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.