Story Telling Through Technology
Around early October 2017, Twitter was on fire in regards to an apparently racist Dove ad that someone saw on their Facebook feed. Here is the ad that popped up multiple times in my Twitter feed:
At first glance, this seems to be an ad that missed the mark, by a country mile. And I responded by thinking it was a joke. But it turns out that Dove actually signed off on this ad. I saw a response to the long Twitter chain that said the full ad wasn’t that bad, I decided to do some digging. Dove pulled the ad due to the backlash but I was able to track down the full ad which Time (Warning: Site is cluttered with ads, etc). Here is the full advertisement that Dove signed off on:
Not nearly the same impact as the original screenshot, at least to me. And I updated my tweet as such:
The Lesson
What interests me is the role that technology play in such a sensitive subject. Ignoring the minefield of racism, the initial outrage was created by a collage of screenshots posted on Facebook and Twitter. I see a case of someone with a story to tell using the tools available to really drive their viewpoint home. They spliced apart the gif (which is easy to do with online tools) and then created a collage of the screenshots they wanted to portray.
I am not here to argue whether who is right or wrong in this situation (I personally don’t see an issue with the full ad), but rather focus on how a story can be created or modified with the abundant technology we have today. This is one reason why I am focused on such different mediums & technology because a message may better be conveyed through video or audio versus simply text. Not only does it help in understanding other stories in the world, but teaches me to communicate in the most efficient factor.
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Here are the following tools I used to get the media for this post. Hopefully, you find one that improves your workflow:
- Flash Video Downloader for Chrome
- gifmaker.org – Animated GIF Maker & Editor
- ezgif.com – Animated GIFs Made Easy
- ShareX – Screenshot & Screen Capture software
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If this content resonated with you, let me know on Twitter. I am always eager to talk to like-minded people. And if you need help with your own projects, allow me to bring your Visions into Reality by clicking the Designed by Paris below.
Feature Image Credits: Photo by Aliis Sinisalu on Unsplash
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