The Evolution of MyAmerica

Even though all of my blog posts were written by the same person (me), when you look back and read them all , it is very apparent that my writing style has changed a ton over the past 8 weeks. When I read my first couple of posts, I was shocked to see how impersonal and matter-of-fact they were. I think the reason for this is because I wasn't 100% comfortable with the idea of blogging yet and thought of it more as a paper than a journal (which is what I think of blogging as now). Over time, I ended up developing a style of writing that I enjoyed and an area of discussion I loved talking about. This topic turned out to be relating AS discussions to media and pop-culture.

Originally, I was a little nervous to cross the line of school and personal life, but once I did so I noticed a big improvement in my blog posts. When I started blogging about things like TV shows and music, I started getting more comments and enjoyed writing my posts a lot more. In fact, my favorite post, "The Secret Life of Racial Tokenism" was about a TV show, but still addressed a major idea from the class discussion of that day. I really enjoyed writing that post because it allowed me to really start thinking critically about everything around me all the time and not just when I'm in school.

About halfway through the quarter, I started seeing blog posts in everything. I even had to edit down my ideas because I would end up with 10 or 12 after one weekend because I was thinking about it all the time. My friends and I even started saying "You should write a blog about that!" whenever anyone said anything that even closely related to an AS discussion. And that's why I love having these blogs for class. It allows us to study the real America around us 24/7, which is what I really think American Studies is about.