MetaPost

The post that I'm most proud of, "Who Are You Voting For", was another one of the posts where I simply wanted to share my opinion and observations. I stumbled upon an image for the Obama Campaign featuring Michelle and for the post, I analyzed the messages that it sends for the campaign. My analysis, although not tied to an article, mirrors the activity we've done in class of "See, Think, Wonder". I tie the post to our discussions that were happening in class at the time about how politicians tend to frame their campaigns in a certain light to get more voters.

When I move to address the image, I point out how they use Michelle's first name, "[giving] off a certain casual air - as if you're talking about joining your neighbors" and I then explained how that makes them "more relatable and accessible". This is similar to our "See, Think, Wonder" exercise because I first isolated an aspect of the image and then explained what kind of message it might be sending. What struck me as strange about the image, which I addressed in the post, was that "Barak isn't even pictured" which serves to strongly associate Michelle with the campaign rather than the actual man running. This move suggested that by voting Obama, she would have some sort of influence in politics which simply isn't true.

I also really enjoy this post because it sparked somewhat of a discussion in the comments with Chrisanthy and Naomi adding their own opinions and pointing out things about the image and the message it projects that I hadn't even noticed before. This post served to show me how great of a forum blogging can be for sharing opinions and opening up a greater discussion about current issues. Another reason I think it shows improvement in terms of the art of blogging is it's length. In my metapost from last semester, I talked about how much I struggle with length and over-analyzing. I think this particular post is a good example of giving a thorough but not overwhelming analysis that the reader can digest (ignore the irony that this post is extremely long).

In terms of my blogging as a whole, what I ended up doing a few times is picking up where we left off in class discussions about certain books and continuing the conversation through a blog post. I pulled out quotes that represented larger American themes, like the flattening of experiences in White Noise or Gatsby's American Dream-esque self-improvement list. This gave me a chance to dig deeper into the text on my own time, allowing me to add insight to particular passages that I didn't get a chance to share in class.

By approaching posts as a chance to share my opinion, rather than trying to find a topic with an article connected to it which can feel overwhelming, it no longer felt like a task to blog. Instead of thinking about the evidence beforehand, I simply started out by explaining my opinion and the support came later. For example, in my post about the documentary "Race to Nowhere", I started out simply writing my own observations in terms of how it relates to New Trier but I remembered an article we read first semester about how Yale students can sometimes be "sheep" and that became a supplemental source to enhance my post.

I've really enjoyed this semester of blogging as a chance to extend classroom discussions into my everyday life and see it as a new place to explore my own opinions.