Educational Video Why are Things Cute?

The video I picked is called "Why are Things Cute?" and is about why people perceive certain things to cute.  The maker of the video is call VSauce, and they usually make videos explaining physics concepts and other scientific curiosities, like how much does the internet weigh or what color is a mirror.  They go into immense detai, but remain easy to understand and at a fast pace.  Their videos usually contain the same man, who introduces himself as Michael at the beginning of each video, and the video changes from shots of him, to mostly still photos of what he is explaining.  The reason I picked this video, is the same reason I like watching their videos, it goes into great detail explaining a question most people never even thought to ask or consider.  The video is a good example of what we are doing in class because it is a low budget and informative video.  The most important thing about the video is not the visuals but what is being said.  The pictures and animations are there just to compliment Michael's words.

Infographic Description

When constructing the picture the first thing I did was divide the picture into two colors to represent the Democratic and Republican parties.  I used the dividing line as a reference point for lining up the text in the picture and the center picture of a road surface.  I placed the picture and shapes first then laid the corresponding text over them.  For the top and bottom I used the rectangle tool, and changed the shape to an arrow for the side portion.  

I got the information from a website called statsinthewild.wordpress.com, and the image from filterforge.com.  The information was from a different infographic but I simplified the design and limited the brands represented and added some color.  Copyrighted materials are fair use because they are not being used in a marketable capacity.

Infographic

The infographic I created was about car brands and how their owners are wiling to vote.  The purchase of a car is generally the second largest purchase that a person will make and is an important decision.  The automotive market is one of the biggest in the world, and large enough to warrant attention from American politicians.  The Big Three car companies have been the topic of debate for years, and carry a lot of weight it comes to voting.  Unions that represent the workers in those companies, are strong proponents of voting and particularly for the democratic party.  It was a surprise to see so many domestic brands on the Republican side because most republicans were not for the auto bailout of GM and Chrysler, whose brands are on the Republican side.

The infographic itself is very simple, a car brand lines up on one side or the other based on how owners of their cars are most likely to vote.  The brands are also organized by how likely their voters are to vote.  The brands with higher voter turnouts are at the top, and lower turnouts on the bottom.  I kept the design simple because I thought it was better to have an easily readable and understandable message.  The design is meant to be balanced, from a visually standpoint each color has the same amount of space and both the top and bottom are white with black text, and all of the text is the same font.  The other way the infographic represents balance is the companies that are represented, brands are from multiple countries but more importantly brands that vary in the social classes they typically represent.  I avoided information that would require numerical representation because I thought that would over complicate the design, and wouldn't make as big of an impact on the viewer.  The main frustration of this infographic was trying to get the information set up in a way that could be understandable with as little explanation as possible.

My Twitter Experience

My favorite part of using Twitter is sports updates while they happen.  I no longer live in the market of the teams I follow, and cannot watch them on TV.  It is also neat to see other people commenting on the same events while they are happening.  I don't get news on current events from Twitter, but every once in a while, a tweet will pop up that will catch my interest and I'll go and research it.  The part of Twitter I don't like is, because I follow over 200 accounts, the information on my newsfeed is constantly being changed, and can get visually overwhelming.  Even though you pick the people or companies you follow, there is no way to filter out the less important and relevant information, unless you actively go to their page.  Many people's tweets are replies, and because you don't initially see the original message, the reply is essentially meaningless.

Twitter allows you to get real time reactions t events from people all over the world.  People with smartphones are able to quickly write a tweet a post instantly as something happens.  Facebook allows you to do the same thing, but you get information from people that you are friends with, people that have confirmed you as a friend, limiting the amount.  On Twitter you can follow anybody without having to wait for confirmation, unless they have a secure account.  The biggest difference is Twitter is more about following people you don't know directly and Facebook is.  Twitter is different from the traditional blog because it limits the size of your posts.  On a typical blog, the writer's limit is only what they can write and what they think the average reader is willing to complete.  Twitter allows readers to quickly finish a post and move on.  By limiting the amount of characters per posts, I sometimes get frustrated because it usually takes me more than 140 characters for me to complete a thought, I fear that the readers will not understand fully what I'm trying to say, and it's even more limiting if you post a link.

The conversations I have on Twitter are usually just with my friends that have accounts, and that is only two people.  Most of the people I have do not have accounts so I talk to them on Facebook or on the phone.  Most of the conversations I have are with my friend Mark and are usually shallow and vacuous in nature, but if we wanted to have a real conversation we would talk on the phone.

Before this weekend, I used Twitter sparingly seeing only some of the benefits, I generally only saw how it impacted me personally and since most of the people I know don't use it, I didn't see the impact as being very substantially.  After this weekend I realized that Twitter is important because it is a way to get many people's opinions quickly, and knowing what people think and value is important to many organizations like the government and companies.  It is like a constant poll of people's attitudes towards certain topics and policies.

I think Twitter can be used to have meaningful communications and political debates, because it allows a person to connect directly to many people without having to know them or get confirmation from them, but with so much information being shared, it is hard for certain messages to get noticed, and it is hard to express a thought when you are limited to the amount of characters you can post.  I think Twitter can be used for political debates and meaningful communication, but those usually require the expression of complex thoughts, which are hard to complete in 140 characters.