2/19: Perception
Then I moved on into my first voicethread project. I was shocked at the comments that were left on the project. This one guy was being such a pain in the … by writing and drawing comments about Asians and dropping bombs on them. I just wanted to put that guy in front of me and just punch him. But then I changed my mine. Yes I knew that this was reality. I had to face it.
My last task that I achieved today was facebook. But I didn’t goof off. I finally chose to take Mr. Burell’s advice and chose to look at facebook. I was amazed. Millions and millions of people were writing and advertising anti-racist campaigns. I chose to take advantage of this and started to write to the administrators of the groups. Well thats about it, I just hope to build up from here.
February 20th, 2008 at 10:10 pm
I wonder if the shocking comments left on your Voicethread are worth a post or a reflection somehow?
Know what I mean?
I mean, you’ve got the living words of a living racist there. (And then you’ve got the Korean racist from last week. That’s the “majority voice” you said you were looking for, maybe? And one a week is a pretty manageable workload to play with and make a product about.)
It might be interesting to simply type those words out, and analyze them in a few different ways (without being formal or boring about it). What imagery does this racist use? What stereotypes?
What does the word choice and level of vocabulary say about his/her education and/or intelligence? What does the tone suggest about his/her emotion when being racist (is it angry? hateful? comic? spiteful? happy?)? Are there any clues in what was said to the roots of this person’s racism - threatened economically, hostile culturally or religiously?
On and on.
And then think about the different ways you could present your product (it could even take the form of a weekly feature - “The Weekly Racist”?).
You could podcast your discussion of the weekly racist with a co-host or guest.
Or you could do straight text with images, of course.
Or take the audio and mix it with images that contrast or compare with the speech for some pretty interesting effects (in Garageband or Windows MovieMaker?).
You could even do a live call-in show - you’d have to announce the time and, if smart, line a few people up to be your guests - on Skype or any number of online tools such as Ustream TV.
Just some ideas.
–
Shim, please get in the habit of linking. Like to that fixed blog post, for example. Give your readers some love by making your post clickable. They’ll love you back.
–
I’m interested to hear your discoveries about Facebook. You know I hate it, and so don’t use it - but that could mean I’m missing out on a lot of opportunities to make things happen and hook up with other people like me.
Seems to me you’ll either discover that Facebook groups are mostly dead spaces in which nothing happens (somebody starts a group and then it dies), are mostly very alive spaces that are worth the trouble, or are a mix of the two.
I hope you’ll share what you notice and learn about Facebook as a tool for networking in occasional posts on your blog. I could benefit from what you learn.
Just some thoughts.