Writing In & For Digital Environments

Tabletop games are defined as, “any game with cards, dice, tiles, or boards that are usually played on a table or other flat surfaces”. while I have not had an experiences in role-playing games (though I’d like to try one if I ever get the chance), I have been a fan of card games and board games of all kinds. While Texas Hold’em and Poker are classics, card games also includes the collectible card game Magic: The Gathering and Munchkins. Board games are more than just Sorry and Life, they can be as complex and rich as Lords Of Waterdeep, Diplomacy, and Dominion. These are only just a few of my favorite games that I try to play regularly. In fact, I’ve probably yet to play even a small fraction of the best tabletop games ever made. I intend to change that with my friends at the Dickinson Game Club and the other game groups I meet. For a blog about tabletop gaming, I’d like to share more information about the games I love and create reviews with my friends with the games I want to try.  

To be honest, I do not usually look up blogs for information on  tabletop games beside Magic: The Gathering,  but here are some examples of Site Blogs and Youtube Channel Podcasts (which as sort of like blogs):

Channelfireball.com:

A Site about competitive level Magic: The Gathering. Each article on Channel Fireball is written by different writers who are almost all dedicated competitive Magic players. Article topics include popular deck archetypes, thoughts on different formats of Magic, and ideas about the game in general. One of my favorite articles recently was how the game is helping schools in different ways. One inventive function that sets the site apart from others is its individual card-selling store, which is connected to the articles. See a Magic deck you like talked about in an article? One click and every card in that deck is in your shopping cart. While I’ve never personally done this, I admire the way Channel Fireball has made it easy for both new and experienced players to get a strong deck of cards. This site is pretty overwhelming to a beginner, but to an experienced player, Channel Fireball has some of the most detailed analysis of the game at their fingertips.

Loadingreadyrun.com:

A comedy troupe and video production studio, that has made videos about card and board games such as Magic: The Gathering. Started in 2003, the studio was founded by Graham Stark and Paul Saunders, but has since included many other crew members. Personally, I have mostly watched their variety of videos on Youtube. They make both skits and podcasts about news and events in Magic and other games and media. Like other videogame skit studios, they have done a fantastic job having a dialogue with their audience and staying current.

Reddit/r/boardgames and Reddit/r/tabletop
A subreddit about boardgames. Reddit, as they define themselves on their site, is, “a type of online community where users vote on content”. They have a number of interest-themed forums which are filled with user-generated opinions and stories. I occasionally use their tabletop  and board games boards to find new content, but I have not made an account to partake in their community.

After contemplating writing about a photography/travel blog, I changed my mind when I brought my (American) boyfriend to meet my extended family and come with me to a traditional Russian wedding last weekend. When I saw how amused and entertained he was by all of the “russian-ness” of the night, I knew this was what I wanted to write about.

I want to write about being raised in a Russian family and environment and all the challenges I’ve faced being first generation of my family in America. I also want to touch upon all of the cultural differences I’ve become so accustomed to and forget are so different than all my other American friends.

I chose this idea for my blog because I love my Russian roots. Both of my parents came to America in their late teens and built their futures here. They raised my sister and I with Russian as our first language and lots of Russian culture including food, music, and much more. There are so many experiences and aspects of my life that may seem so foreign and strange to others that I have always been surrounded by and never expressed or realized. These would be the topics for my posts; including: eating exotic food, going to Russian night clubs with our parents since the age of 8 or 9, having the smelliest/weirdest lunch at school, pronouncing words wrong, having parents who sound like Borat, and much more. I feel like I can target my audience to people like myself and also my friends who aren’t Russian. I’ll do so by telling these stories in a funny but also truthful way to show how awesome it is to be raised in a Russian family.

(Tweets from #growinguprussian. These are things I think are totally normal but are a bit strange to most people…)

There are many other people doing similar blogs to this; such as Russians Anonymous, and Garik Suharik. However my blog will be very different and add to the conversation in a positive way. Russians Anonymous has great titles and stories that I can relate to, but I want to make them more personal and add more of a better design to the page. I would have it be cleaner andd putting videos, pictures, and personal media with each story rather than GIF’s. I also love and follow Garik Suharik because he is hysterical and targets the same audience I  want to, but he only does so through pictures and videos and very little text. I want to use the same tone and voice as his videos to get across my humor. I also want to model my blog after Humans of New York and have a personal photograph with each story which will show how relatable each post will be.

Immigrants be like 😂😂 #yana #craycray

A video posted by Garik Suharik (@gariksuharik) that shows the humor I want mirror.

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I look forward to channeling my Russian roots and expressing all of the crazy, fun, and some could say strange experiences I’ve encountered by being a first generation kid here in America. This will really help me understand how my culture has shaped me and also allow me to express how much I love where I come in a fun and expressive way.

http://www.humansofnewyork.com

https://twitter.com/beingrussian

https://instagram.com/gariksuharik/

http://www.russiansanonymous.com

I thought for a really long time on what I wanted to write my blog on; and I really do mean a long time. I spent hours at my computer looking through blogs, promising myself I was being productive because this was for a class. I found a lot of amazing blogs and writers, and I had several ideas but couldn’t settle down on one. The thought that kept plaguing me was: “who is even going to care about what I’m writing? What’s the point?” I kept thinking of my blog in terms of what the cyber-world–however big or small that might be–would want to read. In an attempt at further procrastinating, I decided to take my mind off of it by watching a Harry Potter movie–a classic film choice for a 19 year old, sophomore girl, right? I then realized, as I was watching alone, that I had a lot to say about this movie but no one to say it to, and there hatched my idea.

My plan is to write a blog post in response to a movie for every blog assignment. Since I’m incredibly indecisive in nature (I’m not sure if that was made obvious or not in the previous paragraph), I’m having other people choose the movie I watch. I plan to ask my friends, family, professors, etc., what their favorite movies are and why. I’ll write a short blurb at the opening of my post explaining the choice and my relationship with the person choosing. I also plan to watch the movie with my two roommates to get two other perspectives and see how they differ from my own.

I want to write in a way that’s very raw and unfiltered, just my pure thoughts and takeaways from the movie without completely summarizing. I’ve gotten a lot of inspiration from Matt Bellassai’s “Whine About It” weekly vlog where he gets drunk off wine and “complains about stuff.” (Here’s one of his videos talking about college kids, which I deemed fitting for my college class).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RApiFNU9fvM

He talks about things that bother him personally, but other people like watching him and they relate to him; and so, my hope is to achieve something similar. Another blog that exemplifies this style pretty well is “Betches Love This.” Though almost everything on that blog makes me feel as though it’s a step back in the fight for gender equality, ending body shaming, promoting a healthy image for young girls, etc., the tone of voice is so honest, straightforward, and unapologetic. I’ll use this as an inspiration for my voice, but hopefully less mean and degrading.

I could not find any blogs that had done what I’m trying to do, which is both encouraging and intimidating. The closest thing I could find was “The Movie Guys.” They claim to write funny reviews, but I don’t think I laughed once reading them. This could probably be because I’m not their target audience, which made me question who my target audience will be. I’m not entirely sure yet and it might just be me and my roommates, but I’m okay with that for right now. You’ve got to start somewhere.

Everyone remembers their first YouTube video. I was introduced to YouTube around the same time Facebook was brought to my attention. I was in middle school and constantly decorating my Myspace wall. On a public computer, my classmates and I watched Back Dorm Boys’ rendition of Backstreet Boys’ I Want It That Way. Two goofy Asians lip synching the words to the popular tune, Wei Wei and Huang Yixin became instant classics. Them dressed in Houston Rocket jerseys and Adidas headbands will forever be my first impression of online music video entertainment. I remember the laughter from the classroom where I learned about the amazing world wide web. Not only did I realize that computer gaming was better with other online players, but I soon discovered how much better Facebook was than Myspace. Fast forward to high school when Facebook dominated the online social scene. Instant messaging on AIM soon became obsolete. Facebook was the most genuine and professional way to talk to someone in secrecy. In high school, a thumb drive was considered high-tech and misplacing it was scary for any student. Technology has progressed so vastly over the past dozen years that I even remember using a floppy disk drive to save my eighth grade social studies presentation. Now, cloud computing is everywhere and accessible. I no longer worry about paying for Microsoft Office now that I am a full-time college student. The point is that everything is done online in the very moment from which I speak through the keyboard and monitor. I no longer log onto a PC without playing YouTube videos. In fact, when I leave my room without headphones and electronic devices I have an easier time reading on ink and paper. In those moments, I am well disciplined and in my element. When I do not have those moments of courage, I hide inside the comforting sounds of lyric videos and read from the digital screen. With so many distractions less than a blink away, I constantly balance my time online between Facebook and Moodle. When I want to feel alone in an ambient computer room, I check out headphones from the Circulation Desk and plug away into a Windows operating system. The profound impact YouTube now has on my life is irrefutable. I prefer it to Groove Shark, Pandora, iTunes, and Spotify. YouTube is free and ad-free for the most part. For this class blog, I would like to talk about the most recent cover video artists. I will focus on Asian male singers such as Sam Tsui and Jason Chen. I will compare their vocal and visual techniques in comparison to Boyce Avenue and Kurt Hugo Schneider. These four individuals have contributed to the magic of pop hit covers. They tour the world singing songs previously recorded and indoctrinated to mainstream listeners. The impact of these singers on my music experience is deep. Their interpretation of already popular songs help me understand them ever slightly differently. For this semester, I strive to praise their unwavering

devotion to sharing the joys of pop songs in my class blog. I shall demonstrate the ways these singers foster healthy masculinity and self expression. Lastly, I will continue to stay up-to-date with their latest projects and their next Millennial generation work. 

It was hard for me to come up with a topic which I knew about and I felt comfortable enough to create a blog about. When the suggestion of using my life as a sychronized figure skater came up, I knew I had my topic. I started looking at blogs of figure skating in general and there was a very limited amount, and even less in my type of skating. I decided this was the direction I wanted to head. I had found my blog.

For the past two years, going on to my third year, I have been a part of a synchronized skating team. This sport has taken over my life. My blog will be about what synchronized skating entails along with my team’s preparation for competitions and, in general, our life as a team.

My blog will also have pictures and videos of our team, our successes and even the fails will make it in. This will be from my perspective as a skater through lessons, team practices, and competitions.

Looking for blogs to inspire me was hard because I tried looking for skating blogs but there aren’t very many of them. I did find one called https://sarahonice.wordpress.com/ Her blog is about her life as an adult skater. I love the way that she has her blog set up, giving details about how her preparation for her tests are going and even how her lessons go. Overall, I like how her blog is set up as a whole.

I also like the layout of http://amateurtrigirl.blogspot.com/ ‘s blog. It’s a lot like Sarah’s layout in Sarah on ice. It’s structured well and very clean in the way that they have put their entries. Overall I like the way both of the blogs have put everything in an easy, approachable, and understandable way.

My goal overall is to inform those who don’t know about the synchro community and to give a perspective on the hard work and dedication it takes. I want to have many pictures and videos in my blog including the successes and failures we may have.

https://sarahonice.wordpress.com/

http://amateurtrigirl.blogspot.com/

I love stories. Telling them, listening to them, reading books, watching video blogs, nothing draws me in more than a good story. Story telling blogs are the kind of blogs I like, yes I’ll read other kinds of blogs from time to time but Hyperbole and a Half,  Story Time with John, and The Bloggess, they really draw me in and make me want to tell my stories.

For my blog I really want to share with the world the interesting, amusing and mostly “awkward in the moment but will get a laugh in retrospect” stories I have been getting myself into for most of my life. I am inspired to do this from Hyperbole and a Half, I love that blog and way Allie, the blogger, uses comics to tell stories but still writes a lot and just make it relatable. The Bloggess also inspires me because of her dark humor which I love. Story Time with John comes into play because his blog is exactly what it is called, story time. He just shares stories from his life and they can be quite entertaining. I like the way each of these blogs uses media differently and I plan to use a combination of these methods for my blog. The Bloggess uses pictures and videos whereas Hyperbole and a Half has these wonderful comics and Story time with John uses both pictures and gifs. The media and gifs will be easy to find through the creative commons, and I love to draw doodles on a sketching app on my ipad so I think I can find a nice balance to make my blog multimodel.

All in all I think my love for story sharing will make my blog authentic and hopefully humorous to others. I do have some stories already lined up and after discussing them with the people who are in them they are very excited to see how I tell them. I’m going to blog something I would want to read and if all else fails at least I know all my friends will read it too, even if only to see how their stories turn out!

Photo: John Steinbeck on Story-Telling….. by Jill Clardy

http://www.summitleaders.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/Kili-Large-Slider-900×435.jpg http://www.enjoyourholiday.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/Relaxing-SPA-Stowe-Vermont-5.jpg http://enofylzwineblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/santorini-greece-whichgreekislandcouk.jpg

I am fairly new to the blogging world, and did not read them before starting this class. But since then, I have done my fair share of research on what makes a great blog, and what I could blog about that was important to me. I found the travel and fashion blogs to be my favorite, but since I won’t be traveling in the near future a traditional travel blog would be difficult to do. So instead, I want to create a blog on where I have travelled to, including the different places I have lived, since they are vacation destinations. Two travel blogs that I really like are Earthxplorer and And North, as they incorporate photography into their posts as a large component. I think that when it comes to traveling, seeing what the places look like is just as important if not more important than reading about them. I want to incorporate my own pictures into my blog posts. I also want to designate a significant portion of my blogging to the town I am from and about what to do there if you were to visit.

When looking at different blogs, I found that the most appealing to me were ones with large pictures that drew you in, and then writing about the related images. While Classy Girls Wear Pearls is mostly images, with little writing, I like the layout of the blog and want to create mine in a similar style.

When looking back on my experiences traveling, I realize that a lot of my memories are very personal. I do want to write a little bit about this, but I want to focus my blog posts more about what I saw and did in the places I have been.

http://andnorth.com/

Homepage

http://www.earthxplorer.com/blog/

I plan for my blog to be a comical recollection of the absurd conversation I have with my grandmother and my grandfather. My grandma Ida (my mom’s mom) is a European  holocaust survivor and widow that loves nothing more than spending time with her family.

She is a wonderful women and a fantastic grandmother. There is just one issue. She can be impossible to get off the phone. For this blog, I will document our conversations on the phone and share her humorous stories.

My grandpa Bernie  (my dad’s dad)  is an 88  year old womanizer who tells me about his new girlfriends every time we talk. He works at a flea market, goes dancing throughout the week, and volunteers at a senior home. Yes, he really is 88.

I’m looking forward to being able to take notes of our absurd conversations and sharing with not only the class, but also with my family.

Funny is family is a  great reference for the type of blog I hope to create. The blog is designed really well with lots of colors and pictures. The blog combines important information for families, such as cooking recipes, to a relatable story about kindergardeners.

In my search for a good granny blog I came upon this hilarious blog about grandma fails. I really hope that my grandmother does not do anything compared to these lovely ladies, such as the grandmother that got arrested for DUI while wearing a bikini.

The blog is mostly images and videos but they pick great media to catch the viewers eye.

I want my blog to include many images of my grandparents and include some of my all time favorite stories of them.  The goal is to make people laugh and share the comedic relief my grandparents give me every time we see/talk to each other.

http://funnyisfamily.com

http://failblog.cheezburger.com/tag/grandma