Is Pretty Little Liars A Great Show?

After months of gathering information and researching whatever I could find on my hashtag #PrettyLittleLiars, I have found a few interesting things out about it. The major one being that not too many fans are as fond of the show as I thought.

To my surprise, most of the tweets I had gathered from the day of the Big A Reveal were negative comments about the ending of the season. And I completely understand where they are coming from, I was disappointed too. The producers and cast of the show kept building up the suspense of finding out who A really was and the ending was a huge let down. It ended up being a character named Charles, a character who has never been mentioned or seen before. I, along with many other viewers were expecting a repeating, popular character of the show to be the villain.

Of the tweets I had gathered from this night, some were retweets from unhappy users, tweets to the producer telling her she did a horrible job, and a lot asking who Charles was, written with a foul but quite possibly deserving language. In boyd, Golder and Lotan’s article, Tweet, Tweet, Retweet, they say that “Retweeting can simply be seen as the act of copying and rebroadcasting, the practice contributes to a conversational ecology (1)” and I completely agree with that, now seeing how Twitter works. In a few of the tweets I had analyzed that were retweets, I noticed that some of them had added conversation, perhaps to get the original tweeters attention.

Though I had never seen a full conversation develop within my hashtag #PrettyLittleLiars, I do know that I happens often; I can see it looking through my newsfeed.

Overall, yes I was surprised by the reactions of the fans of the show, but at the same time I really wasn’t because they’re reactions were the same as mine.

Ideally…

As our blogging assignments come to an end, I look back and think of the pros and cons of each of the four writing spaces I have explored. My last assignment is to take different elements from those sites and create my ideal writing space; the features, the layout, and any add-ins to make the site easy and enjoyable to use. Lets start with the first writing space we were assigned, the ZenPen. This was by far one of my favorite writing space we had used. I liked the layout of the site; a small task bar that won’t distract you and I really liked the option for fullscreen mode, blocking out all things on a computer that cause the brain to wander. Those two elements would definitely be a part of my writing space if I were to create one.

Though I did not like Google Docs, mainly for the layout of the text and images (its not very blog friendly), I did like that it had the options for adding links, images, changing the font and other important features a task bar should have. I am iffy about the sharing and multiple user feature that Google Docs has.

 

It can be very useful for documents that need multiple contributors, but if you are trying to type something and somebody else tries to work on that section of the document as well, it is a pain. I also like that it automatically saves your work as you type, and you can share that document with others and they can view or make changes to it as well. In my ideal work space, I would also include easy access to adding links and media and have the site automatically save any work done.

From the response I did on the notebook on my cell phone and the response on the typewriter, I would not have any elements from either of those on my ideal work space. The notepad on the phone was way too complicated to compile a blog post; there were too many spelling errors, no room for media or links, and you had to retype it onto WordPress when you were done. The typewriter as well. I found it extremely difficult to type on both devices and neither are user friendly. I enjoy adding links, pictures, videos, and switching up the layout of my blog posts, so the elements from the four that we explored that I chose to incorporate into my word space would work the best in accomplishing the most creative blog. I would also include easy access to adding Twitter feeds and Facebook profiles because I think that they are the most important way that one can get their ideas and blogs to others.

The Good Ole Typewriter

Last week our assignment was to look up some scholarly articles that have to do with our hashtag. Of course, #PrettyLittleLiars is anything but scholarly, but I ended up finding some pretty interesting articles.

Our task was to compile our blog posts using typewriters that our professor brought in for us. Each one of them had a special name, relating to a specific topic. My typewriters name was Floyd Pepper. When I first chose it, I had no idea what that meant. A classmate of mine brought it to our attention that the theme was the Muppets, something that I have heard about but knew nothing of the characters or concept.

So I was really excited to use a typewriter; I had never been in the presence of one before. Thank god two of my classmates were working on them as well because when I sat down in front of it I had no clue what to do.

My thoughts on the type writer are as follows: interesting but very time consuming, painful and annoying. It is crazy to think about how easy it is for us (those computer savvy) to type on a keyboard, but when it comes to a typewriter it is a whole different story. The keys are in different spots, you have to push down extremely hard to get the print to show up on the paper, and the keyboard is on an angle, so your fingers cramp as you type. It was hard for me to adjust to pushing the keys hard enough to get the letters to show up. I had to go back on several of the letters and go over them. My problem when I pushed hard on the keys, they would either get stuck in the down position, or my fingers would get stuck in between the keys on the keyboard. It happened multiple times and it is pretty painful. I should have used a typewriting for dummies website, maybe I would have learned something.

I thought the best part of the typewriting was having to reset the paper every time it got to the end. I would hear a ding, then I would have to slide it back to the left, move the paper up, and continue writing again. Because I wasn’t aware of how the type writer worked before using one, I did everything the hard way. Instead of pushing the paper over and turning the dial, I found out later that I could have easily pushed the lever to the left of the typewriter and preset the line spacing before hand. Oh the joys of a pre-technology world.

If I had the choice between using a typewriter or a computer for the rest of my life, I would hands down choose a computer. I am so accustomed to the way it works and feels, after using one for so many years, that it just comes naturally to me; I don’t have to look at the keyboard. I guess if a typewriter was my only option, like it was back in the day, I would probably become accustomed to that as well. Overall, I enjoyed the assignment our teacher has given us, even if it was a little tedious.

What The World Thinks Of #PrettyLittleLiars

For this assignment, we were to use Rowan Universities library resources to find any scholarly articles we could that would relate to the hashtag we chose. I found this extremely difficult to do, and my first attempt at it was horribly wrong; I searched for Pretty Little Liar articles and only got short pieces for a magazine or something. So I gave it another shot. This time, I searched “fandom” and was much more successful.

For my first article, Good Neighbors? Fan/Producer Relationships and the Broadcasting Field by Rebecca Williams, talked a lot about the relationships social media websites allow the fans and the producers to have. Most people would assume that being able to connect with the producers of your favorite shows, as a fan, would be a positive thing. I thought so myself. But after reading this article, I changed my way of thinking. Williams writes, “Despite the apparent democratization in fan/producer interactions engendered by the internet, the illusion of reciprocity often conceals an empty relationship that encourages fans to believe that they have an input when they actually have little impact on the TV industry or the texts it produces” (282). I have seen the fans who use #PrettyLittleLiars in their tweets, tweet to characters in the show or the producer, especially in the last few episodes of season 5, asking why they did a scene one way and not the other or if they are happy about making their fans upset with them because they didn’t agree with something that happened. Here is a tweet I gathered from a user to the producer of the show during the last episode of the season, when they promised they were going to reveal who A was; a tweet that shows having the opportunity to express your emotions to someone like a producer of your favorite show isn’t always a good thing.

@imarleneking you can go fuck yourself. You didn’t reveal anything. #PrettyLittleLiars

The second article I found called Fandom in the Digital Era written by Roberta Pearson and the third article I found, Tweeting Television: Exploring Communication Activities on Twitter While Watching TV by Buschow, Schneider and Ueberheide relate to the how the internet and television go hand in hand nowadays. In Roberta Pearson’s article, she explains that while you are watching a show, you are more likely than not to see something relating to the internet. She says, “Even some fans who limit their creative activities to the interpretive sometimes find annoying the vast amount of ancillary content that now regularly accompanies most television shows”(85). Being an avid watcher of Pretty Little Liars, I have noticed over the years the increased use of perfectly placed hashtags during the show. For maybe the first two seasons, you would never see a hashtag on screen during a scene but by this season, season 5, a hashtag relating to every other scene pops up. And I do find it very annoying.

Bushcow, Schneider and Ueberheide’s article also talks about the internet has taken over communication while watching TV. This article talks about how research on watching tv was once centered on face-to-face communication within family members watching the same show. “Today, new technologies and social media have extended interpersonal communication beyond the boundaries of friends, family and geographical regions” (131). I found that all of the tweets I have analyzed for my research paper were written during the last few seconds of the season finale, which means the fans were more interested in getting their opinion of the episode out for everyone to see rather than sitting and processing what had just occurred.

I believe that these three articles will give me more information to work with during my research rather than the other three “articles” I found earlier.

Cell Phones Are Great For Many Things.. Except Blogging

For those of you who have read my previous blog post #PrettyLittleLiars Social Media blog post, you may know that I had written it on my iPhone 6 using the notepad that comes programmed in it already. I have nothing against the notepad, I actually use it all the time; I use it to write down important dates, addresses or my To Do list when I don’t have a pen or paper laying around. It’s a great place to write short, simple things that you can look back at within seconds. I do not recommend writing a full blog post with it, like I was assigned to do.

So this is how it started off. It’s now known that I use my phone a ridiculous amount of times through out the day, so I could consider myself a professional at typing with my thumbs.  That wasn’t the hard part. What was hard was formatting my writing, adding pictures and figuring out how to put what I wrote on my blog. I also have a big pet peeve of leaving the red lines under words that indicate wrong spelling. As you can see in my picture, the hashtag left that line, and the whole time I was writing it had my attention. Overall, it was more of a pain than anything else.

I think the most annoying part of writing my blog post in the notepad was trying to get it onto my computer. Thinking back, I could probably copy it, open my WordPress on my phone and paste it, but even then I would have had to go onto my computer to format it and add the pictures. What I did was go onto my computer and retype what I wrote on my phone, but that just wasted time.

There are a few apps that I could have downloaded to my phone, like Hanx Writer, that transforms your phone into an old school type writer, 

Day One (Journal/Notes/Diary),

or Pages (here is a quick tutorial I found of this app).

I also did some research on Note Apps and found this article. I could have downloaded and used one of those apps to write with, but I figured that because I use my notepad sometimes on a daily basis with little reminders, that I should try to use it because I am comfortable with it.

In my opinion, writing on my iPhone 6 Notepad was the worst way to create a blog post and I do not recommend it at all.

 

#PrettyLittleLiar Social Media

Hi guys! I’m writing this post from my iPhone 6’s notepad! Not by choice of course, because I’m already beginning to regret it, but as part of an assignment. If anyone doesn’t have an iPhone, this is what the notepad looks like: 

Recently, I have been checking out some social media pages for my #PrettyLittleLiar research project. In my latest post, Where To Find A #PrettyLittleLiar, I mostly talked about the social media pages, which at the time I thought was the best idea for the assignment but now I realize that I probably should have wrote that article for this assignment instead. But I think I’m gonna back track and show you guys some really awesome places where you can interact with those who watch the show and talk about your conspiracy theories and other thoughts you may have about the show.

Authors boyd and Ellison, who wrote Social Network Sites: Definitions, History and Scholarship, define social network sites or SNSs as, “web-based services that allow individuals to (1) construct a public or semi-public profile within a bounded system, (2) articulate a list of other users with whom they share a connection, and (3) view and traverse their list of connections and those made by others within a system.” The following are some website that show how this definition is accurate.

The first is a Tumblr page called Analyzing A. The author of this site is very dedicated and the page is extremely organized. As somebody who rarely uses Tumblr, I found myself browsing and maneuvering throughout the site with ease. There is a men
u bar at the top that has something really useful, a tab called Categories. There, you can find any posts that are written about the actors in the show, pictures from the TV station, or my favorite, PLL Hints. There are pictures located under that tab that give clues from previous and past episodes. Maybe some characters have returned, or something has come up in multiple episodes but you have failed to catch it while watching. You can look there to find any theories you want to know about the show. Also under the PLL Hints tab, you can ask the creator of the page some questions and they will answer them the best they can. I think its really important for everyone who is watching the show to be on the same page. It is easy to miss things while watching, so this site is perfect for getting all the answers and information you need to try to figure out who the mysterious A is.

Another site I find to be helpful is a Fan Forum page for #PrettyLittleLiars. There, you can ask questions or just write what you feel is happening while the show is going on, and people can read and respond. The one page that I found interesting was called Nobody Knows Anything, Nothing Makes Sense and Everyone Lies. Its a discussion board about any questions viewers have about the show or how they feel about what is happening. Basically anything they want to write about, they have to opportunity to.

I think pages like both of these are fun. Its a fun way to interact with those you have never met, but share a common interest. When I watch, I watch with a group of girlfriends, and we usually share the same theories. I like to look at different peoples opinions and see what they’re thinking. Check them out guys! See if your theories match up to those around you!

I’m Embarrassed For Myself..

For one of our assignments over the last week, we were given a small field notes journal and a black pen. We were told to log every instance we looked at or used our cell phones/smart phones in these journals for 48 hours. We had to set up a table in our journals on each page so we could log the necessary information we needed (date, time, length of time spent, the activity, whether it be a social interaction, textual or both, the activity we were doing and what was interrupted).

I thought this would be easy; I used my phone a good amount of time so I would have enough information to get the data I needed, but I never thought I would think of my self as obsessed with my phone until I finished the 48 hours.

Within the first day, February 24, 2015, from about 11:00 am to 1:44 am, the next day, I used or looked at my phone 73 times. Just seeing that number, it doesn’t seem as bad, but when you look closely at the data collected, I came to the conclusion that I am addicted to my cell phone. Within the hour of 11:00 am to 12:00pm, I used my phone 9 times, a total of 11 minutes and 20 seconds. It may not seem that bad, but the worst part is that it interrupted my time in class.

Another example is another time I was in class. I guess I get distracted very easily, or maybe some of my classes are boring :). From 6:00 pm, on the same day, until 7:30 pm, I used my phone 12 times. Again, it doesn’t seem that bad until you look at the time committed. 27 minutes and 42 seconds. I spend a half hour of the hour and a half class on my phone. I am actually mortified!

The second day of doing this experiment, I was more cautious of my cell phone used; I didn’t want to spend as much time as I did on the phone as the day before, but I also got so tired of constantly filling in my journal. The second day I wouldn’t count as accurate. For example, I only used my phone 36 times that day. Thats half of the the amount of times I used it the day before. I think if February 25, 2015 was accurate, the numbers should have been consistent or somewhat close.

From 2:00 pm until 4:00 pm, I recorded that I used my phone at 2:05, 3:10, 3:25, and 3:52. They all happened to be text messages, but for some reason, looking back at it, I feel as though I wasn’t honest with myself. During those hours, I recorded that I used my cell phone for 10 minutes and 30 seconds. That doesn’t seem reasonable at all.

In total, I used my cell phone for approximately 5 hours and 8 minutes within a 48 hour period. I recorded that out of those hours, I used my phone for textual interactions more frequently than social interactions, textual being text messages, e-mail, internet searching and social being phone calls and FaceTime. My time recorded for social interactions was 1 hour, 59 minutes and 50 seconds, while my time recorded for textual interactions was 2 hours and 6 minutes. The time I used both interactions, like Facebook or Instagram, was 3 minutes.

 

After doing this assignment, I am extremely embarrassed about how much I rely on my cell phone. It has become a part of my life, along with many others as well. Now knowing these numbers, I have been trying to limit the amount of time I used my cell phone, especially during classes. I challenge those who are reading this blog post to do the same, and reach out to me with the data you collected by tweeting me at @JScoras

Google Docs Schmoogle Docs

This weeks assignment was to create our most recent blog post, Where To Find A #PrettyLittleLiar, in Google Docs.

For those of you that aren’t familiar with the application, don’t worry, I’m not either. I mean, I’ve used it for assignments for school a few times, but that involved just putting our work in a Google Doc so we can all access it from home. I have never actually written something in it until this week. I actually searched for a quick tutorial before using it, and this one seemed to help me gain some basic knowledge. Basically, it’s an online space that you can share with other people; you can all simultaneously write in it, edit it, add texts and different media, and change the fonts and anything else your heart desires. It also automatically saves every time you add or change something; a BIG plus (i’m always the one to forget to save my work).

This is what it looks like:

In my opinion, it’s just like Microsoft Word, but I find it a little more distracting. You have to use the internet to access it, which is a problem for me because I’m constantly adding and keeping tabs of my social media sites up.

The only thing I liked about Google Docs is the way it saves your work each time you do something new. You can exit out of the page, pull it back up and there it is, exactly how you left it.

At the top of the page there is a tool bar, shown above. There, you will find a bunch of tools to help you create a master piece of work. There are your typical file, edit, view, insert, format, etc. buttons, as well as the print, undo, redo and formatting buttons for the text and layout of your work. I played around with the formatting buttons a little bit, and I decided then and there that Google Docs was not my friend. Especially when using it to create a blog post, it is not very user friendly.

So, let me rant about the things I don’t like about Google Docs. I tried to insert the pictures of the two actresses from the show into my Where To Find A PrettyLittleLiar, and I could not get them to align with the text or each other the way I wanted to. I had to wait until I was back on WordPress to insert them, which is unfortunate because I felt like I should have or could have done everything on the document and then transferred it over to my bog.

I also don’t like that you can share with others and they can edit it too. Yeah, its helpful and pretty cool, but let me tell you how frustrating it is when you’re trying to type something and somebody else is typing in the same spot. Limits need to be set with that kind of thing.

Am I the only person who feels this way about this writing space? It’s distracting, not media friendly, and time consuming when you’re constantly trying to type when others are not. Let me know what you all think by tweeting me @JScoras

Where To Find A #PrettyLittleLiar

Besides Twitter, there are many places you can find information about Pretty Little Liars. Though some of these places don’t use hashtags, they are still websites where the shows fans can go and get the latest scoop, catch up on some missed episodes, or talk about some theories they may have. “Sites also vary in the extent to which they incorporate new information and communication tools, such as mobile connectivity, blogging, and photo/video sharing” (boyd, Ellison, 2008). I’ll introduce you to some of my favorite ones.

First, we have Twitter, obviously. You can search #PrettyLittleLiars, #PLL, #ABCFPLL, and pretty much get the same users, tweets, retweets and more. I’m finding it extremely difficult to keep up because during each new episode, there are new hashtags based on what’s happening in the scene. The TV station ABCFamily is known for creating new hashtags to keep the viewers engaged and live tweeting. Its a good way to publicize Twitter and the show. By looking at the different hash tags, I think it’s determined by user preference. There are so many that go with the show, that multiple are used at a time, or one user tends to stick with one they prefer more. But if you search those hashtags, you will find a lot of the same information.

If you are a Twitter user, you can use it to keep up with the actors who play the characters, other users who are invested in finding out who A is, and even the TV station
to keep up with updates. By following these accounts, you can learn a lot about the show, as well as those who help create it. They usually post comments about the episodes, ask viewers their opinions and really get involved. They also sometimes live tweet the episode and interact with those watching; I would like to try that one day when I have time to see an episode without a DVR.

Second, we have Facebook. If you type into the search box while on Facebook, hundreds and hundreds of pages come up, even pages for those who watch in different countries. It just goes to show how many viewers are dedicated to this show. I follow the first one that shows up in the search, not for any particular reason, but that’s the first one that came up, so its the first I followed. While looking at different Facebook posts of the show, I noticed it tends to post a variety of information. They post during the day an episode is airing to remind everyone, right before, during and after. They also post pictures of the actors from their Instagrams during their spare time or hanging out on set. They keep their followers very updated and intrigued.

Third, there is a website for the TV station the show plays on, ACBfamily. On the website, the most recent episodes are available for you to watch. There is also a little blurb to give you information on the show, for those of you who have never seen it, as well as little articles about the cast members of the show.

It is a great place to get a little more information on the cast members if you would like, or about the show.

Off the top of my head, those are the three best places to find additional information about the show. If I think of any more that I know of, I will post them onto this blog post. Feel free to leave any suggestions for me by tweeting! @JScoras

What is ZenPen?!

I wrote my first post A First Look At #PrettyLittleLiars not in Microsoft Word, like I normally would, but in a new application called ZenPen.. and it was pretty cool.

This is ZenPen; exactly what you see is what you get.

It is a minimal distraction writing application where you can type all of your thoughts, feelings, papers and essays with out having a ton of options on your screen. First you read the directions, then delete them, and then start writing. Simple.

They do give you a few options, but only to make your writing more relaxed and enjoyable. I know its difficult to see, but the first option (the four arrows) is to toggle into full screen mode. This is how I wrote my paper, and I was able to focus solely on my #PrettyLittleLiar post. It was great! The next option (the half shaded circle) turns the ZenPen space from white and black to black and white. I didn’t try this option, but I think if I ever used ZenPen again, I would try it out. The third option (the target) allows you to set a word count you would like to target. The final option is to save your work. You are able to copy and paste, markdown your work, save it in an HTML, or in Plain Text. I chose to copy and paste it into my WordPress account; I fount it to be easiest.

I was very pleased with how the application worked and how relaxing it was. I found myself working a lot faster, especially in the full screen mode. I sometimes have my cell phone connected to my laptop, so any incoming messages come pop up from time to time, and distracts me. This eliminated that problem for me.

The only thing I did not enjoy about ZenPen was how there was no option to insert media like pictures or videos, or any hyper links. I enjoy using them in my blog posts, so a way for me to remember was noting the spots to insert them with asterisks, shown below.

If you are reading this, and you ever have to write a paper for school, a letter or just want to jot some feelings down, I would suggest using ZenPen. It is a great tool to use instead of Microsoft Word, and hopefully if you do use it, you will find yourself a little more relaxed and distraction free.