As the semester comes to a close, I wanted to use this post to reflect on some major take-aways from the course. As you know, this blog is about music and LGBTQ+ musicians, so one of my favorite lectures in class was when we talked about music and the quality of sound within music. I think I liked that the most because it had a direct relation to what I talk about here on my blog. My favorite thing when I sit in lectures is when I can relate and resonate with a topic, it makes it a whole lot more interesting. We spoke about the different forms of listening to music, whether it’s on vinyl or in headphones and how there are differences in quality. Overall, that section in particular was just really interesting to me and I liked how to had connections to what I talk about here on my blog.

Another big take-away from this course was really getting comfortable with my speaking. And I know what you’re thinking, that might sound kind of weird but let me explain. I feel like for all my life, I have never really liked how my voice sounds on recording, and I feel like a to of people can resonate with that. So because of that, I have always avoided doing it. Sometimes I would have extra credit opportunities to record things, and I wouldn’t because I was uncomfortable speaking into a microphone and just having my voice heard. In this course though, it wasn’t an option, it was a requirement. So it forced me to come outside my comfort zone, and I think it was good for me in the end. I was able to record seven minutes of myself just talking to whoever was willing to listen, and I felt comfortable with it. This course pushed me out of my comfort zone and gave me a newfound skill and ability that will certainly be useful down the line.

So this blog comes to an end, I just want to thank anyone who came on this little journey with me and took the time to check out the blog. Thank you for a good semester!

Hey everyone! This week in class we are taking a look at memes. So I thought I’d share a few that relate to this website. Even though we were allowed to find existing memes that related to our websites, after searching, I found that a lot of them were offensive to the LGBTQ+ community so I decided to make my own.

This first meme I made obviously comes from SpongeBob’s iconic imagination scene. But instead of talking about imagination, I used it to describe the experience after listening to lesbian musician Hayley Kiyoko. In many of her songs, she sings openly about being an out lesbian woman and uses female pronouns in her music. After listening, you just feel very inspired and very connected to the lyrics she is singing. The words she sings about loving females makes me, and many of her fans, feel like SpongeBob and his rainbow above.

In this meme I made, it is revolved around openly gay pop singer Troye Sivan. We all know this iconic meme of this little girl that came out a few years ago but is still constantly used until this day. This meme is kind of just a funny little jab to those who don’t like Troye Sivan or his music, the girl is meaning to show a face of disgust to those people. This is what me and my dry sense of humor finds funny.

Out of all the memes I attempted to make, I think this one is my favorite. I think that it is the most current and up to date meme. Just a few months ago this meme surfaced and went viral for weeks. For this website, I used the captions comparing straight artists music to music of queer artists, and of course the me is gravitating towards music from queer artists. I just think its funny because a lot of the music we hear on the radio and listen to on a daily basis comes from straight people with heterosexual pronouns, so this kind of shows someone chasing the opposite. Again, funny to my dry sense of humor.

2. In the article “The Language of Internet Memes” by Patrick Davison, he writes “Once I say that a piece of media, or a meme, is replicable and malleable, I must specify what exactly is being copied or changed. A meme can be separated into components. I propose three: the manifestation, the behavior, and the ideal” (Davison 123). The ideals for the first meme is listening to music by Hayley Kiyoko can bring out the gay in you. The ideal of the second meme is that its crazy for people to not listen or like singer Troye Sivan. Lastly, the third memes ideal is that music by queer artists attracts me more than music from straight artists.

3. Since I made all my memes, well by made I mean added the texted to the original photo, I can talk about where they originated from. As I talked about it briefly above, the first meme is obviously from the hit show SpongeBob. That particular scene always made people laugh so they decided to make a meme out of it with including a funny relatable text underneath SpongeBob and the rainbow. The second meme was from a video of two parents telling their children that they are going to Disney World. The one girl is super excited, then they pan the camera over to the younger sibling and she just has that look of disgust and confusion on her face. The video went viral first, the people screen shotted that specific time where she makes the face and made a meme of it. The last meme I believe was a just a stock image that someone found and put text over. I don’t remember the original text because there have been so many variants of that meme, but they all are hilarious.

4. Going back to “The Language of Internet Memes” by Patrick Davison, speaking on manifestation, he writes “The manifestation of a meme is its observable, external phenomena. It is the set of objects created by the meme, the records of its existence. It indicates any arrangement of physical particles in time and space that are the direct result of the reality of the meme” (Davison 123). The manifestation of the first meme is a screen capture from a popular television show, SpongeBob. The manifestation of the second meme is from a home video that a family recorded that eventually went viral online. Lastly, the manifestation of the third meme is a stock image website.

5. I think these manifestations appeal to my target audience because one, many people know the show SpongeBob and enjoyed watching it as a kid, or if you are like me you still enjoy it now. The second memes manifestation appeals to my audience because it was super popular online, along with the third meme. My target audience is youths of the LGBTQ+ community. So I am sure that they are familiar with these memes, given how popular they were at some point.

It is well known that those who are apart of the LGBTQ+ community experience highest rates of depression and anxiety compared to those who aren’t in the community. Along with that, the rates of suicide are also higher. As this website is an open forum to those in the community looking for a safe place, I thought it would be nice to share the PSA that my group did on mental health.

Even if some of the viewers do not attend Rutgers University, this can still encourage you to seek help or pass it along to someone else who may need it. Like I mentioned above, it is more likely for those who are apart of the LGBTQ+ community to experience these symptoms of mental illness, which is why the PSA ties in nicely with my blog. Here at Rutgers University, they offer various counseling services to students who may be struggling. CAPS stands for “Counseling, Alcohol, and Other Drug Assistance Program & Psychiatric Services”. There they will be able to help you with anything you need and are struggling with.

The PSA our group made gives a short explanation of what CAPS can do for you and how it is helpful to college students. Our goal was to help those here at Rutgers University and my goal is to send that message to any of you who need it.

Take a listen below:

As this is a blog about artists who are in the LGBTQ+ community, in the header I wanted to use the visuals of some of the artists that have personally helped me. The artists I chose fo ray header from left to right are Lauren Jauregui, Troye Sivan, Hayley Kiyoko, Sam Smith, and Kehlani. I chose them because I fell as if they embody what it is to be apart of the LGBTQ+ community in the music industry. In their music they all embrace and proudly speak about their sexuality and share it with the world. I think this header will help relate to the target audience because they are well known artists who use their platform to speak about their sexuality and how its okay to do so, which is essential for the target audience.

All of the images that were used in the header come from searching through Creative Commons. Half of the photos I used came from Flickr, I made sure that the owner allowed for the picture to be used and manipulated. The other half came from Wikimedia Commons, where I also made sure that I was able to use and distort the images for the header. I knew that I was allowed to use and edit the photos because under the picture it says whether the author allows it or not. Also, on Flickr, it won’t let you download the image unless the owner allows the photo to be used.

When I was in high school, all four years I took graphic design so I am very familiar with programs like Illustrator and Photoshop. I had never used Pixlr before but after reading a few articles I found online I found out it is very similar to Photoshop. So before I started editing and creating my header, I did an overview of Manovich’s article to refresh all of the things I had forgotten from graphic design in high school. After than I was able to make my header into what you can see now.

My production process was similar to that of a single layer bitmap image like Davison describes because they both had to find a way to deal with jaggies. Due to pixelation this happened in some of the photos that I used and I had to find a way to make it not look like stair-step edges that Davison refers to them as. While this is a similarity I think that my production process was definitely required more time and effort than on of Davison’s bitmap comics.