Quarantine Chronicles

Please feast your eyes on what seems to be a never-ending cycle during these trying times

You dont Have to be A Twitt to Blog!

Tweeting. Blogging. Who would’ve thought that both could even be in the same category? When a tweet comes to mind certainly because of the character limit it couldn’t be compared to a blog. Or so I thought. 

During these recent years Twitter has been used for people to speak out about their political beliefs. These instances have started movements and spark conversations between unlikely folk that may not have communicated had it not been for social media. The internet helps connect like ideas from individuals around the globe. From a journalistic standpoint, one wouldn’t have to travel far to find out news or speak to people about events because social media is so instantaneous.

When the R Kelly documentary dropped, social media roared with opinions and demands for justice for the victims. As the film exposed more, people continued to speak out against the r&b crooner which eventually led to his conviction after several viral spectacles. People were able to speak about experiences they had and the #MeToo movement was brought back into conversation.

Even news about the Corona virus spread rapidly through Twitter. Although in this instance it may have backfired. For example, lots of misinformation was being spread through China via WhatsApp and there was confusion trying to figure out what was accurate. While Twitter can be used to get information instantly, deciphering which sources are credible is important.

During this class experiment, following National Geographic’s account was very informational. They include striking imagery with some of their posts which is nice to look at. Another account that was a pleasure to follow was Charlemagne the God from the radio show The Breakfast Club. While he did his expected promotional tweets, his personality came through in other tweets, making jokes about the Corona virus. Now on the other hand, follow one Buffalo Bill’s Twitter account was lackluster. While other users had high hopes for the team’s next season, being a sarcastic troll served more of a purpose.

Imagine being in a mirror talking to yourself l, hoping someone, somewhere agrees with your opinion. That’s Twitter in a nutshell. However, it’s different tthan other social sites like Facebook for instance. Facebook is more personal because you add people to the friends list because, hopefully, you know them already and are choosing to reconnect. On Twitter it’s just a bunch of strangers that agree with a 250 character thought. 

What A Wiki Whirlwind!

How many times do you think a person searches wikiHow for a perfect solution to their present issue? Too many times, is the perfect answer. There seems to be a wikiHow page for everything a person needs and understanding how these pages even come to be is an interesting spectacle. It is great to imagine that the world can be connected to new ideas on how to do virtually anything from others on this one website. I mean there are articles on how to mediate. Amaze-balls.

When it comes to actually picking a subject to write a wiki page about, it could be compared to finding a contact lens after it drops in the kitchen sink. Almost impossible, but with perseverance a person shall see it through. Now that there is something to write about, a person has to wonder... "well, how do you do this thing?". Actually, breaking down step-by-step how to do an action that you've been accustomed to is harder than once can imagine. And the specifics, oh man, the specifics! Don't just assume the public will know the difference between a splash or a teaspoon, or whatever.

If a person didn't get to experience the PicNik photo editor before it closed, that’s very unfortunate. PicNik and Photoshop literally could go hand in hand with Photoshop being the more adult grown up version. Changing the color levels and sizing photos is the most fun part of the whole wiki experience, this can be argued.

Coding the page brings back memories of Myspace days. Remember picking a layout for your background, what special effects that you wanted on your page... maybe even a personal quiz in the corner somewhere? Just about the same. Only this isn't as flashy there's no top 5 friends list to compete for a spot on. No seriously, copy pasting the format of a similar wikiKow page was one of the easiest tasks having that layout experience. It was configuring the demo page's layout to the layout of the intended page that was tricky.

Taking the pictures for the project is probably the best part of the whole ordeal. The inner artist comes out as he searches for the perfect angle ensues. Photography is all about the eye of the beholder. Finding angles with only using the landscape camera view was not a hard challenge but making sure the pictures looked good was in fact a little difficult. Hats off to the great Gilles Bensimon, because taking good pictures is hard.

After this whole process the brain seems to zone out and it can be compared to a zombie like trance, with all of this code and intricate detail and whatnot. Just know that all the hard work results into a fabulous tutorial on a brand-new subject for some person in the world. Add a coin to the metaphorical karma bank. With all of the work being put into this one can wonder why they didn’t pursue an engineering degree instead of the arts? Insert laugh track here.

While making a wikiHow page is quite a process, there Is not a real desire to make any more from scratch. Some people are do-ers while other people are searchers. Maybe send an email to the creator of wikiHow and figure out how this site even came to be in the first place.

Its Not That Tricky to Wiki

Long gone are the days when we would read a manual or some other formally written instructions to learn how to do a task. Remember those "For Dummies" how-to books? Surely you've seen one at some point in your local bookstore or library. These days that's considered old school learning. Now you can just pull out your phone, search what it is you're trying to do then, boom, there's a single wikiHow page with steps detailed to the T on how to do that exact thing you were trying to do. Wow, isn't technology great? Who would've thought we would come this far.

With so many how-to pages to search from, where does one even get started? With all of the many great ideas on wikiHow, there are some other how-to's that may come in handy at one point or another:

How To Do Heatless Bantu Knots

Bantu knots, shmantu knots. How many times have you tried to do this protective style only for it to come out looking like a Jerri curl from the 80's or you look like you stepped right out of a Shirley Temple film? No more looking sad looking curls. This tutorial is here to save you and will show you how to properly twist your hair so your curls come with that bounce to the ounce! This may not be the tutorial you asked for, but it's one most people need. You're welcome.

How To Make Tuscan Chicken Dip

Half the population discovered (buffalo) chicken wing dip & went mad for the last year, with many adding their own flair to the recipe. At this point you've probably seen a million ways to make the popular dish but wait just a second.  This recipe for tuscan chicken dip will have you feeling quite fancy & upper echelon because you've elevated from that buffalo dip phase. Throw some crackers & cilantro on a plate that even Food Network would envy. Impress your friends with this recipe & wear your plushest robe for emphasis.

How to Create a Shadowbox

Regular picture frames are so 1996. That's what you usually see hanging in grandma's living room with fond pictures from your childhood inside. But it's the new decade & we're in the age of getting crafty so we're taking saving memories to a whole different level. Shadow boxes are like 3D pictures so say screw that old picture frame and throw it in the garbage. This tutorial will show you how to make a shadowbox that you can turn into whatever you can imagine.

Now give yourself a pat on the back because you're on your way to learning some new things! After you get into these tutorials, you will be impressed with how things came out. These new ideas will have you looking right with your hair slayed, while eating a new fancy dish and you can make a keepsake to remember it all while bragging later. Who in this day doesnt like to get crafty?

Social Media Taking Over for '09 & the new Decade

Remember the days that your parents warned you not to talk to strangers? Yet here we are in 2020 on the internet talking to strangers. Hoping for views. And internet streaming is higher than ever before. (Netflix & Chill anyone?) We've gone from battling for that Top 5 space in your friends'  Myspace list to trying to attain hundreds of thousands of followers on our Instagram pages. The irony right?

There's so much freedom in social media it seems that our awareness in real life seems to be alot lower. Think about it, we dont think about it when we post our decadent meals,  tag the fancy restaurant we died to try out, or when we take that oh so necessary off guard picture while walking into the place that we've made ourselves a literal target. With popular Netflix shows like "You" paving the way, it wouldnt be hard for a wanna be Joe to start peering at you & your nice meal from the distance.
But thanks to social media we've got this connectivity to people around the world that we've never had before. We're able to find out news or hear about events around the globe in almost in instant instead of just catching a 4 minute or so segment on the local channel 4 news. That Manchester bombing at the Ariana Grande concert in England is a good example. Social media flooded with grief soon after the news hit about the incident. Many celebrities and fans of Grande offered words of prayer and words of comfort for the families affected at the time.

Recently, hip hop star Eminem dropped his new album, tastefully titled "Music to Get Murdered By", and boy did social media have a fit about it. On the album is a track named "Unaccomidating" that references the bombing in one of the verses. So you've got the recipe for disaster here: 1) Tragic worldy event 2) America's sweetheart (Grande obviously) and 3) Eminem saying something outlandish (again). Its only natural that the Twitter-verse responded negatively to the tactless line. It's just funny how Eminem has always been considered a controversial artist since the 90s and we usually just brush it off because that's just Marshal being Marshal. The man gave us 8 mile! But now that social media is so prominent in today's society, his public conflicts are being discussed globally.

This new social media driven world is so strange. You can go live on Instagram or Periscope, even track your friends using the map on Snapchat. Social media is evolving so quickly, every year theres a new app to connect to people. You can only imagine what's going to come next. At this point you can bet the world is probably going to turn into a real life Sims game, if we aren't at that point already. The world will be our computer and you can be sure the aliens are going to be having a grand old time playing us for sure.