Category: Projects

I did not tweet the same tweets this week; instead I retweeted my first tweet with additional mass Trump hashtags. I waited until the end of this project to add Trump hashtags because on the small chance a Trump supporter actually engaged with me I did not want to have to deal with that for a semester, and I also have my name as my @, so I didn’t want people stumbling across my name tweeting about Trump for a semester.

1. I am trying to interact with others in terms of baseball, and more specifically the Mets.
2. My main audience are fellow baseball fans, or fans of the Mets.
3. I can draw from these examples the way that people interact with each other using a hashtag.
4. These can help with my project because they can tell me what to do when I want to talk about many different things at one time when something groundbreaking happens with the Mets this year.
5. My major problems so far are that the Mets have done anything since the offseason has not started yet.
6. I would like to take this in the direction of how the Mets handle their offseason during the winter.

https://alternateobjectfictions.tumblr.com/

I’ve attached the link for the project above.

1. I think I’m trying to reach a community of writers. I really want to make this process an inclusive and interactive project. Luckily, I am a part of the Tufts Creative Writing club, so I will also be working through what they know about writing blogs.
2. I think I’m really trying to reach as many people as possible. I would love to include and reach out to other writers, to write their own versions of fairy tales. I’ve included the submission option on my blog for this very purpose. I’ve been trying to reach out to writing blogs and hopefully will start to get somewhere soon!
3. I think I’m going to try and build a writing community! There are many like it on tumblr. I believe to start, I need to get a few followers, and then interact with them.
4. I don’t think the longer twitter narratives will help with my personal plan, but I have been using it as an inspiration of sorts.
5. I think my major problem so far is that I only have one follower. I’m having trouble figuring out how to get to more people. I’ve been trying to reach out, but I feel like it will take a decent amount of time before I begin to see process.
6. I would like to begin to vary in the types of fairy tales I am telling. There are many great fables that are not European based that I have read and loved. However, I do not wish to appropriate cultures. I was thinking of beginning with a few Jewish tales and moving on from there. This is part of the reason I really want to get submissions from writers with different backgrounds, as I don’t want to rewrite myths and stories from other people’s cultures. Probably I want to do a post on The Little Mermaid. I really want to go from the original tale, which is much bloodier. However, I also want to begin to stray away from princess tales and begin to move into more moral tales, such as Hansel and Gretel. Maybe the Princess and the Pea from the point of view of either the pea or one of the mattresses. And the Princess and the Frog from the point of view of the Princess’s favorite ball? There are a lot of options I am thinking of to be honest. I will have to continue brainstorming more as the week  continues. I will have to go through my copy of Grimm’s fairy tales.

1. For my project, I’m trying to accomplish a collection of funny stories from my life based off words used in the NYT spelling bee game. These stories are more for my own entertainment, so I’m not really worrying about followers or likes or anything like that. At the end of this project, I really just want to have a collection of memories to look through from time to time.
2. My audience is kind of just myself, but I might try to involve a few friends who might remember or be involved in some of the memories I write about. I am also considering having my dad, whom I do the spelling bee puzzles with, write a memory he has of me based off of a word. It would just be a guest appearance and only one post.
3. I think in terms of community building, I don’t necessarily think I can curate a community based off of only my funny stories. However, I think I could possibly share my stories with friends and family in order to build a deeper connection with them. I’m still unsure of whether or not I want to share it with friends and family, but it is something I am considering.
4. I think some of the longer twitter works we have read in class can help me when it comes to figuring out the length of my stories. I am not doing one continuous story like the ones we have read in class, but I think that some of my mini stories can be quite long. I am still kind of struggling with how long I should make my individual stories, but since there really isn’t a huge audience, I think I can make them longer without having to worry about boring the audience.
5. I think my biggest problem has been being able to tell a complete story within the character limits of twitter. I do tell my stories over the course of several tweets, but I still feel like I need to abbreviate my stories more. I don’t want my stories to feel rushed, but I also don’t want them to drag on.
6. Since my posts really depend on the words that week, I can’t really plan ahead, but I do like the format I am using currently, so I’m going to continue using that format

Through my Twitter project (@GateJumbo), I am trying to entertain members of the Tufts community, especially undergraduates — my main audience –, by transforming references pertinent to our culture as Jumbos into elements of conspiracy theories.

So far, I have not been successful in getting my target audience to follow and interact with my account. In fact, the last time I checked, I only had one follower — the class’s Twitter account –, so I need to come up with some strategies to present myself to this audience. I tried messaging some groups I am part of that I think would enjoy the content on @GateJumbo, but it seems that none of them followed me. It was also suggested to me that I should start tagging student organizations from Tufts on my account, but I am yet to find these groups’ Twitter usernames to tag. 

Perhaps, one way in which I can create more engagement with my project — and even build a community around it — is by sticking to a “main” hashtag — like #GirlsLikeUs and #BlackintheIvory — as a means of marking and identifying my content, making it stand out and be more easily located.

In revamping my Twitter project, I would imagine that the longer Twitter narratives that I’ve encountered —Zola’s #TheStory, Egan’s “Black Box” — have some elements that might be worth adding to my work. One example is how they developed stories over numerous tweets while keeping their readers somewhat “hooked” enough to keep reading.

As I move forward with my Twitter project, these are some possible routes I can take:

1. Keep on releasing smaller stories (micro-conspiracies)
2. Come up with one longer narrative that “connects the dots” — maybe I could do this for #PaniniGate
3. Do a bit of 1 and 2 — create 2-4 micro-conspiracies that will then get tied into one or two longer threads, which comprise a longer, all-encompassing narrative.

Though I still need to brainstorm paths 1 and 2 individually, I believe following path 3 would make the most sense.

1. Clarify the objectives of your project: what are you trying to accomplish? 

My main objective is to point out how Trump’s syntax overshadows his misinformation. In the same vein, how him saying something is taken differently than if anyone else would say the same thing.

1. Who is your main audience that you are trying to reach? How are you hoping they would interact with your project? What do you need to do to get them involved?

I think I should try to reach a conservative audience to demonstrate the absurdity of Trump’s tweets. Further research into appropriate and safe hashtags is needed. I don’t know how I want people to interact with my tweets; ideally it would help them draw the conclusion that many of Trump’s tweets are ridiculous (to put it nicely).

1. How can you draw from examples of community building such as #GirlsLikeUs and #BlackintheIvory for your project?

I think hashtags are incredibly important, although the right ones must be chosen so that nothing malicious is put out.

1. Can the longer Twitter narratives you’ve encountered (Zola’s #TheStory, Egan’s “Black Box”) help with your plan for your project?

I actually think that I can do a narrative. Although my responses at the top reflect my tweets so far, going forward I want to create a story that incorporates trump’s tweets, but is not comprised entirely of them. For example, I could write a Twitter story that has a narrative that includes an antagonist, and that person would be responsible for trumps tweets. I think I could give this character the most ridiculous background, like an escaped alien from Area 21, and by giving the alien Trump’s voice, it would demonstrate the ridiculousness of them.

1. Identify your major problems/questions/difficulties so far. Brainstorm possible solutions.

My major problem is a lack of narrative. I need to create a narrative from scratch, but I think I can mimic the Zola storytelling method to make it seem more “realistic.”

1. Thinking ahead (and this will probably take most time): brainstorm possible directions for future posts.

I think I’m going to form my narrative around meeting an escaped alien and the interactions that follow as we travel around.

My project will be on Twitter using the handle @Mets052. Although the Mets are currently not playing at the moment, this is supposed to be a big offseason for the team with a new owner coming aboard. I will also be talking about other factors of Major League baseball, such as the World Series that starts tomorrow. This project will allow me to write about my opinions and ask other of their opinions in the world of baseball. I will be excited to see how the offseason plays out, and I am sure that there will be a lot to talk about on the subject. I believe that this will be a great experience and I am looking forward to posting more in the future.

1. My goals: I am writing a story about a day in the life of zoom as someone who struggles with ADHD. My character (a somewhat fictionalized version of myself) struggles to maintain most of her attention. I am writing this because I think a lot of people don’t understand how difficult zoom classes are, especially for people like me who are frequently distracted by anything around them.
2. My main audience: I am not entirely sure. Maybe just other college students who use Twitter, or just the Twitterverse in general. I think that maybe creating hashtags and retweeting my story could help to spread the word and attract more people to my story.
3. I’m not sure. I think maybe having other college students share their struggles by creating some sort of new hashtag that could create a sense of community in some way.
4. Maybe in sort of a narrative sense, and also how to keep readers engaged in the story as I add each new post. How to keep the excitement going.
5. Getting my story out there. I think the top amount of hits on one of the posts is 100. Also I am unsure where to go next and what the fictional version of Leigh should go from here.
6. Possible directions: make it more comical and have her end up completely screwed in some way. I don’t want to make it too upsetting, but maybe something relatable to my readers.

I have decided that for my project, I will pick a word or two from that week’s compilation of the NYT spelling bee games and write down a memory I have that is sparked from seeing one of the words in the game. I am planning on using joyful or funny memories, but that might change over the course of my project. Although I know what my idea is, I’m still debating which platform I should use. Right now, I am deciding between facebook and twitter. It’s a tough decision because those two platforms are entirely different and my choice of platform will really affect the direction of my novel. I think I ultimately need to come to a decision about whether I want to utilize brevity. If I use twitter, brevity is necessary as there is a character limit. Twitter might also work well with my project because I could make my stories more poetic and make them impactful using a small number of characters. However, if I use facebook, my stories will probably act more like journal entries and my posts will probably be pretty long. Having the space to write long posts might be nice because I can really get my story across and include a lot of details. However, facebook is a more formal platform than twitter and since I am trying to use funny stories, the posts might seem out of place on facebook. As of right now, I am leaning towards using brevity, which will be easier to use on twitter, but I am still considering facebook. I am planning to make my decision on the platform I will use by this Wednesday 10/14 and I hope to have my first post up by Friday 10/16.

I think what I want to do is a satirical twitter page that would tweet like Donald Trump but only with proven facts. I want to create a profile and mirror his syntax, but instead of fake news and opinions, each tweet would be an accurate version of one of his tweets (i.e. if he tweeted that COVID was done, my tweet would mirror how he said COVID was over, but instead it would relay true facts about COVID). I am still figuring out how I want to go about it, if I want to quote a tweet of his or let people figure out which tweet I am “mocking,” but I plan on creating an account and having multiple tweets by Monday  10/18. I have briefly looked at other Trump parody accounts and they mainly seem to add on to his idiocy by tweeting even more ridiculous thoughts, rather than bring it back to an equilibrium.

I am interested in starting a Twitter account that tweets conspiracy theories about Tufts — something like “@Tuftspiracies” or “@JumboGate.” I want the conspiracies — which might be delivered in the format of single tweets or threads — to sound plausible, but not enough that I cause a massive uproar against the administration — I want people to be entertained, not convinced. However, I do not know how to balance these attributes. I also worry that there might be legal repercussions or that people who are invested in real conspiracy groups like QAnon would actually buy into my writing and plot something against Tufts. I’d appreciate it if you guys could share your thoughts on these matters. Some goals that I am tentatively setting will be to have someone from Tufts (e.g.: a student) retweet one of my tweets and to have a Tufts-related media outlet (e.g.: The Daily or The Observer) publish something about the account. As for a genre, I suppose what I’m going for is a novel, though I am not sure if there’s a better way to define this type of fiction. I believe a Twitter account would be the best medium for this project since it would allow me the seriality and the live interaction with other users that I believe conspiracy theories necessitate to become popular. I’d try to use hashtags, videos, images, and GIFs to make my posts more dynamic, which could also help make them more visible to other audiences. I’m still thinking this through (especially the legal-ethical questions), so others are more than welcome to join me.

1. I’m thinking about writing about some funny stories from my past. This might sound kind of weird, but I want to use the New York Times spelling bee game (it’s a type of word game) to guide those individual stories. I’m thinking that each week I’ll pick a word from a puzzle that sparks a funny or joyful memory and write a small journal about that memory.
2. I think my goals are more personal. I kind of want a way to remember some of these funny stories and reflect on them. I think my goal is to create a page that reminds me those funny memories, not to create a page that gains a lot of traction.
3. I think it will be more of a journal like entry so I can express my feelings in a less formal way.
4. I’m thinking that I’ll use twitter because I want these stories to not be super formal and I want them to not be so long that people get bored. I also think that telling a story on twitter can be kind of funny because of the character limit.
5. I think I will use the photo posting feature to post a picture of the puzzle and the word that I am going to use for the post. Then I will use a normal text post to tell the story.
6. I don’t think I will work in a group since my project is more journal based.

1. I don’t know what subject I want to do yet, but I think an Instagram page that is a couple large photos comprised of many posts would be a cool way of building a narrative as the full pictures come into form.
2. Maybe it would be a timing narrative, where I follow a schedule of posting that on a certain day the picture makes sense.

In regards to working in a group, I don’t think I want to work in an actual group, but I am totally up for collabing and reading others’ posts.

I think to accompany the pictures there could be a fact , so maybe the project is to raise awareness, and each post is about a fact of the cause, and eventually the picture makes sense in the context of the cause. Stories could also be incorporated, as they are a key feature of Instagram.

 

The Topic:

-Retelling of a fairy tale but without names + no explanation?

-Like lesser known fairy tale? Each week redo another fairy tale?

-Also, perhaps not only fairy tales but common tall tales and myths? Well known ones but rewritten.

Goals?:

-how vague can I be while still hitting the main points of the story?

-leave out as many identifying details as possible?

-different points of view? Like each fairy tale from point of view of an object in the tale? Like the magic mirror in Snow White and the pumpkin in cinderella? Or a rag?

Type of fiction:

-Perhaps in the guise of a traditional fairy tale structure? Like Once Upon A Time… The End?

-Perhaps in a Short Story Format? Like each story is at most two pages and at least half a page?

Social Media Platform:

-I feel like I would be most comfortable on Tumblr to be honest, having had experience writing on it. However, Twitter could also work

Parts of Social Media I can incorporate:

Definitely brevity to a point. However, otherwise? Hmmm…

Perhaps music in the background? Or images scattered throughout.

I believe I would prefer not to work in a group.

Topic I am interested in: I was thinking of doing something like a day in the zoom life. Like a journal about how I am doing this all of this (with some fictionalized aspects to add more drama). How I get distracted, struggle to motivate myself, etc. Goals: just show the struggles of all of this situation, especially considering how hard it is for me to focus (given my ADHD). Write a story that at least a few people can relate to. Best form to do this in: I think a journal type entry could be good. I feel like this is semi-personal, and I want to let my audience into a snippet of my life, and a journal is a good way to do that. I think Twitter could be good for this. The short format of the tweets could keep my audience’s attention without boring them, and perhaps keep them interesting in ready my story. I could also use popular hashtags to draw more attention to the journal

This page is the space where you can reflect on the process of creating fiction on Twitter (or whatever social media you choose). You will also be required to post basic information, such as all of your important hashtags, handles, etc, here.

To write here, you will need to write a post with the “projects” category.