Fun With Trolls No More!

Friday, May 30, 2014

I hate you.
I do not want to hear you anymore.
People who do not know how to listen should be sentenced to die.
Please shut up.
Did I just frustrate you? Or disrupt with what you are doing? I hope not because that was not really the plan. I stumbled upon “trolling” and I was wondering if I will be an effective one.
Initially, I thought trolling is all about those trolls we have when we were still young. Frankly speaking, i do not like how the dolls look. It partly scares me and triggers an idea that it will do something bad to me at midnight. Relating how trolls look like to me, trolling means subjecting someone to frustration or a negative feeling. Since it aims to raise negative feelings, the idea of it is not really good.
Checking on your Facebook newsfeed, you may see some of your friends’ posts showing hatred to someone you do not know (or maybe yes). Sometimes you may also see words of insult which look inappropriate. Indeed, these posts are inappropriate. (I hope you can see some because I see a lot of it from my friends.)
These posts may be considered a form of cyberbullying since it aims to disrupt any online environment. Even if you are not the target of these posts, people who see these words will be disrupted and will be subjected to react in no time.
When I experienced this from some of my friends, I realized how powerful social networking sites can be not just for the good, old times with your friends but for the badass days with your frenemies as well. It may be an avenue for ranting but this should not be the case in the long run. Those rants should not be posted for the world to see, if I may say.
Trolling, as I have mentioned, just not aims to disrupt online discussions but to elicit response from the people involved as well. Since people are vulnerable to reacting to posts especially those which seem a bit off, the troller will take its role as a reacting machine constantly sending offensive posts or messages.
This undermines the role of the online environment as an avenue for strengthening ties among people. However, because we have the freedom to do what we want to and because anonymity in the Internet offers so much, we could just do nothing much about it.
All we can do is to be the most responsible users we can be of the technology we have. Weakening trolling entails patience since we are vulnerable to reacting to something in an instant. Reacting just for the sake of reacting should be minimized to avoid eliciting unnecessary and irrelevant responses from people we know and people we do not know.
Although playing with a person posting non-sense things online may be fun, it will eventually be no fun because it will be all non-sense. Entertaining trolling is another. These people will keep on posting such things when they know that people will be disrupted by their posts and these will further reinforce their actions.
Playing with trolls may be fun when we were still young. But playing with trolls (or trolling) is no fun. It reflects how we are as a person and our thinking towards other people. Eventually, it will also lead us to how we will be in the future.



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Passion For Fashion Goes On!

Thursday, May 29, 2014

We started to build our ideals when we were kids. Most of us, I assumed, wanted to be teachers, nurses and doctors. Growing up with my mom and grandmother who both know how to sew clothes, I was partly influenced to be a designer (although I admit I first wanted to be a doctor) and make people’s clothes. I even dreamed of becoming a model until I realized I am stuck with this height. This dream career was hyped up when I entered high school. I gained friends who dress really well and whose sense of fashion I really adore.
This dream of mine did not crash into ashes as I grew older. One of my professors in college and even colleagues would even compliment my sense of fashion. More so, at that point in time, I knew I would not land on that career. Not sooner than I wanted.
“Nothing is impossible when you want to achieve something” holds true to my case. Since we are in a technological age where everything seems impossible, I found ways to practice my passion in fashion.
Websites like http://looklet.com/ and http://lookbook.nu/ provided avenues for wanna-be fashion designers and models to strut off their style without the existence of those paparazzi and catwalk. These sites encouraged people like me to  expose their creativity and meet people with the same preferences.
Social networking sites also provide for this need. There exist such applications like Sorority Girl and Coco Girl which, although a bit childish, allows users to design the clothes of their avatars.
For some people like me, these applications and websites are not just mere games but avenues to vent out fashion prowess. For some, it may be an avenue just to show off all those non-sense things. Whatever it is that people think, this just shows that we are in the age where everything can be one-click away. Knowing how these tools can help us depends on our ability to discern and interpret.
It is a matter of choices and decisions.
And luckily, my passion for passion goes on!



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Buzz It Here And There!

Wednesday, May 28, 2014

I heard gossips. I participated in some. I have even been part of those talked-about behind-my-back. I know. It is normal. What is the use of these? What will it generate after? Fame? Fun? Or just nothing?
The Anatomy of Buzz by Emanuel Rosen tells us what buzz is, how it came to be in this world of ours and how people can generate more of it for the company’s sake.
Buzz grows like virus. It grows as fast as the length gossips make to reach the people on the other end of the world. Thinking about how it spreads seems easy, doing what to buzz is the difficult part.
Creating the right message to the right audience in the right time is the key to a successful and organically generated buzz. This will ensure that the message will get across people the way you want it and people will share the message because they want it and they find the message either relevant or entertaining. Since people has the natural instinct to just talk about anything at almost anytime, it would be no problem if you have THE MESSAGE.
Companies mostly participate in generating buzz for their success or for the product’s success. It is important to note that customers, when gained positive experience from using the product or service, will most likely buzz about it because they believe in it.
When one believes in something, it will entice other people to do the same thing. The buzz will serve as a magnet that keeps on attracting other people to join, like and share it.
How will we able to sustain the buzz generating?
Do not give it all! Ironic, huh? But that is the key! Generating and sustaining buzz means partly exciting the people by giving them limited amount of those talked-about things.
Well! Gossiping can be a way to generate buzz if the message is something relevant. It can help a company generate a buzz for itself. It can, however, create bad publicity if not used correctly.
So buzz right, and you will see!


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The Changes Conquer It All!

Tuesday, May 27, 2014

When I was born twenty three years ago, the world witnessed the birth of one of the OrCommunicologists . I was not prepared to land on where I am now but I am happy because I have been part of a revolution where I play as the soldier with communication as my weapon.
I witnessed how technology rapidly changed the way society works. I saw the shift in power from the use of beepers to mobile phones and then to the wonderfully-crafted Internet. It may seemed old school but the changes happened so fast that it made me wonder what will happen a few years from now.
The advent of technology crafted the way people communicate with one another. It changed our way of living and it changed how we behave. Certainly, the changes directly affects the interaction of people with its surrounding.
Being knowledgeable about these things, I realized the changes pose responsibilities to me as a citizen of this world. 
The age of the Internet gave me a bird’s eye view of the dynamism of communication and behavior of people. It does not necessarily imposes people to use it, but the innate attraction gives people the urge to use it for whatever purposes it can give them.
As an OrCommunicologist, playing in this realm makes it more understandable to me why people make a fuzz out of something. It gives me the fuller view of how people behave, of how organizations behave and how these two interact. It is a world way different from the offline world. The Internet gave people the almost impossible world that we imagined way back, when there was still the existence of beepers and “ancient” gadgets.
And as much as we could do to the Internet, people should note that they are still who they are even if the Internet gives them all the power to conceal their identity. Being responsible creatures of this world, whatever there is that the world offers we should accept and take as a promising world to live at.



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