Twitter Project: What I feel Worked, What Didn’t, and All the Rest!

Twitter Project: What I feel Worked, What Didn’t, and All the Rest!

So the Twitter Project is over. We can all get back to our ponies and stickers and myspace.com. But on a serious note, we had a good effort for the most part. But with all good efforts, there is room for improvement.

What Worked: Well, the hashtag, in my opinion, was an amazing hashtag for us to use.#90sKid was a hit for our class and for our followers. People would tweet back at me and say how they loved a song or show I tweeted about. Spice Girls, Doug, Power Rangers, and so much more filled our heads again, and it was awesome. Memories of the 90s filled the twitverse like mad. It also allowed us to think about different significant historical events that may have happened back in the 90s. And it was just a fun project overall.

What Didn’t: We weren’t collaborating a lot on what issues we had with the project. Like when we should be tweeting, should we do it all at once or over a month’s time. I feel like if we all tweeted 1-2 times a day till the last 5 days then hit it hard, tweeting like 25 times a day to really try to get the topic trending. Also, I believe someone mentioned that locked/private accounts don’t contribute to trending tweets. If that is really the case, a whole class should have an open account. It could even be a separate account for this class.

All the Rest: In the future, I hope classes can take this project into consideration and work to a trending topic as well. Also, getting the hastag to catch on with other accounts than the class and ball state will get the buzz out there. Looking for other accounts of people similar to you will work better for future classes. Twitter has a “similar to you” column so you can find people to follow you and will hopefully follow you back.

Hopefully future endeavors to get a trending topic for future classes goes a lot better than us, and that they actually achieve the goal.

Can someone be a princess and a superhero?

So in class we are just finishing up talking about the princess culture and the superhero culture. Both cultures seem to be prevalent in our society today. The thing I wonder is if these cultures ever overlap. Can a person be a princess and a superhero? I believe finding an actual person who is both is rather hard. As far as mediated texts, there are a few characters that come to mind.

First there is Buffy. I have previously written about Buffy before but she seems to be the prime character that shows both cultures. She is Very masculine. She gives off the strong, powerful, fight to save people attitude. She acts like a lot of male characters do because she is closed off when emotions are involved. She also tends to slack when it comes to things like working and school. In the end though, she knows she is responsible for slaying demos, vampires, and such. She is also a princess. Buffy loves to buy buy buy. She is very feminine. She constantly talks about going to the mall, getting a new outfit, getting a new dress, and often obsessed with how she looks. She also is the one who is in control. She has to be the one who is in charge and knows what is right. She is the Princess-Super Heroine.

Next is Batman. I am talking about my opinion of how I have seen batman portrayed in the movies. Bruce Wayne is a suave, good looking, lovely kind of man. He has a nice mansion and nice things. You know he has a buy buy buy attitude. He also tends to be the one in control, which comes from the money he has. Batman, his alter ego, is very masculine, strong, and always ready to save the day. He fights evil and is very righteous. He is a “Prince”ss Super Hero.

What I have notices about these two characters is that they have two lives pretty much. Buffy is a slayer but is also a teenager/college-aged adult. Bruce Wayne is a rich man and is also a vigilante. Having two lives in mediated texts tends to portray both lifestyles. I can see how both these characters can be a princess and a super hero. Tell me what you think.

Buffy - Feminist

So I figure I would analyze “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” from the feminist perspective. “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” is a show about a teenage girl who is a slayer. What is a slayer? Well “"In every generation there is a chosen one. She alone will stand against the vampires the demons and the forces of darkness. She is the slayer.” Basically, she is a girl who fights evil. She is given super strength, speed, and senses. Buffy and her friends work together to try and stop evil. Buffy has two main friends, Xander and Willow. Xander is an average sized guy who is always ready to aid Buffy. Willow is a smart girl who is great with computers and later learns how to be a witch. Throughout the series, more characters are added in and phased out but one thing seems to stay true throughout the series, most of the main characters are women. Another thing is that most of the people with powers in the series are the female characters.

Giving most of the female characters powers and having the guys as back up is very different from a lot of popular stories about good versus evil. Most texts usually give females a secondary role and have a male leader. I would say the actions of this show counteract the hegemony of shows wear people get super powers of its time. Back then super hero series consisted of power rangers and comic teams turned movie, like X-men and Spiderman. All these shows and movies had a dominant male character and if they had a woman with power, she was not as strong as the lead. If she was strong as the lead male, she had problem controlling her power.

Buffy paved a way for a new role of for new shows and movies with empowered women who counter acted the old way of thinking. Some examples include shows like Charmed, True Blood, and Heroes. These shows had/have many female leads. These shows now set the standard for how shows about super powers and the paranormal are viewed. The hegemony has changed. Now more of these shows get dominated by women and putting them in power. Overall It is interesting to see how shows have changed in how pop culture views gender and the paranormal super powered person.

Crash the Super Bowl

So one item that we discussed in class today was about social media and advertising. Our first discussion was about the Super Bowl. We talked about how doritoes and pepsi max worked together to have a commercial contest so that people could send in their own commercials about each product. The winner seen here is indeed a nice commercial. Though funny and enjoyable, From what I have seen, is not the best. It is another commercial in which we see a man who is controlled by his girlfriend/wife. He has no freedom and is indeed nothing I would like to see again. One thing people look for in super bowl commercials is for them to be a list of things. We expect funny, unique, out of the norm commercials. We like these commercials because the deviate from the everyday commercials that are blah blah blah. Maybe not the funniest but at least funnier commercials is the one my friends submitted. Okay so here is the video I am talking about today in class. Though some of the quality near the end is not the best it is what I consider a GREAT Super Bowl Commercial, or at least would have been. My friends, through the social networking site facebook, tried to promote their video. They did their best to get their video out there for their friends to see and for their friends friends to see. but ultimately they did not win. I was really discouraged by this. I feel like many other commercials were funnier than the winner. It makes me wonder, is the contest fair? Does the company have employees that vote as well as the audiences? Or is this really what people wanted to see Sunday Night? Until I know this answer, I will just have to keep analyzing media and be a critical consumer.

So I recently found out why they did not make it. Quoted from my friend "the real reason we didn't win was not because of lack of mass audience appeal. We didn't get past the round of private voting by a small panel of pepsi max judges." Which still gets me. Super Bowl commercials don't always appeal to mass audiences, Look at this super bowl. Only a few commercials were appealing to people. The rest were just normal commercials. Oh well, till next time blog.

Why Study Pop Culture/Narrative Perspective/Glee

There are many reasons why we should study pop culture. These reasons can vary from the fact that we are exposed to pop culture or to the fact that it gives something for people to study. I think the biggest reason why we study and should study pop culture is because we, the people, decide what pop culture is and why it is that way. Think about it. Why would you be into some of the things you are into? People tell us to watch something and we do it. People are constantly exposing us to new things and then we expose others to it. Next thing we know we are hooked. Below is an example of the show Glee and how the Narrative Perspective can give us insight on to why we get hooked to television shows shows in pop culture

Glee! This television phenomenon has sparked the interest of many people. This musical Dramatic-Comedy has sparked interest of fans all around the Globe. Glee is a show that follows around 12 high school students and their teachers on a “journey” through their lives as they strive to stand out and be special. This show has brought something to the table everyone can enjoy. Relatable Characters, amazing chorography, plot lines ranging from serious concepts, like religion, to fun concepts such as Brittany Spears, spectacular song covers, and overall themes contribute to what has become the shows key to success. Glee is everywhere these days. CDs, DVDs, Clothing Lines, Live Concerts, a book series, and other merchandise have contributed to the hype. For better or for worse, this show is everywhere. Why is such a show popular?

From a Narrative perspective, the show has stories that have narrative coherence and fidelity. Knowing that the show is a musical show, the characters act in a reliable fashion that makes sense to the audience. Such a reliable fashion includes random hallway singing and dancing to already known choreography. Also it is a story about a high school. The story follows these students on adventures such as dating, sex, and popularity. The show also gives value to the message that the arts are important, specifically Music Education. On Occasion the glee club has been seen performing with the Jazz Band and the School Marching Band. This is known as Narrative Fidelity. Walter Fisher, a communication scholar, would say that the show displays Narrative Rationality. To have Narrative Rationality, a story needs both coherence and fidelity.

After looking at Glee from a narrative perspective, it is easy to see why we get hooked. We interpret life through storytelling. If there is one thing Glee does well, it is tell life through stories. And we put value to the stories glee shares with us. Although not everyone enjoys the stories told in Glee, it still hooks up to a large audience. One thing the Narrative Perspective argues is that not all stories are created equal. Obviously the stories of glee aren’t for everyone, but for those who do enjoy it can enjoy it even more knowing why they enjoy it. At least from a narrative perspective that is.