Monday, November 17, 2014

Revamped Essay Proposal

    For my expanded essay, I will be choosing my third essay of the English 1A semester that was about social media's online communities, with a focus on Tumblr's roleplaying community. I believe this essay still has much to still be discussed over, as it's such a complex web of system rules and social spheres within only a small portion of a large community matrix. While my first essay was merely a gloss over of key points, there is still so much to be analyzed in more detail to be truly understood.
    To expand more thoroughly in this paper, I plan to perhaps discuss the common stereotyping roleplayers face, the concepts of 'quality' and how these specific roleplayers are put on a pedestal above others, the finite details of the social structure of the community including page rules vs general rules that all are expected to follow, the stresses of being a part of community that requires so much of your attention near constantly, the Mary-Sue/Gary-Sue dilenma and how it creates a difficult situation for those who decide to create an original character. Perhaps I will contrast this intricate structure of community to a different common roleplaying site, such as Livejournal.
     Key Terms:

  • stereotypes in social media
  • Tumblr
  • social media communities
  • Livejournal
  • social spheres online
  • internet friendships

1 comment:

  1. Hi Lauren,
    I'd like to hear more about the stereotypes that you will be addressing. Do you mean the stereotyping that occurs online or in the real world? In other words, will you address the stereotypes that non-roleplayers have of roleplayers, or the assumptions (stereotyping) that players have of each other based on the identities that are constructed online? There is quite a lot of research that has been conducted examining our assumptions of "real identities" based on an online presence. I think this route is particularly fascinating.

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