Sunday, January 31, 2016

How To Become The Jack of All Traits and The Master of None

All of life's questions now have answers thanks to wikiHow. The wikiHow website is a database where people can create posts telling an audience how to do something. The topics range and could be anything from "How to tie your shoes" to "How to become an astrophysicist."No matter what you are looking for wikiHow is bound to have answers and steps for it. Now, wikiHow may make life simpler but creating a wikiHow is tricky. There are many obstacles one may face when creating a wikiHow. The hardest obstacle to overcome is coming up with a topic to write about. This can be challenging due to the fact that there is so many things that people have written about. It’s not impossible though it just means that you need to be more creative. It may take many hours of searching to finally reveal what you want to(can) write a wikiHow about (that hasn't been written about before). Here are some ideas:


 First, a wikiHow entitled "How to Motivate Yourself to Run During The Winter." This topic is relevant because many people find it difficult to run during the long winter season. It is tough to motivate yourself to run when the weather outside is cold and dreary. Because of this, it requires tricks and tips to make winter running fun. In this wikiHow post there would be a list steps that someone could take to keep running. It would start with investing in the right gear and then from there branch out to the physical and emotional hurdles that someone faces when deciding to run outside. Once the hurdles are established it will tell ways to get over them. This wikiHow post is easy to take pictures for. The pictures could be taken of people running outside.

Secondly, a wikiHow entitled “How to Make Green Tea Protein Bars.” This topic is relevant because the recipe is unique and no one has published a how to for this recipe on wikiHow. The recipe is a spinoff of homemade protein bars with a secret ingredient of matcha green tea. While making protein bars is not a unique concept, adding green tea is. Matcha green tea has many health benefits and gives the recipe a nutty/tea flavor without being overwhelming. To make this post, the ingredients needed would have to be written first then a step by step with pictures on how to make the bars. The pictures included could include action shots taken while making the bars and the final product. At the top of the page there could be a person eating a bar. This idea is easy to do and easy to take photos of (plus you get to eat them after).

Lastly, a wikiHow post entitled “How to make Chia Seed Pudding". This recipe is not well known and is pretty simple to make. The chia seed pudding only requires a few ingredients and transforms from a liquid solution of seeds and other ingredients to a pudding--which makes this recipe very interesting in taste and texture. It only costs a few dollars for the ingredients causing this wikiHow post to be pretty cost effective. To make this wikiHow there could be a list the ingredients and time needed to make the recipe. After that there could be a step-by-step process on how to make the chia seed pudding. There could also be a list of health benefits of chia seeds and links to other similar recipes to the page such as avocado pudding.


Any of these prospective topics could be interesting to write about. They are all topics that haven't been covered and that can easily have over 600 words written about them. A reminder that the topic you want to write about  you have to be able to actually do, so a wikiHow about  "How to raise a baby pig" will not be very feasible for a college student. One day maybe you can write about baby pigs but for now stick to something you can do like writing about running or how to make food.

Tuesday, January 26, 2016

Living for the "Likes"

 I recently stumbled upon my first post on social media. It was when I was 12-years-old and went behind my parents back to  create a Facebook  account. I set my profile picture as a candy bar and wrote as follows "Today was a good day...nothing bad happend" not only was I great at spelling, I was also really creative. This discovery as embarrassing as it was, got me thinking about social media as a whole. Why did I post that status and who was I even talking to ?

I may never know the answers to these questions, but, what I do know is that I posted the status for attention. That is the purpose of social media, to get and give attention. As I see more and more "selfies" and vague sad statuses on social media I wonder if people have become reliant on the attention their posts give them. "Likes" have become a commodity with people going to extreme measures to get them.

My lovely view
With the need for likes come habits that impede socialization and society. One habit that really gets on my nerves is the "Selfie-stick". The selfie-stick allows its users to be the most obnoxious people wherever they go. That may be an overstatement but it isn't far from the truth.

When I was on vacation in Europe, I felt the effects of the selfie-stick first hand. This was due to the fact that there was a group of tourists in the same group as me. They brought their selfie-sticks everywhere, causing my view to be obstructed. Instead of enjoying their surroundings they were busy capturing a photo(with them in it) to prove to their followers that they were there.

I am not the only one that noticed the gap between being present in your surroundings and using your phone to record photos for social media. At the last concert I was at the lead singer of the band stopped midway through a song and announced angrily to the crowd "Put your f*****g phones away and enjoy the music, live in the f******g moment!"

While that announcement was quite graphic it got the point across.

I am concerned for what the future of social media holds. The more people are focused on getting "Likes" the less concerned they are for their own sense of identity. People are becoming scared to have an unpopular belief or stand up against popular opinion. Will the future be filled with mindless statuses to get attention?


As I write this post, I want to let you know that I am not better than anyone else. I have posted pictures and then promptly removed them if they didn't get enough "Likes" I have also taken a few selfies in my day. I understand the rush you get when someone "Likes" your photo. That's the problem, the Likes are addicting. The best hope for change is to put a conscious effort into living for yourself and not for the likes.

Fin.