Musician Tyler the Creator recently teamed up with Converse to design a lineup of shoes titled “Golf le Fleur.” Designs include both high-tops and low-tops in several different colorways. Pairs of these shoes go for about $100-$200 all over the internet because it is not as exclusive as other collaborations. Tyler also designed clothing for Converse as well as shoes.
Available in two colorways, rapper ASAP Rocky has teamed up with Under Armour to design a pair of skate-inspired sneakers. The price for a pair of these shoes are about $250, with only 250 pairs produced so far. The 250 pairs were all sold at a rave pop-up party in Harlem, New York that ASAP Rocky hosted. Re-sells of this shoe are also up in the thousands.
Another popular musician in today’s society is collaborating with a brand in the footwear industry. Instead of bigger names like Nike or Adidas, artist Post Malone designed a model of Crocs. Once again this collaboration is very exclusive, with only 500 pairs being made sold for $50 a pair. It is rumored that pairs of these Crocs are being re-sold for up to $900 (ridiculous).
Rapper Travis Scott is another musician that has followed in Kanye West’s footsteps by collaborating with a popular shoe brand. In this case Travis designed two pairs of Nike shoes, one that has not been released yet. The shoes are a model of the Air Jordan 4s which come in three different colorways. The one colorway was designed to resemble the Houston Oilers colors, a team that used to exist and the city that Travis is from. Prices for the shoe can also go anywhere from a few hundred dollars to a few thousand dollars because of the name and exclusivity.
A current popular trend in the footwear industry is top hip-hop artists working with big shoe brands to design their own custom shoes. This is done by many musicians however Kanye West was the leader of this, signing his shoe deal with Adidas. Kanye makes all his “Yeezy” deigns that Adidas produces and sells to consumers. There are currently about 7 different models of the “Yeezy” shoe which sell for anywhere from $300 to $3000. Usually when a new model drops there are only a certain number produced which is why they can be hard to find/expensive. Mr. West is a trendsetter in the current footwear industry inspiring others to work with popular shoe brands as well.
My main argument in this final project was for the importance of literature, how society is changing it, and how technology is taking it over. Literature was very important to me as a child because it was what helped me grow and learn more about myself and the world. More and more people are not experiencing what I did because of technology and the way that society uses it. I mentioned in my final project how cellphones are abused and also how the education system is using more and more technology as time goes on.
What I attempted to do with the final project was forward my first writing project. I also used countering in one area of my essay. What I aimed to do was continue on with some points as well as create new ones from my first project. I feel that doing this helped me to better form my argument as well as better explain it to the reader. The reasoning for my choosing of the first project was that I felt it had a lot of room for revision. I made some good points in it however there was much room for forwarding as well as countering. In order to do the revision, I carefully looked at my main points. I looked at where I could further explain them as well as make the point a stronger one. I would then look at my other projects and blogs and find relatable texts that I could use to forward my arguments.
In my project I forwarded my ideas of technology in society and technology in education. What I countered was the idea that technology is not benefitting education. I added the concept of digital texts to counter this. What I originally argued was a point from Murray’s reading where the topic discussed was college students looking at screens all day. One point was the endless amount of slide shows and online assignments that an average college student experienced on the daily basis. How I countered this was talking of digital texts. Although they are on a computer, they can be considered literature and a good way of learning it. The digital texts were part of a “microworld” which students interacted with to explore and discover the context of the story. This could be the future of literature.
In all the writing projects thus far I feel as if I learned a lot and bettered myself as a writer. Coming into freshman year I did not enjoy writing as much as I do now because I am able to write better now. In high school, not blaming the teachers, my writing was not the best. Now, however, I feel I am able to develop an argument better and better support it. In addition to that, I am able to counter and further arguments as well. These skills were not strong to me before this year. What I want to keep working on with my writing in college is my structure and context. I want to be able to make my writing as strong as possible, using the knowledge that I gained from my freshman year reading and writing classes.
Literacy is one of the most powerful tools in the world being that it shapes people, cultures, and even nations. With the new digital age that is already upon us, the purpose of literacy is in question and there seems to be a war between paper and screen. While society seems to be moving in a different direction from prioritizing reading and writing, there are few that still stand with it. Those few argue that “language not technology is the true evolutionary miracle” (Birkerts 6). They stress the importance of the great transformation that technology in the modern world is causing. My view on this topic is similar to the few who still support literacy. The purpose of literacy is being ignored which is a problem. Society does not understand its importance and an entertainment run world is diminishing it. I see the purpose of literacy as allowing for an opportunity for greater knowledge and understanding of the world and of oneself. Allowing for one to be more aware of who they are in the world. Literacy benefits the overall experience of life by assisting in the development of learning and growing. This view I hold is shaped from my experience reading and writing in school. While technology is changing our lives in literacy, it seems to me that people are not understanding the purpose of its use.
What has shaped my view of the purpose of literacy is my experience with reading and writing in school. Although I did have many good teachers throughout my grade school years, I learned a lot from myself. I acquired my knowledge when I was given prompts where I needed to write about myself or my life. Writing these prompts in school led me into writing short stories and poems on my free time and sharing them with my teacher and other students. The purpose of my writing was to try and depict my life at the time to other people and show to them a new perspective on the world differing from their own. My goal for my writing was to cause a sensation for the readers of something I had felt in my life in the past. In The Gutenburg Elegies by Sven Birkerts, the sensations from reading are explained. “But as we read we are gradually engulfed by a half-familiar set of sensations. Because the characters walk, we walk; because they linger by roadsides or in market squares, we do too.” My writing allowed for a comparison of perspectives to be made. The sensations they felt from my reading were often ones the reader has felt before.
Not only did my writing assist others in learning, it also helped me learn about myself. Writing allowed me to transfer my life from my mind to my paper. Doing so made me come to new realizations and new thoughts about the life I was living. For one example, new realizations came to me from the one short story I wrote about my parents. Not only did I learn a couple new stories about them but I was made more aware of the bond between them and the bond between us. Dedicating the time to write about someone surely brings forward new realizations about that someone. What all this meant to me was that I was able to learn more about myself but more importantly teach other students and teachers about a certain subject. I had become more self-aware which was important to me. There is a method that teaching something to someone else helps you learn about it better and easier. By teaching people about my life through my writing, I was also teaching myself about it and I was able to learn and grow as well as help others to do so too.
It seems that the world today is losing its focus on the importance of literacy. The world does not understand what I learned from literacy and does not observe the purpose of literacy. People may not gain the same knowledge that I did through literacy in school. As explained, literacy is very meaningful in life and this is being ignored. With the digital age we are currently in, the world has become entertainment run. Society is always looking for the next best thing and are severely affected by distractions such as TV commercials, movies, advertisements, cellphones etc. Our entertainment run world is diminishing the importance of literacy which has a valuable purpose. Before technology took over reading books was a normal hobby to have. The only way to entertain oneself was through literature which positively affected the person. In today’s society, boredom is cured by reaching into a pocket and pulling out a cellphone. Why would someone want to read a book when they’re bored when they have endless information on a cellphone? Sadly, that is how most people actually are and even I am guilty of this at times. The world so far has no problem with people having this type of thought. Having these distractions in life prevents people from being more self-aware. Being self-aware allows you to discover yourself in the world rather than following what society does. Mindlessly scrolling through a cellphone is a way for people to not become more self-aware. Through literature one is able to be compared to others and discover different perspectives of life. What technology achieves at is blocking the pathway for those different perspectives.
It seems that society is ignoring and does not yet understand the purpose of literacy. How else will someone increase their knowledge and understanding of the world? Knowledge and understanding of different perspectives of life that allow for the ones engaged to be more aware of themselves in the world. Literacy also benefits the experience of life from the knowledge and understanding that is gained from it. Its purpose is very important in society and for the incoming generation who are growing up in the digital age.
Literature is one of the most powerful tools in the world for knowledge and wisdom and has been this way for many years. It can be defined as allowing for an opportunity for greater knowledge and understanding of the world and of oneself. Allowing for one to be more aware of who they are in the world, literature benefits the overall experience of life by assisting in the development of learning and growing. This view I hold is shaped from my experience in reading and writing in school. However, with the new digital age that is already upon us, the purpose of literacy is in question and there seems to be a war between paper and screen. While society seems to be moving in a different direction from prioritizing reading and writing, there are few that still stand with it. Those few argue that “language not technology is the true evolutionary miracle” (Birkerts 6). They stress the importance of the great transformation that technology in the modern world is causing. My view on this topic is similar to the few who still support literacy because of the way that it helped me learn. The purpose of literacy is being ignored which is a problem, society does not understand its importance, and an entertainment run world is diminishing it. Its importance is being ignored and is being replaced by screens that try to mimic it. Technology is changing the ways in how we learn, but it seems to me that people are not understanding the true purpose of its use.
What has shaped my view on the purpose of literacy is my experience with reading and writing in school. Although I did have many good teachers throughout my grade school years, I learned a lot from myself. I acquired that knowledge when I was given prompts where I needed to write about myself or my life. Writing these prompts in school led me into writing short stories and poems on my free time and sharing them with my teacher and other students. The purpose of my writing was to try and depict my life at the time to other people and show to them a new perspective on the world differing from their own. My goal for my writing was to cause a sensation for the readers of something I had felt in my life in the past. In The Gutenburg Elegies by Sven Birkerts, the sensations from reading are explained. “But as we read we are gradually engulfed by a half-familiar set of sensations. Because the characters walk, we walk; because they linger by roadsides or in market squares, we do too” (Birkerts). The sensations they felt from my reading were often ones the reader has felt before making them relatable. My writing allowed for a comparison of perspectives to be made. They learn something from a story and apply it to their own life. The readers could always go back to the stories and think about how it relates to their lives. They put themselves in place of the story then return to reality with new elements from the text.
Not only did my writing assist others in learning, it also helped me learn about myself. Writing allowed me to transfer my life from my mind to my paper. Doing so made me come to new realizations and new thoughts about the life I was living. For one example, new realizations came to me from the one short story I wrote about my parents. They told me some stories about their post-college days so I learned a couple new facts about them, however, I was made more aware of the bond between them and the bond between us. Dedicating the time to write about someone surely brings forward new realizations about that someone. By writing about my parents I sat back and thought for more than a moment about the bond we all shared. I had become more self-aware which was important to me. What all this meant was that I was able to learn more about myself and in this case my parents, but more importantly to teach other students and teachers about a certain subject. There is a method that teaching something to someone else helps you learn about it better and easier. By teaching people about my life through my writing, I was also teaching myself about it and I was able to learn and grow as well as help others to do so too.
It seems that the world today is losing its focus on the importance of literature. The world does not understand what I learned from it and does not observe the purpose of it. People may not gain the same knowledge that I did through literature in school. As already stated, literature is very meaningful in life and this is being ignored. With the digital age we are currently in, the world has become entertainment run. Society is always looking for the next best thing and are severely affected by distractions such as TV commercials, movies, advertisements, cellphones etc. Our entertainment run world is diminishing the importance of literature which has a valuable purpose. Before technology took over, reading books was a normal hobby to have. Television and video games have been around for a while but they weren’t abused like they are in today’s society. The way to entertain oneself that everyone did take part of was through literature which positively affected the person. In today’s society, boredom is cured by reaching into a pocket and pulling out a cellphone. Why would someone want to read a book when they’re bored when they have endless information on a cellphone? Sadly, that is how most people actually are and even I am guilty of this at times. The world so far has no problem with people having this type of thought.
Having these distractions in life prevents people from being more self-aware. Being self-aware allows you to discover yourself in the world rather than following what society does. Mindlessly scrolling through a cellphone is a way for people to not become more self-aware. It rather encourages people to “go with the flow” of society. Through literature one is able to be compared to others and discover different perspectives of life. What technology achieves at is blocking the pathway for those different perspectives.
In addition, it seems that students are not even looking at literature but rather look at nothing but screens all day long in school. McWilliams offers a great example as to how true this is and how relatable to college students this is. “Consider Erica, a full-time college student. The first thing she does when she wakes up in the morning is reach for her smartphone. She checks texts that came in while she slept. Then she scans Facebook, Snapchat, Tumblr, Instagram, and Twitter to see “what everybody else is doing.” At breakfast, she opens her laptop and goes to Spotify and her various email accounts. Once she gets to campus, Erica confronts more screen time: PowerPoints and online assignments, academic content to which she dutifully attends (she’s an A student). Throughout the day, she checks in with social media roughly every 10 minutes, even during class” (McWilliams). A point I made was similar to this in saying how often we check our phones. We cure boredom easily by pulling our phone out of our pocket and checking the endless amount of information that it contains. Also, this adds to the paper versus screen argument. Everything that used to be on paper is being digitally transferred to a screen. Technology is taking over the learning process which is changing the way we learn.
Even though it seems to be negative that technology is taking over education, I can counter that it can aid it as well. In this case, computers are not being used to display information, like in McWilliams example, but rather for a place to discover information through digital texts. Janet Murray states, “computers are tools for thinking and should be used to create “microworlds” where inquisitive students can learn through a process of exploration and discovery” (Murray 6). With all the information that is available via the internet, it should be used to gain further knowledge on certain subjects. Creating a “microworld” allows for students to learn on their own. To discover and explore different concepts on their own which can revolutionize learning for society. An example of one of these “microworlds” is The Museum hypertext story. That in itself was a “microworld” that I was able to explore. The digital text helped me learn better through interaction and further reading. The text requires you to click on different links and interact with the story. It starts off with a small introduction then brings you to “the lobby.” You are able to click on different links within the text and also a map. The end of the text suggests the next place to go and you can go to the map to continue the story. In this example and in most digital texts, the reader explores the text in a different manner than a book and learn it in what some see as a “more fun” way. The reader interacts in this “microworld” to explore the context of the story. What also makes the digital texts useful is further reading of the context. What further reading in this sense is, additional and more detailed information on a subject in the text. Through exploring the many wings in it, I discovered many things. Each page I was brought to had links to other pages. The other pages linked contained information about a certain topic on the previous page. This enabled me to read further and further understand the text I was reading. One example was the statue of Zeus. Before clicking on the link and reading further, I had no idea what the statue would’ve looked like. These further reading links are what kept me in line with the information presented in front of me. I was able to explore and discover through these links because of computers.
It seems that society is ignoring and does not yet understand the purpose of literature. How else will someone increase their knowledge and understanding of the world without technology? Knowledge and understanding of different perspectives of life allow for the ones engaged to be more aware of themselves in the world. Literature also benefits the experience of life from the knowledge and understanding that is gained from it. Its purpose is very important in society and for the incoming generation who are growing up in the digital age. Maybe one day we as humans can use technology for our benefit and not our downfall.
I pledge my word of honor that I have abided by the Washington College Honor Code while completing this assignment.
Signed Honor Code: Mark Diese
Works Cited
Birkerts, Sven. The Gutenberg Elegies: The Fate of Reading in an Electronic Age. Boston: Faber and Faber, 1994. Print.
McWilliams, James. “Saving the Self in the Age of the Selfie.” The American Scholar Spring 2016 (29 Feb. 2016): n. pag. The American Scholar. Phi Beta Kappa Society, 29 Feb. 2016. Web. 10 May 2016.
Murray, Janet Horowitz. Hamlet on the Holodeck: The Future of Narrative in Cyberspace. New York City: Free, 1997. PDF.
My first writing project was written about the topic of the importance of literature. I highlighted the importance as the way to obtain knowledge and understanding of the world and of oneself. My writing project explained how I benefited from literature and how the world is ignoring it. At the time that I wrote this essay I was unaware of the hyper texts that we were assigned to read. I did not know the presence that literature had on the internet. What I will do in my final project is further this. The technology that we use today can be useful in literature and even bring new elements to it. Digital texts still offer the same benefits that paper texts do.
One term from the course keywords I chose was forwarding. In my first project I talked of what I learned from literature and forwarded it by saying people are missing out on the experience that I had. People need to experience this to learn more of themselves. Another term is countering which was also included in my first project. I countered society’s view on literature by talking about cellphones. Society not yet view the addiction of phones as a problem. I countered this by mentioning how cellphones make people not want to read literature because they view them as more important. The term I am going to use in my final project is forwarding. The concept of digital texts is going to forward the importance of literacy and the way that technology effects it. What I have learned about that element is it isn’t necessarily adding onto a concept but offering new conversations about it and linking it to something else.
The one electronic text that I viewed this week was called Storyland. It started with circus themed music along with the flashing sign of Storyland. Following that there would be a story that would pop up in different paragraphs. After the story there was a button that appeared that would bring you to another story. The texts were easy to navigate, being that you only needed to read then click to see the next story. The stories were to me at least very vague and confusing. They left you to imagine what happened instead of just telling you. I remember one story being about an angry man who planned an eternity in peace. It then said that in another generation he divorced hid junior partner. Then it said a bookseller was drinking from a glass. Assumptions were made and the bookseller never forgave the man and the man was tormented by the junior partner. I found this to be very confusing and I felt that I was left to imagine what happened in that story. In addition, none of the stories seemed to be connected so I was left with confusion. The stories didn’t offer much context and seemed to not have an ending. I would say that I agree with Birkerts in this situation. Putting these stories into digital ones just left me with confusion. I would much rather the stories be in a book rather than a computer.
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