Author: rubylanzi

My digital artefact is a YouTube channel with four other BCM 114 students who are; Ava Di Donato, Caitlin Koloski, Charlotte Pierro and Isabella Mallon. We developed this project because we wanted to try do little things each week to improve our happiness and hopefully inspire our audience of adolescents to begin to concentrate more of their life improving their happiness. Based on my twitter feed of the #bcm114, I have noticed that students easily access YouTube accounts over Instagram and other platforms, as videos can be engaging and easy to watch which is the reason as to why we chose to use YouTube as our platform. Personally, I thought this would be useful for our audience as they are able to watch videos of us instead of reading something in detail. 

Together, we decided we would develop this project by vlogging individually our challenge that week. At the end of the week sit down together to film about how our week went and whether or not our happiness levels increased.

The first thing I did was put a poll on twitter asking students what video they would like to see first. ’No Complaining for a Week’ won and so we begun filming every day for five days then sat down and filmed how our week went. 

This video was probably our best video made as the five of us were all very enthusiastic about the project and we took the video seriously by doing the challenge properly. It was also pretty much the only video of which we advertised. 

We spent roughly 3 hours filming and editing the video when we were together which was pretty time efficient. However, the feedback we received was to shorten our videos.

The second video we attempted was waking up at 5am everyday for the week. 

During this video, some of us failed to do the challenge on some days. This is where we came upon our first problem which was that the video was too boring if we tried to shorten it. This took out 2 weeks of our time, re-filming and re-editing, to ensure the content we put out was not boring. 

The end video we were not proud of. Our viewers suggested we try add in special guests into our videos which we failed to attempt. 

The third video we filmed was doing Yoga for a week. This video was the biggest mess by far as only 3 group members completed the challenge so when filming all together we noticed no enthusiasm and an extremely boring video. However, we tried to act enthusiastic and uploaded a video anyway. 

After we noticed a lack of enthusiasm, we stopped coming up with ideas because the five of us stopped making time for each other and some of us forgot about the project as a whole. I spoke to my tutor, who told me that not all 5 of us needed to be in the video. 

Therefore, the next week, Isabella and I, decided to film a ‘gratitude week’ where we vlogged everyday and put our videos together so that our project had some content to it.  This video, I realised the enthusiasm came back and made the video more interesting.

I was planning on filming an individual video where talk about things that make me happy, and asking friends and family what they do to make themselves happy. This video never came about due to lack of time as I found out too late that we could upload individual videos (not that it was a problem, just the timing was off).

That concludes Project Five. Next semester when I do a digital artefact, I have learnt that I will be branching away from group projects. The main reason for this is that during this semester I found a true passion for this course and am excited to see where it takes me in the future. In saying this, I don’t want to be part of something that may hold me back from what I am capable of creating. 

Until Next Time, R.

Project Five is a YouTube channel, run by five friends, aimed to help improve ones happiness.

Through this prototyping stage, we have experimented with many factors of our channel and ended up with ideas that are completely different to the original.

Since the filming and uploading of our Beta, there has been no work gone into project five which is something that I have been struggling with. However, with the videos we have filmed, I have noticed the difficulty of ensuring the group is enthusiastic.

As the five of us struggle to come together as a group, we have come up with the idea to upload videos in a different schedule. We are now going to try each group member uploading a video/vlog of their own, to improve their happiness, whenever they want. This way, group members won’t feel the pressure of needing to be in every video, our viewers will have more content to watch and we, as a group, can get a feel of what our audience demand.

Although I would like to be in a different stage of this digital artefact, so far project five has helped me to learn more about group work and what it truly means to be part of a group.

This project is something that I would absolutely love to put my whole self into and hopefully with trying out this new uploading schedule I will be able to do so and create a true following.

Be Kind To Yourself, R.

Project Five has been up and running for five weeks and we honestly have never been more lost. 

During the first week, we put a poll on Twitter to ask what challenge to complete and ‘no complaining for a week’ won. So, for the next five days we spent filming snippets of our days then came together at the end of the week, sat down and filmed our happiness level.

PLEASE please please help us out!! @CaitlinKoloski @bellaamallon @charpierro @AvaDiDonato1 which idea should we do for the first week?? #bcm114

— Ruby Lanzi (@rubylanzi) August 16, 2019

FIRST VIDEO IS LIVE!
no complaining for a week is up!! check it out x #bcm114 #projectfive
https://t.co/V1gpDkTWNq

— Ruby Lanzi (@rubylanzi) August 26, 2019

We received feedback that the video was too long. Trying to cut down the length of our videos was really were our project began to go downhill, as this shorter video we found boring. Trying to make this video better took out 2/3 weeks of our time. This did improve the entertaining side to our videos however, views have declined due to us no longer promoting our videos (where we are also failing).

PLEASE VOTEEE
we need to pick one of these ideas for #projectfive week 2, the poll helped our indecisiveness so much last week! @AvaDiDonato1 @charpierro @CaitlinKoloski @rubylanzi

— BELLA MALLON (@bellaamallon) August 25, 2019

after tomorrow, i vow to never wake up at 5am EVER again x #projectfive #bcm114 @bellaamallon @CaitlinKoloski @charpierro @AvaDiDonato1

— Ruby Lanzi (@rubylanzi) August 29, 2019

We then came up with the idea to change our idea completely. We could review cafe’s around Wollongong as this is something that we do often but we were unsure about whether we should change our idea so late into the semester.

The next video we uploaded was the five of us attempting yoga, but due to most of us not participating throughout the week, this video was unenthusiastic and quite boring. We find that we still are not putting out the content of which we are 100% proud of. To improve this, we are going to try to bring in special guests into our videos. 

week 3 #projectfive, here are our options please pick one !! @rubylanzi @AvaDiDonato1 @CaitlinKoloski @charpierro

— BELLA MALLON (@bellaamallon) September 15, 2019

Something that I’ve struggled with over the last few weeks is getting the whole group together. Not everyone is putting in the effort of which this project requires. Continuing this thought, this lack of enthusiasm is showing in our videos.

Personally, I think we should change our idea and try something new. 

Until Next time, R. 

Khalid is a well loved and well known artist among young individuals all over the globe. He is a very popular R&B artist who has not only written and sung many of his own songs but has also been a part of many collaborations with other artists that relate to a lot of societal issues.

After his debut of his ‘American Teen’ album he was seen as the voice for all teens, an article continues on this thought:

“Now that it’s a platinum- seller, the 10th-biggest album of 2017 in the US, he’s become the latest to be saddled with the “voice of a generation” tag.”

After the release of his song ‘Young, Dumb and Broke’ he was seen as an icon for teenagers as he understood the struggles of being a teen in the 21st Century but the problem was .. he is no longer broke and is exiting his teen years. So, now what will he bring to the table?

In a collaboration with Logic and Alessia Cara with the song 1-800-273-8255. This song is probably one of the most powerful songs to have come out, beginning with the title being the American Hotline for Suicide Prevention. This already showing a major societal issue and spreading awareness.

“I love the message of the song. It’s important and it’s not talked about enough within my society and my peer group, as a creative, it’s something I definitely have. I suffer from anxiety, moments of depression. I’m in my head so much and I’m thinking so much, I’m playing a tug-of-war within my mind.”

For an artist who is so highly looked upon among young adults all over the globe to be singing, preaching and understanding mental health issues truly shows just how powerful music can be. It shows how much music affects society and the messages portrayed in such music have a ripple affect.

Khalid, in a more recent interview spoke about is newest Album ‘Free Spirit’ and how his inspiration for that album was Frank Ocean. Ocean is a more hip hop artist and here we can see, cultural appropriation. Having Khalid getting his inspiration from other genres and artists shows his ability to expand his mindset and writing styles which can appeal to a broader audience.

Cultural appropriation is where a member of one culture adopts elements of another. Expanding on this, Khalid has had many articles written about his music but another aspect of his life that they appear to be attracted too is his fashion. Fashion is a major part of our ever-changing society and Khalid has managed to adopt parts of other cultures into his fashion and branding. An article found, talks about his ‘athletic’ clothing style.

“We’re loving this sun-drenched shot of Khalid rocking a simple, slick baseball jersey. Pinstripe and classic breton stripes are big news this year, and the singer is bang on trend with his athletic spin.”

Having this aspect to Khalid shows the cultural appropriation of his brand and name. His clothing is inspired by sporting and his music is inspired by other genres which is where he is localising societies.

Stay True, R.

Project Five is a YouTube channel run by five friends who are; myself, Ava Di Donato, Isabella Mallon, Caitlin Koloski and Charlotte Pierro. This channel is dedicated to improving our happiness and entertaining young adults.

The process of ideating this project stemmed from the book ‘The Happiness Project’ written by Gretchen Rubin. Rubin realises that she wants to create a more happier so her idea was to pick an aspect of her life and month by month slowly change that aspect of her life (example: her relationship, work life, family etc) by making it more positive. Her goal was that by the end of the year to be an overall happier individual.

Therefore, for our DA we thought to manipulate this idea to fit our own vibe. The first step we completed was to come up with what we would upload on our channel. In this process we decided to google ‘things that make you happier’ and use those ideas for weekly challenges to test and see if they actually do make people happier.

After this we needed to decide how we would curate these videos which is where we discovered to vlog 10 seconds of our day throughout the week, Monday – Friday, then come together on the weekend to film and talk about our overall week and rate our happiness.

We came up with the name ‘Project Five’ as there are 5 of us and we are doing a challenge for 5 days of the week.

Then it was time to begin our DA and start filming and editing. I put a poll on Twitter asking other BCM students what they would like to see us accomplish for the first week.

PLEASE please please help us out!! @CaitlinKoloski @bellaamallon @charpierro @AvaDiDonato1 which idea should we do for the first week?? #bcm114

— Ruby Lanzi (@rubylanzi) August 16, 2019

As you can see, by 42%, no complaining won and therefore we started our week. We filmed Monday – Friday, got together at the end of the week and before we knew it our first video was up and live. Last week was definitely a challenge as having to remember to film plus collecting everyone’s videos was probably the biggest issue we had which was an easy fix.

After uploading this video, we are now able to learn and improve upon our editing, filming and overall channels aesthetic. We have come to the conclusion that along with the weekly challenges, we will also film in different ways to keep our audience entertained. After looking through the analytics section on our channel, viewers seem to click off the video around the 3/4 minute mark, meaning they prefer our vlogs over us sitting and talking. We will change this by talking about our weeks through drive with us, mukbangs and so on.

Hopefully, by the end of this semester we will have a more engaging audience and have discovered how to entertain young adults in our own way.

Until Next Time, R.

For my Digital Artefact myself and four friends have decided to create Project Five. This group includes, Isabella Mallon, Ava Di Donato, Charlotte Pierro, Caitlin Koloski and myself. 

Project Five will be a YouTube channel where every week we try something different that is supposed to improve our happiness. An example of this is being vegan for a week. We got the idea from a book called The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin.  

We will accomplish this by doing different things for five days (Mon – Fri), filming little snippets of ourselves throughout the week. At the end of the week we will come together, sit down and talk about how the week changed our happiness levels.

Project Five is aimed for young adults to be ‘inspired’ and show viewers that it doesn’t take much to improve your happiness and change your life as the five of us have very different personalities and interests yet are completing the same tasks every week. 

With Love, R 

No, I’m not getting married and no, I am not Greek.

This week we were asked to watch a movie and review it. Although the point of this is meant to be ‘Global Films’, as far as ‘global’ goes this is pretty much as far as we are gonna get here for me.

The movie I have chosen to ‘review’ is My Big Fat Greek Wedding because if I’m being honest here I really don’t have many options to go off.

This movie was filmed in Toronto, Canada and I just had a confirmation from a friend that this movie, is in fact, cultural. Feeling proud of myself there. This movie is set in Chicago and is about a 30 year old Greek lady (Toula) who meets and falls in love with a very American man (Ian). This doesn’t really settle well with her very old fashioned Greek family but as the movie goes on they end up accepting him (with a few changes along the way).

Watching back this movie in a critical mindset, many things popped into my mind. The first being the producers really are trying to set a Greek scene through the use of music. Not only this, but by Toula introducing her huge family it makes the movie have a very ‘traditional’ and ‘realistic’ tone to it.

The intended audience, having it be G rated, would be families with young children.

In terms of what cultural knowledge you need to ‘make sense’ of this film could be quite broad. Coming from an Italian background with families on both sides being quite traditional, there are a few similarities with the way Toula’s family acts and what they ‘expect’ from her. Although this movie is quite exaggerated as my family, personally, doesn’t expect a lot from me in terms of who I marry and what I do with my life as my parents accept everyone for who they are. Thus meaning, whether I marry an Italian or not does not affect them in the slightest.

Knowing the traditional European way, and seeing first hand expectations that the elderly expect would probably be the extent of cultural knowledge that one might need to fully understand this film. The reason for this being, otherwise you will be watching it and just thinking ‘this family is absolutely crazy’.

When it comes to the cultural homogenisation of this film it is pretty small yet portrayed. Having Toula explain that everyone in her family marries a Greek and has Greek babies then feeds everyone shows this homogenisation of the film.

However, the cultural hybridisation is more relevant and a bigger aspect of this film. By Toula falling in love and marrying an American man this is portrayed. In saying this, instead of her family accepting Ian for who he is and making him part of the family, the Greeks instead, baptise him and make him learn the Greek culture. This is something that always seems to frustrate me coming from a European background. Although my parents are very ‘chill’ with who my brother and I date my Nonno and Nonna, however, have their set ways in which they want us to follow. They will never make someone change but they will definitely have their say. This has never affected me as I am not very close to my extended family due to many reasons. In summary, this film portrays the side of traditional European families that has always frustrated me. The fact that they needed to change Ian to ‘fit into’ her family so that they could get married.

That turned into a little rant which is now over.

Stay True, R.

If I’m being honest this weeks lecture and tutorial made me feel more like a typical white girl than ever before. I’ve never considered myself to be someone who is ‘generic’ and ‘like everybody else’, but this week just managed to prove me wrong.

Going around the room asking what ‘global television’ we watch and our tutor getting more triggered with everyone saying they watch American TV truly reminded me how uncultured us teens are. But I don’t understand what she expected from me, like to be able to speak another language fluently and watch it on TV? I just am not about that life.

So, in terms of what ‘global television’ I watch, what exactly is it? Well, I no longer sit in front of a TV with my family anymore due to many many reasons, so my ‘global television’ would be, Netflix. A huge shock .. I’m sure. I don’t really watch TV that often, I am more the type of person to get lost in the deep dark depths of weird YouTube videos but that’s a different story.

At the moment on Netflix I am really into Kath and Kim because I genuinely find it hilarious but something else I am into at the moment is Brooklyn Nine Nine. With Brooklyn Nine Nine, I tried watching it a year ago and just couldn’t get into it but someone recommended me to try it again and this time round I am actually enjoying it. I guess you could say as far as my ‘global television’ goes, it doesn’t really pass American.

What does Netflix tell me about the world I live in? Surprisingly, this question actually made me wonder, does Netflix portray a characteristic that society has formed into? If we break this down, Netflix really does tell me a lot about our society today and what it has come too. Individuals and families would rather sit at home and have a movie or show easily accessible at their home rather than go out to a video store and rent the show.

One of my most prominent childhood memories is going to the video store with my family or friends and renting a movie or show for that upcoming week. This could lead us to, Netflix becoming how big it is now, has truly an ended an era.

This may portray Netflix in a slightly negative light, however there is something that Netflix tells me about the world I live in which makes me feel very appreciative. Having Netflix gives content creators or even budding writers to be able to put their thoughts and dreams into action and turn it into something for all to view. This being the hundreds of Netflix original series and movies streamed on this site. On the flip side of this, viewers are now appreciating and acknowledging individuals or groups of writers who have always wanted to create a show. This is just something that truly amazes me about Netflix as it is opening more and more opportunities for our society.

Long story short, I am part of every other teen who watches American TV. Maybe I should start to branch out and watch different content.

Probably won’t.

Be You, R.

We are always told by our parents; “be careful what you put online”. Yeah well, they’re right.

Everything that we do online is being recorded. It’s like a life lesson. ‘Don’t say something you don’t mean’ … yeah well, don’t do anything online that you don’t want others seeing.

During HSC my teacher played a clip from Black Mirror, because in Society and Culture we learnt this exact thing, and people were ranked on their behaviours. These rankings basically determined the rest of their life … where you went, who you dated, the friends you had.

Scary thing is, China have surveillance cameras on their streets and they watch citizens every move to make sure everyone is following the law. Will we ever have privacy anymore?

It’s daunting enough for me to know every move I make online is being watched. So, do we really have privacy? Who knows anymore!

“How do we know everything is real anyway” as Ted would say.

Be Mindful, R.

Honestly, I couldn’t even describe to you what a ‘software’ is, simply because I am not the tech savvy teen I should be. On top of this, I didn’t even know online programs had ‘codes’. Yes, I AM in fact, an idiot.

So, what are open and closed sources?

Well, I learnt that an open source is where the “source code is publicly available” which users can change as they desire. An example of an open source would be WordPress as we create the way our websites look and modify the codes … I took a guess with that one.

A closed source is an online application that we don’t have access to the ‘codes’ and cannot modify what we are using. The majority of the applications that we use are closed sources and are Microsoft Office and Skype.

After researching more into it, I genuinely found this interesting. Maybe I’m destined to be in IT … ha jokes.

That wasn’t funny.

Try Something New, R.