Finally after being nervous and stressed about it for two weeks, I presented my TED(ish) talk. My paradigm shift was the shift from meeting people in real life through friends matching each other up, meeting someone in class or on the road, etc, to the world of online dating, meeting people online and forming friendships and/or relationships.

For my TED talk, however, I focused mostly on the online dating aspect of the shift. I gave some examples of successful instances of online relationships, as well as some failed instances of online relationships. I gave statistics for the growing rate of online dating in the US as well as some other interesting facts.

Some things that I personally liked about my TED talk, was that it was not all facts. As I was writing what I wanted to say, I wanted to make sure that the audience would be interested and not to bore them with a bunch of numbers and facts that probably mean nothing to them. Of course that isn’t to say that those who did do this had boring presentations, but I just thought that my topic was more interesting through stories and examples than through facts and statistics. I thought that my delivery was good for how nervous I was on the inside, but I definitely could have done better. I made sure to make eye contact with students as well as the camera a few times because I knew this was a problem during my Civic Artifact Speech in Unit 1.

A few things that I was not pleased with about my presentation was the amount of times I stumbled on words. Of course I know that I was nervous out of my mind, but I feel that some of those stumbles could have been prevented if I had practiced a little more. I did go to the one button studio two or three times, but I had tweaked many things between sessions so I did not have my full speech the way I performed it on Monday for my practice rounds. Probably something I should keep in mind for the next speaking project.

In my peers’ presentations, I really liked the topics they chose. We had a good diverse number of projects and all of them were interesting topics. Many of my peers who presented on the same day as I did were also very good with their articulation and delivery, and if they were nervous it was hard to see that in their confidence.

All in all, I really liked the TED talk. I liked that it was a very open ended project where you were allowed to present about an interesting topic that did not exactly have to be academic. I would definitely want to do a project of this nature again in the future.

A TED Talk that I thought was interesting was one that was titled: Looks Aren’t Everything. Believe Me, I’m a Model. I found this TED talk when I was browsing the website under the 20 Most Popular TED talks on the website. It drew me because I wanted to see what this model would say about her job and how she would tie it together in some way that made it captivating enough to get it to the Top 20 lists of TED Talks.

In the beginning of the talk, this model, Cameron Russell, came out wearing very high heels and a very tight, short black dress. She then introduces herself as a model and says, “I feel like there’s an uncomfortable tension in the room right now because I should not have worn this dress.” Russell then proceeds to make an outfit change on the TED stage. You might be like me and wondering, “Why would you wear that outfit, only to change into something else 2 minutes into your talk?” Well, after changing, Cameron goes on to explain why she had demonstrated her outfit change.

Cameron described her outfit change as being able to change the image people had of her by a simple change of clothes. She went from wearing a very tight, short dress with huge heels, to a pair of flats, a sweater and a maxi skirt. Russell then clicks to a picture of her embracing a male in a very sexy way. She tells the audience that by looking at the picture, one could think that she was very advanced sexually when in reality, she had never had a boyfriend prior to that picture and had to be told to put her hand in the male’s hair and to arch her back in the way she did.

It was sort of hard to know the exact message that Cameron was trying to convey. She had various messages such as how she became a model through a genetic lottery which gave her height, beauty, and her racial background. She also talked about how she got into the model industry and answered the questions that most people asked about her life as a model.

But the message left with me from this talk was the point Cameron made in the beginning of her talk. Looks are not everything. After her outfit change and the talk about her sexy photo, Cameron showed many photos of her on various magazines and ads next to photos that had been taken in the same time period, sometimes even on the same day, when she was not Cameron Russell the model. She described her magazine photos and her ads as not as herself and as the creation of an artist; the photographer or the director of the shoot.

She also talked of how just because models are very beautiful and have amazing bodies, they are not always happy with themselves. Russell describes a group of models as one of the most physically insecure people probably in the world. Which said to me, if those people who have what so many people strive for are not happy with themselves, why do we strive for it?

ANYWAYS, as I was writing this long description of the above TED talk, I realized that I was writing too much about what I liked about the video. So here’s the rest of the prompt in rapid succession. I do not think that this TED talk relates to my topic in any ways except maybe the part where Russell talks of the statistics of young Black and Latino men that get stopped by the police. This talk made me consider knowing more than a lot about what I need to say, so to rehearse, because while Russell had an excellent message, it seemed that her stage fright and her not unpreparedness but how she could have been more prepared sometimes took away from her talk.

What is the paradigm shift? The decline of racism and the rise of cultural awareness in the world (maybe just the US)

Why are you interested in this topic? (Ethos) – I am interested in this topic because over the past decades there has been a rise in the acceptance of many cultures. Not just in the US but also all over the world. People are more aware of other countries and their cultures and have become more accepting of these cultures

Fact – What, I believe, led to more cultural acceptance is social media and more advanced technology to make it easier to find more information about other cultures. There is no problem/issue. It began through many things but it has been drastically changed with the advancement of technology and the invention of the internet.

Definition – there is no nature of a problem, more a nature of a cultural change.  The parts of this shift are knowledge of different cultures and having an open mind to accept cultures that are different from the ones you are used to

Quality – This shift is a good thing, and it affects the whole world.

Policy – Action is the shift so there is more of a need of continued action. Everyone should be involved with addressing and continuing to fight this issue.

*I’m also looking at other shifts so this shift may not be the shift I write a paper on*