fandomtownies | Community Center Class: 21st Century Social Media, Thursday Evening [09/20].

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Community Center Class: 21st Century Social Media, Thursday Evening [09/20].

Was Summer disappointed with the results she found whenever she clicked on #HappyBDayZack! all week? Yes, incredibly so. Would she mention it? Absolutely not. It felt a little tragic and disheartening, sure, but she also reminded herself that most of the class had never even heard of a smartphone before coming here, so what did she expect, honestly? Live-tweeting was kind of a big ambition, anyway.

So hopefully this week's topic would be a little more appealing.

"Hey, everyone!" She was all smiles from the front of the room once everyone got settled. "You've all probably had enough of Twitter by now, so we're moving onto one of my other favorite social media platforms today, and that's Instagram.

"While everything has kind of...coellesced into having similar functions as the popularity of different social media platforms began to rise, Instagram gained its momentum as a way to share pictures. You use the camera on your phone to snap a shot, Instagram offered a variety of different filters and editing techniques to make them look all fancy, you post it, voila! Everyone can enjoy that adorable shot of your sleepy cat or that burger you paid way too much for but it looked pretty sweet or that celebrity you saw walking down the other side of the street. Instagram has since added more photo-taking features, a messaging system, and a video system, much like all the other platforms, but we're going to focus on the heart of it, and that's the pictures."

And so Summer was going to start the lesson on how to use Instagram to take a photo. She had considered doing a selfie for the shot, but considering how it took at least fifteen tries to even get a decent selfie, she decided that was a bad idea. They didn't need to spend half the class watching her wrinkling her nose at the results and murmuring about needing better lighting. So she'd brought out a fancy looking cupcake she picked out, and used that as a base for taking the picture, framing the shot, trying some different angles, and going over the different filters and things like that.

"You can also use photos you've already taken," she added, pulling up a shot she'd taken of Stance not too long ago and grinning. "You should all be getting pretty familiar with this guy by now," he was like a mascot for the class, and she wasn't even going to feel bad about it, BDG started it after all, "so I can just pull it up from my gallery, and now I've got a cute puppy pic to share with my feed, just like that.

"Take some time to explore and get to know Instagram on your own time, too. They use a tagging system very similar to Twitter, as well as the ability to put specific locations to search by as well. You can also use the 'Explore' tab, which will show you some of the popular content on that app at that time, content from nearby locations, and there's also a search ability so if you specifically want to search for...let's say puppies with hats, or beach party ideas, or gelatin recipes," someone might be referencing her own recent search history there, "you just put it in and there you go. More than enough for you to sort through to kill a whole afternoon like nobody's business.

"I am going to give you a wee bit of an assignment for this week again. Today we'll set up accounts if you don't already have one and just sort of play around with it, take a few experimental shots of the cupcake or each other or some selfies if you want, just to get familiar. But I want to you to pull it up at least once more before the following class and take a picture of something you really love. Food is really popular, books, people, places, things. Social media is about connecting with other people and sharing mutual interests, and Instagram is a great way to do that with a more lighthearted visual medium like photographs. And I'm really interested to see what you all decide to post."

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#ThrowbackThursday

Kanan Jarrus

Fjord

Amaya Blackstone

Steve Rogers

Hera Syndulla

Summer's keeping it pretty close to the basics, so hopefully it's a bit less of a 'Summer talks at the class in a slew of words they don't understand' than usual, though it'll probably never fully escape that designation.

Yeah, there was one word in particular, here...

"So. Selfie?"

Fjord was never going to pick up on it all. Ever.

Oh, Fjord.

Fjord, Fjord, Fjord.

Why do you just set her up like this?

At this rate, at least he should start to learn what's coming by the way Summer's eyes lit up, brightened by energy created by the excited fluttering of her heart.

She just loved teaching all this dumb shit, okay?

"A selfie," she explained, "is a picture you take of yourself, usually with your phone. The term has started to gain traction enough that it can also include any picture you take of yourself with other people. Liiiiike..." Summer swiped through her phone a little to show off one of herself in her phone that she knew was good because it took her about an hour to get it right, "this! See?"

Fjord peered at the phone, considered it thoughtfully, and then nodded a little.

"That's definitely a picture of you," he agreed. "... Why do people do this?"

He wasn't really the sort to ever consider getting a portrait done of himself, either. Sorry.

Summer grinned a little, shrugging as she took the phone back and took care of the few notifications that had popped up in the brief time the screen was out of her sight. She tried to think of a good, smart, impressive answer, but it didn't take her long to realize that there really wasn't one.

"So everyone can see how cute you look," she offered. "Or to remember a certain time or event in your life, for posterity, stuff like that. Why else would anyone get their picture taken?"

Fjord paused. And then shrugged.

"I wouldn't know," he replied. "Never done it before, myself."

"Well," Summer said, shrugging again herself and turning a smirk on him, "this is a class. Good time to give it a try and learn something new, right? Give it a try. Take a selfie. Show everyone how cute you look."

Because that was the word that just went hand-in-hand with half-orc selfies.

Fjord didn't even say words in reply to that.

He just gave Summer the strangest look. His side-eye game was strong.

"Whaaaat?" How could Summer see a face like that and not laugh? She was practically impervious to side-eyes, though Fjord really did have a good one, she had to admit that, which is why she at least had the decency to blush a little. "It's not like it would kill you to try."

Edited 2018-09-21 01:00 (UTC)

"No, I suppose it wouldn't," Fjord replied, though he was still raising an eyebrow. Because, 'cute?'

Still, he shrugged and looked at his phone for a moment before fiddling around, trying to figure out which of those icons was the ones that made pictures happen.

Edited 2018-09-21 10:03 (UTC)

"That one," Summer offered helpfully, after shifting a little to see better over his shoulder and coincidentally positioning herself in view of the camera. "With the little camera on it."

And realizing that probably wasn't helpful, she tried, "The purply-orange one with the white box that has the white circle in the middle."

Was... was she standing on her toes for that view? Fjord glanced at her briefly, and then tapped the button in question. Sure enough, the camera opened, and he took a moment to just kind of stare at the resulting screen, reflecting the image of everything within its view as he moved it around.

It was a little bit fascinating, okay?

"So. Now what?"

"Okay, now," said Summer, after trying not to be too amused by the fascination with the camera, "there's two ways to do this. You can either turn the camera phone around so that the lens on the front is facing you and try to get a picture like that, which has a higher quality but it much harder to do or, if you touch that little icon there with the arrows going different ways? That'll switch it to the front-facing camera, which is a lower quality, but you can see yourself and get a better idea of how the picture's going to look. Fair warning, opening that front-facing camera for the first time and just about nearly any time you open it after that can be a shock to the system, because it will almost always catch you at the worst possible angle when you do it."

Fjord glanced at her, looked back at the phone, and fiddled with it to get the screen thing facing them, instead.

"... Well, that's fuckin' surreal."

Like a mirror. But so, so not like a mirror. He frowned a bit at it, and then took a picture.

Summer refused to feel bad about being so amused by all this. She practically grew up with a cell phone in her hand, so this whole aspect of shiny newness that other people had toward it was just absolutely fascinating to her.

"Put your arm out a little before you take it," she suggested, "and lift it up sightly. It's usually a more flattering angle that way."

He'd be a selfie expert in no time!

Obediently, Fjord shrugged and raised his arm slightly.

The resulting selfie was very flattering! If of a faintly bemused looking half-orc and the person hanging over his shoulder.

Set yourself up with an Instagram you may never use after this week, take pictures, spend the rest of class trying to pick your favorite filter. Explore around the tags and the popular posts and wonder why everyone's taking pictures of their food instead of just eating it.

Okay, so this was... basically what Kanan already used Twitter for, plus photo filters.

He considered his options as he stared at the Instagram registration page.

And then, surprising nobody, he went and made another social media account for his dog. His twitter account already had ten-thousand followers, and Kanan had no idea if that was good or what, but when ten thousand people were constantly begging for more dog... well.

This was a good way to provide, right?

Plus it was one more account that wasn't a Kanan account. Bonus.

After Amaya had been...slowly, almost reluctantly acclimating herself to this and getting a few...hesitant ideas, she leaned over to Kanan.

"I...might need to borrow your sword for a picture," she said. "I...might...actually make one of these for the forge..."

If she sounded a little confused, she was just a little uncertain about the words coming out of her mouth, half-convinced they were merely fueled by clearly too much proximity to Summer today.

"That can be arranged," Kanan replied, glancing her way and grinning. "Pick a day that'd be good for me to bring it by, and I will. Unless you want a picture of it in action, instead."

"Now there's an idea," Amaya said. "Maybe both. You still doing all your sword practice stuff on Fridays, right?"

"Yeah," Kanan agreed. "Mostly in one of the warehouses these days, but I can relocate to the park for a few shots if a backdrop of dust and rust isn't appealing enough for you."

"Yeah," said Amaya with a snort, "one the one hand, rust and dust isn't exactly the things one wants to have associated with their metalwork, but, on the other hand, it would give an interesting...industrial touch, maybe to represent my charging forward into the modernity around me."

And even though she threw a small fist punch into the air to emphasize that last part, her head was shaking before her arms settled in front of her. "No. No. The park would be much better."

Kanan chuckled a little and nodded.

"Right, then. I've got one student who is a bit park-averse at the moment, so the majority of my afternoon is still going to be spent in the warehouse, but I can spare a few minutes for some photography. It isn't like the park and the warehouse are that far apart, anyway.

Well, it was fortunate Fjord had already made all his username attempt mistakes on Twitter a few weeks ago.

This week, he was going straight to the username he already had. And lo, 'greenguyfjord' was born on Instagram, too.

Now if anyone needed him, he was going to be trying to figure out his camera.

At least pictures were...slightly more interesting that people's random thoughts like the last one, though Amaya was scrolling through some of the pictures with a confused look on her face. Maybe she just didn't get most of it. Not even the weapons tag seemed to have anything of much interest to her (she really should learn more about guns), and don't even get her started on the food tag. What was even the point?

But then, on a whim, she tried another tag on a whim, and it started to make...a bit more sense, yes.

Luckily, she didn't even realize how much of a gamble she took with that one, too.

Oooh, a place Steve could be artistic. Expect so many weirdly cropped architecture pictures, Summer. SO MANY.

Chopper's Twitter account was doing pretty well (though not as good as Stance's), but Hera was actually kind of curious to do this for herself. So, ghostpilot it was. She'd just make sure not to take any pictures that were easily placed, and make sure nothing made it back to their galaxy.

Does she really need to post a dozen different angles of that cupcake?

Apparently, yes.

I just like Instagram because I'm lazy and it's the easiest way to post a picture on all my platforms. *thumbs up*

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Community Center Class: 21st Century Social Media, Thursday Evening [09/20].

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