-The contest is about sending us your thoughts and opinions about the site before the New Year's post. Think of it as a review of the reviewers.
-The only requirement is a minimum of 100 words. In most cases, that's a brief paragraph. For example, that is how many words are in the intro paragraph and the first bullet of this post (113 to be exact). Trying to keep things easy on everyone.
-You can submit it to us however you want to, whether its over the Facebook page, the Twitter page (links above) or email it through our "contact us" email. Just make sure that someone confirms it when you submit it.
- The winner will be notified on the 31st via a post on here and an email/PM (depending on how you sent it in) with the iTunes code.
Now for those whom have been wondering about my other such as the researching campaign with Research Is Magic guys, I am posting a clip from both posts I've been on thus far. For those whom aren't aware, I made a series to finish out last year with called "Thoughts, Opinions, Rethinking and Proposals" which is summery was a series about summarizing the activist ideas I had been researching myself and reporting them to everyone whom reads the blog. The first post was on a group of people called Bronies, or the fans of the show "My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic" that aren't considered their target audience and contribute to a very unique fandom. Since the post received the most acclaim from any of my articles besides the post showing off Steven Chen's Cello & Piano Nocturne piece, I decided to continue on this path off the site.
Recently, the Research Is Magic team consisting of Kurt Baer and Jason Nguyen, both on the way to getting their doctorates in ethnomusicology (the study of music in culture). They have created this ethnographic study through Indiana University to study bronies and how they interact on an artistic level. I have been asked to join them in a couple of discussions and I thought I would share the previews for those whom are interested.
The first is a sample from a discussion I had with the both of them back at the beginning of the month on "trolling" and "fan pandering". It isn't as much arts activist then it really is explaining perspective and why bullying is bad however I hope someone out there will love to read this, so here's a sample:
"J: Okay, to broaden the scope a little bit: there are moments when the impulse to troll by people on the Internet is a source of great amusement to me, I fully admit. I wrote last month about the 4chan campaign to send Justin Bieber to North Korea, which is in some ways the source of the “___ is best pony” meme, and while doing that research, I was really tickled by the way these guys mobilized themselves to play this naughty prank on the Internet. I’m not sure whether I would call that trolling as well, but it comes from a similar place. From where you’re sitting and having just gotten trolled by a bunch of random folks (though seemingly less sophisticated than anon in their tactics), what’s the difference?
A: Honestly, I feel like they are very similar but the difference between “trolling” and “bullying”, trolling being more of a gag thing than only trying to gain something from it. I will admit that at one point I would consider myself a troll, but not towards one group of people. It was more of a “how to be a smart ass but make sure everyone laughs” sort of thing and that’s how I have gone about defining trolling. The incident we are discussing may be seen more as bullying and trying to instigate something against us.
J: Yeah, and it seems important in a lot of ways to be able to make that distinction, because so much of the fun we have as a fandom includes skills and posturing that can look a whole lot like trolling or bullying if used in particular ways. I’m thinking in particular about the Twilight becoming an alicorn thing and the fairly vicious way some members of the fandom ripped into the creators for doing the worst thing ever to their favorite show. A lot of those actions could be seen as a kind of trolling–perhaps even bullying in some cases–but then it also turned into one of the greatest ongoing gags ever…THANKS M.A. LARSON!
A: (Laughs hysterically) I know! I think that was a bad idea of them to do to but I understand that they are (or at least SHOULD BE) tending towards their target audience and not serving to us. However, going beyond that point and actually heckling or harassing the creators isn’t the way to go. As you were saying though, I think that her becoming an alicorn could be partially a troll to us as well but it’s all about if you want to see it from that perspective or if you want to see it from “Is this what our target fan base wants?” "
If you would like to read more about this talk (don't worry, its a lot more entertaining on their site) then click this link to view the entire conversation. The other post I wanted to mention in this "update" of sorts was the tag blog post I submitted and was posted a little bit ago from when I wrote the update. This post was a follow up to Kurt's post on the fan music, and was about how the more famous fans should spread their knowledge of the professional world with the lesser experienced people and turn the fandom into an arts hub. Here's a sample from this train of thought:
" After reading Kurt’s previous post several times over and not knowing how to continue on I had to think about what I should write about. It took a long 5 hours (well, not really 5 hours, but it felt like it!) of wall ball and talking to friends on Skype but it finally hit me: Talk about what I know best. Being an activist for a few years now on my home blog, and now the more recent addition of Team Young Spark, this is the prime example of what we look for in that field. For those whom are unaware, arts activism is the act of pushing for continuation of an art or the arts in general. In my case I push for all arts from drawing and sketching to music and story writing so forth, nearly anything they can come up with. When I say nearly anything, I mean anything. The brony community is known for its artistic creations, good and bad. We have a lot of people whom are very creative and can create a lot of stuff out of almost nothing. This group of artists range from fan music, creating new stories from show characters and drawing their favorite ponies to creating pony themed meals, dance routines and even laser light shows based on the show.
If you would like to read more about this talk (don't worry, its a lot more entertaining on their site) then click this link to view the entire conversation. The other post I wanted to mention in this "update" of sorts was the tag blog post I submitted and was posted a little bit ago from when I wrote the update. This post was a follow up to Kurt's post on the fan music, and was about how the more famous fans should spread their knowledge of the professional world with the lesser experienced people and turn the fandom into an arts hub. Here's a sample from this train of thought:
" After reading Kurt’s previous post several times over and not knowing how to continue on I had to think about what I should write about. It took a long 5 hours (well, not really 5 hours, but it felt like it!) of wall ball and talking to friends on Skype but it finally hit me: Talk about what I know best. Being an activist for a few years now on my home blog, and now the more recent addition of Team Young Spark, this is the prime example of what we look for in that field. For those whom are unaware, arts activism is the act of pushing for continuation of an art or the arts in general. In my case I push for all arts from drawing and sketching to music and story writing so forth, nearly anything they can come up with. When I say nearly anything, I mean anything. The brony community is known for its artistic creations, good and bad. We have a lot of people whom are very creative and can create a lot of stuff out of almost nothing. This group of artists range from fan music, creating new stories from show characters and drawing their favorite ponies to creating pony themed meals, dance routines and even laser light shows based on the show.
The people in this fandom are very
creative, and as I stated before the creations range in variety and quality. I
love the meme that Kurt posted about the non-brony hearing “pony-step” and
think it was professionally done because sometimes that is the case. The “actual”
DJ-Pon3 (not Vinyl, though she is good too!) is a professional DJ. He was
before the herd and used the herd to hone his craft to then propel his talent.
The same can be stated about Gabe Newell and Markus “Notch” Persson (creators
of Half Life and Minecraft respectively), both being professional game
designers and bronies. Stephen Colbert, actor and the host of The Colbert
Report amongst other shows, is also considered (or was, depending on how you
prefer to look at his mentions to the herd) to be a brony.
The point I’m trying to get at is we need more
people whom are famous and are bronies to help the younger ones try out what
they want to try out. The way I personally perceive “the herd” is a plethora of
people that create a very unique community that encourages arts and creativity. "
For a full read, click here. If anyone would be interested in doing a tag blog idea for the site then I am open to the idea. If we get enough people interested in the idea then I'll make a tab dedicated to it. Anyways, I think I've ranted enough so have a good night and be safe tonight to those in this nasty snow storm!
For a full read, click here. If anyone would be interested in doing a tag blog idea for the site then I am open to the idea. If we get enough people interested in the idea then I'll make a tab dedicated to it. Anyways, I think I've ranted enough so have a good night and be safe tonight to those in this nasty snow storm!
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