Final

I read a study once that questioned why animal posts are the most likely to go viral. This study claimed that it actually isn't about the animals at all, instead, these posts show human compassion and empathy at its best. Perhaps in a digital world full of hate and shame, animal videos may be our only semblance of human empathy and compassion. 

Let me preface my rant by explaining until recent years, information was exchanged through mass media, not necessarily in a two-way exchange. There were senders and receivers with the receivers giving little to no feedback to the senders. Since the dawn of the internet age (next blockbuster title?) receivers could start giving feedback. Now, content creators such as "news" organizations, blogs, and various entertainment site are creating things purely for the sake of clicks, comments, and shares. Whether positive or negative, those clicks comments and shares equal advertising dollars. 

We are becoming more desensitized through a world of information. One where we are able to shamelessly read or watch other people's embarrassment without feeling accountable. We even have the ability to attack and comment without seeing the damage we are causing, all while we are the targets of advertising. Since people often view their world through a screen they don't feel their words have any consequences, they don't realize they are talking to/about a real person. We buy into a paradigm of negativity in order to feel better about ourselves for a mere second before buying something. Online shaming is ever growing and uncontained, and the sad fact is we are unconsciously supporting this shame with every click.

I believe over time compassion can displace shame. Monica talks about when culture values shift behaviors shift as well. I'm reminded of being a child and having no clue what recycling was, now its a part of my nature, something I value so much that I don't even have to give it a second thought. This is a result of a shift in my values. Once we value kindness and goodness over shame and humiliation the embarrassment will end and be replaced with positivity. We need to remind ourselves of our humanity. We need to realize that everyone makes mistakes and it's not our place to view, judge or be unkind.

What am I prepared to do? First and foremost, I choose to vote with my clicks. Shame based content creators can never receive any of my advertising dollars if I choose not to participate. Second,  I always strive to promote positivity, I'm not really a social media share-er in the sense that I don't like posting third party content, maybe it's time to start if those stories value positivity and kindness. Third, I need to start commenting more. Monica said even one person showing compassion made a difference. I need to not only give individuals a thumbs up or a little heart but let them know they are loved and they have worth. The little things we choose to do will become habitual and have the capability of causing a cultural shift, even if its a small shit just among our friends. I truly believe kindness breeds more kindness and we all have the capability to combat the negativity online.  

Facebook Campaign Analysis

This campaign was conceived at the beginning of this semester in a meeting with Phil Tuckett and some fellow film students. It began with the question: What do you do? Many of us had agreed a lot of our friends and family see our production related posts on social media but don't really know what we do. We wanted a place where we could see BTS photos and videos and share them with our friend. Likewise, Phil desired social media in order to really highlight the program and up our enrollments as well as target future paying clients. So I began managing DSU Films social media by creating this campaign on multiple platforms.

     Click HERE for the Facebook Page.

     Click HERE for my communication objectives and market personas.

     Click HERE for original plan and tactics.
 
      Click HERE for Facebook Ad.

Likes: Overall, the likes came in two main waves. The first wave was in the beginning of the campaign when I sent out a request to all film friends to like this page. Some accepted but the majority didn't. For the next few weeks, I only had 20-something likes. The second wave, I believe, happened when I began tagging people in photos posted by DSU Films. For the longest time, I thought I wouldn't be able to tag people because it wouldn't let me directly from the page. Once I signed in under myself I realized I could tag people I'm friends with on Facebook. Once I began tagging the likes jumped again. I only wish I would have realized this earlier. (Please click on the images to improve resolution.) 

Reach: Although my reach could have done a lot better, I found it encouraging that all of my reach to date has been organic, and not through paid advertising. The biggest peak in reach happened around the end of March. This increase was around the time I discovered the wonderful world of tagging. Most of my post around these dates involved tagging students and Alumni, this probably lead to the post showing up on more feeds. Had I realized I could tag earlier I probably would have been able to receive more page likes. Most of the tags were on post-dated photos that probably wouldn't have turned up in the feeds as much as timely photos. This assumption is based on my very basic knowledge of Facebook's algorithms.  (Click images to improve resolution.)

Page Views (Visitors): This portion of the metrics is the most fascinating to me because the data isn't present until March 21st, nearly 2 months after I started the page. I'm not sure if facebook didn't count page views until it reached the magic number of likes, or if people mysteriously liked the page without ever visiting it. All in all the numbers aren't great. The page only generated between 1 and 7 views in the given time intervals. (Click images to improve resolution.)

Posts: There were many variables in the types of posts I choose to post, so it's hard to say which types were the best right now. Surprisingly, the videos got the least reach and engagement which is funny because the videos are our medium as film students. It seems like the posts that did well either had someone tagged in them in a timely manner, or had multiple photos, an album that users had to click through. Although I only shared one post that was from an outside source, it seems like that got the least engagement. I'm assuming this is because users would have to click to an external site to view the video. I really tried to create posts at different times of the day to enable the most user engagement, also to test the waters of the best time to post. (Click images to improve resolution.)

People: I was probably least surprised by the people metrics. 78% of fans were men and 22% were women. This is a pretty accurate representation of not only our program but our industry, which is predominantly male. The top 3 countries were the United States, Hong Kong (which is apparently a country according to facebook.) and Australia. All of these locations make sense because one of our more popular students is from Hong Kong, and my family is from Australia. (Click images to improve resolution.)

Self-Evaluation: I believe this campaign has the potential to do more, much more. I think my biggest hindrance was not posting enough compelling content and not inviting enough engagement in posts. Moving forward I really want to get all of the film students to like this page, I'd also encourage them to invite their friends to like this page. I am proud of the amount of original content produced. Everything, with the exception of one post, was created by DSU Films. When I was planning posts I would always try to think of pages that I enjoy following. These pages tend to be ones with original content, not just curated shares from across the web. I really tried to make my focus original content. This is why I went through the old drives to find BTS photos and video that could be presented. I also tried to group content. For instance, I made a series called "Camera Operator Faces." These camera operator pictures wouldn't have been interesting by themselves, but when they are juxtaposed they are pretty funny. Moving forward, I'd like to post content that encourages people to comment and share. Maybe this means tagging more students, maybe this means sharing facts and opinions about filmmaking, maybe this means asking questions. I know the best way to achieve reach is through genuine audience engagement, not just paid likes.



Post Examples as always, click to view them in the correct resolution.

Facebook Ad

For this Ad, I really wanted to gear it towards a realistic demographic. I figured the majority of young males and females (18-25) in the St. George area are either college students, previous college students or future college students. I believe this narrow bracket of individuals would be the most likely to check out the page and click the like button. It is also the key demographic we are searching for since we are hoping to up the enrollment in the film program.

Facebook identified my potential reach as 4,600, a pretty small number in comparison to some of my classmates. I'm not sure if this number truly represents the number of 18-25-year-olds in the area, or if my limited budget capped the amount facebook will reach. Either way, I am in search of genuine likes and genuine leads for future students, I think narrowing that scope will actually help us more than sending it out to a general audience.

Automatic Attitudinal Response

Today, I'd like to talk about cultural conditioning, particularly mine. A few weeks ago I really did some self-evaluation of my passing judgement on others. It was triggered by such a trivial thing, I was in Australia at McDonalds with my husband. We were sitting outside enjoying our frozen Cokes and a nice humid breeze. We were getting ready to leave when a young man asked if he could clear anything away from us, I looked up and found myself looking at a young man who looked very much like my husband (white, clean cut and very kind.) Then I directed my attention to the inside of the restaurant and there was a pretty blonde girl changing the garbage bags. I felt sad, really sad, as in talking-my-husbands-ear-off-wanting-to-cry-for-them sad. After a few minutes of me being oversensitive, he and I came to the conclusion that I have become SO conditioned to seeing immigrants working these entry-level grunt-work jobs, that I no longer feel sorry for them. That being said, I feel bad because I understand how hard they work for such little pay, yet I always turn around and think "Hey, at least they have a job?"  Seeing these individuals working not only made me realize how much I turn a blind eye to people here at home but also, how easily that could be me in that situation.

I have taken some time to read through my previous posts. Throughout every post there is a common theme that I seem to preach: through media engagement or disengagement we are reinforcing our own ideas or our own ethnocentrism. We have a great access to information and new ideas, however, our automatic attitudinal response is our biggest barrier. We are constantly using the media as only a mirror to compare our own culture and ideals to others, only to look but not necessarily to change.

I am now working to practice what I preach, if you look back to my post for Racism 2.0 my stance was "integration integration integration!" because inherently I didn't think that racism still existed. However, scroll up to the top paragraph of this post and you will see not only does it exist within my culture, but I am an active participant. My only hope is that I will have more opportunities to be aware of my hidden presumption. It is through truly recognizing them, not just comparing them, that I can change.

On the media: What's Really going on between Apple and the FBI.

This week I listened to the segment Apple vs. The FBI. A very timely post seeing as we recently spoke about security in class. To me, this is not a question of security, nor is it about abiding to a court order. This issue is about the government setting a precedent, and thanks to an open letter from Apple, a public who isn't really buying it. 

According to the FBI they are wanting to unlock Farook's phone so they can see his contacts to prevent further acts of terrorism. On the surface that sounds like a just cause and initially most of us agree that Apple should comply. As of right now, users set their passwords and when they die their passwords die with them. However, there is something left behind, metadata. Loads and loads of metadata. The FBI has already seen it, it appears there is no contact with anyone overseas. Still, the FBI demands Apple to write a code that doesn't exist. This code would allow the government to shoot an infinite amount of password guesses until the phone unlocks itself. Even though this is a special request this new code could be used on any iPhone once it's written. 

 Here are the problems if Apple chooses to comply:

1. Apple is writing a code that doesn't exist, an unnecessary code. The FBI has already accessed the metadata from this particular phone. The NSA has access to petabytes of transmitted data, so much data we can't begin to comprehend. Yet the FBI still presses this code being written even through the information is already accessible. 

2. If Apple were to write this code it would be applicable to all iPhones, not just terrorists. It runs the risk of being leaked and soon anyone who understands basic coding could have information to anyone's information. The nation runs the risk of facing a huge privacy breech of its citizens

3. Apple itself believes that this request is a slippery slope. This is a privacy breech that could lead to access to health records, financial records, microphones etc. without the users knowledge. 

4. Anyone who understand basic law knows this case will be cited, this court order to will be cited. If Apple chooses to write this code it will then be used as a precedent for future cases. This is a problem because it can affect future cases on a much larger scale. 

I clearly believe Apple needs to hold their grounds on this issue. Their behavior and willingness or unwillingness to comply will set an example for years to come. 

Well Informed: Democracy 2.0

Social media has the great power to inform or misinform. Is it changing our democracy? Perhaps. For the better? Not exactly.

I remember attending my Digital Revolution class during the Arab Spring, I remember us discussing with such excitement how social media was changing democracy. At last we could broadcast the thoughts of the common man to the masses. It was a really exciting time to feel like a revolution was being organized through social media. Yet, here we are a few years later and we still haven't seen much REAL change. If anything through social media engagement or disengagement we are only reinforcing our own political ideals without much discourse or deliberation.  This isn't real change.

Let me explain, I think in times past people were more engaged, they listened to the debates, they sat and debated themselves in real time and came to their own conclusions and opinions. You couldn't ignore someone sitting across the table from you. You didn't have the choice to not respond or stoop to emotional arguments. You certainly couldn't sit and correct grammar to add "validity" to your own argument.  Now, with the growth of social media people rarely want to discuss politics with people whose opinions differ from their own. Most people either avoid these conversations or disengaged when they meet an idea different from their own.  It also seems we are much less likely to post political views when they think their viewers opinions will be much different than theirs. For instance, I don't speak out about police brutality because I'm friends with many wives of officers. I wouldn't want to offend them or get into a heated argument over the matter so I hold my opinions silently.

With an ever shifting context away from face-to-face interaction, we also begin to lack common courtesy. Since social media is pretty much done solitary I think we have lost a lot of our civility. Its no wonder people don't want to discuss politics when arguments can quickly become personal attacks and full of fallacious arguments. I know I'm often guilty of choosing silence over disagreement. I understand this behavior is dangerous, but I'm not quite sure how to change it.

On the Media II: Zika Virus

This week, It seems we really only had one choice of topics and that was the Zika virus. I listened to a few of the excerpts highlighting some of the different viewpoints of the Zika Virus. Apparently, this virus has made huge waves in the media and is reminiscent of the panic surrounding the Ebola virus in late 2014 and early 2015. My remaining question: is this virus worthy of panic or is the media sensationalizing it to get higher ratings? After some listening and further research, I think the latter is true.

Apparently the Zika virus, isn't even new. It was first discovered 70 or so years ago. It is only now getting attention now that there is a "treat "on American soil. So far there has been one confirmed case in Boston, and in the winter in a cold climate like Boston the likelihood of it spreading is so slim. Why is the media up in arms about it? Because it now fits into our context. Now that there is a threat of it spreading here, people suddenly care. The exact same thing happened with the Ebola virus, West Africa got no media coverage and no attention was given until the virus hit home. Once there was a single confirmed case in Atlanta the media swarmed, going as far as to live-stream the ambulance ride from a news helicopter. Once things become relatable, the media jumps and the public suddenly cares.

OTM began this week's podcast with a series of actual news reports about the Zika virus. As an uninformed observer, you would think the world is on the verge of an absolute meltdown just from listening to these sound bites. The first guest was Jonathan Katz, who wrote an article depicting his contraction of the disease while in Hati titled "Reporting Zika When You Have Zika." I found his perspective really interesting because he expressed similar feelings on the sensationalizing of diseases (as well natural disasters.) He had the interesting perspective of listening to these types of news reports while actually suffering from Zika. He made it clear that the news made it sound much worse than it was. And should maybe start diverting its attention to much more severe mosquito-carried diseases.

On one hand I do believe it's a vital part of our human nature to prepare things that are are seemingly out of control. However, while everyone prepares only a few are really ever affected and those who prepared are left feeling embarrassed, feeling a little boy-who-cried-wolf. Maybe that is why I haven't seen much about this on my social media feeds, maybe my peers are growing weary of this over sensationalizing. I know I felt the panic with the Ebloa virus. I traveled internationally during the outbreaks and had to fill out extensive paperwork to be allowed to exit the plane. I remember when my flight landed our plane had to be quarantined while men in face masks filled our plane with what I would describe as a bug bomb. It was really unsettling, yet shortly after we never heard anything else about the virus. I will not be likely to send myself through this psychological turmoil over the Zika virus, no thank you.

All in all, I  believe the media is over sensationalizing a disease that probably won't affect many of us. Yet, I am still grateful that other nations are getting some much-needed attention. I wish Americans could care BEFORE the outbreak or before they felt personally affected. It is hard to ask people to understand something that is out of their context and doesn't resonate with them.

Learning 2.0 Homeschooling: Not Just for Hippies and Religious People Anymore

I have been thinking about different institutions of education for a while now, and why some are valued more than others. This topic is especially relevant to my family because in the past few years my high-school-age sister has switched from public school, to charter school, to private school and now online school. She never really enjoyed the dynamics of school and had a lot of trouble making friends with her peers. Now she loves online high school and is accelerating academically. I think learning from home really took the pressure off of her, she doesn't feel isolated or judged by her peers. She now can be honest and ask her teachers or parents meaningful questions without feeling embarrassed. This switch was the best option for our family, but there are a lot of options out there.

This has lead me to think are some forms of education better than others? Why did my fiance's parents pay $6,000 a year for his private education yet mine was essentially free? Is he better educated than me? What about homeschooled children do they have any hope of exceeded academically and socially when they are taught by one single person? While researching this topic, I found a podcast by "Stuff You Should Know" Click HERE if you would like to give it a listen. I highly recommend it.

Compulsory education has an interesting history in the United States. Through 1852-1918, the states slowly began mandating attendance by law --Mississipi was the last to require this in 1918. This made homeschooling illegal even as recent as the 70's. Free and public education meant free babysitting for some people, with the added bonus of creating indoctrinated unquestioning little drones. Eventually, a grass roots group decided to lobby to make homeschooling legal in the states. They attempted to take it to the supreme court to create a federal law all around protecting families who chose to homeschool. They failed on a federal level, however, each state now has its own homeschooling laws.

Parents choose homeschooling for different reasons. Most states require you to fill out paperwork with the intent to pull your child out of school. In these forms, researchers have found 30% of parents say it is because of the environment of the school, 30% say it is for religious or moral reasons, and 16% say they are dissatisfied with their students education.

This podcast pointed out some interesting bits about learning through classical education --the education that you and I probably received. There are three main components that public schools still use. 1. Grammar school age, which focuses on memorization and facts. 2. Middle school age, which focuses on critical thinking 3. High school age, which focuses on rhetoric. To me, these approaches seem very streamline, cut and dry. I have especially strong opinions when it comes to memorization, I have little memory of what I memorized in elementary school. I do remember how I learned to make friends, the stories my teachers would read us, and the tactile and creative learning that took place. These I feel are much more lasting and beneficial for a young child.

There are several other approaches that I learned about that can help cater education to children. Among these, my favorite tactic was called narration. You basically tell the child everything you can teach them about a subject...say whales. Once you, the educator, feel like you have explained everything to him you then ask him to teach you everything he knows about whales. I feel like this is ridiculously applicable to real life. In real conversations, whether they be social or job-related you can't look at your notes. You don't pull out your book report and cite your sources. Instead, you tell people what you know and understand and they tell you what they know and understand. This is one of the few ways we open up a dialog and is the basis of communication.

I could go into greater depth comparing the different approaches to eduaction. All in all, it is hard to say which approach is better, I think the best thing a parent can do for their child's education is to be honest about it. Ask real questions with real explicit answers. Is this working for my child? Do I have the time, energy and resources to change it? Does my child want to change? By opening up this dialog we can choose the education best suited for each child. Thankfully to the few who have fought for homeschooling, private school vouchers, and charter schools, parents now have viable and legal options.

Facebook Campaign Revisited: DSU Films

As I have discussed before, I am in the midst of launching a broad social media campaign for DSU Films. Many people are still unaware of the Film Department's existence, we are using the influential nature of the social media to change that.

While meeting with Phil Tuckett, we decided we wanted to reach both future students as well as future clients. DSU Films has been fortunate to generate enough paid productions to finance their equipment. It is through these paid clients that the department is able to purchase the "latest and greatest," which then better prepares students to enter the job market. Students not only graduate with a resume, they are also very familiar with equipment used on real sets.

Ideal Followers:

Jared: 30-somthing project manager from California. He has been delegated to create a promo for dirt bikes. He has chosen to show off these bikes in the gorgeous red rocks of Southern Utah. He knows little of the area and is looking for an all inclusive production crew. Ideally, someone he could rely on to direct the commercial, shoot and edit it. He finds out about DSU Films from social media, he is directed to the landing page and fills out at enquiry form. Someone contacts him to do a follow-up and he chooses DSU Films to produce his commercial.

Josh: a first-year student at Dixie, he knows he wants to go into something media related but isn't quite sure. He finds DSU Films through social media and likes a lot of the student's behind the scenes photos. He clicks on the hashtag #dsufilms and is immediately connected to current students as well as successful Alumni. Josh then decides he wants to be a part of the film department and takes the initiative to declare his major and enroll in the classes.

Abby: 22-year-old student at Dixie. She hated her generals and was really turned off by school, she had no desire to finish. While on facebook, she saw some of her friends liked some DSU Films photos. In the pictures, students were pushing each other around on a dolly and laughing. Abby realized that this picture was actually taken during a class. She couldn't believe it, up until now all of her classes had been a total snooze-fests and now this class actually seems fun. Abby signed up for the intro class and discovered her love of filmmaking, she continued to work hard pursuing her degree in the Film Emphasis.

In a nut-shell, this campaign will help draw more attention to the film program and hopefully generate more enrollments as well as more paying clients. I believe through some consistency we can make more people aware that the Film Department is alive and well.

Racism 2.0: Should the Oscars Have a Token Nomination?

In search of this week's topic, I first turned to social media. The following clip has been circulating my feed for a few days and I thought it summed up some of my feelings about the recent Oscars controversy.

I'd like to pose the question... are the Oscars about race or eligibility? If it's about the former, then it would seem all past nominees and recipients who are minorities would be offended for being considered. If this were the case, then how would someone ever know if their accomplishments were based on merit or the color of their skin.

I believe the biggest mistake the academy made in regard to this controversy was responding to it so quickly. By promising more women and minority nominees, they gave validity to an otherwise fallacious argument. Voting based on gender or race does a great disservice to the nominees.

This video also raises the question that perhaps there are not enough roles for those of color or for women in Hollywood. I defintely believe this to be true. While writing an outline for a script with some friends we switched the gender of our lead character to female, so now a woman was meant to be playing a role initially imagined as a man. This made for an interesting concept and we had a lot more fun creating a non-traditional character.Or really just a character we didn't default to. Perhaps its not te fault of the Acedemy but of the creators themselves. Maybe they are defaulting to certain characters and creating them on repeat without any reach as to what they could be.

Either way it will be interesting to see some of the changes that happen over the next few years. I am interested to see if we move closer to integration or further into segregation.

Facebook Campaign: DSU Films

This semester I was asked to establish a web presence for DSU films. The program has been fortunate enough to grow very organically with little advertising outside of word of mouth. Its time we succumb to the internet and really kick things up a notch.

My plan includes:

1. Creating a landing page for future professional clients. Most of the funding the film program receives is through professional projects. These clients are often lost when coming to Southern Utah and find DSU purely by happenstance. Last I checked I couldn't even find a phone number for DSU films. This page will also have short professional reels to show off some of the past work students have done.

2. Facebook I will be collaborating with students and faculty to create a stream of content. I know many students and Alumni share behind the scenes photos on their personal accounts that get a lot of attention. By collaborating with them we can gain a lot of cross promotion and followers

3. Instagram This will be a very similar tactic with facebook. We will be sharing a lot of behind the scenes stuff to gather follows like future clients and future students. I will be setting up a drive where students can upload their photos to get featured. I will also be reposting photos and tagging collaborators. DSU has received a lot of donations this year from companies in L.A. I will be tagging them to cross promote their gear and in exchange, they will be reposting our photos for future students and clients to find.

5. Linking them up. I will be usuing each platform to promote the next. Each will build a relationship with clients and students. I am also looking to collaborate with other departments on campus. I'm looking for members of student government, the dance department, the alumni association, and many others to help promote one another.

This won't be easy, but I am excited to see how much attention and growth I can create during my last semester as a student at DSU.

On the Media

This week, I chose to listen to the episode about Aaron Swartz called 'The Wunderkind of the Free Culture Movement" this episode interviews Justin Peters author of the book The Idealist: Aaron Swartz and the Rise of Free Culture on the Internet.

The interview, like the book, compares the life of Aaron Swartz with evolution of copyright laws. It begs the question: who is an information moralist? Is an information moralist the author who believes stealing is wrong? It he the publisher who takes established works of literature from overseas and sells them for nothing? Is he the one who spends the entirety of the 1980's transcribing the bible so that it may be searched one day? Is the moralist the advocate for copyright who convinces preachers to sneak copyright into their sermons? Or is the moralist the person who creates open access to eliminate the privatization of information?  

This question is especially tough to answer for me. I see media in two parts: the creator, and the consumer. It is difficult for me to separate my feelings between the two because I see myself as both. Like Fitzgeralds wrote, "I am both within and without." I am both a consumer who wants open and easily accessible information, and a creator who wants to benefit from my work. While examining the life of Aaron Swartz the author brings to mind a quote from Stewart Brand: 

"Information wants to be free!"

Justin Peters expands upon this slogan saying information wants to be free because it so infinitely cheap to recreate, however, it also wants to be expensive because it is so valuable to the creator. In the information age this becomes more and more true. How much money did Amazon make off your last Ebook purchase versus how much it cost to produce? Imagine a world where we could download our entire textbooks for free. Who is the REAL benefactor of this information, especially information created by those no longer living?

Swartz was first inspired to pursue free and open information when reading the book Understanding Power afterwards Swartz said he could not unsee it. He then pushed what he called content liberation. He wanted to honor the ideal of civil disobedience, claiming it was our duty to share to prevent the privatization of information.

Much like the author in this interview, I surprisingly sided more with Swartz by the end. I too have seen friends lose job opportunities because people are no longer paying for content. However, while learning more and more about the conception of copyright, it seems more and more like a fiscal issue that is being presented as a moral issue. It was fascinating to learn of the push of international copyright in churches. It makes me wonder what other issues have been pushed as "moral"?

What do you think?

Does copyright encourage more creation?


Or does it only benefit a few? 

All in all, this was an interesting conversation that needed to be had.

#SOTU

I had an interesting perspective during the State of the Union address. I was unable to stream it live due to an evening class on Tuesday night. Because of this, I couldn't help but be exposed to social commentary before watching it. Many news outlets and individuals were saying President Obama brushed a lot of issues under the rug, such as foreign policy. Because of this rhetoric, I went in with preconceived notions about the speech and found myself carefully looking for the president to glaze over these issues. To be fair, he kind of did.

So, yes, I was affected by this rhetoric because it distracted me from his speech from the start.

I had also seen a lot of conservatives pointing out the cameras catching the Joint Cheifs not applauding when Obama claims america is the strongest nation. Is this a hint at our readiness? Or something else? After reading multiple tweets and facebook posts I went back to rewatch this portion of the speech again.

All in all, I surprisingly liked his speech. I don't feel like it was the most appropriate for SOTU. At one point I said,"Wow if this guy were running for president, I might actually vote for him." He pointed out a lot of problems, but offered very little in the way of solutions. I'm all about preeching optomism, and while I appreciate it, I know its not the reality of the world we live in.

I liked his focus on climate change and sustainability, a real issue we all need to get behind, regardless of our party. I also appreciated his preeches of kindness and tollorance, something I believe we as a nation have lost. All-in-all I will consider this one of his more memorable speeches, even though I know its all a big PR-gasm, it made me think optomistically for a minute. 

Below are some fb posts and tweets that affected my view point: