Random Thoughts – tonnisha j. english

Huffington Post posted an article yesterday that literally gave me chills.

The Coalition to Stop Gun Violence released a PSA that reenacted the altercation of Trayvon Martin and George Zimmerman that lead to the tragic death of the young teen. The ad even has the 911 call from the woman who watched the altercation from her window.

Not only does the PSA reenact this shooting, at the end, there are many other people sprawled out with hoodies that show states on them, including Ohio that represent the death of other fallen victims to gun laws that need to be revisited.

Guns scare me. So naturally watching this PSA made me feel extremely uncomfortable and sad.

Could all or most of these deaths have been prevented if there were better gun laws? Would Zimmerman have been convicted if it weren’t for the Stand Your Ground Law? I don’t know. But what I do know is that something needs to be done to protect people from gun violence. I can’t tell you what that something is because I’m not into law or policy. I can tell you that I do not like living in fear that at any moment if I’m dressed wrong, in the wrong movie screening, or on the wrong college campus at the wrong time that my life could be taken from me.

All of these gun policies are so intricate it gives me a headache.

Check out this PSA and let me know what you think:

I don’t know about you, but I was not stunned when I saw Instagram added a video feature to their app. The new feature went live not even a week ago and users have already said “RIP to Vine“. But is the new feature to IG great enough to kill off Vine; a video app that was viral just a week ago? Maybe. If Instagram wants to kill Vine, there are a few things they will need to do for me to consider Vine history.

1. Vine has a very clean cut look due to the fact that users only see videos. On Instagram, users are bombarded with pictures AND videos now. To create a clean look, the app needs to add another timeline for users. Give us the option of going through the pictures of users we follow OR the videos.

2. Vine videos that are uploaded by users are crisp images. On Instagram, you can tell who the iPhone users and the Androids are; no offense. But there needs to be a way for the app to take crisper images from all users allowing for an equally quality experience.

3. I enjoyed that Vine videos were basically .gif’s with sound; so they constantly repeated. On Instagram, users have to press play again if they want to watch the video over; which is annoying (#firstworldproblems).

I am aware that Instagram does not intend to be exactly like Vine. However, I do believe that the idea was not completely thought through before launching the new feature. Obviously they went forward with it to save their own asses, but now I’m curious to see how they will update it and continue to do so.

Instagram video does have things I like: filters on videos, longer video time, and the auto-play video option.

Do you think Vine is history? Leave your thoughts below!