Ben Kosieradzki

Division III Swimming: Volatility, Spite, and Community

Mon, 14 May 2012 11:40:07 -0400

Swimming has been a part of my whole life. From starting swim lessons when I was five, to joining my high school swim team, to now swimming in college. Needless to say, I have spent a lot of my life in the swimming community, and it’s not as obvious of a community as you would think. There are many subtleties that exist beneath the surface of what would appear to be a simple sport. The website d3swimming.com helps to illuminate these subtleties. The d3swimming.com forum provides a community to house the swimming community and provide structure for said community. The forum is a place where friendships are formed and broken in an instant, as the swimming community is a very volatile one.

The forum is separated into many sub-sites. Each of these sub-sites is the online location of a different division three conference, and the issues that pertain to each conference. Imagine taking the entire world. It would be impossible to know everyone. Now break this down into different countries; still too large of a community. Continue to break down the region until you have a manageable size population and you have achieved what the forum does. This essentially provides the lifeblood for the forum by allowing the communities to be small enough to form the necessary online friendships.

Before I discuss the nature of the online community, some background about the swimming community as a whole is necessary. Swimmers and their families are highly competitive; I would go as far as saying swimmers are the most competitive athletes. I believe this competition stems from how hard practices are. Imagine two hours of all out, strenuous exercise, on top of not being able to breathe whenever you want. No swimmer wants to think that all of the pain they endured at practice was for nothing. Every swimmer would like to believe that they are the best. A lot of times practices can even become a power trip as faster swimmers try to prove to everyone else that they are faster, similar to how an alpha male in a pack of wolves tries to assert his dominance over the rest of the herd. This breeds the highly competitive nature that is swimming.

While the highly competitive nature breeds competition and motivation, it can also lead to volatility of the community. Often times people disagree on who will, and should, win the conference title, nationals title, etc. This stems from the extreme competition that swimming breads and can lead to heated debate on the online communities. However, this debate is not specific to the online swimming communities. People have been discussing sports for years. The nature of swimming leads to a more heated debate about them. I believe that the debates in the real world moved online when the forum was created. As I have seen in my research, often times the debates resort to name calling, de-crediting another, or undermining one another. This is what I mean by the volatility of the community.

Despite its appearance as a nasty, hateful community, it still stays together as a community. I believe that the fact that most swimmer have swam since age 5 is the true reason that the community is able to stay whole. People who have been swimming their whole lives tend to find it hard to drop it after senior year. When you’ve known something your entire life, you don’t disregard it simply because you can no longer participate in it. Swimmers have also grown up with the community, so have come to accept it for how it is. Therefore, the community lives on, through social media sites such as http://d3swimming.com/forum/ . Although people seem to hate each other online and appear to be constantly fighting, underneath it all, a true swimmer can tell that is just the way the community is.

Overall division three swimming is a great thing. It breeds a family of close-knit people. All of my friends here at St. Olaf are part of the swim team. However, with all things there is a good and a bad. The bad is the sneaky, backstabbing nature that can sometimes arise from the competition of swimming. However, as horrible as it may sound to a non-swimmer, this is just par for the course. Many swimmers are thankful of the close community and the friendships formed by this community.

How I Met Your Mother

Mon, 14 May 2012 10:53:06 -0400

Ben, I really liked how you explained the show. I never have seen “How I met you Mother” but I think that (maybe) I have a sense of what the show is about. Your topic seems like it would be hard to find blogs about, however, you seem to have found some blog posts. Nice job on the presentation and on finding blogs to do your research.

Peace Corps Blogging

Mon, 14 May 2012 10:51:20 -0400

I really liked how you found websites for your topic. Although it doesn’t seem like there is one, centralized blog, you were able to find many smaller blogs to try to understand your topic better. You also gave me a better sense of how the Peace Corps community works as a whole. Nice job!

Young Life Leader Blog

Mon, 14 May 2012 10:49:41 -0400

Swan, nice work on the presentation. Previously I only had a limited knowledge on your topic; I basically only knew what you had told me before. Now, however, I understand more about what your topic is about. Good job.

Division III Swimming

Fri, 11 May 2012 11:11:55 -0400

http://storify.com/BenKosieradzki/division-three-swimming/preview

Havin' Fun Yet?: Homeopathy and Social Media

Fri, 04 May 2012 11:33:25 -0400

Havin' Fun Yet?: Homeopathy and Social Media :

morganrenee6:

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What is homoeopathy?
Homoeopathy is a natural system of medicine which aims to stimulate the bodies innate ability to relieve existing complaints and reduce s…

jenniferbazhomoeopath

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Larrywheeler

…

Before your presentation I had no idea what Homeopathy was. Now I know what it is and how the community handles the subject.

Jake Meyer: Harry Potter and Social Media

Fri, 04 May 2012 11:29:58 -0400

Jake, I really liked how you showed the Harry Potter community. I had no idea such an extensive community existed. I thought your presentation was informative and well researched. Great job.

Odds of surviving a plane crash: 24%. Odds of surviving pancreatic cancer: 4%

Mon, 23 Apr 2012 11:30:56 -0400

hills13:

Did you know you are more likely to survive a plane crash then pancreatic cancer? Startling statistic.

You only have a 4% survival chance from pancreatic cancer? That surprises me more than the fact that you have a better chance of surviving a plane crash.

Jeremy Boyer: False reports spread quickly

Tue, 27 Mar 2012 23:42:04 -0400

Jeremy Boyer: False reports spread quickly:

ellielevy:

I was writing in my twitter reflection about the impact of social media on the way news spreads. I was thinking about implications of this and I came across this article on how social media causes false reports to spread quickly. It’s true that misinformation is spread through social media everyday, and once it is started it spreads just as rapidly as any other news.

I think it’s important to remember that not everything we see is true. Misinformation can spread just as quickly as fact. While social media has the power to create, it also has the power to destroy.

morganrenee6: Another Twitter facts graph… can’t get enough!...

Mon, 26 Mar 2012 09:17:51 -0400

morganrenee6:

Another Twitter facts graph… can’t get enough! Also, following Jake… Happy Belated Birthday Twitter!

Taking this statistic one step further, here’s a link to a photo that also compares these statistics to Facebook.

http://www.digitalsurgeons.com/facebook-vs-twitter-infographic/

Social Media Can Make or Break a Movie

Sun, 25 Mar 2012 12:58:18 -0400

Social Media Can Make or Break a Movie:

Social media has had a positive effect on the newest movie release, “The Hunger Games.” After the midnight showing, many key phrases from the movie began trending on Twitter including “Rue,” “Peeta,” and “Jennifer Lawrence.” This led to the movie being the 3rd highest grossing movie in its opening weekend of all times, and the highest grossing non-sequel in its opening weekend.

Ever-changing Social Media

Tue, 20 Mar 2012 11:47:00 -0400

Ever-changing Social Media:

Facebook is without a doubt the biggest social media site today. Its worth over $100 billion. But why? This article examines how businesses invest in what social media, especially Facebook, will be doing instead of what they are doing.

The bias of Wikipedia.

Mon, 12 Mar 2012 02:03:39 -0400

Noam Cohen explains in his article “Define Gender Gap? Look Up Wikipedia’s Contributor List” the huge gap in who is actually posting information to Wikipedia. Hell tells us only 15% of posts are actually from Women. I believe that this is problematic not because we are missing the “women” perspective on many issues, but rather we’re missing the opinions of approximately 50% of the people of the world.

Miac swim meet was the closest its been in years.

Wed, 07 Mar 2012 12:31:48 -0500

Miac swim meet was the closest its been in years. :

The 2012 Miac swim meet came down to just 3 points this year. That’s a lot considering the difference between 1st and 2nd place in 1 relay event is six points. The final score was 762 St. Olaf to 765 St. Thomas.

Social Networking: Too Much?

Wed, 29 Feb 2012 11:39:00 -0500

Social Networking: Too Much?:

Kare 11 recently did an interview about social media and how much is too much. Do we share TOO MUCH of our personal lives on sites like Facebook and Twitter? The link above shows the interview.

BTOC conference meet this weekend!

Wed, 15 Feb 2012 13:20:50 -0500

BTOC conference meet this weekend!