Creative Gallery

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This is my GoogleMap that I made detailing the people and places that I spoke about in my paper, along with a few added ones.

Creative Project Blog Post

Seeing as my paper and general project is about vlogging and charities, I thought that I would do something like do my own vlog. I'm not quite sure how I'm going to do that because I have a camera but I'm not sure if I have all of the necessary cables and things to do that, but I thought that would be a good idea for this project. I also thought that I could do my vlog about organ donation and the organization Donate Life because it is something that I'm close to. I guess I would have to get in contact with them and make sure that it was all right to do a vlog about their organization because I don't want to be in trouble with copyright or something like that.

I thought doing my own vlog about a charity would be a good, and very obvious, idea. I'll just have to read through the tutorials on how to upload my video to my computer and things like that, so I'll be able to have an all right vlog that hopefully won't get much scrutiny.

Skin

I decided to look at Skin for today. Once I clicked the link, I was initially shocked because there were tattoos but once I actually looked it over. It was really cool. It's a story told on skin. It really caught my attention because it is a very different way to tell a story. It's participatory and it's really amazing. It's also an interesting process to be involved in this. You have to send a letter to the organizer telling of your interest in the group and they will send you a letter back with a word that you have to get tattooed onto your body, then they will send you a letter with the complete story that you will be involved in. Once you get 'approved' you have to send in your verification forms, a close up or legible photo of the tattoo, and a photograph of the participant in which the tattoo cannot be seen. It sounds very interesting but I don't think I'd participate because I personally don't like needles, so getting a tattoo is out, but I could see if someone would want to participate because it is interesting and you would be part of something cool.

Two Five Three

When I first looked at 253, I was seriously confused. I didn't know that it was supposed to be one of those choose your own adventures stories. After looking at it and after figuring out it was a choose your own adventure thing, I actually really liked it. I used to love the choose your own adventure novels and that one was very interesting because it dealt with the London Tube system and it dealt with minutes until a crash. It wasn't your normal choose your own adventure novel but it was very interesting once you got the hang of it.

Wikipedia

I adore Wikipedia. Every time I go to search something, I'll usually Google it first but Wikipedia is usually the first link to pop up. I go to Wikipedia to search for everything. There are some things that Wikipedia doesn't have, but that's what Google is for. I think Wikipedia is great because it's so easy to use and to comprehend. The only downside to it is that anyone can edit information in, so you're not really sure if all of the information is correct or true in the articles you read on there. I think the majority of professors aren't comfortable with students using Wikipedia as a source because anyone can edit it. It's not a 'secure' site where you know the information is going to be true facts. I use Wikipedia way too much. I go on there if I can't figure out the name of a book or an author of a book or for anything really. If I can't think of something, I'll usually say, "Let's Wiki it." and if Wikipedia fails me, "Okay, I'll Google it instead." And by 'anyone can edit it', I mean anyone. I can go in and edit a wiki page, but so can other websites. They can go in and correct any wrong information that may be on there. I love Wikipedia.

YouTube

YouTube is a popular site where people can watch videos, post videos, comment on videos, like or dislike videos, and many other things. We should care because it is a very important and relevant site for my generation and anyone can be a part of it. There are many types of videos on YouTube. There are vlogs, things that were on tv/in a movie and now available on the internet, there are spoofs of things, cartoons, drawings, poetry, prose, and various other types of things. Everyone can be on YouTube and anyone can enjoy the videos that are uploaded to YouTube. Like I just said, anyone and everyone can be on YouTube and can watch it if they have internet access. I guess it depends on what is being watched, but I normally watch funny things with real people in them (vlogs) or spoofs or a television show that I missed or something along those lines. I rarely watch something on there that I feel is bad. Well, with what I've encountered, I sometimes watch fan videos of my favorite shows and sometimes those can be bad due to editing of the video itself, but very rarely do I watch something on YouTube that I think is 'bad'. I think everything that I watch on YouTube is good because if it makes me laugh, it's good. I'm not sure what my question would be. If I did have one it probably would have been something simple like what is YouTube? or something like that. I don't really have anything to ask YouTube at the moment.

Abstract -- Final

My topic is about vlogging and charity and more specifically, vlogging for charity. I love the idea of charities utilizing the internet and popular vloggers on the internet to help get their cause known. My paper is going to discuss how vloggers go about doing a vlog for charity and what kinds of charities are utilizing the internet in that way. It will also look at how many charities don't use the internet in different ways other than just having a generic website that gives a general overview. How do charities raise money for their cause. Are they willing to use youtubers to help them raise awareness and money for their organization?

StickAid

StickAid is a 24 hour telethon of sorts that was started by youtube vlogger Myles Dyer about five years ago. Last year, another youtube vlogger, Charlie McDonnell, joined Myles. StickAid raises money for the charity UNICEF. This really is the heart of my project because I immediately thought of this instance and video where Charlie does a challenge live at StickAid and how they use the power of the internet and their followers on youtube to help spread the word about StickAid and to help raise money for UNICEF. My argument or thesis is how charities are utilizing the internet, and youtube specifically, to help raise more awareness about their cause and to help raise money for it. StickAid involves a lot of people and they all do different things to help raise money, Myles is a vlogger, so he and Charlie had a 24 hour live feed on the StickAid site that you could watch and then donate money if you were able to. I think this really exemplifies my project because this shows how charities are willing to use 'famous' youtubers to help gain more notoriety and awareness of their cause and to show that they are willing to let the viewers of the internet gain access to their website and just be able to make a difference by being able to donate and help the world. Vlog for charity; vlog for change.

Abstract

My topic is about vlogging and charity. My favorite vlogger did a 24 hour vlog to raise money for UNICEF, the vlog was entitled StickAid. His vlogging friend has done StickAid for five years and I think this idea of using vlogging to help charities is interesting and needs to become more mainstream. I think that using vlogging to raise money for charities just like using any other type of multimedia outlet to help raise money for charity is great. I think vlogging would be better because it's taking 'normal, real people' and having them helping a charity that needs money. It's kind of like the whole, "If they can do it, so can I thing" and people will want to give money if it's a person they follow and enjoy, like I did for StickAid. I'll look to see if there are any other vloggers besides Charlie and Myles and Alex, that have one the same thing or to see if any other charities have utilized vloggers to help them out. We see charities embracing vlogging and using it to help get their topic heard and to help other people want to help the charity out by using their favorite vloggers.


EDIT:

I love my project because it's something that I'm interested in and I think that it is something that can really be beneficial to the charities and vloggers involved by giving them more recognition. I think the main issue or stumbling block that I'll have is finding enough resources to write my paper and do my annotated bibliography. For some reason I think that I'm limited with resources, but I'm probably wrong about that.

Blog Post

Since I've changed my project around a bit, I'm not quite sure how I want to go about writing the paper so it will make sense. I'm still trying to figure out all of the logistics of my project. I guess you could say that a 'key' question would be 'how are vloggers helping charities?' and 'are charities utilizing well known vloggers to help out with their causes?' Some evidence that I have found would be focusing on Charlie McDonnell and Myles Dyer who on September 4th, 2010 did a 24 hour live vlog for the charity StickAid which raised money for UNICEF. I was going to focus on those types of things to help move my topic along and try to incorporate other charities as well.

I'm not quite sure how to relate the Lessig reading for today to my project anymore. I don't think he really talks about vlogging or charities in detail or at all. I didn't really think of my project when I read it either. I did like this quote though:

"There’s a part of culture that we simply consume. We listen to music. We watch a movie. We read a book. With each, we’re not expected to do much more than simply consume.* We might hum
along with the music. We might reenact a dance from a movie. Or we might quote a passage from the book in a letter to a friend. But in the main, this kind of culture is experienced through the act of
consumption. There’s a beginning, a middle, and an end to that consumption. Once we’ve finished it, we put the work away."

I think this quote deals with my topic slightly because if you're watching a vlog post, you're consuming it and taking in all of the language, details, intonations, tone, and many other things. I also think that if a vlogger is discussing a specific charity, not only are you watching the vlogger (person) but you're also consuming the information about the charity itself and hopefully you become interested and check out the charity.

"As these businesses grow, they change not only business. They also change us. They change how we think about access to culture. They change what we take for granted."

I just really liked this quote. I thought it was a great statement. I guess I could stretch it to fit my topic because the internet really has changed the way we think, talk, and act and when you bring in the fact that you can watch people as they do crazy, wild, stupid, or interesting things like vloggers do, you can really see that some people don't like watching movies that have characters in their free time. They'd rather watch a real person be themselves and just see what they do on a day to day basis.

Trailer

So, I've sort of changed the idea behind my blog. On my way home after class today, I thought about my favorite youtubers and how they do a bunch of stuff to help out with charities and things like that. I got to thinking about how useful vlogging can be to helping various charities and events and such. So, that's what my blog is going to be about, as you'll see in my trailer:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jujheI0-Wuo

Prompt

1. The title of my project is "Vlogging vs. Blogging". It's not that cool of a title, but I like it and it really sums up my project. I'm really trying to see why people prefer one to the other or if they like both.

2. I think my guiding question is basically why is vlogging better than blogging? Obviously, this is based on my own opinion because I prefer vlogging to blogging, but I honestly believe that vlogging is more popular to do and to be a part of by watching the videos that people make.

3. I don't really know what Lessig would think of my project. I don't think he'd particularly care about it though. But, I think if he did care about it, he would probably say something like none if it my original idea because I'm sure someone has already thought about the whole vlogs vs. blogs thing before me and, obviously, I didn't make the videos that I'm using in my trailer, so they aren't my original idea, yes, I agree with them, but I didn't think of it first.

Trailer Ideas

For my project I'm focusing on Vlogging and I was thinking about actually setting up an account and doing my own vlog on this project and various other things. Obviously, I'll need to get the proper equipment, but I think that it would be a fun project to do and maybe vlogging will stick with me and I'll do it regularly. But, for my trailer, I was thinking of splicing various scenes from my favorite youtube vloggers so it sounds like they're talking about my project and they actually know me.

Lessig's "Remix"

When the reading started and I started reading about Sousa and how he had traveled to Washington to discuss the act of 'piracy' that was being committed with his records. All I thought of was how the majority of people illegally download music and videos all of the time. I think what most people don't realize is, when musicians, directors, actors, etc. make something and copyright it, they do gain money when someone purchases it. If you illegally download the music or movie or tv show, the person who made it is loosing money just so you can save money by not purchasing it. Most people tend to not think that the person who did copyright it, worked very hard on it and want to get reimburssed for their hardwork.

Lessig also talks about how Sousa complained about the 'technologies' that caused this piracy to occur. He spoke about how when he was younger you used to see various people singing and playing instruments. They didn't just sit in their homes and listen to a phonograph. They were outside and taking part in the live music. They were experiencing it instead of just merely listening to it.

These two articles we have read both seem to deal with the idea of plaigiarism. After reading both of these articles, you can really see that plaigiarism is not just dealing with writing papers. It can come in all forms, such as illegally downloading music or movies.

Response to "The Ecstasy of Influence"

Reading the section titled "Give All" in Letham's "The Ecstasy of Influence", was quite challenging. He makes his opinion on plagiarism known and he has several reasons for why he takes that stance. He says that the bulk of human material is plagiarism because no one really thinks up their own ideas. They all have to start somewhere, whether it was from a story that was read or from a song that was heard. No one truly thinks of any original. He refers to them as "second-hand" because they have all been ripped from other things whether it be consciously or subconsciously.


I think he takes this position on plagiarism because he is an author but then when you get to end of that section, he kind of contradicts what he just wrote about. He spent that entire section writing about how basically everything is plagiarized because it's not truly original and then he goes to say that we are free to take his ideas and stories because he wrote them for us. I'm just a bit confused on his stance and his reasoning because he does contradict himself there.


I'm not sure that I agree or that he convinced me. I think of things that no one else has thought of, granted, it may be helped by an idea that was already thought of, but my idea is completely my own and original to me. For example, if you take the idea of space travel in general, you can think of many different stories that are completely new and haven't been thought up yet. So, I'm not sure how he can honestly say that all ideas are not original.

He talks about writers in this section as being pulled in one direction because their works are being plagiarized and they don't even know. I'm not sure if this is true because I honestly had a hard time understanding his piece. I'm just not sure what he is trying to say since there are many sides to this but they are all coming from him.