What happens when a class assignment meets Twitter.

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This is a mini Twitter rant of my think piece. While full of emojis and personality, this rendition of my think piece summarizes my topic in 140 characters or less.

 

In recent months, African American community has been outraged by the many ways their culture has been shamed and mimicked in media

Appropriation occurs when the appropriator isn't aware of the deep significance of the culture they r partaking in- Amandla Stenberg (2/12)

— ✨Ashley A✨ (@AaliyahDee) April 19, 2016

The creation of Bantu knows being credited to Marc Jacobs as "twisted mini buns" (3/12) pic.twitter.com/TED6f15RcF

— ✨Ashley A✨ (@AaliyahDee) April 19, 2016

Cornrows going from unprofessional to edgy (4/12) pic.twitter.com/HGQlHEtRE7

— ✨Ashley A✨ (@AaliyahDee) April 19, 2016

Folks aren't

The Dashiki is a part of a culture, not a trend #message (7/12) pic.twitter.com/Sj6dozeNpg

— ✨Ashley A✨ (@AaliyahDee) April 19, 2016

Why are styles that r natural to many considered unprofessional? (8/12) https://t.co/yoXkEXYbKK

— ✨Ashley A✨ (@AaliyahDee) April 19, 2016

"Digging it" for one but discriminate the other

To say there is an issue with cultural appropriation is not saying end cultural fusion (10/12)

— ✨Ashley A✨ (@AaliyahDee) April 19, 2016

All that is being requested it the ability to have pieces of our identity be respected (11/12) pic.twitter.com/XT8nRnr2xo

— ✨Ashley A✨ (@AaliyahDee) April 19, 2016

"What would America be like if we loved Black people as much as we love Black culture?" -Amandla Stenberg (12/12) pic.twitter.com/x281AlYwgt

— ✨Ashley A✨ (@AaliyahDee) April 19, 2016

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Creating the tweets for Tuesday’s class was extremely difficult. My initial roadblock was finding a meaningful way to convey my message in 140 characters. As I planned the flow of my tweets, I was focused on adding more visuals and staying as true to the original content as possible. Throughout my experience with Twitter, my tweets have been more centered around natural hair, inspirational quotes, and random selfies. This assignment was quite a change.

While actually posting my tweets, I noticed that ever time I added an image or graphic, my character count would decrease drastically. This led to a panicky feeling of rewording my pre-planned tweets while in a hurry.

I am very satisfied with how my tweets came out because my audience was primarily young adults and the unintentional cultural appropriators. This piece hit all the points I liked, however I truly understand the constraints of Twitter. 140 characters really isn’t enough.

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When looking at the analytics exclusively surrounding my live tweets, there were 899 impressions and an average engagement rate of 6%. Though this is not the highest since I have started using Twitter, it is significant for such an authentic and personal piece.

This is an archive of the series of Tweets based on the original think piece essay we did for project 1.

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1|19 YouTube does not help its content creators, the people who made the site what it is today. #WTFU

— George Gordon (@En1gmaConundrum) April 19, 2016

2|19 Content ID is an automated system that searches for copyrighted material and issues copyright strikes against channels. #WTFU

— George Gordon (@En1gmaConundrum) April 19, 2016

3|19 The system is there to defend YouTube against lawsuits, but at the expense of content creators. #WTFU

— George Gordon (@En1gmaConundrum) April 19, 2016

4|19 Amul Kahlia: “The problems with Content ID have always been in the news over the years…” https://t.co/aBcrhB8pzm #WTFU

— George Gordon (@En1gmaConundrum) April 19, 2016

5|19 Kahlia (Cont): “But lately have become more common, even comically so.” #WTFU

— George Gordon (@En1gmaConundrum) April 19, 2016

6|19 Content ID has caused issues for content creators on YouTube since its implementation, mostly in regards to fair use violations.

— George Gordon (@En1gmaConundrum) April 19, 2016

7|19 Many videos are being taken down, losing their monetization, which many of these creators rely on, because of copyright strikes. #WTFU

— George Gordon (@En1gmaConundrum) April 19, 2016

8|19 Stanford U: “Most fair use analysis falls into two categories: commentary and criticism, or parody.” https://t.co/uomJXqLF7W #WTFU

— George Gordon (@En1gmaConundrum) April 19, 2016

9|19 YouTube allows for these types of videos to be taken down and those who make the claims will suffer no penalty for false claims. #WTFU

— George Gordon (@En1gmaConundrum) April 19, 2016

10|19 Now this wouldn’t be an issue if YouTube offered better support that what it currently does. #WTFU

— George Gordon (@En1gmaConundrum) April 19, 2016

11|19 The only help creators receive are automated emails and no other means of contacting YouTube. #WTFU

— George Gordon (@En1gmaConundrum) April 19, 2016

12|19 They can however, issue a counter claiming but, must do it in 200 characters and can only counter three claims at a time. #WTFU

— George Gordon (@En1gmaConundrum) April 19, 2016

13|19 Stephen Totillo: “You won't see an apology here. You won't see a change in policy…” https://t.co/JZF8GH2AX5 #WTFU

— George Gordon (@En1gmaConundrum) April 19, 2016

14|19 Thankfully, the YouTube community is being very active and vocal about Content ID are pushing to help channels. #WTFU

— George Gordon (@En1gmaConundrum) April 19, 2016

15|19 Channels with a huge following have those who are willing to help. Smaller channels will have virtually no defense. #WTFU

— George Gordon (@En1gmaConundrum) April 19, 2016

16|19 The YouTube community is doing as much as they can to fight against the website that has turned its back against them. #WTFU

— George Gordon (@En1gmaConundrum) April 19, 2016

17|19 Sooner or later another website will come along, one that actively defends its user base and YouTube will simply be forgotten. #WTFU

— George Gordon (@En1gmaConundrum) April 19, 2016

18|19 Check out my podcast, Digital Autopsy, for more detail on this issue. https://t.co/8416zIDpOB #WTFU

— George Gordon (@En1gmaConundrum) April 19, 2016

19|19 Or check out Nostalgia Critic’s video on the issue as well #WTFU https://t.co/ArGEV5CVvr

— George Gordon (@En1gmaConundrum) April 19, 2016

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Due to Twitter having a 140 character constraint, the think piece had to be reworked in order to be sent. While we could use the language of Twitter in order to make our think piece fit more easily into a Tweet, I worked around that as I prefer not writing in that format. It made adapting the think piece a tad more difficult but that was how I wanted this to be done. Because certain parts of the think piece continued ideas that were not present in the Tweets, I had to reword them in order to still get the same message across.

Twitter allows us to hashtags that can be used to connect your Tweets to other people Tweeting about the same thing and due to the issue I was covering already having a specific hashtag associated with it, I used it in every Tweet. This would link to others expressing similar issues or ones who are being directly affected by the Content ID issue. However, the goal was still to reach an audience who had no idea about this issue.

Due to the project constraint of being limited to no more than 20 tweets, the whole think piece would not be covered. The actual think piece could not even cover the whole topic so I decided to add a link to my podcast and a video from Nostalgia Critic that would be able to give much more detail into the issue.

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There were various responses to the Tweets from the class relating to the topic I had covered and some links to similar issues going on currently. However, I just made this Twitter account for this project and it would make sense for these Tweets to reach a huge audience.

• Your Tweets earned 1.5K impressions over this 13 day period.
• Tweet 17 and 18 had the most impressions.
• 14 Likes, 13 Replies, 1 Retweet, and 3 Link Clicks.
• Engagement rate was 0.2%

 

For today’s class, you read Chapter 10, Social Networking in Jones and Hafner’s Understanding Digital Literacies. Spend the first ten minutes of class writing a summary of the reading in memo format, save your work, and copy-and-paste it into a comment made to this blog entry. We will have our Twitter project exercise and then discuss the chapter with any remaining time in class.

Website

The purpose of this project is to not only learn the basics of HTML, but to understand its affordances and constraints, especially when compared to markdown or CSS. The finished product is then used as a place to host our think piece projects.

The two online tools that I used for this project are Notepad++ and Daring Fireball’s text-to-HTML conversion tool known as Dingus. Notepad++ allows users to go in depth with HTML and create complex and specific elements for a website. Dingus on the other hand, simply converts markdown to HTML with average results. Compared to HTML, markdown has less options, which enables less creativity. For example, I couldn’t add images or videos to my website in markdown, while in HTML I could.They both, however, achieve the same goal, albeit with different results.

After learning the basics of HTML, I used most of the codes we learned in class for my website. This includes how the text looks on screen (justifed, tables, headings, titles, bolding, linking to other websites), and colors (on the body and heading separately). I then decided to implement the visuals (images and video) that I created from previous projects to help users understand and see what I am discussing throughout the website. Instead of copying and pasting these visuals on the folder associated with my HTML project, I used the share button on Flickr and Youtube to receive a code that display these works online.

After I finished creating my website in HTML for Google Chrome, I realized there were several issues and differences when viewing it on other web browsers. In Firefox, the body was completely invisible and the spacing on all headings was different. While in Internet Explorer, although the text was visible and in the correct color, the headings contained different spacing as well. The spacing issue frustrated me the most because I wanted to know the code that changed it.

Overall, HTML (or at least my knowledge of it) seemed limited. I would have liked to completely change the design of my website, have background images, and better color. Instead of having the visuals in the same page as the think piece, I would have liked to link them in tabs placed in the header.

During the first ten minutes of class, write your summary memos on today’s reading from Jones and Hafner on “Games, Learning, and Literacy.” We will discuss it after you have had a chance to post your responses.

The purpose of this project was to provide a basic understanding of the work that goes into text-based web design. The primary tools used where Notepad++ to create the HTML coding and Markdown, a free software that simplifies the coding process. Though both programs do similar jobs, there were key differences when using both. Notepad++, while the harder program to use, allowed more control over the formatting and web layout of the text. Markdown allowed a simplicity that was hindered by the limited choices in changing the text layout.

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Using HTML coding felt very similar to formatting and perfecting a document with a basic word processor. There is a constant need for revisions and corrections and a simple error can impact the entire document. This was the process I endured with Notepad++. Understanding the basics of coding was not an issue because the steps to properly enabling the HTML text to run through a web browser was fairly simple.

When looking at the text through different web browsers, I noticed that there are no noticeable differences between Google Chrome and Firefox. Internet Explorer and Safari showed my preferred formatting in a stretched manner and did not display my think piece well. Also with Markdown, I was less thrilled with the limitations the program presented when trying to change the spacing and layout of my piece. While it simplified the work required, Markdown required users to sacrifice their formatting creativity.

To sum things up, I enjoyed working with code and learning how to maneuver between Notepad++ and Markdown. This is a good skill to have on my resume and will be an asset in the professional world.

Knowing the basics of HTML is something beneficial to us, either to put on a resume or because it will be something we will work with in our future careers. For this project we worked with markup and markdown, both work with HTML but provide different ways of tackling them. With markup, we need to know how to structure HTML and learn its terminology in order for it work. Markdown does the markup for us, we just need to input the commands and we can get it converted.

Markup would be more beneficial if we were designing a website ourselves. Once you know the language, you can create whatever you would want and place your content in whatever format you deem would be the best to get your message across, however, with more control comes a more time consuming process. Markdown simply takes your text and commands and converts your content to fit a design that is already created. This would work well if you were creating content for a website that is already created and you simply need to add it in. It is a much faster process but it comes with limitations of having significant less control over the design.

With HTML, you have to consider a visual design to go along with what you have written. You have to create a layout, think about color schemes, and work with the limitations of HTML. You also have decide on whether you will include images, video, sources, links, or any other type of media along with your piece. Having a plain page with only text may not be the best way of getting your message across.

However, HTML alone does not provide the most control over a website either. Without the use of CSS, much of the design elements must be left out. HTML provides the structure of a website but CSS allows for the visual elements to be incorporated. Since the project limited our use to only HTML, the page I created could only be manipulated to a certain extent. I noticed that across Edge, Internet Explorer, Firefox, and Chrome I had no complications based on what browser was being used to display the website.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FHM8w0myluQ

Here is a snapshot of my views and analysis on cultural appropriation.

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When I was planning this video, my original ideas required more time than was allowed for this assignment. When looking at many popular vloggers and the ways there videos were designed, I noticed that many used the Snapchat app and combined all of the videos to create content that was visible on two platforms.

Although I am not satisfied with the overall video, I know where my changes will be. I will be adding images and a more connected approach in my portfolio.  Because I have very little video editing experience with free software. I will be spend time reworking my approach for the final portfolio.