Make that mistake a few more times, however, and you could either just make many people in the restaurant uncomfortable, or someone could even decide to act on their feelings. I’m not sure about most people, but I’m not looking forward to a guy wanting to fight me, plus there’s just no reason to be hurting someone’s feelings. I know that you might not mean to, anyone could easily make the mistake. Even outside of cultural humor, in just humor itself, the offense is quite possible to be taken by someone. My personal advice would be to just really watch what you say, but if you really must make jokes, it would most likely be beneficial for you to be good at “reading the room” so to speak.

Me personally, I strive neither to fit in nor stand out, however I appear in the group could be either and will come naturally. I don’t usually have to “hide” who I am even through a wide variety of groups, simply because I attempt to as much as possible be kind and respectful. Even if a certain group were to display qualities that are far from those, that group usually is still fine with me displaying them. Of course some speech patterns may slightly alter, but my overall personality is usually mostly the same across most groups. I don’t particularly take pride in expressing my cultural identity, it’s just being who I am, which is no big deal and fairly easy.

There are even some social media services that have deemed to put a built-in call function, like Snapchat or Discord, most likely because that’s a little easier to hear emotion with, not to mention it can be faster in certain situations. Though even if a certain social media didn’t take emotional awareness into account, I don’t think it’s constantly a problem. Now that’s not to say that it can’t be or isn’t a problem sometimes, because it certainly can, and is at times. I think at this point, however, that at least a majority of people realize that how someone truly feels can get distorted through being typed out on an app.

I was far too hesitant and slow when I was attempting to answer each prompt, and I may have spent a bit more extra time on certain questions than I needed to. Granted I think I explained the few things I did fairly well, but that left so much more information left out since the time was limited. Jeremiah and Sid did fairly well as far as I can remember, they were engaging and seemed very interested and invested in what they were doing. Sid especially had an interesting approach towards the presentation, focusing specifically a bit more on her passion for art, rather than giving a whole load of information.

Later however when I had gotten home from the school day and had been home for a few hours I finally remembered that happening. I decided to listen to the voicemail just for the fun of it. Again that was all fun and dandy, but then I decided I wanted to finally make a call on my phone back from hearing the voicemail. Most likely my friend had completely forgotten what she had done earlier in the day. So I called the number that belonged to the voicemail, because well, that number was obviously my friend’s phone. What I did next was not the brightest idea, since in the voicemail my friend had been yelling, I decided to be yelling first thing on the call.

So when I connected, I immediately said, “I got your voicemail!” to which my friend responded in a shaky voice, “what…” which I thought meant she might be going through something at the moment and maybe it wasn’t a good time to call. I then said, “oh, is this not a good time?” to which she responded, “who is this?” so at that point I realized she hadn’t known it was me calling. I gave my name, which at first made her think I was someone else she knew with the same name, which I corrected by giving my last name and telling her where she knew me from. She said to me then, “Oh, I thought you were a stranger and you were saying like, I got you now or something. You scared me to death.” At that point she was kind of sniffling and giving a weak laugh to regain her composure.

I felt absolutely terrible, I should’ve known she might not have put me into her phone yet. She had now gone through what at first she thought was a scary stranger telling her that he had her now, and I can believe my voice sounded different enough on the phone for the first time to really make her believe something like that. All I meant to do was joke back from her voicemail and that became something much more serious in a few moments than it was meant to be.

I apologized I don’t know how many times after that, I couldn’t stop feeling awful for a good while. Looking back it’s obvious there’s quite a few things I could’ve done differently, hindsight is 2020 after all. I could’ve just let the voicemail joke be as it was without response, I could’ve just texted her back, or called her like a normal person in a normal voice and say who I was in case she hadn’t put me in her phone yet, which she hadn’t.

Areas of interest:

Game Design, animation, and music.

Q: What have you read, watched, or heard recently that makes you feel hope for the world?

A: There is a video by a Youtube content creator by the name of Vizviepop. It is a sort of “cartoon” though it’s more for adults. It’s called “Hazbin Hotel” and it takes place in hell. Despite all the negative aspects of the world there, it depicts the princess of hell actually having the idea to make a hotel that rehabilitates sinners to make them ready for a life in heaven if that were possible. If such a pure idea were truly able to come out of such a horrible situation, perhaps our world won’t be so bad off.

Now the reason I’m drawn to game design is, I just always have loved everything to do with video games since I was young. Eventually, that moved past “ooh, that looks cool” to wondering how they were truly and fully created. That’s what really got me into programming and it’s why I am still very interested in game design. Animation might have been much more of an impulse decision for a topic, but I do find it to be quite neat the kinds of art it can achieve. Music, I would never be too great at making it, but I simply adore listening to it. The stories you can hear within just a few minutes if you really listen can be quite enticing.

PEST analysis:

P — For the political part of this analysis, I think it’s fairly safe to say that any of these categories won’t change much in that field. I think that field is fine as is for most things dealing with my three topics. Of course if one wished to specifically target politics, especially with an animated film or song that may get a lot of attention, perhaps you could be in for a bit of trouble. I leave game design out of that problem area since video games are often not taken so seriously as to change people’s minds as far as something like politics. I’m not saying they can’t, but I think they are the least likely to cause a problem here.

E — Now as far as our economy goes right now… it kinda sucks a little for most things. Of course, entertainment industries will most likely keep at their work, but many people are spending their money on things that are deemed as or close to necessities around the home. When someone might’ve wanted to pay for the newest game, (game design) or to go to the movies (animation) or a concert, (music) now they’d more likely want to save up for extra toilet paper, soap, etc.

S — Socially, I think we’re actually in a great spot for my categories. You’re at home all day so why not play, watch, or listen to something? Now while economically, COVID-19 has caused a problem in these areas, I think socially they could be more popular than ever if people had the money to spare. Having a game to play or your favorite animated series to watch during a break, or even a good song to listen to while working at that desk at home could be appreciated right now I think.

T — I think that you don’t necessarily have to even worry about if the technology is good enough in the fields of my categories at the moment. It’s been proven that the technology is good enough, with the amazing graphics one can see in certain animated films, or the extreme intractability of certain games, and even all the special effects you can implement into a song now like great autotune. Despite the current situation in the world, technology always seems to find a way to take priority in advancing itself.

Competitive Landscape:

Now I’m not quite sure what I want to make just yet, but I have a possible bit of an idea with the animation category. Here’s a bunch of viewing options currently for viewers with different types of animations. (Movies/Series)

Now perhaps one of the options I could consider doing is to create a service for up and coming animators to post both their series/movie/short animation etc… as well as the process for that animation. Fellow animators and normal viewers alike could use the website, and the animators could get feedback on both the viewing quality of the animation from viewers, and animation tips and tricks to perhaps help them improve from their fellow animators. It’s a very rough idea at the moment, not very polished, but then again I may not even pay the idea much more attention anyway.

User Interviews:

The value that comes from user interviews is gaining the knowledge of if a majority of people might actually want to use your project/creation or not. Even if it turns out that a lot of people might want to use it, the interviews could also tell you if you could possibly make any improvements on your product. The classmate I interviewed as practice was Jordan Torres, and of course I began with qualifying questions. I asked whether he enjoyed watching types of animations in general, movies, television series, little known animations on Youtube, etc. I then asked how likely it was for him to watch those little known animations, rather than the other options. After that I asked if he had any animation experience himself.

He did like watching animations in general, he said he was actually probably less likely to watch the smaller animations unless he had little else to watch, and he hadn’t had any animation experience himself. Now I don’t believe any of those were strictly biased, perhaps I could’ve saved the likeliness of watching smaller animations to not a qualifying question but otherwise the other two questions were certainly information that needed certain answers. Now of course with him not having animation experience, some information was unable to be obtained, but I was still able to determine that he might be at least a little interested in a service like what I am thinking of making. Obviously I have determined that if not forever, the service would need to at least be free at first or to a certain extent.

Now with that lost information, I would certainly need more interviews to have enough information to make an exact conclusion to how useful or used my product might actually be. Though obviously one would really need multiple takes on a project for conclusive information anyway. My project would especially need a lot of information, since I need it from both normal viewers, and those who do animation as a main artform. Of course there’s also the problem of possible competition. Youtube is a similar service that is free usually, one can post any kind of video on there within Youtube’s guidelines, and any kind of feedback that animators are looking for on there, they can probably still get in the comments section of their videos. Now while my product would bring more attention specifically to small/startup animations, that also depends on how much attention it could actually bring, and if anyone cares for that specifically to be on another site than what they usually use instead.

Mind Map:

My Product Idea:

My idea uses the technology of a streaming service to help animators whom wish for feedback and help through their animation, and know if their animations appeal to the masses. Yes I understand that this is quite a narrow subject, but I also believe that’s why it could have an edge on something say like, Youtube. Of course you may be able to achieve the same result there eventually, but when the entire service specifically deals with this subject, it’s a bit more useful than a service that is simply capable of the feat, rather than designed for it. Animators would put up videos of both their animations, and their animation process, so that they could get both data from viewers, and fellow animators.

User Journeys:

“My name is Joseph, and I’ve just created my very own animated series. I only have about three episodes at the moment, and I’m not quite sure where I should go with it, or if I should change a few things. I’m also doubtful of the quality of my work, I think a few things could be better, I’m just not sure how. I recently found out about a new application called Animation Station and I posted both my episodes, along with the process I went through in order to create them. I realized that some of the storyline doesn’t match up as well as it should with the backstory of the world, and the quality of art isn’t always consistent between all the characters. I received some pretty good ideas to fix both of those things, and I seemed to gain a good bit of publicity.”

“My name is Raymond, recently I visited an app called Animation Station just to find something interesting to watch. I found a startup series by the name of ‘Starlight Romances’ of which I was quickly a fan of. I did however in my obsession with the amazing story, notice that things changed far too much from the original backstory of things. I had some ideas on how to change things up and was glad to see them used in the re-uploaded episodes a few months later.”

“My name is Molly, I’m an animator who had been looking for an outlet to help others in my profession, since I’ve been doing this for a while and know how difficult it can be in the beginning. I recently visited an application by the name of Animation Station to view the creation process of a series called ‘Starlight Romances.’ I noticed characters in the series that weren’t too important as far as roles go had less animation quality than the main characters. I advised that the creator have smaller scenes for them to make it easier, and gave some personal tips on how I design background characters. I was glad to see the quality increase in the re-uploads.”

I made these user journeys in an attempt to get in the minds persons that would be using each part of my service. This might help me better understand what it would be like actually using the service. Perhaps I’m being a tad too optimistic, however I believe that to be better than doubting myself at every turn.

Wireframe:

A wireframe represents the most basic layout of a website, application, etc. I honestly created one because it was necessary, for one I was required to as an assignment, but also it is useful to have a small idea of how you want your project to look like. Hopefully having a basic idea of the layout will further assist in going forward with the idea.