Who knew that the crazy talented artist would have basically predicted social media. While, not EVERYONE is WORLD famous everyone has the opportunity to be. Honestly, if you blog there is always that small little gleem of hope in the back of your head where you wonder, “Could this be the post that makes my blog world famous?”

But I don’t think that this is what makes web 2.0 amazing it is that  people that may have never had the chance to change the world and be world famous now do. Case and point a recent applicant to Oprah’s Your Own Show contest (which again goes into the power that social media since OPRAH is going to find her replacement by using it, but that is an entirely different post.)

My friend Jamie Kim tweeted the video of Zach Anner, who currently has more than 2 million votes. He is hilarious, smart, and has cerebral palsy.

After taking a introduction to therapeutic recreation class I developed a soft spot for anyone who is out there making a difference and happens to have a disability because there are so many things I talk myself out of doing for this reason or than. If he does get this travel show I will probably be inspired every week watching it to go do things I’m too scared to do. So GIVE HIM A SHOW OPRAH!

Also, here is a video that I got from one of my new favorite blogs (I learned about this blog from Brittany Hopkins, an amazing PR-professional-in-training.) Every time I watch it, it reminds me why love to dream big.

GAME NIGHT.

More specifically, charades and Pictionary.

I didn’t realize I was the only one who hated this games so much until my roommate and sister exclaimed their sheer joy over the idea of playing charades with my entire sorority. I rolled my eyes and made some feisty “Oh, Brother” comment. They were stunned to hear this and I then, passionately, explained my hatred from a recent experience:

I was given something vauge to act-out.

SHEEP.

I know what you are thinking, how in the world do you act out sheep. So what did I do? I got on my hands and knees on the floor and sat there.

For about one minute. And all the while there are 10 girls YELLING at me.

“YOU’RE A DOG?” “NO, NO CAT!!!” “COW?” “A STOOL, YOU’RE A STOOL.”

I then broke the rules out of embarrassment and let out a meek “Baa…”

Any game that frustrates you beyond belief and entails someone screaming the most random things at you as your draw or act something is never fun in my book. I pride myself as an individual that rarely gets stressed and the thought of playing any of these games makes my blood pressure rise.

So invite me over for some Monopoly, teach me some Ma-jong heck let’s get out a deck of cards and play some Crazy Eights! But don’t you ever make me act a fool and be a silent sheep.

For my internship at Tehama Group Communications I have been asked to sort through the 20 years of electronic files that have accumulated during our prestigious agency’s time at Chico State. Some of the files are on jump drives,which of course I am all too familiar with, I do have at least five myself, thank you very much. There are the obvious CDs, Zip drives (which I remember using as a wee child) and even a floppy disk or two. I’ll pause here for a giggle.

All of these technologies I  have used in my past 21 years of life.

But then, in a neat stack, in the corner of the shelf with all the other electronic files, was something strange and unfamiliar to me. Something, ancient, if you will.

I know you are all curious, “What is it? What is it? A dinosaur bone, a piece of the Rosetta stone??”

Close, very close.

It is called a SyQuest drive. A 44 MB, 5.25″ removable hard disk cartridge. Weighing in about a pound, I could feel the weight of it my school bag as I lugged it home to do more research on it. It would take about 50 jump drives to do that. Not to mention my jump drives hold about three times as much information.

I have asked numerous people how I would get the files off of this pesky creature, all of which have replied to me, “No idea.” And even if I was to find something that could operate this fossil I would still have to have software to read the files, which could be a task as well.

It got me thinking about technology and how fast things change. Something that changes technology forever is being released at least every six months these days. Am I going to wake-up tomorrow and find it impossible it get my information off my my jump drive on the newest computer that is being released?

The Macs that I remember first using are now slung together in a 6-foot see through coffin in my campus bookstore, as some sort of art piece as if screaming, “this technology is dead, move along now and buy the newest one, QUICK before it dies too.”

I don’t think there is a problem with new technology at all, I think it makes our lives more efficient. I just wish that people wouldn’t be so eager to throw out the old technology. At least keep it around for 20 years so that poor little me can get some files off a drive!

I’m still on a mission to get  the SyQuest in commission, although I may have to wait until a time machine is created to finally see how this baby works. I heard Apple is suppose to be launching their’s summer of 2012.

She shrugged her shoulders and went on living her life while I am here, six days later, still stunned that someone doesn’t know the term social media.

I know that as a public relations major social media is something that is constantly being discussed in effective campaigns. But for people whose lives are not consumed by social networking the terms that are used to describe their activities are almost pointless to know.

With social media being so popular that even a word used to describe an action on Facebook has become the 2009 word of the year, I still think it is weird that some people are walking around USING Facebook and Myspace and have no idea what the definition is of what they are participating in.

I am definitely the tech-geek in my house and constantly get made fun of from finding random things on the internet, checking my Twitter on my iPhone and having an external hard drive, but from that conversation I realized the digital divide is much more alive and well in my world that I originally thought.

Also, whenever I snuggle up with a great book on the couch people seem to take me seriously, leaving me alone and not asking me questions or turning the television on if I am in the same room as them. The other day, while I was reading a rather lengthy article on the New York Times Web site, I was interrupted numerous times by my family members who snickered when I reminded them I was reading.

What discredits the Web so much? Is it because there is so much nonsense floating around on it that people think whatever you are reading can’t be worth your time? Or is it the intangibility of the medium?

I think it is a little bit of both. And people need to realize that there are other times besides sitting in the library reading journal entries on your computer that I like to get some solid information via my Mac. While I don’t appreciate shovelware I will read an article in its entirety if it is something I’m very interested in.

In a place where the “Daily Me” rules, journalists need to concentrate on their audience wanting content that is completely focused on them and letting them be part of reporting the news. This can easily be achieved by making bold changes.

Traditional journalists also need to look at the way other people are viewing their changing roles in our society. There is no one definition of journalism anymore. Shows like The Daily Show with John Stewart and The Colbert Report are turning actors into a source of news, even commenting on thing they view as faulty journalism.

Journalists need to look at this, as well as the trends presented by the Web, like blogging, suck it up and change to conform to their audience. This can be a harsh reality for the traditional reporter who has been doing the same pound-the-pavement, write the story and publish the story style of reporting.

The news is now a conversation with everyone and anyone joining in. Traditional journalists just need to find a way to keep the credibility and deliver the news in the way people want to see it.

One problem.

They are not, as she says, “Facebook Offical.” Thus, they are not really dating.

This seems a little strange to me, since in meat space they are together but she only considers it a real relationship if it is posted for all of the strangers on Facebook to see.

I have noticed more and more that Facebook has become more of the real world for college students than actual real life.

If pictures are not posted of the night you went out with your friends then it was as if that night never happened.

My roommates and I were talking and something funny was said. Immediately one of my roommates made it her Facebook status and every that was sitting together immediately went on to comment “how funny” the status was, even though they had told her to her face.

It is as if having something for everyone to see makes it more “real” that just having the people you communicate with on a daily basis witness it.

Because Facebook is morphing into the real world for college students the do’s and don’ts what you can do on Facebook are becoming increasingly important to people.

I wish I could say that I don’t take Facebook as seriously as my friends but I do and I regulate my site carefully since I am a professional-in-training and I know how serious the things that are posted are taken.

But when it comes to my social life I like to play it out in meat space. I have enough problems to worry about, I don’t need to add the drama of living out my already complicated life online.

Andrew Keen and Aldous Huxley had it right. We are really nothing but mindless moonbats taking in nothing but pack-journalism. Take, again Kanye West/ Taylor Swift drama. While I was on Twitter the VMAs were showing on the east coast and slowly the storm began to brew. Tiny murmurs of the incident started popping up on my Twitter feed. Once the VMAs were on the west coast I was only watching it to see the attack go down. Like clockwork, two seconds after it happened Twitter and Facebook were full of, “Oh my gosh, I hate Kanye West” and “How Rude! Team Taylor.” And now, even almost a week afterward it is STILL being talked about. Spoofs of the incident have showed up on YouTube, Kanye apologized on Jay Leno, Larry King compared the incident to the other meltdowns of the week.

It. Was. Everywhere.

And we, the moonbats, ate it up. People are still talking about it like it was the shock of the century and next week it will be like it never happened.

The only problem is with all this, even though I completely agree that we are narcissist moonbats (I do love this word, yes) is that with all the hoopla about Kanye West, people that actually care about news are getting their news. There are the few that only care about what people are talking about within their very, very small little bubble but some of us, myself included, like to branch out and read print media and other sources of current event information that doesn’t involved the Gosselin’s or Michael Jackson.

So, while I can’t tell you the POINTS of Obama’s health care plan I do know that he wants to be the president to end the health care debate. I’m also out of the bubble enough to know that that will most likely never happen.