It has been definitely a new and interesting time posting stories of fabulously funny females around the world. Writing the posts myself and reading the posts of other authors, I was surprised that there were so many things to talk about than I first thought! Also, I have learned a lot that pictures, images, clips and videos are somewhat different from sole text. It is firstly lively and makes you (hopefully it did) much more engaged into what you are reading. As much as I did, I hope you had fun reading this blog and moreover, it would be awesome if any of the stories of fabulous females made you change yourself!
Thank you to everyone who visited our blog over the course of the past few weeks!
It has been such a blast to contribute to (and research for) this blog about fabulously funny females. I have to admit that I'm sad that it's over, but if there's one thing I learned and I hope you learned too, it's to NEVER SETTLE!
- There are some truly awesome role models out there -- sometimes you have a look a little harder to find them, but there are some seriously fab, funny and smart females in the world. Don't just settle for what the TV or magazines show you -- continue to seek out opportunities and inspiration.
- Don't just settle for what you feel like girls like you should do, but push yourself out of your comfort zone and you might surprise yourself. Don't let the boys have all the fun and explore engineering and politics.
- You can be a leader. Females like us are capable of anything boys are, so never settle and just go for it!
If you choose to never settle, maybe one day you'll be featured on someone else's blog!
On that note, I will leave you with some fabulously funny words from one of my favorite celebrities, Mindy Kaling:
via Strutt and Frett
I want to begin my last post by thanking all of you for tuning in to our blog. Having never written a blog before, this was certainly a learning experience, and I have enjoyed every moment of it. Here are some of my key takeaways from my first venture into the blogging world.
1) Have fun! Blogging is a such a different medium from what is typically expected in any other style of writing. It allows one to engage with their audience at an entirely different level, and there are so many ways this can be done. From how-to's to inspiring quotes, I found blogging to be a really fun experience.
2) There are some truly inspiring funny females out there. Before this blog, I had never explored the political positions of funny celebs or known much more than their acting and/or singing history. But through this blog, I have learned that many celebrities have incredible messages to present to the world, especially ones of empowerment for girls and women.
3) It's more than just words. Pictures, gifs, and videos can be some of the best ways to express an idea and attract the attention of your audience. Plus, they get a message across quickly and concisely.
It has been a blast writing for you! I hope you enjoyed reading my posts as much as I enjoyed writing them!
I'm really not one for goodbyes. In fact, usually instead of goodbyes I sit alone in my room and try to figure out what I learned from a person, place or experience for better or worse. So instead of saying goodbye to you, dear readers, here's what you've taught me.
1. A picture says a thousand words. And certainly don't use a thousand words. I'd never written a blog before. I guess keeping a journal is the closest I've been to writing in this media. My journal entries are often poems, lists, and lots of rambling. While many others on this blog have found lists really effective ways of blogging, I found them a little impersonal and hard to connect with my reader (though this is a list... guess I'm giving it a go). So instead, I had to write pieces short, like lists, that would keep a reader's attention. The best way to break these up and get my point across with very few words was using pictures: the right ones and the right amount.
2. Funny is more than funny. Our short goofy posts had a point! Many of these posts kept our blog up to date with current events, ruminations, and even had powerful messages. Some of these posts literally consisted of less than a sentence -- but some of these were our more awesome posts!
3. Write to friends. Like I just mentioned, the closest I've been to blogging has been journal-ing. But journals are really personal. So at first my posts were really removed and focused on celebrities - funny females - and not really my opinion or how these women connected to me. Slowly, as I talked to my 15-year-old sister about our blog, I realized I could write to her. As my posts became more personal because I was writing to my sister, my best friend, they honestly got better. Ultimately, my last post was about my own mom and my relationship with her. I think it was hands down my most effective post and certainly one of the more personal things I've ever written (way more personal than my occasional journal entries with guest appearances of my mother).
Thanks for the lessons, ladies! Get out there and give blogging a try yourselves! You'll crush it, and certainly learn a thing or two.
Well, as this all comes to a close, I wanted to thank all of you readers for joining us. I've never really written a blog before, especially on this medium, and I can say that I've really enjoyed it. Here's what I learned:
- Concision is key. Ramblings are fun for...well...just about no one. Get to the point to save your reader some time and effort. Also, a nice picture here and there to illustrate your point will never hurt anything.
- Know your reader; know your material. The audience of this blog and I share different interests, and often this made things a little bit harder than just sharing daily musings of your day. It helped that I have younger relatives who recommended certain celebrities to look into, but you still have to do your research. That'll take some time, but in the end it's always worth it for the post.
- There are some great role models out there! Upon growing out of my teenage years, I've fallen into the old-lady syndrome of "What the heck is that on TV? Shows when I was a kid were so much better than that!" But as a concerned older sister, I think this project has actually given me faith that there are a lot of really great young role models out there for teens - young women who emphasize loving whoever you are and knowing you're always enough. It's really comforting to know that's available and out there as my relatives grow up.
Thank you all for joining us on this adventure; it's truly been my pleasure. Hopefully you had a few laughs and learned as much as I did, and I want to tell you that you, whoever you are - I know your future's bright.
I have really enjoyed blogging this term. I appreciated the
opportunity to work on the Fabulously Funny Females blog and create both core
and filler content to connect with our audience. I wanted to highlight some of
my main reflections from the blogging experience.
1. Generating
effective content. I often found it difficult to find blog topics that
would both engage the target audience and connect back to the central theme of
the blog. I found that instances that my blog posts were most effective were
when I happened to encounter and article or video that really fit with the goal
of the blog. However, the times when I actively had to search out content ideas
tended to lead to posts that were less of a fit with the blog’s intention. If I
were to do this project again I would create an ongoing list of blog topics –
such as a series idea that could be easily replicated/adapted.
2. Speaking to the
audience. When writing I always tried to focus on the target audience of 13
– 16 year old girls. Although I reached out to family and friends who I know
that are in this age range, it was still challenging to determine what content
would generate the most interest for this group.
3. Writing style. I
came into this blog project with limited blog experience. I really enjoyed the
fun and casual tone that we used in our blog. Still, I was surprised by how
difficult it was to keep the blog posts concise and on point. By the end of the
project I realized that posting a video or a photo with a caption or brief
commentary can be just as effective (if not more effective) as posting a longer
paragraph / post.
Overall I hope that our audience had fun reading our posts.
Additionally, I hope that our blog presented young girls with strong female
role models to look up to. Our blog took on a diverse set of topics, yet still
was able to highlight many instances of successful women in the media and
elsewhere.
I know I had a great time writing and I hope that our
audience had as much fun reading!! :-)
Thanks for following!
I have never blogged before, so simply realizing some of the distinction individual posts and the cohesion of the whole blog (especially with multiple writers) has given me a new appreciation for the difficulty of blogging as a medium, but also for its potential. Also, trying to focus on building interest in female leaders has brought to light how simply the presence of women in leadership roles, or in high profile positions of any kind, helps to manufacture a more gender equal media image. Also, when all of the posts are together in the aforementioned "cohesion" produced by the blog as a whole product, it is interesting to see that the short, simple, and content-light posts often do as much or more for the whole.
I recently came across this youtube video titled What Would You Do if You Weren't Afraid?
This video made me think a lot about what different fears may be holding men and women from achieving their goals. The video suggests that women may be more likely to hold these fears and hold themselves back; however, I think that the element of fear of failure is universally held.
After watching this video it really made me think -- what would I do if I wasn't afraid??
Well, what would you do??
Looking back, coming up with fun and relevant content for a teenage audience has not been easy. Blogging is certainly not for everyone but I do think this has been a great learning experience!
Here are some of my reflections:
1. It is hard to engage viewers in content that they may not want to read - sneaking in political or empowering messages into quite light topics like "Funniest Tweets of 2013" is a challenge. I think brainstorming a couple of articles before committing to a blog title could have made this experience easier! It is also pretty hard to educate teenagers who want to be online to forget the political or empowering lessons they are bombarded with at school, having asked some of my teenage friends what they think.
2. Political interest can stem from many different concepts of empowerment - this has been an awesome discovery. Passion for the politics really comes from the desire for society to be better and to feel empowered enough to believe your voice matters! It doesn't matter if you want to advocate for animals, women's rights, education or good fashion because no matter the topic, you will be able to empower others through your own goals!
3. You will always sound more interesting if you are interested - creating awesome content is hard when you don't share commonalities with your audience! Aside from the fact that I found some of the fluff content quite amusing, I really had to find women who inspired me too before I could write a convincing post about them. It is possible that these women don't have the same effect on a 13-year old audience! Maybe moving forward, seniors in high school could be the target group.
Viewers, it's been real. Please continue being empowered by all the positive messages available online and don't hesitate to pursue your dreams!
Comment below what you've thought of college students blogging for teens!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)