Entry #3: It's, Like, So Confusing!

So earlier today, I found myself listening to an... interesting podcast about social media and how two girls calculate things like "likes" and "comments" over their Instagram accounts. I'll say it now that what I listened to wasn't particularly interesting to me, but before I do so, if you'd like to hear the podcast for yourself, click here for the prologue, and here for the first act/chapter. Perhaps you should give it a listen before reading on?

Alright... it's review time!

I'm honestly not sure how to feel about the podcast, or at least what I listened to... Perhaps it's because I don't use Instagram like a lot of people do nowadays, but hearing about how two girls calculate their likes, comments, and similar statistics on the images and selfies they post on their Instagram accounts doesn't necessarily interest me. In my eyes, social media seems like a very odd thing to study, especially when a lot of people have some form of account on a site and don't get say, oh, six likes a minute on an image they immediately posted. If you were trying to make a Twitter, Tumblr, Instagram or something else for a research project or for the sake of statistics regarding likes and comments, chances are you wouldn't get quick results. These girls interviewed on the podcast are implied to have been doing this for a long time, and they didn't just start posting online and getting followers. You have to build a reputation in order to earn those likes, and get a following. For someone like me, i'd be lucky if any of my own "selfies" got to around 10 or 15 likes, and that's on Twitter!

But I digress. I think the one point that just doesn't set with me is trying to dive into the "decoding Instagram comments" angle this podcast goes into, especially the end of the introduction segment by Ira Glass, the interviewer:

Ira Glass: "And that's what these Instagram comments are all about, if you know how to read them."

What does he mean by "know how to read them"? I can understand the snide or sarcastic remarks being confusing or the occasional case where someone comments such as when Ella came across a comment on another image where someone said they hated the poster because of their image/selfie, but there's really not much more to "read" into regarding people's comments on things like this on the internet, at least in my own opinion. You don't have to think that deep or that hard into an offhand comment on a photograph, and if someone really liked or disliked what you post about, i'm sure that respective person would let you know.

However, despite my slight frustration with the idea of measuring likes and comments on people's own personal posts, I do resonate with the idea of comments regarding friends and such. I don't much care what people do behind my back on the internet, because... it's the internet. It's impossible to know who or what is watching you 24/7, or identify if one person is worse than another, so why let it get to you? But when it comes to friends or people you know (for absolutely sure, I should stress) on the internet, it does feel a bit heartbreaking when they don't interact with you when you've posted with or about them. Now does that mean they hate your guts or something when they don't comment on a picture you posted with them in it? In my eyes, not really. Maybe the friend is busy, or, because they were physically there with you, perhaps they don't feel the need to share it, or they just haven't done so yet. It's nothing you need to hold against them, so I can definitely feel that angle being spoken about in the podcast.

I suppose with what the podcast offers, despite myself not personally enjoying the content, it is still relevant. There are still lots of people in the world who use Instagram, even if I myself don't use it, and plenty of people learning about and studying social media. And another point I agree with, are these lines from Julia and Ella from Act 1 of the podcast:

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Julia: Um, actually, if I get a comment from someone I care about, I think it makes me feel good, like it lifts me up.

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Ella: Like, it does make you feel good. You're like, oh, I'm getting all these comments. Like, people like my photo. They think I'm pretty. Like, they're saying that you're pretty. And if someone comes up to you and says you're pretty, like, you're obviously going to be like, thank you, if it makes you feel good. Because it just does. Like, that's like human nature. Like, you're going to feel good.

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This is important because I feel this plays a lot into our current world. Not even about likes or comments, but with the technology provided to us, we can now receive a lot more attention than we used to, and likes/comments help influence that because they let us know we're being seen or recognized, and they help us feel sure about our own images, or who we want to be. Do I think we should be analyzing "likes" or "comments" so often or trying to uncover what they mean like they have some sort of deeper meaning? No, because let's be honest, they really don't. It's just a functioning button on a post on a social media site. But I do feel like it's important to recognize and understand what these likes or comments mean to a wider variety of people. As I stated before, any regular joe can make a blog, start posting and get an obscene amount of likes and comments and what not. But it takes more than just someone posting selfies and images all day and getting so many "likes" and "comments" to really understand what they mean to someone, especially to people who supposedly receive up to 130 ~ 150 likes and 30 ~ 50 comments on their regular posts a day.

I'll say it once more: I'm not sure how to feel about this podcast. It doesn't make me upset or angry, but something about it doesn't set right with me either. It's like asking someone how useful of a resource money is when they receive it daily for no cost to them: nobody makes that much a day, and it's mostly defined by whoever you ask that gets it. Some people may like getting that many likes, but to others, it couldn't be anything to them and just be a number going up. But in all, I think it's ultimately up to you to decide. Here's the podcast again, and an additional transcript in case you want to give it another listen, or read it over. But as for me, I think i'm gonna disconnect from the internet, and go outside for a while. See you all later for my next, big post!

Entry #2: Nature That Moves

For this post, I wanted to go a bit more in depth about my love of nature and such, and why certain places or depictions of landscapes move me so much. I'll try my best to accompany these pictures with music, as well as a description of what these bits of scenery make me feel as best as I possibly can so that you, the reader, can maybe see what I see in these various pictures. Perhaps in the future i'll post about art so that I can further explain my own views on things like this more properly.

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Nature Piece #1: The Skies

The great, blue sky that we look up to each day, and the beautiful white clouds that float around without care. Looking up at this beautiful, living art piece that surrounds us each day reminds me that i'm never truly bound to the ground that I stand on. The shimmering shade of blue brilliantly lighting the earth we look on from, and the fluffy, ever-changing clouds that give us rain whenever they choose. Some days, I wish I could go into the sky and build a mansion out of a Cumulonimbus cloud (pictured above). I feel the closest association with the skies because I feel they fit me the most as a person. Ever-changing, floating on wherever the wind takes me, and though there may be times where things seem dour, the blue skies will still shine through, and the white clouds floating around in it will still be just as beautiful.

Mood Music:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VM1zMl8oO3M

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Nature Piece #2: Open Fields

This doesn't necessarily cover any type of specific field in particular, as i'm sure there's plenty of green, open pastures that people love to traverse. But mixed with the clouds and the skies described above, these scenery looks can make you feel just as free, perhaps even more, than the skies would. Rolling hills that you can explore at your leisure and content, and provided you have the means of doing so and building anything, you could make anything that you wish to. This could also apply to forests and the like, where there may be plenty of trees, you can still go for miles and miles and be lost until you come across something beautiful. It's so wonderful to visualize.

Mood Music: 

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

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Nature Piece #3: Gorges and Mountains

This last section of nature is still a good favorite of mine, and almost makes me feel inspired. Standing tall above a large landscape, analyzing the smallest things from atop a high peak feels good to do, and almost makes you feel as if you could fly to the ground beneath you and explore everything that you can see. Coupled with the right music piece, these kinds of landscapes can feel grand, putting on an almost breath-taking experience just from looking at how much ground is shown from mountain to mountain. About anywhere you look from a mountain, and being so high up can give you so many ideas about what could be in a certain location, or what could be waiting for you over the mountain range. It really is magical.

Mood Music: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rCvgt7l3YX4

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I hope you enjoyed reading this post and looking at the various locations I posted here, as well as the accompanying music pieces. In the future i'll perform a blog post on various types of art to record my responses on them, so if you have any you'd like for me to give my thoughts on, be sure to let me know, and i'll post about them along with my thoughts on the piece. For now, just sit back, think of a soothing, calming place in your head, and let yourself drift off into the distance...

Entry #1: The Blogs Surrounding Us

Alright! Let's start things off with a fresh, new post!

Blogs are wonderful. They allow so many of us to express ourselves in any way we wish to. Whether it be about our daily lives, furniture, our hobbies, music, art, literally anything, they have become akin to personal journals that anyone can read and/or create regarding their favorite topics or the events in their personal lives. If you're ever feeling down or upset, or maybe you want to express yourself about what you'd like to do in the future, create a blog! It can absolutely help with flexing your creative muscles and praising what you love doing, or even give you a space to put negative or repressed feelings into. They can express so much over text, images, and so many visualizations, that it's amazing to see what others create with blogs.

And let's, for a second, assume you haven't made a blog of your own yet. Perhaps you don't know where to start, or maybe you want to make a blog of your own, but don't know how it would be composed or structured? Or maybe you're worried that the topic you want to make your blog about is too... niche for the world to pay attention to? Well to that, I say absolutely not. The following blogs i'm going to link to & post about (ranging from best to worst, in my own personal opinion) are three blogs in particular that have caught my eye for one reason or another. If you're not sure about what you want to talk about, perhaps these blogs will give you a good spark of inspiration!

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Blog 1: IKEA Hackers

Have you ever bought something from an IKEA Furniture warehouse, taken it home, unpacked the contents and said to yourself, "Hey! I could easily make all of these parts from this dresser into something new!"

If so, then have I got the perfect blog for you! This blog in particular is an entire catalog of posts from people who've bought things from IKEA Furniture specifically, and turned them into creations of their own making. I think i'd have to name this blog a personal favorite just from the idea of it alone. Using IKEA-brand furniture and turning it into something else? Very interesting! The blog is also very colorful and fun to look at, even if you're not reading instructions on how to turn your IKEA chair into something like a bench.

Blog 2: That'd Be Cabel Sasser

(Of course, at least one of the blogs I post about here had to be from someone that works with video games.)

This is a personal blog of a man who works as a musical artist for smartphone-based video games, his most recent soundtrack composition being of a smartphone game called "Stagehand" (which the link can be found for in the blog itself). His posts consist of his real-life adventures with recording and composing music for the various games he works on. The blog itself has a simple layout, but is easy to read, and while there are the occasional firework posts that seem a bit off-topic with how much he talks about composing music, he's still very consistent and never goes completely off topic when talking about how he works. Easily a nice recommendation from me.

Blog 3: Advertising Lab

This blog... hm.

This blog really doesn't set well with me. Not necessarily because of the advertising angle for other companies or things that the person would usually post about, not really because of the visually uninteresting layout that doesn't catch your eye in the slightest, but mainly because of the two most recent posts the blog has made regarding technology, and how long those posts have been spaced out between each other (the most recent ones from 2013-2012). I'd be okay with this if maybe the blog posts were about technology specifically, but it's very... odd to see this person suddenly write about how the company Dell isn't doing enough to allow people to do things less (like sending an email, clean your house, etc.), in a way completely different from the informative style of their previous posts, and the post before that talking about how they want to go back to the times when technology wasn't so rampant. Easily the worst blog i've listed here, as not only has this blog probably seen better days, but also has completely drifted away from its' original purpose.

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And there are some blogs for you to check out! I believe all of these should give you a good idea of what to do and what NOT to do regarding whatever direction you take your own kind of blog in. And once you're done exploring those blogs, be sure to stick around my blog for future updates!

- Lucas Vincent

Introducitons

Hello, everyone! Welcome to my Blogger page.

My name is Lucas Vincent, and i'm the person running the blog you see before you. To start with a bit about myself, I grew up here in Arizona for a good chunk of my childhood. After various things in life happened, I moved out to California, and then finally moved back to Arizona. You'll find that i'm not quite social out in the real world, but online and through blogs such as this, i'm quite vocal.

My interests lie in music, nature, and video games, which all tie into each other. Music is interesting to me because of what can be achieved through good composition and sound, with my favorite type of music being orchestral music. Nature catches my eye particularly because of what the world around us can form, my favorite types of scenery involving blue skies and plenty of clouds, as I feel it fits my personal style.

And finally, my love for video games. I enjoy video games quite a lot because they can speak volumes about one person and their thoughts through an interactive medium that others can enjoy and experience. Someday, I want to be able to create my own video game and do the same for my own personal events and thoughts. Expressing my ideas through music, visuals, and fun activities in the world I create myself... that's truly what I want to accomplish someday.

You can expect any of my entries to be about any of those major topics, whether they be about my personal favorite songs, what makes things like nature beautiful, or maybe even good things to know about video games or how to go about approaching them. And you can find them all as they update, right on the front page of this blog.

I hope you enjoy my entries!