Author: phillipamuow

BCM320 – Analysing myself

My week 5 blog post, which focused on my relationship with specific topic’d Facebook groups such as ‘Subtle Asian Traits’ and ‘Subtle Filipino Traits’, where memes and discussions are produced about Asian culture and traits we all share. I described my experience of this; discovering an incredibly large community, recognising mannerisms and culture connecting to my Filipino heritage. This made me describe it all. The need to explain what I recognise, what I relate to and what I find somewhat problematic is my “thick description” (Ellis,C., et al). I sought out to produce my experiences and describe it to people outside of the culture so they can understand thus it is accessible. But I also addressed issues relating to it, the ethic behind memetic content of these traits and how almost a ‘mob mentality’ can be formed to further bridge the gap between the ‘3rd world’ and ‘1st world’ as opposed to these Facebook groups being the ‘middle man’ community for it. Because it was relevant to me that people within the groups would poke fun at the tidbits of their 3rd world relatives ways, like using a bucket and a pan for their toilet needs as opposed to using a bidet. Using social media to inflame a herd mentality is active, as S. Krumm said in their study ‘The Influence of Social Media on Crowd Behavior and the Operational Environment’; “…social media has become one of the
most influential factors is shaping a crowd…” and that “The evolution of social media has decisively altered the relationship between society, politics… By providing near real-time coverage of events, social media enables the generation of multiple and sequential social movements…” (pg. 20 – 21).

It is clear, that my upbringing of being born in a 1st world country, having experienced, witnessed and being educated at a young age about my Filipino side of the family and many other parts of SEA (South East Asia) about the amount of poverty, aspects of living and mentality has struck me. I have not experienced an incredible amount of culture shock when I have been to other SEA countries like Vietnam and Cambodia (2014) because of my early experience of it in the Philippines in 1999 and 2005. Albeit, I do experience a little bit, but can never really recall specifically what shocks me, instead, I’ll readjust myself to know that I am in a different environment than I’m used to in a 1st world country.

Ellis, C., Adams, T.E., and Bochner, A.P. (2011) ‘Autoethnography: An Overview‘, Forum: Qualitative Social Research, 12:1. Available at: http://www.qualitative-research.net/index.php/fqs/article/view/1589/3095 

Krumm, J. (2013). THE INFLUENCE OF SOCIAL MEDIA ON CROWD BEHAVIOR AND THE OPERATIONAL ENVIRONMENT. Ft. Leavenworth, KS: School of Advanced Military Studies, pp.20 – 21.

BCM320 – Subtle Asian Traits

Since the explosion of the famous Facebook group ‘Subtle Private school traits‘, which was clearly created and focused on Australians, there have been plenty of other ‘Subtle Traits’ Facebook groups popping up, reminiscent of the abundance of relatable memes being shared. Three of which, I am now very fond of: ‘Subtle Asian Traits‘, ‘Subtle Filipino Traits‘ and ‘Subtle Halfie Traits‘. Ranking up 1,492,647 | 20,478 | 18,324  members respectively.

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These Facebook groups are self-explanatory, but to elaborate: they’re dedicated to a specific audience where they will relate to each other. Through an abundant of memes, shared content of all sorts of Asian related culture from food, family culture, products, general knowledge and mannerisms. It seems like a simple concept, but for many, it’s fascinating that we all can recognise so many aspects of our lives from growing up and the traits we inherited from our asian parents. Rediscovering tidbits, traits and mannerisms my Mum has and recognising that It’s inherently Filipino. Like pointing your lips at something instead of using your hands and saying “SSSSTT” out in public to get someone’s attention. 67191589_10158734160699746_7928151380898873344_n.jpg

Browsing all 3 groups has made me feel a sense of involvement and a connection back to my Filipino Asian heritage while living my Australian life. A lot of it runs on nostalgia, of being a child and being forced and involved in family and community parties. But other posts had me being politically informed and engaged. An approaching issue was the clear line between recognising 3rd world problems and 1st world people like myself finding aspects of poverty funny. I mean, not going to lie but yes, only particular aspects of living in poverty (as I experienced when visiting my family) were, in fact, hilarious because of how simple the solution would be; from using the toilet to kitchen utensils. But that only applies to those small things, while on the other hand, I had seen some memes that were directly making fun of the poverty culture. This was not alarming to me because I didn’t exactly have an opinion over it. In retrospect and in the context of ‘Autoethnography: An Overview’ by Ellis,C., I view it as potentially problematic for these groups to fester in that light of content, considering my current social class, comparing to the typical Filipino families and the motivations behind posting that type of content.

To this day, I still discover the nuances of Asian culture through these Facebook groups. But mostly, digitally-driven content from these groups can suffer immense exposure if it is niche – amplifying something that may not be an Asian trait and making it one using the Facebook group as a converter.

 

Ellis, C., Adams, T.E., and Bochner, A.P. (2011) ‘Autoethnography: An Overview‘, Forum: Qualitative Social Research, 12:1. Available at: http://www.qualitative-research.net/index.php/fqs/article/view/1589/3095 

BCM320 – Wk3 – Akira

Katsuhiro Otomo’s 1988 animated film ‘Akira’ was a nostalgic and adventurous trip for me. From enjoying the colours and typical sci-fi themes, Akira really packed a bunch of aspects to enjoy. But this was the first time viewing Akira. For me, it was nostalgic due to watching English dubbed anime content like the Pokemon series, Pokemon movies, and Spirited Away. Akira was most certainly on another level with its violence and adult themes, science fiction technology and deeper development of character and concept of the world. I personally find English dubbed anime more enjoyable so I can understand the film at first, especially with the past content as I mentioned like Spirited Away. Akira, however, was different, the English dub at times didn’t make a lot of sense and confused me with it’s mixed dialogue and out of place soundtrack. It would have been way more effective as a cinematic experience to view it with Japanese dub and English subtitles.

My live-tweeting focused on drawing similarities to the films I’ve already seen and general comments where I felt more familiar with the film. From Tron to Wes Anderson and The Terminator, Akira is not so different from other Sci-Fi films. It is Sci-Fi through the Asian perspective. Sure, plenty of aspects may have drawn from previous SCi-Fi movies i’ve seen and or vice-versa, like the familiar Tron-like bikes and the weapons used, but it doesn’t lose the film’s credibility in terms of the ‘Asian Sci-Fi’. Making the film Anime form feels like the lifespan of the film is elongated in comparison to older live-action films like Aliens. The literal ‘Asianness’ – perspective is to be heavily considered when inspecting the film, despite the origins of concepts.

Technically, Akira is strong. The first thing I noticed is how incredibly colourful it was. It was reported that they’d spent a ton of money creating new colours and getting the scheme of it correctly to be transferred onto new and proper film. That incredible attention to detail really struck a light for me. While there have been leaps and bounds in western films like CGI techniques and digitalising, Akira’s small but impactive improvement was more than enough to ‘wow’ me.

While Akira was only one film out of thousands in the Asian catalogue of films, I feel as if I had watched a culturally significant film. Think- Star Wars-esk level. However, as a half-asian, I feel a bit embarrassed that I don’t know more. I’ve been spoiled rotten in western culture and have not bothered looking into my heritage’s diverse entertainment scape.

BCM320 – Wk1 – The Host

In the year 2006 a South Korean Comedy Horror film named The Host was released.
A clusterfuck of a movie with its remixing genres, themes and classic storylines. Was I expecting the Korean film to be funny and terrifyingly bad, balancing it like two kids on a seesaw? No. But I’m glad it was. In fact, my experience with foreign films is that they’re exclusively horror and or art film based movies. From subscribing to Mubi one year out of curiosity, staying up late on SBS as a kid to seeing what pirated DVDs my Mum was given from the Philippines – is the literal extent of my knowledge of foreign traditional movie content.

Of course, I couldn’t keep up watching The Host, following the storyline, simultaneously reading the subtitles and live-tweeting my reactions to the movie. But I think it’s hilariously easy to figure out after you’ve moved your focus from film to phone and vice versa. Because The Host is, you guessed it, predictable. But that isn’t a bad thing, not just considering my experience but considering how absolutely jam-packed this movie is if you’re trying to extract a singular genre, theme or a general gist of a story. Maybe that applied to everyone but it was easy for me considering my experience of watching Filipino horror films pre-2009 with my Mother. Yes they were pirated, yes they were at like 248x248px quality stretched on an early-HD rear projection TV by LG – these films were loud, heavy with graphics and gore and they were so, strangely forgettable. I’d ask my Mum during these films If I was understanding the general story correctly instead of trying to decipher the Tagalog (because subtitles don’t exist on these pirated DVDs lol) and I was correct! A lot of dead children! – anyway. The point is that I used my self taught skills of looking at body language, actors’ extenuated work and other movie techniques to communicate the movie to myself. My experience with Filipino Horror movies made The Host easier to understand and interpret until I was seriously questioning the comedic side.

It’s only week one but I hope I don’t run into the same process I had to do to understand the content, but I know I will. After all, The Host (2006) was South Korean, surely the rest of Asia has more to offer than Comedy Horror films… (spoiler! i know they do).

BCM325 – DA & Contextual Essay

I have decided to continue featuring my Instagram and Facebook accounts as my Digital Artefacts as I believe it is my sturdiest asset I contribute to. My accounts under the moniker ‘PHILLIP A.M.’ feature my art, photography and video that range from typical landscapes, abstract visuals to focusing on the Wollongong and Sydney music scene – basically my visual art. In conjunction, Barking Mad Records, the record label I co-own with my long-time friend Lewis Orford, is also considered as my second Digital Artefact as the two occasionally attune. The aim for me, in context for this subject BCM325 – Future Cultures, was to actively seek out different revenue streams, increase engagement and improve to produce professional content in order to aim for the best-balanced profile between art, business, marketing, and advertising via social media. To do this, I’ve not only focused on the music scene but through experimental art and a new sub-audience via a revenue stream. Looking at other ways to converse with different audiences but discovering that it is difficult to capture them. However, I am looking at this at another angle; a way to diversify my existing audience via introducing interesting and new content in hope to increase existing engagement. My digital artefact addresses and challenges my own future, where I can decide what sort of career I can take my skills and experience with managing artists, booking live acts and multimedia content creation thus diversifying myself for future opportunities. I also explore the future of content used for and by bands to market and advertise. Attempting to push the boundaries and discover the impacts in the medium of photo and video to affect Facebook and Instagram users by focusing on aesthetics rather than engagement.

In my project pitch comments, Ruby Philpott and Ray Nguyen suggested platforms to sell art and links to articles about techniques to promote more. Which is great, I have in the past taken steps to consider sites such as RedBubble, TeeSpring and Society6. However, I am reluctant to use this considering that the companies take a cut and I have anxiety that I have little control over shipping, product control, and inventory. I planned to grow opportunities by giving myself experience in handling. I have done so through designing, communicating with screen-printing business in Melbourne called ‘Tee It Up’, shipping and handling shirts for Barking Mad Records. We marketed and advertised through our Instagram, Facebook and Bandcamp outlets and eventually sold out. On my ‘PHILLIP A.M.’ account, I was contacted by a brand called ‘Gatorbeug’, a business that promotes, designs and sells their own glass bongs marketed to younger, drug aware Australians. I wouldn’t usually take on a commission request from that type of market, but I did anyway for money, experience, experimentation and to diversify my portfolio. This was also a success where I had significantly increased my profile views, follow count, overall insight statistics and seen on VICE’s Australian outlets. I considered diving deeper into the same market of Gatorbeug, but I’m not as aware of it in comparison to music and arts culture. To conclude my social utility, I’ve become a content and promotion creator that doesn’t just focus on the music culture but also sub-cultures. I’ve given the option for my followers to follow and see other brands and artists on the platforms that I’ve created for, in return making a community of people to share with and in an established position to be a soft influencer within the next decade in niche markets and cultures with both digital artefact accounts.

BCM325 Task 1 Part 2 – commentz

Despite commenting on BETA stage blogs, I still felt as I was commenting on the pitches. A couple of the projects I was commenting on were either at a half completion mode or just not fully realised as a digital artefact. I however, did my best to suggest more work to be done on their DA’s. Especially Lachlan Vivers’ Seasons of Change, where I thought he was focusing heavily on content and less about making it into a standard digital artefact.

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I basically suggested that he needs to expand and brand to reach an audience because from my perspective It was hard to know what his DA was initially about, especially how he explained it in his BETA video. I linked a beginners guide to an online presence blog which I hope he finds helpful to see how he can expand his knowledge and philosophic content to a specific and bigger audience.

Bec Fuller’s Safe space for Women is an idea that needs more iterations to be fully realised and completely safe. As I feel, and others, that privacy is a big issue on Facebook which is the platform she is primarily using. I don’t see evidence of a website yet, other than the draft one she showed in the video, but the aesthetics are nice and convey what she intends to offer.

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I’ve suggested a major step into the future, where she could potentially create an app focused on security. I also express how it is an important topic given the recent news of targeting in Melbourne and the importance of discreet culture and privacy. I should have explained how else she could manage legitimacy within her Facebook group, but I don’t know first-hand knowledge.

Katrina’s focus on Chronic Illness support groups has clear social utility but needs to reiterate what will it focus on for the future. It cannot just be groups of people yelling at each other.Screenshot_3.png

I draw from my personal experience of being a Marketing Assistant for a private mental health hospital where I repost tips, educational blogs and articles about mental health in order to help some audiences via our social media pages. I thought that if she did the same for her groups it could potentially help them better rather than providing second-hand support from another person. I also suggested, for the future, It has the greater potential to be a political platform to campaign to the government to support this side of the health sector.

I believe that I should link more sources, but include my experience when I’m trying to iterate advice. Feedback is honestly minimal from me but this is because most of the DA isn’t realised / there for me to look at, instead, I am having to judge off what is said in the BETA video.

BCM325 Task 1 Part 2 – tweetz

The second lot of tweets from Week 8 to 11 have really been just a continuation of what I was doing in the last lot. But now I understand how my tweets can engage in further discussion, as you’ll see in Weeks 9 and 10.

Week 8 – I, Robot 

I think the I, Robot week was my most balanced week with comedic and insightful tweets. Between relatable technological comments and memes. However, links to sources would have been better to join in the thread that at the time was referring to other types of robot helpers and IoT devices that exist today.

Week 9 – Robot and Frank 

A continuation of the balance of thoughts and comedic tweets. I was enjoying the movie rather than focusing on tweets this week. Robot and Frank, to me, was the perfect movie that wasn’t too ‘far’ into the future via heavy sci-fi themes and unfortunately, I didn’t express this via twitter.

Week 10 – Majorie Prime

This movie was the most emotional one. This is where I felt i was isolated and made it hard for me to comment on due to the sensitivity people had to it via their elders deaths. I couldn’t relate to it as much as my classmates. From my perspective, we were all hurting, but those directly affected were in their own echo chamber of relatable stories on the BCM325 hashtag.

Week 11 – Blade Runner 2045

Safe to say that I wasn’t entirely invested in the story behind either Blade Runner’s. Instead invested time into other perspectives that I thought interested me, from visuals, soundtrack and to basic human vs technology and how different it all is.

 

I was not present for Week 12. So instead here are some tweets that I thought summarises BCM325 live tweeting experience for me.

BCM325 Task 2 Part 2 – DA Beta

Producing a variety of content comes with Its challenges when you’re finding the balance between art and marketing/advertising for social media. My project beta presents the multiple streams of audiences I’ve attempted to capture as well as considering future content to reiterate for my future audience. Focusing on aesthetics but maintaining the goal of linking to a certain band, product and or asset to increase engagement upon. I’ve focused more on the future of my career in the social media space of content creation based on consistent iteration, communication, and experimentation with clients, bands and my record label’s business performance.

 

References:

Butterworth, L. (2019). Instagram wants to hide your likes — but there’s a way to still see them. [online] ABC News. Available at: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-05-01/instagram-trial-to-change-visibility-of-likes-on-posts/11061562 [Accessed 1 May 2019].

Lee, J. and Hong, I. (2016). Predicting positive user responses to social media advertising: The roles of emotional appeal, informativeness, and creativity. International Journal of Information Management, 36(3), pp.360-373.

BCM325 Task 1 – Part 1 – My Feedback on Pitches

Pitch One:
Leah (Qinrui Li) – ‘Cook for One’

Leah’s DA is a Cooking Instagram and YouTube channel addressing alternative ways to eat like plant-based faux-meats and cooking for yourself. It’s distinctively relevant for the future as I addressed in my comment below. I suggested Pinterest as another avenue to try. I wish I could have addressed how she could implement the student budget aspect – but I did link her Wollongong’s community ‘Hidden Harvest’ that will address this through a different angle and touch on the future aspects of environmental impacts food can have.

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Pitch Two:
Ashleigh Lockton’s DeepFake and CGI exploration DA

Ashleigh’s DA is wide open and talks about wanting to explore and use DeepFake AI software (good luck) and CGI techniques (again good luck). Sure It’s a massive open-ended DA to do – I would like her to seek out DeepFake and start suggesting, planning and using it to her advantage. I wish I didn’t suggest the political part of it in fear it may start something detrimental but at the same time, I don’t regret it. This is because I’m making her think about where these tools can take her, how much power she can have from a social and political standpoint. There is plenty to be explored for Ashleigh and I believe she can do It with more research into the methodology.

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Pitch Three:
Jonathan Pica’s DA on the future of Typography and Logo Design & Branding

Jon’s DA is also open-ended in a way where there isnt a goal, which in creativity and the arts is a beautiful thing: to start with something and not knowing where and how it’ll end up is an incredible feeling. Understanding Jon’s DA, he’s exploring how typography and logo designs can and will change in the future. I’ve linked an Instagram account called ‘Bootleg World’ in hopes to relate to the remix concept he expressed in his video pitch. While it isn’t an academic article, I hope it fuels stimulation about where he can go with his DA. Whether that is in serious protesting mode as I said in the comment, or comedic value – or even a remix of both. His DA, in my opinion, is open-ended to clear a good reason of what and why and how are brands changing their face to either appeal a certain way to their customers and or change their business direction.

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In reflection, I feel as if I should have been linking to more academic sources. But given that ‘Future Cultures’ is hard to predict, is the point of linking academic sources already outdated? From my perspective, creativity comes in many shapes and sizes and not always through direct and formal research but through exploration and experimentation. I do not mean to completely discourage the use of academic sourcing, I think we leave it too much to academia to tell us the answer, especially in this subject’s context. I wish to say that I hope I provided more brain fodder in my comments especially when linking other information for them to use and collaborate with.

BCM325 Task 1 – Part 1 – The Live Tweeting Experience

Looking back at Week 1 of live tweeting, I started off taking a very relaxed approach to engaging with the movie and my BCM325 class. I’m pretty much trying too hard to be a class clown at an embarrassing rate. I found It challenging to focus on two things at once and trying to find useful and interesting information that was original – so instead I took a comedic approach In hopes that high engagement occurs.

And it worked. But I found a balance, trying to ask questions, being curious about film techniques and cultural significance while adding some sort of comedic/memetic value.

(In reply to the water flood scene in Metropolis)

(In reply about 2001: A Space Odyssey’s art direction and film techniques)

My regular twitter engagements outside of University are mostly comedic in the first place. Having to switch to a master of regurgitating information is a strange experience, so adding my twist to it made me feel better about my progress of live tweeting engagements.

I feel as If I needed to come up with more original content like the one below to throw into the busy thread of #BCM325 tweets that pretty much looked like a bunch of the same copied and pasted information by my fellow students. Not that It’s a bad thing (maybe) but It is known to many people that original and interesting content can engage more people. 

What I found that worked well is referencing the movie to other pop culture. This, as well as adding a memetic aspect to the tweet makes other people understand the movie better as It did for me when I’m trying to follow the movie. The live tweeting experience gives me a 2nd angle into the movie in hopes to extract understanding from what I’m missing when my attention is on Twitter and not on the movie.

Engaging with other student’s thoughts and experiences enhanced the trying-to-understand-the-movie experience. Again, from trying to reference other movies to being curious about the techniques used and cultural significance is my peak of engaging tweets with information In hopes to bring something new to the feed as opposed to copy/pasting Googled information.

Having to critically engage with the film is a challenge, let alone having to do it seriously like a lot of people were doing (listing facts, linking articles and explaining Future Culture aspects) was a challenge. Despite having to do some opposite tweeting that of my peers, I still felt equally as engaged in the live tweeting aspect and enhanced my communication of understanding the movie with my peers but it doesn’t last and is only relevant in the moment. I do believe my tweets lack depth and I should try and engage on facts, coherent references rather than tweeting really fast, with little to no context that Twitter users outside the #BCM325 hashtag couldn’t begin to understand.

I’d love to be able to engage investigations in my tweets and replies, promote the movie in more social contexts.
In conclusion: Less memes, more info?