Blog Entry #3

Wow, I finished. At least, I keep telling myself that I'm done, but a part of me still feels like there's more to do. And there is more to do--there are definitely more people out there increasing the alarming polarization occurring right at this moment, and a tiny part of me is urging me to go read it, analyze it, and add it to my project. But I'm not going to for a number of reasons, number one being that I am done.

The other main reason is out of concern for my own mental health. When I started this project, I knew that it was going to have a lot of material that was going to be difficult to read, but I didn't realize it was going to affect me so much. This project was depressing; I felt like it gave me weird moods throughout the weeks as I was reading and gathering sources for my project. I suppose I wasn't prepared enough for the level of intensity these sources gave off; I blame my sudden relaxation after deciding I wasn't going to be investigating hate culture--but polarization, in the end, wasn't drastically different from it. Polarization and hate culture are like siblings--two very unhappy siblings that somehow happily work together.

And I was not happy working with them.

Despite this (and I know this will sound very strange), I think researching this terrible stuff was a crucial, educating experience for me. It's one thing to know about something, but to see it for oneself is an entirely different thing. Now that I feel more aware of these horrible events, I am hoping that there is something that I can do to help.

I believe the most nerve-wracking part of this project was writing about it. What made me uncertain at first when diving into the writing process was the concern that I, as a white person, would not be able to present this issue affecting a different community as accurately as I wanted (because I do not have the same experience as the community members). If any member of the Asian community reads my project and notices anything that should be changed (besides the sources--sorry, I can't change that), please notify me. My number one goal is to be as respectful as possible.

My sources were difficult to collect because this is the internet, and social media is infamous for its misleading information and human-poising bots. Due to this, I had to look into a lot of the Twitter community's profiles, which was a little time-consuming and very draining, considering these people were very partisan to very radical beliefs that I personally do not subscribe to (and frankly find so negative it makes me exhausted). Not to mention, Twitter is a pretty hateful place. Are these people okay?

The next obstacle I had to tackle was my transformation from "I don't know what any of these buttons do" to "Wow, I'm so tech-savvy now," (not). First of all, I began developing my post in the wrong place, then after that I had to transfer my product to the proper area while also battling website-tech-dyslexia because I cannot for the life of me navigate website editing sections. Honestly, I think one of the most stressful moments for me was transferring everything and then completing last-minute edits in a one-hour time-frame. I kind of sped through that because I was so stressed out--hopefully everything turned out alright. (Special shoutout to Ms. Rous for bearing with my infant-like knowledge of website design and not laughing at me (too much)).

Lastly, my communication (between Ms. Smith and me) was sparse, mainly because I was experiencing development issues and couldn't talk about my project when it was still nonexistent in my own head. That's my bad--I should have been thinking about this project much sooner and much more frequently, but similar to most other people, quarantine kind of robbed me of my determined-work-ethic.

And wow--I'm done. I took away a lot from this experience, like if I ever grow up single and angry I can always join the Twitter community so I can get angry at others instead. I also hope I have helped to spread awareness for the hate crimes presently occurring, and if someone by some chance didn't know these events were happening, I hope that I have educated you properly and that you will go out into the world and help targeted communities.