#Hashtag

One major difference between fraternities and sororities is our big-little relationships. In fraternities some of the big-little pairs are pretty close, like me and my big or me and my little, for example, however the majority of them are not close at all. Sororities, on the other hand, have the strongest big-little bonds. The moment the new members find out who their bigs' are they almost completely lose their identity, losing their first names and address each other as "Big" and "Little". Oh, and I can't forget about their G-bigs' or "G!!!!!" as I'm so use to hearing it.

Since my big, Taylor, little, Gibby, and I are close we often make fun of the sorority lango, screaming "BIG!" and "LITTLE!" every time we see each other, mainly when we're around sorority girls.Twitter makes mocking them a lot easier with hash tags and Twitter accounts like, @biglittleprob and @TweetLikeAGirl two accounts that I see on my timeline that my sorority friends constantly retweet.

Most of our mocking is actually done on Twitter. When we returned to school, back in August, I tweeted my excitement to see Gibby with this tweet:

That tweet received four favorites, one from Gibby, of course, and the other three from sorority girls. I don't know if they knew I was actually mocking them, hence the "lol", or if they genuinely felt just how much I actually I wanted to see Gibby. I mean, I did miss the guy but, I would never actually express it that way.

 Gibby rebuttaled a couple of weeks later when we hung out one night with this tweet:

He received a little bit of buzz from that tweet as well but, the question still lies do they really think that's how we communicate with each other or do they know we were just, blatantly, mocking them? The world may never know...

Last Part of Share This!

This past summer I worked in a pizza shop as a line cook, and it was the worst the job I ever had in my entire life. It was always hot, the hours were ridiculous, and, to top it off, the boss was a real pain. He was short tempered, close minded, and as stubborn as they come. Everything that was done there was either done, backwards and the most difficult way possible or some way that was never heard of. And on top of that his prizes were outragous, $2.25 for a slice of pizza? Seriously?

He eventually hired an older Italian man, who has been in the pizza business for over 30 years, to help him out around the kitchen. Old head, yeah that's what I called him, often made suggestions to how the food should be made because, if you're charging people $7.00 for a cheesesteak from a ragedy pizza shop, it better be the best cheesesteak they've ever had in their lives. Of course our boss rejects all suggestions and later started to lose his customers. The chapter on internal communications in the last part of Share This made me think of that.

Your social engagements with your employees is very important in both the traditional and social media world. Being able to socialize with your employees, on a respectable level, and treat them well they'll being easier to work with. It was difficult working for my boss because the social engagement wasn't present. He didn't work well with others and it reflected in his work ethic and how he talked to us. Collaboration also makes a successful a workforce. Working together can turn a 30 minute job in and ten minute job with the help of others. There were times when my boss would take over my job completely making his job more difficult and me with nothing to do.

Above all listening to your employees is essential is a good employee-employer relationship, and if you're listening if you have to prove it. It doesn't mean anything to an employee if you don't act. Taking suggestions is apart of listening, so if you don't actually take suggestions into consideration, or at least attempt to, then your employees relationships wont be good. Good bosses makes employees enjoy their jobs a little bit more and make them actually willing to work. A good boss makes an employee feel like their working with the boss and not for them.

Meadowlark Lemon

A few weeks ago I was driving back from Lima with my brothers, Chem and Ian, cruising down Reservoir when I noticed a sign that said, "FREE KITTEN". Chem and I locked eyes immediately and I knew we had the same thought in mind, that we were getting a kitten that day, and Ian was on board 100 percent. We pulled into a driveway where a woman showed us five four week old kittens, some white with areas of grey and the others grey with some areas of white. They all were cute kittens but, none of them caught my attention more than the tiny all grey, fluffy, precious little kitten. Once I held him in the palms of my hand I knew he was the one we were going to take home and when Ian and Chem held him they knew it too. From that moment the three of us were proud owners of a kitten, a kitten by the name of Meadowlark Lemon.

There's only one way to describe Meadowlark Lemon, think about the happiest you've ever been in your life. Now think about that in the form of the cutest cat you've ever seen. No matter how upset you are or how bad of day you've had you can't help but to be happy around this cat. Everyone who has seen this cat falls in love with him, even the people who are allergic. The biggest and manliest of men expose their feminine side when they see Meadowlark Lemon, he is that perfect.

Unfortunately, since I live in the Sigep house, I can't have a pet which sucks for me and Chem. So Meadowlark Lemon lives with Ian in his apartment, I'm not too fond of the situation but I deal with it. I still get to see him as often as I can and we all still share equal responsibility for him. We all pay for his necessities such as, food, litter, and toys. All three of us gave him his flea bath and got rid of his fleas. And we all have and share the same amount of love for him but, lets be real I really I have the most love for him and he loves me the most. I swear, God put a piece of heaven in Meadowlark Lemon when he made him because, he is just absolutely perfect.

OFWGKTA

The other night I went to Columbus with a couple brothers to a Kid Cudi concert. I'm not much of a fan  of Kid Cudi, although Mr. Rager is a fantastic song and I was praying he sung it, the reason I went was for Tyler, the Creator. Tyler, the Creator is a popular Indie rapper who is known for his dark and provocative lyrics and song topics. Some of the topics of his songs are about his father issues and others are as dark as rape. Some said that he was scary or weird, when his first album Bastard came out, but, it was his video and song Yonkers that got his career started.

I for one have always been a fan of Tyler and afyer watching an interveiw of him on Youtube the other day talking about his style of rap.

The interview raises a lot of good points, starting with why he raps about what he raps about. We all have thought about dark things, things we wouldn't admit to our best of friends but, when it's said out loud people think of you as the one in the wrong. After listening to his first album, Bastard, I knew Tyler had a complex mind and was different from other rappers however, it was his sophomore album, Goblin, that I understood Tyler even more. My favorite lyrics from the opening song, appropriately named "Goblin", are "They claim the sh*t I say is just wrong. like nobody jad those really dark thoughts when alone. I'm just a teenager who admits he's suicide prone, my life is doing pretty good so that date is postponed." Those lyrics sum up his entire style, he raps about what he thinks and doesn't care. He's the same age as me, with a better life needless to say, so all he wants to do is be great. 

He also spoke on progression and how he wouldn't necessarily rap about the same things. This interview took place a couple years ago but, you can see that he meant that because there is a big difference in style and lyrics from his first album from his third album, Wolf.  

I may have been able to read between the lines and know exactly what Tyler is talking about in his music but, for those who don't, Youtube is a great tool for clarification. As one of the top social media outlets, Youtube is able provide viewers with videos like these for people who want to know more. A song could sum it up but, this interview said it all and then some. 

To be as young as he is, Tyler, the Creator is a musical genius and will soon receive more VMA, obtain his grammy, and make it mainstream just like he wants to be. All he needs is to be given a chance.

Share This! Part 4

In the reading of Share This part four the authors spoke on the evolution of the Public Relation new duties as social media and multimedia become more popular. Social media is ever changing with updates being made constantly and new technology coming out so frequently todays technology could be out dated as soon as tomorrow, so it's crucial for PR to stay update with it all. However, despite the constant changes there are somethings that some things that stay the same, just to name a few, for example:

-Headlines
-Tags
Sharing/e-mail sharing
-Links
-Image/video gallery

The headlines is basically a summary of the to story, between 90 and 120 characters, it's easier to get an understanding of the story and it's easier to share through Twitter. This is mainly used in blogs and articles. Sharing through Twitter is one of the most popular ways to share news but, people still tend to share news through email, so to share through email is crucial to sharing. Tags and tag clouds makes it simpler to find a story, and can also filter other stories in the same category appealing to the readers and interests. Links are easy ways to back up facts for readers and image/video galleries gives more for the readers to view opposed to just one shot. The gallery can be shared, tagged, and made into links.

PR is becoming more modernized, making Twitter and Journalist best friends. Journalist now find it a lot easier to share stories through Twitter. It's really simple as all you need to do is get involved, use your current contacts, search, and curate lists. Being involved puts yourself out there, you can get involved by talking to people in the Twitter community who share the interests as you, and there's no easier way to find these people than through the people you already. Once you've drawn in those people you can search for more through the search tool. And sites like Listorious and PeerIndex already have a group of Twitter names in groups so it's a lot easier to find who you're trying to find.

This reading made it more clear as to why ONU decided to merge the English, Broadcasting, and Public Relations department, because the evolution of social media requires all three fields to manage this.

Who's Next?

As exciting as social media can be, the thrill can easily die out once the new thing comes along. We've all seen it happen before, when When Yahoo! became popular, everyone abandoned AOL, when YouTube blew up, people stopped using Google video, and when MySpace became popular, Xanga stopped being used, only to later be left behind by Facebook users. However, with Facebook being number one for well over eight years now, it's just a matter of time before the next big thing comes along and all of Facebook's users moved to that site and Facebook meets the same fate as MySpace.

Lets look at Facebook's biggest social networking competitors, Twitter and Instagram. Twitter allows you to update your friends, also known as followers, your whereabouts, what you're doing, random thoughts, etc., in just 140 characters or less. Twitter also has a Trending Topics area where the most talked about topics are displayed and can be viewed. Along with the Trending Topics, hashtags are used, for example #ThrowbackThursday, or for TV shows, and surveys. Those features are good for keeping up with current events, entertainment news, and just for fun and pure entertainment. Twitter consists of other features such as: favoriting a tweet, which is similar to liking on Facebook, and retweeting, which is like getting a favorite but better because that means they were thinking what you were thinking. Twitter can be complicated to understand once you start to use it but, once you get use to it can be equally as addictive as Facebook, giving it the capability of taking Facebook's place as number one.

Now there's also Instagram, whose popularity took off immediately, getting over one million users in its debut year, in 2010. Instagram is simply Twitter but focuses more on the use of pictures. Hashtags are equally as popular on Instagram as it is on Twitter, the most popular probably being #NoFilter. A filter is an effect that Instagram users can apply to their photos to make it look better and standout. And as of summer 2013 you can now upload videos to Instagram, no longer than 15 seconds. Another similarity to Twitter, you also have followers on Instagram and follow other people. Unlike Twitter however, you  have the ability to like photos, just like Facebook. For some people who enjoy photography, whether it's just pictures of themselves or have a knack for it, this has what it takes to maybe top Tumblr, but not Twitter or Facebook.

For all of its existence, Facebook would has been doing everything in its power in to stay number one, and to make sure its users keep coming back. Facebook lets you create statuses, post videos, pictures, and comments on friends statuses and posts, you can play games, create groups, keep up with events and birthdays, and so much more. You can even display your posts from Twitter and Instagram and post on your Facebook wall. You can link your Facebook with almost every account you have on any site. It's things like that that keeps Facebook as number one but, I still foresee the day that Facebook is thing of the past and all forgotten about. It may not be anytime soon but, when that day comes, who's next? Who will be ready to take Facebook's spot and be number one? Ponder on that.

Until next time.

Greek Life is THE Life

Before I moved from Philly to Ada everyone at home asked me the same question, "Are you going to pledge anywhere?" and my answer was always simply, "Oh, God no." Even when I arrived on campus I was approached by greeks helping me move in, gave me greek life brochures, rush schedules, the whole nine yards but, I still had no intentions of pledging anywhere. Not until the faithful day that I met up with Andrew Colyer in Mac for brunch, who insisted that I go to the Sigep house with him. After that I started to consider greek life however, it wasn't until I met the man, who is now my big, that confirmed that there was no doubt that I would be a Sigep.

What people in greek life don't understand is that being in a fraternity, or even a sorority for that matter, is more than a just the stereotypes that define them such as: all of the partying, polos and boat shoes, and drinking. It's a group of strangers who grow closer together eventually becoming a family, hence the terms brother/sisterhood. The bonds that I've made the past three years being greek life is undescribable. Outside of the 40 brothers in my chapter to turn to I also have a sorority of 80 women who I can always have a good time with as well.

In comparison to the friends I made here versus friends at home, my greek life friends will literally bend over backwards for me, while my Philly friends are just a tad bit selfish. For example, recently my uncle, who lived about an hour and a half away in Fremont, passed away. With my east coast family not being able to make I still wanted to attend the funeral. So when I asked around to borrow a car there was almost a battle royal over who would let me borrow their car, which was surprising because I shouldn't be left alone with someone's car keys let alone their car. My Philly friends, for example, I have a hard enough time putting just the thought of them coming out here to visit me, hell even at home too since I am always the one visiting them. It's almost a burden for them to come see me, or at least thats how it appears.

Joining a fraternity I expected the stereotypes but, instead I got what I least expected, a group of people I can call my friends, brothers, and family for the rest of my life. Greek life is the life, and it changed mine for the better, and I that I am forever grateful for.

The Million Dollar Man

In the reading of  Share This part two you learn how a business can succeed using social media through these six steps:

-Selecting Your Squad
-Choosing a Goal
-Start Listening
-Think Character and Content
-Integrate Your Outpost
-Measure What You Treasure


As I read through those steps my mind wondered as usual but, this time it was slightly relevant to the reading. I couldn't help but think about the That 70's Show where Fez daydreamed that his friends turned him into the Million Dollar man, aka the perfect man. Right off the back, yeah it sounds dumb but, hear me out first.

Selecting your squad demonstrated what parts of an organization tackle different issues that may be thrown at them. People having complaints about the product, for example, would be handled by customer service or public relations. On That 70's Show Hyde took care of Fez's coolness claiming to make him more "aloof". Choosing your goal, has the same concept for both the show and social media, you have to know where you want to take the changes the your making or what you're trying get people to fall for. According to the reading, if your business drive is "brand" and your social media goal  is to aware your customers, gain their attention, and build profiles. Just like Fez's goal was to make himself less needy so he can get the attention of a girl.

If you don't listen to the outside community you'll never know what it is you're doing right and what it is you're doing wrong. That why it's important to start listening. If Fez didn't listen to his girlfriend then he would've never wanted to change and his daydream, nine times out of ten, wouldn't have happened. That is also why it's important for companies to use social media, blogs, and forums as a fast easy way to receive feedback and give the feedback back. Being able to do that almost makes it feel like your communicating with another person face to face, bringing the human side of the business out, that's why it's important to think character and content. For Fez it was just bringing out more of what his girlfriend wanted out him, for a business it's going to be the public.

I didn't see it much in the last two, integrating your outpost, which is basically what social media you want to use out of the big four (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and YouTube) or measuring what you treasure. However I find it really interesting that I was able to draw those two connections. At this point I just hope that this isn't my overactive imagination only making sense in my head but out loud I make absolutely no sense.

The Hype

After my little run in with the Ada Police I couldn't help but think about the George Zimmerman Trial over the summer. I didn't do much research on the trial until after the verdict, however I was kept up to date via Twitter. During that time period I saw a variety of emotions and reactions to the trial all from people wanting "Justice For Trayvon" and all who felt as Zimmerman was innocent and did nothing wrong. Thanks to Twitter I was able to see news clips from the trial, read news articles, and actually gained some interest. Since I worked almost constantly over the summer it was a fast and easy way to get the news not only about the trial but other things what were happening at the time. However, with a tool like Twitter it can show that millions of people care about this topic but it can also show how fast people get over topics like this as well.

Think about it, after Zimmerman was found not guilty everyone on Twitter instantly became a lawyer, a civil rights activist, and/or Zimmerman's or Trayvon Martin's best friend. For those who were team Trayvon wanted Zimmerman's blood. You would've thought everyone on my timeline grew up with the kid, or something, bringing race into the mix and dropping legal terms as if they knew what they were really talking about. Team Zimmerman, on the other  hand, also threw in some legal terms, and praised Florida's flawed legal system. I for one had no opinion on the matter, since I was in the dark about the whole issue.

For two weeks the news talked about the Zimmerman verdict, people still tweeted about it, and even parody accounts added in their two cents, but that lasted just two weeks. Two weeks later it seemed like everyone is like, "Trayon, who?". Not a single tweet in sight, the news hardly reports, and you know it's real when it isn't even a Trending Topic anymore. The people who were so invested in the trial basically treated it like MySpace, it was something to do but, once something more interesting comes along people abandon it.

That's just my two cents, but I'm sure people will start to care again if the Martin family does an appeal. Until next time, y'all...

It This Racist?

The other night I was walking back to my house from the Taft building after finishing up a project that I completed in record time, 20 minutes more or less, and feeling pretty confident I got an A before noticing Ada Police in the Mac parking lot. Naturally I just continue to walk to my house and mind my own business until the strangest thing happened, the car's headlights turn on and the cop starts slowly driving behind me. I just thought, "Oh I must be in his way" so I move to the sidewalk out of the way, and that's just the tip of the iceberg.

As I start to cross College avenue to head down Union street the cop turns on the red and blue lights. Again, I'm just walking and minding my own business, so I don't turn around, I keep walking straight, and keep walking at the same pace. The moment I reach the corner of Union street the cop's lights go out, he makes a left and proceeds down College avenue, towards Rite Aid. I tell this story to my brother Chem and the first thing that comes out of his mouth is, "That's racist. That's real messed up, bro."

Now I for one never pull the race card, at least not in a serious way, but that situation did get me thinking about why the cop would do that and reasons why he shouldn't have. Now here is a few reasons why I would imagine the cop would do this:

-I'm a black man in Ada, OH (sorry for being so blunt but we all were thinking it and you know it)
-Anyone wearing BOTH a snap back and big deejay headphones would grab anyones attention
-I was walking relatively fast just for it to be 10:30 at night
-White Bear fourth meal was happening and ONU must be cracking down on people who leave without using their meal swipes

Now here are the reasons why he shouldn't have:

-Despite my head accessories, I was dressed in a shirt, tie, and dress pants due to my laziness of not wanting to change after the meeting I had earlier in the evening.
-I was wearing my book bag and had extra books and papers in my hands, so I was obviously just your typical college student walking from doing school work.
-I naturally walk fast since I'm from a big city. Walking is kind of our thing.
-I did absolutely nothing wrong.

After it's all said and done it all could've been worst. The cop could've gotten out of the car and approached me, or continue to follow me with his lights on. Hell, I could've even been arrested. But is that racist? Or is it just a cop doing his job? Or could he just be looking for anyone to bust no matter race?

Share This

While reading Share This I had my moments of thinking of more than just what I was reading so of course I had to go back and read, and once I did it all came together. The part that stuck out to me the most about it was the Part 1. This part stuck out to me for two reasons: one, because it elaborated how social networking sites were more than just Facebook and Twitter, and two, because it touched based on the sites demographics.

Remember when we were little kids and our parents referred to every Pokémon as either Pikachu or as a "Pokéman"? It's very similar to how our parents think any social media site is automatically Facebook, but thanks to this chapter it spoke on Twitters success along with Instagram, LinkedIn and user generated content sites like YouTube. All of these sites are around us, all of these sites are used, and all of them are unique and stand apart from one another, which is why it continues to be a success and it continues to gain a bigger following everyday. The scariest thing about that is that these sites following isn't just the younger people anymore either.

According to this chapter, the average age of a person on Twitter is 35, while Facebook is between 35 and 54 years-old and LinkedIn is 40. Do you know what that means? My parents and their friends have taken over social networking sites. I use to find when my father called me into his room to tell me he didn't like what I was posting on Facebook to be very annoying. I use to think that he just made a made because he wanted to keep an extra eye on me, how ignorant of me. He simply made a page for the same five reasons me and my age group made one: researching, finding information and inspiration, participating, and connecting with friends for entertainment.

You get so caught up in your own little world that you forget that your parents have a life too, they also get bored, that also need friends and fun. If they don't have that then they bother you and you won't have that. Part 1 of Share This helped me open my eyes to that. So if you felt how I felt or know someone please SHARE THIS book with them... See what I did there?

Taking Over The World

With this being my junior year in college I spent the entire summer anticipating how productive I would be this semester. But as usual as the school year quickly approached I found more ways as to why I shouldn’t be as productive and find the easy way out. That’s surprisingly worked out the last four semesters by just “winging” it and going out of my way to find the easiest way possible to accomplish a task. Needless to say it’s both a perk and one of my biggest flaws, however when it comes to this school year I will stay on top of myself like white one rice.

But lets think realistically for a second now, I know for a fact that there will be times when my laziness will over power my diligence and I will find the easiest way out of any given situation, with the exception of school. If I have reading that needs to be done I will no long just skim the pages, if I have a rubric I will not just see what I have to do to just meet expectations, I am going to read every word on every page, I will exceed expectations and then some. 

Now I know talk is cheap and I can talk crap now and not practice what I preach but I came with a game plan. In order to stay on top of myself I have been using my planner like it's going out of style, I think not just once, or twice, heck not even three times, but four times before making decisions between my social life and school work, weekends not included. I even have my most stubborn friends help me by forcing me to do work, doing work with me, or buying me food, and lets be real whose going to pass that up? 

So come May 2014 I’m going to look back on this school year and think to myself, “I did it. This was my year. I’m proud of myself.” And all of that starts now. I have success in my sights, nothing less, and there’s no looking back now. 

Xanga

When I found out that I would be blogging multiple times a week for the next several weeks I thought this would be pretty difficult since I have zero blogging experience. But then the other day I thought to myself, “Wasn’t Xanga a blog site?” And sure enough it was. For those of you who do not know, Xanga was a social media site that was fairly popular back in 2005, right before MySpace’s success. Of course back then, being a silly little teenager and all, I never thought of it as blogging, I would just post a quick thought, what I was doing, a picture or video, and people could comment and subscribe to my page. There were also groups on the site you could join/subscribe to where you could also find other peoples pages and subscribe to them.

As I thought more into it I came to the realization that Facebook is the new Xanga. Whenever I made a post on Xanga rarely would I post something that was just paragraphs long. It would typically be the length of a tweet or Facebook post for example, “Just got into from school. Today sucked. Time for homework.” And simply just because of those three sentences I started conversations and made friends with people all over the country. Joining/subscribing to groups was a lot similar to todays “liking” a group, and of course subscribing to peoples pages was just like adding the person as a friend. So not only did I start blogging way back when I sort of got a head start before most people. Now if only I could get this whole writing thing down pact.

Not to say I’m a terrible writer, I’m not a great either, however with Twitter only allowing 140 characters I’m so used to summing up what I have to say in the fewest words possible. Now I get to elaborate on what I’m saying, thanks to the freedom of this blog, so I can go on a rant and take my reader in my world, to see clearly understand me. Or I can keep it short and sweet, not 140 characters though.