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Tumblr: A Brief Explanation

The platform I’m using to write my technoliteracy autobiography is Tumblr, a micro-blogging platform that incorporates text, images, audio, and video and allows users to create their own posts and “reblog” other users’ content. Throughout this paper, I’ll be posting my own content as well as sharing other users’ content that is relevant to my paper. I’ll use the tags (located at the very bottom of each post) to indicate when content is mine and when I’ve reblogged it from someone else.

I’m using Tumblr to present my autobiography because it has supported one of my main literacies (in the LGBT+ community) and because it has enhanced my love of reading/writing and my love of storytelling. Through Tumblr, I’ve discovered new ways to communicate information, and I’ll be using many of these methods throughout this paper.

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As an English/Journalism major, my literacies are all grounded in language. From reading and writing (which form the foundation of my love of communications) to my knowledge of the LGBT+ community (which comes from hearing people’s uninhibited stories) to my interviewing and storytelling skills, I’ve become literate in different areas of communication both in speech and writing, both online and offline. 

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Literacy

I define literacy as the ability to communicate and understand complex ideas using deliberate and conscious methods of communication. Under this definition, a literacy could be anything from being well-versed in a particular hobby to understanding the complexities of a particular area of science.  

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Communicative Technologies

To me, communicative technologies consist of any process or device which helps a person become more literate in a particular area. A communicative technology can be a website, a pencil, or even exposure to a particular group of people.

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Reading and Writing

How I developed my literacies in the English language

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My experience with literacy in reading and writing is likely similar to a lot of people’s: I read books at home with my parents and grandparents and then developed these skills further at school. Some of the biggest technologies I used to become literate in these areas were, of course, books, paper, pencils, pens, and notebooks. Books were the main technology I used to develop my reading literacy--I couldn’t read them quickly enough. They helped my capacity for creativity and my understanding of language grow and eventually inspired me to become an English major.

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Books like these have helped my reading skills grow from the time I could first sound out letters to my college years. From reading the Giant Jam Sandwich with my grandparents at age six, to checking out eight different books in the Baby Sitter’s Little Sister collection at a time, to getting lost in the world of Christopher Paolini, to exploring the complexities of Stephen King’s The Stand, my love of reading has never subsided. 

Stephen King’s work, in particular, has given me nuanced skills in analyzing and reading literature. The first time that I read his novel Misery, which tells the story of an author who is kidnapped by a psychotic fan and forced to write a book just for her, I discovered new ways to think about my own identify both as a reader and a writer. Paul Sheldon, the main character, spends the novel thinking about the role that writing plays in his life, and several passages in the book resonated with me in terms of my own perceptions of myself as a writer. For example, at one point Paul considers the creative process, thinking to himself, “...nothing had ever spoiled it, somehow. It could be spoiled, he knew that, but in spite of the reputed fragility of the creative act, it had always been the single toughest thing, the most abiding thing, in his life – nothing had ever been able to pollute that crazy well of dreams: no drink, no drug, no pain.” In my own life, my creative endeavors have also persisted in spite of any trials I am experiencing, and I can always turn to writing whenever I need to distance myself from the world around me. These and other novels helped develop my skills both in reading and in using what I’ve read to understand myself better.

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My reading literacy was also supplemented by my local library—the Manitowoc Public Library. I include this library as one of the communicative technologies that helped my reading literacy because it gave me access to a wide range of books and provided a means for me to indulge my love of reading. The atmosphere was very supportive of children—the entire second floor was devoted to kids. There were computer games to play, literary programs to attend, and an entire section dedicated to pre-teens. I always wanted to be at the library because it was so welcoming, and my love of reading grew within its walls.

The children’s section of the Manitowoc Public Library is spectacularly painted, and the pre-teen section was the perfect height for an 11-year-old to scour the shelves. I brought home stacks of seven or eight books at a time—as much as I could carry—and more often than not, read all of them before they were due. The atmosphere was ideal to support a love of reading.

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The Manitowoc Public Library helped me grow as a reader by making me feel like I belonged in that space. The fantastic mural in the children’s section sparked my imagination and brought me to new places with each book I checked out. 

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My writing literacy grew through a green, bound composition notebook. The notebook was a required supply for my fifth grade writing class, where my teacher, Miss Davis, had every one of her students write at least a page weekly. Our assignments included writing about our favorite trips (mine was to New York City), what our best day would consist of (running a lemonade stand), and fictional stories. These mini exercises gave me the capacity for a different type of writing than I was used to, and built the foundation for my love of writing. Miss Davis’ kind feedback made me feel confident, and I loved seeing the pages of that composition notebook fill up with my thoughts and ideas. It became as precious to me as a journal, a collection of papers that I alone had produced.  

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A simple notebook like this gave me the confidence to begin exploring my writing skills and helped me develop my creativity in writing. 

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The LGBT+ Community

How I became literate in the diverse spectrum of the LGBT+ community

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I consider myself to be literate in matters concerning the LGBTQIA+ community. This acronym generally stands for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer/Questioning, Intersex, and Asexual/Agender, although different organizations use various terms. In general, the shorter acronym LGBT+ encompasses anyone who does not identify as heterosexual or identifies with a gender outside of the one assigned to them at birth. This community has historically faced widespread discrimination and is only now gaining acceptance among the wider population. 

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I grew up in a very religious household as a Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod (WELS) member. Though I respect the beliefs of this congregation, their views have a tendency to be very close-minded in comparison to other religions. Growing up, I completely lacked the technologies necessary to understand anything significant about the LGBT community. All I knew was that being gay was sinful and that people who were transgender were wrong, because God didn’t make mistakes. I had a very limited scope of the world, due in large part to this religious organization. 

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My confirmation from a WELS church in 2009. The limited worldview I learned from my confirmation classes meant that I lacked the communicative technologies to understand other literacies, like the LGBT+ community.

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Once I joined Tumblr in 2011, however, I was exposed to an entirely new way of thinking. It sounds almost cheesy to say that joining a social media platform changed my world views, but until I joined Tumblr, I had never been exposed to the stories of people who identify on the LGBT+ spectrum. On Tumblr, images of people in homosexual relationships and people who are transitioning genders are spread with supporting messages of love and acceptance. People feel free to tell their stories without being shamed for who they are, as might be the case with their families and friends.  

This literacy gave me the background I needed to support the people in my life who identified within this community. During high school, two of my closest friends came out to me and told me that they experienced same-sex attraction. In college, I’ve had two more very close friends come out to me, one about her sexuality and another about their gender identity. My newfound literacy concerning the LGBT+ community helped me to understand their perspectives without the somewhat ignorant perspective that I had gained growing up as a WELS Lutheran. I was able to offer my support and friendship to them, rather than alienating them. This literacy helped me grow closer to these friends and find new ways to show my support for them.

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"I think in telling LGBT stories, I'm telling everyone's story. Love is, in fact, universal, right? I want my daughters to grow up in a world in which there is more love than hate. I want them to know a world where everyone is free. So that's why I write the stories that I do, because everyone should be free."

—Shonda Rhimes, born on this day in 1970