Free Write

I am still deciding between topics for our next essay. I haven’t found a topic yet that I feel like I care enough about to write a substantial essay about. So far, the topics that are the frontrunners are political promotions on the Internet, and Internet homework sites.

I will admit that I am extremely behind in researching the presidential candidates and their views for this election. Politics overwhelm me and I usually like to steer clear from the subject. Now that I am actually old enough to vote for the president of this country, I feel like I have a certain obligation to vote. I feel like it’s an awesome privilege I should take advantage of. Sadly, there isn’t one candidate I feel strongly enough about to go vote for, mostly because I haven’t done much research on any of them.

While searching YouTube for presidential candidate related videos last week I began to learn a little more about some of them. I think the candidates are realizing how important the Internet is, and it is nice to see that they are utilizing sites such as YouTube to reach out to the masses. I found myself drawn to the more cinematic video promotions that drew me in with music and emotion such as Obama’s “Yes We Can” video. That video was very powerful to me as well as others I have talked to about it. It reaches out to many different types of people to show how Obama cares about everyone.

Other kinds of videos I find myself drawn to are the satirical videos such as the Mad Tv skit we watched in class. While these videos may seem to be completely for entertainment purposes, they are, in a way, sneaking in information without us even noticing sometimes. Especially when searching though video upon video of serious issues and speeches on YouTube, it is extremely nice to come across one that will make you laugh. I was extremely turned off to videos made by a candidate that was directly bashing their opponent. I saw one video of Hillary Clinton defending herself about things Obama said on one of his advertisements. There is nothing appealing about that to me. If the candidate’s beliefs and views are strong enough, they shouldn’t have to put down the other candidate and try to discredit them. This really turned me off to both Hillary and Obama.

While the topic of presidential promotion on the Internet is interesting, I don’t think I would be able to stretch it out to a full essay. I can barely talk about it enough for one post like this. Another subject I was thinking about is homework on the Internet. I hadn’t experienced this much until college, but so far it has had many positives and negatives. It is very convenient because, theoretically, you can do homework from almost anywhere, but it still has its bugs that should be fixed. I have been especially frustrated with the math software we are forced to use in some of the math classes at the University