The Power of Technology

Hello again! Today, I'd like to discuss the power that technology has as I've seen it recently in my life.

I'd like to draw your attention specifically to social media. It's kind of weird to think about, but Facebook and Twitter can change a person's life. Crazy, right? I'm always baffled by overnight Internet sensations. The other day, I witnessed a sensation in the making.

My college's Facebook page posted a photo of a guy walking to class on a snowy day. The thing is, he was wearing shorts. I happen to be friends with this guy and I can safely say that he always wears shorts, no matter what the weather is. The caption of the photo said "There's always that one guy in shorts" and all of these alumni were commenting on the picture saying things like "I hope his mother doesn't see this!" and "I never understood this. Why do some guys have to be so macho?" In short, they were hatin' on my poor friend, the Shorts Guy.

Eventually, he saw the picture and defended himself against the crotchety shorts haters, explaining that he did, in fact, own pants, that he was not from northern Wisconsin, and that he was not trying to make some sort of macho statement. He simply likes to wear shorts. End of story. Soon, lots of people were flocking to his defense. As of right now, the photo has 27 shares and 179 likes.

While my friends and I were all laughing our heads off at Shorts Guy's new fame, something magical was happening. Some comedic genius made a meme using the picture and gave it the caption, "First day of winter? Don't care." This meme made it to Twitter and then spread like wildfire.

Now, at least in the social media world of my college, Shorts Guy is famous. It took all of about two hours for this to happen. I never fully understood how fast technology was until I witnessed this event.

I'm hoping when I bring my shorts back from home, Shorts Guy will be kind enough to sign a pair!

Here We Go!

Let's get one thing straight: I am not old. I am actually 19. I just think I should be 19 in the 1960s...or '40s...or some time that doesn't require learning tons upon tons of new technology in order to slightly increase the possibility of getting a decent job. Why am I writing a blog then, you ask? There are two answers for that: 1. I'm tired of shying away from things that I'm not naturally good at and 2. I have an hour to kill and I don't want to start my paper that is due Friday.

This year, I've already made some great strides in my love-hate relationship with technology. Everyone has Facebook, including my mom (even though her page is actually under my dad's name--confusing!), so I don't count that as an achievement. However, I did recently get a Twitter account, which I'm still wrestling with. I have mastered the retweet, but that's about it.

Next, I created my Youtube account. I know this is super hard to believe, but until about a week ago, I didn't even have a Google account set up. That's right: no Gmail. My friends thought I was insane. I'm still half-convinced that Google is trying to take over my life. However, I got over it for enough time to get Youtube all figured out. Of course, I've been using Youtube for years, but now I have subscribed to a total of three channels. This is what I've been missing out on. Go me.

You have no idea how much the creation of this blog is stressing me out. I just have this feeling that everything I'm typing is going to disappear and then all of my brilliance will be lost. Or that my template will look super weird. Or that something is going to look ridiculous. Then again, none of you know that this exists yet and hopefully this blog will stay in a quiet little corner of the Internet until I can work out all the kinks.

I think I'm done here. Fingers crossed the posting of this goes well!