#this is extremely my niche so I dont really expect it to go anywhere but fuck it

[wazzappp]

Ghost rider RE7 AU

@baselicoc​ HEY HI HELLO IM SOOOOO GLAD YOU SAID THAT YOU OPENED THE FLOODGATES SO YOUR GETTING @ed​ I HOPE THATS ALRIGHT

*zip ties you to a chair and tapes your eyes open*

Aight this is more a collection of headcannons than an actual plot but I might get that out someday if yall are interested. For now just take some of my disjointed ramblings. 

For the sake of clarity, Robbie is Ethan, and Gabe is Mia.

Robbies powers are a mix between Ethan and Evelines. He has a rapid healing factor, can talk to/control the mold, and shapeshift to a certain degree. From how he behaves in his comics I think he would respond in stages. 1. Ignore it as long a humanly possible, 2. Acknowledge it but refuse to use the more freaky powers (shapeshifting and mold manipulation) 3. Eventually start to use them but only in dire situations. He carries the same denial that Ethan does throughout the game. Robbie would absolutely ignore his newfound weirdness to a ridiculous degree, but even he would start asking questions after having his fucking hand stapled back on. The way I think he ignores this for so long is that he just latches onto what Jack Baker says during the trapdoor cutscene.

(also the fact that you fucking collect your leg as inventory kills me these game devs were on another level when making this shit)

“Use this, you can heal your leg. Come on, you can do it!” I think this gives Robbie the opportunity to latch onto the idea that the medical kits / goop juice (for all my fellow markiplier fans) / Chem fluid bottles are what allows him to keep going, not his weird mold infested biology. Given what he's seen at this house I think Robbie would resolve that if he were infected, he would need to die. Turning into a monster like the Bakers, a mindless drone like the molded, or god forbid becoming like Eveline is absolutely not an option (spoiler alert that's basically what happens).

Eventually he would realize it though. Maybe he accidentally cuts himself at the BSAA provided safe-house he and Gabe are staying at and it heals way too quickly, or he catches his eyes in the mirror reflecting in ways they absolutely shouldn't. I’m thinking he would start going to the worst possible outcomes and therefore the worst possible solutions but Gabe puts a stop to that very destructive line of thinking. Not just because Robbie still needs to be around to take care of him, but because he finds out that Gabe has been permanently affected by his time with the Bakers too. Yep, I'm incredibly predictable. I’m giving Gabe a variation of Rose’s powers. I'm thinking for the vaccine choice after Jack Baker's final boss fight ( Robbie ABSOLUTELY chooses Gabe over Zoe, there is no question about it) the vaccine just gets rid of Eveline's ability to control Gabe and not the mold infection itself.

How Gabe would feel about being infected is definitely an interesting question. Robbie probably hates the fact that he's infected but that's because he hates not feeling in control of himself or the situation he's in. For Gabe it's different. Robbie being in control of the mold feels entirely different from Eveline. Where Eveline would manipulate and force people into doing what she wants, Robbie is someone who he trusts and more than that almost seems to reject the hive mind that they are both tapped into. The mold isn't inherently evil. It just relies on guidance from whoever is controlling it, and I think Gabe would be able to understand that having experienced both Eveline leading and now Robbie. And with Robbie in the lead I think Gabe would transition from scared to woah cool pretty quickly. That and I think he would definitely enjoy exploring without the need for mobility aids. In this au Gabe had physical disabilities before encountering Eveline, but she forcibly shifted his physiology into something ideal for her ‘new best friend/ brother’. He retains his mental disabilities because removing them feels kinda gross to me.

Gabe would also have a healing factor, just not as aggressive as Robbies. When Robbie is injured the mold recognizes it and immediately does what it can to fix it; forming a protective layer over it like a weird automatic scab. This rapid healing does result in scar tissue though, and holy shit are there a lot of scars. I was rewatching Mark’s RE7 lets play and in the words of Phil Swift THAT’S A LOTTA DAMAGE. Anyway, this is fine for cuts or puncture wounds, but if he breaks a bone or dislocates a joint for example, this healing can look like a marionette being yanked around as bones are aggressively pulled back into place. It is violent healing and I imagine it would be extremely unsettling to observe.

Gabe’s is more gradual and subtle. Cuts that would heal over the span of a week heal over a few days. And because this healing is more gentle he doesn't tend to scar as easily from damage. But his main powers would focus on communicating with the mold itself as well as creating the mold flowers that we see in the ‘shadows of rose’ DLC. Those flowers are used to generate walls of mold that I think he could use to defend himself. It's like giving the mold a new starting point to grow from. He can't command it without question like Robbie can, but he does talk to them and sometimes they decide to listen. Mostly he talks to them like they’re his friends. Which is only vaguely concerning when a BSAA rep comes around the house to check on them and finds Gabe mumbling into a corner. The rep asks what he's doing and Gabe just looks at him and smiles “I’m talking to my friends in the walls!”

Speaking of which I think that Robbie would subconsciously start growing mold in the walls and around the backyard of their BSAA provided safehouse. It watches everything, and it reports back (yes I am including hive mind elements into this did you really expect better from me) following his orders as a ‘new Eveline’ (which he absolutely HATES). As a side note, it's definitely conflicting to ask myself what it would take for Robbie to kill a 10 year old girl, but mind controlling his little brother into stabbing him repeatedly and cutting his hand off with a chainsaw, while also killing and turning 100+ people into mind controlled mold monsters would probably get him close.

Robbie’s overprotective nature graduates into borderline possessiveness here. It's primarily because of the mold's influence but also holy fucking trauma batman because he thought his little brother straight up died and went through a hell on earth trying to save him (im figuring gabe goes missing for a couple weeks before robbie finds him in the Bakers House. I know in the original game it's three years but frankly I don't know how Robbie would do with that so three weeks it is). The mold is an entity in and of itself here. Outside of the Megamycite, this is an independent colony that was nearly wiped out by the person it is now attached to. Protecting Robbie and Gabe is its prime directive as a point of survival,  and that desire being pumped into the already paranoid and jaded teenager has palpable effects.

But essentially the reasoning I’m putting out here from Robbies pov is ‘Fuck that should not have healed instantly without that weird medical stuff I am infected maybe I should turn myself in’ to ‘Wait wait fuck Gabe is ALSO infected but he seems.. Fine? Maybe because Eveline isn’t present anymore the mold isn't affecting either of us as aggressively?” ending with ‘Gabe seems fine, so I’m probably fine. If were both infected the same way than we should both be good. Right?’

Unfortunately of course they are NOT infected in the same way. Like I said Gabes abilities were supposed to be a ‘gift’ from Eveline. She wanted someone who she could run around and play with. But Robbie straight up DIED. We know from RE8 that he got deaded on after getting curbstomped by one mind controlled Jack Baker (following the dismemberment of course jesus Ethan had a fucking inhuman pain tolerance even before getting infected) and by the end of the game itself his entire body is composed of mold. Gabe is infected, Robbie is made of infection. 

Okay this is getting really fuckass long so I’m gonna continue in a second post. Also I just. Dont know? Where to put Eli in this? I have some plans for Lisa but the stinky bastard man eludes me.

[seotipsandtricks-me]

You might have missed this. But Google brought us an interesting surprise recently. They decided to revamp their official SEO Starter Guide for the first time in over seven years. The new Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Starter Guide is full of useful and interesting information we can all benefit from. Unfortunately, some of the content in there isn’t clear or specific enough. It’s not that Google is hiding something from you, it’s that they don’t want to tell you exactly what you need to know to rank higher in their search engines. They prefer if you discover that on your own. But fear not, in this article you will learn everything you need to know from the new SEO Starter Guide and how you can implement that information on your site. What You Will Learn What Google expects to see from your website How to really make your site show up on Google Google’s guidelines on hiring SEO experts How to optimise your site the right way And so much more! Making Your Site Show Up on Google The first step to rank on Google is having your site in their index. To do so you need to make your site crawlable and indexable. To help you achieve that, Google suggests you ask yourself a few questions which will help you find out whether your site is being crawled and indexed- Is my website showing up on Google? Do I serve high quality content to users? Is my local business showing up on Google? Is my content fast and easy to access on all devices? Is my website secure? Let me help you answer each of these questions. Is Your Website Showing Up On Google? This question is easy to answer. Simply search for your company or website’s name on Google and see if it shows up. If I ran a pizza place in London called “Pizza Union” (a company that exists), and I searched for it on Google, I’d see it’s ranking in there in the first position- If you don’t find your site, make sure you check outside page 1. Also, if your name is similar to a large company or if it represents a broad term (for example, if my pizza place was called “London Pizza,” it’d be hard to rank for that term for obvious reasons), don’t despair. It’s not an SEO problem so much as a naming one. Are You Serving High Quality Content? You probably know that creating high-quality content is a prerequisite to rank these days. Defining “high-quality content” on the other hand isn’t easy. But way back in my zero link building experiment I noted that Matt Cutts had defined it as- Something that is unique/different/original Useful/helpful to the community Answers common questions in your niche Original research Create videos How to guides and tutorials Create lists of helpful resources Another way to define the quality of a piece of content is to tie it with its popularity. That means, if your content attracts links and social shares then we can define it as high-quality. At the end of the day, people don’t link or share to content they deem low-quality. So, taking this idea into consideration, let’s check how many links and shares your content is getting. We are going to check your content’s link popularity with Ahrefs. Just drop the URL in Ahrefs Site Explorer to check the number of backlinks you have received and the number of referring domains. There’s no right or wrong number of backlinks and referring domains but if you see zero links, you should review the quality of the content. Next we are going to check the social popularity with another great tool, Buzzsumo. Just drop your URL into the search bar and then check how many shares your content has gotten- As you can see with the link results above and the popularity on social media we can conclude this is high quality content. Hint: You can also use this WordPress plugin to grab the social shares of all of your content in one click Don’t worry if you dont have any links or social shares – it could just be your content promotion wasn’t very effective. But you should certainly pay close attention to these pages and review them against competing search results for relevant keywords. Is Your Local Business Showing Up On Google? Note: If you don’t have a local business, you can skip this part. Local SEO is extremely important if you run a local business, as it works differently than non-local SEO. Both local and non-local SEO need on-site optimisation and links to rank high in the search engines. The main difference lies in that local sites also need citations. A citation is an online reference to your business’s name, address and phone number (also known as NAP). Citations work like links, because Google uses them to evaluate the online authority of your business. What makes citations different from links is that the former don’t need a link pointing to your business’s website in order for you to be credited for them. Getting a NAP is already enough. To check your local business, repeat what I showed up before; that is, search your business on Google. Continuing with the pizza place example, I see they show up in the local results. You should then check to see if your business comes up in listings for popular keywords, like “Pizza London” for example. If your local business doesn’t show up for your target keywords you can use the WhiteSpark Citation Service to get a boost in local rankings. If you don’t find your place anywhere, you need to add your company with Google My Business. The process is straightforward: In the Google My Business website, click on the “Start Now” button. Once you do so, you will have to add your company’s information, including your business name, your location, the kind of business you run, and your company’s phone number and website. The process won’t take you more than 5 minutes and will help you get your company listed on Google Maps. Is My Content Fast And Easy To Access On All Devices? Your websites speed not only affects your rankings but it also has a huge impact on user experience. A 1 second delay in load time can lead to a 7% drop off in conversion and 11% fewer pageviews. To check your page speed, you can use a tool like GTmetrix. Once you have added your site, GTmetrix will tell you: The performance score The load time The page size The number of requests (i.e., how many requests did GTmetrix have to make to load all your site’s elements; the fewer requests, the better) In general, you want a load time under 2 seconds, and a page size under 1 megabyte. If you find your site to be above those two thresholds, focus on solving the problems GTmetrix shares with you. Some of the most common problems related to a site’s speed performance are the lack of browser caching, progressive rendering, HTTP compression, among other problems. If you want to learn more about the most common speed problems you can face, you can read Google’s own PageSpeed Insights rules. Fortunately, you don’t need to become an expert in speed optimisation to make your website faster. With the help of W3 Total Cache, a WordPress plugin with over 1 million downloads and 2,700 5-star reviews, you can optimise your site’s page speed in a few minutes. Once you install it, you will find there are a large number of sections within the plugin you can check. Before you get overwhelmed, remember you want to optimise for the problems your site has, not for every single possible you may face in the future. To that end, you want to go back to GTmetrix’ performance review and check the problems they found. In the case of Pizza Union, you can see they only have one problem: landing page redirects. In other words, they have a problem with duplicate content, something that can be easily fixed with the help of Yoast SEO. But if your website has other, more pressing problems, like lack of browser caching (which allows a user’s browser to “save” a page’s version in their “memory”), you want to use W3 Total Cache. If that was the case, you’d need to go to Browser Cache, which is the seventh element in the menu as shown above. Generally speaking, W3 Total Cache fixes the most common problems as default, so you may not need to do anything. As you can see in the image below, W3 Total Cache has already specified the general cache policy: Once you have installed W3 Total Cache, you should see an immediate improvement in your site’s speed. If you don’t, and you don’t know what to do, you should talk to a developer who specializes in site speed optimisation to help you out solve the problems GTmetrix indicates. Another common issue is the lack of a Content Delivery Network (or CDN), which would make the user download your site’s elements from the location of your server. That means, if your servers are located in Liverpool, and your user is in Los Angeles, Bangkok, or Cape Town, it would take their browser more time to load your page. But if you used a CDN like MaxCDN, they could download all the elements from the closest server, making the site’s download speed much faster and efficient. If you click on W3 Total Cache’s General Settings section, you can select the CDN type you want to use, and the plugin will do most of the hard work for you. Both the use of W3 Total Cache and a CDN will make your site speed much faster, improving your user experience as well as your rankings.] You could also use a free plugin like WPSmush to optimize all of your images and reduce your overall page size in just a couple of clicks. Is My Website Secure? Back in 2014, Google added the use of SSL to their ranking factors. SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) is the standard security technology for establishing an encrypted link between a web server and a browser. Basically, having a domain with SSL will certify your site’s security. Because the use of SSL impacts in your rankings, you want to make sure you are using it in your site, especially if you accept payments on your site. You can use the Let’s Encrpyt service which allows you to add a encrypted certification for free. The easiest way to add a free SSL certification to your site, is by using a server that’s already integrated with Let’s Encrypt, which includes WPXHosting, Siteground & Kinsta. Once you have the SSL certificate installed on a server level you can use a plugin like Really Simple SSL to enable it on the WordPress level. If your business is running on WordPress, check out How To Switch From HTTP To HTTPS (13 Simple Steps) from Cloudliving. Using Sitemaps Finally, Google talks about making your content easier to find. On that end, they recommend the use of sitemaps: A sitemap is a file on your site that tells search engines about new or changed pages on your site. A sitemap tells Google which pages they should crawl, as well as determine the canonical version (i.e., the correct version) of each page. Creating a sitemap is easy, you can use a tool like XML Sitemap Generator or, if you use WordPress, a plugin like Google XML Sitemaps or Yoast SEO. Both tools make creating a sitemap like this one a simple process. Once you have the sitemap, you want to add it to the Google Search Console as they explain in this article. Hiring An SEO Expert SEO takes a lot of time. If you are a busy business owner, or if you prefer to focus on other parts of your business (like sales and operations), you want to hire an SEO expert. As Google says in the Starter Guide: Many SEOs and other agencies and consultants provide useful services for website owners, including: Review of your site content or structure Technical advice on website development: for example, hosting, redirects, error pages, use of JavaScript Content development Management of online business development campaigns Keyword research SEO training Expertise in specific markets and geographies Finding a trustworthy SEO company can be hard. To help you find the right one, you want to check for the following things: The results they have gotten to their past and current clients. Ask for case studies and references. Make sure they show specific results (e.g., “Our link building campaign attracted 15 high-authority links which helped driving the organic search traffic 20% in 3 months”). The person in charge of your site. You want to make sure the company doesn’t outsource the work or give it to a junior executive with little experience. Make sure you talk to the person in charge of your site before signing off. The link building tactics they use. Make sure they don’t use black hat tactics, unless that’s what you need (for example, if you are in the gambling industry). Ask them to show you specific links they’ve gotten and how they got them. The timeline and deliverables. SEO takes time, but you want them to make progress on a month-per-month basis. At first, they should focus on keyword research, on-site optimisation, and technical SEO. Later, they’ll focus on link building and content creation. Tell them to tell you exactly what steps will be involved and the time each one will take. (If you are in doubt which company to hire, you can contact my team for help. Feel free to browse our case studies, the tactics we’ll use, and the time you can expect to see results.) Another important thing to take into consideration, is to get started with SEO before you need it. As Google mentions in the Starter Guide- If you’re thinking about hiring an SEO, the earlier the better. A great time to hire is when you’re considering a site redesign, or planning to launch a new site. That way, you and your SEO can ensure that your site is designed to be search engine-friendly from the bottom up. However, a good SEO can also help improve an existing site. Optimise Your Title Tags and Meta Description You can have the best content in the world, but if neither Google knows what your page is about nor people understand the content of it, no one will visit your site. That’s where title tags and meta descriptions come to the rescue. As you may know, title tags are one of the most important on-site elements of your site. Google weights the optimisation of your title tags heavily, so if you use the right keywords in it, Google will likely reward you with better results. Meta descriptions on the other hand will help people (and Google) understand what your page is about. If you do your job correctly, your click-through-rate (CTR) will skyrocket, increasing your organic traffic (even if you don’t rank number 1). Here’s how you optimise your title tag and meta description. Title Tag Optimisation First and foremost, your title tags need to have the main keyword of your page. You can use an exact match of the keyword (that is, the exact keyword for which you want to rank), or simply use it within a phrase. For example, if you wanted to rank for the keyword “Pizza London,” like in the case of the company we’ve been using so far, you’d need to add that keyword within the title tag. Unfortunately, that’s not the case: Long are the days where you could stuff your main keywords in your title tags and expect good results. That’s why you need to get creative and use some SEO copywriting in your title tag. In the case of the pizza place shown above, you could create a title tag that said something like: Voted The Best Pizza In London – Pizza Union If you run a local place or a company with a strong brand, you want to add your brand’s name somewhere in the title tag, especially in the main pages (like the homepage and category pages). Finally, remember that title tags have a maximum length of 60 characters. If you exceed that length, it won’t hurt your site. Rather, Google will cut your title tag short in the search results. Meta Description Optimisation While title tags matter for improving your page’s rankings, meta descriptions gives them context. It’s with the meta descriptions where you want to use copywriting to improve your page’s relevancy. Here’s a good example of a well-written meta description: You can see that the company mentions what they offer (Neapolitan pizzas), where they offer them (in central London and Oxford), and how they offer them (in their venues, takeaway, or delivery). For a local business, that’s a great structure. It’s concise and even actionable. While in the past the meta description maximum characters were around 155 characters, according to Moz, Google has extended their length to around 300 characters. Blocking Unwanted Pages Your website likely has many pages you don’t want to show up in Google, either because they generate duplicate content, show sensitive information (like user or personal information) or because your users won’t find it useful. This may not be the case if your site is small and has less than 50 pages or so. Either way, if you think there are parts of your website you want to block from Google, here’s what you need to do. First, use a robots.txt, which is a text file webmasters create to instruct search engine robots how to crawl and index pages on their website. As the name suggests, this is nothing but a simple .txt file you add in your server’s root folder. Robots.txt have some limitations in its scope. As Google explains: Robots.txt is not an appropriate or effective way of blocking sensitive or confidential material. It only instructs well-behaved crawlers that the pages are not for them, but it does not prevent your server from delivering those pages to a browser that requests them. One reason is that search engines could still reference the URLs you block (showing just the URL, no title or snippet) if there happen to be links to those URLs somewhere on the Internet (like referrer logs). Also, non-compliant or rogue search engines that don’t acknowledge the Robots Exclusion Standard could disobey the instructions of your robots.txt. Finally, a curious user could examine the directories or subdirectories in your robots.txt file and guess the URL of the content that you don’t want seen. What Google is trying to say is that using a robots.txt is only one part of the whole puzzle. If you link internally to a page you want to block, Google may crawl and index it anyway. If you want to make sure Google doesn’t index a page (even if it crawls it), you want to use a “noindex” tag, which goes in the header of a page. You can manually add them to every page you want to block, or using a plugin like Yoast SEO. By using the “noindex” tag, Google will crawl it, but avoid indexing it (and therefore, rank it). Using Structured Data Markup The way Google shows up the results has changed dramatically in the past 7 years. One of the biggest changes is the use of structured data markup. In the words of Google, structured data markup is: [A] code that you can add to your sites’ pages to describe your content to search engines, so they can better understand what’s on your pages. Search engines can use this understanding to display your content in useful (and eye-catching!) ways in search results. That, in turn, can help you attract just the right kind of customers for your business. In other words, structured data helps users find out more about a site or page without visiting it. This can impact deeply on your CTR and search engine traffic. Here are some examples to help you see how they look and work: If you look for a company like Amazon, Google will not only show their site and pages, but also the following: The information you see on the right represent two different types of structured data markup, the logos and articles ones. Finally, if you have a local business, Google can show a lot of useful information about it, like in the example below: If you aren’t sure whether to use structured data markup in your site, check what your direct and indirect competitors are doing. If you need help getting started, follow Google’s guides, which explain in more detail how they work. Once you get started implementing it on your site, use some of Google’s tools like Google Data Highlighter and Google Structured Data Markup Helper as well as some useful WordPress plugins like Yoast SEO and WP SEO Structured Data Schema. Make sure you test your new markup using Google Structured Data Testing Tool. Optimise your images While people love images, Google can’t read them. That’s why the “alt” tag exists: you describe what the image is about, and Google bases their analysis on it. In Google words: If a user is viewing your site using assistive technologies, such as a screen reader, the contents of the alt attribute provide information about the picture. Optimising your alt tags is simple: add the main keyword (and variations of it) with a descriptive sentence. Using the pizza example, if you had 10 images of your different pizzas on your homepage, you wouldn’t want to stuff all your images with the same keyword, as Google would consider that unnecessary. For example you might set an ALT tag of “The Best Margarita Pizza In London” for your main margarita pizza image. If you had 3 different images of each of your pizzas, you could add other variations, like “londons favourite margarita pizza,” “pizza margarita,” or “italian margarita pizza london.” Of course, you should do some keyword research first. Be relevant with your alt tags and Google will appropriately rank your pages for your desired keywords. Another important element to consider is the image size. That’s why I recommend using a service like Smush Image Compression and Optimization. Once you install it on your WordPress site, the plugin will automatically compress your images making them smaller and easier to load. SEO for Mobile Websites Mobile organic traffic has become as important as desktop traffic: in 2017, the latter accounted for 50.3% of all web traffic generated worldwide. That means you need to optimise your site for mobile traffic. To optimise your site for mobile traffic you should use responsive web design By using responsive web design, you are designing your site to automatically adjust itself to any kind of browser and screen size without the need to changhe URLs or your site’s structure. A lot of the best WordPress themes are responsive by default, but not everyone runs WordPress so double check if your site is responsive or not. Google recommends using the Mobile-friendly test to check if pages on your site meet the required criteria. You can also check out the Search Console Mobile Usability report to fix mobile usability issues affecting your site. Integrating AMP Another way to make your site more mobile friendly is to use the Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP for short) format. AMP is a markup language focused on mobile phones which increases the speed your pages are served to users. If you run your website with WordPress and you want to start using AMP, you can use plugin like AMP for WP or Automattic’s own AMP for WordPress. Finally, Google recommends you provide the same functionality on all devices (which includes desktop, table, and mobile): Mobile users expect the same functionality – such as commenting and check-out – and content on mobile as well as on all other devices that your website supports. In addition to textual content, make sure that all important images and videos are embedded and accessible on mobile devices. For search engines, provide all structured data and other metadata – such as titles, descriptions, link-elements, and other meta-tags – on all versions of the pages. Wrapping It Up Google’s updated SEO starter guide doesn’t represent a new way of doing SEO. Rather, it’s an update to the things we already knew, but never heard directly from Google. Now you know what Google expects from you, it’s time to get started. Google will thank you for it. Google’s New SEO Starter Guide: What You Need To Know was originally published on Matthew Woodward

[reallifeblogthings-blog]

COMM 3P18 Blog #3

Welcome to my last and final blog… at least for this class. I like to think the best for last, because these topics had me thinking about what is really going on on social media, and why? How digitization and convergence shape new media, as well as what is important to the audience in terms of both enjoyment and experience.

While reading The Influences of Sports Viewing Conditions on Enjoyment from Watching Televised Sports I could relate to multiple aspects of the perception of presence. In the article, perception of presence was defined as “the phenomenon in which an individual develops a sense of being physically present at a remote location through interaction with media”, as someone who watches a lot of mediated sports, I am able to relate to that feeling of being involved in such a way (Kim, Pg.392). Specifically, I related to immersion which is “the degree to which an individual feels involved in a particular experience and is caught up in the presentation of the media” (Kim, Pg.392). I believe that immersion can be anywhere, watching a sports game at any time. I also believe that immersion can happen at a real-life event due to the way a game is presented with media. For example, each year my friend Cassidy and I would buy each other birthday presents, as most would. During the summer I bought her Bluejays tickets because she loves baseball, and in November she bought be Raptors tickets because I love basketball. Neither of us liked the other sport, but of course, we went together to each event because we knew, either way, we would have a good time together. After reading about immersion, I couldn't help but think back to the time we went to both games, specifically the Raptors game. Screens everywhere, big flashing lights, loud announcers, all part of the experience of going to an event live. I found myself becoming more rowdy then I would watch the weekly games in my living room, and I believe this was due to all the media that was used throughout the game to create a greater audience experience. Now only was I becoming a true rowdy fan, my friend Cassidy was just as into it as I was. Thinking back to that memory, I always thought it was so strange she had so much fun cheering for a team she doesn't even follow. Although, I then thought about the atmosphere and the media that creates such a particular experience almost forcing one to become a fan. The big bright lights, large screens making you feel closer to the court than you truly are, and the loud voices of announcers heard across the stadium. These tools of media presented an experience for Cassidy that would draw her in to become a fan. I believe her immersion, was at a high degree, creating a fun experience she wasn't expecting from a basketball game.

During class and seminar, I had quite the throwback to my elementary and early high school years. I remember being so “in love” with celebrities, trying to always see what they were up to and follow their every move. I started to think about the continuum of a fandom and realized I’ve reached each level. I truly believe most people have, as Sullivan explains “We are all fans of something in today’s media-saturated environment, which makes the cultural and sociological study of fandom all the more important for understanding media audiences” (Sullivan, pg.195). Firstly a consumer, simply put as one who consumes the media content. This could be done by watching a sports event, reading tweets, or maybe watching a movie. Specifically, I believe I am only a consumer when it comes to movies. Unlike others, I never had much of an obsession when it comes to Harry Potter, or like the example of the super fan in class Star Trek. Therefore, since I've still seen them I could classify just as a consumer. Secondly, I also believe I am an enthusiast. For example, when I go to concerts, specifically this summer at All American Rejects, I went to watch them perform. Not only this I ended up buying one or their merchandise t-shirts, even so, but I would also call myself anything more than an enthusiast because I never find myself following their every move, not even following them on twitter... I don’t think they would be very funny. To be a fan is to be a fan of one's content, following them, cheering for them. Currently, I wouldn't consider myself a fan of anyone, but in high school, I was a big fan .. yep I’m gonna say it (DONT JUDGE ME) Justin Bieber. Now I wasn’t crazy, but I definitely kept up to date with his life, would watch live performances, and follow him on all social media. Lastly, the producer, the least favorite person out of the four. I was a producer when I was MUCH younger and was obsessed One Direction (double whammy ... I know). My friends and I all had fan accounts on Twitter, which was strictly to tweet about them, and only them. I definitely would have considered my group of friends super fans, there was a point where One Direction was truly the only thing we talked about. Thus, showing even though I’m not so proud of it, in my life and I think more people than who really know it, have hit each stage of the continuum of a fandom after all “the category of ‘fan’ has dramatically expanded as a result of the even smaller niche media products and platforms available today” (Sullivan, pg.195). 

After reading about Rebecca Black’s ‘It’s Friday’ video that went viral a few years ago. I truly couldn't help but laugh, mainly because I remember when that video first went viral and circulated around the school, it seemed as though every single person knew about it. Yet, I always wondered why such a terrible video and song became so popular? Even as the texts stated critics hated it as well… Although as Sullivan stated “unknown artists can create their own cultural materials and circulate them to millions of people at a time via the web, effectively bypassing the institutional gatekeepers in the traditional media” (Sullivan, pg. 214). I found this extremely interesting because it’s true… It’s so simple nowadays to make a terrible music video or post a wild photo that critics and most of the public would utterly hate, yet it would go viral! I believe due to the user-generated content such as twitter, facebook, and youtube, it becomes so simple to widespread information at such a fast pace. On the other hand, I also believe the reason it's much easier for content to go viral is partly due to the participatory culture that youtube brings to its viewers. Youtube allows users to talk to one another about the videos, to comment on each others posts, and even respond to them. Just looking at figure 9.1 on page 221 in Sullivan, youtube’s content is 50% user-generated. For an example of my own, I constantly find myself time and time again watching videos that have little to no meaning for self. Why’s this? Well scrolling through Twitter, something has gone viral, scrolling through Facebook, videos shared over and over again. I can’t stop myself from clicking to see what the fuss is all about, and that’s exactly why I end up on Youtube in the first place. But, what makes me stay is being able to look at what others think, seeing what they comment, how many views it gets, and even related videos that pop up with it. If these factors were not part of youtube, there is absolutely no chance it would have been successful as it is. Which is also the reason Instagram and Twitter have become increasingly popular as well.

During the reading Framing News in 140 Characters, I was really intrigued by the basis of the frames from both generic and issue-specific frames. Generic frames meaning they “are broad and structural themes and are limited to conflict, human interest, economic impact, responsibility and morality” (Wasike, pg.9). Issue-specific frames meaning they “are flexible and vary depending on the content being analyzed and they change based on the topic under study and the prevailing context” (Wasike, pg. 9). I mostly found it interesting when the author spoke about studies not specifically using the framing theory, but still found that it does exist in its findings. It truly made me think about what was circulating on twitter now, what news was at the top of the feed due to importance. Currently, the California fires had been circulating, not only on the news but it was literally all over my twitter! I thought for a second that this was odd but it certainly brought me in to read more about it. As I was reading I saw celebrity house after celebrity house after celebrity house, and no wonder, most celebrity issues are the ones that circulate most on twitter. It then made a lot more sense. The generic frames used in the theory that were favored were conflict, human interest, technology, and economic consequence. Why does this matter?… well, what sparks more human interest than a celebrity who is in distress over their house being burnt down?  It circulated twitter so much because it was someone who was famous, who tweeted photos and it thus, sparked human interest rather than some random person who would have tweeted about it. At the end after all who would want to read about someone who is really suffering and truly lost everything and probably has no place to go? Or even dying animals losing their homes? NO, what’s important is the celebrities who have hundreds of fans waiting for something ever so tragic to happen to them, so they can then tweet back and let them know the support they are giving.

Chapter 9, had a lot of important aspects of how new media shapes and differs every time something changes. Yet, I believe the more important topics that were talked about were the convergence of such media technologies and the digitization of all media. As said in class, we as an audience have a massive power when it comes to media now, just as the magazine Time also knew when putting the person of the year as ‘us’. Not only this But audiences have gained so much power that we overwhelm the producers. Considering we have such niche markets, there is so many smaller groups that ask for so much at the same time, and how could anyone keep up with that? I found it interesting that quite a few YouTubers are one by one taking time away from posting videos for subscribers due to being overwhelmed. So I got to thinking during class (weird, I know), but, when Jenn asked “are you happy? Does digital technology make you feel good? And who has the power?”  I really questioned a lot of media technologies that I use. What uses do I get from them? Are they keeping me entertained... Well yes, of course. But, am I happy with how I’m spending my time, watching things I don't even want to watch, not really. But in the end, I do believe that the audience holds the power, they have shut down corporations, and even taken away the middleman. 

But that’s enough deep thoughts about audience studies for now. Thanks for tuning in :)

-Kim Parker