English 11

Leave a comment Posted on English 11

New Media Challenge – Daniel Robidoux

Similarities in Differences

I find it very fascinating how much you can learn about someone by only having a simple conversation. I feel as if people don’t do that as often anymore because of all the stereotyping and assuming that occurs nowadays. But I think it’s very important to chat with others especially with different world perspectives and opinions. This is primarily what we talked about with Adiche’s “The Danger of a Single Story” and Michael Wesch’s “How to Stop Hating”. How people may think they have an open perspective on the world but in reality, that’s just not the case.

I decided to talk to someone who I haven’t really talked to much before, his name is Daniel Vakili. I thought it would be a good idea to have the conversation with him because he is different than I am. He’s middle eastern, and I think that could help me find new and better perspectives. But after talking for a little while I soon realized that we aren’t as different as I previously thought. When having the conversation, I realized that we have more in common than not in common, such as both our names are Daniel and after comparing our tastes in music, we found similarities. And after talking with him for a bit longer we found that we had similar senses of humor. I think this is very important because just in Adiche’s story with her American roommate. “She assumed I did not know how to use a stove”, this shows how despite coming from a different country doesn’t mean that we are completely different, Adiche’s roommate had a default point of view on her before even meeting her, because Adiche is from Africa, she automatically assumed she grew up dirt-poor without things like stoves. Questions like “If you could share a meal with any four individuals, living or dead, who would they be and why?” is very important for getting to know someone because it shows who they look up to and aspire to be. For example, Vakili wishes he can talk to people like Lebron James, Will Smith or Leonardo DaVinci because of all the great they did for the world and he aspires to be like them one day

In the video, “How to Stop Hating” by Michael Wesch, we talked about how ignorance and refusing to learn about the other side can have negative effects on people in the long term. Vakili has been a huge basketball fan since before he could remember. In our conversation he talked about his favorite players and teams and I didn’t really understand what he was talking about since I have always been more invested in soccer my whole life. But after our talk I decided to do some research on some basketball legends and I now find it very interesting. This parallels a lot with Wesch’s video because after deciding to find a new perspective on something we haven’t always felt we had an interest in, we can find new things about the world we love, “learning to love some musical genre you once hated is not going to solve the deep divides of our world, but it is a start. Love is not just something that just happens to you; it’s something you do; it’s a practice and you can get better at it.” That is a great quote by Michael Wesch that ties in with our converstation that we had.

So, at the end of the day, I learned that no matter who you are talking to, no matter their religion or cultural background there is always something you can both enjoy. This is the important first step to overcoming the single story.

Leave a comment Posted on English 11

Blog Log #3 – Daniel Robidoux

Do people deserve second chances?

Calling people out for their wrong doings has always been apparent throughout history. But just in recent years with the rise of the internet and social media, it’s become more aggressive and widespread. “Cancel culture” is the name and it’s more popular among young people than ever. The social phenomenon is the act of someone being rejected or ostracized from a social circle. One could be “cancelled” through social media or real-life.

Cancel culture isn’t necessarily good or bad in my opinion. I believe that that is determined on how the situation is dealt with and if the person on the receiving end has learned their lesson or not.

A quote from “Tales From the Teenage Cancel Culture” by Sanam Yar and Engel Bromwich for the New York Times says “We’re a team, so we can’t have tension exist there” is a good way of describing what cancel culture could be. Let me explain, people use cancel culture as an excuse to get mad and ruin people’s lives. The quote is referencing a situation where there was a conflict during a group activity, the girls who confronted the boy who said a racial slur chose not to make the problem even worse. Even without arguing the boy stopped saying the word which proves they got their point across. Obviously, I’m not saying that racial slurs shouldn’t be called out when used is justifiable, but they did a good job teaching him a lesson.

But things aren’t always rainbows and butterflies for the person on the other end of cancel culture. In another article written by the New York Times, there is a girl named Mimi Groves who had her whole future planned out. She was a varsity cheerleader who earned a scholarship for the Tennessee University in Knoxville. But shortly after a video surfaced of her 4 years earlier saying a racial slur, those plans quickly became nothing but a dream. “And because the internet never forgets, the clip will always be available to watch.” Said Jimmy Galligan, who was the one who leaked the 3 second clip. I find it interesting that Mr. Galligan decided to hold onto the video for 4 years and post it once Ms. Groves was accepted to her dream university. She seemed genuinely sorry and she laterstated that she didn’t know the severity of the word and wasn’t as educated back then. I think what Mr. Galligan did was too harsh and unnecessary. He could have confronted her one on one and told her what she did instead of ruining her future.

Like I said previously, people use cancel culture as an excuse or “shield” to ruin someone’s life. It can also be used to straight up bullying someone and make them look bad. One who says something racist or inappropriate and hasn’t learned their lesson should face big consequences but if someone realizes that they made a mistake I think they should be forgiven.

Leave a comment Posted on English 11

Blog Log #2 – Daniel Robidoux

Is Swearing Justifiable?

I stumbled upon this article while browsing “The 50 Best Articles and Essays” website. I would be lying if the title wasn’t what caught my attention at first, it seemed too good to be true. The title was “The Science of Why Swearing Reduces Pain”. I find it funny because we’ve always been taught by our parents to never swear and turns out swearing may benefit us. I believe that this article was created to The Meaning of Stubbed Toesinform and somewhat entertain because it’s a generally funny topic. “For a very long time, conventional wisdom held that swearing was not a useful response to pain” is the hook and it’s good because its true and everyone can relate to it. The writer often uses the swear words almost like if you stubbed your toe and reading those words almost give you the sense that you just hurt yourself. There is a big variety of vocabulary in this article such as catastrophizing and maladaptive. I couldn’t really find much literary devices such as similes, metaphors or personifications in the article. I think there was some satirical tones in the article but that’s to be expected using that type topic. I really enjoyed reading this article because I learned something, and I felt sort of interested about reading more on this topic. Thanks for reading.

Article here

Leave a comment Posted on English 11

The Social Dilemma Project – Daniel Robidoux

The Social Dilemma Project

In this project we used a website called ThingLink to add interactive buttons to our project. For each composition I added an item or thing that I thought was symbolic to what was being said and there is also a mini-podcast.

Composition #1 : Security Camera – I picked the security camera because I think it represents how the companies can see what we do daily and I put it under the table because it represents how we don’t notice subconscious tricks they integrate into their platforms.

Composition #2 : Fire – I picked the flame because it represents what is going on in people’s minds when they get these mental health problems and have a lack of self worth. It can also symbolize the state in which the world is right now.

Composition #3 : Dynamite – I picked dynamite because in the text I often compared the creation of the internet to that of dynamite.

Composition #4 : Messenger Pigeon – I picked the pigeon because it symbolizes how much easier the internet has made our lives.