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Publication Reflection
Essay #2/Process Post #12 Before we start, I want you to watch this video. Well, more specifically, the first 30 seconds of this video. It’ll come into importance later. I think the idea of the “Main Character” blog came from the recent “Main Character” trend on social media. Social media has been inundated with “Songs that make you feel like the main character” playlists, and “Main Character aesthetics“. Seeing how popular these terms have become, I decided to capitalize on the trend/interest and create a blog with the same theme. With some luck, perhaps people that search these other main character playlists and aesthetics will find my blog. The idea…
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Self-Assessment
For my self-assessment, I would give myself a 4.5 out of 5. I feel that If you were to look at my effort and commitment to the project, you would see that I’m really passionate about my blog and that I’ve put a lot of heart and time into it. I’ve taken feedback from my peers and TA and improved my blog with it. I’ve tried to engage with course content and readings in meaningful ways, as well as link out and connect to different communities and audiences and make a strong transmedia storytelling universe. I’ve definitely been at the lower end of participation in lectures, but I’ve been present…
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Transmedia Links
Process Post #11 For this process post I will be discussing the reading we were given on transmedia storytelling, and the ideas I have for making my own transmedia links. So, the reading uses Pokemon as an example for transmedia storytelling, in which Pokemon crosses different platforms and realities. Pokemon is a video-game series, a tv show, it has a movie series, and graphic novels/books, as well as countless physical memorabilia like clothing, toys, pillows, etc. The way I think of it, if you didn’t want to, you would never have to leave the Pokemon universe. There is always more content to engage with. Now, I wouldn’t be able to…
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Lessons From Riley
Mini Assignment #6/Blog Post #11 This is my best friend Riley. I think above all, Riley has been my biggest inspiration in trying to gain some confidence and self-esteem. Riley is THAT CHICK. You know the one, she’s effortlessless beautiful, and if she ever fumbles socially she can spin it into something cool. Guys love her, girls want to be her, and I’m lucky enough to be her best friend. Riley just has no care in her body for what other people think, and she’s the most spontaneous person I’ve ever met. She’ll decide to move to another country in the course of a day, quit a job the day…
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Improvements From Peer Review
Process Post #10/Peer Review #3 Response This week for my process post I will be looking over the feedback I received from our third round of peer reviews. This round, my blog was critiqued by Amanda Winkle, from “Humanizing“. Amanda gave some great feedback, so I’m very thankful to have had her input. In terms of my target audience, Amanda found the aim and intent of the blog to be clear. Amanda understood that my target audience is young women, and I think she understood what my mission is and what I set out to do here. Just as a quick side note, I’m very tempted by the idea of…
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Long Locks
Blog Post #10/Lesson #734623786483256 SO, I had the CURLIEST, unruliest, can’t-put-a-hairbrush-in-because-it-will-get-caught-and-break-off-in-my-hair, hair. Like, that scene in Princess Diaries where the hairbrush breaks off in Mia‘s hair? That was my reality. That was when I was younger though. I was born with really curly hair, and the curls were so tight my hair didn’t grow down until I was probably four years old. I had an afro, and I’m not exaggerating. So, I tried for years to grow out my hair, I cried and cried because I didn’t have princess hair, but eventually, the curls were weighed down enough that they disappeared. Anyway, sorry for the long beginning, I promise this…
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The Data Conundrum
Process Post #9 The internet is a frightening entity, and the scope of the internet and its data mining capabilities are incomprehensible. Just as the Pod Academy reading from week 9 talks about, we each leave a digital trail of breadcrumbs online that highlight our movements. We tell these applications and sites our names, ages, addresses, work history, interests, financial information, and we expect them to keep passwords to private information safe. Every aspect of our lives is online, and vulnerable to hackers and those who would use our data for malicious reasons. At the same time, I think this is unavoidable for most people in first world countries. According…
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5 Characters, 5 Characteristics
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Format Improvements
Process Post #8 This week for my process post I’m focusing on the feedback I recently got in one of my tutorials, when the whole class looked over my sight, along with Jaiden, my TA. So here’s the main points of feedback I was given. Header not super easy to read on the image, particularly the tagline I’ve added a black box behind the Tagline and Title on my header, so I think it’s much easier to read. Inconsistency with the images for the front page, maybe do a home page instead. Or find some way to make everything match, same size, brand etc. Could find a theme that lets you…
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How New Moon Should Have Gone
Mini Assignment #4: Remix Let’s be honest, if you were a pre-teen or teenage girl between 2008 and 2012, you were likely mesmerized by Stephanie Meyer’s Twilight series, which follows Bella, a human girl, and her dramatic love triangle with Edward Cullen (a vampire) and Jacob Black (a werewolf). If you did have a (somewhat embarrassing) Twilight phase, you were also likely dying over how Bella acted just like I was. Bella is over the moon in love with Edward, until she gets hurt by a baddie vampire, James, and Edward decides he has to move away and dump Bella like last week’s trash to keep her safe. Edward takes…
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Lessons From Beth Harmon
Blog Post #7 The Queen’s Gambit came out last year and was basically an instant sensation worldwide. I was just amazed by this multidimensional, badass feminist chess genius main character, as were many others I imagine. The Queen’s Gambit follows Beth Harmon, an orphan in 1960’s America with a natural skill for chess, getting lessons from her orphanage’s janitor in secret and once she’s adopted, taking the chess world by storm. Beth has had a tough life, and she faces a lot of conflict within herself, as well as some really bad luck, but we get to see her mental health journey and her personal growth, and it’s a really…
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Peer Review Response
Process Post #7/Peer Review #2 Response Today I will be looking over the second peer review for my blog, by Siobhan Board. I was really happy to see that Siobhan enjoyed my content and humour and that she likes the topic. In general, I think that Siobhan really appreciated what I’m working towards and could only think of a couple things to improve on or alter in her opinion. Siobhan critiques that perhaps it’s a good idea to move away from the dark theme (dark background with white writing), and references Nesha Zoric’s article, and I completely understand that people may be generally more attracted to blues and light colours.…
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IRL Lesson: Don’t Settle
Lesson #8342652566238 Don’t settle for less than you deserve, anyone that doesn’t love you for your good parts and your bad isn’t the one. I think that over time I’ve learned to be unapologetic about what I want in life and from any romantic interests. I feel like girls are raised their entire lives expecting to be a wife and a mother, and that we have to just work towards those goals and get married as soon as possible, or even just always have a boyfriend. I have a huge Italian Irish family on my dad’s side, and I have those typical Aunties, you know the ones. My aunties always…
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What Would Gertz Think?
Process Post #6 This week I was tasked with reviewing the design of a fellow student’s blog, so I wanted to look at my own blog with the same lens and talk about what Gertz (2015) might think of my design. In my peer review, I talked about how Gertz describes a sort of “copycat culture” where everyone wants their site to look like the sleek, cool pages of Google and Apple etc. So, we all end up with similar looking sites. Obviously, the use of themes on WordPress leads to the risk that we all might have common layouts and themes; however, I hope that I have been able…
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Peer Review: Humans of Whistler
Peer Review #2: This week I got to check out one of my fellow students, Siobhan Board’s blogs, “Humans of Whistler” and give my take on the design of the site. I want to say before getting into my review, that all of my opinions are subjective, and two people can have completely different visions, so please take everything with a grain of salt! Gertz (2015) talks about copycat culture and how we all want our sites to look like the most popular sites, and end up looking the same as everyone else, I don’t think that “Humans of Whistler” has done that, but I do think the blog’s personal…
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Essay #1: Are the Internet and Social Media Democratic?
By Emily Sweeney February 22, 2021 In this essay, I will argue that the internet and social media as they exist now are undemocratic. These tools used to be utilized for democracy, and I believe still contribute to democracy by bringing people together and acting as a place for news, but as time has gone on, we have started using these processes and tools to manipulate each other and disable politics. These tools live now as a cesspool of toxicity and a manipulation station for politics. Social media was intended to bring the public together and let them affect politics and overall, their country (Nisbet, 2008). However, I would…
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Lessons From Cristina Yang
Blog Post #5 So, what can we learn from Grey’s Anatomy’s Cristina Yang about being the main character? I understand, she’s not the MAIN character of the show, that would be Meredith Grey, however, I believe Cristina Yang has a lot to teach us about living your life as you wish and being the main character of your life. First, I think Cristina teaches us that we shouldn’t compromise on the things that mean the most to us. Cristina never wanted children, she was focused on being a surgeon and saving people, but her partners didn’t respect that. As a woman, her choice not to be a mother wasn’t respected,…
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To Post Or Not To Post
Process Post #5 I think that I agree with Boyd’s (2014) reading on public spaces and audiences in that I feel like on Facebook, Instagram, basically, any platform I use, I feel like my audience is so personal, and there’s so much opportunity for people to judge me. As a result, I don’t post very much and the things that I do post, I am very careful with. I avoid posting things that are very personal or potentially embarrassing. On the other hand, I really appreciate the anonymity of my blog, I feel like those who make an effort to engage with it are likely to be more accepting, and…
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Mini Assignment #3
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IRL Lesson: Don’t Be Cool
Blog Post #4 Lesson #234792773 in being the Main Character: Don’t try to be cool, pleeeease don’t. For my first ever job when I was 16, I worked making milkshakes and desserts for a restaurant in B.C. I was so annoyed the whole time, because I had to wear clunky kitchen shoes and an ugly white t-shirt button-up, and a HAIRNET, while all of the pretty hostesses and waitresses got to wear all black and have their hair out and looked great. I was SO ANNOYED, especially because I had a crush on half of the kitchen boys and waiters. I still get embarrassed thinking about that uniform (even though…
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Peer Review Response
Process Post #4: Response to Kim’s Peer Review: Hi Kim, thank you for the awesome feedback, here’s my response to it overall! I loved what you said about taking your suggestions as a seed and planting them in my digital garden as I saw, fit, I think that’s such a lovely connection to the readings we’ve been doing and a very poetic and constructive way of looking at things. I also love the thought of a garden with seeds of thoughts and ideas from many different people, with many different plants at different stages of growth. Thank you! I really like the idea of posts being a new chapter in…
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Peer Review: Kim’s Eureka
Peer Review #1 For this week’s peer review, I got to take a look at Kim’s blog, “Kim’s Eureka”, and I would highly recommend any of my readers to check her out, she’s done a wonderful job with her digital garden. Aesthetic I like Kim’s theme, I think that the kind of marble look is very chic, and it’s definitely aesthetically pleasing and the marble and colour story with the blues and greys are nicely carried out through the site. In terms of some components that could possibly be worked on, I would suggest editing the title box at the top in the header, the moving graphic on the “Hello”…
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Site Map
Process Post #3 For this week’s process post, I decided to make a site map and show the connections/navigation path of my blog. To start with we have the Main Character home page, which displays all of the posts in the blog, then, the site divides into four sub-categories through the top menu bar. First, we have the welcome page, with a longer explanation of what the Main Character blog is and what my intent here is as the writer. Next, we have the about page where I talk a bit more about myself and my interests and life. Third, we have the Main Character Posts page, where all of…
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Lessons From Black Widow
Mini Assignment #2/Blog Post #3 I’m not entirely sure what I’m doing here, writing a post for this little blog, but I’ll give it a shot. My name is Natasha Romanov, but I’m better known as the Black Widow. I was asked to talk about some of the things I’ve learned about living life to the fullest, so here I am. I’ve done a lot of things throughout my life, I’ve travelled the world, saved and taken lives, and had a million different faces. I’ve worked alone and I’ve worked in a team. I’ve been an assassin and I’ve been an Avenger. Throughout it all, I’ve learned two things. First,…
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Mini Meme
Mini Assignment #1/Blog Post #2 This week I created a meme for the class that I think represents some of what my blog is trying to say. It might not be as effective for people that don’t like Harry Potter, but I hope that a lot of people and readers will be able to relate. Here’s my meme! I think it’s funny because a lot of us don’t feel really important, and we can even feel like a background character in our own lives, but that doesn’t mean we aren’t the main character. I made a reference to being a “nameless Hufflepuff” because the world of Harry Potter and Hogwarts…
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Vision Board
This week I worked on two main projects, first the aesthetics and format for my blog itself, and second, my vision board/Pinterest board. I definitely don’t think the work is done here, projects like this are always evolving, but the work I’ve done has already made me really happy. I went through a few iterations of designs for my blog, and I definitely struggled with choosing a lead image to represent the theme, I must’ve looked at 10 different options. Ultimately, I decided on a row of books as the lead image to represent the storytelling theme, and where you might find a main character. I decided on a dark…
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Talking To Strangers
Process Post #1 While having conversations with strangers has been a bit more difficult than usual due to certain restrictions that I’m sure we’re all tired of talking about, I have had a couple of little interactions with strangers throughout the week that I think I could write about! I actually just moved right at the beginning of January, so I’ve been really busy setting things up, and I’m in a totally new neighbourhood, so there are plenty of strangers to go around! I also work at a daycare in the neighborhood, and there are always new kids and parents that I have to strike a conversation up with and…
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Welcome To Main Character
Blog Post #1: Welcome to Main Character Welcome to Main Character, thanks for visiting! Here at Main Character we want everyone to have the confidence to fully believe they are the main character in their own life, and alongside that, we might give some examples of our own fictional main character favourites, and the lessons we think can be learned from them. Too often we feel overlooked and let down by life, like we’re just in the background, when in reality, if you take a look, you’ve been the main character all along. Sometimes we need a reality check or someone to prompt us to take a hard look at…
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Endings
Blog Post #12 So. This is the end. Or more accurately, an end. Or even more accurately, a few endings for me. This is my last required blog post for a certain class I’ve been taking, and it’s the end of my time at Simon Fraser University. Scary. I’ve been doing my undergrad at SFU for the last 5 years. I started university in 2016, and I’m graduating in 2021. It still doesn’t feel long enough. How do you know if you’re ready to go out into the world and become a full-fledged adult? How do you become ready? Being in university feels like having a safety net beneath you.…
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Peer Review: Humanizing
Peer Review #3 This week I’ll be reviewing my peer, Amanda Winkle’s blog, “Humanizing“. After reading through the blog, It’s clear that Amanda is really passionate about the topic, which is humanizing the dehumanized, and showing that homeless and under-housed people are people, instead of the faceless, morally degraded things many people treat them as, which Amanda writes about here. I’m very impressed and inspired with the content on “Humanizing”, however, I’m not sure the intended audience for the blog is clear. There is no mention on the front page of the blog about this blog is for, or what community the blog is a part of. I think it’s…
