Final Assignment (attempt #2): What Makes You Laugh?

After some good feedback from my peers, I updated my final assignment on "What Makes You Laugh?"

For this clip, I still kept the same interviewees that I used in the first attempt, but this time I added an introduction and conclusion that goes into what makes us laugh.  The intro and conclusion provide a narrative that lays over photos/images that I thought were funny.  In the background I also added music throughout the entire clip.  The song is, "Make Em' Laugh," from the movie soundtrack from "Singing in the Rain."  Thanks to a fellow classmate for providing me with that idea and song.

The point of this clip is to show laughter.  The thing of it is, is that laughter is really in the eye of the beholder.  I can't tell you what's funny to you.  Only you can decide that.  What I may think is funny, or my interviewees, may not be funny to my audience.  

I just hope I made you...at least smile.  Enjoy!

British Animal Voiceover

What's funnier than voice-overs on animals, especially with a British accent?!

Sobriety Test

  Thank you Comedy Central and Reno 911 for this great clip!

Sometimes You Just Gotta Dance

Source: Dancing Kid

Final Assignment: The Digital Story

In our final assignment, we were to create a digital story that incorporated our sociological concept while using interviews.  So, for my digital story, I used my concept of comedy/humor and titled it "What Makes You Laugh." 

The point of my project was to get a few people to tell me a funny story.  I didn't care if it was an actual experience, or a make-believe story, but I wanted the interviewees to tell me something that made them laugh.  I chose three people and allowed them a few days to think it over.  I knew that if I just sprung this question, what makes you laugh, to them, they would experience a bit of stage fright.  So, by allowing a couple days to think about it, I knew I'd at least get something out of each of them.  Once I recorded the interviewees, I used Windows Live Movie Maker to create my digital story. 

The video below is the outcome of those interviewees and their stories.

What was so fascinating about this experiment was that once we completed recording, we sat for almost an hour throwing more and more funny stories back and forth.  Once they got one story out, it was like the flood gates opened.  All of a sudden, we all couldn't help but to tell more stories and attempt to make each other laugh.  I thought about continuing the recording session, however I knew my movie would end up lasting a long time. 

All in all, the digital story was a fun and cute experiment with my humor/comedy concept.  Each story told was an attempt to show the humor behind it, and to make, not only themselves laugh, but to make others laugh in the process.

Email Mistake

When it comes to human work, we are bound to make mistakes and have failures.  With being human, we are not perfect and will all make mistakes and in a work environment, it's no different.  It happens in all occupations. One of the biggest mistakes employees make in their work environments has to do with emails.

This clip portrays every employees nightmare, the reply all email that was only supposed to be a reply to one person.  Bridgestone Tire Company came up with this advertisement poking fun at the shame, embarrassment and fear that is instilled on us when this mistakes occurs.  Once we press send, it's too late, and our freakout begins.  The thoughts start circling on whether this mistake will get us fired, lose clients/coworkers/friends, ruin our reputation, etc.  Overall, we just want to find every person that receives the message and stop them from reading the email before it's too late.

In Sally Hastings article "Embarrassing E-mails in Organizations," she studies how e-mail is one medium of communication through which people engage in organizational communication and experience the emotion of embarrassment.  She provides the framework of "Facework" following Goffman's notion of "face".  According to Goffman, 'face' describes it as both an individual and an interactional accomplishment as the individual exerts efforts to maintain a particular image, but that the image is grounded in 'approved social attributes.  Hastings 'Facework' is where the employee seeks to maintain a professional image and to the organization in general and there are two faces (positive and negative).  As an employee we try to 'keep face' by portraying an image that fits the character of the perfect employee to that organization.  One little slip up like a reply all email which was only supposed to be seen by one set of eyes can ruin that employee's 'face.' 

Prezi Assignment

 In this assignment, we were told to create our own Prezi presentation that relates to our sociological concept.  For my concept of humor/comedy, I took the different genres of comedy to create my Prezi presentation.

Each bubble presents a different comedic genre, which provides an explanation of the genre and some examples.  Some of the bubbles include clips that also explains the genre. 

All the information I obtained for this presentation was retrieved from Wikipedia at:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comedic_genres   and all the clips were obtained through YouTube.

 To view my Prezi presentation, click on the link below:
Genres of Comedy

Xtranormal Assignment

In this assignment, we were told to create an Xtranormal cartoon that contains our concept.  For my creation, I took a satirical/comedic approach to a conversation I would like to have with some people in regards to their Facebook posts.  The cartoon contains 2 actors, the first actor has no name (because anyone can insert their name in here as a way to approach someone about their Facebook etiquette), and the second actor is named Sarah.  Sarah's problem is that she posts everything and anything on her Facebook and thinks everyone of her friends enjoys it.  The first actor has confronted her on her posts and explains that she doesn't follow Sarah anymore because of the amount of detail, grossness, amount of posts that she submits. 

Frankly, this confrontation is something I feel many people wish or want to have with some of their friends on Facebook.  Some  people feel that posting everything about their lives is a good thing, when really it expresses the narcissism of their acts.  Most of us don't care if you go to the store, or make dinner.  All in all, this cartoon is a make believe scenario on confronting those that have no clue how annoying their lives truly are.

The Election, The Candidates, and The White Vote

I've always been a fan of Chris Rock and his comedic genius, so it should be no surprise that I would post at least one thing from the great man himself.  Thanks to a fellow classmate for recommending me this video, I think it fits in perfectly with what's happening now with the election year and my concept.

This video was created by Chris Rock for the late night Jimmy Kimmel Show and I retrieved this clip off of YouTube.  In this clip, Chris Rock performs an election add promoting the re-election of President Barack Obama for the 2012 election.  What Rock is trying to do is convince white people to vote for Obama, portraying Obama as a white man trapped in a black man's body (basically). 

The World According to Americans

I discovered this information graph on Barry Ritholtz Blog in which a world map was labeled by the viewpoint of Americans. In this map as well as the other's posted in this post are all about how we all stereotype for comedy.  Are we ignorant and narcissistic compared to everyone else in the world???  Maybe so, but then other countries can make a map from their point of view and label us just that, ignorant/narcissistic/assholes.  I might be wrong, but these maps display humor in an image and how we know as Americans that we are full of ourselves. 

Another example of a world map according to Americans comes from Incredible Things website that also pokes fun at how narcissistic Americans are and how we stereotype our world in our point of view. 
The World According to the USA Map takes shots at the entire world from an American (civilized world) point of view. Courtesy of a project titled, “Mapping Stereotypes,” some of them are awfully mean, while others are only mean if you’re very sensitive and/or crazy patriotic. Like Italy=Godfathers, Romania=Dracula, Turkey=Thanksgiving Dinner. Read at your own risk.

But at least, as Americans, we can poke fun at ourselves too and stereotype within our own country.  That's the great thing about comedy is that you have to be able to take shots at you if you're going to give them.  It's a give and take when poking fun.  Below is a map of the USA and how we stereotype ourselves.  This map was found on Incredible Things website and created by Brooke Dowd Sacco.  Sacco wrote a book titled "America in My Book," which depicts a map of the good ol’ US of A based on silly stereotypes that any American is familiar with. Created through the eyes of a Californian, it reiterates what we already know: Florida is for old peeps, Oregon is filled with hipsters, Wisconsin makes cheese, and New Jersey is all about Snooki (ouch!). The tongue-in-cheek print

Assignment 11: Creating an Information Graphic

In this assignment, we had to create our own information graphic that had to do with our concept.  Again, my concept is comedy and humor, so I was trying to figure out what I could make that was funny but still provided some sort of data.  As third-grade as it is, poop, or the thought of it, makes me laugh.  I understand this may not make everyone laugh, but the descriptions of the different kinds have to make you giggle a little because those explanations are just humorous to begin with.  I knew about this list for many years, but it wasn't until this assignment that I thought it could work for my infograph.  The point is, we all do it, we may take it for granted, and not think of this as something that can be funny and informative.

The website I used for this infograph is from Piktochart  and the data was retrieved from 2 different websites that are listed below under sources. 

Sources: The Poopie List 
Piktochart 
This is Your Poop 

Assignment 10: Digital Storytelling Outline

For this assignment we were required to brainstorm ideas for creating our own digital story using our sociological concept.  With my concept focusing on comedy and humor, I've been trying to come up with some entertaining stories to create this digital story.  The two stories I've come up with are actually personal stories of my own. 

The first story has to do with kids on spring break and the shenanigans that are entailed with this yearly ritual.  It consists of a group of girls hanging out on the beach having a good time.  Out of nowhere a group, of guys on the 4th floor tell the group of girls to come over and they want to offer up some beads.  The whole bead thing is just like in New Orleans for Mardi Gras.  The purpose of beads is to get people to do things you want them to do, and if they do it, they are rewarded with beads.  So the group approaches and the guys yell down to do something for beads.  One of the girls says no, but does the flirtatious giggle.  After much coaxing, the guys drop some beads and tell one of the girls that she doesn't have to do anything for them and she can just have them.  As she goes over to grab the beads they dropped, they were taking a whole cooler of ice cold water and lifting it over the ledge.  The girl gets a whole cooler of water dumped all over her in front of an entire beach full of people.  The whole thing here is trusting strangers and desiring something stupid as beads.

The plan for this story was to have me narrate while I have create animation or slideshow.  The assignment requires an interview, however I want to have me narrate my story.  The challenges I think I will face trying to make this digital story is just making the animation or slideshow.  I want to make it cheesy, but not too cheesy.  I just have to figure out a good application to make it funny and entertaining. 

For the second possible story, I want to tell a story about the transition from adulthood to true adulthood.  What I mean by this is when a kid finally turns 21 years old.  We all go through this and it's a right of passage when turning 21 to get drunk, because when an American kid finally turns 21, it means they can finally drink legally.  I want to tell the story of that transition and the shenanigans that follow. 

If I went with this story, I would probably approach it the same way as the first story, which is make it an animation or slideshow and have a voice-over as the interview.  And just like the first story the challenges that I think will be tough is just creating the animation finding the best software or application to make it funny and entertaining. 

I had one more idea that I think would be different and maybe funny.  It is to use the news-feed from Facebook and create a storybook on attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).  What I would do is take my news-feed and read what people write and to put it together as a story.  It's so random and weird...almost like a digital Mad-Lib.  What the Facebook news-feed provides are quick little excerpts of peoples thoughts and when you put it together it's just quick little stories.  I think putting them together may come out funny.

Stages of Grief

Death is something that we will all experience at some point in our lives.  When most people think of death, it is a sad event.  With most events of death, they do not come across as funny.  The five stages of death or as it's also known as the 'grief cycle,' was created by Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, M.D..  Kubler-Ross intention was not to create these steps as a strict series or steps that were sequential or process.  The stages/cycle was more of a model or framework and even just a guide for people going through hard times in life in regards to themselves and/or others.  Every person reacts/performs/thinks/etc in different ways, and these stages of grief become to different to different people.  Some people may not experience every stage or some may revisit stages they have already experienced.  As Kubler-Ross puts it, "People’s grief, and other reactions to emotional trauma, are as individual as a fingerprint."

 The model's purpose is to help recognize the fact that people experience their own individual journey when they deal with death, trauma, heartache, etc., and after which there becomes acceptance of the person's reality and the situation, which then helps them cope and move forward.

Below is the breakdown of each of the 5 stages that has been described by Kubler-Ross:

1 – Denial	Denial is a conscious or unconscious refusal to accept facts, information, reality, etc., relating to the situation concerned. It’s a defense mechanism and perfectly natural. Some people can become locked in this stage when dealing with a traumatic change that can be ignored. Death of course is not particularly easy to avoid or evade indefinitely.
2 – Anger	Anger can manifest in different ways. People dealing with emotional upset can be angry with themselves, and/or with others, especially those close to them. Knowing this helps keep detached and non-judgemental when experiencing the anger of someone who is very upset.
3 – Bargaining	Traditionally the bargaining stage for people facing death can involve attempting to bargain with whatever God the person believes in. People facing less serious trauma can bargain or seek to negotiate a compromise. For example “Can we still be friends?..” when facing a break-up. Bargaining rarely provides a sustainable solution, especially if it’s a matter of life or death.
4 – Depression	Also referred to as preparatory grieving. In a way it’s the dress rehearsal or the practice run for the ‘aftermath’ although this stage means different things depending on whom it involves. It’s a sort of acceptance with emotional attachment. It’s natural to feel sadness and regret, fear, uncertainty, etc. It shows that the person has at least begun to accept the reality.
5 – Acceptance	Again this stage definitely varies according to the person’s situation, although broadly it is an indication that there is some emotional detachment and objectivity. People dying can enter this stage a long time before the people they leave behind, who must necessarily pass through their own individual stages of dealing with the grief.

(Based on the Grief Cycle model first published in On Death & Dying, Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, 1969. Interpretation by Alan Chapman 2006-2009.)

 So, what happens when you put a comic spin on it?  What it does is make death and the process of death a bit more acceptable.  The show, "Robot Chicken," which is presented on the Cartoon Network channel during it's Adult Swim segment, has done just that.  They take a giraffe who is about to die due to being stuck in quicksand, and follows him through the stages of the grieving process because he knows he's not going to make it.  It is an accelerated look at grief that we all will experience. 

The Source:  EKR Foundation

Assignment 9: Video Slideshow with Voiceover

In this assignment, we are told to take our last video and add our voice to it to narrate the slideshow.  My approach was being the voice of the mooning gnome, named De Pants the Gnome.  He got his name when he was born, butt first, and the name just stuck.  His brother is the famous traveling gnome being posted all over Expedia.com posing for pictures and traveling the world.  De Pants wanted to make his parents proud and be like his brother, to be famous and well known around the world.  So far, he's no where close, but he's slowly getting his break.  It's really a small break, traveling around with his partner in crime.  Nothing crazy, but just doing what he does.

Breaking the Relationship Barrier

When arriving at the dating age, I remember asking friends and relatives how I should act while on this date and common responses were usually “don’t hold back,” and/or “just be yourself,”  “act natural.”  But I already knew better than to literally take them at their word—particularly when it came down to expressing vital bodily functions. In the top clip from Sex and the City, Carrie lets one accidentally slip while in bed with Big during the early stages of their relationship, and her embarrassment, much to his delight, is palpable and lasting. In the bottom clip, the young woman is at first put-off when her boyfriend shamelessly farts. However, following his suggestion, she then comes to “act natural,” and indeed, to repetitively embrace the act—much to his chagrin. 

 

Taken together, the clips provide a springboard to discuss the fact that many social norms are clearly gendered in the sense of their unequal application to the sexes. In terms of public displays of flatulence, many males seem to think nothing of engaging in it—sometimes even making it a high-sport for masculine amusement. Females, on the other hand, are supposed to hide their need for release, holding it in for all their worth. At a deeper level, gendered norms about flatulence suggest differential power between the sexes, and perhaps even contempt among men for women. As Weinberg and Williams (2005) note: “...bodily grossness may be valued for its opposition to the manners that femininity is thought to imply. The delight taken in physical behaviors like burping can indicate men’s disdain for what they perceive as feminine. Some men may adopt this form of embodiment as an expression of their power over women as they deliberately breach the habitus.”  

While the bottom clip humorously indicates the normative double-standard, it can  also function as an illustration of a breaching experiment. Harold Garfinkel’s ethnomethodological perspective emphasizes understanding social reality as humanly constructed and hinged on unspoken social norms. The significant power of such norms is revealed by first deliberately violating or “breaching” them and then observing how others react in turn (see Garfinkel, 1967).

The Source: Bernie Hatefield Website

http://www.berniehatefield.com/

Harold Garfinkel (breaching experiement)

Fecal Matters: Habitus, Embodiments, and Deviance

MARTIN S. WEINBERG, and COLIN J. WILLIAMS ,

Social Problems , Vol. 52, No. 3 (August 2005), pp. 315-336

Published by: University of California Press on behalf of the Society for the Study of Social Problems

Article DOI: 10.1525/sp.2005.52.3.315

Article Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1525/sp.2005.52.3.315

Assignment 8: Video Slideshow

 

 

 

Assignment 8 focus was to take our conceptual focus, use images related, and make a video slideshow of the pictures.  With my concept being comedy and humor, I was trying hard to find something that I could take lots of pictures of that would be funny.  It wasn't until I was in my backyard with my dog that something caught my eye that was perfect.  My mooning Gnome was the perfect object to take pictures of.  First off, it's a gnome, so it's weird to begin with.  Then, this little fella is mooning, so that's even funnier.  My plan was to take this guy around with me and put him in random spots, and then take pictures of him in those positions/spots.  I eventually wanted to take him to a busy location and set him somewhere and take pictures of their reaction, but my fear was that someone would take him.  So, I stayed close to him when I took the pictures.  All I can say is that if I saw this little guy just sitting somewhere, I'd probably take him too.  The music that I used was from Windows Photo Story 3.  It had a sort of quirky rhythm to it and I didn't want to use some song or melody that I would get sued for, so I figured this was the safest bet.

 

Anyway, by using my pictures, and a few random gnome pictures that made me laugh, I used Photo Story 3 to make my presentation.

Assignment 7: Screen Structure Images

(This picture is not related to the assignment, but hell, it's funny)

In this assignment, we were required to go out and take pictures and/or collect images that are related to our conceptual focus.  My focus is humor and comedy and so i did my best to capture that aspect.  The four screen structure kinds are narrative, documentary, aesthetic, and emotional.  In the narrative section, I captured an event where it is running, but not any kind of running, but through the mud.  

Documentary section is another running event, however a little different than the first.  This one is running away from some bulls

Aesthetic is the art of facial hair.  Finally emotional is an observation on dressing up and masking up.

So see my presentation, all the sections, and the images, click on the link below.

Slide-Share Powerpoint Presentation: Screen Structure Image Slides

Swear to Save Money

Advertising and commercials have come a long way.  One of the things that has become noticeable is that companies are realizing that humor in advertising is key to catch the audiences attention.  Sex sells, but so does humor.

Take this particular Budweiser commercial.  The point of the clip is that a swear jar is something that can help control the use of foul language in the workplace, but in this case took a completely opposite turn.  When the plan is to purchase beer for the entire office when the jar is full of money because of swearing, the employees decide to curse more to make more money.  Who would have thought swearing could make you money or even save you money.

The great addition to this commercial is the twist and the use of humor.  Every employee is on the plan.  It's the Durkheimian view of solidarity and the power that has on control/power/authority.  Did the plan fail?  Doesn't seem like it....it brought everyone together...to drink beer and swear

Hell Yay!

The Link: Budweiser Swear Jar

Advances in Technology Could Control Our Everyday Decisions

 

 

Have you ever wanted to have something or someone around to ensure that you didn't do anything stupid in your life?  Sure, of course...because then we would be perfect and never make a mistake or make a fool out of ourselves.  If you truly think about it, with technology advancing so quickly and offering ways of making our lives easier, it may not be long until something helps us make the right decisions instead of taking high risks.

This is the case with a 2012 Nissan Altima car commerical.  The commerical portrays is a guy who continues to push his limits on decisions he is making; for example, a weird hand shake with a employer, betting it all at a casino, going too far with a good night kiss with a date, etc.  Each time he is about to make a bad decision or act, a car beep sounds.  The car beep is stopping him from being stupid.  What the commerical is trying to present is that this new tool in this car will beep when you are close to over pressurizing your car air pressure when filling it up.

What's nice about this clip from YouTube is a possible truth behind the laughs.  Trust me, I laugh everytime I see this commercial, but think, maybe someday there will be something that controls that in our lives.  Might have helped me out on a number of occasions in my lifetime, but then how do we learn from our mistakes if we don't make any?

The source: 2012 Nissan Altima Commerical: Enough

6. Video Clip re Key Concept

One might ask, what is comedy?  This simple word is and can be very complex.  There are different kinds of comedy and this little clip is a great example of what comedy is, but still leaving a question mark at the end.  The creator puts a 1950's spin on the topic (like you would see, back in the day, during school) to possibly explain what this word truly means.  Each example, I promise, will put a little smile to your face....well at least one of the examples will.  If not, then you have no sense of humor and don't deserve to be alive....just kidding (ha, like my blog). 


The creator of this piece is Francesco Marciuliano, and he is the author of the syndicated comic strip Sally Forth, which appears in newspapers across the country (as well as the webcomic Medium Large, which does not). He was also a head writer for the PBS series SeeMore’s Playhouse, for which one of his episodes won two 2007 Daytime Emmys. Francesco has written for the Onion News Network, Smosh, McSweeney’s, and had a play produced at the New York International Fringe Festival. His very first book I Could Pee on This and Other Poems by Cats will hit bookstore shelves both virtual and real in August 2012.

The Source

5. Defining and Visualizing Concepts

Assignment 5: Defining and Visualizing Concepts

1. List two concepts highly relevant to your sociological focus. Briefly state why you would like to learn more about them and especially why you would like to build multimedia around them.

Two concepts that are highly relevant to my sociological focus are humor and comedy in media.  I would like to learn more about these concepts and build multimedia around them because both humor and comedy are part of society and shape our lives.  It triggers people’s emotions and affects their mental ability.  We use it everyday in social life and as the digital world advances further, comedy and humor are even more distributed.  Television, radio, film, images, the internet, all has comedy and humor in them.  These concepts keep society sane and allows for people to not take this life so seriously.  It’s uplifting and beings people together.

2. Provide a brief description relative to how each concept has been defined and measured (i.e., operationalized) in the academic literature (books and/or journal articles). In so doing, consult at least two references per concept (be sure to provide citations for references (follow citation style of American Sociological Review).

For comedy, the book “Laughing Matters: The Paradox of Comedy” by Scott Cutler Shershow, it’s elusive, slippery, and subject to uncertainty principle because measurement transforms or destroys it; it’s always something larger, deeper, and more complicated than it seems (1984:4). In “Comedy, Tragedy, and Religion” by John Morreall, it’s not a time out from the world but it provides another perspective on the world; a perspective no less true than the tragic perspective (1999:3).

For humor, the article “Sociology of Humor and a Critical Dramaturgy” by Paul Paolucci and Margaret Richardson, it is defined as playing with institutionalized meanings; by playing with the meanings that structure our daily lives; humor disturbs our definition of reality causing the emergence of doubt as to the value of daily routines and giving rise to some confusion as to the very foundations of reality (2006:333).  And in the article “Sociology and Humor” by Murray S. Davis, humor is what saves the integration of a subject from the potential disintegration of the object by distancing the former from the latter (1979:4).  Some of the ways that humor has been measured was through observation, surveys, and interviews.

3. For each concept, briefly describe how you might approach it via multimedia representation.

Comedy – multimedia clips from standup shows, television and film. 

Humor – comic strips, images

4. Relative to A Periodic Table of Visualization Methods, determine the following for each of your concepts:

a. Would “structure” or “process” visualization work best?

Answer: I believe structure visualization would work best for comedy and humor in media because it’ll take the general concept and break it down to more specific meanings and relatable information on the concepts.

b. Which of the six broad types might be most applicable?

Answer: either concept, metaphor, or compound visualization because I can see these concepts relying on a more qualitative approach with how people react to content that is presented.

c. Within that broad type, which particular visualization device might be most appropriate?

Answer: right away I focused on cartoon in the compound visualization because cartoon is related to comedy and humor. 

d. Run each concept through Wordnik, Visuwords, Lexipedia, and Ngram Viewer. Did you discover anything noteworthy?

*Wordnik:  Many definitions, meanings, examples and related words

            Comedy – “a dramatic work that is light and often humorous or satirical in tone and that usually contains a happy resolution of the thematic conflict.”

            Humor – “the quality that makes something laughable or amusing; funniness.”

*Visuwords: a visual dictionary diagram that connects the word to their meanings and associations with other words and concepts

            Comedy – “light and humorous drama with a happy ending.”

            Humor – used as a verb, noun or adjective; related to mood, wit, chemical reaction, a sense, and in the middle ages was one of the four fluids that determined your emotional and physical state.

*Lexipedia: online visual semantic network with dictionary and thesaurus references.  

            Comedy – “light and humorous drama with a happy ending.” Related to funniness, clowning, prank, show, sarcasm, drama.

            Humor – “the characteristic of being funny and amusing.”

*Snappy Words: an online interactive English dictionary and thesaurus that helps find the meanings of words and draw connections to other words it is associated with.

            Comedy – “light and humorous drama with a happy ending.” Related to melodrama, low comedy, slapstick, sitcom, dark drama, comic, tragedy, amusing.

            Humor – wit, sulk, liquid or bodily fluid, mood, temperament.

*Ngram Viewer: a phrase usage graphing tool that charts yearly counts of publications on the word that is entered.

            Comedy – starting from 1800 to the present, this word had many more publications at the beginning and then leveled out.

            Humor – starting from 1800 to the present, this word had very little publications at the beginning but then leveled out with comedy almost being equal.

What I found is that Visuwords, Lexipedia, and Snappy Word were all very similar in the definitions and also image/web diagram.  Wordnik was much more thorough providing a more wordy depiction of comedy and humor.  Ngram Viewer was a line graph that provided information on the amount of publications that contained the word/topic beginning in the 1800’s until the present.  This site was very different compared to the others in regards to meaning and definitnions, however it did provide information on where to find resources to study those words/topics and was a visual graph like Visuword, Lexipedia and Snappy Word.  Overall, all the sites except for Wordnik provided a visual depiction whereas Wordnik provided a listing of means and definitions.  All provided practically the same information but presented it a little differently.

4, Illustrating Concepts

Assignment 4: Illustrating Concepts

After watching Philip Zimbardo’s “The Secret Powers of Time” video and then comparing it to an animated recreation of Zimbardo’s presentation “RSA Animate – The Secret Powers of Time,” it was quite clear the difference between the two videos (even though it was the same briefing).  I personally found the animated presentation superior to Zimbardo’s talking head video when comparing the ideas and presentation.  Below I explain both videos and then provide my reasoning for preferring the animated versus the lecture video of the material.

            Philip Zimbardo is a Stanford Psychology professor who wrote a book called “The Time Paradox” in 2008.  This original video is a recording of Zimbardo’s lecture providing a presentation on his book and the concepts he had discovered in regards to time and the perspective of this in children.  The video takes place in an auditorium full of people.  He stands at a podium with a screen behind him that presents some of his data slides.  The video/briefing Zimbardo gives runs approximately forty minutes.  Zimbardo’s argument is in regards to attitudes toward time in our lives, where it is mostly an unconscious act, where these attitudes can shape our personalities and the lives we end up leading.   This video is informative, on the long side, filled with lots of information/data/videos of proving the concepts, and set in an academia environment.

            In the second video featured, it takes Zimbardo’s lecture video and transforms it into a somewhat animated presentation.  The animated presentation takes the audio of the lecture but edits it to where it only provides the main points of the briefing.  This video lasts approximately ten minutes and provides only a white board and someone drawing pictures (in fast motion to speed up the process) of what Zimbardo is presenting.   The video is short, to the point, and entertaining.

            The whole point of Zimbardo’s lecture is the importance of time and how it affects our lives.  He explains that there are 6 main time zones that people live in; 2 past, 2 present, and 2 future.

People focus on the past focus on the memories/good old times (past positive), and the others focus on regret/failure (past negative).  Two present oriented; hedonistic (live for pleasure/knowledge/sensation and avoid pain), or the others that believe life is fated by religion/class/status/socio-economic standing, and that it doesn’t pay to plan.  Finally the future oriented; learned to work rather than play/resist temptation, the other is based off that true life doesn’t begin until after death of the mortal body (depending on your religion).  The future oriented trust that when you make a decision for the future, it’ll carry out.  Zimbardo states that we are all born present hedonists because we want things right away, pleasure, and avoid pain.  However, family and schooling help teach us how to go from present hedonists to future oriented citizens.  He also states that those of Catholic religion seem to be more present or past oriented, whereas those of the Protestant religion are future oriented.  Time duration and pace of life compared to different cultures and cities. High pace of life are more prone to heart disease.  Zimbardo describes that when kids drop out of school, it affects their growth from present to future oriented and could possibly push them into the past negative category.  Unfortunately boys are more likely to drop out of school than girls, and that boys are more inclined to expose themselves to video gaming which affects their brain functioning.  Zimbardo emphasizes that this outcome is a recipe of disaster for developing boys in America.  He believes that specific forms of technology is are causing boys the problem to grow into future oriented citizens because video gaming and other forms of technology are more attractive/fun/exciting for boys and it allows them to live in a world they create.  He believes their brains are being digitally rewired which he says they will never fit in a traditional analogue classroom because this would be boring to them and it lacks their control.  If schools go back to focusing on reading/writing/arithmetic school are doomed to fail because kids are being reprogrammed in learning.  They don’t want a passive environment.  This results to a present hedonistic mindset.  When kids are present oriented, they know the future consequences however that knowledge doesn’t change their behavior, whereas future oriented kids know the consequences and manage their behavior to stay on the straight and narrow.  He believes we are underestimating the power of technology in rewiring people’s brains.  We are an impatient society and there is a fundamental change in our culture.

            I believe Zimbardo is somewhat right in what he is stating.  After watching his video and then the second one, I realized that I am becoming more and more impatient with long videos that don’t just get to the point.  The animated video did just that.  I don’t believe it is just children’s minds that are being rewired and reprogrammed, but adults as well.  We are becoming a society where we want things now and hate to wait.  Our culture is fundamentally changing, but not just for kids.  Education is still in the traditional analogue structure, in which will continue to fail in a society that is constantly changing.  Ironically, comparing the two videos, it emphasizes my person time perspective with what’s going on around me.  I preferred the shorter, animated video of Zimbardo’s lecture because it was short and to the point, which highlighted Zimbardo’s concepts of time and our attitudes.  

Exploring Online Sociology Site (Assignment 3)

The site I found interesting and somewhat relevant to my interests is the site “The Sociological Cinema.”  This site’s concentration is on the teaching and learning of sociology through video, particularly in pop culture.  It’s run by three sociologists who were graduates from the University of Maryland.  They launched the site in 2010 as a way to facilitate sociology through video.  However, it has branched out from not just video, but also graphs, pictures, resources, audio clips and blogs.  This site is a great way to see how sociology is interrelated to everything in our lives going on all around us.  It’s a great tool for teachers and students to see how what’s going on in the media is related to sociology.  This is why I enjoy this site.  I can find a lot of useful and appealing information on sociology and theories through the use of the videos.  

For example, one of the submissions named “Everything’s Amazing and Nobody’s Happy (Social Change Ice Breaker),” really caught my attention.  It is a submission on what social change is, and if a child was born right then, how would their experience differ from yours.  To explore this insight, the author provides a video clip from YouTube from Louis C.K., a comedian, who explores this topic of social change.  He explains that all the technology and advancements we have now are absolutely amazing, but people are still not happy.  He puts a great spin on it (I totally recommend checking it out).  Overall, it’s educational and entertaining at the same time.

 

To see the website, go to:  http://www.thesociologicalcinema.com/

My Online Life (Assignment 2)

In this assignment, we were to create a list that portrays the major ways technology and the Internet has affected our lives.

Major way technology and the Internet have affected your life:

1   1. Never buy DVDs or CDs anymore because I use iTunes

     2.  Try not to buy paperback books anymore because I download eBooks
     3. I pay all my bills online and not send them through the mail

     4. Keep track of people through Facebook

     5. While overseas, I talked to family and friends over Skype
     6. Purchase merchandise online most of the time

     7. Research products online before buying them
     8. Keep life organized through my calendar on my iPad
     9. Use apps to play games or be organized

    10. Use a GPS to get everywhere
    11. Buy movie tickets online before showing up to the movie
    12. Rarely go to the library at school because I can do most of my work at home through my own laptop

    13.  Powerpoint for work presentations

To what extent are your observations and experiences consistent with those made in the article and the two documentaries?

               I notice, sometimes, when I’m at a restaurant and there will be a couple sitting across the table from each other, both with their cell phones out, not talking.  Once the food comes they will eat while looking at their phones.  Advances in technology has its pros and cons, and one of the cons is the loss of actual face to face communication with others, like the example at the restaurant.  We become so involved in what we are doing that we don't care what is going on around us.  However, technology allows us to communicate in different ways to different people all over the world, instantly. 

Mosaic, Who Am I? (Assignment 1)

The purpose of this assignment was to have a set of pictures that explains certain aspects of ourselves.  It is a nice ice breaker when starting a new class to have these pictures to tell strangers quick little stories about your own life.  The website that was used was "Photo Mosaic".  The photos are arranged in labeled from left to right starting from the top.  Here is what each one portrays:

Top left: current photo of ourselves
Top middle: photo of us at a young age
Top right: photo where we grew up
Middle left: photo of most important influence in our lives
Middle middle: photo that symbolizes our personality
Middle right: a photo that would surprise people to know about us
Bottom left: photo of what we are most passionate about
Bottom middle: photo of what we want to be when we grow up
Bottom right: photo of an animal we'd like to be if not a human

Wordle, Who Am I? (Assignment 1)

In this assignment, we were to use the "Wordle" website to make a word cloud that describes who we are.  It was a good ice breaker for the beginning of class to introduce ourselves to everyone and have them get to know who we were.  After some technical difficulties, I finally got mine to work.