I enjoyed reading both of these chapters. After reading Filtered Reality I agree that “it is interesting that all the definitions and examples the OED lists for filter as a noun or as a verb emphasise the removal of unwanted content or impurities” (Rettberg 21). Normally, when I use a filter on a picture I do not think anything is wrong with the picture. I just think I am enhancing or “adding to the image” (Rettberg 21). Normally, a picture I choose to filter is a picture I have to like in the first place.

Even with that being said, it is kind of surprising I find that statement to be surprising. I will admit I do refrain myself from filtering what I deem to be a lot. I think in a way it does have a negative vibe attached to it. I care about what people think, and I just think some people say or think to themselves, when they see someone always filtering their pictures, does she/he have low self-esteem? I even think some people do not consider the person to be attractive anymore. To me, filtering can be compared to using makeup. In both cases, I refrain from using it too much.  

Below, is a picture I filtered.

                                

Furthermore in the next chapter Serial Selfies, I found what Brown and Antin did to be really interesting. I think Brown especially reinforces the idea that you can use pictures to get a message across, and like the other readings mentioned teach. I think people assume when you take a lot of pictures you are stuck on yourself. I like how this chapter shows the positive side of taking a lot of photos. This chapter really makes me not care about how many I choose to take.

 

 

 

 

                                                   

Right from the jump what caught my attention about White Flight in Networked Publics? How Race and Class Shaped American Teen Engagement with MySpace and Facebook by Danah Boyd, is the fact she chose not to focus on how technology is changing and improving people’s engagement but how people are not changing and how technology is reinforcing their resistance to change. I like the fact she is showing negatives in a world that it embracing, reinforcing, and loving technology. Sometimes, these platforms make a person’s hatred less noticeable, and I never would have thought about MySpace in the way Kat described it before this article. Yes, everyone heard and maybe even said Facebook was more professional, but who really took that comment to the extreme? Just because one chooses to use MySpace, does that really mean they are not professional?

I actually had MySpace at one point, and I honestly miss some of the features. The only reason I was reluctant at first to switch over to Facebook was because I felt like everything gets played out and it was only a matter of time before Facebook did. In a way, I felt pressured to “switch to” Facebook even though I was content (Boyd 3). I felt like a lot of people I knew had and talked about it, and that caused MySpace to indeed like Kat said become boring. If you did not have Facebook, you kind of felt like you were missing out.

Furthermore, I really enjoyed the comments made about why one preferred either Facebook or MySpace. I could identify with a lot of them, and I was actually happy I have Facebook and had MySpace. I was able to understand, agree, or disagree with the points the author or the people she cited made more. In addition, this article and the other article Self-Segregation: Why It’s so Hard for Whites to Understand Ferguson by Robert P. Jones brought up this whole issue of lenses. Jones article made me think about Martha’s discussion question Monday. I agree with Dr. Zamora I think one of our problems is people refuse or do not attempt to understand other people’s perspective. Some people just care about themselves and only value what they think.

What I enjoyed the most reading these blog posts is looking at the syllabuses. I never really thought there was so much to do, before this class as far as activities, when it came to selfies. I think these blogs make you see how much our classes are changing and how now more than ever we need to be familiar with the internet. I think it is refreshing to see teachers who are being creative and finding ways to keep the students and themselves entertained. At the same time, it looks like these classes are worthwhile because they are hard and have some assignments that require skills a regular English class would. I think they basically found a good middle ground, and I like the fact the people mentioned represent what our class is fundamentally about which is “openness” and collaboration (Cronin). Collaboration seems to be something a lot of these authors and teachers value.

In addition, I was also interested in the blog Selfie Pedagogy III: Networked Spaces, Slut Shaming and Putting Selfies in Dialogue with Theory. Some topics were addressed that will always be important and probably have been addressed in other classes as well. So, with this blog there is this idea of interconnectedness, and I think some of these blogs were in fact connected to my presentation on Monday in Composition Studies Research and Methods. The statement “because students ‘were all making selfies or could make them,’ they could more easily make the intellectual leap to paying more attention to networked spaces” made me think back to transferability which was mentioned in Writing in High School/Writing in College: Research Trends and Future Directions by Joanne Addison and Sharon James McGee (qtd. in Losh, Selfie Pedagogy III). Moreover, I thought it was interesting Radhika Gajjala in Elizabeth Losh’s article Selfies, Snapchat, and Distance Learning does something with her students very similar to what we are thinking about doing for our final project. That alone confirms that some of the ideas my classmates and my teacher purposed are indeed really tied into what we are learning in class.