The Online Jodieann

Creating a online brand is almost like putting on a Halloween costume and becoming the person you’ve always aspired to be. Online sites afford many individuals a chance to escape their drab life and become their alter ego or a exaggerated person. This may be true for most people and myself as well. I am on several social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, OkCupid. With each social media sites there is a certain type of image one must uphold to be able to engage within that community. I portray myself online as a very well-put together individual who engages in thoughtful discussions regarding politics, current events, quotes, fun things that happen in my life aka shareable moments, rants, etc. My positioning online gives the impression, which is true, of a progressive, fashionable, savvy, and holistic thinker who likes coffee and inspirational quotes. In many ways I am proud of my digital story telling ability because I know I could represent various brands successfully and I will uphold the image of the brand. Also, I have started a lovely series which I call the Daily Takeaway, each day I write 3-5 inspirational quote or takeaway and use the hashtag #DayNumberoftheDay. It’s been pretty cool, I hope to look back 365 from now and have a transformative outlook on my growth as an individual. I’m not quite sure why I started the series but I love doing it.

Does your online identity convey to the audience your future goals and ambitions?

My online personality perfectly explain who I am and who I want and will become. I do a very good job of creating my personal online brand. I have realized that it is what you physically put online that gives people a certain impression of you. In a way you have to create the ideal persona that you want to sell to people— its sort of genius. I do think people realize that I am genuine online as I am in person.

Does it tell the audience what you do for a living or hope to do for a career?

Yes, in my blurb section I give a nod to my profession as a writer. If someone was to stalk my Twitter timeline and come across posts from 11 months ago they would find links to press release that I wrote on CUNY Newswire. I am very much professional online but I know that my idea of professional and someone else’s interpretation are very different.

What assumptions would someone make about your personality?

The “Online” Jodieann is just as lovely as she is in person. My online persona is the girl you could imagine sitting with in a coffee shop, engaging in conversations of all sorts. The persona is relatable in many ways, the candor, the wit, the easy going personality, the professionalism, graciousness. My online persona embodies all my real life traits online very pleasantly. One of the key takeaways I hope my persona conveys most of all is that Jodieann is an intelligent young woman with a strong voice and a clear mission of achieving all her goals.

Visual Rhetoric and Culture

Since the emergence of digital media, it has led to the creation of how various online communities play a role in shaping visual rhetoric and culture. An online community is a group of people with common interests who use the Internet (web sites, email, instant messaging, etc.) to communicate, work together and pursue their interests over time. Each of these communities has attracted individuals of all kinds to participate within that community of shared interest. Some of the communities are within platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, OkCupid, Buzz Feed, and Flickr to name a few. When I examined all these communities there was one common thread, many individuals used photos as a way to use visual rhetoric/ visual storytelling to quantify themselves. This had led me to several question, Do photos need content? Are images cultural? How has multimedia affected visual storytelling?

The key elements of my project are:

*Visual language

*Are images cultural?

*Multimedia storytelling

I want to explore the following questions “Has our cultural beliefs affected the way we interpret a image and why does it affect the way the see a image?” Over the span of all of our lives we have digested millions of images. Many of these images has shaped how we perceive the world and it has been reinforced by digital media. The visual language/ visual rhetoric, multimedia storytelling, and how our cultural beliefs leads to misinterpretation of an image has affected how we quantify ourselves and the people around us. Perhaps culture does not only play a role in who we are but severely affects how we see the world. Often times the media reinforces their interpretations of an image and try to feed it down viewers throats. This can have many affect on the psyche’s development, whether for good or for bad.

For this project I propose an experiment in which I will research 5-10 images with and without content and interview people to see how they interpret them. These images will stem from online sites such a Human of New York, famous paintings, images that have been remixed into memes. In my research I hope to identify how different cultures interpret visual images with and without content. Secondly, by . I want to examine the phycology, environmental factors, traumatic events, fear, and age to chart how those factors play a role in how our psyche interprets an image. I hope to shine a new light on how we interpret images and perhaps how we can begin to un-train our eyes. I want to provoke the questions, are we an extension of all the images we have seen throughout our lives.

Questions:

  1. How does cultural beliefs affect visual storytelling?
  2. Can an image stand without content?
  3. Is age an important factor when one views an image?
  4. What factors play a part in interpretation?
  5. How does culture affect the way we interrupt an image?
  6. Why does culture affect the way we interrupt an image?
  7. Can we un-train our eyes?
  8. Are your mind and body performing better?

 

Sources

“Producing New and Digital Media”-Cohen and Kenny

“Writing & Editing for Digital Media”- Carroll

Wikipedia

 

 

“Mediated Me”

In Chapter 1 “Mediated Me” examined many aspects of how digital literates affect our human existence. Throughout the chapter, I found myself asking many questions, questions I’d never once considered. There is an emotional impact that technology has had on each of our lives that we are not necessarily aware of. The themes that are prominent throughout the chapter are creating deep relationships, the way technologies have the ability to change how we think, the impact it has on the “being” and it’s moral implications. I’ve always imagined that technology has provided an opportunity for men and women to create “tools” to make life simpler but now I realize that it doesn’t end there. The technologies that are being created have essentially stripped us from our once ethical nature and created a world filled with more complexities than what we could have ever imagined.

The chapter also sparks the idea that maybe the world was created with a dichotomy idea and it was only through technology/tools we have come to realize it. But how did it all start? It started with writing, without the invention of writing, humans would never have evolved to what we are today. The evolution of tools and technologies have brought us to where we are today. Many can argue that there is good and bad to those tools however, I believe everything was created with a dichotomous intention. Maybe the entire world was built upon opposing forces and through writing we are able to recognize those characteristics. Even as I am typing, there is someone who will not agree with my view and maybe that is the way it is meant to be.  With our dichotomous views, we also have the conflict of our social identities that are being constantly challenged. Our egos are being reinforced and being rejected by digital media, it is a vicious cycle that we are all a part of whether or not we choose to partake in it. We cannot escape the inevitable of succumbing to new forms of tools/digital technologies because they have become an extension of us, as Mumford says.

I wonder if there was ever a time of not having to “present” ourselves to one another. Was there ever a time that humans did not wear a social mask, or have the need to have “tools/things” establish validation for themselves and the likes of others. I guess we will never know. . .

FYI,

Several months ago I wrote a post titled “Traces,” which takes a look at the traces we leave on the internet.

https://blackattireaficionado.wordpress.com/2015/04/26/traces/