Fandoms

During our discussion on Wednesday we talked about the various subgroups on the internet. I found myself drawn to the subgroup that all too often I have found myself identifying with and shying away from when I spend my leisure activities on the Web.

My online network, as the term was phrased in class, would have to be the fandom. This kind of embarrasses me because there can be quite the stigma on "fan groups." After all, fan is shot for "Fanatic" and for a lot of people within this group, that term could not be more accurate. I use pintrest a lot and am also an occasional user of tumblr. I've found that even though there are so many amazing opportunities to connect with other people on the internet, the people that I really want to connect with are the ones that share the same interests as me. And unfortunately for my popularity, that includes tv shows, books, and movies.

Fan groups can be really awesome, and really horrible. There is a part of the "fan culture" called "shipping" which is when a person "ships" for the relationship between two different characters. Most of the time, the ship is considered sexual, though there have been times where I've come across ships that focus only on the relationship, rather than the sexual aspect of it. Sometimes this part of the culture can be entertaining and fun, but all too often it becomes disturbing, uncomfortable, and sometimes downright pornographic. Something that starts off as a simple enjoyment of media can twist into really disturbing stuff.

But on the other hand, a lot of fans find a real support system within their fandom, they can enjoy time together, talk about the show and what happened and look through conspiracy theories and come up with theories of their own. I guess it just goes to show that no matter what it is, there are good and bad aspects to it.

I like to think that the area of fandom that I go into is pretty good and pretty high standard, but then again, maybe I'm getting sucked into the darkness without even knowing about it! Is it possible to have a separation between good and bad things within the same genre? Is it possible to only be a "little bit" of a fanatic?

Show us

After reading Ariel's post, let's talk about who we are. 

First of all, I'll fully admit that I'm in what Dr. Burton referred to as the typical "BYU identity crisis" - meaning that since marriage I haven't quite switched my last name in the BYU system. So I want to move beyond my so-called crisis and look at others' crises. 

 What portrayal of ourselves are we putting out there for the world to see/read/judge? What's our purpose in the online identity we've created? Are we trying to inspire our peers? Maybe we're trying to be adventurous. The point is... is that really you? 

Scenerio 1

I remember an interesting conversation with my best friends about posting pictures on Facebook. It went something like this, "This one time we went to a casual party/get together at a friend's apartment and it was pretty boring. I was there the whole time but later on Facebook I saw pictures of the same event and it looked like a super fun time even though it wasn't!" 

Scenario 2

A recent post that has caught my interest comes from a mom that stands for something. She's calling out to teenage girls who post way more of themselves than she'd like her teenage sons to see. I strongly recommend checking it out! I think it's great that this mom is starting a conversation that means something to her. But more importantly, she's raising questions about how a significant portion of teenage girls are creating an image that is not so becoming, to say the least.

Do you think these are relevant issues? Is this something worth our attention? I'd love to get your thoughts because I think these are worth digesting.

These scenarios call great attention to the question of online identity. Do we think enough about our image on social networks and other digital sites? Don't worry, I know my audience and I know that my peers are not going to be found scantily clad online. However, I believe that we can choose what we want to represent ourselves. 

Are we so focused on impressing others that we lose touch with meaningful ways to use our digital tools? 

Show the world who you are and the positive things you're interested in and capable of. Show the world that you care about God. Show the world that you are an academic and you care about the human condition because that's why we're here. 

HTML vs. XML...HTML still wins, right?

I'll admit that after watching the video on Professor Burton's blog, I didn't understand the significance of XML. What does it do that HTML doesn't? I didn't have time to do all of the research on my own, so I emailed someone who spent four years studying computers and now works as a software developer: my husband. I figured he could explain to me what I was missing. As it turns out, I wasn't missing a whole lot. My skepticism of the video was validated. through email. My husband has given me permission to publish his explanations on my blog, and I'm just going to quote him directly since he explains all this techie stuff a lot better than I can.

He wrote:
"The video glossed over some technical distinctions that may be misguiding:

XML and HTML: Content and Form

As the video said, XML is about content and data, not formatting. You can add formatting to XML, but it is mostly used for data transmission. The video was a little misleading about HTML: HTML handles both content and form. After all, form without content makes no sense: "italicize a blank page" makes no sense.

Modern HTML, called HTML5, is even more powerful in defining how data is presented. Many of today's powerful web and smartdevice apps such as Gmail use HTML5.

XML Does Not Replace HTML

 XML does not replace HTML; the two are complimentary. Because XML is data-centric, it does not allow for formatting text or displaying pictures. XML can link to a picture because a link is just data, but it does not contain the picture itself. HTML is what defines how browsers should display the information.

Here is a use-case where HTML and XML coexist: Imagine an app like Google Docs. It seems just like a program on your desktop and yet it is a webpage. This behavior is achieved by using HTML to format the data and buttons you see and to define what the buttons do when you click them. Then, when you click a button or type something, the browser makes a call to the server providing the website and requests more data. The data is returned as XML. The browser then formats the data according to the instructions contained in the HTML (and the CSS and Javascript).
In summary, XML and HTML are complimentary. XML is used when you need to pass content/data around with no regard to how that data will be displayed, HTML is used when you have content/data and formatting. I feel like the video overly magnified XML's role in Web 2.0 (a generic term for interactive, collaborative web applications like Blogger, YouTube, and Google+ - they allow you to interact with other people, rather than merely reading what the website presents.)"

About five minutes later, he added this thought:

"And when the video wanted to show the supremacy of XML, they clicked on a link and viewed the link's source, and voilà! you have XML. The misleading part was that they clicked on an RSS link. RSS links are not web pages; they are links that allow you to pull data. You paste that link into an RSS reader, which then goes to the site the link points to and downloads the critical data of news articles: the headline, the summary, and the first few pages, and perhaps a link to the main picture. The RSS reader then chooses how to format the headline and body and how to display the picture.

My point is, when you click a link on the Internet, you are rarely clicking an XML link. XML is important for the under-the-hood behavior of a lot of websites and smartdevice apps, but I feel the video was a paean to XML."

So, in summary, while the video may have wonderfully showed the potential of new computer/web languages, it overinflated the uses of XML and did a disservice to HTML as well as other languages that go into creating easier access to data, fun social media sites, etc. Are we (my husband and I) wrong? Did we completely miss the point? I'm willing to discuss this XML vs. HTML debate more.

The New (A Response to Moby Dick: A Novel?)

My post is rather inspired from Victoria's post. What a fascinating question… why should we feel the need to categorize? Perhaps we are driven to familiarity. After all, the very interpretations we make are founded on the information we are familiar with. I feel safe in saying that I haven't encountered anything quite like Moby Dick.

In a way, it is perfect because we see how the whole book focuses on the "new."  When I address the "new" I'm referring to advancement or more generically, change. In our studies we see it directly in terms a new digital age. However, we all can clearly see how interpretations could lead us to allegories for any "new" societal development. As it is not fully an allegory (or any other literary classification per our class discussion), the ambiguous structure itself drives the content of facing the new. This is fascinating to me as I realize, we're trying to decipher the structure and composition of the work just as much as we are wrestling with themes, characters, etc. Perhaps that's why we read this years and years after its initial popularity and feel we're sailing in uncharted territory, if you will.

This book makes you think out of the box and encourages innovation. I love that in class, Kristen was talking about perspectives because right when you think you have an idea of how you're supposed to think about Christians, you look at the perspective of Queequeg and you're back at the beginning trying to find something bigger. As it is a fundamental part of literary history to classify a work to develop the trends during a period of time, Moby Dick is a work of the future. It forces us to get uncomfortable, to swap perspectives, and challenge it all. The very structure intimates the depth found within Melville's ideas and therefore, our inability to classify it means we're on the right track to understanding that this book is more about the new, or what we don't know, instead of what we know.

The Other

Have any of you ever seen the TV show, Lost?

For those of you that have, bear with me while I quickly summarize part of the show to those who haven't:

Lost is a show about a plane crash where the surviving passengers are stranded on a very mysterious island. While they're on the island they soon discover that they are not alone. The island is inhabited by the Others - people that have wild and ferocious exteriors and have mannerisms that resemble savages. By the end of the show we meet and learn more about the Others and how a lot of them are good people that center their lives around a spiritual foundation, trying to survive.

To me, Queequeg is an Other.

Queequeg!

In class today we talked about how Queequeg essentially embodies the new age. He is the character that is different and foreign to the others. He's not the mainstream sailor boy. He is feared by many and catches the attention of passerby's. He doesn't fit the conventional American sailor like many of them do. He's of different race, different status, different religion... heck, he even enjoys sharing a bed with complete strangers! Despite these things, we soon unearth that he is perhaps, more civilized than the other characters on board the ship (minus the cannibalism thing).

Ishmael, anyone?

I thought of how Queequeg's character could possibly relate to the digital culture and this is what continued to play in my head: I think we often judge each other too quickly based off of what we see on a Facebook page or twitter posts or even the lack of a Facebook page (like me!). We instantaneously create for others their backstories and character traits, level of kindness, level of spirituality, and then we compare it all to ourselves, where we then suddenly have a newly justified dislike for a person. This all happens through one quick viewing of someone's social media corner. Where are the morals in that?? I can't find them. We're taught to exercise good judgment - righteous judgment - to keep ourselves safe from harmful people and situations. Oftentimes we get caught up in that dutiful task, that we become overly-judgmental and that righteous judgment turns into self-righteous judgment. I can see this happening in Ishmael in regards to Queequeg.

Over time though, we see Ishmael gradually tolerate Queequeg and that tolerance then becomes friendship and sincere care. The whole progression of their relationship is similar to a relationship founded in digital culture. We come across someone who at first glance, may not be the most inviting (or sane) looking person, but as you allow yourself to understand them more, rather than trying to get them to understand you, then your relationship deepens and you have formed a strong bond. Just like that of Ishmael and Queequeg.

So what's the lesson here? Judge less and snuggle with strangers more? Maybe not. But Melville is using the contrast between Ishmael and Queequeg to captivate the spiritual differences in conventionalism versus radicalism in Christian and pagan beliefs.

Moby Dick: A Novel?

Today in class we talked about how we're supposed to classify "Moby Dick." For me, I felt myself immediately feel like saying that the book was a novel. It doesn't matter whether it had encyclopedic input, it didn't matter if it appeared to be trying to create a mythology, it was a novel. It had always been a novel, it was written to be a novel and written to be read as a novel.

Now, obviously, this reaction doesn't do a very good job of actually giving a clear definition of what a novel is and why Moby Dick "should" be classified as one. I typed in "novel" at google and got the definition "a fictitious prose narrative of book length, typically representing character and action with some degree of realism." Well, Moby Dick is definitely book length. And, though based on semi real events, it's still been fictionalized. It also has a degree of realism, so the answer is simple, right? It's obviously a novel. 

If only things were that simple. We haven't gotten so far into the book that the real heavy descriptions on whaling and the ship that sound encyclopedic in nature and feel more like a how-to manual rather than a story driven by plot. Perhaps the attitude toward the book will change when it isn't conforming to what we as students and instructors understand a novel to be. Once Ishmael isn't making hilarious commentary on everything and instead is trying to teach the audience about a practice that was outlawed years ago we might change our minds on whether or not this can be classified as an entertaining read. 

But that makes me wonder whether we can even really classify what a novel is in the first place. Obviously the definition has changed over the centuries. As mentioned in class, historians usually pinpoint the beginning of the novel in the 18th century, while others argue that novels are obviously found way before than. We are arbitrarily trying to confine the works of imagination and the understanding of individuals who have written about whatever tickles their fancy. The definition I cited above tries to limit novels to what has "some degree of realism" so does that not include fantasy novels and sci fi novels? Perhaps we have gone down the wrong path with constantly trying to categorize everything. Literature comes in as many shapes as human beings. No two think or say exactly the same thing, which when you think about it is incredible! There are 26 letters in the alphabet and no two books (besides reprints, come on guys) that are exactly the same. Maybe we should stop trying to force our literature into arbitrary categories and instead enjoy the richness for what it is -- the ideas and images of an individual as unique and different as ourselves.  

Then again. Categorizing things makes it a lot easier to study. . .#firstworldproblems ;) 

We'll Probably Be Considered a Bunch of Idiots Too

I was the first one in the classroom today, and while pretending to be very focused on my  notebook in front of me, had the opportunity to hear an interesting conversation regarding Moby Dick. If the two contributors to this conversation read my post, I hope you won't be offended that I quote you. Your comments really made me think and were the inspiration for this post.

One classmate made the comment that she was thoroughly enjoying Melville's trashing of Christians in the book, and that they thought the people were so stupid to not see how incredibly hypocritical, arrogant, and self-serving they are.

Another classmate replied, "Yes, but it is always easy to say from our perspective, 150 years later, that they were a bunch of idiots. We saw how their ideas played out. I wonder what people will think of our ideas 150 years from now. We'll probably be considered a bunch of idiots too."

I thought that these were both interesting ideas. On the one hand, someone is saying, "How could they not see the error of their ways?" She acknowledged that while these people were "stupid" they were also surely clever enough to see their awful state. On the other hand, another person is saying, "And like them, are we not seeing the error of our own today?" Are we also clever enough to see our own awful state, but too "stupid" to do anything about it? Are we being blinded by pride?

A first edition of Moby Dick--being handled with gloves no less!

We learned today that Moby Dick was published in 1851 when Herman Melville was 32 years old. It was published first in England where it was not well-received, and consequently was not well-received in the United States. In fact, Moby Dick did not become big until during and after World War I.

Here is an initial review of Moby Dick from the London Morning Advertiser, October 24, 1851:

"This is an ill-compounded mixture of romance and matter-of-fact. The idea of a connected and collected story has obviously visited and abandoned its writer again and again in the course of composition. The style of his tale is in places disfigured by mad (rather than bad) English; and its catastrophe is hastily, weakly, and obscurely managed...."

Here is another from the London Athenaeum from October 25, 1851:

"The result is, at all events, a most provoking book, -- neither so utterly extravagant as to be entirely comfortable, nor so instructively complete as to take place among documents on the subject of the Great Fish, his capabilities, his home and his capture. Our author must be henceforth numbered in the company of the incorrigibles who occasionally tantalize us with indications of genius, while they constantly summon us to endure monstrosities, carelessnesses, and other such harassing manifestations of bad taste as daring or disordered ingenuity can devise....We have little more to say in reprobation or in recommendation of this absurd book.... Mr. Melville has to thank himself only if his horrors and his heroics are flung aside by the general reader, as so much trash belonging to the worst school of Bedlam literature -- since he seems not so much unable to learn as disdainful of learning the craft of an artist."

Had society changed so much from 1851 to 1914? Maybe...but it seems more likely that 3 generations were far enough removed from the criticisms that Melville heaped upon the Christians around him, that they were less likely to feel the pains of criticism, and more likely to acknowledge the mistakes of their forefathers. After all, it's always easier to acknowledge the mistakes of someone else than your own.

Or was the book just not people's style anymore? We touched on the Gold Rush that was happening when the book was published. Whaling just wasn't popular.

But this second explanation--Moby Dick just not being interesting during the time of its publication--doesn't sit well with me. For one thing, whaling is not popular today either. In fact, I had to look up on Google what a harpoon is. I'm not reading it for the whaling story, but more for the substance that lies below the surface of the story: the religious tensions and the microscopic views of society. And it seems to me that this is what the critics were commenting on as well: they didn't say anything about the book not "keeping up with the times." Rather they called it "mad...hastily, weakly, and obscurely managed...tantaliz[ing] with indications of genius...careless...absurd." It's not that they didn't understand the book or read it just for the plot. No, these critics recognized the subplots and they didn't like them.

If a book like Moby Dick were written today filled with subplots of criticisms of the popular ideas of today, do you think this book would be well-received? Are we more open-minded now than our ancestors were back then? Or would the book be a total flop only to be considered a masterpiece three generations later?

The Christianity Crisis

To start, I love Moby Dick! I really love the tone of Ishmael's voice because not only is it our lens to Melville and the plot but it has a certain energy that is deep yet energetic that I find fascinating.

Let's talk about religion. Does Ishmael really claim Christianity? What does he think of Christianity? How does his relationship with Queequeg influence his view of religion? These are the questions that are constantly scrolling through my thoughts as I finished the first 18 chapters.

Although I'm still working out the answers to these questions, I'm convinced that religion has been turned on its head and is extremely unconventional in the narration. Do you notice that every time we enter a church with Ishmael, we hear him reference it as hell when he walks into the room finding a " black Angel of Doom [...] beating a book in a pulpit." And if you remember, there's even wailing and knashing of teeth in this Angel of Doom's sermon.

Then as we read further, I'm fascinated by Queequeg diving in to save the sailor and Ishmael going nuts trying to get us to see that the "cannibals must help these Christians." Crazy! So everybody convert to cannibalism? I don't think so. Maybe we're looking at the hypocrisy of Christian faith.

When we see who's representing Christianity we see Ishmael, who feels obviously inferior to Queequeg the cannibal and then we see Captains Peleg and Bildad. These are the guys that interest me. They won't let Queequeg on the boat until he has documentation of Christian baptism, right? And they're constantly bickering... is Peleg bipolar? I don't know about you, but I don't think these captains are doing a good job of embodying Christian ideals, especially as they seem to ditch the rule about Christian baptism to fulfill self-interest or, in other words, employ Queequeg because of his sweet skills.

There's a reason we all love Queequeg, make no mistake about it. Christianity is being scrutinized and those who adhere to it are faulty and inconstant. To paraphrase Melville, maybe a sober cannibal really is better than an angry Christian.

Moby Dick--Way Better than I Expected

I read The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne about seven years ago and hated every page of it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Scarlet_Letter_%28TV_miniseries%29

 It was the driest book I had ever read; so boring and painful that at the end all I wanted to do was throw it away. But I couldn't because I needed it to study for the upcoming test in my high school English class.

I figured that Moby Dick would be the same for me. It's a classic--a very famous classic--but all I'd ever heard about it is that it's boring, hard to get through, and really, just a large waste of paper. Despite a little bit of excitement to read it (really just for bragging rights of finishing this colossal book), I didn't have much hope for enjoying it. I figured my reaction towards it would be the same as The Scarlet Letter: slogging through it, hoping the next page would have a point, get back to the story, be a little less flowery, or even just be the last page so that I could set it aside and never look at it again. Compound this with the fact that Melville dedicated the Moby Dick to Hawthorne, and you can see why my expectations were so very low.

I guessed I'd look like this most of the time while reading Moby Dick.

It's been nothing like that though. From the first page I have been hooked. And I'm not even remotely interested in whaling, or sailing, or the ocean . It's the characters of Ishmael and Queequeg, and Herman Melville's deceptively simple writing style that has pulled me in so much. I'm always left wanting more.


I am especially enjoy the parts with Queequeg. Whenever I see his name in the chapter, I get a little excited feeling in my chest and all I can think is, "This is going to be good."

I particularly loved the story of Queequeg and Ishmael's first meeting in the same bed, particularly Queequeg's initial alarm and then good-natured invitation for Ishmael to join him once the landlord smoothed things over. Queequeg's character is fascinating too what with his pagan rituals, aloof disposition yet friendly personality, and thirst for knowledge and understanding of those around him. He is deeply religious, extraordinarily clever, and very loyal to himself. Queequeg stands up for what he believes, even if he cannot use many words to do so (e.g. picking up, throwing, and then saving the country bumpkin).

However, I wonder too if I would find these parts with Queequeg so interesting if I came from a background more like Queequeg's and less like Ishmael's. Perhaps I would find Ishmael to be the interesting one, and Queequeg the average one. Kind of a deep thought...

Melville has many of these deeper moments interwoven into his simple writing style, and that's another reason why I find myself loving the book. While these deeper moments are what causes the book's plot to move at a famously slow pace,  they are also what makes the book so fascinating and more than just another whaling story. Furthermore, Melville gets these deeper points through to his readers quickly and painlessly, unlike Nathaniel Hawthorne.

This isn't how I imagined the pulpit in the book, but it's a neat picture all the same.

For example, Melville explores not only death, but grieving in the chapter entitled "The Pulpit" which is no more than two pages long. "Oh! ye whose dead lie buried beneath the green grass," he writes, "who standing among flowers can say--here, here lies my beloved; ye know not the desolation that broods in bosoms like these." He gets his point across in a mere paragraph and then expounds on that point for just a little more than a page, all the while staying on task with the book's plot and life explorations. Exploring and staying on task at the same time is hard to do and I commend Melville for it.

Perhaps I am being unfair to Hawthorne. I read his book seven years ago as a junior in high school and it is entirely possible that I was not ready for the deeper symbolism his book contained. If I were to go back and reread it today, perhaps I would enjoy it just as much as I am enjoying Moby Dick.

I don't have plans to reread The Scarlet Letter any time soon though, and so therefore I'll leave it in peace for now, and end with saying that Moby Dick is brilliant and what's more it is enjoyable. There are still several hundred pages to go before I reach the end of the book, so maybe I'll soon discover where its reputation of being boring comes from, but until then I'm going to enjoy Moby Dick and its plot and subplots for as long as I can.

Digital Culture Follow-Up

I am really excited for this class! The conversation we had last Wednesday regarding digital culture was very interesting to me. 

I had a reoccurring thought during the discussion about quantity vs. quality. I may not be able to make this a general application to all students, but when I go into a library for research, I revel in the walls of books that surround me. When I do research online, however, I get easily overwhelmed. I'll be in the middle of reading an article when there's a link off to the side directing me to another article. Then when I go to the new article, there are more links leading me to other similar sites. I get easily distracted and read lots of snippets of literature, but not enough to formulate quality ideas with sufficient support. It's at that point in any online research that I throw in the towel and finish up my studies with web surfing for the quickest delicious recipe that I can later attempt and probably fail at making. 

I'm excited to jumpstart blogging and develop skills that will improve my work.

Introduction!

Hello, everyone!!
My name is Shelly Russon.... but soon to be Shelly Lystrup!

I am getting married next month! October 12th in the SLC temple and to say I am ready and excited is an understatement. My fiancé and I met on January 2nd on my first day teaching at the MTC this year. He was another teacher in my department and quickly became my closest friend and rock of support. We got engaged on June 8th, the day before my birthday. Thankfully, we're reached the downward slope of the engagement and I have become numb to discussions of luncheons, colors, announcements, etc. Make the madness stop! No one tells you how stressful it is to plan a wedding!

Let me share a little non-wedding info about me. I am a born and raised Californian. I am from the bay area, about 20 minutes south of San Francisco on the peninsula. I'm a senior at BYU. Last year I returned home from serving a mission in Dallas, TX (Don't worry - I rooted for BYU this weekend). I come from a pretty vibrant family: I am the second oldest of six. Three of us came from my parents and then my dad remarried and he and my stepmom had three together. The ages range from 27-4 years old. I love going home and having young siblings again. 

Queequeg - Perfectly Content to Make You Uncomfortable

Hey! I'm jumping ahead a little bit. I know not everyone is done with their introductions but I just finished the Moby Dick reading assignment and really want to talk about it.

That would be terrifying

I've heard about Moby Dick throughout my life. I'm pretty sure we all have. But when I started the book I had no idea that it would talk about such complex issues. Specifically in the character of Queequeg. Here is a character that I find infinitely more complex, interesting, and engaging than any of the other characters I've met so far in the book. His very existence brings multiple problems into light that reflect not just the society of the day, but also the society that we live in today. His introduction was vivid and left a clear picture in my mind. Tattooed, large, pagan and a cannibal, he isn't what might be considered the "ideal" bedmate. I loved how Ishmael freaked out at the idea of sharing a bed with anyone, before he even knew that Queequeg was a "savage" or a "cannibal." That so clearly reflects the way people (men in particular) react to such things, even today. I know of several men who would rather sleep on the hard floor than share a bed with another man.

Gotta admit, this would make me uncomfortable too

Queequeg seems to me to be a representation of everything that makes Christians and men uncomfortable. I love it. Ishmael talks about extremely important issues that surrounded the day - and now- about religion and whether or not it's "okay" not to be Christian. He says that he shouldn't judge other people because they are of a different religion. This is amazing, simply because of the time this book was written. But besides religion, Queequeg is just an awkward character. Awkward meaning he pushes the social boundaries that our society has put in place. He cuddles with a strange man, embraces him and calls them married once they've become friends, and also offers Ishmael the opportunity to pray to his god. He's everything that makes men uncomfortable.

I'm deeply invested in this character already. Even though this book was obviously written way before the Internet, I feel like Queequeg could be a metaphor for it. A little awkward, a little unruly, and constantly reminding you (sometimes without trying) that we can't really judge other people. Of course, there is the dark side of the internet, but we'll see if Queequeg embodies that portion as well.