Technology's Greatest Mix

      It is beautiful to see how the world of media and entertainment have blended so smoothly in today's era of technology and innovation. The combination of the two makes you feel connected to both worlds. You may be wondering what I mean considering that statement is quite vague and left open for interpretation. Simply put, it is nice to know that whether you are on a media site or entertainment site you have the ability to see much of the same content. Also, it is possible to see advertisements for entertainment on a site meant for media. A great example of this is Netflix. Everyone loves streaming services that provide them a new, better way to watch television without advertisements. However, when you are not watching Netflix you have the ability to see advertisements for new shows that are coming out and may interest you on Twitter, Instagram or Facebook. "Thirteen Reasons Why" is a perfect representation of this. You may have watched the first season and completely forgot about it because no one knew when season two was coming out. Then, one day you are on Instagram and see a plethora of advertisements from Netflix talking about the thrillers of the upcoming second season. Although, I would like to point out that this happens in more areas than streaming services. A prime representation of this is sports. You may miss the entire game, but afterwards you can go on almost any social media platform and see all of the great highlights from each game. Nonetheless, the entertainment and media worlds are evolving in a brilliant way that is satisfying for people of all ages, and connecting multiple markets on multiple platforms.

A First Timer's Crisis

      Seeing as it likely pertains to everyone reading this blog, I am going to talk about doing your own laundry. Before I begin I should mention that I am the classic case of never doing a load of laundry before my first week of college, and it just so happens that my first week of college was about a month ago. So, it seems fitting that, to go along with being the classic kid who had never done a load of laundry before leaving for college, I had a terrible first experience. Well, maybe not terrible, but let's just say that things definitely could have gone better. For starters I walked down to the laundry room only to realize there were no washers available. Thus, I walked right back up to my room and waited until one opened up. Then, I put my clothes in the washer, placed in the Tide pod, put in roughly 150 Downey scent-boosting capsule things and started the washer. After about 30 minutes I walked back down the check on my load of laundry. So, I opened it up only to realize that the scent-boosting capsules did not disintegrate in the slightest. Keep in mind that at this point in the story it is around midnight, and I had my first day of classes the following morning. Now, I did the only logical thing I could think to do, and I ran the entire load again. However, this time I went back down after about 15 minutes because I decided it was too late and I couldn't possibly wait another full 30 considering I still had to dry and fold my clothes. Therefore, I opened up the washer and noticed that because I didn't let the load finish all of my clothes were sitting in about three gallons of water. Tired and annoyed, I decided I would wring my clothes out myself and place them into the dryer. Needless to say, I got water all over the floor of the laundry room, but I didn't care because it was too late for other people to be doing laundry anyway. I was the only one dumb enough to stay up that late before the first day of classes. Anyway, after an hour I went back down to take my clothes out of the dryer and got one of many first lessons in the Park Hall laundry room. The dryers suck. My clothes had somehow become more wet since I had taken them out of the washer and placed them into the dryer. Nonetheless, I decided to start the dryer again for another hour and just go to bed. Next, I woke up early in the morning only to realize once again how bad the dryers were. So, I ran that load of laundry four more times that day until finally, at long last, my clothes were dry. Since that day I would say my skill in the laundry department has increased immeasurably, and I have not had much difficulty whatsoever. It's just like the old saying goes, there's a first time for everything.

Social Media's New Vine

      Do you remember the good old days back in 2014-2015 when Vine was one of the most popular apps on the social media market? Everyone was quoting and talking about the hilarious creators on the internet's most beloved space. Six second videos had become the new medium for everyone in America to watch and enjoy. Then, it disappeared. Just as nonchalant as the wind blowing a leaf down the street, Vine was gone. At first it seemed nobody even noticed considering the reason it was shut down in the first place was because people had stopped using it. Yet, just like a 5-year-old, once the app was taken away everyone wanted it back. Ever since people have been Tweeting, blogging and posting about how Vine must be brought back. However, it seems those calls have possibly been answered as a new app seems to have taken its place. That app is TikTok. TikTok has a similar concept to vine. It contains short videos, up to a minute long, where creators make content with the intent to be funny, cute, follow trends or just be outright weird. At first, people mocked the app because of some of the rather interesting content it contained. Although, as more people have joined the TikTok wave the videos have progressively become better. Thus, drawing in more users and becoming the new era of Vine. TikTok has a certain allure to it because it speaks to people of all ages and genders. The app seems to have an endless amount of videos on its "for you page", and all of it is customized based on your likes. Hopefully this time around people will realize what they have before it is gone, and TikTok may hold the torch from Vine for many years to come.

Final Thoughts

      Last week my social media principles finished up "The Art of Social Media" by Guy Kawasaki and Peg Fitzpatrick. Personally, I thought it was a great read. There were so many small details about social media provided by the authors that I would not have thought about otherwise. One example I can think of that was brought up many times throughout the book was the use of aggregator sites. These websites pull information from all over the internet and provide a source of readable content that you can talk about on your social media. Ideas such as that are especially important for avid social media users whose world revolves around people reading content on their Twitter, blog, email list or any other site they may have a viewership on. Keep in mind that is just one great topic out of the 123 talking points they discussed.
      With all of that being said, there were some downsides to the book as well. There were a lot of unneeded common sense tips that did not need to be said for today's modern era where almost every single person uses social media. Also, considering the book was written sometime around 2014 there were many sections that are now outdated. A prime example of this throughout the book was the frequency at which the authors talked about Google+, a site that is no longer in service. All in all, I would absolutely recommend this book to anyone looking to get into the world that is social media. The great talking points and professional advice outweighs any downside you may come across when reading the book, and it provides a great foundation for all readers no matter the age range or demographics.

Twitter Aficionado

      In Chapter 11 of "The Art of Social Media" by Guy Kawasaki the author talks about specific ways to optimize your timeline for particular platforms. Personally, I found his tips for Twitter to be rather interesting. Firstly, he talks about how it is necessary to try and use at least one graphic per tweet because it simply makes whatever you are tweeting about more interesting. I can absolutely agree with this statement because when I am scrolling through my Twitter feed I often skip past tweets that just have text because there does not appear to be much to look at. Also, it is a point of redundancy. What I mean by this is that graphics often help reiterate whatever point has already been made in the text of the tweet. Therefore, it just adds another level of context and understanding to an already interesting topic. For example, if you create a tweet talking about the increased gun violence over the past couple of years and back it up with a graph showing the numerical data it will not only make you more convincing, but also it will keep those who read it more interested.
      Another topic Kawasaki discussed that I found rather interesting is the different ways in which you can respond to others on Twitter. He shows you that if you put a period in front of someone's handle whom you are responding to then it allows anyone who follows you to be able to see it. Yet, if you did not place that period there then only the person being mentioned has the ability to see it. This is a tactic that not many people think of, but it could be very useful in many different situations if you are responding to clients or people who are showing support towards you. In essence, the writer provides many creative ideas and tips to Twitter users in this chapter and it is something that I would highly recommend to any who frequently uses this app.

Memes: Taking the World by Storm

      It is interesting to me the way that social media has taken over everything in our daily lives. In fact, I have come to this conclusion, and even made this exact statement, a multitude of times. This particular time I was scrolling through Instagram, as I often do, and came across a meme page called Kale Salad, and it got me thinking how digitized the world of comedy has become. In its origin it is likely that jokes were told through word-of-mouth. As time has progressed this still remains true seeing as comedians still tell jokes by word-of-mouth, and many of them get paid a lot of money to do so. However, within the last twenty years a new medium of comedy has risen to the stage, and it is called a meme. By definition a meme is an image, video or piece of text that is copied (often with slight variation) and spread rapidly by internet users. Memes may contain anything from a simple joke to a hurtful image at someone's expense. Yet, they have taken over and you can find many meme pages that have millions of followers across all kinds of platforms. On top of that, the people running those pages are getting compensated for advertisements that may be placed on their page. It truly is a new form of comedy that has really never been seen before. For the most part you will find that memes typically resonate with a much younger crowd as adults don't seem to find much humor in juvenile jokes. Nonetheless, there is major space for them across all areas of social media and it will be very interesting to see what the future holds for that which has been dubbed the meme.

Podcasting Experiences

      Talking into a microphone with the idea of sounding like you are having a conversation with someone sounds like something easy to do in theory. However, I found that recording my first podcast was a lot more difficult than I originally perceived it was going to be. For example, I felt very awkward talking into the phone, in a location by myself, knowing that there was no one else on the other end. It is almost a feeling of embarrassment even though you know there is nothing you should feel awkward about. I mean at the end of the day, it is just a guy, sitting in his car by himself, talking to his phone about sports. With all of that being said, having show notes for the podcast did put my mind slightly at ease for the simple reason that I knew everything I was going to discuss was planned out prior to recording.

Also, I found that I had an overall great time doing it because it allowed me to step outside my comfort zone and talk about something that I love. On top of that, I felt more involved in the world of sports by sharing my thoughts and research on a host website (YouTube) even if it never gets viewed by a single person. In addition, I believe those who did listen would agree with my thoughts about LeBron James and his potential to make the National Basketball Association (NBA) All-Defensive team. With a better team and a full off-season of recovery to rehab his body James will look to attack this upcoming season with energy and intensity that many believe he has lost. To summarize, podcasts are difficult, but rewarding, and LeBron, with the help of teammate Anthony Davis, has a great opportunity to be on the first or second NBA All-Defensive team.

Mastery of the Finest Art

      It seems interesting to me that as humans we can use something every single day of our lives and feel as if we are somewhat masterful at it, but the reality is we can be completely novice compared to those who have a degree or do that particular thing at a professional level. I have come upon this conclusion multiple times, but I especially found it to be true the other night in my reading of "The Art of Social Media" by Guy Kawasaki and Peg Fitzpatrick. Throughout this novel I have found much of its content to be mundane or obvious and wondered if it really was worth the read because so much of it seemed to be common sense. However, my entire perspective on the book and authors changed after reading Chapter 7. To summarize, the chapter talks about how you deal with socializing events and the lengths at which Kawasaki and Fitzpatrick went for their Moto X event that displayed the up and coming launch of the new Motorola line. It seemed as if every single page I was reading something that I would have never thought to do. For example, one of the first pieces of advice they offer is to pick an event hashtag. They talk about how even though the event was happening in multiple countries they could not pick something such as #MotoXBrasil2013 or #MotoXMexico2013 because those would not reach worldwide and would likely only last around three days on social media sites. Thus, they chose to go with a simple #MotoX. I know it seems simple, yet I find it to be so brilliant. Because this hashtag was so vital to the event, it would have gone terribly if they had chosen the wrong one considering the fact that they sent it to people in email, social media messages and even discussed on livestreamed media conferences. On top of that, they give a plethora of other noteworthy ideas such as providing real-time updates on social media, displaying the Twitter stream on a television screen, providing good wireless access and even purchasing a great backdrop that displays the event hashtag where people can take pictures. Once again, these ideas are subtly masterful because each one does an amazing job of connecting the crowd to the event without shoving it in their face. So, right in the sweet spot. In essence, this chapter proved to me the truth behind that old saying that no matter how good you think you are at something there is always someone better.

From Brown to Clown

      I have found that throughout my time of blogging my posts seem to consist of two things: school and sports. So, today I am going to talk about sports. Over the past weekend there was a great amount of drama involving star wide-receiver Antonio Brown. Brown had struggled during his last year with the Pittsburgh Steelers by getting into multiple conflicts/disagreements with players and coaches. So, once the season was over he requested to be traded and got picked up by none other than Jon Gruden's Oakland Raiders. With Brown on the roster the Raiders were surely going to turn their luck around after finishing the 2018-2019 season with a devastating 4-12 record that placed them at the very bottom of the AFC West. With their eye on the future and the entire city of Oakland pumped up for what was to come Antonio Brown did what Antonio Brown seems to do best, he messed it up. This summer the seven time Pro Bowler began what seemed to be a never ending tangent that started with a helmet controversy and ended with his release from the Oakland Raiders. Brown's downfall was his constant scrutiny, which he posted all over social media, of Oakland Raider's general manager Mike Mayock. The altercation began when the Mayock decided to fine Brown for his absence at multiple practices that the receiver decided to post on his Instagram story. The following day at practice Antonio Brown decided to discuss the issue with his general manager which ended with Brown punting a football across the field and yelling, "Fine me for that!" Only a week or two later he posted an Instagram picture asking to be released from the Raiders squad and put onto the market as a free agent. It goes to show that as great of a tool that social media can be, it can also be detrimental to those who are not cautious with what they post. Especially when you consider that the entire situation could have likely been avoided with a calm face-to-face meeting between Brown and Mayock. Thus, I hope Brown has learned his lesson and begins to use his platform for things other than berating whatever team he finds himself on.

High School to College

      I find it ironic that high school teachers are meant to prepare you for the horror that is college. They will tell you about how hard it is going to be and tell you that there are certain things that you will never get away with in the four years to come. Then, they give you lectures about how strict college professors will be claiming that they won't let you turn homework in late and they do not care if you mess up. However, in my short time of being at college I have found none of this to be true. That is not to say that I can turn homework in whenever I want or show up to every class late, but all of my professors thus far have been extremely cool and laid back. Most of them will ask you to call them by their first name, have easy going, fun lectures and be resourceful in how they use their class time. On top of that, homework is much less difficult considering that you typically have a day or more before going back to the class you where you will turn it in. Granted, tests are more difficult and you have to make sure that you know the material to a greater degree than you did in high school. Although, that is much easier to accomplish because instead of having class everyday from 7:30 to 2:30, you only have it in incremented times throughout the day. I find that this allows for better time management so you can plan your day for max efficiency. Overall, I would say that the college system better sets up students to be successful both in and out of the classroom. Not only because of the great professors, but also because of the increased free time throughout each student's day.

The Importance of Bold

      While reading "The Art of Social Media" by Guy Kawasaki I found a particular section of Chapter 3 rather interesting. It talks about the importance of being bold on social media. Because so many people are afraid to speak their mind and say things that may stir the pot, they limit what they can talk about. Yet, by being bold and posting things that matter to them it allows their followers to attain a better picture of who they are as an individual. Personally, I can relate to this because I follow a lot of celebrities across many different social media platforms, and many of them talk about issues within our country, upcoming projects they are working on or really anything else that is popular in the world at the time. I find this to be very interesting because it gives me, and the other followers, a sense of purpose in following that person. Almost as if we are standing behind them on whatever issue or topic they may be discussing. Granted, every single follower, myself included, will not always agree with what that person has to say. However, I have never found that to be a problem because I can understand that other people may have differing opinions from my own and that is great because who would ever want to live in a cookie cutter world where every single person shares the same thoughts, morals and ideas? On top of that, I think it is important for people who are well known to use their platform and speak out for what they believe. This is because it shows their younger followers to be proud of what they believe in. Thus, creating a greater society for our country as a whole. To summarize, I not only agree with Kawasaki, but I applaud him for urging others to be bold on social media considering that it will create a better tomorrow.

Social Media's Intro Into Basketball

      Nowadays social media seems to have an arm in every fragment of the world. People, business, animals and almost anything else you can think of have some sort of account on social media. Well, today I am going to discuss one area of social media in particular and that is basketball. Specifically, the National Basketball Association which is more commonly known as the NBA. For the longest time basketball was just about basketball. Players simply played in their games, went to practices, worked out in their free time and lived moderately quiet lives outside of the arena. Of course, a professional basketball player can never live too quietly, but in comparison to modern times they used to be mice. That is because basketball has fallen subject to the same exact thing that every other thing in this world has. Social media. It seems in today's era of the game the players are never just there to play. They are celebrities in every aspect of their life. On the court they are known for their athletic prowess and overall talent, but off the court they retain millions of followers on Instagram, Twitter and other popular social media platforms. In fact, some players are so popular that they have fan accounts revolving around them that have hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of followers. For example, I follow an Instagram account by the name of LeagueFits, which is a subset of SlamOnline, where all of their posts revolve around the outfits of basketball players.

 This account in particular has over 300,000 followers while having nothing to do with the game of basketball itself. Also, social media is even extending to the youth of the game. There are high school players that are getting mixtapes which get viewed by millions of people. There is no denying the important role that social media plays in the modern era of basketball. A positive outcome of this is that it allows players to have a platform and a voice that they may not have otherwise. Therefore, I hope social media continues to grow and positively impact the game of basketball.

The Grueling Preseason

      Hard work is something that comes with the life of an athlete. Whether that means putting in extra work in the off-season or making sure you are pushing yourself the practice before a game it is crucial that you make sure to put your best foot forward. Yet, that is not always the easiest thing to do. For example, this upcoming week is the beginning of basketball lifting and conditioning for my team and me. This means we are working out and conditioning or playing open-gym six days of the week. I can assure you it will not always be easy to put my best foot forward. There will be times where I contemplate slowing down and taking a break because it is the easy thing to do. I mean, some of you reading this may be marathon runners but I am not ashamed to tell you that I am not. Therefore, when we line up to run the two and a half mile, which has been dubbed the green monster, I will likely not be in the greatest frame of mind. However, because I have been involved in sports all my life I know the most important thing about preseason workouts and conditioning; it's worth it.

Yes, it is hard and there is no doubt that it sucks, but it prepares you for the season and allows you to spend time with your teammates. Personally, I have never heard of a successful team who did not partake in some sort of preseason workout. Also, it allows you to reach your best physical shape before you begin doing what really matters in athletics, and that is the games. Playing in a game is like watching everything around you freeze as you partake in the most meaningful performance of a lifetime. Nothing else matters between the lines and it is just you and your team battling it out against the opposition. It is a true masterpiece that I try to never take for granted. The games are the reason I work so hard, put my best foot forward and try to not complain during preseason workouts (keyword: try). So, I hope this post, if it has done nothing else, will at least inspire any athlete, myself included, to make it through what is sure to be a long, grueling preseason.