I’ve been enjoying my reunion with Snapchat recently! It’s much more fun than when I first joined and it was mostly just a place to chat back and forth. I love the Stories section which is a lot like vlogging your last 24 hours, but much easier. No video editing involved. You also get to see what you’re friends are up to in a less curated fashion than Instagram. It seems more personal and real.
Come snap me @tianafeng!
Have you turned yourself into a Powerpuff yet? You can do so here. I think mine is accurate if I do say so myself.
If you have been on Instagram these pass few days, you probably come across a lot of posts pointing to the 3 dots in the top right corner telling and a message telling you to “turn on notifications”.
That function has been there forever. Brands and influencer are currently scared that an upcoming algorithm chance will make them less popular with their followers.
While this may be the case, popular things tend to rank better if you have looked at any other network. In fact the only people who the timeline change would possibly affect would be those with few likes (likely because their posts are unpopular or annoying).
Turning on notifications would just flood your already flooded phone with more pop ups. That’s something I don’t even do for people I like.
Twitter turns 10 today. Though it wasn’t publicly released until July of 2016, today was the anniversary of Jack Dorsey’s first tweet. I joined in April 2009. I think I may or may not have deleted some of my first tweets because they were probably really stupid or something along the lines of, “just joined Twitter!”.
I can’t believe I’ve been on the social network for more than 7 years. It still feels new and exciting and the people and experiences I’ve gained through it have changed my life. I live and work because of Twitter. I have a social life because of Twitter. I’ve done things and been places I never could’ve gone because of Twitter. It’s still the one social network I don’t think I could part with. I could give up everything else, but not Twitter.
Thanks for the adventures. Here’s to another 10 years!
I know I said I was giving up on Snapchat to focus on other networks but I can’t help but want to do that dumb face swapping thing everyone’s been doing. You know the frightening thing that does this:
It’s definitely not a network to ignore. Plus sending people hilarious things that will disappear is kind of fun. It’s the one social network where you can be yourself and it will disappear. Snap me random things!
It would’ve been super weird to say maybe a few years ago, but I met some of my best friends on the internet. I thought it would be very hard to revamp the friend wheel post-school but the web makes it so much easier to find people with similar interests. Often you know what they’re like before you even meet up in person.
But how do you hang out in real life? you may ask. It can start with an invitation to coffee or a meet up with a group of people. The web has made going up to randoms a little bit easier with the phrase, “Hey, I follow you on Twitter!”
Yesterday I went to a Jazz Cartier secret show as an invited guests. Other people cryptically texted a number in a photo and went through a series of clues to get in. As soon we entered, we were told there was no photos or video to be taken. No snapchat or anything allowed.
“Aw crap,” I thought as I had come to this event alone, not knowing if anyone I was familiar with would be attending. After-all it was an exclusive event.
We walked up the stairs to people dressed as hotel stewards, who took our names and coats. On the tables were typewriters as well as roses. The setup was elaborately thought off for the album launch. I absorbed it all in with my eyes instead of my phone.
I had a bit of anxiety trying to figure out what to do since I didn’t see any of my friends around and I couldn’t have a camera to keep me distracted before the show started so I started to talk to people and met some new folks.
I’ve been in the industry for a years now but I still get anxious talking to new people. I’ll have weird thoughts like what if they hate me? or am I wearing the wrong shoes? or how do I not talk about the weather? Like all things, these diminish with practice and I do want to get better at it. The easiest thing is to go somewhere where no cameras are allowed, failing that, just putting the phone down for a little bit is enough.
It’s no secret here that I talk openly about mental health. Every January, I have participated in #BellLetstalk, a campaign where Bell will donate 5 cents to mental health programs with every tweet that has the hashtag. There’s a lot of people out there who are rightly critical about the corporate agenda, but as I spoke last year, one day is better than none.
I would’ve killed to feel less alone in 2009, to read the tweets of thousands of millions of people who were in similar situations. It would’ve been wonderful to read the tales of how some overcome their illnesses or how others live with them. I shared my own battle with anxiety here. There was a period of time where I thought exiting this world would be easier than staying in it.
Thankfully, I am still here and willing to share my stories so that I can save someone else’s life. That’s why this day is important. If somebody reads a tweet and it saves their life, even if it’s one person, even if it was because of a stupid corporate hashtag, it is worth it in the end.
I’m taking the Goodreads 2016 Reading Challenge. I set myself at 52 books which sounds insane but I’ve already read 4 and apparently that is two ahead of schedule! I’ve generally been reading a lot of autobiographies of famous people. Not seen on this list is Aziz’s Modern Romance and Mindy Kaling’s first book which I read in the last week of 2015 and am not counting.
Reading on my commutes (with my sadly broken Kobo) has taught me that I can get a lot of words in while sitting on the train. I haven’t let technological setbacks stop me from reading (I immediately bought an iPad mini). What are some of your favourite books? I’ll add them to my list of to-reads!
As an early adopter of social networks, I joined Peach last night! It’s a mix between the timelines of Twitter, and the design of Slack, but with more privacy, since you can only see the timelines of people you add as friends.
I still don’t entirely understand what it is for, but I see some potential in it being a fun platform to share photos, thoughts and more. The more I use it and find people to follow, the more I like it!
Add me if you’re on Peach: @tianafeng
Tiana Feng 