Post #8: Diffusion of Innovations

In this post, I will be applying the Diffusion of Innovation Theory to Discord, and how it changed over time.

Step One: Innovators

Discord was created by co-creators Jason Citron and Stan Vishnevskiy. Citron originally came up with the concept because it was difficult gaming with friends while using voice over IP (VoIP) software such as Skype and Teamspeak. Both were irritating to use and annoying to navigate, but they were the so-called “best” available VoIP at the time.

When Citron was in the process of creating Discord, he made a small company named Hammer & Chisel to help create his vision. There, Vishnevskiy assisted him a lot during the app’s development. The process was slow and there were a lot of issues in development; Citron would show his gamer friend group the app’s progress, and they tested it out as it developed. Citron, Vishnevskiy, H&C, and the friends were the Innovators of Discord.

Jason Citron and Stan Vishnevskiy

Step Two: Early Adopters

Discord was publicly released in May 13, 2015 under the domain name discordapp.com. At the time, there were no specific moves to target any specific audience. However, on its launch day, one person in the FFXIV subreddit posted about Discord (with a link to their server) to talk about a new expansion pack for the game on. Citron and Vishnevskiy jumped into the server as well, hopped into the server’s voice chat, and started talking to people who showed up. Those Redditors would go back on Reddit, talk about the application and the “pretty cool and chill developers”, and even more people would sign up for Discord. Several hundred people registered that first day.

All of these FFXIV players became Early Adopters of Discord.

Step Three: Early Majority

Soon, Discord became used widely by esports and LAN tournaments as a means to communication. It also was used a lot by Twitch streamers, who made servers to meet and connect with their community of viewers.  Discord’s tagline was “It’s time to ditch Skype and Teamspeak.” And many people did.

Those were not the only users of Discord; regular gamers used the application as well. I was one of them. I created my account August 2015, because I heard friends talking about a cool new voice-chatting app called Discord that wasn’t as finicky as Skype. 

Although Discord was made “by gamers, for gamers”, these aren’t the only people using Discord. Over the years, many subreddits have their own discord servers, such as r/HellsKitchen and r/Raleigh. A lot of online communities have servers as well, to discuss TV shows, hobbies, etc.

Step Four: Late Majority

The fourth category came at the beginning of this year (2020). After the COVID-19 pandemic forced a lot of schools, universities, workplaces, etc to essentially “shut down” and send everyone to WOH, Discord changed its motto from “Chat for Gamers” to “Chat for Communities and Friends”. This change introduced server templates on Discord, one of those being a “classroom”, so teachers and professors could turn to Discord to make sure students wouldn’t fall behind and can still continue to learn. 

Example Classroom Template on Discord

Step Five: Laggards

While Discord is now one of the top VoiP applications and is now friendly to non-gamers as well, there are still people who aren’t using it, and don’t plan on it. There are still some friend groups, communities, etc. who use VoiP apps such as Teamspeak, Skype, or Curse Voice.

 

Post #7: EOTO Communication Technology (Emoticons)

Blog 8:

On October 15th, one of my classmates, Hannah, presented her Each One Teach One assignment where she researched the history and pro/cons of emoticons.

Emoticons were discovered in 1982 by Scott Fahlman. It started with the simple “:-)” to represent a smiling face, and a “:-(” to represent a frowning face. The smiling face was for a humorous post and the frowning face meant a serious post on message boards. After the discovery of these faces, emoticons went viral on message boards everywhere.

In 1999, the first ever “emoji” was created by a Japanese artist. Later on, in 2010, Unicode (a system that unifies encoding throughout different platforms) adopted emojis, and a year later, Apple created an emoji keyboard for their products. Now, Apple products get new emojis every year, with the latest ones featuring a black cat, teapot, bubble tea, the transgender flag, and more.

Emoticons have many benefits. Emoticons can help convey the user’s emotions, and allows for a better understanding of a meaning behind a sentence. It prevents other people from taking a happy message in a mean context. It can also be understood despite languages, which is very important for global communication. Emoticons are quick and easy to use, and can convey a message faster than typing one out. It also makes messages and posts more personal; sending a message with an emoji usually resonates with someone more than without the emoji.

However, emoticons have many downsides too. They are seen as very unprofessional, and are usually not socially allowed in places of work or serious matter. Emoticons and emojis can also be very misleading, as certain emojis now have different interpretations rather than what they actually are. For example, the goat emoji  can be used to refer to the Greatest Of All Time, or the G.O.A.T.

Post #6: EOTO Communication Technology (Personal Computer)

I did my “Each One Teach One” assignment on the personal computer, or the PC. Everybody knows what as personal computer is, but the official definition of a PC is a digital computer designed for use by only one person at a time.

In the early 1970s, computers were large and really expensive. They would take up entire walls of big rooms, and the cost of making one was crazy high. They were owned by basically exclusively large corporations, universities, and government agencies. 

The personal computer industry truly began in 1977, with the introduction of three preassembled mass-produced personal computers: Apple Computer, Inc.’s (now Apple Inc.) Apple II, the Tandy Radio Shack TRS-80, and the Commodore Business Machines Personal Electronic Transactor (PET for short).  All 3 of these machines used eight-bit microprocessors.

IBM Corporation, the world’s dominant computer maker, entered the market in 1981 when it introduced the IBM Personal Computer, or IBM PC. The IBM PC was significantly faster than rival machines, had about 10 times their memory capacity, and was backed by IBM’s large sales organization. The IBM PC became the world’s most popular personal computer very quickly.

By 1990, some personal computers had become small enough to be completely portable. They included laptop computers, also known as notebook computers, which were about the size of a notebook.

By 2000, more than 50 percent of all households in the United States owned a personal computer, and this penetration increased dramatically over the next few years as people in the United States (and around the world) purchased PCs to access the world of information available through the Internet.

There are many pros and cons of the personal computer. The biggest benefit is the communication: a personal computer provides you with the ability to stay in touch with hundreds of people. You can send emails and instant messages to a specific person for personal or professional reasons. You can also send a message to many people at one time, you can write a blog or article or leave a post in a forum. 

There’s also a lot of information constantly at your fingertips. In just a few seconds, you can type a website URL into the search bar of your browser and visit a website full of information. There are online encyclopedias, books and user-submitted communities designed to provide specific types of information, such as video game walkthroughs.

PC’s also provide a lot of fun. Computers provide a wealth of opportunities for fun and relaxation. You can play computer games, watch digital TV shows or movies, draw using a tablet and digital artwork software, create your own video or write a digital diary. 

For personal computer cons, there are physical side effects that can have a negative impact on a person’s life. Frequent computer use leads to a variety of physical problems such as wrist soreness, back aches, tension headaches and tight hamstrings. Laptop users are especially prone to problems because they must hunch in order to appropriately view the screen. People who spend all day on the computer are susceptible to tight muscles, strained eyes and carpal tunnel syndrome. 

Another issue is internet addiction. Internet and computer addiction plague a small percentage of computer users and mildly affect many other users. Severe Internet addiction may include addiction to cyber-relationships, online gaming, online gambling or adult content found on the Internet. Though mild Internet use is healthy and normal, people who are addicted to the Internet feel as if they must constantly be on the Internet. This often leads to decreased work or school performance or losing touch with friends and family members.

Whenever a person uses their PC, they spend less time in the physical world. Personal computers often keep people from more traditional methods of having fun such as playing games with friends, reading books, watching TV or exercising. People with computers typically spend less time with their family and friends and may instead elect to communicate digitally, which does not provide the tone and body language required for effective conversation.

 Source: https://www.britannica.com/technology/personal-computer/Faster-smaller-and-more-powerful-PCs

Post #5: Eight Values of Free Expression

  There are a lot of important movements happening right now in the world, and among those is the Black Lives Matter movement. Black Lives Matter is a decentralized political and social movement that advocates for non-violent civil disobedience against incidents of police brutality and racially motivated violence against black people.

The movement has been happening for a long time, but exploded in “popularity” (for lack of a better term) on May 25, 2020, when George Floyd was killed after a store clerk alleged he had passed a counterfeit $20 bill in Minneapolis. A white police officer, Derek Chauvin, knelt on Floyd's neck for 8 minutes and 46 seconds.

The event blew up because of social media such as Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, Youtube, and Facebook. The hashtag #BlackLivesMatter, as well as #JusticeForFloyd was quickly the top trending hashtag on nearly all platforms. This event sparked a lot of awareness, and therefore growth, in the movement. The general public felt that Chauvin should be let go because of his actions, and were only more infuriated when Chauvin received no punishment. Many people were angry about the corrupt and systemic racism of the police systems. Many cities and towns over the US, as well as around the world, protested over the injustice of Floyd’s death. This spark even spread across the world to Japan.

I even went to a few Black Lives Matter protests this summer in Raleigh, North Carolina. There, they chanted slogans such as, “No justice; no peace. Abolish the police.”

View this post on Instagram

black lives matter today, tomorrow, and always 🖤 #blm

A post shared by kathy 🌱 (@leunarie) on Jun 13, 2020 at 5:58pm PDT

 The Black Lives Matter movement relates to the sixth part of the Eight Values of Free Expression: promote tolerance. I think that this entire Floyd situation could have been prevented if police, among other people in general, were more tolerance. As a society, everyone should work on promoting tolerance, especially against systemic racism.

This can also be related to work industries. I can use the video game and game design industry as an example, as I hope to work in this industry one day. Game developers have the choice and freedom as an American citizen to create the games they want, with the art, narrative, and underlying message that they want. A developer can create a game that is anti-BLM, anti-LGBTQ, etc if they so wish. However, this does not come with consequences, which is expressed in subsequent punishment: anybody can say whatever they want in America, but there can be consequences for particular speech.

Electronic Arts Inc (EA), a large and well-known video game company, showed a very good example of promoting tolerance in its industry. Their games include homosexual content, and when recieving hate letters and backlash, released a public statement confirming that they had no plans to censor any of its games.

"EA has not been pressured by any groups to include LGBT characters in our games. However, we have met with LBGT groups and sponsored industry forums to discuss content and harassment of players in online forums. In short, we do put options for same-sex relationships in our games; we don't tolerate hate speech on our forums," Jeff Brown, VP of EA’s corporate communications stated.

Post #4: The Progressive Era

Link to article: https://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/nearly-half-of-germans-want-u-s-troops-out/

I found this article on The American Conservative. The article details the response to President Donald Trump’s announcement of a planned withdrawal of nearly 12,000 U.S. troops from Germany. Although most American Democrats and senior military officials disapproved of President Trump’s decision, many Germans were very happy about the decision to withdraw the US troops. On top of that, many experts and political figures in America believe withdrawing troops helps Russia as well.

This article provided me a unique perspective on war and American foreign affairs that aren’t seen very often on the news today. In general, from what I’ve seen on the news, war is talked about very often and very rarely is it in a negative light. In history classes, I learned that there is a constant trope where a country is having “problems” (where these problems could be legitimate or just blown out of proportion), and America swoops in and attempts to be the hero, when it is not their place.

I’ve never heard of this website, and I feel like the reason behind this also has to do with the fact that people have to seek out obscure websites in order to hear strong antiwar voices. America seems to be pretty pro-war, and this is because the country and its leaders like to play Hero, even though in reality, the US tends to make things a lot worse.

 

Post #3: Civil War & Reconstruction

Link to article: https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/09/24/whataburger-black-lives-matter-masks/

This article details events surrounding Whataburger employee Ma’Kiya Congious wearing a BLM mask to work. Most people did not mind the face covering, and some even complimented her on it. However, a White customer one day threatened to call Whataburger’s corporate office over the mask. This led to a chain of events where Congious lost her job, and the managers even went as far to call the police on their own employee. 

This event goes against the First Amendment’s freedom of speech. In America, every person is allowed to freely voice their opinions, especially on social issues and movements such as the Black Lives Matter movement. Wearing the BLM mask did not negatively impact or hurt anybody, yet Congious was fired because of it, despite the managers being okay with the mask before the incident.

This incident creates a horrible double standard, as companies will turn a blind eye to apparel that supports other causes, like sports teams and LGBTQ rights.  Not to mention that other workers have worn face coverings that displayed the Gucci logo and the Mexican flag.

Whilst, yes, the Black Lives Matter issue is a very delicate and important issue in the world today, and it is true that many other companies are speaking out and making official statements that they support the BLM movement, it still does not change the fact that Whataburger is a private company. It is not owned by the government, and therefore the State Action Doctrine applies to this situation. Without government involvement, no constitutional claim can be made, because only the government can violate your constitutional rights; therefore, the first amendment doesn’t reach private actors, This basically states that Whataburger cannot get in trouble for this incident that would violate one’s freedom of speech.

Post #2: Supreme Court

 I can never keep my focus while watching long videos, so I decided to read History Channel’s overview of the Supreme Court.

The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest, most powerful federal court in America. The SCOTUS is the head of the government’s judicial branch, and has the power to check the actions of the other two branches of government (executive and legislative). It has the ultimate and final jurisdiction over all US laws. On top of this, it is responsible for evaluating the constitutionality of all these laws, which is called Judicial Review.

The Supreme Court was founded and established upon the creation of the US Constitution on March 4, 1789 by Article Three of the US Constitution. This article granted Congress many powers: they were allowed to create federal courts with power under them, and also decide the organization of the Supreme Court. The legislative branch first executed that power with the Judiciary Act of 1789, which was signed by George Washington, the president at the time. It specified that the court would consist of 6 judges that would remain in that job til their death or retirement. The first Supreme Court meeting was on February 2nd, 1790 in NYC.

The chief justice is responsible for presiding over the Supreme Court and setting agenda for the weekly meetings, such as a normal “secretary”. The first 6 members of the Supreme court were Chief Justice John Jay, with Associate Justices John Rutledge, William Cushing, John Blair, Robert Harrison and James Wilson.

Through time, the number of seats on the Supreme Court has changed. The lowest number of justices was 5, and the highest was 10. However, ever since 1869, there have only been 9 seats. The current 9 members of the Supreme Court are chief justice John Roberts, Jr. and associate justices Anthony Kennedy, Clarence Thomas, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer, Samuel Alito, Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Neil Gorsuch.