New Socialbrite Article!

Check out my latest article on socialbrite.org about online petition tools!

http://www.socialbrite.org/2010/07/20/9-online-petition-tools-how-to-make-a-difference/

While you’re interested, please read my personal petition against Sodexo at Rollins at www.ipetitions.com/petitions/sodexostinks

A quick thought on SubCulture

This summer I am the lucky holder of an internship at Florida International Magazine, a lifestyle magazine based in the Miami Design District. The opportunity has been…interesting. Needless to say, it isn’t quite close to the activist/nonprofit world I hope to set my future in, but the magazine production experience has been educational.

Today, however, brought to my attention something I hadn’t considered before about this little world of Miami’s rich and famous: the Elite as a subculture. When we think of subculture, or at least when I think of subculture, I tend to think of Grunge or Hip Hop or Vegans, something that is considered below culture, which just makes sense. But, we don’t often consider high culture as a branch of normal culture. This made me question a lot of things…what is the “culture” we refer to when we decide something else is above or beyond it?

I remember from a day in Roger Casey’s life-changing Postmodern Theory class, that somewhere in social history we decided there was culture and there was culture. High culture- fine arts, fine dining, luxury, etc. is a normative culture that just exists somewhere. So, that makes it above culture. Now, if we look at the term “sub” outside of its meaning of below, and within its meaning of a branch (like a subcategory), we can look at high culture, or the Elite, the Luxurious, what have you, as a subculture.

Here’s what sparked my train of thought. At a General Meeting, the owner of the magazine was discussing a recent meeting with the Luxury Counsel. After hiding to the best of my ability the disgustedly shocked thought mostly entertained look that I felt spring upon my face, I thought about what that meant. A counsel…for luxury. This means that the whole “world” that I had been stepping into over the summer is in fact a real place, a real state of reality for people: Luxury. She continued saying that the luxury industry is suffering a little bit and that the magazine needs to find their new direction to hold onto it. Considering the current economic crisis, the idea of a luxury counsel discussing the hard times flicked on a lightbulb in my head. What did this say about society? What does this say about culture? What does it say about economics in general?

I tried to step away from the political and step into the theoretical. Here we have a small culture, the Elite, the Luxury-Living, finding a way to stay above water, just like many other sub-cultures. I just wonder, why I have never looked at the rich as a subculture before. Is it because it is a group so glorified and sought after? Something we look up to rather than down upon?

Either way, today evidenced for me that the times are indeed a-changin’, and the hard times are hurting everyone.

Musica Tradicional Folklorico de Costa Rica…I think.

Costa Rican Music

Costa Rica Folk MusicFolk music in Costa Rica is strongly influenced by African cultures. Guanacaste, the northwest region of Costa Rica is the home of folkloric tradition.

Alcohol Related Crime in Winter Park, FL

View Larger Map

This Map is from the “Orange County Underage Drinking Task Force Final Report“, it is one of many maps showcasing the vast amounts of licensed alcohol distributors in Orange County. Not only does alcohol contribute to many arrests each year, as exemplified in the Google Map Project above, it also contributes to traffic accidents and traffic fatalities.

Mapping Project Timeline and Proposal

Sodexo Mapping Project

Julie Katz

Alison Sweeney

Andrew Wells

We propose a research endeavor to uncover the truth behind our somewhat beloved catering company here at Rollins, Sodexo, about local resourcing and fair wage.

Steps We Are Taking, a.k.a the very Conditional Timeline:

1. What local places Sodexo@Rollins, Sodexo@Central Florida gets food from
   1. map these locations using Google Maps
      1. Sodexo locations (in Central Florida)
      2. Farm locations
2. Which of the local farm locations meet fair wage/farmer alliance?
   1. map these locations using Google Maps
   2. map locations that do NOT meet fair wage
3. Get information from Sodexo@Rollins about CORPORATE food (frozen food) used in place of local product.
   1. map locations of nearest factories/production facilities to illuminate the difference between the amount of local food used.
4. Use these numbers (find way to calculate overall costs and profits) to compare money spent on local farms and resources/ money spent on local farms and resources that do NOT meet fair wage to the money made by Sodexo@Rollins annually or Sodexo annually (total profit and ‘kickbacks’)
5. If necessary, break into Rollins Cafeteria and do a content analysis of our own. No, we are not afraid.

Steps Already Taken:

1. Research on Sodexo and Farm activity in Florida
2. Research on ‘kickbacks’ and ‘rebates’ concerning Sodexo
3. Research on local percentages spent by Sodexo
4. Emailed Rollins Director of Dining Services asking Questions Below.

Sodexo @ Rollins Interview with Gerard Short

1. What local places does Sodexo@Rollins get food from?
2. What percentage of the budget, or how often?
3. Do you know which of these farms meet fair wage or are in a Farmer’s Alliance?
4. How much of the Sodexo@Rollins is corporate owned, frozen food?
5. How much is Fresh Food?
6. How much is the Sodexo contract@Rollins?

What if Stark was one of us? Transmedia to Transreality.

Henry Jenkins: Transmedia

This week I’m giving a presentation in class about Transmedia Storytelling, as conceptualized in Henry Jenkin’s Blog Revenge of the Origami Unicorn: Seven Core Concepts of Transmedia Storytelling. As always, Jenkins offers compelling insight into developing technology. What I find particularly interesting about this is Social Media’s role. Jenkins gives a lot of information about fan investigation and the retelling of a story through different mediums. I wonder where Social Media can play a part? Where would it fit in to Jenkin’s assessment if Marvel Comics sponsored an Iron Man twitter? I don’t mean a Twitter about the movie, and updates, but a Twitter meant to seem like it was being updated by Tony Stark himself. In light of this, I actually just did a search for a “Stark Industries” website. Considering there has to be transmedia media for Jenkin’s to talk about, I figured if Marvel and Paramount were smart enough, they’d have some sort of webosphere realm for Mr. Stark who has quickly become one of America’s favorite smartasses.

While I didn’t find Stark Industries.com (well, actually I did, but the domain belongs to a compressor distributor). I can only assume it is a buildup to part of the story for this year’s release of the greatly anticipated Iron Man 2. I’d like to use some of the 7 core concepts introduced by Jenkins to assess this piece of transmedia.

Check it out: Stark Expo 2010

Storytelling Without very much knowledge (for the unresearched fan) of the sequel, the website teases some interesting information. For example, when taken to the “Message from Tony Stark” we learn that the StarkExpo is a rebirth of a tradition that was started by Tony’s Father. We can guess that StarkExpo is going to be quite the shindig in the movie by Tony’s famous attitude.

Branding Here’s an area that the website successfully counteracts. The site promotes the fictional world where Tony Stark and Stark Industries rules. There is no mention of the comic or the movie (albeit a small MARVEL logo on the bottom of the page where the event sponsors are), not even a link or reference to Paramount. In fact, the copyright is for Stark Enterprises (which, by the way, if you search it on the internet brings you a community development company). The only brand is Stark, which is fictional, which brings me to my next point.

Drillability Fandom is a deep obsession. The drillability of a narrative is meant to encourage dedicated fans to search for and dig into the available transmedia outlets that support their favorite narrative. My action of searching the internet for Stark Enterprises and coming across the StarkExpo is a perfect example of this, though I wouldn’t put myself in fandom status for Iron Man, despite Tony Stark’s…I mean Robert Downey Jr.’s sex appeal. A look into the StarkExpo gives fans a look into the fictional world of Iron Man. It offers information about the new movie in undercover form. But, is the site worth talking about?

Spreadability At the bottom of the page, there’s a link for StarkExpo’s Facebook page. Suprisingly, the page only has 6,790 fans considering the movie is due out in less than a month.

This is where I find the role of Social Media in all of this TransMedia mania to be particularly intriguing. Why don’t more people know about the site? And what exactly does that mean? In terms of spreadability, it may mean that the site itself does not give enough or it does not spark enough interest for friends to run around to one another excitedly spreading the word about new information regarding Iron Man. However, it may mean that Marvel and Paramount are not doing a good enough job of marketing the movie. Hence my suggestion for Tony Stark’s Twitter. Now, there are multiple fake Tony Stark Twitters, but nothing that seems to be legitimate.

We all know by now that when it comes to non-profit and social media marketing, utlizing and interconnecting all aspects of Social Media- a blog, a facebook, a twitter and so forth- is extremely beneficial. It spreads the word, it allows different measurements of communication. When it comes to Fandom, however, and this concept of Transmedia it seems widely underused and underappreciated. If there’s developing interest in the way the internet is serving narratives up in trans-media’d forms, there should be more development of interest in Social Media. I suppose this is where the concern between Continuity and Multiplicity come into effect for big companies, especially the likes of Marvel and Paramount. But, I’m sticking to my case. Why stop at StarkExpo’s website? If Tony Stark had a Twitter, wouldn’t he be tweeting about the StarkExpo (or Pepper Potts more likely)? Furthermore, if Tony Stark were to be a tweeter, he would have to have a Blog. What I’m getting at is…What if Stark were one of us?

In this perspective, Social Media offers fictional narratives the chance to “get real” beyond the limits of simple fandom and “alternative reproduction”. Considering our less-than-skeptical age, it is arguable that the Spreadability of such an endeavour would be minimum because most people would be smart enough to know it isn’t real. But, the Drillability is huge. If done right, if managed and updated well, if kept as realistic as possible, the realm of fandom in combination with Social Media can be huge, believable, and make some serious profits.

The theory is very simple. There’s a lot of critical theory out there about how Disney Characters and other Cartoons are really sort of abused to sell products to children- make a beloved character a brand ambassador and you’re good to go. Who is to say that isn’t possible with the likes of Iron Man himself? Internally, movies like to joke about how their main character gets spread amongst sponsors and I’m not saying I want to start seeing Tony Stark in Old Spice commercials. I am saying, though, that a contract between Facebook, Twitter and major movie production companies can be huge and that larger-than-life fictional narratives can be brought down to the size of your computer screen. Oh yeah.

Henry Jenkins asks in his blog to imagine a world where we are always scanning across various media forms for something of interest and when we find it we can become deeply involved in it. I ask you, Mr. Jenkins, what if it went the other way around? I know that’s called Marketing…but what if Tony Stark virtually stepped off that screen and followed me on Twitter? I’d like to imagine a world where the fictional narrative seeks out fandom in the real world.

If Tony Stark could Tweet like a civilian, oh just think of it, think of all that we could share…

Among other topics…The Easy Star-All Stars

The Social was jam packed last night, full of eager college kids and a few older rasta-revelers awaiting the performance of the Easy Star All Stars. It was an interesting mix of a predominantly white crowd. I just wasn’t sure what critical lens to view the audience from. Here we have an interesting cultural phenomenon, I suppose. Though the band is an even mix of races, I couldn’t help but wonder how many people took into consideration the social situation. A trend, if you will, of “rasta culture” has been developing in the mainstream over the past few years- more red, yellow and green themed commodities, a huge co-optation of Bob Marley by Zion Merchandising- but it seems to be dominantly consumed by middle class white people. I argued in my brain between the emulation argument and the exotic argument. In certain discourses of advertising theory, exoticism regarding the usage of black culture in advertisements is analyzed to symbolize a white desire for emulation of an exotic culture. For the average college pothead, at least, who doesn’t want to be as carefree  and happy as a Rasta Man? Not that the Dread Head stereotype is new- its been a reference in movies since the 90s.

The argument soon disappeared as the Easy Stars walked on stage. Out first was Rasta Ray, the group’s bassist, with a foot and a half of dreads piled upon his head and an impressive display of rasta clothing and accessories. Before long “the band began to play” and that’s when it got really interesting for me. Here I was deeply cuaght between two scenes. I was there to see the All-Stars, an immaculate, talented Reggae Band (the singers are heartbreaking, the guitarist will blow your mind and the accompaniments are flawless). But I was also there to hear a performance of albums I would never be able to see: The Dark Side of the Moon by Pink Floyd and Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band by The Beatles.

Easy Stars were audacious enough to cover these two bands, as well as a mix of Radiohead songs, in dub titled albums. With the first few Beatles songs, the crowd far overpowered the singers who celebrated the act. Numerous times the singers had to stop due to the extended overwhelming applauses from the audience. We were excited to see these masters of Dub, but to be our age, to worship the albums without personal history of their developments, we were really giving great respect to the band for re-incarnating an age we would never be in. The Easy Stars gave us our time.

Its an honorable thing. These albums are legendary and to go about covering it, and taking an entirely new twist on it is bold. But the Easy Stars do it right and do it well which works out for them. You see, though the audience was singing the words, they weren’t singing it awkwardly to the Beatles rhythm, they were singing every note, every beat, every ornamentation of the All Stars. It made me wonder about my generation, culturally. There’s many new areas of music we’re creating for ourselves, but it is hard to argue that we dedicate a lot of our music going to the music of the past. A good percentage of us will spend hours wondering what it would have been like to see Bob Marley, or The Beatles, or god willing, Pink Floyd in concert. We can still see Radiohead, after all, whenever they decide to bless the States with their presence. Having this nostalgic attachment to the music itself in combination with the emotional attachment to the Rasta Culture produces an interesting vibe. But, that’s about as far as my cultural observations can go. Because then the band began to play…and like any good concert, the music took me away into a sweaty, grooving trance.