Hi!....Okay, Bye

Dear Readers,

Okay, so does anyone else feel weird when you see people you vaguely know from school or work or (fill in blank here) outside of school, work or (blank) and its like

You: "Hi!"
Vague Acquaintance: "Hey!"
You:"......Okay....bye!"

And then both you and the Vague Acquaintance think:

Awkward.

It's like when you're a little kid and you believe that when school is over the teachers vanish into thin air because they cannot and do not exist out of school.

And then you see them...in a grocery store!

It's like someone just told you that the Easter Bunny isn't real. You don't want to believe it, but the proof is undeniable.

Now you could always just not say "HI!". Problem solved, right?

Well, it would be, if there wasn't that automatic pull, when you see someone you know, to acknowledge them. It's like how on facebook if someone requests you and you vaguely remember their face and you see that you have a few friends in common, so you just accept.

And then you throw them in the "other" section of your chat options and find ways to make sure their statuses don't keep popping up on your news feed.

You don't know them really y en ninguna manera do you really want to talk to them or learn about their life.

But you recognized them, so you accepted their friend request.

Now with real friends it's different. You want to know what their statuses are and you hope they are on chat because you want to talk with them.

When you see a real friend outside of school or work or whatever (lets say school) and you say "Hi!" you mean "I'm so happy to see you! We haven't seen each other in forever!" and when they say "Hey!" they mean "I KNOW! The thirty minutes between now and school were sooooooooo long! Never leave me again!" And then you talk until your parents drag you away from each other.

I'm fine with acknowledging vague acquaintances with short conversations. The less I know the person, the less I talk to them, because when I don't know someone very well and I try a longer conversation than:

Me: Hi!
Vague Acquaintance: Hey!

It ends up like:

Me: Sooooo....did you hear the new Trock song?
Vague Acquaintance: What's Trock?
Me: It's music about the interstellar traveler Dr. Who...you know what. Never mind.

Awkward.

Sincerely,

Elle

Dn't 4get 2 Vote :)

Dear Readers,

I think its really interesting how campaigns nowadays are starting to take up the social media approach to getting votes. That's not to say that I'm surprised.  Word of mouth, newspapers, radios, television, these were the "new" social media of the world at some point and people quickly started using them to spread their agenda. Youtube and Facebook are the social media of the now and it makes sense that they would be what politicians (and others) are using to gather followers. I'm not saying radio, television, etc. are outdated. It will be a long time before that happens, if it ever happens. But I think that Youtube and Facebook and Twitter are great ways to keep your constituents up to date with what you are doing, what they need to be doing, and what you hope EVERYONE will be doing in the near future. Plus, its an amazing way to connect with a younger group of possible voters. A lot of young adults are a people of instant gratification: It's our information, and we want it now! We don't want to have to search for you every time we want to know what you are doing. We want your info instantly pumping into our phones/ipads/ipod touches. We're lazy. I admit it. Some may say that it is a sad state of affairs when you have to resort to making sure your political agenda can sync up with a cell phone to garner attention but I say its reality. If you ask a lot of people (not me *cough cough*) if they wanted to recieve information about a political canidate, they are going to ask you "Is there an App for that?". I'm glad to see that candidates realize there is indeed an App for that, and its name is Twitter and Facebook. Make it possible to become a fan or follow you, and suddenly you've opened a door to a bunch of potential voters.

Now obviously I'm a proponent of the social media craze in regard to politics, so I was really excited when I got involved with a women running for District Representative in my state who needed someone to be in charge of her campaign's facebook page. Awesome! I get to be the person who makes sure that everyone knows whats going on, getting the couch potatoes out there involved in the political process! I'm going to be doing other stuff as well, walking around streets and passing out info, but I have to say this is the thing I'm excited about, using cool technology to better the world in some way by getting this really intelligent, qualified, awesome lady elected to office. Its going to be a really amazing process, I can already tell.

Sincerely,

Elle