Brainstorm for Essay 2

I am using this blog to free write and attempt to come up with my topic sketch for our second essay. I was introduced to The Internet Movie Database, better known as imdb.com when I was in high school and have been an avid groupie ever since. I stumbled upon this website by accident. After “Googling” Colin Firth following watching him portray Mr. Darcy in “Pride and Prejudice” I was led to this site that would soon be added to my favorites toolbar on Internet Explorer. This tool also led me to view all his other works and upcoming projects.

IMDB was got underway in October of 1990. However it wasn’t until amazon.com obtained it in 1994 that it became the mega hit website that it is today. This site had a role in my life. It helped solve so many of my questions and always provided entertainment. The most useful quality that I found of the site was that it got to the bottom of so many of my friends pet peeves. Whenever I watch a movie there is usually one character that looks so familiar but I just cannot place what movie I have seen them in before. IMDB resolved this pestering question. All it took was typing in the movie title to the search box. Instantly a list of characters appeared with links to all their other works, finally putting my mind to rest. When thinking of IMDB however it also made me think about free movie and music downloading sites similar to Watchtvsitcoms.com or Limewire and Kazaa. These brought upon a completely different issue, the growth of piracy and copyright infringement.

This serious crime that is taken so lightly is the unauthorized reproduction of music, a television show, movie or book. Children through adults download music and watch free movies online as if there was nothing wrong with it, and without any remorse for their actions. The reason that children do not know what they are doing is wrong is because they are not taught the severities of this crime. As kids we learn about the harm of crimes dealing with murder, stealing and drinking and driving so when we were told that downloading a song that usually costs $0.99 is illegal we kind of overlooked it. It wasn’t even until the movie previews for piracy that I knew what it was. This add “You wouldn’t steal a car” caught my attention, and that of many others in theaters all over America. This crime is serious and I would like to research it more and how it deals with technology. The main source of piracy is the Internet. I think it would be interesting to see what the actual punishments for the crime are. These penalties I know would scare me, and possibly others to the extent of others so that they will stop stealing movies, songs, CDs and more. It is not fair to the artists, producers, writers and managers so why does it seem so normal for us to take what is not ours for free? 

Entertainment Junkies

The World Wide Web has become an integral part of the American modern life since its creation less than a century ago. Every single day, millions of Americans will sit down at their personal computers and exchange some sort of information via the complex superbrain of knowledge that is our Internet. Even if they do not directly input to the system, every American uses the web. Be it at the grocery store when using a credit card, in a department store that uses telecheck, be it as you check out a library book or as you have your drivers license run by a police officer, the connection is inescapable.

The ability to connect to so many people at once is a powerful tool, but it is just that –a tool. A tool cannot work on its own; an outside force must operate it. The outside force is in control of the tool and any effectiveness or ineffectiveness of that tool will be the direct effect of the operator’s effort. In the case of our Internet, we the human beings are the operators, and it is up to us to induce any effects we wish to see. We choose how we manipulate the Internet and to what extent we use its information. We may use the web for good or bad, for knowledge or entertainment, and -as is usually the case in this realm of existence- we will reap the consequences of our actions.

It worries me, the ways we in America have used the Internet, the way we have neglected the full potential of such a tool of connection. I can feel the negativity of our situation, I can feel it turning in my gut, but I just know that there is potential for something better. All it takes is a change in operation.

It seems to me that our Internet has come to be viewed, by so many Americans, as just another means of entertainment. I am not anti-entertainment, I am however anti-apathy and anti-ignorance. I can enjoy the fellowship of watching a good movie amongst a good group of friends just as much as the next guy and I can definitely appreciate the plethora of feelings that I so easily conjure by listening to my music, but I feel that these pleasures are shallow in respect to the big picture of life and all of its complexities.

I feel that matters of entertainment should come secondary to matters of actual importance. Your friends, family, community and government deserve priority over the falsity and distractions of entertainment. As a nation we have become totally addicted to entertainment, it surrounds us everywhere we go and we soak it up like sponges. Instead of worrying about the health of a neighbor or the state of our nation, the average American is mostly concerned with who got voted off of their favorite “reality” show or what the latest comedic YouTube video is going to be. There are far too many real issues facing your nation today, far too many troubles in your state, your community, your home and within your own self to be concerned about imaginary characters and their imaginary conflicts. Take the time to become educated, participate actively in your own life, and then look to entertainment for relaxation if you must. Do not allow virtuality to consume your actuality. There is much more to life than entertainment.

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

Internet Natural

With the 2008 election off and running at full speed, it looks like this election is going to be one that affects the future of this country for a long time to come. Ads on TV, radio plugs, bumper stickers, everywhere you go you see people trying to sway the vote. As always, twenty four hour news channels thrive during this time. CNN is having its highest ratings ever because of the debates. All of these channels advertise the best all around election coverage, but how do you know that the information you are getting is unbiased? Fox News is generally known for leaning towards the conservatives, and MSNBC is known for being overly liberal in its coverage. And how can you ignore the mainstream media's love for Obama. Leave it to them to pick favorites and ignore the other candidates. Maybe this is why more people are turning towards a new medium to get all of their news and election information, the Internet.

Most candidates have official websites where voters can go and look at what issues the candidates say they support, but what they say they support can be totally different than what they did in the past. Voting records don't lie, and if there is one place where you can find anything about someone's voting record, it's the Internet. More popular websites such as politico.com let you compare candidates' viewpoints and records so you can see exactly where they stand on certain issues. Another thing on the web that the candidates seem to be taking advantage of is the ability to post videos. Sites like Youtube have skyrocketed in popularity and many people are taking advantage of that to gain access to the youth of the nation and to educate them and get them involved in the voting process. Not one person has done this better than Ron Paul.

Instead of talking about hope and change, Paul addresses the real issues that threaten our country. Social Security, National deficit, inflation, the war, Paul realizes that all of these issues could lead to the financial collapse of America. But the mainstream media doesn't pick up on his message because he doesn't resort to dumbed down talk. Instead, he likes to engage in more intelligent discussion that involves doing some research. This is why Ron Paul thrives on the internet. Whether you are looking at facebook supporters, myspace friends, or Youtube video views, Paul dominates them all. His supporters are some of the most dedicated out there. Everywhere you go you see his signs, even in some of the most obscure places, such as the interstate. His supporters set up a day in which everyone would donate money in order to set a fund raising goal, and it worked. As of right now, he currently holds the record for most money raised in a single day by a Republican. He's done other things too, but I'll talk about those in my topic sketch. It's really late right now.

Essay 2 Topic Sketch/Freewrite

For our second essay assignment, I think I am going to talk about web design. In one of my classes, we had a mock presidential debate a few weeks ago. Groups of students were assigned to each candidate, and each student researched that candidate’s stance on a major issue. The research did not have to be very lengthy and in-depth; it just needed to be a general overview of the candidate’s position. The first place I looked for my information was the candidate’s official website. I found a link that took me to a page listing major issues, each with a linking to a page with the candidate’s stance on that issue. However, the page detailing the candidate’s stance on the issue was just that—too detailed. Instead of a paragraph at the top of the page summarizing the candidate’s position, the site had pages and pages of quotes from people talking about his stance, dozens of statistics and voting records, and several paragraphs of long-winded narrative. I skimmed through the site and then read parts of it, but in the end I still wasn’t quite sure what his stance was. Although I realize that the candidate was probably not very involved with all of the details of how his website is designed, this site gave me a bad first impression of him. It almost seemed like he was hiding something—I couldn’t figure out what his stance was on an issue, and I was reading his own website!

As this example shows, web design can have a big effect on someone’s opinion of the person or organization represented by a website. So many aesthetic qualities of a website shape our opinions, whether we realize it or we simply take it in subconsciously. Would you take a presidential candidate as seriously if you visited his website and found that the web design had a pink, flower theme? Now picture that same website in a strong blue, or even in grays and reds resembling a power suit. These color schemes give you different impressions of the candidate, don’t they? Color can have a strong effect on your opinion of the candidate. Other qualities that effect your impressions are the efficiency of moving around within the site using links and the way information is presented. I am a big fan of bullet points. I am an analytical thinker and I like things to be in black and white. While I realize that politics is rarely black and white, I think that it helps to see a candidate’s view summarized using a few bullet points.

For our second essay, I am going to write about the criteria that make a good website (specifically a website for a presidential candidate), and then analyze one. I will discuss the things I like about his website, the things I don’t like, and what impression these features give me of the candidate represented by the website. I think I will try to explore which of these aspects are governed by opinion. For example, when I think of the presidential election and all of the candidates, I picture regal blues and blacks, while some people may be more impressed by reds, or even green. So many of these options in creating a webpage have the potential to either subliminally sway the reader toward the candidate or to push the viewer away.

Surfing Sites

With websites like YouTube, Wikipedia, Facebook, and the Google search engine it’s easy for other websites to fall behind. These power houses of the cyber world encounter countless visitors every day, as well as a faithful fan, myself. However, It is my mission to observe less popular sites (or at least according to me) in order to broaden my use of the Web and my time spent on it.

First the following websites fall into the three (well four) kinds of time that I spend on the Web; research (answers to my daily questions with inquiries like “cold remedies” or “Brad and Angelina + more babies”), leisure, and school work (and Facebook). School work and research are both satisfied by the search engine powers of Google. And Facebook time of course goes to the social networking site of Facebook. But left undeclared is my leisure time throughout the day and I make sure to spend it far away from sites like Bored.com and CollegeHumor.com. Nay, I choose to spend my time on the following four sites (judge if you will); DailyCandy.com, WatchTVsitcoms.com, and Overstock.com.

“DailyCandy” provides for my daily curiosity. Once signed up for the newsletter, daily installments of new and unheard of findings with clever and risqué articles alongside inform me of new inventions, say the strapless G-String (if that’s not too racy for our English class blog). DailyCandy also highlights new restaurants and boutiques, even travel depending on the issue you sign up for. The downfall of the daily emails is the loyalty, or the fact that it never ends leading to an overload of candy in your mailbox. The solution? Ditch the Daily emails and instead visit the site from time to time.

“WatchTVsitcoms” has sprung up recently at least in my circle of friends. While I’m still unsure of the legal rules guarding the website, it remains to show current movies and TV shows before they are released to DVD. Movies come in exceptional quality (for being bootlegs) and TV shows are easy to watch. It even boasts the ability to play music (and fast). Also atop the site’s toolbar sits the following features to blog, play games, view eBooks and up-to-date news.

Finally, I ask you to push aside the annoying commercials from Overstock and finally take a visit. If you aren’t intending on purchasing anything, then I encourage you to explore the site. Overstock.com provides great deals and I’m not sure why. Whatever the reason, it has become the norm for me to pass up fifty percent off sales only knowing that I will find better deals just a click away. Cruising through the site becomes interesting and sometimes almost a game, trying to find the biggest deals (fifty-two inch plasma TVs for under a thousand dollars) or most obscure items (wedding rings).

It is my hope that before you power the mainstream websites to look around and find some precious small and interesting website of your pleasing, maybe even entering my given choices into the address bar.

Gaming Addiction

In the year 2002 a teenage boy named Shawn went into a Sony store and bought the latest “MMO” (massive multiplayer online game) called Everquest. Only a few months into playing this game, his mother saw him “remove himself from society and quit his job to move back home to live a virtual life he found much more fulfilling” (Sony Everquest Connection). However, as Shawn’s addiction to gaming increased he developed epilepsy and even had multiple grand ma seizures. Shawn chose to continue playing this game against the doctor’s recommendation not too. A few weeks later Shawn’s mother found him dead in front of his computer, the music from Everquest was still playing; he had committed suicide. I, an avid gamer myself, have enjoyed electronic gaming since I was a child from your simple Tetris to the complex real-time games today. However, I have never been let my life become consumed to the point of its existence being determined by a video game. I have observed how over time games have become more and more realistic increasing the number of people falling into the trap. I want to explore the questions of: where has this new addiction come from, how will it be treated, and how will it affect society in the long run?
While I was surfing the web browsing through many articles about video game addiction I found one by the Aspen Educational Group dealing with the rapid increase in gaming participation and addiction especially in teenage boys. With further reading I learn that the Aspen Educational Group is a worldwide leader in helping adolescence addition’s as well as character development. However the part that shocks me the most is that the “participation in massively multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPG’s) has skyrocketed from less than a million subscribers in the late 1990’s to more than 13 million worldwide in 2006” (VGA). That reminds me of a very popular game many of my friends play called World of Warcraft. It is an extremely popular massive role playing online game where player’s can interact with each other from the four corners of the globe. I want to find out just how far WoW (World of Warcraft) has become the new crack cocaine. According to the credited gaming industry website WoW grossed over 60 million in profits last year and has over 6.5 million users worldwide. Completely astounded I wonder what the average player was like and how much an “addicted person” would usually play. I furthered my research of this topic discovering an article by a Stanford graduate student called Nick Yee who created an internet investigation called the Daedalus Project. His research indicates that the “average player is 26 years old; most hold full time jobs. Seventy percent have played for 10 hours straight at some point, and about half considered themselves addicted.” Both articles made it seem like video game addiction is becoming more common place and is a widespread epidemic. I start to disagree because I truly believe that addiction has much more to do with the individual person and their mentality. It is too rash and bold to pronounce video game addiction as a widespread epidemic. However, I begin to wonder if any credible sources feel the way that I do.

Red Blue America

The growing fad of the use of online blogging as a means of the communication of thoughts, opinions, and news has resulted in thousands upon thousands of blogs- some good, some bad. So what defines a “good blog”? A good blog is written in a highly structured manner which demonstrates clear insight behind the arguments being presented. The blog should contain minimal grammatical errors as well as varying diction and syntax to create a more interesting read. Though many blogs may meet such criteria, I find it hard to take many blogs seriously because their primary subject lacks true substance. Substantive blogs stand apart from the others in that they feed on important issues which cleverly invests and captivates its readers which brings me to my next point of criterion. In my opinion the most important point a blog must meet to be deemed “good” is to clearly establish an intended audience. The blog must successfully appeal to its projected audience by taking points into consideration such as the tone, subject, and organization of the writing. To see if a blog successfully meets such criteria, I not only look at the blog posts, but I also view the reader’s comments to see what type of feedback the site is receiving.

For this particular exercise, I chose to analyze a political blog called Red Blue America. The articles posted on this blog site are well written and highly organized. As a political blog, the article subjects are substantive and intellectually stimulating; the writers are obviously well versed on the subjects which they write. What I like about this blog site is that it incorporates reader involvement and feedback from various political stances. As it contains both conservative and liberal articles, this site makes it very easy for readers to view both sides of an argument in a very organized way. Because of such organization and variety, many readers regularly view the site as well as participate in it. While viewing the readers’ comments, it was apparently that a few of the people who responded had little or no knowledge of the subject they were commenting on. However, it seems that most of the readers and writers of this site have a real interest in and passion for the political subjects they read and write about. I noticed that readers of this site began to not only interact with the writers but also with the other readers of the site. While many used the site as a sort of combat zone in which they could easily find a debate to participate in, after finding another person who commented and voiced similar thoughts and beliefs, many then began to feed off of one another in an attempt to make their arguments stronger. I was very impressed by both the writers' and readers' knowledge and skills of debate. I view this political blog as being a “good” blog because though the readers' values and opinions may vastly differ, the blog demonstrates that its viewers share one common connection: a great passion for politics and in effect the well being of our political nation.

A Good Message

I am going to take this opportunity to present my topic sketch as well as do some free writing for the topic of my essay. After going over several options to write about, I finally found something that really just stuck in my mind. I decided, for this evaluative essay, to write about a website that has become a phenomenal platform for depression and addiction awareness. The site is called To Write Love On Her Arms. When I first came across this website, about a year ago, I did not really know what it was about. I had heard from friends that it was a band's website, but that was not the case.

To Write Love On Her Arms is a website dedicated to raising awareness about depression and addiction, but it also provides means of treatment for these problems. The organization is non-profit and all of the donations made from supporters are given directly to facilities that specialize in treating victims of depressiona nd addictions. Probably what stuck out to me the most was the website's message. It is a message of hope and relief for those affected by these illnesses and the way it is conveyed to viewers.

When arriving first time to the site, one might think it IS a band's website because there is photos of musicians on the front page, as well as there are tour dates posted. The musicians playing are wearing To Write Love On Her Arms t-shirts as a form of advertising for the organization. I have noticed that this is the program's main source of advertising. Everyone from famous musicians, to kids in highschools all over the country are wearing them. The tour dates are depicting when speakers from the organization will traveling. It's almost like the organization itself has achieved its primary goal: to become a movement.

I look foward to writing about the site because it really strikes a cord with me. I have had family members and close friends that have dealt with depression and addiction, and it is an issue that is close to my heart. I plan to elaborate more on the message and how information is conveyed on the actual site itself, as well as discuss what the program is doing as far as expanding its presence beyond the Internet.