Tag Archives: Jill Walker Rettberg

Blogging for Dummies

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If you come to think about it, blogs don’t really function that much differently than other media outlets. And was it really a surprise when blogs began to be employed as another venue for advertising? (Every change is a good change for a plug!) So now as viewers, subscribers, readers, followers, fans and humble devotees of a particular blog, how do we bypass getting out our brains extracted and sucked dry by advertising? Here are some helpful tips that yours truly uses in her daily blogging:

  1. Selective Vision blogging: if you frequent a blog enough, eventually you get used to where the ads are and your eyes tend to look over the fact that your being sold something.
  2. Click the button: just click on the ad. Once, at least once. Then you can see for yourself what the who-hah is about. When you see that it’s just a fridge, sofa or computer than I assure you, you will start using your eyes wisely.
  3. Take a bathroom break: This works really well for television, but I haven’t had much success with this method when it comes to blogging. See if it works better for you. Go on your blog of choice, every time you scroll down to an ad, get up and take a bathroom break. When you return, hopefully (cross your fingers) the ad will be gone and you return just in time to catch the rest of the blog. And if you took to long washing your hands don’t worry because there’s always reruns.……. HUH?
  4. Move on: Sad, but if you can’t knock it and if you don’t wanna try it, move on.

See which tips work for you, and happy blogging!

Me, My Blog and I

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I try not to get into blogs. Or TV shows. Or Videogames. Or anything else that can be potentially addicting and will remove me further from my everyday reality than I already am. Now, with that said, I will list off the blogs I do follow. It’s a long, exhaustive list (wink). I swear by jezebel.com and the way it represents the world through a feminist lens to counter all the crap women are given in mass media. Nitrolicious.com is a fashion blog that combines urban street wear with Chanel. What more could a girl want? Lately, I’ve been falling off the nitro bandwagon because it’s beginning to focus more on the chic than on the dope, as well as the blogger’s own fabulous life. Essentially, it’s starting to address me less and less but I still scope it out from time to time. The last blog… drum roll please… is 2dopeboyz.com, which keeps me up to date with the latest hip-hop and RnB. This is very crucial when a New Yorker goes to school in Vermont.

So, as you can probably guess, my experience with blogging is not extensive. Now take a wild guess as to what my face looked like when I was told I had to keep a blog for class. I’ll just tell you—I was horrified. When I reluctantly began this blog, a lot of the posts were just summaries/lame reflection of the readings. Obviously I’ve opened up a bit.

Viewing blogs as a secondary orality can even convert a non-believer like me. Orality is the use of speaking, talking, reciting as communication rather than writing and printed texts—the way they did it in the old days. Blogs, although written, take on many of the features of orality because it is a conversation, it is social and it is less formal than print writing (Rettberg: 33). Let’s hang on the last feature for a bit. I think that my issue with blogs was bridging the informal nature of blogs into a liberal arts college classroom.  But who am I to say there’s no space for blogs in Middlebury? After all, jezebel.com touches on tons of issues that can tie over to my classes and has often been my source for a good conversation or two even in an academic setting. Let’s just say, I’m warming up to the idea of my own blog more and more.