Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
And now without further ado...
Chapter 5
This column didn’t exactly produce the same kind of reaction that my first two had. As far as I could tell people still enjoyed it, but they weren’t going out of their way to let me know it. It was a bit disheartening at first, to plateau like my third column evidently did, but I guess it was only a matter of time1. It would have been damn near impossible to continually wow my audience week in and week out. I guess it’s a little like when you first start dating someone. Those first few weeks of getting to know each other are great and it seems like the excitement surrounding the relationship will never fade, but it always does.
I thought that I had made some nice observations and blended in enough humor, but the problem, as Tim later explained to me, was that the column lacked what came to be known as ‘zingers’. Zingers are those statements or phrases that cause you to explode with laughter while at the same time thinking, “I can’t believe he wrote that and it was printed.” Although I tried to explain to Tim that zingers were not easy to come by, he went on to judge my remaining columns based solely on the presence or absence of them.
Even though my friends found themselves saying “true” as opposed to laughing out loud while reading my column at least one of my readers thought that I was still pushing the envelope. This is the email that Fran, my old News Writing professor, sent me that week:
Ok, Dan, I read this week's piece. Women and bowels and toilet paper all in the same column. Looks like the Race, Gender Class will be critiquing you again for homework. And I think you are now also on the agenda for the Women's Forum, the faculty monthly women's meeting...
"Shuttle bus to the cafeteria from the morgue." Ok, I laughed out loud
at that.
"Food gives up more runs than Kei Igawa," also funny.
Keep testing that "Free Speech" amendment I'm so fond of....
Fran
While it was nice to be reminded that I had gotten the faculty’s attention, I was more excited about her last sentence. It was one thing to hear it from Tim, but to hear it from Fran? A self-proclaimed feminist, no less. I don’t remember having any reservations about my writing, but if I did, that last sentence completely erased them. When it came to writing, Fran’s opinion was the one that I valued the most.
Like your typical guy, my interest in Communications was largely sports related. I mean, what kid born in the late ‘80s didn’t grow up with aspirations of becoming a SportsCenter anchor? Once I figured out that I actually wanted to work in sports media I had to think of something that sounded specific, but was still totally ambiguous to say to adults when they asked me what I wanted to do. I guess by the time you are a junior in college, many adults assume that you have your life figured out. My solution, in my opinion anyway, was brilliant.
By the time my junior year rolled around I was very much involved with the sports department of my campus radio station. I co-hosted a weekly sports talk show and announced men’s and women’s basketball as well as lacrosse games on the radio and internet (only men’s lacrosse- I’d rather watch paint dry than announce women’s lacrosse). While my radio gig was mainly a hobby, I decided that I should also try my luck with other mediums, namely TV and print. I figured that I would get my feet wet in all three and then pursue a career in the one that I liked the best. This showed adults that I had some sort of direction, but that I was trying to keep my options open in order to make an informed decision about my future. Like I said, brilliant.
As a part of my Communications major I was allowed to pick three elective courses that were in some way related to my chosen field. In the fall of my junior year I used one of those electives to take a class called Sports Broadcasting. This course not only gave me a little taste of what the television side of sports was like, but it also got me into a minor tiff with the women’s head basketball coach. After attending a pre-season practice, I asked the head coach if she thought it was justified, in our what have you done for me lately culture, that she was still coaching at Fairfield even though the men’s coach, who had a much better record than her in the previous 5 years, had been fired in the off-season. Naturally she didn’t take too kindly to my question and during an angry rant said that the comparison was like apples to oranges. I ended my report on the team by saying that the season better be fruitful for the head coach and the Stags (Fairfield’s mascot) or those apples and oranges that she spoke of might come in the canned variety. Let the record show that her ‘contract was not renewed’ after another dismal year.
Even though I knew it was a dying industry, I still felt like I should complete the media triumvirate and see what it was like to cover sports from the print side of things. Fairfield didn’t offer a Sports Writing course in the spring of my junior year, so I was relegated to taking News Writing. The course didn’t focus on sports writing in the least, but it was still the foundation for my brief stint as a sports writer.
As fate would have it, I learned more in that News Writing class than I did in any other class that I took in my academic career. If you had told me that when I walked in on the first day and saw a 4’10, 40-year-old woman with curly, grayish blonde hair that fell just to her shoulder in the front of the room there’s zero chance I would have believed you. Whether she knew she was doing it or not, Fran taught me three things.
First and foremost, she taught me how to write. It was in this class that I learned all of the technical skills, styles, and formats that I continue to employ today. Now I’m still no expert on grammar or punctuation, but I have a basic understanding of the structure and guidelines that one is supposed to follow when it comes to professional writing.
Next, Fran taught me the importance of keeping my audience in mind. It sounds so rudimentary, and I guess it is, but far too many people forget all about it. Fran constantly reminded our class to think about who would be reading our writing before we wrote our first word. The point being, if you know who your audience is you will be able to tailor your words in such a way that they will be able to better understand your point. I mean, I’m sure you are all a lot more conscious of your punctuation when you email your boss/professor than when you email your friends about what happened to you on Saturday night. Now I am by no means in the life lesson giving business, but I do think that this concept is applicable beyond News Writing. You have to constantly be aware of your audience in all aspects of life. It’s basically about how you present yourself in different situations. For example, you probably didn’t care if your cell phone went off during European History 101, but you better have it turned off during a business meeting.
Lastly, before I took News Writing I thought that I wrote in short, simple sentences (great alliteration, I know). After a week or two of getting to know me, Fran quickly debunked this hollow theory of mine. She repeatedly told me that my personality oozes out of my writing. According to her, the short, simple sentences that I thought I was writing were actually littered with my own personal style. After re-reading some of my work, I eventually started to see what she was talking about and I began to embrace it. Once I got in touch with this personal style of mine, my “writer’s voice”, my writing drastically improved. Again, this lesson is applicable beyond journalism. Your personality seeps out of you in all that you do. After every conversation that you have and every action that you take, your own personal stamp is left behind2.
While I initially didn’t have a good read on my writing style, I’m pretty sure I had a firm grasp on the entire scope of my personality. Or at least I hope I did. Ever since 8th grade I have been trying to creatively express who I am to my peers by way of social networking devices. Whether it was an AOL or AIM profile or my senior last words in high school I’ve had countless opportunities to sum up my being and show it to others my age. These attempts at a self portrait have been my way of presenting the specific aspects of my personality that I want others to see.
During the first few months of my freshmen year of college the juggernaut of these social networking sites, www.thefacebook.com, really took off. By my senior year the site had become an integral part of college life. Facebook gave undergrads a new language, a new way to interact with one another, and something new to gossip about. Its pervasiveness made it a natural topic selection for Jackie and me.
Facebook was great at first because it provided college kids with a way to keep in touch with their high school friends, to cultivate new friendships with their classmates, and to get a guilt-free glance at the lives of everyone else on their campus. All you needed was a valid college email address and you could sign up for a free account. Once you signed up you could upload a picture, fill out your profile (your birthday, relationship status, favorite movies, books, TV shows, hobbies, etc), and request to be “friends” with anyone else that had an account. Once you were “friends” with someone you could write them a message that only they could see or one on their “wall” that everyone that they were “friends” with could see.
I don’t want to say that Facebook unequivocally strengthened friendships because in many ways it cheapened them, but reminding its users when a “friend” had a birthday coming up was an overwhelming success. Admittedly, if not for Facebook, I wouldn’t know the birthday of most of my closest friends.
That being said, if you ask me, I think Facebook’s popularity was really propelled by pictures. I mean, everyone aimed to present themselves in the best possible light, but their favorite music and quotes were only going to get them so far. Facebook not only allowed users to upload a picture for their profile, but they could also upload “photo albums” of no more than 60 pictures (per album). Users could then “tag” any of their friends that appeared in the photos. The key here was that if you were viewing someone’s profile you could see how many pictures that they were “tagged” in and then look through those. As I’m sure you might imagine or already know there were plenty of girls that looked hot in their pictures on Facebook, but then not so hot in person. Also there were a few girls that looked great in person, but inexplicably didn’t look so great in their Facebook photos.
Shortly after Facebook took off quicker than Chia Pets, slap bracelets, and tamagotchis combined an unwritten etiquette seemed to develop. For example, any guy that consistently wrote on a girl’s wall without her writing back on his was deemed a “Facebook stalker.” Fun fact- There was actually a kid in my grade that was notorious for this. I swear if you looked at any attractive girl’s profile there would almost certainly be a post from him. In most cases there were multiple posts that looked they were written by a hormonal 13 year old. If I had to guess I’d say only about 10 percent of girls responded on his wall and usually only after he had written 5-6 times on theirs. The kid was a bona fide creep and for reasons unbeknownst to me his friends nicknamed him “The Gator.” I assume it had something to do with his predatory nature, but I’m not kidding when I say that he was one of the better known names around campus because of his ramped Facebook faux pas. Other Facebook no no’s included many areas of picture selection, any action that would suggest that you were constantly on the site (i.e. responding too quickly to a friend’s wall post), and having a fake relationship status with a friend of the same sex. The latter was a very popular move by many females that were perhaps embarrassed about being single.
By the time my senior year rolled around things on Facebook were starting to get a little absurd. Users were allowed to upload all sorts of applications that I found to be just plain stupid. For example, people could send their friends animated “gifts” like a cupcake or a palm tree. They could ask their friends to choose a side between the Yankees and Red Sox or even between two unrelated groups like pirates and ninjas. Users could also create quizzes about any topic of their choice (Harry Potter, old school Nickelodeon shows, etc.) for their friends to take. The results of said quizzes were then posted on the participant’s profile.
Even with all of the unnecessary applications Facebook’s popularity did not waver. In fact, it probably grew. There were applications for just about every niche you could think of. Facebook became such a part of the college culture that it was probably the most common bond among the entire student body. To put that in terms of numbers, Fairfield was roughly 88% white during my four years there, but I would argue that at least 90% of the population was on Facebook.
The Mirror on October 3rd, 2007:
Facebook is the epicenter of our existence as college students. If it isn’t your homepage, it probably should be because it’s everyone’s most visited site. My excuse is that I check my email a lot. Whatever, it makes me feel better about myself.
Things are getting a little out of control with the applications. I will not be a ninja or pirate, so stop asking me, but let’s just let Mark Zuckerberg live for giving us the best thing since webshots.
Selecting your picture is crucial. If I see another picture of someone flaunting a keystone or a red solo cup I might vomit. We’re all in college. We all drink. Also, guys don’t use a baby picture of yourself. That just reeks of desperation. Scatter actual baby pictures of you and your cousin around your house like I do3.
Albums are priceless, but do we really have to name them after whatever rap song is popular at the time? “ThE gOoD LiFe” is embarrassing. Pick a case. 45 pictures of you changing the expressions on your faces while pregaming? Oh no, you forgot to do the kissy face. Take another one. You’re a joke. Am I the only one counting down the days until the spring break albums are released?
Friends of the same sex (I can’t believe some guys do this) that are in an open relationship/ it’s complicated with each other are about as funny as Jackie’s column and I’ll tell you something that isn’t complicated-the amount of friends they have-0. If you are actually in an open relationship have some self-respect and don’t put it on Facebook. Like don’t tell the world that your ‘girlfriend’ is looking to have sex with other people4.
I hate the “I’ve never facebooked anyone” guy. Not only have you done it, but you also probably suck at life and changed your privacy settings so people can’t see your profile. I understand why some babes go private, but guys, really? The only reason we even want to see your profile is to show others how much of a d-bag you are.
The wall-to-wall barely edges out the online now as my favorite feature. (It finally pays off to be at the end of the alphabet) If anyone has written on your wall 4+ times in a row you need to call a timeout and stop the mo. Speaking of which, beware of the gator.
1- I'm pretty sure that this chapter of the memoir plateaus as well , but whatever.
2- There's a fart joke in there somewhere
3- Tim and I had the following two pictures blown up and prominently displayed in our house.
4- I must give credit where credit is due. My buddy Glancy gave me that joke. More on him later.
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