Wide-eyed and Jaded

Unless it’s about the TTC, it’s rare to see 36 comments on a Toronto-based LiveJournal post these days. I’m totally going oldschool on your arses!

I just read this post about a lost passport found and returned using swift (some call it creepy?) Internet skillz:

I found a passport
I found a passport on the streets, what do I do? The thing is, he is from the US! He just came to Canada on the 25th.

I googled him (like a creeper) and found nothing.

returned it

…in the most creepy stalkerish way! If I knew about the Consolate, I would have done that first…but their hours would have been inconvenient anyways (I work 9-6) Not like government hours are ever convenient….
Thanks for all the replies! As a reward I’ll tell you how I found him (like a creeeep)

Okay, so I googled his name and only two relative results for patents he filed for. It told me he worked at IBM so I googled his name and IBM and found his LinkedIn page which had a picture that matched his pp picture. Good! I can send him a note there—signed up and yada yada. Tried to send him a message but it wanted me to pay to upgrade. Bah! Facebook did not bring results….but wait! LinkedIn is like facebook, ah! a work website. I called up their offices and they said he was in London (?) A few calls and e-mails later, I find out that he works about 6mins away! Turns out he didn’t know it was lost–all is good now

Way to work a computer, delirious_asian!

Before I explain what this is all about, please know I didn’t say one of these words about myself. That is exactly why this list was created. “You’re so hard on yourself” is a phrase uttered to me often, and I heard a lot of it this weekend at PodCamp Boston 3.

It’s hard for me to take someone else’s advice regarding my personal life because I’m so stuck in my own mind. But my amazing friends who attended PCB3 with me helped me step out of my head for a while and appreciate Rayanne for everything Rayanne is.

After the final day of the conference, my group/our clique/the awesome Seesmicers went out to make sure we said goodbye on a high note. When I wasn’t paying attention, my e-mom passed around a napkin printed with the words, “Rayanne is” and asked everyone to choose five words that they thought described me.

You’ve seen the result.

The phrase I most clearly remember from PCB3 is: Seesmic is emotional.

I spent the weekend with about a dozen people I met many months ago on Seesmic. I have gotten to know these people online as well as I would have if I met them in person. When we departed early Monday morning, I cried. And cried and cried and cried. When my co-workers asked me on Tuesday morning how my weekend was, I had to choke back tears and tell them I wasn’t ready to talk about it.

I feel like I’m going through a breakup. The feeling was especially present when I expressed my complete sadness to some of the other PCB3 attendees and got responses like, “Yeah, it’s sad, but we’ll see each other again soon.” I thought I was too emotionally attached and was about to torture myself further.

But my friend (and one of the group) ChrisCavs said it best on a Seesmic post with something like this:

I’m glad I’m not the only one who’s constantly checking Flickr for new pictures and videos. What is it with this weekend? I guess we all needed something like that.

So, I’m not alone. PodCamp Boston was a wonderful experience. Seesmic is emotional. And I’ll likely have more to say about that later.

Photos by MissSomething and Starman.

Tags are called labels on Blogger, right? I was just reading my friend David’s blog (it’s private, so no need to link) and became really happy at the sight of his labels.

In school, at PodCamps, etc., we’re taught tags and labels are a great way to have more people find your blog, website or what have you. Don’t call me on this, but I think David’s labels are more of a personal filing system. If he talks about his girlfriend Andrea, the post is added to his blog’s Andrea category. The majority of his labels are names of his friends. I just think it’s really sweet to see such a personal touch brought back to this space for me.

I love his blog, BTW. He writes his daily accounts living in Ottawa. Before he started this one, he wrote everyday in a blog about Toronto life. I think writing so simplistically every day helps him as a writer. And, it reminds me how important it is to have other things to do online than socialize with the same people who do the same things as you.

If you don’t already, I strongly suggest you find some blogs to read about every personal interest you have. I’m probably repeating myself, but it helps re-humanize this space.

I was 11 years old when the Spice Girls first introduced their version of girl power to pop music fans worldwide, and I ate it up. My bedroom walls were also adorned with pictures of the (I then considered) dreamy Backstreet Boys. I was never into ‘N Sync, but I still love Hanson—sorry.

Within two years, three bands/musicians began to change my life—or at least the way I heard and appreciated music. My big brother (unintentionally) introduced me to Beck, Foo Fighters and Weezer. The former two have been up to so much, I find it difficult to keep up, but I will always respect them for leading me to better music. Weezer, however, remains one of my top two favourite bands of all time (the other is the Smiths).

Unlike most hardcore =w= fans, I still believe if it’s too loud, turn it down. Yes, Blue and Pinkerton are AMAZING and UNBEATABLE albums, but that’s just it; Green, Maladroit and Make Believe are good records, but the band started it’s career too perfectly to ever live up to the standards it set in 1994. I recognize this. That’s why I’ll stand by Rivers Cuomo, Brian Bell, Pat Wilson, Scott Shriner and even ex-bassist Matt Sharp (but probably not unstable Mikey Welsh) ’til the end.

June 3 marked the release of Weezer’s sixth album, The Red Album. I’m ashamed to say that all I’ve heard from it so far is the single, Pork and Beans.

Many of you have probably seen the video continually growing more popular on YouTube. It features many Internet fads and celebrities (either the real thing or a parody), including:

• the Numa Numa guy
• Britney’s BFF Chris Crocker;
• Drama Prairie Dog (loved by Eden’s son);
• Daft Hands;
• Daft Bodies; and
• Chocolate Rain Man himself, Tay Zonday.

Say what you will about the band trying too hard or stealing ideas from the Barenaked Ladies (can someone link me to the video Pork and Beans is being compared to?), but the bottom line is: Weezer is listening.

Dr. Pepper is not the only man capitalizing on Mr. I move away from the mic to breathe in. Watch this video of Zonday covering Weezer… with Weezer:

Okay so, I’m having way too much trouble embedding this video without completely effing the layout, so here it is until I figure this out. My apologies.

Photo from Stereogum.

Wow, it has been so long since I’ve updated. I’m kicking myself for it. I keep telling myself, “You have to blog, Rayanne. Your employers will think you were blogging only to land the internship.” Haha. So this—the weekend following my first week working at a PR agency—is my chance to begin to show that I’m in for the long haul.

After weeks of diligent job hunting, resume and cover letter tailoring and discussing internship frustrations with my classmates, I’ve landed at Veritas Communications, specifically in com.motion, the agency’s social media marketing department.

A lot of people have told me I don’t have agency personality. I even presented on this in my Presentation Skills class at Centennial. I’ve had trouble understanding why people said this and often refuse to believe it.

I know I’m a quiet girl. I attribute this to the way I was raised, and I don’t have a problem with that. My parents are ministers. I went to church every Sunday (often twice and on other days of the week as well) until I moved away from home for university. I was always a very cheery, smiley and friendly child. I’ve always made friends easily and have little difficulty getting along with most people I meet. I also like to think I’m pretty selfless. I suppose saying that is kind of selfish in itself, actually. But, I honestly rarely put myself first in anything I’m confronted with. I like helping other people so much. Mostly, I just want everyone to like me. So I guess my selfless nature has a seedy underbelly.

Why am I telling you this and what the hell does it have to do with my internship or agency personality? Well, because I work to make other people happy, I tend to keep to myself when I can and let other people talk if that’s what they prefer to do. I know this is a problem. I am on one end of the extremity scale.

So, when I hear I might not fit into an agency as well as some of my classmates, I cringe, but I know exactly why.

You might also be wondering, “Why did you try so hard to get into an agency knowing you might not fit in?” I didn’t really think of this when I was applying to be an intern. I just thought of my specific skills and what I love to do (which is social media, for those who don’t know me well).

I know there are many corporations and not-for-profit organizations interested in becoming more connected, but I fear for those only doing so because it seems like the new bandwagon to jump into. I know I’m not a social media expert, and I don’t want to be responsible for helping an organization do something it shouldn’t or isn’t ready to do. So, I decided to look for a place to work that was already involved, but could benefit from my personal touch as well.

At the same time, I do know what I’m talking about. I love social media. And yeah, I’m starting to hate the term as much as the bitter guys. But, I’ve been a huge Internet nerd since being introduced to it in 1996. I love meeting people from all over the world and the many different ways there are to do so.

That’s what social media is to me—a different world to meet new people and talk with them. Frighteningly, I don’t think a lot of people share my opinion. I think a lot of them say they do only because that’s what’s expected of them.

So, while learning to overcome my quiet nature, I hope to bring my experience and honesty to the table during my eight weeks at Veritas. And, I hope I learn a lot, too.

I’m glad Lisa posted this because I was toying with the idea for a while. I think it’s a great idea that we share some things about ourselves that, while not too personal, would not likely come up in our typical conversations.

So, I’m going to pretend Lisa tagged me, and fill out this little meme myself. And, I will tag some of you to do the same. Do it! Come on, it’s fun!

Without further hesitation, here are 10 things you probably didn’t know about me:

1. The town I lived in for the first 11 years of my life has a population of about only 300. My mother grew up there, her parents lived there and it was just a fantastic place to grow up. My house was steps away from the Atlantic Ocean. We had a big bay window, and we’d watch whales play all summer days long.

My house was not far right of these two. Ours was one of the larger houses in the community; a two-and-a-half story home, updated with a beautiful skylight window in the upstairs.

The closest “city” was a 45-minute drive away, and its population was about 5,000—the same size as Napanee (where I went to high school), which everyone thinks is unbelievably small.

2. Some of you already know this because of my stories during the planning of our mock media conference, but when I was little, my imaginary friend was Wayne Gretzky.

That’s right—I wasn’t imaginative enough to create my own imaginary friend. I had to borrow one from the LA Kings. I didn’t even like hockey growing up, and I still barely do, but my dad was pretty into it, and he’s always been a huge role model for me.

One time, my brother overheard me having a conversation with myself in the sandbox. When he asked me who I was talking to, I said, “Wayne Gretzky.” There you have it. Oh, and my mother still has copies of letters I wrote to Wayne, telling him I planned to visit him and his family in LA.

3. I was voted mostly likely to work for Rolling Stone in my high school yearbook. This is largely because I was on the yearbook staff, and I refused to believe I was meant to do anything else.

4. I LOVE back-to-school shopping, but I have never needed to do so. I have more empty notebooks and unused pens than I do used.

5. My parents are ministers. That’s right—both of them.

My mother went into the ministry when she was 17, but left after under three years because she found it difficult to handle as a young, single woman. Mom and dad went back to the training college when I was 11, and my family lived in a college with about 30 other students and their families for two years.

6. I boast about the east coast of Canada like I’m getting paid for it, but I’ve never been farther west than Toronto. (Don’t worry, I really want to go some day!)

7. I own probably more than 50 pairs of socks. (I’m obviously not counting.) I’m not much into buying them anymore, but there was a time when I couldn’t step into a clothing store without buying a pair of socks. My close friends and family know me as a person who loves socks, so I add at least a half-dozen more pairs to my collection every Christmas.

8. I go to a lot of concerts. The first musician I saw live was contemporary Christian artist Ray Boltz in Mount Pearl, N.L.

Hilarious, right? Here’s a more recent photo:

When I moved to Ottawa for university, I began going to shows by myself because I didn’t have many friends who liked the music I did. Since coming to Toronto, I’ve been to about 12 shows.

I’ve seen Hot Hot Heat four times and The New Pornographers and Tegan and Sara three times, just to name a few. This number may pale in comparison to others’ lists, but keep in mind, I haven’t been going to shows for that many years (I’m young!).

9. I don’t wear jeans. I just don’t like them on me. I wish I did, but they just don’t work for me. I wore a pair one day last semester, but it was a lot less weird for you guys (my classmates) because you didn’t know this about me!

10. I used to blog on a site that no longer exists, called Teen Open Diary.

I had a personal journal and one under the moniker -Alexis Bledel-. Yes, the girl from Gilmore Girls. There was a tightly knit community of people on the site that role played as famous people. We would update our blogs about our fake lives, befriend other celebrities and even find role playing boyfriends and girlfriends. There was no live chat, so we’d meet on one person’s page, leave comments to each other and refresh the browser every 30 seconds for hours on end.

…I am lame, I know.

As promised, I tag the following people to share some of their unknowns with us:

• Miranda
• Megan
• Rick
• Joe
• Natalie

I apologize for writing so much, and I’ll try to keep my posts shorter from now on. They will usually be less colleague-centred, also.

I’m so disappointed! I was hoping I’d be one of the first to mention tonight’s episode of CBC’s Test the Nation. Little did I know that one of our own appeared on the show as a member of the blogger team, and wrote about it two days ago.

How exciting is that?! Okay, maybe I’m making a bigger deal out of it than it is. But, I was thrilled to see the name David Jones on the list of contestants.

For those of you unfamiliar with the show, I’m going to borrow Jones’s description (I hope that isn’t bad etiquette):

Test the Nation, an interactive quiz show on CBC, will be airing this Sunday featuring a team of bloggers competing against chefs, celebrity look-alikes, flight crews, backpackers and cab drivers for bragging rights.

If you’re not familiar with the program, it’s a play-along-at-home game show that features in-studio teams of people with similar jobs or backgrounds competing against each other. You can play along at home via the web and the show gives periodic updates about which team is scoring better or worse and other demographic info based on the studio teams and those who are playing at home. It’s actually pretty fun.

This weekend’s show is about 21st century trivia, which isn’t the toughest topic of all time. People who know me would say I keep track of a lot of useless information in my noggin. So we’ll see if that particular, er, skill comes in handy on live TV. Gulp. Try out the test questions for yourself. I scored at least 7 out of 10 on all of them…not bad, but I need to pick up my game when the red light goes on.

Anyway, you’ll all be pleased to know that the bloggers won! The team that everyone expected to win, yet expected to choke, took it all home tonight. Furthermore, the ultimate winner, who scored the highest of all participants, was from that team. As was the top-scoring celebrity host Samantha Bee, Canadian actress of The Daily Show fame.

It’s just nice that bloggers are getting some recognition as movers and shakers. Even if one of the other six teams was a celebrity look-alikes group. Haha.

UPDATE:

Okay okay, so MANY other bloggers talked about this long before I did. But, to be fair, most of them were on the show tonight. I just got extremely overwhelmed with the information about the show that’s out there right now.

On the bright side, I’ve learned of so many interesting bloggers! Who’s better equipped to tell me what I should be reading than the CBC?! (Is this sarcastic? You tell me. No really, I love the CBC.)

I suggest you all take a look at some of the blogs on the list if you want to know which bloggers the mainstream media are paying attention to. Also, explore blogs on topics you are interested in outside PR!

If I want to say anything relevant to the subject, I guess I’d better jump on the bandwagon now before this great information highway makes it obsolete.

My classmate, Lisa Leung, commented on this and posted this video a couple of days ago, and I suggest you all click the link and watch the video (since prblogs doesn’t seem to want to let me post a video right now).

Instead of talking about the sheer hilarity in the situation (which I would love to do in any other occasion), I’m going to use the example of Corey Worthington Delaney to respond to a comment my older brother made to me earlier tonight:

“The Internet sucks!”

He was responding to me introducing him to the Australian party boy phenomenon. He thought it was all a joke, and to be honest, I’m still not 100 per cent convinced of its legitimacy, either. Is this some kind of Australian This Hour Has 22 Minutes?

Well, probably not. But, I can’t get over the unprofessional level of journalism that’s going on here. Dear Australian media, tell the boy’s story any way you please, but leave the interrogation to the police and his parents, please.

Anyway, while telling him how Delaney is now a much sought after party planner (if we can even call him that), and showing him the dozens of YouTube videos and Facebook groups dedicated to the 16 year old (both positive and negative), we were both reminded of how fast news disseminates online. I may be wrong, but I believe one of the first mentions of this story was on A Current Affair on Monday, January 14. Skip ahead five days, and here we have:

• Corey Delaney fan blogs;

• Facebook groups whose members want the boy to party with them;

• Facebook groups whose members want him to throw them a party;

• Facebook groups whose members think he is the BIGGEST wanker in Australia; and last, but not least

• Child pornography charges

…just to name a few.

So, in response to my brother and Martin Waxman’s post about the Internet as a “mall of information,” I ask:

Does the Internet suck for being able to promote such inane stories to the nth degree, or should we bask in the multitudes made available for us?

And oh boy, do I have a lot of it.

Google my name, Rayanne Langdon. I dare you. How many hits do you see that are actually my own? I gave up counting. It’s too overwhelming.

Let’s take a closer look, shall we? First page? All me. Second? All but one… me. Third? Again, mostly me. Okay, you get the picture.

I guess with a name like mine I should expect most Rayanne Langdon Google juice to be mine. But, it’s kind of terrifying.

The first page of hits is mostly music and PR blog related–not too incriminating. But, as the list goes on, you see comments I have left on my friends’ MySpace pages, and even comments left on my own MySpace pages.

I’m not a terribly inappropriate person, so I’m not as worried as I make myself sound, but is it really necessary for the world to see that I like to dance to the music of a cover band from Ottawa?

It’s just bizarre to me. It’s as simple as that. I’ve spent years circulating cyberspace and making a name for myself, but I never expected the glass to overflow.

And, for the record, I’ve only played one live show. I wasn’t previously aware that so many publications advertised the event!

The title says it all, but I wanted to share this article taken from Thursday’s Metro.

When a thief started taking cash from his register on the weekend, Dunkin’ Donuts employee Dustin Hoffmann fought back. But Hoffmann admits he was less worried about the stolen cash than how he might look on YouTube.

“What was going through my mind at that point was that the security tape is either going to show me run away and hide in the office or whack this guy in the head, so I just grabbed the cup and clocked the guy pretty hard,” Hoffmann told a local paper.

How incredible is it that before thinking of his safety, this retail worker thought about the value his actions would have in cyberspace?

I love that there was an article written about this because I know many of my peers think in the same way Hoffmann does. I do too.

When someone adds me to Facebook or MySpace, I take another look at my own profile after viewing theirs. I want to remind myself how I’m represented online to others. I can’t count the hours I’ve spent looking at the same photos, words, videos and songs on my many profiles.

Am I alone in this thought process? Do I over think my space in social networks?