Perks

April 5th, the final day of blogs. Wow, has this semester ever gone by quickly. I felt it appropriate to leave my last blog for the final day, just as a nice way to end this experience. That’s not to say I won’t continue blogging – this assignment has opened my mind to so many new and different ideas on citizen media and social networking. If I scroll down to my first post back in January, I can see how close-minded I was to the idea of blogging. I genuinely thought it was an illegitimate version of pseudo-journalism. I thought wrong. The following are the rest of my experiences with social media and citizen journalism in a nutshell from this past semester:

I experienced some interesting things on my Youtube channel where I watched the popularity of one of my videos skyrocket. The power of social media caught me completely off guard.
I worried about my “Google Juice” when applying to jobs online, wondering if prospective employers would search my name and find out that I once rode away with an alien in my bicycle’s basket.
I began to work on my final project for the course, working through dilemmas and finally presenting a mash-up remix that I then uploaded to Youtube for all of you, and the world, to see and comment back on.
Then the world stopped when my Playstation 3 wouldn’t play any games. Without thinking, I found myself hunting for clues on the Internet, realizing how important and useful the Internet and social media sites such as forums truly are.
A classmate annoyed me and made me question when social media and things like cellphones and MSN are appropriate?
And then I came across a website that showed me how social media and Web 2.0 could be so much better if it all focused around me, and not them.

As you can see, all of these experiences, all of these blog posts were about how social media and our course discussions and topics effected my personal life. How I perceived things and how I interacted with the digital world around me. This was my goal.

I also had a goal not to write some boring, unenthusiastic blog posts filled with theoretical knowledge that I pulled out of my…course readings…but about the practical nature of social media around me. I want my readers to be entertained every time they stumble upon my blog, smiling as they read, and knowing that I care about what I'm writing about. I think the worst thing is reading someone's blog and being able to tell how uninspired they are about the subject matter.

I want my readers to be able to relate to what I have to say, because ultimately, this isn’t just about my practical experiences with social media – we are all experiencing the same things these days. Twitter, Facebook, Youtube – it’s difficult to go through a day without seeing or hearing these names. Cellphone videos submitted by pedestrians, opinionated blogs, online polls - these things have become common place, at a frighteningly fast pace.

Social media permeates our existence today. It’s everywhere and it’s all around us. We are all experts on it, even though we might not know it. Perhaps that’s why it’s been so easy and fun for me to write about these things. They interest me. They’re topical. They’re relevant. And I guess it’s always fun to write about something you know so well.

I tell people that one of my assignments for a course is to maintain a blog having to do with social media, and in response I’m told how lucky I am, how fun that sounds, how they wish they could do something as entertaining as that for school work.

My response?

"I guess those are just the Perks of Being a Comm. Student"


"I have decided that maybe I want to write when I grow up. I just don't know what I would write." ~ Stephen Chbosky, The Perks of Being a Wallflower

The Future Is Bright! Or Is It...Tumbling?

I was thinking about it, and I realized that the majority of this course told me the state of social media today. I was informed on how it has progressed over time seeing as the Internet is such a new technology, and how social media sites and establishments perform today. From Myspace, Facebook, Youtube, Blogging, Twitter, you name it, and we’ve covered it. This is the situation today.

But what’s the situation of tomorrow?

What do I want social media and networking to become in the future? How do I want it to change? These are the questions we could and should be asking ourselves. We are the future of the Internet and social media networking.

So I asked myself these questions, and I realized that I want my social media to be about me. Not everyone else out there. I don’t want to see a camera and think “Oh God, this picture’s gonna be on Facebook, I have to look good” when I’m out at a bar having fun. I don’t want to post videos of myself on Youtube because it will make me popular (although that would be sort of nice…). I want to post videos because I want to post videos. Because I want to share my talent, talk to people with similar interests, and get feedback on how I can improve.


Social media networking and Web 2.0 is all about everyone else. Facebook exists for you to post for other people. You create an image of yourself that may not necessarily be completely accurate. Your Facebook page almost exists to impress others.

Everything you put on Twitter is for other people to read. It’s not about you, it’s about projecting an image of your thoughts and insights. You need to be smart, witty, intelligent, otherwise who wants to follow you?

I want social media to be about us. About me. Not about who I want you to think I am. I guess Facebook has somewhat acknowledged this, where advertisements are specific to your account based on the interests and information you’ve entered into your profile. But I find that kind of creepy.


A step in the right direction, which I happened to stumble upon today, is a website called Tumblr.com. You make an account like you would on Facebook. But instead of projecting an image of yourself to other people, Tumblr allows you to hunt for things that you personally like and keep on this pseudo-blog. You can follow other people that seem to have the same interests as you, but Tumblr is for you and only you. You collect the things you love and it’s as simple as that. A virtual keep-sake box if you will.

So is this the future of social media? I really hope so. I know it’s called social media, but I’m over the whole popularity contest thing. That and I’m tired of always looking good in my Facebook photos.

It’s a work in progress, but here’s my new Tumblr Account in case you wanted an example: Phil's Tumblr Account

I encourage you to make your own!