Today is my dad’s birthday. I’ve talked about how much I adore this man and his incredible creativity and sense of humor before.
In honor of his birthday, I’ve published live one of my latest creations from one of my strangest characters. Check out “Meet Zee: Documentary of a Weirdo” live online now.
I don’t mind if you don’t get her. She’s not for everyone. And I know my dad will love it. And that’s all I care about.
Love you daddy. Now enjoy your weirdo daughter.
I love Yoga and stretching but I’m absolutely terrible about making time for it. I’d rather lift or do sprints every time. Even though I know if I take the time to stretch, my body will be grateful and perform even better the next time I want to do life or sprint.
So I’m working on being better. Like all things I know I’m lacking, I try and make an effort to improve (even if it’s minimal at first).
I’m making time once a week to do an online Yoga video (there are so so so so many on YouTube for free!). I discovered this one by a lady named Yogi Nora. She smiles a lot. Which is good. Because her deep stretches are very painful so I’m cursing a lot while doing them. So we basically balance each other out.
We did approximately 6 stretches in 30 minutes and I was nearly sobbing from the pain in each one. And I was sore for three days after the stretching because it pushed my body in a way I haven’t been pushed in a very long time.
And now I’m making time weekly to have this smiling yoga teacher put me through self-inflicted torture so I can get healthier. Maybe someday I’ll even stretch twice a week. Maybe someday I’ll even have a thriving yoga practice. Maybe someday I won’t start crying because it hurts so badly to move into a certain position because it’s so tight and I never take the time to stretch it.
Maybe. Or maybe somebody can shoot me now and put me out of my misery!
While in the process of moving apartments, Dana Ollinger lost access to the internet for a few days. Between not living in her old apartment and waiting for the new services to be set up, she was in this prehistoric-like waiting period where she lost much of her modern ability to communicate and connect to the world.
Within a day or so, Ollinger started beginning to have strange thoughts. Ideas would simply pop into her head while she was wandering around her apartment. She would find herself writing down these ideas in a “journal”-a written version of an online blog that is meant to be kept “private,” which means for only one or a few select people.
As she began writing in this journal, she quickly realized that she was hearing her own voice within her head coming up with all sorts of things to include on the pages.
The strange part about the voice was that it was her own.
For as long as she could remember, Ollinger’s mind had been distracted by constant access to the internet and the world of ideas and thoughts that are included. She had become accustomed to listening to other people’s opinions and ideas. It had never occured to her that in the process, she lost touch with her own well of ideas and opinions.
That is, until she was forcibly removed from the chatterbox of the internet. Shocked to find that she had her own thoughts and opinions outside of the internet, she began to be truly inspired. She began writing more stories and creating fun story lines.
Last Wednesday, however, her internet was finally set up again and Ollinger found herself once again lose touch with that creative spark inside. Now that she knows her own thoughts are inside her, though, she hopes to keep off the internet a little more than she did before.
That is, of course, after she watches a series of related YouTube videos and comments on them for an hour or two. Or five.
Adele, a 16-year-old honors student from Milwaukee, regularly watches YouTube videos like most kids her age. While watching the videos, she signs in as “smileychik33”, and often comments on each video after watching it.
“It’s clearly very important to have an opinion about each video you watch, and to share that opinion with the entire world,” she says. She explains that youth have grown up knowing how important it is that they share their voice and opinion with the rest of of the world by leaving comments and rating certain videos, no matter what endlessly shifting criteria they choose to use to rate them.
“Usually, you either write “LOL” or some combination of letters that make it obvious you’re laughing hysterically if you like the video, or you write something scathing and personally offensive,” Adele further explains. “The more you can personally insult both the people involved in the video project and the other people who have commented on it, the more effective your post is. Grammar, spelling, punctuation and factual evidence are not important.”
Last week, however, Adele-under her username “smileychik33”- decided to leave a comment under a video that was neither scathing nor a compliment. She simply wrote, “Watched it. Fine.”
Though the inclusion of the word “fine” may seem like she was approving of it, she assuredly answers that “fine” is neutral in the world of the internet. The attention-starved people who regularly put up and comment on videos need much more than “fine” to feel like their work has been approved of.
Her lack of opinion sent shockwaves throughout the YouTube community. A wave of other users immediately began to insult her neutrality, forcing her to take a side one way or another on the video so they could better come to rash decisions about how they felt about not only the video, but about her as a human being. After the wave of insults came another wave of users who defended Adele’s comment and retorted insults to those who were insulting her in the first place.
As the digital debate rages on, Adele remains neutral. “The video was fine. Nothing great, nothing horrible. Just fine. I refuse to add anything else to my comment,” she states.
For many YouTube users, however, her neutrality is “waiii not wiked kewl” and some consider her a “b^!@#”.
Briana Hansen 