Communities Within Social Media

I realize this post is a little lengthy but please bear with me! It all started with Twitter for me. At the end of my second year in university a couple of friends had convinced me that it would be a worth while venture to get an account and start following celebrities that I was a fan of. I started by registering with the very "witty" Twitter alias @veg_sasquatch and began to follow various celebrity accounts, while occasionally updating my own Twitter status as well. After about a month or so I decided to actually venture out into the Twitter-sphere since none of the celebrity accounts that I had been following really pleased me at the time. Fortunately because of this I happened to find some Twitter accounts that I actually wanted to receive updates from! Along with following a new set of users, I decided to update my profile and make my tweets a little more purposeful. Since then I have been quickly looped into both the veg*n and longboarding communities on Twitter and am able to keep up to date with all the latest news in both of those worlds and meet new people who share my interests.

From Twitter came Tumblr. Having followed my cousin on twitter for a few months and constantly seeing tweets about her new Tumblr posts I decided to check it out. At first I wasn't exactly sure of what it was. Is it a blog site? What are notes, and how did this post get 35 000 of them? I decided to investigate further into the concept, and what better way to do so than to sign up and take a look at it from the inside? So I created an account and wrote a few minor posts in order to make my Tumblr page appear a little less barren. I'd spent an hour or so afterwards browsing through the different accounts and results that came up on tag searches and began to gain my own understanding of how the website is used. I was inspired by some of the blogs I started following and created What Vegans Eat, which is a blog dedicated really, to my diet (which as a  nutrition and food student, I tend to pay a lot of attention to). Now this blog isn't just this showcase of what I eat, so much as an attempt at opening peoples minds in respect to the vegan diet, because I'm often asked "what can you eat?". Since starting this blog I've gained 31 followers (as of Nov.15, 2011) and hope to expand my audience. I also have my Twitter hooked up to my Tumblr so every time I create a new post, it will send out a tweet. It's helpful for anyone following me on Twitter that want to see any new recipes or food facts that I may have posted, without having to create their own Tumblr account.

Finally from Tumblr I have now created a channel for YouTube (I will get to that in a bit, but first a little background information is at hand). After seeing too many posts about one, charlieissocoollike on my cousin's Tumblr I decided I had to see what was so great about this guy (my cousin clearly has too much of an influence on me). After watching a few of his videos, it would suffice to say that I was hooked. Due to a combination of actually enjoying his videos and the need to procrastinate a little bit I delved even further into the YouTube phenomenon and ended up discovering that YouTube is so much more than I had expected. Originally, my idea of YouTube was that it was just a website filled with junk videos, posted by people assuming that they are funny, and that they really weren't worth my attention. Instead it's a huge network of people, just like Twitter or Tumblr. In fact, many vloggers on YouTube have developed friendships with one another (regardless of geographical barriers) and have created multiple projects together, some to even help benefit others. One example of these projects is Stickaid, which is a 24 hour live stream where vloggers and other people get together to raise funds for UNICEF.

So due to my new found love for YouTube and my connection to communities that exist on other websites, I have created a channel where I intend to post videos about food (naturally)! My videos will feature how to cook food, various nutrition information, and any general knowledge that I feel is important to share. Of course, in the theme of keeping my accounts connected, I will be posting my video uploads to my Tumblr so that my followers on both Tumblr and Twitter will be able to see when a new video is up. As well I hope to be able to connect with other like minded YouTubers and maybe start a couple of projects of our own. Perhaps even someone in my class such as Annalise who recently posted a video reply via YouTube and our class blog. Considering that she is studying nutrition, I don't think finding a common a project idea between would be too hard.

Thanks for reading!http://thatfreakyveganfood.tumblr.com/