…Hang on; who am I talking to here? No one? Hmm, that’s what I thought.

I’ve decided to make an effort to actually use this blog. Somehow, I figure that will justify the money I spend each year to host my website. The only problem is that I don’t know how to use my blog. I don’t know what kind of voice and tone I should foster here. I don’t know if I should be Academic Lauren (*snort*) or Cool Hip LaurDog (*guffaw*). AND SO, I’ve decided to strike a happy medium. I am an academic (or, I’m trying to be), but that’s not all I am. I also like writing for myself, which I rarely do anymore. I like writing casually. I also like the idea that, occasionally, something I say may strike a chord with someone on the grand ol’ intarwebz. So, I’ll blog to network, and I’ll also just blog to write. Plan!

So here is what’s been on my mind all day. It’s this commercial, for 901 Tequila, directed by Justin Timberlake. (I’m majorly sorry the video is too wide for this blog theme. I hate that.)

My opinion on this commercial is mixed. It’s old hat, for one; sell a product with sexuality. In the words of my students (every single year), “Sex sells!” Blah blah. Yet it’s undeniable that the most unique, fresh, and perhaps, one could argue, groundbreaking element of this ad is the fact that the woman’s pleasure is at the forefront of the sex-selling message. The vast majority of commercials — especially commercials for alcohol — use women as purveyors of male sexual arousal and pleasure, but in this 901 tequila commercial, it’s the woman who is being pleasured. And, arguably, it’s done in a way that doesn’t rely on patriarchal assumptions of what makes women feel good. Read: the act is all about her; he isn’t involved to the degree that he is receiving the same amount of pleasure. So, basically, we have an ad for tequila that sells its product by highlighting female sexuality, glamour, and power. Rock n roll.

The power given to the woman in the ad is another element that strikes me as positive and fresh. She moves with purpose and intent, and she gets what she wants at the end, without asking or promising she’ll reciprocate. She’s beautiful in a really admirable way, that is not cliché (rhyme!). Plus, she’s quoting Ben Franklin!*

And yet, at the same time… what? How does a comment against stuffy, oppressive British politics relate to tequila and cunnilingus? (I’m using that word to sound hopefully, less crass. If it bothers you… maybe don’t come back to my blog again. heheh.) Call me crazy, but I don’t see the parallels. I feel that the odd pairing is exacerbated by the woman’s delivery of the lines. I had to watch the video three times before I realized what the hell she was saying. Where’s the metaphor? Is she the remote province? What’s the cake?! Is the awkwardness in the ad due to her delivery, or is it the inability to reconcile 18th-century rhetoric with a 21-century tequila ad? Maybe some would argue that doesn’t matter, but how many people who view this will recognize the source of what she’s spouting? I’ma guess not too many. And so, the message is lost on viewers. She starts her speech off with the equivalent to what one would see in a terrible English 101 paper. (“In the first place, you are to consider”? Wut?)

Maybe superslick JT is trying his damnedest to go high brow. I think it’s a little too esoteric.

PLUS… I’m just going to say it: It bugs me that the woman pours the tequila for her man. Why doesn’t she get any? Is the glass an incentive to go down on her? (I don’t really believe that, but it’s a depressing consideration nonetheless and probably shouldn’t be disregarded entirely.) And, to the less informed audience, I bet she sounds irritatingly verbose. Because frankly, she does to me. Wrong choice of text there, JTimbs. Plusplus, the title of the video — Let Them Eat Cake — is so incredibly irrelevant to the content of the ad. Maybe that was just the YouTuber who uploaded the thing, but I wanted to complain about it anyway.

In spite (because?) of all this, I have spent the majority of today trying to “get” this ad, so apparently it’s working. Bollocks. I will say, positively, that in addition to the woman’s lovely badassedness, the guy looks like Matthew Fox. And that, my friends, is nomtown.

* See: Rules by Which a Great Empire May Be Reduced to a Small One. And then reflect on how outrageously awesome Benjamin Franklin was. No wonder everyone assumes he was a US President.

Anyway, so, the other day I was on the NCSU website to see if I had the ability to claim an email address, and I stumbled upon this:

I find it a) epically awesome that I am already on their website, and b) even more epically awesome that, once I graduate in 5 weeks (FIVE WEEKS!) I will officially be a doctoral student. (Right, isn’t that how it works? I remember the last day of classes my Junior year of high school, when my friends and I left campus and were yelling, “We’re Seniors!!” I don’t know if it’s legitimate, but I guess once you are not what you used to be, you are what you will become. Or something. Or maybe I have no idea what I’m talking about.)

As my mom wrote in a Facebook message to me, “the world will have tiny, curly-haired Dr. Lauren Clark in a few years!”

1:02 The End! First liveblogging attempt, I believe, a success!

12:59 Chris: Part of the role model role and the cheerleader role is that we, as instructors, are modeling usage and an attitude toward digital technologies instead of playing know-it-all. Julie: students often use blogging inappropriately, especially in the classroom, because they’re not being pushed or challenged. Commenting is one of the best ways to model the use of digital technologies in the classroom, and embody the cheerleader role simultaneously.

12:58 Apparently ETD pdfs can have links, and images. However, no video.

12:54 Question Time! What do you do when students are reluctant to participate in digital technologies? One solution is to keep that space closed, to create a safe environment where students feel comfortable.

12:52 Jason’s made the point that Twitter works best when installed on a mobile device, in order to create a proprioreceptive relationship with friends. I think this is pretty obvious, because when I’m tweeting from my laptop, I’m generally doing something really boring, like writing, or looking at Facebook.

12:51 The ways in which narratives are affected by digital technologies are AWESOME.

12:47 Talking about Rider Spoke, put together by Blast Theory. This is the project where a person has a headset and a bike, and listens to directions given through the earpiece about where to bike. Participants then have the opportunity to find a specific place that reminds them of a particular memory, and record it. Those recording are geo-tagged, and others can then listen to your memories recorded at those places.

12:43 A real draw toward the internet now is social networks; what’s going to happen when we move this relationship onto our mobile devices? This is going to shift the social interaction from taking place through a screen into being closely tied to proximity (ex: iPhone apps that let you physically locate other people with that app, being close friends with someone in Japan with whom you can communicate in multiple ways across multiple platforms.)

12:41 Cyberspace has always been a personal relationship with your screen. Laptops changed this, with mobility, but our relationship with cyberspace is now integrated much more closely with our physical embodiment – what with iPhones, GPS navigation, social networking, etc.

12:38 Jason’s turn! He is focusing on an area where he sees a key shift in digital scholarship – the move away from personal computing toward physical or mobile computing. We are finally moving toward true ubiquitous computing.

12:37 If anyone wants to talk to Julie for a half an hour in the hallway, ask her about scholarship, pedagogy, or creating archives!

12:36 Julie’s advice: Find ways to use technologies to get students to light up as much as you are.

12:34 When teaching with technology, Julie follows the advice of Jeremy Boggs. Otherwise, students will create digital projects and wonder, what’s the point? If students aren’t creating new knowledge, if they’re not being helped through new and unfamiliar technologies, and if they’re not positively reinforced and encouraged, then digital scholarship is gonna fall flat on its face.

12:33 How do we start creating a digital scholarship? Step One is to find what lights you up. Step two is to make sure you are legitimizing the use of technology in the classroom.

12:29 Digital Humanities isn’t simply putting things online – that would make anybody a digital humanist! 

12:27 The point of digital humanities is to bridge gaps – gaps between pedagogies, teachers and students, various topics. Julie wants to know: how do we talk about old texts with new tools? Moreover, how do we get students to critically read texts like, say, Melville?

12:26 Julie’s turn! She says that Digital Humanities is the one place where she sees people getting jobs. Although she’s an Americanist, Julie is super techy – she can’t break away from her world of computers and coding!

12:24 Chris says UMI needs to abandon their current practices with digital formatting, allow truly digital ETDs, and scholars need the options presented to them in order to be able to create those truly digital ETDs.

12:21 Chris’s Diss intends to map and analyze networks (he studies World of Warcraft), but he can’t do the kinds of mapping he wants to do because when UMI states it wants a digital version, what they really want is a .pdf. 

12:18 Electronic Theses and Dissertations (ETDs) may seem super prevalent already, but options (even figuring out what they are) are limited.

12:17 Kairos earned the Best Journal Design Award at MLA this year – take that, Cheryl Ball! (Just kidding.) 

12:15 Chris is a student of techno-rhetoric (and a computer geek). He’s discussing the benefits of composing with new media, and how creative it allows you to be. This reminds me of what Richard Miller said last night (he Skyped into my Institutions,Technology, Education, and Agency class) about how humanists must move from just critique and into creativity.

12:12 Chris is opening discussion. He’s talking on the research he’s presenting at Cs, too. 

12:11 Chris just recently passed his exams! Julie’s are in the fall. These people are SMRT. I would write down their research and scholarship, but Jason said them too fast. 

12:10 The actual title is Emerging Trends in the Digital Humanities. My bad.

I get a lot of Mod Cloth ads on Facebook, and I don’t mind them. Often, they give me a new garment to obsess over for a while, until I get over it because I can’t afford it. This ad is no different. However, I already obsessed over these shoes. And when they went on sale at endless.com, I bought them. Yes, mon chéri, I own those heels, and I purchased them online.

I am sure the case is just that the shoes are killer and therefore they were used in an ad. Maybe they have been successfully advertised as of late and their sales went up drastically and so Mod Cloth is appealing to the statistics of their demographic, myself (clearly) included. However, there is a small part of me that feels incredibly anxious at the thought of this ad being tailored to me, specifically. Is that even possible? Can my online purchasing be tracked and sold to online advertising companies? I mean, I did only buy the heels a couple of months ago. I really think (read: hope) that I’m freaking out over nothing. But nonetheless, I am kinda freaking out.

Surveillance… dun dun duuuuuun.