We’ll use Perusall to annotate and read together. 
Multimodal Drift
Update 2:03 After hoping through every hoop imaginable this is the best I can do so far…. now why dafuq does the video cover so much area? Anyway, this user-friendly experience brought to you by digital-gremlins, “You might not be flying a plane, but you can still feel crashed and burnt.” Cheers, enjoy the rest of the post.
Update 1:29: So this is where I’m at right now. As far as multimodality is concerned it seems money is going to be a major limiting factor that will determine who gets to play and who gets left out. So me right now, my MacBook, while still awesome as fuck, is from 2009 and doesn’t have an AirDrop application that I can use to move any of the video files from my phone to my laptop. Another option I’ve been attempting is moving the video file from my phone either directly to YouTube, or to google drive. Either way I can then upload the video to Kim’s blog. But I’m running into an upload problem and I’m thinking that whatever kind of lose as I have doesn’t allow for video beyond 5-ish minutes of length, or perhaps my wi-fi connection is not optimal… whatever the case may be I’m definitely fighting against the technology at the moment, which says to me that those who can afford or have access to the most current systems and technologies are the ones who are going to have the greatest mobility when we make the switch to approaching multimodal communication techniques in composition type courses. What do y’all think? Also this battle isn’t over. It’s not a great video, but I’m getting this shit posted if it kills me!
Immediately after finishing this^ chunk of text this is the current status of the video upload *Actually there is no need for a picture because it would look exactly the same… no progress whatsoever. FML
Update 8:30am: I’ve spent 4 to 5 hours of my life trying to upload a vlog from my phone. This has been hell. This isn’t over, but for now this is all you get.
So I decided to give the Vlog thing a try after writing two versions of this post and being dissatisfied with both. After class today I plopped down on the couch with the cat, listened to an hour or two of The Gunslinger then remembered that Dave Chapelle was on Netflix. I love Dave. I love him not only because we share a name and every semester I walk up on campus like, “Still Dangerous.” It’s a slogan from his old show.
Anyway, I’d heard folks on Facebook up in arms about the content of his specials and I hoped his stuff wouldn’t be what some reactions on Facebook suggested it might be; that is not only offensive, but insensitive. He definitely crossed some lines that make me uncomfortable, and I tend to chalk it up to his age and his generation, but since he’s a hero of mine he tends to get a lot of leeway with me too. Anyways the biggest thing that bothers me is his dialogue with Rape that he engages with in episode one.
My coworker Carissa said, “I’ve seen some of his jokes online, and I can see why some people might find them funny but they’re not for me. I didn’t find them funny.”
My coworker Stephen said, “I don’t think you love Chapelle the way I do.” The subtext reading, in my mind, I don’t think you can handle the subject matter without being offended. The assumption being, You’re a virtue signaling liberal, and Imma define who you are based on that label right now. Bothers me a bit, but me and him are cool. And he’s probably right a little bit, from a certain light, but I like so many of us take pride in defying assumption whenever possible.
To both, after both opinions had been posited, I said, “We gotta learn to drop the academics.” The subtext being, I validate both your opinions simultaneously by implying that my educated side agrees with the moderate opinion of the one, and that my 916 is ready to roll with Chapelle on the other hand. In certain cases agreeability and civility could be seen as a civic-level sin if it boarders on the edge of complacency. Saving-face in the presence of true suffering should always be a sin, right?
This blog post and the Vlog up above does a couple of things. 1. It documents my feelings about a topical subject right now. So if my opinion changes in the morning, I’ll still have a record of what it was today. 2. It required me to compose my thoughts in real time, and without a script the best tool I had at my disposal for making the video more clear was the deletion of the first video and the shooting of a “take two.” 3. This last paragraph is attempting to point out a few of the moltimodal features the combination of video and blog post attempts to employ.
So what do you guys think about the new Dave Chapelle comedy special?
And is there anything else our class’s blog posts are doing with multimodal features?
2 Replies to “Multimodal Drift”
OMG you did Dave Chapelle! I didn’t even realize when we did MASH XD
The Dave Chapelle special kinda drove me crazy with the rape jokes. It is perpetuating a culture that is not new or unique, a culture that has been represented through art for centuries and used to oppress women and promote the idea that they do not have rights to their bodies. It takes the trauma out of the incident and further promotes the action as a joke. I’m super disgusted by this and wish these comedians would realize that not only is it offensive, it is not creative, new, or helpful. It perpetuates a culture that needs to fucking die already.
If you can laugh at a person who is raped, and make light of it, it is so easy to allow it to continue. It is so easy to promote it and teach it to your children.
Couldn’t even watch the whole special and it made me dislike Dave, who is one of my favorite comedians. It is hard for me to still like him after watching it, as much as I want to.
I like the idea of a video blog, because it really gave you a chance to articulate yourself and kind of play out an argument. I think this is a cool version of multimodality.
Hi David! I really appreciated the uniqueness in this blog post (and the multi-modal components of it!).
I’m not entirely sure if I watched the right Dave Chapelle segment (sorry, not a huge fan), but if I did, I certainly didn’t like it. First off, the issue of making rape jokes is that it normalizes the culture and takes away from the utter seriousness of this issue. When we as a society are more receptive to hearing rape jokes than we are about talking about real solutions (other than the “solutions” to have dress codes for women and to have them carry pepper spray) to the issue and taking an active stand against it, we have a serious issue and are severely misguided in our priorities. Rape jokes aren’t funny at all. And when he talked about how men can’t talking about it, there’s three things I thought about: 1.) That makes a joke out of real male surviviors of rape who have come forward to be active against the system (something that takes real courage) 2.) That continues to perpetuate the idea that men can’t show emotions and just have to “man up” and “deal with it” especially in regards to such a sensitive, traumatizing subject area. I mean, this just continues the dichotomy between masculinity and femininity and the patriarchy that surrounds it and 3.) By propping up men’s response to rape as “harder” or more difficult because they can’t talk about it, then you’re acknowledging male experiences in order to silence female experiences with rape.
I could go on and on about this, but I think I’ve made my main points. That isn’t to say anyone who enjoys these comedic performances is a bad person, because I don’t think that is the case. I just think we need to go from a “I know it when I see it” type mentality to a “I know it when we act on it” mentality. I see the value in using comedy as a buffer for sensitive or controversial subjects. And it’s hard because it’s so subjective, especially when the majority of people don’t see the privilege they have in laughing at certain jokes and not others. I just don’t think rape is one of those topics we can or should laugh at.
This actually reminds me about how the trail on our campus by Yolo Field is called the “Rape Trail” and it’s become so normalized for everyone. If we don’t want that type of normalization on our campus, then we shouldn’t want to hear normalization of rape through comedy. However, I also recognize that I’ve laughed at an Amy Poehler rape joke that she made at one of the award shows. So, I don’t know. At least for me, I see it as an opportunity for growth and exploration about the subjectivity of it all. But that’s just my opinion.
With all that being said, I really appreciated your honesty and intrigue into these questions. It brings a new light to multi-modality.