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My First Blog Post

Be yourself; Everyone else is already taken.
— Oscar Wilde.

This is the first post on my new blog. I’m just getting this new blog going, so stay tuned for more. Subscribe below to get notified when I post new updates.

Assuming things go as planned, I will work in the Public Relations sector of an organization which fits my worldview. Being a person who values his own morals and always wants to do good, it was hard to find where I fit within my major. Sure, I enjoy writing and I enjoy making people happy, but it is difficult to not feel slimy when segmenting and simplifying large groups of people. My previous post dealt with creating messages designed for specific groups, and doing so will usually come with ignorant, surface-level ideas that only happen when treating people as a group. The idea of the masses is terrifying to me because it dehumanizes the individuals.

My need to be different from others is reflective of how I want to change PR. Already companies have tried different approaches and found success. Particularly I have noticed a trend of self-awareness benefitting organizations on the internet. The first to make this method work is the ever-hilarious Wendy’s Twitter by subverting the idea of a business account entirely, insulting users and acting as an individual, instead of a corporate entity. The approach of corporate self-awareness has also worked for Canada’s famous No Name brand which features comically simple designs that catch the eye.

These examples are what I would consider better adaptations to the Internet and Internet culture than what other orgs have been trying. The idea of developing a brand voice came soon after, since Wendy’s did so well each company just HAD to have their own personality. The truth is corporations cannot talk — behind every picture, post, and tweet is just some person at a computer being payed to embellish on behalf of the stakeholders. In my mind, breaking that veil which gives the title of “customer” to the business and “company” to the user is what PR is about.

Allow me to give an example, and it is the first time PR had really stood out to me. When Activision released their newest Call of Duty game, Modern Warfare 2, people were playing online at rates high enough to garner news press as a world phenomenon. A man named Robert Bowling was given the title of Community Manager and was tasked in taking and answering the community’s inquiries on his twitter @fourzerotwo.

For those who are unfamiliar with video games, gamers as an audience seem like the worst group to do PR for. They will complain about how broken the game is in its current state, they will complain that new changes ruined the game, they will each have and voice many opinions on how to make things better, and they’ll still play the game daily while doing so. As a person who games himself, we are the only group where stronger backlash and vitriol indicates our passion for the game and want it to be as good as it can be.

Bowling’s approach was genius as he was not listed as the game’s developer Infinity Ward or Activison, it was his personal account. Because he was seen as an individual, the community was more considerate when giving criticism, and there was a clear separation that Bowling was a messenger and couldn’t implement change himself. The gaming community can recognize when they are receiving canned corporate messages, so the answer was to break down all the walls. Every player knew Bowling was payed to be in his position, but positive change to the game did not feel like fan appeasement, it felt like a favor directly from him.

Bowling would still deal with trolls, but I think Bowling’s example is one which deserves to be looked at. The title of Community Manager, and the emphasis on him as a corporate representative would seemingly lead to a heavy corporate voice. It turns out that a corporation revealing that it acts like a corporation is the most genuine and human thing it can do. The gamers did not see themselves as angry customers, they were fans. And Bowling did not see himself as a company, he was a bullshitter.

My Kind of Advertising

Since I started watching shows Hulu a few weeks ago, I have had the opportunity to watch commercials again after Netflix threw Cable TV out of my life. As a PR person, I relate to my advertising comrades and cannot help but view these commercials from the perspective of idea cultivation and execution. One commercial particularly stood out and I would like to give my summary of the ad because I cannot seem to find a copy online. I will not be giving any brand names either.

The ad is for an online communication/video call platform — quite common to see during COVID-19. The story of this ad has a son is video calling his mom for help on making a family recipe. A generic upbeat/inspirational commercial song is playing to set the tone. Initially, you see the son’s hand’s carefully wrapping corn husks presumably in order to make Tamales. A narrator interjects, saying something along the lines of, “in a world with social isolation, with [our product] you can keep tradition alive.” The scene continues, showing shots of a tablet with Mom giving directions, her son lining up the husks to be steamed. For a moment, the ad reminded me of my first time living alone and cooking for myself. Right at the climax of the ad, the son is successfully revealing his Tamales, the mother is shown on screen, proud as can be, and then I hear…trumpets. The Narrator tells us about the product once again, and the ad ends.

My reaction was a mix of recoil, laughter, and cringe.

If you have not already realized, whoever created this ad meant to appeal to Latino viewers. While none of what happened in the ad would be considered incorrect or offensive, allow me to describe why I believe it does not work.

To add context, I am mixed European and Filipino, which as far as race-by-sight goes, most would call me White. Recently I was tasked to create messages which targeted African American/Black people as well as Hispanic people. Because I am minimally immersed in these groups’ cultures, I found myself wondering how I would approach my messages. It is key to note, that targeting these groups does not mean you are just talking to them, effectively you are representing them. Without a voice who knows and understands their culture, you preach to them just as much as you reveal how you view them.

My solution? I chose to detach race from my messages, and I think the result would resonate more. The story of my message was a parent who was apprehensive about having medical work done on her son. But she realizes that this treatment would also affect her son’s future wife, her daughter-in-law, and likely the best thing in her son’s life. The phrase, “it isn’t just for him,” against a photo of a wedding ceremony, the bride’s silhouette clearly missing from the image was what I created.

Nothing in that story referenced race, yet it was my message for the Black community. The only indicator I chose was to have the subjects of the wedding photo to be a Black couple. I differed from the Tamales ad by choosing to not celebrate the group I was speaking to. It is my opinion that these “celebrations” of race and culture are not necessary, especially in a business/monetary context. The main reason being that cultures already celebrate themselves more than any Advertising team could, but also advertisers run the risk of being too preachy. The Tamales ad began tastefully, but by the end was basically saying, “Look! Tamales, Tradition, Trumpets! You get it right?!”

Just thinking of how many people reviewed, approved, and budgeted the ad baffles me. It is even possible that they had a Latino person advising the process, I can already picture the executives saying, “make it more…y’know.”

So, the moral of this story is to show and not tell. The Tamales ad would have been great if they cut the white-sounding narrator talking about tradition, and instead let the story tell itself. Regardless of race, or any other demographics, no one enjoys being put on a pedestal. Sometimes the best way to resonate with a specific group, is by not making them special at all.

Here are some commercials which do right. This one by State Farm is well-known, and this New York Times article gives comparisons as to how race can affect the same story.

The Inbetweeners

With so many conversations about Millennials, Gen Z, and the unrivaled nostalgia of being a “90’s kid,” I thought I might give my own cranky old man rant about how kids these days don’t know the half of it.

With every generation, there is more than just a sense of unity, there is an inherent pride that comes with the things you did and saw when you were around 11 to 13. Even The Who’s song My Generation shows that this kind of showboating happened in the past. It’s gotten to the point where I question my own tastes, like whether or not the original Disney Renaissance movies I grew up with were the masterpieces I know them to be, or if my bias is talking for me.

For context, I was born in 1995, and in some ways, I don’t feel like I belong to any generation. I think the time I was a child represented a massive cultural shift in America, and that both Millennials and Gen Z represent the before and after. The bombastic culture of the 90’s held on into the 00’s as America underwent the consequences of 9/11 and the beginning of technology moving faster than we could handle. When I started school, I was familiar with the sound of dial-up internet — by the time I graduated high school our computer labs were replaces with carts of MacBooks to supplement the computer in our pocket.

I am glad I grew up with technology and can adapt easily as things grow. But I am much happier that I was able to experience the how life was before. This kind of thinking tends to be brought up when discussing privacy and social media. We all did embarrassing things as children, but never once was it permanently stored and relivable online. With the internet, kids are catching on to things much faster and much earlier in life.

When I think of our generation, I see a blurred image. There is no way to break down and objectively look at the clash of cultures and messages that plagued us when we were children. Did we take those ideas in with no concern or is our generation a reaction to those ideas? We were given lies — The Food Pyramid, watching TV melts your brain, your country is looking out for you, video games make you violent, the guilty always receives justice. We pledged our allegiance daily to a flag. A flag which represents freedom and liberty in a country made up of immigrants who abused the natives and used slaves just so people in the 21^st century could say, “go back to your own country!” Every generation before us told us what a good job they were doing, to treat others how we want to be treated and that every individual is special. The news said our generation has poor interpersonal skills due to our reliance on social media. This sentiment only stopped once businesses found social media to be useful.

If our generation seems apathetic, it is because everything which we used to build our world view was found to be distorted. Following money and power to its source leads to bottomless rabbit holes, but there was a simple truth in front of me the whole time.

Generations are inherited. It was never the change in technology or entertainment, but rather the problems which were unaffected and never told to us. Through the lens of poverty, hunger, freedom, happiness, generational lines do not mean a thing. We overlook these issues not because they are too big to handle, but because it is a failure which makes us all the same. We let technological and social change act as proof that modern people are more refined than the past. But quality of life does not equal quality of person. I hope my generation can break the cycle by first blaming ourselves. If there are those who think our generation is far detached from the atrocities of slavery, we all carry an aluminum rectangle with the answer. To consider each generation as its own, is equivalent to humanity having short-term memory loss.

Too Real For You

When I attended an influencer panel this past week I was able to catch some advice and insight into a relatively new profession which has been growing immensely. Of what was said, many of the guests spoke on the authenticity of their content and how it lead them to their success. It speaks to possibly the worst piece of advice one can give, just be yourself.

Firstly, I think the strength of the internet is that it gives one a chance to be even better than themselves. Think of the many times you’ve edited an important text and how that same amenity would be useful in real-world conversation. With every online account there is a skew towards how that person wants to be seen, how they can embellish their best and omit the worst.

I believe that if we were asked to think of our genuine selves, the first thing we picture is happiness. I also believe when thinking of our true selves we often don’t consider our present selves. Unless you are someone who has fully achieved self-realization, you are like the rest of us, watching a movie starring ourselves and trying to put together the pieces.

My point is, people are complicated — they will do their best to avoid showing the aspects of themselves that they dislike, even if it’s part of their genuine self. But this case isn’t airtight, which is where many find their success.

What makes fans or followers who stick around are those who can relate to you. In many ways, relating to others is the currency of social media and the internet culture we live in. In the fight for being real, being authentic, being unique, our end goal is to align with others’ personalities. With the depth that each individual can have, they walk a tightrope between being completely genuine and tempering their person to be more universally understood.

My perspective on this comes from two comedic bits I found in High School. George Carlin’s piece on simplifying language and Bo Burnham’s satirical take on live songs, titled Repeat Stuff. Back when I was a ‘music nazi’ as I call it, I would always criticize pop music’s lyrics for their formulaic approach to emotion. When I listen to John Legend’s song All of Me, I only see a love song which is void of any context or specificity. As Bo points to in his song, I cannot imagine the person John describes because it could be any person. Maybe that is the message behind the song and I am just being cynical, but I cant help but think that its those details which give life to any work of art.

So where does this put us in the world of social media? Do I post like no one will ever see? Or do I make my post just #relateable enough to maximize connecting with everyone who sees it? In all honesty, I have no clue. But my advice would be to envision the group of people you want to see your content and work for them first. The second would be to dig deeper with each post. Always try new things and your audience will learn more and more about yourself, too.

She Knows When You’re Awake

It’s 2020, and we enter the decade continuing to be blissfully unaware of organizations taking and trading the personal information we sign away in Terms of Service agreements almost as long as a CVS receipt.

Everyone knows the story now, a person mentions something in conversation unrelated to them only to suddenly see it in an online ad. It has been so prevalent that many have tested it on purpose and have gotten the same results. The optimist in me says that if companies are going to force ads on us then I would actually prefer ones which are relevant. The cynic says there’s much worse already happening in the background, and policy on the matter has yet to catch up.

2014, on year after Edward Snowden made the ultimate sacrifice to reveal that the NSA had global surveillance capability which, if used maliciously, compromised every US citizen’s privacy. The event was met with large amounts of press yet the implications from Snowden’s report left a lukewarm reaction among the public. In March, 60 Minutes releases an episode investigating a similar breach. But this time, it lies within the corporate world, and we all signed up for it.

Much of the public outcry has been aimed at the Amazon home assistant, Alexa. There is certainly a challenge in creating a device which is meant to respond to your voice, but ethically shouldn’t be listening all the time. Last April, CNN releases an article revealing that there might be an Amazon employee listening in when you give Alexa commands. The article claims that it is being used to improve on Alexa’s voice recognition software, which I believe is clear deception, as if Amazon didn’t have more than enough speech to refine the software.

In response, Amazon has a page on their website which gives methods they’ve implemented to own Alexa but stay as private as you wish. Among listing ‘wake up’ words, recording playback, and camera/microphone controls, they left out that the best way to retain privacy is to not own an Alexa.

Now we find ourselves in the fog of personal data sold through social media. In some ways, I can understand the focus on Alexa. The guise of something listening to you, in your home, is much more tangible than the transfer of information online. Even still, the comparison is nowhere close. People talk about Alexa as if they’re going to recite their address and social security number in their sleep. The reality is that by signing up for the increasingly popular and necessary social media websites we all choose to give up our info.

So here’s my take on the future and what policy needs to change for our privacy, taking some notes from Alexa:

The choice to give away information is ours as the consumer, Terms of Service contracts should be clear and concise in how and what they do with information. It shouldn’t take more than a minute to read.

On a similar note, access to these websites should still be available without giving away every single thing you put on it. Things we post are chosen to be put out there and can be exchanged, but there should be options to opt out of giving personal info.

We need a way to monitor our info and when we choose to exit these terms we should be able to control it on the 3rd party seller’s end as well.

These stipulations only exist in a perfectly private world. In reality the exchange of personal information has already been done on such a large scale and so effectively that we cannot erase it. Perhaps it can be overlooked with our government in the name of security, but in this case its a battle against big business. If there’s anything I’ve learned growing up in this country, its that we preserve nothing more than the areas where profit is made.

About This Blog

My name is Adam, I am a college student studying Public Relations and I would like to think I have original ideas. What engages my creative side is the idea that everyone has the ability to make something new. We all have our own set of experiences, our own reaction to them, and each person’s perspective shapes what they create. It isn’t solo act, however. The true goal of art, and what makes art good, is relating to others.

Not to say it’s a popularity contest — just ask any music snob about their favorite underground band and how they deserve more attention but are also too good for it anyway. The best music is music with the ability to sound immediately familar even if its the first listen. Some works of art are popular because they’re accesible, some are popular because they’re relateable, and often the best are both.

That brings us to Public Relations. Much like music and movies the messages we send are both creative and calculated. I feel that having a creative mindset brings an advantage in this field. The final step is thinking of the viewer, and changing your work so there is mutual understanding.

That said, the content of this blog will be to discuss the changing world with the internet becoming bigger and bigger in our lives.

Introduce Yourself (Example Post)

This is an example post, originally published as part of Blogging University. Enroll in one of our ten programs, and start your blog right.

You’re going to publish a post today. Don’t worry about how your blog looks. Don’t worry if you haven’t given it a name yet, or you’re feeling overwhelmed. Just click the “New Post” button, and tell us why you’re here.

Why do this?

Because it gives new readers context. What are you about? Why should they read your blog?
Because it will help you focus you own ideas about your blog and what you’d like to do with it.

The post can be short or long, a personal intro to your life or a bloggy mission statement, a manifesto for the future or a simple outline of your the types of things you hope to publish.

To help you get started, here are a few questions:

Why are you blogging publicly, rather than keeping a personal journal?
What topics do you think you’ll write about?
Who would you love to connect with via your blog?
If you blog successfully throughout the next year, what would you hope to have accomplished?

You’re not locked into any of this; one of the wonderful things about blogs is how they constantly evolve as we learn, grow, and interact with one another — but it’s good to know where and why you started, and articulating your goals may just give you a few other post ideas.

Can’t think how to get started? Just write the first thing that pops into your head. Anne Lamott, author of a book on writing we love, says that you need to give yourself permission to write a “crappy first draft”. Anne makes a great point — just start writing, and worry about editing it later.

When you’re ready to publish, give your post three to five tags that describe your blog’s focus — writing, photography, fiction, parenting, food, cars, movies, sports, whatever. These tags will help others who care about your topics find you in the Reader. Make sure one of the tags is “zerotohero,” so other new bloggers can find you, too.