Millennials Behind the Wheel

Several car/driving enthusiasts discussed the impact of the Fast and the Furious movie franchise has had on them, or lack thereof, and on car culture.

Cars have become extensions of people’s lives one way or another. They are honest beasts of machines because they only run as well as they are treated. This relationship between man and machine is examined through the lens of various car/driving enthusiasts in the Greater New York area. 

Car culture is not only relegated to the $30,000 dollar machines people use to commute to work, but also to more recreational areas such as go-karting. Enthusiasts are given the opportunity to explore the laws of physics in a venue where they can perform maneuvers that cannot be performed on the road.

Martin Ziga, a father of two girls, understands and appreciates the intricacies of driving as he takes his children to school every day through the hectic NYC traffic. The Bronx resident enjoys the freedom go-karting offers.

“There was a fire commissioner in my last race and the whole last two laps it was just me and him. And on the last turn, I got [on the inside] of him and he had a choice to make: he could either challenge me and possibly crash or let me go,” Ziga said.

Driving enthusiasts are commonly misconceived as those who love nothing but speed.  Speed, however, is not what attracts all enthusiasts. Dennis Willis, Jr., a junior at Rutgers University in Newark, simply likes driving for the convenience it provides. He is concerned with reckless behavior other drivers demonstrate.

“Experienced drivers do some crazy [stuff] and I’m just over here like ‘come on!’ I’m not ready for that.  Just relax while I’m on the road,” Willis, Jr. said.

Jonathan Harper, an employee of the Classic Car Club in Manhattan, not only has been obsessed with the automobile since birth, but now works with some of the world’s fastest and most popular cars. The NJ native recalled a cross-country road trip he made with his father to buy his first car.

“[We] did a trip from NJ to California and back in his ’94 Volvo 850 wagon. He told me I could drive in any state where I could own a gun or get married at the age of 12, so I drove in Wyoming,” Harper said.

Harper discussed what the Fast and the Furious franchise did for the industry today.

“There’s kind of a resurgence in American enthusiasm. In the most basic way, it exposed more people to more motorsport stuff,” Harper said.  “It hasn’t really had an effect personally on me, other than seeing the first movie and being like ‘whoa, [Honda] Civics can actually be pretty cool.”

The Classic Car Club (CCC) is private club in Manhattan in which members pay high dollar to drive some of the world’s most exotic vehicles  such as a 1989 BMW M3, McLaren 12C, and the Aston Martin Vantage just to name a few.

Car culture and driving are male-dominated environments in America, but female enthusiasts do exist and are here to stay. Anna Rizzo, a student at NJIT, explained why there is a negative view of females in regards to cars.

“I think a lot of girls are nervous, especially, are nervous about getting behind the wheel because there are so many accidents,” Rizzo said.  

Rizzo also talked about why the millennial generation does not seem as excited about cars as the previous generation.

“I think they’re expensive, so our generation is thinking about cars in a different way now,” Rizzo said.

On the other hand, there remains a special group within the millennial generation that is still in love with what these machines have to offer.

Mustafa Lawrence, a junior at Rutgers University in Newark, talked about this group and why they are inspired.

“You have those kids that love cars. They put their all into [it]. They work a part-time job just for their car,” Lawrence said.

The enthusiast population will be made even smaller with the production of self-driving cars. These vehicles will allow the general population to not worry about the dangers of other drivers on the roads.  A whole new infrastructure is in the development, albeit in the distant future, that will accommodate self-driving vehicles.

Praful Mathur is the founder of DerivativeD, a company that is focused on producing kits for people to build their own self-driving vehicles with open source software.

“We see the transportation problem in the world exacerbating because of limited road infrastructure or the inability to afford some of the vehicles that are available,” Mathur said. “There will be parts of the country that will be open to human driving, but I think the majority of the roads are going to be [for] self-driving.”


***This is a repost. I posted on time!***

What the Heck is Going On?

My blog's concept - what the heck is going on -  is to incorperate informational vegetables with informational desert. As part of Generation Y, I find that the concept is meshing fun with news seems incomprehensible. My blog is tailored for Generation Y news consumption. By utilizing different social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter,  news can live in a transmedia fashion. I take topics in the news and break them down in a way that "we could all like, totally understand." I have a hashtag #wtheckisgoingon and consumers can tweet me to explain news topics for them on my blog. Everything is interactive - from TV shows, radio, and beyond. I believe that news can also be interactive. It can also be a way to hold journalists accountable for their work - including the citizen journalist.

 

The Associated Press
The New York Times
The New York Times video
Kids React
The Washington Post
Pew Research Center
NPR
NPR Fresh Air
The Atlantic
The Nation
The Wall Street Journal
Reuters
The New Yorker
Buzzfeed
National Post

Since I believe that society is becoming image oriented, I've incorporated entertaining memes as well as informational graphs that look pretty and are easy to follow.  I also use contemporary examples to explain what would be considered media jargon for Generation Y. For example, I used Spongebob to explain what a Tea Party Republican is.

My theories are similar to that of many people we've learned about over the course of the semester. Similarly, to Steven Johnson's "Everything Bad is Good For You" - I think that people also learn a variety of different ways, even when they're not aware. In my opinion, that's the best way to learn. 

The blog will live on past the semester. As an aspiring journalist, my mission is to inform the public, and this is one way to do it. The internet will be the future of journalism and we need to utilize it the best way we can. 

Understanding Feminism For The Non Feminist.

Understanding Feminism For The Non Feminist is a feminist website, that aims at educating, informing and creating positive conversation about the feminist movement. As the site's tagline suggests, "Feminism is for everyone" whether you realize it or not. When it came time to start this project I realized that research was key, in order to build a site. I had to figure out what I wanted my site to say and how to differentiate it from the thousands of feminist websites out there.

I must say that because my site has become more than just a semester project, I am still figuring out where I want to take it. But what I can tell you is that, I want Understanding Feminism to be a place where people can come and be educated in a way that they had never considered.

I post original content on the site, but I also peruse other feminist sites to gather news that I think my reader will find interesting. The key to creating content that you believe will attract readers is by figuring who your demographic is.


Who is reading Understanding Feminism? 

Like Tyga says "I do it for the ratchets"

I do understanding feminism for those who obviously don't understand what feminism is about, but not because of a lack of education but more because of a misconception. Like I said in one of my first posts

"I realized that the problem wasn’t the feminist movement, but society’s misinterpretation of it." 

People had shyed away from the term and the movement because of a misunderstanding of what feminism is about and what it means to be a feminist. When you realize who you're writing for, it then becomes easier to streamline your content to be able to engage your reader. 

How did I create content for Understanding Feminism?

Getting people to read the blog, was interesting because it required me to examine what attracts my readers and how I can keep them interested in the content I was posting on the site. One of the first things I did was to find someone who I believe my readers can relate to. I incorporated a category known as Understanding Feminism on The Street and my first post was an interview with a Rutgers Student called Selorm Quist. Quist was my reader or who I wanted my reader to become after going on my site; she didn't identify as a feminist because of the negative connotations and then she began to educate herself and realized feminism was amazing. You can read the post here. When checking my blog statistics, I realized that this had received the highest views on my blog. I am using this as an example of how I used the idea of the type of readers I wanted to attract, to attract the readers I wanted. 

Another example is a post I did on an online epidemic that mostly affected women, known as Revenge Porn. This is something that is slowly becoming more and more popular, it is also something that my readers didn't know about.
So what did this post do? It introduced them to something new and not only that, the readers began to ask themselves "Why should I care about this" and "How does this make me a feminist or a feminist ally" or "What does this even have to do with feminism" 

Like I said, the site aims to educate and create positive conversation about the feminist movement. 

Follow Understanding Feminism on Wordpress
Follow Understanding Feminism on Twitter

Resource List

MSNBC
TED
EverydayFeminism.com
Jezebel.com
Politico.com
Slate.com
Clutchmagazine.com
Bitch Media
Ms Magazine
Auto Straddle
Feminist Frequency
Mashable.com
NPR.com
Mediaite.com
The Feminist eZine
Salon.com
LadyTroubles.com
XoJane.com
Huffington Post.com
Cosmopolitan.com
The Sacramento Bee.com
http://christianam.tumblr.com
http://rebeccacohenart.tumblr.com

Newarks Exclusive Art Community Blog

My final project is titled, Newarks Exclusive Art Community," in which I have placed my self in front of the camera as a host to engage viewers and to actually interview certain artists. I conducted the interviews before and after their shows. I also edited each video on my own.

Due to what blogger is able to upload I had to compress my video files to the point where they are not the original files. I began to explore another avenue such as word press but I would like to continue this blog and revamp  what type of compressor I use. With more time I would have been able to sit with experts who knew much better than I did. ( Yes, I did google a lot! Very complicated stuff)

The pictures and video that I did capture tell in depth stories about the artists that no one would be able to capture. This makes my blog very unique because you are not just looking at the exhibit photos. You are also be encouraged to interact with the artists through the comment sections. Also a lot of advertising was going on with the show that comes up this Friday title, "#PadManny," for curator Patricia A. Reynolds. Due to the creation of my blog she will be co-hosting with me in the future and we are going to take this show out of just Newark and into the city. We work well as a team and have great visions fro exposing the art world and getting personal with artists. This also benefits her career.

Check out my page on: nwkartcommunity.blogspot.com

Simply InsPiRe

The official guidebook for those who are interested in public relations and event planning in the entertainment business. Public relations can be such abroad topic when people ask you " what do you want do with your life" and those who are interested say "public relations", but it is much more than that. Consider public relations like an acquired taste. An acquainted taste to thrive and fulfill what many people attempt and try to do, but not officially execute it the way it can last a lifetime a memories unless it is a night to remember because it was such a disaster. To be in the industry of entertainment of event planning you must be outgoing to network and to be able to think quick on your toes.

My blog to Simply InsPiRe came to be because I have such a strong passion for it. It is like a drug that keeps me motivated and I will not stop until there is nothing left, even then once one task and event is done. I am ready to go to the next one. I realized this experience came to me when I was the one always in charge of planning and putting together ideas that the whole group can lead with. It always takes that one person to makes the initiative to have the others follow. 

Introduction to Public Relations and Event Planning 
Many people ask the question, what is so special about PR and who needs it? They don't realize everyone needs it.

PR is the side of credibility and having a reputation that will lead to to success. Everyone needs a good PR to lead to them to success because PR's are like the extra hand and guidance that you never really see until you sit back and think who plans all the events people attend to our the communication it takes to please the public. Leading onto public relations neighbors with event planning. Who has the patience to do all of the work and planning? The people that the public hire we specialize in pleasing the public to gain media in the best way possible.

Credibility can take months and years to build, but can be destroyed in a second. The main goal for PR is to make sure we are credible, reliable and we want to be recommended. Although it is a very stressful job and it is nonstop because you can be on call, we simply love it. You have to love it so much that it is so hard to described, but we wish we can show the feeling and joy we get through the adrenaline of the process and the final product.

Why Simply InsPiRe is different from every other blog.
Simply InsPiRe can and will be the new upcoming guidance for young students to lead into the world of PR. Although not everyone wants to know where they want to go and do in PR at least they can have a little guidance, since thats our speciality. Being able to relate to this is a huge factor toward why I believe this blog can and will grow. It is not only informative, but it is entertaining because their is no filters that will be released onto the blog. How you see it, read it, and feel for it is real.

The End Result
Former CBS journalist and later National Public Radio commentator Daniel Schorr once noted, "If you're not in the media, for all intents you don't exist." Every organization can benefit from publicity – good publicity, that is. PR will help you get noticed and assist in gaining media attention and media discipline. So take part one step at a time with PR and see why it is so efficient to have in the world. PR is the future with media and its no ones enemy. So join the media world in every way possible and influence it in the positive way we see it.

Here is my blog: Simply InsPiRe 
Personal Profile: Intern Sushi

Resources:
NYC PR Girl
PR Resource
Important Event Planner
Making that Money

Moden Muse Magazine

In the beginning I started this project to sort of see what it would be like to be the Editor in Chief of a magazine because ultimately it is something that I pictured myself doing in the future. I would love to eventually run my own publication or business and I feel like this was a great way for me to learn how to work with and manage a group of people.

My intentions for this magazine is to try to inspire and motivate young adults, teenagers, or people who may not be sure of what direction they want to go in life with their career choice. I want people to be able to read my magazine and feel good about themselves when they put it down. For future issues we should also give ideas of how they can go about making things happen. I know it sounds very cheesy, but that's what I want. I don't want people to be jealous of the people that are written in the magazine, I want the future writers to write in a way that encourages the readers to do something too.

There's a lot of negativity in the world, but positive people can make a difference.

There were a lot of challenges during this process. My Fashion editor dropped out from the magazine and I had to take on that position, which wasn't difficult but I also was a writer and I copy edited all of the articles myself. I am very proud of this first issue, its like my little baby lol and I hope that I can eventually get more people to contribute to my magazine because it was a fun, but challenging experience. Budget was also an issue for me because I would have like to get better quality of images, but that was a challenge because I didn't have a photographer.

I know that future issues would be easier to compose if I had more people on my team, but we made it work! The most difficult part for me was coming up with the name of the magazine. There were so many names that I came up with but they had been already taken and I wanted to keep it original and I thought that Modern Muse fully encompassed my vision. I personally enjoyed the creative process and thinking of the content that I wanted to be featured within the magazine.

I'm actually really excited to share my magazine with other people, it was a new experience for me, but I really like the outcome.

Here is the link to my magazine:
http://issuu.com/kesiclarke/docs/modern_muse

Bibliography:

Baker, Michael, and Carrie Beckwith. Editor in Chiefо Beginning Book: Grammar Disasters and Punctuation Faux Pas. N.p.: Critical Thinking, 2002. Print.

Bordeua, Jessica. "Being Editor-In-Chief Of Smashing Magazine." Smashing Magazine. A Smashing Media Company, 30 Aug. 2013. Web. 15 Oct. 2013.

Patterson, Benton Rain, and Coleman E. P. Patterson. The Editor in Chief: A Management Guide for Magazine Editors. Ames: Iowa State, 2003. Print.

Peterson, Franklynn, and Judi Kesselman-Turkel. The Magazine Writer's Handbook. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1982. Print.

Sumner, David E., and Shirrel Rhoades. Magazines: A Complete Guide to the Industry. New York: P. Lang, 2006. Print.

Woolf, Gordon. How to Start and Produce a Magazine or Newsletter. Hastings, Vic.: Worsley, 2004. Print.

A Day In A Life: Successful Hispanic Women

For my Final Project I decided I wanted to do a video, kind of a day in a life short film/documentary on the evolution of Hispanic women in the workforce. The way machismo has decreased, and how this has given the opportunity for many Latinas (re-vised video one part video only) to prosper and actually become successful professional women today. Machismo is something that was more prevalent in the older days in the Hispanic community, but not so much anymore.  This type of attitude where the man has to be the breadwinner and dominant doesn’t only exist within the Hispanic community, it also exists in other cultures as well. However, I focused it more on the Hispanic culture because that’s my race, and I thought it would be a lot more connected to my community. Machismo has died down a whole lot, and unless you grow up and are raised in a house where its still present, its something that you won’t really experience. Thankfully for many Hispanic Americans that’s the case now. However, there is still that percentage that has to deal with that old school ancient kind of thinking and living.

            For my video I interviewed and filmed two very successful women that will show you what it is to be a prosperous working Latina while at the same time being able to balance being a wife and mother.  The video is basically a day in a life video where they explain their struggles if they’ve had any, and other things that you will shortly see in my video. My video divides into two parts where I show my viewers two different sides. One of the women that I interviewed was born in another country and came here a decade ago. While the other woman was born in Caracas,Venezuela, but moved to the states at the tender age of eight. She grew up here and learned the language at an early age. She considers herself an American citizen because that's what she feels more attached to. However, I think t the two perspectives of these women show the similarities and differences between the Hispanic community in general from two sides that represent the same race, but from different experiences.  I hope that any woman not only Hispanic women understand, and believe they can be as successful or more than their husbands. And that they all  have the opportunities to be successful empowering women.



Although, I was too ambitious with my final project, in trying to do a 2-in-1 video, I did choose one of the videos that was in my final project, and completely re-vised it and re-edited it. I decided to focus on just one story, because the feedback I got back helped me realize, that I want to focus mainly on my first subject. So my NEW video is under the hyperlink Latinas. (HD)