Commentary #1

                                             Commentary #1- Janelle on “Individuality”

            The word “individuality” has such a strong misconception these days. What is being true to one’s self may be conceived as being “strange”, or may probe people to ask, “what is up with that dude?” Whether this in on the Internet or just observing people in everyday life, I think Janelle really touched on something here with her essay in response to Nicholas Carr’s article “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” The argument she makes is that it isn’t making us stupid or taking away from our individuality, but rather enhancing it.
            Janelle states that “one of the main reasons that I think some people decide to change their identity is because they feel that they’re inadequate in some part of their life.” This was the most compelling piece of her argument by far. I couldn’t agree more with her about this! Maybe she could have talked a bit more about what ways people change themselves to make up for this. But I enjoyed reading about her friend Becky and her experience on Tumblr. It is so hard out there today to be true to ourselves with all the demands that society places on us as individuals. Also, I think a better way to elaborate on this would be to get some actual quotes from her Tumblr page and the responses from other people on the site. It could be interesting for the reader to know about other gender reversal situations in regards to this discussion as well.
             As far as Janelle’s presentation of alternative views; I thought it was well versed and I like the way she brought another great piece of writing in to the equation to refute her argument; “A Marketplace of Echoes”, by David Weinberger. The only thing lacking here was that there was no quotes from Weinberger. He is a very strong writer and I enjoyed that article. Adding some bold words from his piece would make a big impact to refute that Janelle believes the Internet is actually making us grander as individuals rather than making us all “followers” as Weinberger states. 

             And finally, there is one more topic that is very current that could make her argument even stronger. What types of pressure does the media (television, radio, etc.) place on people to either conform or challenge the ideal of “individualism”? I think the Internet is a great example of how people express themselves, but there’s one more; television. Take a look at the Oscars last night and their host, Seth MacFarlane, the creator of “Family Guy”. He is a controversial man who offends a lot of people with his humor. I was watching the news this morning while finishing this up and couldn’t help but find a correlation with this and the topic of “individuality”. So far, MacFarlane is getting ripped apart by his candidness on Hollywood and many other things. Critics are ripping him apart and calling him classless in so many words. But in true “ MacFarlane” style, it seems that Seth didn’t care and was TRUE TO HIMSELF! He seemed to censor himself a tiny bit, but I thought it was fantastic that he didn’t change who he was to conform to Hollywood’s high standards.

            All in all, Janelle made a strong argument with her essay. She says, "when I hear the word "individual", I think of a single person, a person who has their own special brand of identity." She used key pieces of information to develop this and I enjoyed the reference to her friend "Trevor". With a couple more examples and some more quotes, she is going to have a fantastic way to discuss our "individualism" and how we can continue to build on the ideals that go along with it.