jonnyrhetoric

[jonnyrhetoric]

The Use of Animation to Connect with Catastrophe

            Akira is a Japanese animated adult sci-fi film, released in 1988 by director Katsuhiro Otomo, based on a manga of the same name. The film takes place in Neo Tokyo, a cyberpunk dystopia based in future Japan after World War III. The movie starts by introducing Kaneda, the protagonist and leader of a biker gang, and Tetsuo, the protagonist turned antagonist, and Kaneda’s friend. Tetsuo is shown being fascinated by Kaneda’s modified bike before they all ride off in pursuit of a rival gang. During the chase, Tetsuo is involved in a crash and immediately taken by the government. Soon after, he develops psychic powers, escapes captivity, and goes on a rampage. Tetsuo is on a search to find the source of his power, and his predecessor, Akira, and doesn’t stop until he finds him. Kaneda meets Kei, a woman in a rebel group who is fighting against the corrupted government in this dystopian era, and they work together to save Tetsuo from going destroying the city. The film itself is a predictive self-examination of the growth of Japan and a social commentary on the history of Japan during wartime.

            In contrast to the animated features being made and released at the time, namely Disney films, being bright and upbeat, having very straightforward plotlines, and being more obviously directed towards children, Akira is more adult oriented in tone, message, and execution, and sheds a new light on anime and the animated feature as a genre. As an example of the drastic difference Akira displays from other movies from the animated film genre at the time, My Neighbor Totoro was also released in 1988. Kiki’s Delivery Service was released in 1989. The Little Mermaid was released in 1989. For Otomo to direct and release Akira, especially at this time, was very brave. For an anime feature film to come out that didn’t have Studio Ghibli’s name on it was a risk, and being as adult oriented was even more of a risk. The plot of the film was hard to follow for some viewers. It follows multiple characters, some of which are introduced abruptly with no background or context given, and throws the viewer into this new environment suddenly. However, one could ultimately sum up the entire plot in a couple of sentences, leaving out a lot of the major twists and turns, and not mentioning the various side characters or plots. A friend described it to me by saying “This kid has a really cool bike, and his friend is obsessed with that bike. The bike is so cool, and his friend wants it really bad. The whole movie, he wants this bike.” He wasn’t wrong to say that, either. He left out a lot of the plot and characters and focused on that part of the movie. Those characters and plots play a role and have meaning, but it’s a lot to take in.

            Akira shows viewers the anxiety and disorientation Japan faced as a country post World War 2, after the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Less obviously, it delivers these emotions to an audience disconnected from the war, strife, and devastation seen in that very country 43 years prior to its release. Pause and Select states in their postmodern apocalypse analysis video, “Akira is a work for a generation that never really conceptualized the ground zero of immense catastrophe.” The film used the fictional setting of Neo Tokyo after the fictional World War 3 to express the same state the country was in after WW2 bombings, and showed Akira, a powerful telekinetic child, as the origin of the nuclear-like explosion and collapse of Tokyo in 1988. The film jumps forward to Neo Tokyo, 2019, a future where change has taken place and the characters of this period aren’t connected to the events of the past. The use of different plotlines surrounding various characters shows the multiple points of view of the country, and its issues. The film used Tetsuo’s transformations, both physical and mental, throughout the story as a parallel to the rapid shift Japan in real life was making into modernism. The country, just like Tetsuo, was thrust into a position of power, wealth, and improvement in such a short period of time. Tetsuo’s obsession with Kaneda’s bike can be seen as Japan being a country focused on authority, power, and advancement, just as Tetsuo was fixated on taking the bike to show that he wasn’t the weak underling of the group. Later, the visual stimulation given to viewers as Tetsuo quickly gains power, and eventually infuses with technology, is symbolism for the rebirth of Japan and its rise in economy, technology, and creativity after WW2.

            Animation in the present day is sometimes used in features that have adult oriented themes and content to make it easier to watch, and in some cases, more enjoyable or entertaining. Animation is disarming and gives viewers a grasp on the ideas that the work conveys while also having a subtler presentation and setting the audience apart from the art. Akira, on the other hand, uses animation to deliver very graphic, violent images, mature themes, and provocative visual stimulation. The darker tone of this film is made more apparent by the animation, and the gruesome events that take place seem even more disturbing. It mixed the dreary and bleak dystopian world with the bright and lively sci-fi city neon lights. This created a juxtaposition between the disaster that created the current state of Neo Tokyo, and the hopefulness that progression is possible. Akira was animated with hundreds of colors, fifty of which were created specifically for the movie. The animators used more than double the amount of cels used in most animated features at that time. Cel animation and hand animated lighting and effects provide more control over the flow of the movie as a whole, and are useful when depicting a very specifically sculpted world. The movie is riddled with light, from the initial explosion caused by Akira, to the tail lights of the bikes on the highway, to the many neon lit signs of Neo Tokyo. Lighting is a big part of Akira, and since most of the film takes place at night, you see light in so many different forms. When Tetsuo crashes on the highway, the street, the characters, and the bikes are all lit by the fire, and soon after the helicopter spotlights. The different types of lighting have different tones and represent different things. As stated by Nerdwriter1 in his video about animating light, “…while in live action, light is controlled, sometimes to brilliant affect, light in animation is created.” To animate the lighting in this feature is important because it gives the animators a specific freedom to manipulate the light, and thusly the emotions certain lighting bring in specific scenes. Another big part of why the feature is animated is that there is a preciseness that you can’t get with actors. The characters are able to be manipulated, transformed, and messed with on the spot without having to worry about making sure an actor gets it right. Animators have more control over what’s being done and can more easily achieve the desired outcome.

            Akira is a film that explores the history of Japan during a period of growth after devastation. It connects to an audience that doesn’t connect personally with the events of the past, and conveys the emotions felt and the damage dealt through animation. The animation itself is precise and controlled, and is directed heavily toward more mature audiences and delivers darker, scarier themes. Katsuhiro Otomo, the writer/director of Akira, used the film to summarize the multitude of events that take place in post war Japan in real life, and used animation to reflect those concepts. Animation, being a sort of pacifier to viewers, separates the audience from the film at first glance, but relates the characters to the audience more and more throughout the movie, so as to further enforce the realness of the events that took place.

  Works Cited

“AKIRA: How to Animate Light” YouTube, uploaded by Nerdwriter1, Nov. 23, 2016, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xf0WjeE6eyM&t=250s

“AKIRA (1988) Retrospective / Review” YouTube, uploaded by Oliver Harper, Jun. 20, 2014, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qy9muL2ACz8

“Understanding Disaster, Part 2: Akira and the Postmodern Apocalypse” YouTube, uploaded by Pause and Select, Jun. 7, 2016, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L5XeDQ6sb2g

Follow me on my other tumblr accounts @90sbadguy and @90svillain

[jonnyrhetoric]

Jonathan Watford

11/7/17

Annotation 6

Williams, Sean "Part 1: thinking out of the pro-verbal box" 2001 http://williamwolff.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/williams-cc-2001-thinkingoutsidethebox.pdf

 The author begins by explaining that composition is a bigger picture than most usually claim. The arrival of digital media and other such technology has given us the need to redefine the means to be literate in the United States. He expresses the multiple ways literacy has changed over the years with the rise of digital media. The author then goes on to say that to keep teaching rhetoric by means of verbal media alone is to disregard the shift that literacy is making. Writing teachers must shift as well, developing new ways to help students keep up with the standards of literacy. The author asks how often teachers make students create verbal texts based on content they read. Students aren’t taught to produce alternative texts, which hinders them in the long run. The author continues the next couple of paragraphs stating the goal of the article, to push beyond the verbal bias, and gives its conclusion. The next couple sections are more in-depth explanations to the topics brushed upon in the introduction. The author talks about the dangers of restricting composition to verbal media. He gives two specific cases and what becomes of them. Later in the article he talks about how visual media is important, and what it has to offer in terms of teaching and studying composition.

The article is a decent length. It talks about different parts of composition and why it’s important. The article covers the teaching of composition and why it is necessary to shift the standard of learning. It broke the article up into sections and had explanations for each part. The author got a little repetitive throughout the article and use the same explanations in multiple sections, and always went back to the shifting of composition in general. However, that didn’t take away from the information given.

[jonnyrhetoric]

Jonathan Watford

11/13/17

CMAT 342

Rhetorical Application 5

           Remediation is an important concept that we learned about during this course. Remediation is the reworking of a piece or group of content to fit a new medium or reach a new audience. It is important, with all of the changes digital media is making, to have remediation for people to experience the same content in a different way. Remediation is growing more and more common. For me, remediation is a factor in comics and cartoons. I am working on a few different comic series, each having its own plot, setting, tone, etc. The writing and drawing of this story will be online, so if someone wanted to read it, they would need internet access. I could remediate my comic by releasing a print version. The images would need to be resized and the colors might need to be adjusted, but it would be available in another medium, which is the point.

           Intertextuality is another concept we’ve talked about in class. It is the use of references to other texts, or using/mentioning other texts, in a different piece of work. Intertextuality is done almost all the time, without even being noticed. Intertextuality is a big part of writing and communicating. It is used when making references, analogies, comparing old work to new work, learning a new language, and much more. An easy example is telling jokes. Usually, jokes are dependent on prior information being present. Comedians will set up a joke by telling a story, or introducing the audience to a particular concept ahead of time. This leads into the punchline and brings the joke full circle. I use intertextuality in my comic. I use references to old school RPGs to keep further push the theme of the comic. Even my art styles are similar to others.

[jonnyrhetoric]

Jonathan Watford

11/7/17

Annotation 5

 Rice, Jeff “Imagery” The Rhetoric of Cool Carbondale: Southern Illinois UP, 2007 https://ubonline.ubalt.edu/access/content/attachment/1174CMAT342101/Discussion%20Forums/704ea452-cf17-44bc-846a-03751edfad71/Imagery%20by%20Jeff%20Rice.PDF

 The author begins this article by stating the widespread idea that writers must learn to work with images. He quotes multiple writers on their work that shows their beliefs towards visual rhetoric. The use of visuals in writing and rhetoric dates far before what these writers are implying it does, says the author. He then asks why “only now” rhetoricians and compositionists are interested in visuals. The hesitation to place imagery into composition studies limits the understanding of its relevance in history, as well as limit students’ ability to form their own visual based text. In the next section, the author talks about Sketchpad, a graphic manipulation program. This program, made in 1963, manipulated human made symbols and generated visuals. He continued on the advancements Sketchpad made, and the techniques it was useful for demonstrating. Then he compared this to the typewriter. He made comparisons to the uses of the typewriter and the uses of Sketchpad. The author spends a section talking about his bias on the image of writers. He talks about the questions he gets from peers and students about his topic.

This article was interesting. It wasn’t extremely long, it covered a good amount of information, and it was easy to follow. I appreciated the flow of the article. The author explained himself well and elaborated on different things. It took a while for him to define certain things, or explain his reasoning behind some parts of the article, and I feel he got to the main point very quickly but took too much time explaining. I do, however, think the composition was decent.

[jonnyrhetoric]

Jonathan Watford

10/28/17

Annotation 4

Tapia, Alejandro “Graphic Design in the Digital Era: The Rhetoric of Hypertext” Jan. 1, 2003 5-11

https://eds-a-ebscohost-com.proxy-ub.researchport.umd.edu/eds/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?vid=4&sid=50134fc3-3f15-4118-8d7a-e7edcdbb4f6d%40sessionmgr4010

 The author of this article talks about how images, symbols, objects, and organization have changed the way text is produced, received, and interpreted. The article mentions the advancements that technology has made, and how that has given more options to the way people write, communicate, and express themselves through a screen. He suggests that there is a digital revolution that depends on the capacity of electronic capability to encode information to yield images, texts, or sounds. He says analogical information becoming digital information brings new logic to the production of texts and new rules for cultural exchange and communication. The author also talks about theories that have risen due to studies of linear writing in tradition compared to new styles of writing made possible with digital media. The hypertext theories began to push new ideas and remove old systems.

The author gave in depth and thorough explanations about the changes hypertext and graphic design brought to digital rhetoric. He also mentioned a lot of differences in the systems used in each way of writing and how those systems were viewed as digital media advanced. There were references to older texts, which helped explain his topic and prove his points as well. I felt that the text itself was very wordy and repetitive, however. After reading through the first few paragraphs, the text sounded like it was saying the same thing over again, and when he moved on to a new topic, he would do the same. The author would sometimes take an entire paragraph to say what could be said in a couple of sentences, and spends paragraphs explaining what could be shortened. This made the reading a little harder, as well as higher level and repetitive vocabulary usage. The main focus is still there.

[jonnyrhetoric]

Jonathan Watford

10/28/17

Annotation 3

 Du Plessis, C., “An exploration of digital rhetoric in a social network environment.” July, 2013 https://eds-a-ebscohost-com.proxy-ub.researchport.umd.edu/eds/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?vid=1&sid=4cac2e81-b97e-4391-85f7-4b7e6e750533%40sessionmgr4006

 The author starts the article by mentioning the fact that current traditions in rhetoric must be adapted to digital environments. She then says that the article itself is in an effort to grasp the use of digital rhetoric in the case of social networks to find its potential. The research studies the tweets of an account during a sports event, the Rugby World Cup, to analyze reasoning by example in a digital environment. Plessis then begins giving the reasons sports marketing is unique and notes that sports, and sports marketing, are world-wide and celebrated globally during big events, such as World Cup events. Then she mentions how sports marketing reaches its fans through communication tools including social networking sites. The use of Twitter for sports marketing during events is to spread a company’s communication to the participants to create an interaction between them and the company. Sporting events bring in people which boosts traffic to the venue, providing more exposure to the venue, and having multiple economic benefits, making digital media useful for communication to participants. Social media also allows athletes and organizations to interact with fans and viewers more personally, which increases personal relationships between companies and consumers, while also boosting branding strategically. After establishing these points, the author gives a few perspectives on digital rhetoric, and decided which definition the article adopts. She says that the study was more focused on logos and persuasive arguments. Next, she gives the birth of the Rugby World Cup official Twitter account and the number of followers the page had at a later date. Following she lists the number of tweets made during different events (diagrams included).

This article was nicely written and thoroughly explained. The author organized the article well and she made sure to break down each part of the article to focus on different ideas, such as the benefits of digital media, the way marketing teams use social media to help promote sporting events, and the statistics of a specific Twitter account. It was easy to follow and understand. There were some issues, however. The author repeatedly stated certain things in every section of the article, which seemed excessive. She also limited her study to one account during one event in one genre. The study didn’t include other Twitter accounts who may have been active during other events such as movie premieres, video game releases, hunting season, or smaller scale group activities. That doesn’t necessarily take away from the article, but it limits the data provided.

[jonnyrhetoric]

Jonathan Watford

10/15/17

CMAT 342 Rhetorical Application

           A topic I’m interested in exploring in digital rhetoric is the use of social media as a platform for making animals and fictional, or non-human characters seen as human-like. This topic interests me because humans create the posts, take the photos, reply to comments, and manage the page, but it’s done as if the animal or character is doing it all on their own. Doing this is a very creative way for people to interact with animals and their caretakers, or for fans of characters to get to talk, ask questions, and possibly get more out of the story or fictional world.

           One example I have of this is an Instagram page called Mango the Kinkajou. A kinkajou, or honey bear, is a rainforest mammal that are sometimes kept as pets. This kinkajou’s caretaker set up an Instagram page to show the pet to the world. The Instagram started in the summer of 2014, and the photos were captioned as if Mango was reminiscing about his toddler stage of life. It showed him being fed, crawling around, and being the baby kinkajou he was. Fans of the small animal could follow the page and see his various activities and watch him grow. Mango talks about his favorite food, activities, and even expresses being lazy sometimes when he’s taken for walk. The page today has fourteen thousand followers and has featured some friends of Mango, namely Petey the pitbull and Max the Lion (a stuffed animal toy). Mango sometimes tags his caretaker, Anthony Guzman, in the posts he’s featured in, but it’s really Anthony tagging himself from the perspective of Mango.

           Another example of this is the band, Gorillaz. Gorillaz is one of the first virtual bands. A virtual band is a band where the members are all fictional and the music is performed and recorded by real musicians, but the face of the band is that of the character or characters that have been created. Gorillaz is very unique in that way, and in their music. The band members all have a backstory and the band itself has an origin, and throughout their albums, they have faced a lot of problems and gone on crazy adventures. The stories are told in their music, videos, and social media. The band had a website where they showed off the studio, their house, had videos of their everyday lives, and featured games on the site. After they went broke, destroyed the studio, and had to leave, the website went down and no one knew what they were doing until their next album. Gorillaz has an extensive history of interacting with fans through weird and unconventional ways, such as through MTV appearances, or hologram concerts.

           Gorillaz released their fifth album, Humanz, in April 2017 after being gone and not having a studio album since 2010. When they came back to the internet with new music and a new art style, fans began wondering where they had been. Two of the four members of the band did an interview with Mistajam for Telekom Electronic Beats to promo their newest album, and they sat and talked and answered questions and phone calls. The band has done interviews before, had a series of shorts, and had an episode of MTV Cribs where they toured Kong Studio.

           I think the impact of interacting with animals and virtual bands through digital media is good because it gives a lot of people a way to connect. The different platforms used link to people’s pathos, the emotion they feel towards something. In the cases of animal Instagram pages, people feel good when looking at cute animals, and people feel good when interacting with others or being talked to, so mixing the two reaches those people. The same goes for fans of the band Gorillaz. People love to get to see more of their favorite members and watch interviews of real bands, and to be able to see the characters of this band interacting with fans through the internet gives people joy. Watching the weird rocky relationship between characters brings discomfort, and watching the band get separated and stranded on a fake beach bring worry. The attachment is all emotional.

[jonnyrhetoric]

Jonathan Watford

CMAT 342.101

Rhetorical Analysis

Scott Pilgrim Vs. Remediation

10/9/17

Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World is a graphic novel series by artist Bryan Lee O’Malley. It’s about a 22-year-old Scott Pilgrim going through a break up by getting into another relationship. The books cover different spans of Scott’s relationships and touch on his friends, current life, and his band. Scott finds the girl of his literal dreams and wants to date her, but at the moment, he’s in a relationship with another girl, Knives Chau, that he rushed to after a breakup. He pursues the dream girl, Ramona Flowers, and his life gets more complicated. He eventually has to fight all of Ramona’s exes to be with her peacefully and it’s a mess. The movie has the same premise but small details and the entire ending differ from the books. The sixth book wasn’t even finish when the film was being made.

The message of the books comes around near the ending and is ultimately about coming to terms with the mistakes you’ve made and learning to grow. Scott admits to his wrongdoings and makes up with Ramona and Knives. He gains “The Power of Understanding” and apologizes for being a jerk. He makes up with other characters along the way as well, and they all manage to sort things out in the end. Another message comes from Ramona. She learned not to run from her problems and to stick around even when things get bad. The movie had a different message even though the same events occurred during the beginning of the story. Scott made up with everyone he hurt at the end of the movie, at the same time. He went through everything at the end and tried to win back Ramona by gaining “The Power of Love”, ultimately failing, and dying. He got a second chance, however, and did everything over, correctly this time. At the end, he gained “The Power of Self Respect” and grew as a person in the end. In both versions, the overall theme revolves around growth and knowledge of self.

The point of view in both the books and the movie is in Scott’s perspective. Both versions tell the story through Scott’s eyes and experiences. The books give glimpses into the other characters’ personal lives and include scenes where Scott isn’t present and the characters bond or talk, but the majority is Scott’s personal point of view. The book shows flashbacks of Scott in past relationships or going through different events. Sometimes other characters will tell him something that he did or explain how a past even affected them or someone else, and Scott has no memory of it at all. By the end of the fifth book Scott is actually forced to take some personal time and he later remembers everything. In the sixth book, you find out his mind was being messed with by the main antagonist of the story. The movie didn’t feature any of the memory issues, however. Everything happened very quickly and there wasn’t a lot of crazy magic or mind games.

           The differing mediums made the telling of the story change between the two versions. The movie was very serious and sometimes sad, but also really funny. The characters had exaggerated personalities to make them stand out more, and some of them changed too. Ramona was made to be colder and more serious than in the books. The books had more characters, however, and spanned a longer period of time, roughly over a year, whereas the movie only spanned about a week’s time. The events took place over that year, which spanned six books, and the characters all grew together during that time. In the movie, Scott went through a big conflict and lots of life changing/threatening events in seemingly no time, and he was the only one to make a major growth. It worked out from a story telling standpoint, and the plot didn’t really fall through, but the differences are notable.

Overall, both versions tell a very similar story. The beginning of the movie recreated the first two books almost verbatim, and the third book leaves out a lot of information that really didn’t do much for the overarching story anyway. The changes came in around the fourth book onward. Reiterating from before, the sixth book wasn’t even finished when the movie was written/filmed. It came out after the movie, in fact. The movie managed to take the bulk of the story and convert it into a film.

[jonnyrhetoric]

Jonathan Watford

10/3/17

Annotation 2

Prior, Paul, et al. "Re-situating and re-mediating the canons: A cultural-historical remapping of rhetorical activity." Kairos 11.3 (2007): 1-29. http://technorhetoric.net/11.3/topoi/prior-et-al/core/core.pdf.

 The author starts this article by listing the canons and their Latin and Greek names. He then mentions what he is going to be talking about in this article, and gives a starting point. The author states that the argument will be from the perspective of writing studies researchers. Therefore, the topic of classical rhetoric would be seen as a matter of history. It is because of this that researchers want to resituate and remediate the canons. He also states that reworking these canons does not mean that the use of them is new, however, that they are used more widely now. The rest of the article is broken up into multiple sections. The first section is about the neglect of delivery as a canon, but made a return in the 70s when the field started to consider digital media. The author then talks about delivery as a canon and what it constitutes. He begins the next section by talking about how the canons can be changed. He asks a number of questions on delivery. This leads to the identification of delivery as the combination of mediation and distribution. In following sections, the author uses this theory to explain his ideals on the adjustment of the canons.

The author was not brief. The deconstruction of delivery was very interesting and seeing the logistics behind what makes it a canon and the revival of its relevance was informational. However, the went on for a long time on small subtopics and explanations. I appreciate the different scenarios given where writing studies would have given a different mapping of rhetoric in a different context, or the multiple ways delivery can or should be used, but it went on for pages and included so much text, I didn’t think I’d get through it.

[jonnyrhetoric]

Jonathan Watford

10/2/17

Annotation 1

 Ridolfo, Jim, and Nicole DeVoss, Danielle “Composing for Recompostition:

Rhetorical Velocity and Delivery” Jan. 15, 2009 http://kairos.technorhetoric.net/13.2/topoi/ridolfo_devoss/intro.html

           The author of the article starts by saying new ideas need to be discussed because of the way rhetoric is changing with the times, compared to how scholars viewed the same practices in older eras. He then says we are in an age where authors expect remediation on their work for multiple mediums and genres. He is suggesting that changing our mindsets and anticipating these changes is becoming more important. In the next paragraph, the author gives an example of press and media release being with the clear intention of it being translated to other forms of media. He mentions that the choice to use a press release as an example was intentional due to the media being represented as analog and digital. This genre is a good place to begin talking about the strategies of adaptation. Although this genre is confined to specific conventions, it is a good starting point for the discussion of the changes to the composition of digital media. He continues, saying this genre will launch discussions among students and researchers and encourage people to find more examples of the changes being made to media. He ends by defining rhetorical velocity, and defines the words individually as well.

The author kept the article short and gave an example to help explain his point. However, the author didn’t go into much detail and only gave one example with very little explanation to further the point he was making. Despite this, it wasn’t a bad article, and the content is easily understandable.

[jonnyrhetoric]

Jonathan Watford

CMAT 342.101

Rhetorical Analysis

To Shoot Ya Shot or Not To Shoot Ya Shot

9/12/17

           People love to laugh. More and more I see people sharing and referencing memes, and memes are funny, but they also have purpose. Memes are relatable, they tell stories, or they express emotions. “Ard fam, listen. You had a fine shordy pop up on ya TL and you was tryna holla. Shoot ya shot.” Shooting your shot, or #shootyashot2k17, is an internet movement that emphasizes building up the courage to ask out a girl or tell your crush how you feel. The shoot your shot campaign started back in 2015, and has resurfaced at the end of 2016 going into 2017. More emphasis was put on the meme after Trump got elected, people now alluding to the time we have on this earth running out as a running joke.

           The audience for this meme is very broad. The meme reaches out to anyone who has a crush or sees a girl that they like. It’s calling out to those people who are too afraid to say hello, or ask that cute girl for her number, or get that prom date. For teens and young adults alike, this meme is a basic push, telling those people to swallow their fear/pride and do what you know you want to do. Even celebrities like Chance the Rapper got in on this when he tweeted in December 25th, 2016 “Send that text this morning, shoot your shot: Merry Christmas Lil Mama” to their crush, significant other, or anyone the person felt like sending it to. It was honestly perfect timing for him because he used this to promote the tape he made with Jeremih titled “Merry Christmas Lil Mama” released on December 22nd.

           The meme actually has two messages. When someone tells another person to shoot their shot, they are essentially telling them to muster up that courage and go for it, despite what they may think the result will be. This is typically how people refer to the meme. The second meaning comes from shoot your shot memes and reaction images. A reaction images are usually used in conversation to express emotion or a reaction to a specific event. The shoot your shot meme is used as an opener to conversation or as a way to get the point across easily. The meme fuses common phrases like “wyd?” (what you doing) or “you up?” with images of basketball players taking shots. This makes the use of the memes funny and the users seem more approachable. Other memes have an image of a message bubble above a basketball hoop and a notification above the ball, showing that this is the message to the receiver. There are many ways to do this but the message remains the same. It’s a way to commit to conversation when simply saying “hey” isn’t strong or doesn’t stand out enough.

           There are a couple tones for this meme. In the case of the person using the meme/phrase to instill confidence into a friend or someone in need of a push, the tone may be encouraging. The tone could also be aggressive if one is fed up with someone who constantly backs down or chickens out. It all depends on the context but usually the person is trying to be helpful, encouraging, or supportive. In the context of the person sending the meme/image, it can be broader. If I were to send that meme to a girl I found really cute, I could be shooting my shot romantically. I could also be pursuing that of a sexual nature, and therefore my tone would come off more direct and sensual, most likely. I could also just be asking a person I just met to go to the movies or mall with me. In that case, using the meme would be sillier and less sexual.

           Regardless of the way this meme is used, I find it very unique and interesting. It’s been relevant for a couple years, whereas memes that we see now usually last for a month or two and fall off. Some are even categorized by most popular that month or most relevant to current events. Shoot your shot memes have been consistently relevant and continue to be used even now. I made a few shoot your shot memes and have provided them to my friends because they’re funny and can easily break ice or stir positive reactions.

[jonnyrhetoric]

Jonathan Watford

9/5/17

Rhetorical Application 2

I use digital media every day. I am an artist and I draw on a program called Paint Tool Sai. I also, as of this semester, use Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop. I do a lot of my work digitally and upload it to the internet. Most of my work is in folders on my computer, either unfinished or waiting to be displayed. I post some of my completed pieces on my social media accounts. I have a Tumblr account I use to post art called 90svillain (formerly yungducky) and an Instagram under 90svillain as well (formerly also yungducky, then scott.trillgram). My twitter name is the90svillain. I don’t use Facebook anymore because it started to get annoying and wasted a lot of time. I used to live stream my art. I would join art streams with other artists or just stream on my own. I watched a lot of artists work, and when I wasn’t watching streams, I was looking at artists post on social media and reading comics. I don’t have many fans, but I try talking to other artists and people who might be interested in my art. I’m a couple art group chats and I engage with artists in different channels.

Outside of art, I use social media to just relax and find memes. I use Tumblr to find memes and inspiration for my clothing choices and potential outfits. Instagram is casual, and I use it to see what my friends are doing, follow artists, and check out memes. I follow more friends on Instagram than I do other social media. I barely use Twitter but when I do, I post art, like art from other artists, and look at whatever is trending. I also use snapchat. I don’t post, but I watch other peoples’ posts. I don’t talk to many people on Tumblr, and I don’t talk to anyone on Twitter, but I do talk to my friends on Instagram now and then. I use messenger or I just text most of the time, however. Besides social media, I use YouTube almost all the time. For music, entertainment, and information. I’m on YouTube as I write this. I typically watch videos of Super Smash Bros. 4 tournaments, Mario Kart, Splatoon, and other video game content. I also watch comedy videos. I spend a lot of time on YouTube watching video game content or listening to music. There are other ways to listen to music, such as sound cloud and bandcamp, which I do visit sometimes, but I use YouTube the most, especially now since I got YouTube Red for free for three months. I also use YouTube to look for art tutorials and clothing inspiration. I play video games when I get the time. I’m bad at doing things during the school semester, I can’t keep up. But last winter break, I got Final Fantasy for Christmas and I played for probably 10 hours a day every day, for the whole break. I don’t watch a lot of TV, but I do watch Netflix pretty often. My favorite show right now is Stranger Things. I can’t wait for the new season. I like to binge watch series on there and sometimes I host my own little movie marathons.

[jonnyrhetoric]

Jonathan Watford

9/5/17

Rhetorical Application 1

Twitter

Instagram

Texting

Reddit

Tumblr

MS Paint

Photoshop

Krita

TV Paint

Anondraw

Amazon

ASOS

Etsy

Redbubble

Threadless

Skype

Google Hangouts

Discord

Face Time

Messenger Video Call

Twitch

Picarto

Youtube

Livestream.com

Facebook Live

[jonnyrhetoric]

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