"Don't you know who I am?"

This phrase makes me cringe. Just because you're Lindsay Lohan doesn't mean you shouldn't go to jail for snorting more coke than an addict given one day left to live.  Just because your daddy is a CEO at IDGAF, inc. doesn't make you any better a person than anyone else.  To me, you should have to earn respect and not just demand it because you know a guy or because a parent makes serious bank or has some sort of power. So what? You didn't have anything to do with the hard work they likely put into it. It's time to do your own work.

This post isn't going to be so symbolic as others have.  I'm going to straight up say that social capital is a great thing, when used appropriately. Social capital is the resources (people you know) that have the potential to better you.  Trust and reciprocity play a big role in social capital.  There are two main ways it can be used.  You can use social capital to make more connections and better yourself by working hard, or you can just associate with your social capital and say "Don't you know who I am?".  For example, it's great if a person's parent has a powerful job, because it can help that person make connections and work hard (maybe they can help you land a great internship or something).  That stuff earns you respect.  But when the kid just essentially says "My dad's a really important guy. And he does X, Y, and Z which means you should treat me better than you would other people" that's BS.  The kid has done nothing to deserve the treatment they're demanding.  They have a lot of lessons to learn.

So for now, know your place based on the good you've done as a person, not because of the people you know.

Your iPhone is cracking me up... not; I'm going to crack it in half.

Those stupid iPhone "FU Autocorrect" posts kill me.  They are so absurdly dumb.  Most of them honestly seem fake. Yet people post them all over each others walls on Facebook and text them back and forth.  I'll admit, the first time I saw them, I thought it was relatively funny and I laughed.  But then they caught on in full storm and everyone was posting them and reading them.  It's not even that they became "too mainstream" or anything, they just started getting obviously fake.  It's kind of sad/pathetic to think that people sit there and type back and forth just to make some lame conversation about an autocorrect that makes it look like someone is doing something they shouldn't be doing. Whatever.

In my english class we've been talking a lot about tone and voice.  There comes a point in every student's academic life where he or she must learn how to balance a personal tone with a scholarly one.  And the proper balance varies from paper to paper and subject material to subject material.  For example, in a chem lab write up, you probably don't want too much personal voice at all.  However in an academic narrative, you want some personal voice without going too overboard on the slang and while still sounding intelligent and scholarly.

Granted I don't like the autocorrect screenshots, I recognize that there is a place and time for them, just like there's a time and place for personal voice in academic writing.  The tricky thing is figuring out just when and where that is.  Eventually, you will find when it's fine to share iPhone screenshots (i.e.: with yourself, with your friends, etc) and when it isn't (when you post a link to one as your status or post a ton on someones wall...).  Just as you will find where it's fine to throw in a personal anecdote or a slang word as reference (in a personal writing piece) and when it isn't (in your senior thesis that is mostly empirical data).

Balance is key my friends.

"Ew, this place is nasty, let's leave."

Today when I was working, someone walked into my small workplace, scoffed at the things we had available, commented on her displeasure, and walked out because it wasn't to her liking.  To be honest, her shirt made her look like a gremlin, but I didn't scoff at it and say it was ugly just because I didn't like it.  I hate when people are rude at stores because they don't like the particular products or whatever the case is.  It's personally rude to the people who work there, because its offending them on their taste in places to work.  If I enter a store I don't find particularly pleasant, I simply leave.  Not even in a rude way.

When I look over various blogs online, I'm bound to find some comments saying something like "Your blog is stupid, you should go die".  Maybe all of them aren't quite so harsh, but you get the point.  In my class when we started these blogs, we talked a lot about who to follow and how to comment.  We came to the decision that we should follow blogs each of us liked, and that there's no pressure to read or follow blogs that didn't strike a cord with us.  Then, we established an idea of respect! If you don't like a post, don't comment on it. And if you have some sort of criticism, do it constructively so that the blogger doesn't feel attacked, but aided.  And whenever you have a good comment to leave, do it.

So, if you come across a blog you don't like, be respectful about it; you don't have to follow! Just like if you go to a store you're not a fan of, you don't have to shop there; leave respectfully!!