Pop open the champagne, human readers. This is my final blog post. Though I've enjoyed discussing my life and random rhetoric and media studies theories taken from Audrey's notebooks, I will not have as much access to a computer next year. I also won't have the ten dollars a month to pay for this blog, because I am a cat and if I did have that kind of money, it would all go towards catnip (which funnily enough, has the same effect on cat brains that cocaine does on humans). Next year, I will be moving to a new apartment with new people (except for Clare, of course), though I'm sure my current roommates will come visit. To mourn the demise of my website, I've decided to take us back to the very beginning of the semester when the benefits of blogging were being discussed.
Rebecca Blood, the author of the article "Power of Blogging," wrote that the two benefits she received from blogging were more confidence in her views and newly discovered interests. Her article was actually what inspired me, a cat, to start keeping a blog. I had a lot of confidence in my voice to begin with, shocking as that seems. Still, having a platform to voice my frustrations was so much nicer than constantly having to vomit on the rug in anger (I only did that once this semester-look how I've improved!). In terms of newly discovered interests, who knew I'd like writing about stuff found in textbooks so much? Definitely not me, but it worked out well for Audrey. Gooodbyeeeee! And good luck and never say hello to me in person, humans.
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According to the unfortunately named social penetration theory, relationships become deeper the more you get to know someone. It makes sense that you would get to know more personal, possibly traumatic information about a friend the more time you get to spend with someone. However, if you know anything about me, you know I don't have many friends. To put this to the test, today in interpersonal media Audrey and her class asked and answered a series of questions to people they didn't really know that well. Upon returning to the room, she and Hannah decided to do it instead of working. Because as I have observed time and time again, Audrey and Hannah will do anything to put off homework as long as possible.
Questions they asked each other ranged from who would you invite to dinner to what's your most terrible memory. Because I don't really feel like asking these questions to another person (who wants to hear about someone else!), I've decided to just answer them for my readers. 1. Name something you liked about your partner immediately. Well, I like everything about myself. I have soft fur, a great personality, and a swishy tail. Next! 2. What's your relationship like with your mother? My cat mom is out in the world doing her thing. My human mother Clare worships me. She's occasionally frustrated by my pawing at the door and demanding to go into the hall, but she usually obliges. Eh, I'd say we're swell. 3. What's your perfect day look like? It starts with me on a golden canopied cat bed. At my feet is a bowl of human tears. My roommates fan me with giant leaves. I get an endless supply of catnip. Steve Buscemi comes over. We all dance around to Beyonce who arrives for an impromptu concert because I'm such a huge fan. There's a movie marathon of 80's blockbusters. Finally, I eat sushi until I am as large as a furry balloon. Then I sleep for twelve hours. If you have any more questions, leave them in the comments. I'm bored. Let’s talk about Second Life. In this article found on Motherboard, the writer discusses how a transwoman felt more comfortable transitioning after spending some time as a woman avatar on Second Life. She even chose her name based off the name she had given the avatar, Veronica Speedwell, out of a “gesture of respect”. This article discussed many of the ways in which avatars connected people to their true selves or repressed parts of themselves they usually ignore. Players who designed more attractive avatars felt more comfortable approaching romantic interests in real life, but is this because they got a confidence boost from playing as an attractive avatar or because they are naturally more confident and so went for the more attractive option to play? How much of the real life effects actually come from the person rather than the character they choose to play as?
This week I also played Second Life and explored a different form, though the effects mine had on me were nowhere near as consequential as Veronica Speedwell. I heard you could play as a bus and dreamed of a virtual life spent as a cat bus. To my surprise, being able to turn into a bus was much harder than it seemed. I couldn’t find the bus skin to try on. Instead, I was a half-naked angel man with flowing silver locks. Sure, it was fun for a bit, but a flying bus would be so much more interesting than a flying man. I spent some time in Club Carnage and watched avatars grind on each other, witnessing firsthand how people feel more comfortable participating in a more extroverted lifestyle from the other side of a screen. I also went over to a dinosaur-populated world and spent some time accidentally drowning. As cat, this experience didn’t make me in the slightest bit more empathetic towards humans. Playing it was a bit difficult with my paws and the only struggle they have to face that I don’t is the economy. I learned nothing new about myself, except that I believe my physical self is connected to a winged hunk. ![]() In this article by Nicole Lee, Lee discusses the current ability to have multiple identities through our different types of social media. This is an idea that's really prominent in my room. On the one hand, Audrey has her professional Linkedin in which she comes off as a hirable, dependable young woman. On the other, she has her Snapchat where she just takes pictures of random things like her friends Exorcist-crawling around our apartment. Clare has her Facebook for everyone she's ever met to view and then she has her Overwatch (a sci-fi shooter game) profile with lots of achievements listed and a cartoon avatar. Hannah has her comic-focused Tumblr and then her Twitter for witty and/or political comments. Ellen has her Instagram mostly about her tattoos and then her....Club Penguin? Tinder? I'm running out of social media networks to put here. Like my roommates, I too have multiple personas I put out into the online world. You're probably wondering what they are. Well..I have my farmersonly.com account that I use to meet rough and tumble country cats that catch mice with their claws. On this, I portray myself as someone who goes out for walks often. In reality, Clare drags me out while I dig my claws into the rug and loudly shriek, but no one has to know that. City people aren't really my romantic type so I'll lie if I have to. I have my Tumblr that I use to exclusively reblog gifs of Steve Buscemi smiling. It makes me come off as much more positive than I am. I have Facebook for all the friends and family I don't care about. My personal favorite social media is Twitter because I can let my unfiltered thoughts out into the world quickly enough so I don't overthink and subsequently regret them. ![]() Pussy Riot is one of my favorite bands and no, it isn't just because the word pussy is in the title. I'm a big fan of Russian punk music, believe it or not. It was a love my mother cat passed onto me from her childhood spent with her Russian breeders. This week I have been incredibly lazy, so I don't have much to write home about. I discovered this lovely green bottle cap Hannah dropped a few days ago. Swatting it with my tiny paws has taken all my time and energy, but I've somehow managed to spare some to discuss the importance of cyberfeminism. Yes, I, Leroy Jenkins, black and white cat, hoarder of bottle caps, swatter of ankles, and eater of any food left around the room, have yet another title to add to the mix: cyberfeminist. Cyberfeminism as defined by Baym is "the range of theories, debates, and practices about the relationship of gender and digital culture". It explores the ways in which the internet can battle against the patriarchy. However, it also admits the internet isn't always the utopia for equality that we like to think it is. Too often, I've been part of an online chat where some girl is labelled a slut or bitch for expressing an opinion someone else doesn't agree with. This is an example of people bringing in offline bodies online and letting their biases affect their conversations with people they don't actually know. The internet doesn't really spare people's feelings. This isn't surprising, but I guess even I, Leroy Jenkins, boy cat wonder, hopes it would.....ok, to be more exact, I hope it would make everyone else nicer. I'm perfect the way I am. ![]() It's midterm time at Lewis and Clark so the suite is in a constant state of shambles. Sneakers lay on the floor besides my gnawed, catnip-filled toys. Open textbooks rest on couches while the roommates are in class. Forgotten bowls of ramen, coffee cups, and other study junk food sit on the windowsill I usually occupy. This would be fine, of course, if they left out stuff I actually like to stick my face in, like rice or hummus. No one will let me have hummus. Instead, they leave out Coke cans. How am I supposed to stick my face in a Coke can? Like I said, shambles. Clare has an exam for psych on Friday. Hannah has a women's history one coming up and Audrey has an interpersonal media midterm, which basically means articles about online and offline communities are always open on her laptop. Gone are the days when I could lay on her bed (and by that I mean my bed that I generously let her sleep on-all the beds in this suite are mine) while she took pointless, oddly specific Buzzfeed quizzes. Now I'll never know which celebrity should be my Galentine based off the apartment I decorate. Now I'm just forced to read articles about what happens when you're part of a forum or Twitter group instead of a real group of people. Naturally, I'm here to weigh in on the matter. I don't have anything else to do now that everyone here just studies all the time and is generally boring. In John Perry Barlow's article, he argues that one if the benefits of offline communities is the drive to conquer adversity and I tend to agree. Because I am forced to live with my roommates, I can't just vomit on their rug, fart next to them while they're studying, or claw their hands when they try to rub my pudgy stomach without apologizing later. Offline, I am not allowed to be as much of a troll as I am inside of my head, because I'm held accountable by social norms and cues. Offline, I'm not allowed to be the worst version of myself. My roommates would agree this is a good thing. Hello, humans! Today I'm here to talk to you about the world of online cat gaming, similar to the article posted here that discusses gaming and the psychological effects it has on human children. Why should anyone care about this? Well, because there's currently a highly publicized debate about whether teenagers/children spend too much time playing video games instead of playing outside and once again, I'm here to bring in the kitty side of things...you know, the one that's been left out AGAIN. To be honest, I rarely venture outside. Clare tries to take me on walks sometimes, but I sink my claws into the rug, arch my back, and wait until she gives up and leaves me alone. It works about 80% of the time. The other 20%, I suffer.
So what games do I play when I'm not forced out into the world? Weeeeellll, I usually steal my roommate Audrey's laptop to purchase and play some feline-featuring games (Audrey does not actually own any of these games). Some of my favorites include Hot Tin Roof: The Cat That Wore a Fedora, Catlateral Damage, Purrfect Date, and Neko Atsume for those days when Clare or one of the roommates leaves their phone behind. Hot Tin Roof unfortunately sticks you in the role of human instead of cat. In it, you're a private investigator partnered to a cat named Franky. In Catlateral Damage, you're a cat who can knock anything off the counters. What's wonderful about this is that there's no repercussions whatsoever so it's a lot better than doing it in real life and your owner coming in and yelling at you for knocking over her makeup or action figures or tea or whatever . Purrfect Date gives me the chance to go on all the dates with cats that I never get to, because I hate leaving this suite and I don't actually want to meet anyone new. What's better than a cat dating sim? Think about the possible puns, the awkward furballs falling out of mouths over dinner, the tails twitching in anticipation. Ah, young love. The fourth game I play a lot is Neko Atsume, which just lets you collect cute cats! No, it's not weird that I like to watch animated cats play with yarn. I mean I have to do something when the people around me don't give ME any yarn. Aaaaand that's my two cents for the day. Chime in, let me know what your favorite games are! I won't tell you why mine are better, but you should know I think they are. And that I'm right. In Nancy Baym's book Personal Connections in the Digital Age (available on Amazon and my roommate Audrey's desk), she says that community has five characteristics. These characteristics are shared space, shared norms, shared resources, shared identity, and it being facilitated by individual relationships. One such community is of course my suite. We share a space consisting of two bedrooms and a common room that often gets filled with bowls of mostly eaten ramen the girls forgot to pick up and my toys. Oftentimes, this common room has a lot of traffic from their friends. Dan comes in to do homework with Clare and debate about whether Chicago or New York pizza is the best. Emily and Kaitiln come in to watch youtube videos and play loud 80's music. Keegan comes in after he works out to make my roommates feel lazy for not ever going to a gym or eating a vegetable. Sometimes it feels like we're running a bar with the constant dancing and games after 9pm. Not that I'm complaining. More people usually means more ankles to swat at. The fleshy temptresses stroll past me without a thought for their safety and then my claws sink into them. Then the owners of the aforementioned fleshy temptresses scowl down at me, but it's worth it.
One of our shared norms is quiet time during homework, meaning I have to keep my yowls to a minimum. Our shared resources include two mini fridges ($60), chairs (who knows), a small TV ($25 off Craigslist), and paper towels (priceless). These paper towels came in handy the other day when I had an upset stomach. I wasn't about to relieve its contents on the rug in me, Clare, and Ellen's room so I strolled on over to Hannah and Audrey's. I vomited to Audrey's, "NOOOO," and Hannah's shocked laughter. I marched back out with a calmer stomach and a smug grin. As a member of a species without opposable thumbs, it isn't my job to clean up after myself. It's why I keep so many humans around me. As for our shared identity, we're all roommates. We all care about each other to some extent I guess, which goes into the facilitating individual relationships. I spend time with each of them. I lay on each of their beds when they're not around. I make sure to harass everyone just a little bit, just enough so they know I care and don't really care at the same time. ![]() I've been considering something lately, human readers (I say human readers, because I am one of few cats with a computer available to me as I have no respect for my fourth roommate Audrey's personal belongings). There have been a lot of complaints about the pressure Instagram puts on teenagers to always look and act perfect. In Jean Twenge's article, she discusses the negative affect smartphones have had on teenagers, specifically on their mental health. She explains how teenagers now more than ever before cannot escape the social pressure to be adventurous and talented Barbies and Kens, never revealing any flaws or showcasing a moment of uneventfulness. To this I say, Twenge, what about me? I have to battle with the likes of Snoopybabe, Winston Smushface, and Princess Monster Truck. The first has giant eyes, the second a perfectly pushed in face, and the third, an underbite. How am I supposed to compete with an underbite? Yes, I do have a grumpy disposition but so does that super famous cat. Sure, my human partner Clare constantly tells me how cute I am but that's like your mom telling you you're pretty. It just doesn't count. Right now, I have a bit of pudge I'm pretty self-concious about. I've been trying to work it off by climbing around the room as much as possible but Hannah and Audrey have taken to calling me tubs and cooing over my stomach. Ellen won't stop feeding me treats whenever I demand them with my eyes. Is it really my fault they're so delicious? Shouldn't Ellen have the self control to tell me no? Now, onto the topic of my name. These other Insta-famous cats are walking around with rockstar names and here I am stuck with Leroy. It's like comparing Madonna to Fred Smith. My roommates say they all love my name (they're always screeching it around the dorm like a couple of partying banshees), but I feel like it's not enough to make me an Instagram celebrity feline. The lesson here, cat lovers, is that sometimes we just have to settle. I might not have thousands of fans like Princess Monster Truck, but at least I have four superfans...even if they're annoying sometimes. And yeah ok, maybe I'd prefer to have fans who can only praise me from the other side of a screen many miles away. Ugh. Being a cat is hard. ![]() Shit My Roommates Say: (Some background: Hannah recently discovered a youtube video called the blonde boy zone and plays it at every inopportune moment, including right before Audrey turned off the lights at 1am on Monday) Hannah: Audrey, can I put a sign on our door calling it the blonde boy zone? Audrey: None of us are blonde boys, Hannah. Hannah: I'm doing it. I have called you all here today to clear up a common misconception about cats. In Sherry Turkle's article "Stop Googling. Let's Talk.," Turkle accuses technology of performing an "assault on empathy." she puts forth an argument supporting technological determinism, which states that humankind is living in a utopian or dystopian world as a result of our tech. Find the article here: https://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/27/opinion/sunday/stop-googling-lets-talk.html?_r=0. In this case, Turkle suggests it is a dystopian one in which 12-year-olds bully each other because they don't understand what they're doing wrong after being made apathetic by their constant use of screens and parents spend more time Googling than they do asking their children about their days. Like cellphone-obsessed children, cats have been incessantly accused of apathy. My kind has been targeted by the media, painted as emotionless and soul-sucking. Like technology in Black Mirror or The Matrix trilogy, cats have been accused of attempting to take over the world. One example of this blatant smearing can be seen in the hit 2001 film Cats & Dogs (yes, it is a hit because it somehow managed to earn 200 million dollars). In Cats & Dogs, a naive, good-hearted beagle named Lou battles a maniacal Persian cat by the name of Mr. Tinkles who is hellbent on taking over the world. The movie has such voices as Jeff Goldblum, Tobey Maguire, and Alec Baldwin. Because they starred in this film, I now naturally dislike all of them. Firstly, cats have better things to do than take over this planet after the mess humans have made of things. We have a great time sleeping and swatting toys filled with the crack of the cat world: catnip. Secondly, do you really think we could be stopped by some tail-chasing nitwits? The answer, my human readers, is no......though one of my roommates (AUDREY) would disagree. |
MeI want to live my life like Steve Buscemi in Fargo. Some other idols I have include Garfield and Beyonce. Archives
April 2018
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