To the Moon and Back: Paris 2015: Day 59: "Hashtag Virginal"

Listening to: "Go the Distance" sung by Roger Bart from Disney's Hercules

Note carefully the quotations placed around the term "Hashtag Virginal." I did not say this; I cannot be credited with it. My professor did say it though, in his attempt to understand Tumblr.

Now, as I myself don't Tumbl, as I humbly refer to it, I can't really explain what Tumblr is. Some of my friends Tumbl--in fact, my roommate freshman year had a "famous" Tumblr--but I've never been into it. I still think our professor is confused.

Here's an amalgam of how the class explained Tumblr:

"It's more dramatic than Facebook... It's basically just GIFs... How do you pronounce GIF anyway?... You keep things short... Hashtags are quick searches... But they're also supposed to be creative... But it's not Twitter... And it's also not Facebook... I guess it's closest to Instagram--wait, do you know what Instagram is?"

I just threw out a lot of terms there. First of all, I want to clear it up: you can pronounce GIF with a hard "g" sound or a soft "g" sound--more like a "j." I'll also add that GIFs don't have to be animated in the world of coding and web design, and we who have utilized GIFs for ages call it "jiff" (like "be there in a jiffy" or like the peanut butter brand) because that's how the creator pronounced it. But since the dictionary sanctioned both pronunciations, it's not a thing worth arguing about. I'm just a pretentious Internet snob.

From these very varied (hehe) answers, my professor asked, "So it's a form of communication that is not Facebook in which you still talk about your life but with other people's pictures?" I think he nailed it.

To be fair, I would rather use my own pictures. But I have been miserable since fourth grade at learning how to animate--which is kind of a problem if I ever want to work somewhere cool like Pixar.

So this whole Tumblr discussion only popped up because we had another presentation for our "ideal" Shakespeare production. I guess the assignment has been defined very vaguely; this week featured two Tumblrs, one belonging to Romeo and one belonging to Juliet. And it showed how they'd Tumbl. It was very creative. And jeez, our professor has been getting a crash course education in pop culture and social media. Poor guy.

In an effort to acclimate to our culture, our professor described himself as "hashtag virginal" when it came to things like Tumblr. He's great.

Oh, interestingly, in French class, I finally found out what that whole "Sacrebleu!" expression means. Because, we asked our teacher, why would you use the word "blue" when you exclaim something? It turns out, our teacher explained, that since "bleu" sounds like "dieu"--I mean, sort of--French people years ago (it's a very old-fashioned expression that we Americans are fond of utilizing when satirizing French culture) to not tick off the powers that be.

In a nutshell, it's exactly the same as us substituting "gosh" for "God" when we exclaim, "Oh, my God!" "Oh, my gosh!" is just more politically correct: so is "sacrebleu." But I suppose using that expression these days would be like us saying, "Zounds!" as characters like Othello do in Shakespeare plays.

Oh, my life is so boring when I'm not out taking pictures. I'm sorry. I'll try to make it up with bad puns and silly photos!

Ready? Go!

Really, Amazon? I'm fully aware that these emails are automated, but even the people who designed this automated system should've realized that absolutely no one cares about $0.01 saved.