Writing In & For Digital Environments

I would like to design a blog that is centered around what is going on in the Fifa community. For those who don’t know Electronic Arts make a video game called Fifa every year. Fifa 17 is a soccer game that sold 11.2 millions copies as of July 29th 2017. Not only is the game widely played around the world, there is also a large community that discusses the game. Many youtubers make a living each year posting footage of the game with a commentary over it. I would like to build a blog that focuses not only on the new additions each week to the game but the drama the popular fifa youtubers are creating.

The newest edition of Fifa is coming out September 29th and hopefully this will provide a lot of content for me to work with especially during the beginning of the game’s life cycle.

A blog that I would like to emulate is Bleacher Report. Bleacher Report is a great site that has articles on nearly every major sports team or competition. They have a great mix of longer form pieces, top 10 lists, opinion articles, and even articles centered around statistics. I think this would be a great blog to base mine off because it gives me freedom to discuss the different aspects of the Fifa community. Bleacher Report also has a comment section that allows fans to voice their opinions on each piece. Overall Bleacher Report is a great site for me to draw ideas about layout and content.

Another blog that inspires my work is Reddit. The Fifa subreddit is a thriving community of over 112,000 users who interact over a shared topic posted. After spending time in this subreddit you can get a sense on how the community is feeling about the game. I think my blog would essentially be an expansion of a Reddit post. An issue many people run into on Reddit is the confusing layout by having text only in the subject of each post. I would like to run images with the titles of my articles to help them standout.

The task of choosing a topic to write about for a semester? Daunting.

Do I write about the weather? Is this a space that I want to use for activism, career development, or reflection? Am I writing for myself with the intention of attracting an audience or am I writing for an audience from the gates? How many rhetorical questions are too many rhetorical questions?

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Well, not exactly. I do have some things.

After spending the afternoon looking at blogs that got my attention and talking with my friends about their lives, I realized that I am attracted to the lifestyle blog format. Specifically, Two Peaks, a blog written by two Dickinson Alums. They use their technological space to write about their transition into a more sustainable way of living, their love for each-other and the non-human world, and as a space to post appealing images of their lives. The minimalist style and the crispness of their images gives the appearance that their lives are together and the advice they have to offer is authentic.

I could do that! I say as I slop ramen onto my sweatshirt.

So, I like the platform of advice giving, “this is my life,” and the employment of images. I also fancy humor. Memes. Specifically, memes that are sarcastic. The blog McMansion Hell really captures my sense of humor, images overlaid with text, sarcasm, a strong authorial voice…analysis.

Alone in the library I had my blog writing epiphany.

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I’m an English major. I can  write about the experience of thesis writing and perform meme worthy close readings on my friend’s self proclaimed “poorly written awful poems” from high school. We all have them, so why not pull them and my close reading skills out from under the bed and turn them into a laugh?

I then spent some time exploring the field of “Thesis undergraduate blogs” and found a lot of creative writing blogs, and blogs that gave advice to seniors (or PhD chasers) who were struggling with their thesis. My preliminary search came back with a gap in the field. Where was the humor?

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After some brainstorming I have come up with this idea. “Revised Ravings,” is going to be a blog about being a senior English major, for seniors or peoples going through stressful projects. Along with a narration of the experience and advice for people struggling through the stresses, I am going to 1: perform awful close readings on famous writings and 2: perform close readings on the poems my friends submit. Additionally, there will be an Instagram account where I photograph books that I will be using for my thesis (maybe) and write humorous annotations as I stage them across campus. Through this platform I will let my audience know that– I AM HERE FOLLOW MY BLOG FOR MORE CONTENT.

People take themselves too seriously during the whole thesis writing process and if I can make someone laugh (or even myself), I want to deliver.

What’s it about?

I want my blog to be a reflection of myself. This concept appears rather simple, when in fact it’s the complete opposite. I want this blog to be a viewed as a platform where I can share my thoughts of various experiences that I’ve encountered and also give my perspective on events that relate to pop-culture. Ideally, the blog would showcase my interpretation of incidents one would see being the topic of conversation on their Twitter feed.

This blog will be composed with pieces that are equal parts for entertainment and educational purposes. The entertainment aspect of the blog would manifest in the form takes about issues occurring in the media (the release of a new series, or racial misrepresentation of a character within a Blockbuster franchise). Whereas the educational perspective will emerge from my social commentary and decision to contextualize the given issues in how they relate to social problems that are seemingly unnoticed by society today.

One blog, which I think achieves this rather well, is run by a British, Life & Beauty blogger known as THE SLUMFLOWER. Her blog address issues of beauty and mental stability overall by challenging conventional societal standards of beauty. She has an individualized and funny tone when tackling beauty standards – this allows readers to feel more comfortable with, and trusting of her.

What’s the aesthetic?

I know this is strange, but I would like my blog to look like what the  Buzzfeed‘s hilarious and entertaining podcast Another Round (with Heben and Tracy) sounds like. I want to be able to provide a Black Womanist commentary on race related topics, and matters pertaining to gender in an amusing way within the pop culture sphere.

I have also decided that regardless of what my final blog idea, I want the writing style to be rather informal and more personal. I believe that blogging with a formalized tone would not provide the idealized connection to the readers I feel is necessary for a great blog.

The answer make the best blog ever.

Image: Giphy

This is easier said than done, for weeks and weeks I have been struggling with deciding on what my class blog will be about. I knew that I wanted the blog to reflect who I am as a person and what my interests are. Thus, prompting me to write a lifestyle blog that will focus on my last year of college here at Dickinson. I believe that writing a blog about your life can be challenging and rewarding. Lifestyle blogs can be hard to do especially because when you are writing you have to consider who you want your audience to be and how you plan to keep them interested in the things you have to share. You can give readers insight into who you are, allowing yourself to really look at the things that make you, you. Readers will get to ride along on this journey with me and read about the highs and lows of my last fall semester. I want this blog to be relatable to all the college seniors worried about what lays ahead while enjoying the present. And not to worry images will be included, because like I said in my previous post image is everything.

Image: TheOdyssesy

Inspiration

Fashion, lifestyle, food and travel blogs are my favorite kind of blogs to keep up with. I get enough of the academic stuff in class, just kidding. One blog that I came across recently, in my search for ideas for my own blog, and enjoyed was a college guide blog called theswirlblog. The blog is co-authored by two best friends currently in college giving college advice, showcasing their style and other different aspects that make them who they are. What I like most about this blog is the design, they have great quality photos to go along with their blog posts. The blog layout is very organized, stylish, clean, lot of pictures, interactive and accessible. That is what I want for my blog. I want a blog that looks inviting enough for readers to stick around and discover what my blog is about. I would like for my blog to have the aesthetic of TheEveryGirlBlog and the humor and relatability of buzzfeed.

Stay tuned for what’s coming next!

Image: Tenor: Sharpay Evans Gif

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What to do, what to do for my blog? This is the question I’ve been wrestling with over these past few weeks since the start of this Writing in and for the Digital Environment class. And when I say wrestling, I mean WRESTLING. All students are required to create their own blog. However, I have no idea what I want my blog to be about. I could have my blog revolve around my areas of interests or majors. This would mean the blog would center around education policy or simply politics in general. If so, I do have some education blogs that I like and would aspire for my blog to emulate. For instance, Teach Junkie is a great site for educators as it provides teachers in the classroom with project ideas, room designs, activities, and other resources. This site is beautifully set up and easy to navigate. I could scroll for hours observing their interesting ideas, thinking if I would’ve been interested in them when I was younger and taking notes for future reference. The pictures they provide for each idea is helpful too.  Another blog that I like is Coolcatteacher. I am not so keen on the design of the blog, but the blog’s purpose is very clear. It also offers smart suggestions for teachers to follow in the classroom. The precision and purpose that these two blogs offer are what I want for my blog. I want my blog’s title and mission to relate. I want to design a blog where people automatically know what to anticipate when they click on it. I would love to have a blog where I could talk about anything that interested me but I believe you must find your audience before doing something like that. People must connect with you to want to listen to your opinions and actually care. People love a purpose and mission.  But also, it is a personal blog. Maybe it wouldn’t be a bad idea to blog about whatever interests me? Maybe I shouldn’t be so worried about what people would like? I just worry about being limited by doing one thing. I am more than my major or just one of my interests. Maybe I could combine two passions the way Racialicious does with combining the media and the problems people of color face within it? I don’t know. Now, do you see what I mean when I say I’ve been wrestling with ideas? Ugh.

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Although I don’t know what exactly I want my blog to be about yet. I have an idea of how I want it to look stylistically. I’m huge on colors, things that pop, and instantly grab attention.  I want the colors of my blog to mesh well and to be bright. I also want the format to be side to side like TeachJunkie. I even want to have a category section at the top of the site similar to ACupofJo to help readers navigate the different topics/ categories throughout the blog. The combination of these things would grab people’s attention, help them see a majority of the articles at once without having to scroll so long, as well as help them better navigate through the blog.  I want a blog that is visually appealing so that people come, but a blog that also has great content which should make them say. I’ll decide what that content will be soon, but until then I’ll continue thinking about the design and styles I enjoy.

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My current plan for my blog is to do a rundown of the current state of TV, possibly with a humorous spin if I am capable of being creative enough. One inspiration for this came from a blog called Reality Steve. While the author of this blog almost solely writes about reality TV and his blog is a little confusing he still writes with a sarcastic spin that is entertaining to read. I think writing my blog in a similar almost sarcastic style would be enjoyable both for me to write and for any potential readers to read. For my posts, I would like to give a sort of summary of what’s new, what’s big, and what’s doing well on TV at the current time or over the previous week. If possible, I think it would also be interesting to occasionally comment on what is currently “big TV” among Dickinsonians. I plan to do this by possibly interviewing professors and other students about what they think are great shows or programs and why. I believe this would be sort of an interesting spin on the TV blog because professors are obviously interested in what they are teaching, but I for one do not know much about what they could be interested in watching.

One major article that gave me the inspiration to write a TV blog was called Top 50 TV Blogs and Websites for Television Lovers. This article provided me with a lot of information about TV blogs and made me realize that TV blogs had a very free sort of writing style. They can be anywhere from very journalistic with a lot of data about ratings or discussions about the mise-en-scene of certain episodes to very humorous with authors making jokes about the acting or writing for certain TV shows. My intention for this blog is to write somewhere in the middle of these two styles. I would like to offer a blog that provides factual information about the state of TV while also offering somewhat humorous or entertaining opinions from myself and others about what they think of current TV. For example, I would like my posts to land somewhere in between more serious and journalistic pieces like The Current State Of TV Streaming – What We Can Expect From The Future  and more entertaining, slightly humorous pieces like in Reality Steve. By hopefully offering some sarcasm or humor to the state of TV and opinions on TV from college students and professors I hope my blog will be able to give readers the ability to learn about the state of TV while entertaining them.  After all, who doesn’t like a good TV show?

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Image: Open Clip Art

I am planning to have the overall concept of my blog to be about how different faiths play (or do not play) a role in millennials’ lives.  Each post would focus on a different religion or belief system and center around various interviews I conduct ahead of time.  The writing will include opinions of the specific belief system and how it is incorporated into peoples’ everyday lives.

Image: The Christian Post

Rather than focus on all of the components of various religions, I will focus more on its application within young lives today; however, I will add links referring readers to an outside source at the end of each post if they would like to read more about the details of the particular faith.

If the blog were to continue past “big-picture” posts related to different faiths, it can expand into specific relevant issues related to pop culture or politics, detailing how religions shape opinions, practices, and beliefs in connection to these specific topics.

Image: Politics Through Our Eyes

I think this project will be interesting in that it will not only illuminate aspects of different beliefs, but it will bring them into a modern context by displaying how young people apply them to an ever-evolving popular culture that seems to grow further away from core religious beliefs with every generation.

Since the blog will be focused on young, modern-day approaches to the practice of religion, I hope to make this somewhat dense topic appeal to a young adult audience through use of a light-hearted tone of writing, pop-culture references, and plenty of visuals.

An example of the sort of nature I would like to write is exemplified in the blog Lost With Purpose.  This site is in its essence a travel blog, but the sarcastic and humorous tone of the writing makes serious topics, such as advice on how to safely travel in a foreign village, more entertaining and easy to read.  Plus, there is a substantial take-away at the end of each post that is both educational and thought-provoking, unlike many other blogs such as Buzzfeed.

Although my site will feature the lifestyles and opinions of many other people, it will not be purely testimony, such as the popular blog Humans of New York.  Rather, it will combine important themes and quotes from the interviewees into a prose that will hopefully create a more wholesome take-away.

A Hole in the Conversation

There are thousands (potentially, millions) of study abroad blogs out there. They range from good writing to bad, from thoughtfully designed to basic Blogger themes, and from thoughtful insights to catalogs of pretty pictures. However, most of those study abroad blogs focus only on preparing for and living abroad. While there are a few articles on reverse-culture-shock from study abroad organizations or the tail-end of student blogs, there is a distinct lack of resources on transitioning home when compared to the abundance of writing on studying abroad. However, I believe that reverse culture-shock and difficult transitions home are becoming increasingly relevant, as reflected by growing collections of resources on sites like studyabroad.com and programs at our own Dickinson Wellness Center.

Filling the Gap

With my blog, I want to tell the missing story of what happens after studying abroad. When I returned home, I expected everything to feel like slipping on a well-worn pair of shoes, but instead it felt like breaking in brand new Converse (extremely painful, lots of blisters on my toes). While I am sure I will not be able to resist using this blog as a captive audience happy outlet for some nostalgic #throwback posts, I plan to write mostly about my current experience re-discovering my place at Dickinson. My overall goal is for this blog to be a resource to future students returning home from abroad.

Inspirations

As an avid amateur photographer, I also hope to combine visual imagery and writing. Using photography will also help me integrate into the study abroad community, which is hugely focused on use of visual imagery. I will be drawing visual inspiration from travel blogs like Roads and Kingdoms and The Lonely Planet. I especially like The Lonely Planet’s use of visual categories on their home page and their balance of different styles of text and links. A more extreme, but beautiful version of the photography-centric blog is iFly50. While I do not know that my topic lends myself to quite this much image-centric blogging, I love the way that their design allows photos to speak for themselves.

I will obviously combine this imagery with lengthier posts, according to the mission of this class.  I like this study abroad blog (for its combination of photography, creative writing, and lengthy posts. I also think that Madison does a great job holding her readers’ attention through lengthy, often deeply introspective travel posts.

The idea I have in mind for the blog I am going to design is based off fitness and lacrosse. I’m interested in doing a day in the life of a lacrosse player and student at a school like Dickinson. One idea I also had in mind was featuring other lacrosse players from different schools and having them answer a couple a questions or post pictures of their journey. I think this could be pretty cool to collaborate with other kids from different schools. I also could talk to other kids on other sports teams and see what its like to play a different sport here not just lacrosse. I want to show the behind the scenes of what it means to be a lacrosse player at Dickinson but also a student.

One blog that relates to what I am thinking of doing is called https://www.theplayerstribune.com/ This blog allows all professional athletes to tell a story, their experiences or just thoughts with the online world. For example when Derek Jeter retired he wrote a post thanking fans and explaining what it was like to play for the Yankees.

Another blog that I have in mind is called http://insidelacrosse.com/ It offers insights on the lacrosse world as well as different college and pro teams. It allows players at all levels to keep in touch with the game and know what’s happening within the community. There are a lot of videos and highlights as well as pictures and interviews. This is one thing I want to incorporate into my blog in terms of design and layout. Have a lot of pictures and videos to show examples of what I’m talking about or who i am talking about because maybe not everyone who is reading will know about lacrosse. Yes I want to gear it towards people who like sports and lacrosse but I think adding in a tone where I could attract classmates that are non-athletes would be beneficial. For example, giving comparisons and showing we do share common interests or ideas. Also, that we go through the same sort of things on campus cause we are students. Ex: Caf struggles, school struggles.