Write of Passage

Content is in context. This is an ad for Gentle Monster eyewear in 2025 with Tilda Swinton. It got up towards 150K likes on Instagram and almost 900 comments. In short, web content is any contribution to online dialogue with the tools of media.

My approach to drafting an essay is like a heist movie. This approach is both thrilling and practical. Both begin with a thorough knowledge of the mission at hand and something interesting to say. Then, I assemble my team consisting of supporting literary evidence where each has a specific job in supporting my argument. Style is important. Having something to say isn’t enough to convince your reader that your point-of-view is important. I choose words that are both effective and slick as a tuxedo. Imagining how my audience may react to my mischief helps me choose how to organize my information and determine what argument to make. Hopefully, this allows me to get away with an A.

Here's the scene: Director David Lynch - smoking a cigar - sitting in a director's chair - between a cow and a placard celebrating Laura Dern - in the middle of La Brea x Hollywood in sunny California. This is all positioned to draw attention to his new movie "Inland Empire," back in 2007, and Laura Dern's performance in it. Lynch considers her performance to be award worthy and hopes this publicity will help in her nomination. The absurdity of the composition is exciting! It's compelling! The advertisement is also true to David Lynch's style as a director - absurd, dream-like, and playful.

When determining my rhetorical situation for the original content posts on tumbler, should I be writing for my peers in this class and consider what kind of post they might find interesting? More generally speaking, how do I write for an audience that I don’t really know? I can assume general qualities about the audience in this class, but the style and way I think to present my answers to the prompts mostly considers my personal tastes and what I find interesting first, before considering what others might like. @npfannen

A common writing aphorism is "write drunk, edit sober." Or in other words, create uninhibited and without worry that what you're doing is correct, and edit with more precision and judgement. This is the approach I aim to hold throughout this course and beyond when writing my tumblr posts. Will I get it right the first time? Probably not. But following a messy idea to see if it works is the first step in creating something new. Tidying it up to make it presentable comes later. Other than that my goals are just to: Keep. Showing. Up.

@npfannen