolutionized how people build and develop relationships.
    For example, this past summer there was a Facebook group created for the entering Clemson freshman class.  The Clemson University Class of 2015 Facebook page, open to any and all entering freshmen.  It started from a humble beginning; people joined in slowly, trickling in at first.  I joined it at that stage when it was roughly 200 something members.  I've been able to watch this group explode from 200 members to over 2000 members now.  We have been able to make new friends from across the country, different nations even, so much that now we can run into someone randomly on campus and realize that we've already been friends online long before we've met in person.  Some of my best friends here at school, I "met" online before I met there in person.  Even now, this group of people has evolved to meet our changing environment.
   We began as a networking group, getting to know people who were deciding and finalizing Clemson as their school of choice.  Over time, it became a group asking who was from what state or country, what they wanted as their major.  Then it became a discussion on who was going to what orientation and what schedules people had constructed.  Overall, there was always that one guy who had the answer to every question possible (cough, Pierre, cough).  People networked, connected, built bridges in a cyber web that have lasted to even now.  This group has connected us in so many ways, I'm actually very grateful to have it because without it I wouldnt have some of the friends I have today.
    Society is a place that doesnt have to exist in the real world; the electronic one seems to suit many people just fine.  Things like Facebook have allowed us to communicate and get to know total strangers who have so much in common with each other.  After all, our best friends today live in our phones and computers as much as they do in their dorm rooms.

My Latest Verbal Spill

Interesting word choice: spill.  But that's exactly was it was, a spill of words.  This latest essay, our first major grade and giant essay was a spill of words, a stream of consciousness.  Not once in the writing process did I stop for more than a few minutes to regroup and edit my work as I went.  As a whole I enjoyed the paper because it allowed me to really get into my own flow of writing.  After asking a few friends and family to read it, it seems that I've developed my own characteristic style, and this is one of the most clear epitomes of how I work.  And that's a good thing, to me it is anyways.  I think that this was a good assignment because we could take it in any direction we wanted, so long as we stuck with the general idea of rhetoric and worked with the ad.  For my ad, it let me work with my newfound appreciation for the value of a Mac computer, and that the money invested in it is just that, an investment.  I'm more happy with this computer than anything I've ever bought for myself, and that includes all the guitars and saxophones I've used over the years (an fyi, thats a lot).   Overall, I liked this assignment, just as much as I've enjoyed doing these blogs.  I was able to be creative, and maintain my own stylistic touch.

Reclaiming the Idea of Beauty

   For many of us, a long time ago would only be thinking back so far as the early 2000's; if you can remember as far back as that ancient era, then you'd recall the anorexia trend that engulfed Hollywood.  Everyone was obsessed with being skinny, the skinniest, no matter how detrimental to their health it was.  Few dared stand up to those killing themselves in the name of beauty; one brave company however did.  In 2005 Dove created its "Campaign for Real Beauty," an effort to show that real women had real beauty, and didn't have to torture their minds and bodies to reach some unnatural physical state.  

   With a tagline like "Real Women have Real Curves," Dove sought to explore reality and promote the idea that the image of beauty is what the beholder makes it, not some airbrushed, stripped down, malnourished shell of a human.  Dove recruited real, everyday women, and created a slew of ads to promote the image of real beauty as what's really seen in everyday life.  Those working at Dove knew through research and even just looking at women of the world, that the frenzy to continue getting smaller and smaller was nothing short of extremely dangerous.  Susan Orbach's essay further explored the backing for the necessity of some intervention on behalf of women everywhere.  From as young as adolescence, girls to grown women felt imperfect, flawed, and thought they needed to change themselves in order to be beautiful.  Eating disorders became epidemics that seriously harmed women everywhere in their pursuit to make themselves this unnatural "beauty."  Dove's mission then became not only helping save these girls and women from a terrible fate, but also fixe their psyche so that future generations could come and go without having to fear for their health or self esteem.  I personally commend Dove for its actions; women don't need to feel pressured into feeling any less than what they are.  Real beauty, like the old adage, is not just skin deep, but in the eyes of the beholder.  If a woman feels beautiful, then in her eyes she is beautiful, and doesn't need to have that image of herself challenged by others.  

   Remind me to personally send Dove a Thank You card on behalf of all the guys in the world, because they were able to reach women in a way that we've been trying to do for forever now, to tell them that as a woman she doesn't need to go out of their way to be beautiful, just be who she really is.

A Little Piece of Ourselves

   Admit it: at some point in time you've fallen prey to Keyboard Cat.  David after the Dentist, "LEAVE BRITTENY ALONE!" and "Is it a good idea to Microwave this?" are just some of the things we waste countless hours on over the course of our days when we surf the web and inevitably end up on Youtube.  But why, of all things, do we watch these videos over something like a physics demonstration, or a public service announcement by an environmental group?
   To quote Michael Strangelove, "we watch them because we see in them a little bit of ourselves."  We all have an inner-child, and that child is devious and destructive, so why not throw a random object in the microwave oven and see what happens?  Even the amusement of seeing a cat manipulated to play a keyboard, thats something that we as a group relate to for the comedic effect.  People love a good laugh, so we drift towards the exotic, insane, the humorous,and the bizarre. It catches our attention; and in doing so, we see a little of our own humanity in those videos.  We like to play with our animals and make them do silly things, and we've all been loopy on medicine after a visit to the dentist.  It's in reality us that we see in those videos.
   Like Strangelove said, the videos shows our past and present, our triumphs and tragedies; they embody physical aspects of our ethereal selves, something not exactly tangible that we can then see made real.  While Youtube is a treasure trove of humor and knowledge, it can be seen in a more in-depth sense as a mirror of ourselves, seeing who we are and what we are: cats who play the keyboard.

Through the 12 Megapixel, High Definition, 4G Looking-glass

   Though perceived by all of us differently, there is no set definition of reality that everyone can agree to.  There's the dictionary definition, but what is said in print can often be drastically different than what is seen through pictures. In today's networked world, reality from across the globe is as real to us as events happening in our own back yards, and while technology has advanced, the subjects in the pictures have remained unchanged, even if they're not 100% honest.
   Even the older generations of today's society are discovering the new reality of what this digital age of photography, networking, and sharing really is.  Today's reality is as much digital as it is tangible, something seen and unseen.  So how does one explore the world through something as mundane as taking another glance at what's already there?
   Much like the old Lewis Carroll stories of Alice, today's society has to look deeper into what is present, and see a new world in the already existing one.  In this, we travel through the looking-glass, however modified, electrified and modernized it has become.  We reflect on what we see in the world, and experience it new ways, once we let go of old perspectives.  This new slant on the world allows us, like Alice, to make our own world, our own reality.  Taking what is already present, this technological society is able to shape, touch-up, enhance, distort, mod, and otherwise change the very reality once known, and present it as a new idea, a new reality.  In our attempt to recreate a custom world, we sometimes go against what is considered the "norm" of society.  Even such popular television shows like Mythbusters utilize that same mentality, of creating our on worlds;  one of the hosts, Adam Savage, is known for his catchphrase, "I reject your reality, and substitute my own!"

   Aside from nonconformity however, the other side of today's world is that what we see, when we create our own world or look at the reality already present, isn't always the smiling and happy picture being displayed.  Oftentimes we only capture the images of those better moments.  As the reading said, a good example of this blissful ignorance of negativity can be found in children.  We see kids today, at ages as soon as they can talk, already demanding their wants.  They scream, they shout, they argue for what they think is theirs, even though they can hardly form a complete sentence.  But why is it that the older generation looks down upon this, and woefully reminisces about the bygone days when children were nicer and the world a lot less serious place?
   Truth be told, we only make a point to remember the good times.  The old VHS home movies?  Or, (egads!) that old relic, the photo slide projector?  These antiques of a long gone day documented our world long before our reliance on wifi and cell signals rivaled that of our necessity for oxygen.  But look at what's contained in the slides and film, and you see smiling faces, laughs and good times with family and friends.  Even the tools of the days before us, we  made a point to remember the good times.  Every kid has his good days as much as his bad days; we're human, we're good and bad.  Now with our Crackberries, our iEverythngs, and Wifi/3G/4G/Broadband connections, we do just the same as the forerunners of this technology.  And while we may have the physical documentation of the good times, sometimes what the real world truly is just can't escape us.
   On a darker, briefer point, we near the 10th anniversary of the World Trade Center bombings from 2001.  That day lives clean and clear in the memories of scores of millions of Americans.  Memory is a fine storage space, but even then, sometimes the mind fails us and we rely on our cameras to ensure we've kept evidence of the truth.  Unlike the photographed world we see elsewhere, this was one of the few times in American history that pictures weren't just something taken for a hobby; at that time and place, photographs were a necessity.  (DISCLAIMER: Due to the unsettling nature of the photos, only the links will be posted). http://www.theage.com.au/ffximage/2006/08/30/FallingMan_060829015536020_wideweb__300x430.jpg , http://channel.nationalgeographic.com/staticfiles/NGC/StaticFiles/Images/Show/28xx/281x/2810_inside911_zero_hour-1_04700300.jpg
   Our digital society may be user created, edited, and published, the world isn't the beautiful smiling gem that we as a society have polished it out to be.  Look at the Facebook profile of any student, you'll see them with friends, or a fond memory of some nature.  We simply choose to see what we want to see, whether its the "real" reality or not.