MySpace or Facebook Article

Boyd's article could be considered somewhat offensive to others. For me personally, I've had both. Now, I only use facebook. I do agree that I enjoy the minimalism of facebook and the "individualism" of Myspace was rather annoying. I got fed up with choosing backgrounds, songs, etc on myspace. And for me, it seems easier to find people on facebook. I thought it was quite strange how Boyd brought in the whole race and class thing. I never really saw that, especially not on facebook. I suppose I can see the relationship with myspace though. Certain songs and designs are geared toward a specific group of people. However, facebook doesn't supply those. I agree that using the backgrounds and such on myspace is a way of expressing yourself, but you can also express yourself on facebook with status updates, personal information, writing notes, posting videos and pictures, and more. I haven't been on Myspace in several years, so I don't know what it looks like these days. MySpace seems like more of a thing of the past and the "cool" thing is to have facebook. I feel like Facebook has more privacy and is easier to use. I can easily find friends from high school and college and get in touch with them just by typing in their name. But, like I said before, I don't really see the connection with race and class very much.

Writing Assignment 1

Soooo, this paper we are writing based on a picture. It's kind of tough. I am going to brutally honest with you on this one. My topic is about illegal immigrants in Arizona. In my writing I chose to oppose the law established by the Governor and persuade people to stand against it. HOWEVER, in all honesty.......I truly agree with the law. I know I am probably not supposed to do this, but I am persuading in the opposite direction of how I really feel. Truth is, I would really like to see more done against illegal immigrants because they simply do not have the right to be here. Anyways, writing this paper has been a little tough, but persuading in the direction I did made it somewhat easier because it gave a better argument for the picture I chose. The length of the paper is a bit much. I am used to the typical 5 paragraph essay which is usually all a teacher will ask of me.  Spreading it out into more than 5 paragraphs is a challenge mostly because many of the topics kind of run together and are hard to separate. Another difficulty I found with this paper is not using many outside sources. I like to use more facts and figures to prove points which is what we would call logos. Only basing the paper off the picture is hard because I would like to draw more info from outside sources than just the pic itself, so focusing on the cartoon was difficult. I can tell that this paper really made me actually think a lot and be more creative with my writing because typically I am a follower and base ideas off of others and this paper required more leading on my part to be creative. I believe you can get the gist of what I'm saying here.

Orbach Article

I support Orbach's notion to give girls and women a better self-image; however, this could present the argument that consumerism and fast-fast have created a fat population. Though this seems rather unrelated I still think there is a connection. Orbach brings it a lot of pathos in her article, using the phrases that speak to the emotions. Some instances of this in her writing are the testimonies and trying to make the audience relate to the issue by using "their wives, mothers, lovers, sisters, and daughters." I found a mix between emotional and logical reasoning in the part where she talks about the girl in Fiji; she gives statistical and mathematical evidence and the feeling of guilt about the adolescent girls' behavior. She also makes a few generalizations like this one, "Women have had enough of not finding themselves in the ads they look at." I support Orbach's efforts to create realistic body images for girls and women because in general, it's a good thing to do. I can see myself in the people she's talking about because I, too, have trouble with body image after seeing the skinny twigs in magazines and on television. I hope the ads will lead to an evolution of the meaning of beauty.

Sept 2nd HW

Pogue: Pogue's column about photo sharing comes in handy for those of us that enjoy posting photos and making photo albums online. However, I found this reading not useful for me because I do not use any of these sites and hardly ever even add photos to my Facebook page. I am just not big on taking pictures.

Skenazy: I agree with Skenazy's column in that our pictures today do not reflect real life. Photos taken today now need a message or voice and represent "the perfect family." I think it would be interesting if more people took photos of the "unperfect" moments in day-to-day life, like a child yelling about juice or timeouts. These would show what real life is really about

Williams: I found Williams' article to be a nice change from the typical modern picture taking articles. His review of the history of snapshots was interesting. It is hard to think of photographers as part chemist, magician, and artist in today's society because technological advances have allowed a huge variety of people to be photographers, from the ordinary person to the famous photographers. His view back into the old days let's us see how far we have come over the years.

Reflecting on "Representing Reality"

      I found the reading from this chapter to be very interesting. To begin with, the author presents two photos taken in times of crisis (earthquake in Haiti). The first one shows a woman holding her rosary with a crumbling church behind her. The book gives examples of what the photo could mean but I thought of one myself. To me, it is a sign of hope, that although the woman must recover from the tragedy, she still finds hope in her faith.
       Something I was thinking about while reading about how photos can represent reality and such was that photos sometimes only show one side of a situation. Take for example photos after hurricane Katrina. People all over saw photos of survivors waiting on top of buildings for rescue, what they did not show, however, were the thousands of people, even still today, they came to the rescue in hundreds of different ways.
   I also found the part discussing the perfect family to be interesting, and it gave me something new to consider. Imagine if all our Facebook pictures consisted of candid moments like the moment we get out of bed, or the look on a girls face when there is a roach in her bedroom. It seems today that people don't want to show their real selves. I am no exception. If you were to look at my Facebook profile picture right now you would find me standing next to my brother in my basketball uniform. Of course my mom wanted to get this pic and that's why we're standing so close and smiling really big. Usually my brother and I don't get along too well and I also don't even play basketball any more. In fact, that picture was taken about 3 years ago and doesn't represent what is really going on in my life today.

Anorexia Ad

http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1666556,00.html

This shocking ad posted by clothing designer Nolita was on a billboard in Europe. Obviously it is opposing anorexia and was targeted at the fashion industry. The message the photo is sending is opposition to the use of unhealthy models that become role models for young women. The woman in the picture is a known anorexic whom died at the early age of 28 due to complications of her disease. Her nude body is wasted away from malnutrition and her skeleton is clearly visible. The blank gray background makes her stand out even more and also helps the brightly colored text pop. This ad was purposely put up right before the round of summer-spring catwalk shows and hit the industry hard. Although many designers supported the ad, it was also shunned and called scandalous. The ad brings attention to the growing problem of anorexia in today's fashion world and brings forth a challenge to end the disease. Nolita's advertisement aims to change the industry by showing what comes of anorexia. I support his views and his attempt because young girls should have healthy role models to look up to, not some fake, sickly woman that is starving herself to fit in clothes.

HW2 Cartoon/Comic

http://www.cagle.com/news/CaseyAnthony/main.asp

This cartoon by political cartoonist Daryl Cagle pokes fun at the Casey Anthony trial that recently ended in a Not Guilty verdict. The cartoon shows the jury giving the Not Guilty verdict, but it also shows the jury finding the media Guilty of "Wasting time and resources and cheapening justice," while the media is shrugging it off. The author is pointing out how the media made Casey seem so guilty although they did not give the facts of the case. The presentation by the media skewed viewers opinions which led to great opposition to the verdict by the public. After the trial ended, many talk shows began scrutinizing the verdict. I feel like Mr. Cagle is wanting us to see the truth behind the case and not the media's input because they are misleading.He comically expresses how he views media, talking-heads, and trash tv viewers by the way they look in the cartoon. In the picture, the media has a microphone, satellite, camera, and also a hat with a money sign representing how the media brings in so much money by misleading the people. Cagle shows the talking-heads as a bobble head that doesn't know much. He shows the trash tv viewers as a scowling woman wanting to watch reruns of the OJ trial that was similar to this case. Daryl tries to make us see the truth behind the case and dig deeper than what we see on top.