Entry #11 - May the force be with you, future blogger

So you're thinking about starting up a blog? Maybe you want to write about politics, food, fashion, or maybe you just need something to vent to. Perhaps you got suckered into starting one by enrolling in a hybrid English class. Whatever the case may be, it's not as hard as you think.

I am no blogging master, but I did just complete an English course so you might want to take the time to learn a thing or two.

Rule #1- Choose your topic (if not given one) and do your research! 
It may be hard to find inspiration to write (trust me, I know). That is why you must research. This goes for anything. Take a few minutes, or hours, to read up on the given subject. It will really help you understand what's going on. You don't have to read a 54-page essay on astrophysics, skim through it! Start by looking at the Wikipedia! A simple google search will take you a long way. Look at other people's blogs if you have to!

Rule #2- Jot ideas down and make connections
You don't necessarily have to start writing just yet. Build an outline. Copy and paste interesting tidbits of information as references to your writing. Look at infographics, include them in the blog if you want! Bridge ideas together and make connections between relevant information.

Rule #3 (THE MOST IMPORTANT RULE)- Just. start. writing. 
This is where it gets tough. Sometimes I find myself just staring at a blank screen for hours on end. Just write. Write anything. If you can't think of anything to start, think of how you want to end the paper and start there. As you're writing you will eventually start to think of more ideas- jot them down and save them for later! Work around the tidbits of information you began with.

Rule #4 (THE HARDEST RULE TO ABIDE BY)- Do not procrastinate. 

Don't listen to this guy!

This should be rule #1, take it from me, a blogging master. It's pretty self-explanatory. If you procrastinate, your writing will only get worse, and people can tell.

Rule #5 ????

Rule #6 Profit
After all the blood sweat and tears, you get to sit back and watch the comments roll in. Shortly after that, you will receive an A in your course. And if you didn't- you didn't get this information from me.

Blogging may seem intimidating at first. Not only are you writing (which is already a challenge in itself to some) but you're sharing it with other people who have the ability to criticize your work (scary, I know). But hey, if you take the time to do the work there should be no reason for you to be intimidated by anyone. Everyone is different. Everyone has their own opinions and a little constructive criticism won't hurt. You will be given plenty of that by the teacher. And whether you are in a class or not, you must always expect someone to say something, whether it is positive or negative. Such is life. It's just a blog. You're not writing for the Wall Street Journal, and if you are, congrats, you probably wouldn't be reading this anyway.

Overall, I really enjoyed writing my blog because of how informal it was. In the blogosphere, your work is as serious as you make it. Enjoy the freedom, because when you're writing your formal papers you will wish it was as easy as writing a blog. It is a battle, I know, but it is a learning experience.

You might hate it at first, but in the end, it is truly rewarding. You learn to have a voice, YOUR voice. And if you don't like your voice, or your work, or your blog, or your class, or your teacher, YOU TRIED. And that is the most important aspect of it all.

Thanks for taking the time to read my blog. 

Entry #10 - A friendly reminder

With all of my speculation on cell phone conspiracies, I think it's time we take a step in a different direction. I'd like to remind everyone who is "internet stricken" to take the time to put your phone away here and there. Step away from technology and do something different. Step outside, go for a walk, hike a trail, enjoy the beauty of the outdoors. Not your thing? Learn to cook a new dish, heck, learn to cook in general, I know I still am. There are so many things to do and so many things to learn. Can't let go of your phone? Use it to learn something new! Do something DIFFERENT with it. Call your Mom, tell her you love her, or anyone, really. Send a meaningful text to someone. Talk to someone you haven't spoken to in a while. Be independent. Think independently. Start by looking into the hobby you've always wanted to pick up.  Let us not fall victim to the ant colony! 

Don't waste away the hours on social media, seize the day! Carpe diem! Learn a dead language! Learn any language! Learn ALL of the languages! I know I'm starting to sound like a self-help page on instagram or a cliche quote meme but really- challenge yourself. Become the better you. 

If you're young you (we) still have plenty of time to accomplish whatever you want to accomplish. If you're old it's never too late. Just put your Nikes on and just do it!

We can all start together by typing in the hashtag #hikearizona

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Entry #9 - The Hivemind

As I was doing research for a paper, I came across this video and it hit the nail on the head on how I feel about being immersed in social media. In the video, James Surowiecki gives a talk on the positive, and negative nature of online crowds. He describes the nature of the "blogosphere" as a network, and later draws comparisons to an ant colony.

I would love to paraphrase what James discusses but I'm afraid I will do so horribly and let all substance of the talk escape... Here is the transcript of the video. It's an interesting read! Trust me!


If you hate reading you can follow along here

"But what the blogosphere offers is the possibility of getting at the kind of collective, distributive intelligence that is out there, and that we know is available to us if we can just figure out a way of accessing it. 

Each blog post, each blog commentary may not, in and of itself, be exactly what we're looking for, but collectively the judgment of those people posting, those people linking, more often than not is going to give you a very interesting and enormously valuable picture of what's going on. 

So, that's the positive side of it. We are giving people who have never been able to talk before a voice, and we're able to access information that has always been there but has essentially gone untapped. 

But there is a dark side to this- One of the things that happens if you spend a lot of time on the Internet, and you spend a lot of time thinking about the Internet, is that it is very easy to fall in love with the Internet. It is very easy to fall in love with the decentralized, bottom-up structure of the Internet. It is very easy to think that networks are necessarily good things -- that being linked from one place to another, that being tightly linked in a group, is a very good thing. And much of the time it is. 

But there's also a downside to this -- a kind of dark side, in fact -- and that is that the more tightly linked we've become to each other, the harder it is for each of us to remain independent. One of the fundamental characteristics of a network is that, once you are linked in the network, the network starts to shape your views and starts to shape your interactions with everybody else. That's one of the things that defines what a network is. A network is not just the product of its component parts. It is something more than that. It is, as Steven Johnson has talked about, an emergent phenomenon. 

Now, this has all these benefits: it's very beneficial in terms of the efficiency of communicating information; it gives you access to a whole host of people; it allows people to coordinate their activities in very good ways. But the problem is that groups are only smart when the people in them are as independent as possible. This is the paradox of the wisdom of crowds, or the paradox of collective intelligence, that what it requires is actually a form of independent thinking. And networks make it harder for people to do that, because they drive attention to the things that the network values. So, one of the phenomena that's very clear in the blogosphere is that once a meme, once an idea gets going, it is very easy for people to just sort of pile on, because other people have, say, a link."

He then continues on with the ant colony:

"the ant colony is the classic metaphor, because, no individual ant knows what it's doing, but collectively ants are able to reach incredibly intelligent decisions. 

They're able to guide their traffic with remarkable speed. So, the ant colony is a great model: you have all these little parts that collectively add up to a great thing. 

But we know that occasionally ants go astray, and what happens is that, if army ants are wandering around and they get lost, they start to follow a simple rule -- just do what the ant in front of you does. And what happens is that the ants eventually end up in a circle. And there's this famous example of one that was 1,200 feet long and lasted for two days, and the ants just kept marching around and around in a circle until they died. 

And that, I think, is a sort of thing to watch out for. That's the thing we have to fear -- is that we're just going to keep marching around and around until we die."

Beautiful.

This is exactly how I was feeling about 4 blog posts ago. Sometimes I feel like our cell phones, and media in general, encapsulate us and we just feed off of whatever is being thrown at us. Yes, you have the power to put your device down, but knowledge is very addicting. The speed of information keeps users on edge. Yes, I'm guilty of being internet stricken, but the problem is that I see it spreading at an unhealthy pace. I see small children on cell phones, tablets, etc., who knows what kind of information they're taking in. Whenever I have a moment of free time, chances are I'm looking at my phone. I look at my phone even after looking at my phone 5 minutes before! Is this phenomena getting out of hand? 

Entry #8 - Egyptian emojis

I found this very interesting excerpt from tintup.com when reading up on hashtags on our last go: "the written word and the spoken word have always influenced each other in their formality. In the past, we spoke more formally because of how formally we wrote. In the present, we write less formally because of how informally we speak. Speech and writing influence each other, and always have.
This idea is supported by science. In a recent paper, six computer scientists from Brazil found “not only qualitative, but also quantitative similarities between offline and online speech communities.” In other words, the way language trends develop and words become popular IRL (in real life) is mimicked on Twitter. We really are writing how we talk."
http://www.tintup.com/blog/how-hashtags-changed-the-way-we-talk/

It then occurred to me- Sometimes I communicate with my friends just by sending emojis on our phones. We can have full blown conversations using just symbols! Not a word is said (or typed) and I know exactly what they're trying to say or what emotions they are trying to convey. Pretty fascinating if you ask me.


Well, continuing on with my life, because that's just what I do, I was fiddling around on my phone and saw a post on Instagram depicting a guy pointing to a symbol on his shirt. 

In the picture the guy is obviously a tourist (sombrero is usually a sure sign, trust me I know), asking a local  patron for directions.
"Hmmm, that's a clever idea, lazy, but clever" I thought. I mean with a smartphone you can just pop up Google translate and you can attempt to butcher any language you choose. But the shirt gives you the convenience of pointing to exactly what you need. 
The company is called ICONSPEAK and this is how they intend on making an impact: 
"Simplicity was always a trait that unites us in many forms, call it lazy or genius, but we like to keep it simple. And hence follows our starting point of how to bridge the language barriers of our world: a shirt. Through a shirt you can – in the most rudimentary ways – combine gestures, vocals and mimics to create interaction. A shirt does not need to be recharged and still, you can have it on as long as you please. Furthermore you won’t have to worry that we will send you software updates to your shirt which will make it uncomfortable to wear, slow to wash or any such thing. It’s a shirt. This is where we start, but not where we will stop – the challenges on our way to bridge the language barriers of our world are manifold and will lead us to platforms and mediums other than textile as well…"

Interesting.

So let's put 2 and 2 together...what does it mean if we can communicate through emojis, and get directions by pointing to pictures on a shirt? Are we really that lazy? Just kidding. Really though. 
What direction is language headed if we are able to have full on conversations using only symbols?
Were the Egyptians way ahead of their time using hieroglyphics? Is a universal language going to be developed with symbols being the core of communication? Has a universal language ALREADY been developed?

I have no idea what this means. But from the looks of it maybe they're giving away free ice cream at McDonald's?

Entry #7 - I scream for hashtags

To hashtag? Or not to hashtag? That is the question. I remember a few years back when it seemed to start off as a joke. I had no idea where it came from, but it had to have been related to something on the internet. People saying things like "hashtag awkward" or "hashtag yolo" (you only live once). I'd see hashtags in facebook posts and would start to question my friendship with that person. Whenever I heard someone say it aloud I would cringe. Then as years started to pass it kind of just settled in and now, surprisingly enough, hashtags are everywhere! Well, let's take a step back first. What is a hashtag? According to the dictionary, (you know it's official when it's in the dictionary) "a hashtag is a word or preceded by the symbol # that classifies or categorizes the accompanying text (such as a tweet)" (Merriam-Webster). 
Here is a great infographic on hashtags

It can be used to show emotions: "The ice cream machine is out of order at McDonald's" #heartbroken

It can be used for promotional use: "I went to McDonald's for free ice cream but they said the machine is down" #mcdonalds #freeicecreamfridays #whyme #theresoneacrossthestreet #notlovinit

Those really are some #firstworldproblems ...
Ha, ha, ha. Yeah, I know, pretty #corny if you ask me. 

But let's get serious here! The hashtag is a great tool for finding out more information on a certain topic. If you need coverage, opinions, or some sort of context, a hashtag is a great start. If a catastrophic event were to occur the first thing news outlets do is look to social media. They use a hashtag to keep others informed, to shed light on the situation, to show grievance. There are a variety of ways they can be used. Impactful? Sort of. You can keep up and stay informed, yes, but does posting a hashtag showing grievance for tsunami victims make an impact? Probably not. 
Sometimes I even find myself clicking on hashtags to stay current on certain things like the Presidential Election, the Panama Papers, or any sort of McDonald's promotions. 

Extra Credit Entry - Is it a Love Story?

Watching the highly controversial film by Micheal Moore, Capitalism: A Love Story, I definitely felt that he expressed many thoughts young people may have today. He effectively explained some of the issues that a lot of Americans are currently facing. His explanations were great at simplifying the intricate conflicts our economy is facing. While currently taking an economics class at GCC, I have been able to look at how our free enterprise economy is doing. Theoretically, it's a great system for everyone, but what we read in textbooks and the examples that our economy has been run by are not real life. The issues are much too complex to be summed up to a simple supply and demand factor. People need regulations that are meant to look out for everyone and not just corporate businesses. A great line from the movie stated that everyone had "bought" into the "American Dream." That definitely hit home for me, especially now that I look around at the price of housing while considering wages of most of the population. It makes you wonder, is this really achievable? As a freshman in college looking around my options definitely seem limited. I have to think twice about if I'm really going to spend $53,000 dollars on one year of tuition alone (not including books or anything else that'll be required). A lifetime commitment all in the name of the American Dream, or will I drop out and begin my journey earning $10 per hour (which is above minimum wage) and working overtime without the possibility of independently owning my own home. I'm not trying to say nobody can make it in America without all the strings attached but it definitely doesn't seem that there are opportunities for the average joe left and right. The lack of abundance when it comes to "success" in our current economic system is a problem. A problem that needs to be addressed by the country as a whole and that citizens need to be aware of and know how to handle.

Entry #6 - Phone for thought

Today I had a very interesting conversation with my boyfriend about becoming "someone" in life. Yes, we've all heard the cliche sayings like "The world is yours" or "you can do anything you set your mind to" and these are all true, to a point. There are so many things in life that one can achieve.  So much to see, so much to experience, so much to become, a plethora of every emotion around every corner. But what if one just wants to be lazy? Lol. Really though. Maybe not lazy, but why can't people just take life at their own pace? Reading that question back out loud sounds really dumb, I know. (Because you CAN take life at your own pace) But I feel like society thrusts so many people into so many things and at the end of the day so much is expected.

Do I think this way just because I am an American? I'm sure that has a great impact on me and how I view the world. I just feel like I'm being rushed into something that I'm not.

Do you guys feel the same way or is it just me being paranoid? I mean, I'm glad I can see outside of the box, but still I find it very bothersome. I know that sometimes you just need to take a step back, and take a breather.
I asked my boyfriend what he thinks and he agreed. "I think it definitely is because of our American lifestyle. Everything we see on the media, all that our parents and different parents alike have instilled in us and their children. We live in the city, and I'm sure that also has an impact. I'm sure people on the countryside view life differently." He also added, "if I could move away from the hustle and bustle of this American life, I'd be more than happy. I'd be at peace."



I realized that there really is no rush, but even still I still feel like there is! I feel like it's just a big race to build your resume, and become someone important. I'm currently studying to become a pharmacist, but what if that changes? I guess I just need to learn how to better regulate my thoughts and feelings.
My boyfriend has always told me, "everything is going to be alright" but IS IT?!?! Lol. I'm sorry guys. I'm just in a sort of agitated, pondering mood tonight.

BUT, I wanted to futher elaborate the being lazy thing. I feel like all the technological advancements we interact with everyday make us lazy! 

Think about it- 50 years ago, if someone needed more information on a certain topic, they had to get up and find it. Nowadays you pull your phone out of your pocket, google astrophysics, and wa-la you're now a self-proclaimed Neil deGrasse Tyson... all while laying in bed! Not really, but just the fact that you can research anything you wanted with a few certain movements of your fingers is... terrifying. Don't get me wrong it's amazing, but it takes the LIFE factor out of things. Back in the day you had to physically get up, take yourself to the library, find what you're looking for, flip pages in an encyclopedia, read, and walk back. But you're already at the library so you might as well go the extra mile! Do you see where I'm trying to go with this? Just the fact that you had to do all the extra work makes you active and more prone to... achieving?

Don't get me wrong- you can do everything you could back then today, if not easier and more efficiently, but do you want to? Someone has already done it! What else is left to do? Why do I feel this way? All that I can point my fingers to is technology..

All I've gotta say is- Remember, you can do anything you want in this life. I guess I'll just go back to being lazy.

/endrant

Entry #5 - The Tortoise and the Hare

As the spring semester kicks off this January, Arizona State University, a school of more than 80,000 students, will start to add the option of shorter, more accelerated courses. These courses will be taken over a span of 7 and a half weeks, down from the traditional 15-week course.

This will give students the opportunity to acquire their degrees at a much faster rate. "If a student wants to be very efficient, they can finish in three years,"says ASU Provost Betty Capaldi. 

At this day and age, I think it is a great idea to start implementing. With society always growing and expanding each day, I feel like the added option is just another pathway to success. Everyone is different. Some learn faster than others and some simply need more time to in order to fully understand different concepts. I'm always looking for ways to get ahead, especially with school. Speak of the (sun)devil, I just remembered that I forgot to pay my summer school enrollment!!! 

The school has already had similar curriculums in play-

ASU Online, a program in which students can earn their degree without stepping foot on campus, also spans over a 7 and a half week course. The program has become increasingly popular and profitable and has proven to be a solid means of acquiring education.

The universities' School of Letters and Sciences also offers a similar, 8-week course, in order to help students finish their studies faster. These courses are also very popular and are the first to fill up, says ASU professor and director Fred Corey.

As seen above, ASU is rated #1 this year for innovation among other U.S. schools. I'm sure this change won't hurt anybody, except maybe for some faculty. If students have a problem with it, they still have the option of attending 15-week courses. But if all courses were shortened, that might be a different story!

The shortened courses definitely offer a lot of flexibility to students amidst their busy lives. So which one are you?

Entry #4 - Slantception

FAIR definitely caught my attention with the last blog post, so out of my own interest, I decided to explore further. Upon further investigation of the website, I only seemed to find entries that supported Bernie Sanders!

Taken from www.fair.org

Taken from www.fair.org

Taken from www.fair.org

The big question here is - Does FAIR offer slanted news at the expense of exposing slanted news? Hmmmmm....

taken from www.facebook.com/FAIRmediawatch

I looked at their entries for the past few months and saw very few, if not any, posts in support of the other candidates. I even checked their facebook in hopes of finding other content in order to prove me wrong. Maybe I didn't search hard enough but I couldn't find one post in support of Hillary Clinton. Perhaps Clinton's campaign is indeed incompetent (based on what I've seen from what FAIR posts) but where's the fairness in that? Why not highlight positive aspects of the other campaigns? Don't get me wrong, I'm all in favor of exposing faulty news but when your website's name is FAIR I think you should be fair about criticism. Yes, what they post may be completely correct and in line, but at least show both sides of the story! And no, I am in no way suggesting how FAIR should run their site, I am only stating my opinion (which doesn't matter to most). I've read somewhere before that the New York Times publicly endorses Hillary; maybe FAIR should publicly endorse Bernie Sanders?

/endrant

FAIR is full of great content, but I feel like they should address ALL aspects, positive and negative, of each and every candidate. What are your thoughts? 

DISCLAIMER: I am very uncertain about this blog post. Maybe I'm completely wrong- perhaps FAIR does endorse Bernie, or perhaps they HAVE shown support for Hillary Clinton, I was just not able to find any content which shows otherwise. 

Thanks for reading.

Entry #3 - All is FAIR in Love and War

After reviewing my blog, I realized I fell for the oldest trick (or trap) in the journalism handbook- reporting celebrity news. I hope you forgive me, for I plan on moving onto bigger and better content. This week we are exploring "slanted reporting"- an instance where writers distort information in order to create an opinionated perspective of a subject, without actually stating an opinion.

With great writing comes great responsibility. And with great responsibility comes a slew of slanted reports. A hot topic right now is the presidential election, and that topic is sure to have an onslaught of such reports.

After searching the internet far and wide, I came across "FAIR"- an organization that "has been offering well-documented criticism of media bias and censorship since 1986." 

The national media watch group "maintain(s) a regular dialogue with reporters at news outlets across the country, providing constructive critiques when called for and applauding exceptional, hard-hitting journalism."

This organization is all about exposing slanted reporting! Looks like I hit the jackpot guys. 

A few weeks ago on March 8, 2016; Adam Johnson, a contributing analyst for FAIR; posted an article titled, 

"Washington Post Ran 16 Negative Stories on Bernie Sanders in 16 Hours"

In this case, it looks like I've found not one, but SIXTEEN instances of slanted reporting. 

The Washington Post is the most widely circulated newspaper published in Washington D.C., and according to MondoTimes, it is one of the highest circulated newspapers in the USA. The Post was founded in 1877, making it the area's oldest newspaper. Sounds like a reputable source to me!

So, do these articles have truth behind them? Or did they deploy them in hopes of boosting another candidate forward? While the majority of these articles sound very opinionated, some are passable and can be regarded as neutral. A subscriber, whether in favor of Bernie or not, might skim through The Washington Post and leave with a false perception of the candidate through these headlines alone.

Titles like, 

"Clinton is running for president, Sanders is doing something else."
"Bernie Sanders's two big lies about the global economy"
"'Excuse me!' Bernie Sanders doesn't know how to talk about black people"

"Even Bernie Sanders can beat Donald Trump"


certainly make readers question the candidates ability (or inability) to run our country. 


But what would drive a highly regarded newspaper to post such material? 
The Washington Post was sold to Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos in 2013. What impact might this have you ask? According to Michael Oman-Reagan, "Amazon was was awarded a $16.5 million contract with the State Department the last year Clinton ran it. Amazon also has over $600 million in contracts with the Central Intelligence Agency, an organization Sanders said he wanted to abolish in 1974."


Coincidence? You decide. 





Jeff Bezos - CEO of Amazon, & owner of The Washington Post

Entry #2 - More money, more problems.

Continuing off of our previous entry- $45 million dollars in revenue does indeed sound nice... enticing, even. But, with more money comes more problems. It looks like our friends at Gawker Media ran into some big trouble very recently. They had the wrestling match of a lifetime. Except, the match was held in a courtroom, and they weren't actually wrestling. I'm not much of a fighter at all, (except with my boyfriend), but if $140,000,000 dollars were on the line, I'd definitely go down swinging- courtroom or not.


On October 4, 2012, AJ Daulerio, former editor for Gawker, posted an article titled, 

"The 30-minute video, apparently filmed in 2007 and later provided to Gawker, garnered five million page views when it was posted in an abridged version on the site in 2012 and 2.5 million views on other sites that posted it subsequently, Mr. Bollea’s lawyer said. In posting the video, he continued, Gawker allowed the public to watch Mr. Bollea having sex in a private bedroom without his knowledge or consent." (The New York Times)

Terry Bollea, (professionally known as Hulk Hogan),  filed many cease and desist requests in Florida court, and Gawker replied by posting another article titled, "A Judge Told Us to Take Down Our Hulk Hogan Sex Tape Post. We Won't."

Terry then went on to file a lawsuit in federal court against Gawker Media for violation of privacy and intentional inflicted emotional distress. He demanded $100 million in damages. This was an interesting case, because according to the New York Times, "Mr. Bollea (demanded) that Gawker pay a severe price for the intimate invasion and (said) that the privacy of every American is at risk. Gawker (said) that if Mr. Bollea’s claims prevail, the nation’s hallowed press freedoms could be crippled."

On April 24, 2013, Pamela Campbell, a Florida circuit court judge, ordered that Gawker remove all content surrounding the video from their website. While they ultimately disagreed with the order, they chose to remove the video but keep the narrative up. Gawker also claimed, "the order compelling us to remove the entirety of Daulerio's post—his words, his speech (simply because Hulk Hogan didn't like it)—is grossly unconstitutional. We won't take it down." 

Denton (Gawker CEO) vs. Bollea

3 years later, on March 18, 2016; in St. Petersburg, Florida; the jury delivered the verdict in favor of Terry Bollea. He was awarded a total of $140 million- $60 million for emotional distress, $55 million in damages, and an extra $25 million in punitive damages. 

During the trial period, Gawker spent huge amounts trying to fight the case- they sold a minority stake to Columbus Nova Technology Partners, in order to maintain position in court. Although having lost, Nick Denton, CEO of the company, claims that he still plans on appealing the verdict.

Denton only faces one issue- according to Florida law, any appellant must pay one-half of the judgement (max bond at $50 million) in order for any appeals to begin. If they lose the appeal, they could lose everything they've worked for.

Quite the court case isn't it?! Where would you side? Freedom of press, or privacy of the people?

As for now...

I'll see you guys next time. Thanks for reading.

PS

Totally relevant

Entry #1 - The world of blogging

There are many different types of blogs. While I am not new to the internet, I am definitely unfamiliar with the world of blogging. I have known of and about blogs for a long time, and have visited a few here and there to gain a quick bit of knowledge, but I have never actually taken the time to subscribe and follow one. I feel like blogs are a valuable source of information because they put readers at ease due to their informal style of writing. (I certainly felt this way when skimming through some of the examples listed.) There are times where I would rather read a quick step-by-step tutorial on how to set up a website, instead of taking the time to read through a 200+ page book on "HTML for Dummies". It's like sitting and talking to a friend rather than sitting and talking to a lawyer. Although, I'm certain there are times when it is absolutely necessary to sit and talk with a lawyer to gain every bit of information possible.  While some blogs are more professional than others, the choice is solely up to you. You can choose to read through heaps and piles of Huffington Post's political news entries, or you can follow Bob's picture-heavy blog and his trek through Cambodia. Whether you're reading a blog to better yourself, or reading a blog to waste time- blogs are an essential part of the internet, and a very versatile tool at one's disposal.

I went through ebizmba.com's "Top 15 Blogs as of April 2016" and came across a handful of blogs that caught my attention, and a few that made me question humanity.
These rankings are "derived from our eBizMBA Rank which is a continually updated average of each website's Alexa Global Traffic Rank, and U.S. Traffic Rank from both Compete and Quantcast."

And according to Alexa.com, "The sites in the top sites lists are ordered by their 1 month alexa traffic. The 1-month rank is calculated using a combination of average daily visitors and pageviews over the past month. The site with the highest combination of visitors and pageviews is ranked #1."

The good, the bad, & the ugly

Let's start off with the ugly so we can end our post on a good note 

PerezHilton.com (ranked #10)- The ugly

According to commonsensemedia.org, Perezhilton.com is the "Most notorious, uncensored, celebrity gossip site."
The blog rakes in a total of 14.5 million unique views per month, and is filled with irrelevant information. Fashion trends and everything celebrity are what Perezhilton is all about.      


Headlines like,

"Denver Broncos' Emmanuel Sanders & Gabriella Waheed Look White Hot At The iHeartRadio Music Awards!" 

litter the blog from top to bottom.

I could care less about how celebrities look at an award show... The blog makes remarks about people and their appearances, personal decisions, and lives in general, sometimes without an ounce of respect.     

Some posts made me chuckle, like the one shown above, but most of the content seems too immature for my taste, like the one shown above. 

You know there's something odd about a blog when their main tabs consist of 

Moving on.. 

TMZ (#2) - The bad 

The famous saying, "sex sells" proves to be correct with TMZ as a prime example.
The website doesn't hesitate to sexualize women (what's new) and men and shows no shame in doing so either. 

2 of 3 of the 'Most Popular' posts depicting scantily clad celebrities 

Almost the same as PerezHilton, but seems to have more 'scandalous celebrity' news than fashion trends. Don't get me wrong, TMZ isn't completely filled with half-naked celebrities, but around every corner you're sure to find one. 

Mashable (#4) - The good (also seemed to restore my faith in humanity)
Has a little bit of everything, even some celebrity gossip (if that's your cup of tea) without the over-sexualized imagery, in a very organized format.

Mashable covers a ton of fresh, relevant content, and won't have you wasting valuable minutes of your life reading about the Kardashians (sorry if I have offended you if that's what you like to do). The blog is definitely enough to spark some interest and you will most likely come away learning a thing or two.

BONUS

Notice anything? 

They all look the same! Same format, same ads, but upon closer inspection the articles are indeed different, and stay relevant to the site they belong to.

It turns out that Gizmodo (ranked #5), Lifehacker (#6), Jezebel (#13), and Kotaku (#15) are all blogs under the parent company Gawker Media (#7)

I wonder how much money I could make if I just copied and pasted 6 different catchy names at the top of a bunch of articles. 

"Business Insider has valued the company at $250 million based upon its 2014 revenue"

Well guys, looks like I know what I'm going to be doing for the next few months....