ENG 335 RandWaPublicDiscourse

When I was in middle school, Facebook and Instagram began to surface, along with iPhones. Left and right, my peers began to pull up Facebook on their laptops and download Instagram on their smartphones. It felt as though everyone in my grade was downloading the new social media apps, while I was not. In sixth and seventh grade, I of course had a super cool phone that slid up to reveal a full keyboard. Did I mention I had a red phone case? The coolest thing I could do with my phone besides texting was playing Tetris. That was actually the only game on my phone. I didn't really think about social media until my friends started to get their own accounts. I can remember going to one of my best friend's house and pulling up Facebook on their home computer. I wasn't too enthralled with Facebook, but when Instagram became more known, that's when I wanted my own account.  Near the end of middle school, I had an iPhone. I was so excited to have a touchscreen and play Doodle Jump

If you aren't particularly interested in watching a 10 minute video that's in remarkably low quality, allow me to provide a plot synopsis. Towards the beginning of the Second World War, a man named Ernest Scribbler writes a joke that is so funny he laughs until his death mere moments later. More come and read the joke, only to suffer the same fate. Eventually, the joke ends up in the hands of the British Military. After very carefully translating the joke (one word at a time) into German, they are able to weaponize it. It works marvelously. The Germans, unable to develop a joke of their own, surrender. Peace breaks out, and joke warfare is banned. The tragic fate those who heard the funniest joke in the world can be accurately described as "amused to death". This is, however, not the type of amusing to death I wish to discuss here. I wish to consider Neil Postman's version of amusement resulting in death. As I'm sure you're all intimately aware, Postman be

 And it doesn't stand for Typing Laptop Dog, either. But it could. No, TLD isn't some texting lingo--I'm talking about Top Level Domains. You may not know what they're called but I guarantee you see them every day. In fact, I may be spying on you because I'm telling you that you're looking at one right now! Just Kidding. Probably. .com               .org               .biz .io                    .net               .gov These are all TLD's, and the kinds of content and discussions that happen on each are pretty different.  These are also (less common) gTLD's:  .nyc .motorcycles .mom Weird, huh. (That's a comment, not a domain.) I won't get too much into the specifics, as they're the subject of my final essay, and we'd be here for eleven pages, but I've found an interesting study on perceived trustworthiness, memorability, and other characteristics of TLD's.  The study found that the most trustworthy TLD was actually .com , which I

 Have you ever wondered what it must have been like to use social media BEFORE the creation of the internet? I know, I know, you're probably thinking "what is Jennifer talking about? She is absolutely crazy! The social media can't EXIST without the internet!" Some of you may even be staring at this post like the painting below. Everyone knows social media requires the internet and could never be created without it. (If this post hasn't made you feel like this yet, good! I am sure the rest of the semester has though). But what if it was? I recently started working on our final, but the question of "What is the internet/social media?" really got me thinking. At a simple glance, the question seems easily answerable. After all, we all have probably used some type of social media, whether that was Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, Snapchat, YouTube, Pinterest, and the list goes on and on. Social media has intertwined itself with our everyday lives. Although I can

Does anybody else remember Field Day? It was that one day in elementary and possibly middle school where all students got a shirt, a different color for each grade, and participated in sport competitions. There were races, balloon tossing, hula hoop contests, tug of war, sack races, and so much more. It was my favorite day out of the whole year. I would bring an extra pack of markers so people would sign my shirt. Why did we do that? I was cleaning my attic over break and found so many shirts from my K-12 career that had scribbled signatures and weird drawings all over them. I still don't understand why we got these fresh shirts and wanted to ruin them with marker that would fade but never come out. There were also ribbons given out for first place, second place, third place, and participation.   The one thing that everyone could agree on during Field Day was that their grade was the best and everyone else was the enemy, someone trying to steal your first place ribbon. It did not m

Ok guys. Next week is finals week. I know that we are all tired of doing blog posts and being on zoom in general. It has been a really hard year. It has been our first full year of pandemic learning. It has been 414 days since the WHO declared COVID-19 a Pandemic.   It has been really interesting to be a rhetoric and writing major during a major event like a pandemic. Literally the past year in general has been absolute mind-imploding that I still cannot wrap my head around all of the historic moments I have lived through in my lifetime. What I want to know is how being a rhetoric and writing major, and English major, or literally whatever major you are, has changed how you see and perceive the pandemic? How are you coping during this time? What are your plans post-pandemic? How will you use this time to inform your future decisions in life, whether academic or personal or financial?