One memorable takeaway from the course was learning how to present information on my site in a way that was appealing yet also informative. When I first created the blog, I did not care about presentation or the work that I was putting into the blog. However, as I familiarized myself with the tools word press provided me, I learned to effectively feature images on my blog posts, learned how to showcase information in a format that was appealing and still enticed readers to search for more.
Another memorable takeaway from the course was learning that there was free open software such as Audacity, Screen Cast, and Sound Cloud that allowed users to create and edit content for entertainment purposes. One thing that I was very afraid of when taking this course was having to pay for services that would allow me to create content such as Adobe Photoshop, or Adobe Premiere Pro. After taking this course, I realize now that there is software out there that is not only free and easy to use, but also safe in terms of viruses and malware.
The last takeaway from the course that I will mention is learning how to work with a group. I was not expecting to do group work in the class, and I did not know how it was going to work out exactly, but it was actually a rewarding experience. Not only did I get to learn more about my group members, but I also learned more about their interests through their websites, and speaking with them. I also learned how to coordinate with other people when working on the same goals we shared. Overall, I learned a lot in this course and I will translate the skills into other aspects of my academic and professional career.
Each of these memes relate to my target audience by both highlighting the misconceptions people have about the sport, and also share inside jokes within the community such as Conor McGregor beating Jose Aldo being considered a fluke.
The ideals of my chosen memes were to poke fun at the certain ideas individuals have towards the sport such as McGregor’s victory against Brazilian champion Jose Aldo, or how different types of individuals look at the sport itself. Davidson states, ” The ideal of a meme is the concept or idea conveyed. The ideal dictates the behavior, which in turn creates the manifestation. If the manifestation is a funny image of a cat and the behavior is using software to make it, then the ideal is something like “cats are funny.”” (Davidson 123)
The behaviors of my memes display fighters performing techniques such as submissions, striking combos, and even use pop culture images such as fight club to display the feeling of what it’s like being in MMA. Know Your Meme is an internet meme database that documents and researches viral phenomena, and shares it with the public on their website. This is how I found these particular memes involving MMA.
The manifestations for one of my memes involve one instance where there is a guy sipping on a mug waiting nearby a table and waiting for people to debate with him. Davidson states, ” The manifestation of a meme is its observable, external phenomena. It is the set of objects created by the meme, the records of its existence. It indicates any arrangement of physical particles in time and space that are the direct result of the reality of the meme.” (Davidson 130) The rest of my memes are different from other manifestations because they do not follow a particular format as far as I’m concerned.
The specific manifestations of my memes can appeal to my target audience because they use formats that are very popular today to relay information in a way that is funny and creates its own identity. It follows a format that is consistent with other memes that use the same format but includes information that makes it original and stand out from other memes.
This is the latest podcast produced by AllMMABoxing. We discuss the types of diets MMA fighters engage in and talk about how regular individuals can appropriately gain and lose weight. We have a guest speaker who also contributes his take on what it was like dieting, and experience of seeing others trying to diet.
This is the newest PSA AllMMABoxing has recently produced in order to promote Healthy Kids of New Brunswick. Healthy Kids of New Brunswick is a non-profit organization that has teamed up with AllMMABoxing to inform younger generations of healthy habits they can practice and maintain in order to live a healthy lifestyle.
This video is intended to help those who are beginning to enter a combat sport and are curious to learn how to appropriately protect their hands. In combat sports such as MMA, boxing, or kickboxing, most fighters learn how to wrap their hands before putting on their training gloves in order to prevent unnecessary injury such as blisters, or sprained wrists and secure their loose and moveable joints. There are many methods on how to wrap your hands, but this is one of the easy and effective wrapping method that most beginners can learn within a short amount of time.
Users are able to find this video easily on YouTube by typing general search terms and browsing through the videos on the YouTube search terms. Wolf states, ” When asked how they searched for and found relevant videos, many participants described entering general keyword searches and then browsing through videos. In the words of one participant, “Sometimes I make it a question or just put the one word in and then see what comes out.” (Wolf 8) Of course, the users would have to specifically search for my video through the feed, but with adding tags such as MMA, combat sports, tutorial, etc., it becomes easier for users to find this video through those categories.
MMA is the most misunderstood, safest, and most popular contact sport in today’s generation. Mixed Martial Arts is a full-contact body sport that allows you to use multiple techniques deriving from other martial arts. It has gone a long way from starting in arenas with no rules or regulations to being sanctioned in over 50 states, incorporating rules to both protect the safety of the fighters and to entertain the fans watching all over the world. In people’s eyes, MMA may seem dangerous due to its barbaric image and brutal nature, however, it is a safer sport than football and boxing when it comes to deaths and injuries. It is also unique in the way matches start and end with limitless combinations and styles being implemented into the sport, audiences will always see a different match every time and will be constantly surprised along the way.
With its attention to detail, its variations in fighting styles and explosive personalities of the fighters, it’s no wonder that it has grown immensely popular and has become one of the most watched spectacles all over the world. It takes a tremendous amount of skill to practice these different fighting techniques because you are learning everything at once, emphasizing a great amount of attention to detail. This website will hopefully provide some insight into the culture of the MMA world, its origins on where the sport began in different parts of the world and allow users to participate in discussions that include topics such as fight discussions, training discussions, controversy that occurs between the fighters, gear equipment, dieting and supplementing, and fighting techniques.
The purpose of the website is to allow passionate fans of mixed martial arts and boxing to express how they feel about certain events that have occurred within the subculture and offer advice and opinions on how it went, if it could have been improved or if it surpassed the hype. Another purpose the website will have will also include interviews of current fighters and have audiences discuss how certain events will play out and examine the different cultures that are associated with those sports.
” The courts reason that copyright owners should have the right to determine the circumstances of “first publication.” Use of a work that is commercially available specifically for the educational market is generally disfavored and is unlikely to be considered a fair use. Additionally, courts tend to give greater protection to creative works; consequently, fair use applies more broadly to nonfiction, rather than fiction. Courts are usually more protective of art, music, poetry, feature films, and other creative works than they might be of nonfiction works. ”
The blog header conveys an area where different martial art techniques are practiced and utilized in a specific area. This relates to meeting the needs of my target audience because it shows what the website is there for. It establishes that it is a place where the topic of combat sports can be discussed and that multiple perspectives about the sport can be shared and debated over.
I found my image sources on the google search engine. I made sure that the images were not related to any major organizations such as the UFC or Bellator and made sure to include images such as MMA gloves and arenas like the Octagon to emphasize the topic of combat sports without associating it with well known organizations.
The production process of my header image first started with choosing the Octagon arena as the background. The original image was too large to fit into the blog so I cropped the image 900×300 and adjusted the brightness of the image, the saturation of the colors, and increased the saturation and hue of the colors as well. I layered the background with an MMA logo that was not associated with any organizations and transformed the image into a little square and placed it on the bottom right corner. I also placed the website of the blog into the header in a baby blue color to match the saturation and hue of the background image.
The production process is similar to the process of a single-layer bitmap image because I felt that pixlr was lacking technologically, but it a way it allowed me to use my creativity to express my message towards my audience. According to Davidson, ” images produced in MS Paint are often immediately identifiable by this ‘shittiness’ – erratic mouse-drawn lines, uneven edges, blocky dumps of color. As Goriunova and Shulgin imply, this visual character is not arbitrary. It is shaped by the reality of MS Paint as software. ” (Davidson 283) In other words, this shows how software, even if it is lacking technologically, can still allow creators to use their ideas to still express their message and show audiences what they are able to do even, by using every resource available. Pixlr didn’t have as many features to edit and layer my photos as another software like photoshop but I was still able to share the message and subject matter of what my blog was about to my audience.
All MMA/Boxing 
