A Blog Posting on Patterns you observed in your multimedia writing on the blog

I like to think I have a unique writing style, nothing too flashy or ostentatious but something I can call my own. As with any good or bad trait there’s always flaws and patterns that begin to appear which can be improved. My blog writing is very different from my scholarly pieces – it entwines a big chunk of my personality, something that usually doesn’t appear in an ordinary school essay. I like to utilize writing techniques such as conjunctions and dashes – I believe they highlight my points and describes my languages as if I was talking in person.

Looking back through my blogs, I see many areas in which I can and must improve as a honors student trying to portray my thoughts. I tend to use the same verbiage and syntax, often dragging on my sentences. When a short sentence would suffice. I tend to rush my ideas and throw everything out into one draft. When a organized/edited posting would dazzle any audience. And I tend to use the same literary devices. When something like parallelism would keep the reader intrigued.

While there are areas of improvement yet to be made, there are also good, fluid portions of my writings in which I’m proud of. I applaud my tone and style, something I hold in high regard whenever I read many of my postings. The content and meaning behind many of my thoughts is above average. And the fact that I can re-edit any posting to make it better has also impressed me (hence, this posting!).

I don’t have much ethos in my writing – i’m just a typical college student. That’s why I want and need to improve. Anyone can be sarcastic or sardonic; however, it takes talent to really display that through text. And it takes even more talent to prove a point using that kind of tone. That’s my end goal; that’s what I want to achieve with this blog. Sarcasm is a simply a way of covering contempt or hate. That’s what makes it such a powerful tool – especially when speaking out about something important.

A blog posting on what motivates you as a reader and writer online

After going through my blog postings, it isn’t exactly clear what motivates me as a writer online. I tend to have a unique writing style which consists of a lot sarcasm and criticism. But is that a bad thing? To get my point across, I don’t like to just state the obvious but rather toy with my audience with interesting questions that may not appear to clear to everyone. I typically utilize a sardonic tone – hence the title of my blog – which is much more entertaining to me.

Being sardonic is a result of satire and sarcasm. Satire has the ability to contest boundaries – this can be viewed as a good form of social commentary or bad form (depending on who you ask). I personally enjoy the website theonion.com which portrays it’s news with satire. Keeps the audience more interested for a longer period of time. However, a great example from current circumstances is the movie, The Interview. Two news reporters are directed to interview North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong Un, with the orders to assassinate him. While it may seem like a serious movie on the outside, it’s in fact the perfect example of current satire. It was character assassination, via satire — a glorious example of one of our culture’s highest values and virtues. It displays what our nation actually believes in through a playful manner. This lead to massive hacks, questionable threats, and broad capitulation from the movie industry. Joanna Wiess states, “It’s natural that Americans turn to satire, a bulwark against legitimate fears and a genuine sense of impotence.” Satire is a powerful tool and is protected through freedom of speech… But can you take that too far? Did The Interview take that too far?

On the contrast, I do have a couple posting that are sentimental and meaningful to me. I tried not to use sarcasm or a facetious tone, instead I wanted to focus in on what was truly important to me. For example:

https://tannergrant2015.wordpress.com/2015/01/26/unsung-hero/
https://tannergrant2015.wordpress.com/2015/02/24/raising-money-for-make-a-wish-foundation/

Nevertheless, I’m striving to keep the integrity of my blogs tone and focus alive. I want to model the blog postings of Sarcasmist. A funny news source that only writes in sarcasm; however, maintaining truth in their story. Here’s a link:

http://blog.sarcasmsociety.com

A blog posting intended to motivate your reader to take action on an issue that matters to you

I’m the founder of Rowing for Wishes, a community service project that was created to raise awareness and money for the Make-A-Wish Foundation. The fundraiser was a success as it raised a total of $6,000 and the opportunity to sponsor a girls wish, Hope, from Plymouth Indiana. She got the opportunity to travel to Europe – on a Mediterranean Cruise – from the funds raised in the event. The company Sailrite donated 10% of every order placed on March 29th, 2013, to the cause. For the ideals of self-sacrifice, my part in the fund raiser was rowing 100,000 meters (62 miles) on the Concept 2 erg machine. Completed the piece in 8 hours and burned approximately 6,000 calories.

Please donate to the Make-A-Wish program! Anything amount will suffice and be greatly appreciated. Make someone’s dying wish come true!

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

 

Racial Stereotyping

Carrying along with the blog’s theme, I wanted to bring this video into the spotlight. After watching the video, it begs the question: Is there a point in which sarcasm and cynical media can become injurious? Is there ever a point in which we cross the line? I think racial stereotyping is a major problem in today’s society. People are being discriminated against for their ethnicity, culture, religion, color of their skin, etc… Most being factors they can’t change.

In this video they twist a dramatic disaster into a funny video for laughs and humor. People lost their lives but the video never mentioned anything about the tragedy. Instead, it focuses on cracking a few jokes in the expense of people’s lost lives. I find that sarcasm and humor is imperative throughout life, yet should videos about devastating events be twisted in that way? I believe there’s a fine line and sometimes people push that too far.

Cold Hard Reality – Give The People What They Want

https://neveranyasterisks.wordpress.com/2015/01/21/ba-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-bechdel-test/#comments

This was a heated exchange between Zoe and me. I feel like it’s going to continue for a couple days or until one of us (probably me) gets too lazy to respond. The argument started about feminism in movies. I pointed out a reason why women don’t necessarily have an equal opportunity in the “show biz” and that stirred up a can of anger – probably not my smartest move. I also just like playing the devil’s advocate so I challenged her idea. Nevertheless, I stand by my convictions that males are scripted in those roles more often because that’s what people want to watch. But is that a bad thing? I don’t see the problem.

If you think of all the movie genres you can put a gender to each. This includes the audience and male acting roles. Here’s a couple off the top of my head:

Action: Male (Transporter, Expendables, etc…)

Thriller: Male (Any Liam Neeson movie)

Comedy: Male (Kevin Hart)

Romance: Female (The Notebook)

Horror: Male (Jason, Nightmare of Elm street, etc..)

Adventure: Male (Indiana Jones)

The Justice League

Men: 6

Women: 1

What are Wonder Woman’s powers anyway?

Key & Peele – Al Qaeda Meeting

First off, I love Key and Peele. Their skits are hilarious and make me chuckle every time. This particular skit is grimly mocking toward the Arabs, even though I find it funny, It is taking a crack at Islamic culture/religion. After 911 and the destruction of the Twin Towers, the correlation between the TSA and Muslims religion has been precarious. However in today’s society, to make someone laugh you must utilize the unexpected. Making a skit about bombing planes is completely unexpected and risky – I find it interesting that our country has come this far to joke about the matter. When things hurt sometimes the best antidote is to laugh it off… Maybe this skit is a way to suppress the pain we faced during that awful terrorist attack?

I personally feel like we’ve grown as a nation in accepting the Islamic culture into our community. It’s a shame that the action of one individual has repercussions on an entire race. Nevertheless, skits like the one above show the lightheartedness of a horrible situation and make the best of what has happened. To grow and rebuild, we must stop stereotyping and rekindle the relationship between our cultures.

UnSung Hero

My first post dealt with an inspirational quote, mixed with a little bit of humor. In this post I wanted to take it a bit more serious but keep the motivational aspect. I’ve watched this video hundreds of times and it turns my day completely around. Coming out of a military school, integrity was engrained in my everyday life. Doing something good when no one is around. I gain a lot of respect for the people that live their life this way. After watching this each and every time, I want to go out into the world and make a difference – the difference doesn’t have to be big, small contributions add up. I believe this video describes that concept perfectly. Little acts of kindness brings out the best in people; it gives them emotions and happiness which is what I believe we’ve been set on this earth to achieve. So please watch the video and take action! Be selfless and take care of others – it’s the best decision you’ll make in a long time. I promise.

Bill Gates – Words of Wisdom

I like to express myself with a sense of humor so I hope this first post depicts myself in that light. This is one of my favorite quotes, by one of my favorite businessmen, with one of my favorite images… I chuckle every time I see it. I believe the quote has a lot of truth behind It and the ‘gif’ at the bottom brings satire into the equation. If you refer to the title of this blog, there’s really no guessing what kind of material I’ll be posting about. However, I do intend to use a good amount of satire and sarcasm.

Picture taken from: http://ifunny.co/Email