EmpoWord: The Overheard
For this week's (and my last) StoryLab, I wanted to check out EmpoWord to see what it had to offer! I chose to do one of the two challenges offered on page 50 of Chapter Two of the student handbook.
The Overheard assignment asks the writer to go to a public place and try to overhear a conversation in order to draw conclusions from said conversation, making sure to not be too creepy or obvious while doing so. I thought this was a super interesting challenge and that it would be quite doable considering how often I am in public spaces with other people having their own conversations. I figured that the best, most natural environment for me to 'overhear' a conversation would be in a public study spot like the library or a coffee shop.
In order to complete this challenge, I went to the Biz and sat and studied in the coffee shop there. Before long, I found myself surrounded by various groups of people discussing all kinds of topics. I was able to make out a conversation being had by a group of girls sitting at a table behind me about a recent engagement they had heard about.
By observing their body language/vocal inflections, I was able to tell that they were a close group of friends. I also observed that they were wearing t-shirts with similar Greek letters, which led me to assume that they all belonged to the same or similar Greek organizations. In their conversation, they were talking about one of their friends' recent engagements to her long-term boyfriend, and how more and more college students seem to be getting engaged these days. Honestly, one of the reasons that I tuned into this conversation is because I, too, know a whole lot of young people getting engaged right now and hold a similar opinion to that of this group of girls.
An interesting fragment that I was able to jot down was one of the girls saying "Her caption says that they are FINALLY engaged, but I feel like that a little ridiculous and I'm not sure why they didn't just wait a little."
If this fragment was posted on a social site, I imagine that there would be a lot of mixed responses. I think that some of the comments would be:
"I agree! There are way too many people getting engaged right now! No harm in slowing down."
"Why does it matter when anyone else gets engaged?"
"Well, when you know you know, I guess!"
"Hahaha I know exactly who you're talking about. Tbh I think they're cute though!"
"All we can do is be happy for them and hope that it works out! Lots of people marry young!"
"Omg are you TRYING to make me feel more lonely?"
"And here I am still single as can be!"
"Did you see that ring though???"
"You might think differently if you heard how he proposed! It was sooo cute!"
"Another one bites the dust"
Some of the comments I included came from other fragments I heard from the conversation, others are other comments I've heard or even made about recent engagements. In digital dialogue, it's a lot harder to tell vocal inflection or emotion behind what people are saying which can often caused their messages to be misconstrued. A lot of these comments might come off one way, when the intention of posting them was something totally different.
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