I'm addicted (421 words)

My tumblr obsession has become therapy.

            Every night before I fall asleep I scroll as far through my tumblr timeline as possible, or until I chicken out and become tired. It’s gotten to the point where I am now staying up past my usual bed time. It’s crazy. (sarcasm)

            But where I’m getting with this is I think it’s affecting my mood and outlook on certain things in both good ways and bad.

Relationships: I think tumblr is setting me up for unrealistic Ideas when it comes to what boys should be saying to me or how a relationship should be to the extent of how we cuddle. I kind of hate it, because lately I’ve been talking to a guy, I really like, but I’ve noticed that I keep comparing him to the things I see on tumbr which makes me even more angry at myself.

Where I live: Now, Iowa is so pretty, I realize that. But, do you know how many other places that are so much prettier there are? A LOT. Like every time I get on tumblr I see a new one I need to visit.

All in all, I’ll probably keep up with my tumblr addiction alogn with other social Medias just fine.

Instannoying (432 words)

Lately I’ve found instagram extra annoying. Along with twitter.

            Mainly the things I’ve found annoying have had to do with updates they’ve added such as the insta direct messaging which for me has done nothing but make me angry.

            Now, I understand that there are some plus sides to the update to this app but along with apps such as twitter, and snapchat these aps are doing so in a way that seems as though they are trying to be something they’re not. Yes, I am judging an ap.

            Only because I’m really tired of social media apps constantly updating themselves to try to dominate the social media world. They should just stick to what they’re good at.

            Snapchat for instance is doing a great job suttlely updating things like snap stories, and people like that, so they should stop. I believe they’re risking their user amounts, that’s all.

When you go in to post a picture (the same way that you’ve been posting pictures on Instagram), you’ll see two new tabs on the top of the post: Followers and Direct.

With Direct, you can choose a specific friend and type a special message, and that goes only to your friend. Once that friend opens up the photo, their profile picture within the message gets a check mark, noting that it’s been read. Users can also like direct photo messages, and chat can ensue from there.  You can send Direct messages up to 15 people, Sounds a lot like snapchat, riiiiight? That’s what I thought too.

10 things the internet has taught me (614 words)

The internet has taught me a lot factual and nonfactual things in the past couple of years. Mainly nonfactual but I’d be lying if I said it hasn’t changed how I view certain things.

The first big thing that the internet has taught me is to never judge a person based purely off of their twitter, facebook, or instagram page. Because according to my own judgment and statistics, 75% of everything us teenagers post is not usually what were really thinking. Now, if you’re a person who really does, I applaud you, but just remember, don’t depend on people actually listening to what you say. We are human.

2^nd: Thissongissick.com changed my music taste for the rest of my life. I don’t know what else to say other than it’s a site that posts new music from all kinds of different artists every day, it’s pretty neat.

The third thing the internet has taught me, CATS. You either hate them or you really love them. For me, it’s a definite love. I’d consider it one of my favorite pass times. If you look through who I’m following on social media, I guarantee you’ll find multiple strictly cat pages. Not ashamed, apparently they’re trending, considering I see them in plenty of people’s bios. On top of that, they even have their own emoji facial expressions, do you see any with dogs? If that doesn’t make it an official trend, I don’t know what does.

Pronouncing things is the 4^th thing that the internet has (confused) taught me. Is it Gif or Gif?  

5^th: There are so many places cooler than Iowa. Like wow, every time I check pinterest or Tumblr, I find a new place to add to my bucket list. Apparently whenever our state came about, we missed the whole, mountains, or waterfalls, or volcanos, or oceans thing. We kind of missed everything except corn.

The 6^th thing I’ve learned thanks to the internet: Never underestimate the power of fangirls. I’m pretty sure Justin Bieber and One direction would agree with me. There’s also nothing scarier than a massive amount of upset fans, especially beliebers. Anybody remember #cutsforbieber? I belieb that was one of the weirdest, and most confusing hashtag I’ve ever seen, especially being a fan of Justin Bieber.

7^th:   Stumbleapon.com is like a drug, and WILL consume a lot of your time if you let it. I’m saying this as a warning because I don’t think I could count up the hours I’ve spent on it, but it’s definitely a cool site to visit if you’re ever bored.

8^th: Swag is not an adjective. It is something you poses.

I’m going to dedicate the 9^th thing I’ve learned while using the internet is my not so new found respect for Youtube. The app and site has brought Kid Cudi, Chance the rapper, Grace Helbig, Neature walks, Turrets guy, and even Sharkeisha into my life. The site has also prevented me from ever being able to say “I like turtles,” in a normal voice ever again. If you don’t happen to know anything I’m talking about in this paragraph, please, feel free to search any of these terms on youtube.com.

The 10^th and final thing I’ve learned and am going to stress is that you can’t get all of your information on current events from twitter accounts. Trutherbot is not journalism, and in my opinion people shouldn’t ever rely strictly on one place to get all of their information.

Since I shared my own experiences with the internet I’m going to end this with a little advise.

Be aware, be advised, stay open minded, and you’re never fully dressed without a smile. J

Photos = Life (403 words)

My favorite thing as a photographer is the beauty captured in a photo. Cheesy, I know. But honestly, I don’t think there is anything more exciting than capturing a time in someone’s life. A moment.

A moment is what creates a photo. Some moments are planned, and turn out just as great as or even better than they were planned. But some, the best of moments come unplanned and turn out to be some of the best things to happen to people in their lives, and to capture that is something even more magical.

The reason I know these things is the simple feelings I get when I look back at pictures of when I was around 3-6, a time I don’t remember that well but thanks to a camera, can look back to and remember the events so well.

In old photos, I can come across the warm familiarity of my mother’s smile, and the presence of my dad trying his hardest to hide from the camera. I can see pictures so vivid that my mind goes straight back to that point in my life. Which, to me, is amazing.

Maybe I am a bit bias when it comes to photography, being a photographer after all. But really, have you ever heard someone complain about being able to remember a wonderful memory of theirs? I haven’t. Good memories are proven to be good for the soul, I think…

I look at pictures as flashcards of our past. Lol, deep, I know. But they are. They’re there to refresh us of our memories of the good times and even the bad times, to show us how far we have come or how low we’ve sunk.

I guess that’s why some people hide from them, or burn them, or rip them. It’s like erasing your past I guess. Kind of sad though, I really don’t think I could ever get myself to burn photos, I already have difficulties deleting them from my cellphone.

In conclusion, I guess my point is, more people should keep photos around, no matter what they are, no matter how old they are, bad good, they represent life. They’re moments, remember? And moments are what make us who we are, the good, and the bad, remember? They are reminders, they are flashcards, they are a study technique of life. They are a type of philosophy within their own.

 

 Beautiful, remember?

Covers&Collabs (475 words)

            When artists choose to do collaborations with other artists that aren’t in their own genre, I can’t even lie, I start questioning their abilities. Going out of a certain genre is something most artists can’t achieve or at least, in my opinion. If you think about music history or at least in the past couple of years I’ve listened to different genre and found that most collaborations, also known as collabs are created between artists of the same genre especially in hip hop, But some artists and groups have changed my mind lately especially when it comes to covers of songs.

 

            Lissie did a cover of the song “Pursuit of Happiness” by Kid Cudi, my absolute favorite artist. Now, since I’m usually bias, I don’t really enjoy most people who do covers of rap music, especially Kid Cudi, considering how critical I am, because he IS my favorite artist and I listen to his music almost every day of my life.

 

            The band, Young the Giant did a cover a couple years ago I just found a couple months ago of the Remix to ignition. Young the Giant is a mainly acoustic band group of just boys, and the R. Kelly remix, if you haven’t heard it, is a very hip hop/ pop sound. It’s a fast beat but Young the Giant did a seriously wonderful job of slowing it down creating an amazing sound, even live. Another thing I have to add is how wonderful the band plays out in the open, they have multiple YouTube videos that there performing in places like the top of mountains or in an empty room of an apartment, it’s amazing.

           

The other day on 8tracks, I came across the band Bastille’s cover of “Scrub” by the 90’s band, TLC. The original song is a pop song of 3 girls singing about how they never would date a bum guy who can’t take care of themselves or the girls. Bastille is a mainly acoustic and folk sounding band who changed the tone of this once upbeat in your face song, to a settle yet strong melody. I love it.

 

My last and favorite cover that completely changed my mind was Melanie Martinez’s cover of Toxic by Britney Spears. When I use to listen to the Britney version, which is a poppy, electronic sound I had no idea what the meaning of the song even was, but Melanie, on her own without even a record label or anyone helping her, completely changed the beat and melody of the song while still keeping the same lyrics transformed the song. The song went from fast to a folky, slow jazz sound. Sounds crazy right? I know. The cover is now one of my favorites. I enjoy it so much that I’ve linked the 2 different versions below.

 

Britney:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LOZuxwVk7TU

  

Melanie: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_4CI6HUx7Qc