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On Monday, my mother sent me a text message: "Did you hear about Robin Williams?"

This line sent me into an instant panic. I quickly googled his name and found out the news.

"I just googled it," I texted back. "That's awful."

I cried. I cried a lot. I cried for hours. I stopped, felt numb about the issue, and then cried some more. This cycle continued for the next 40+ hours.

I don't need to state how much influence Robin Williams had in my life. Like many others, he brought me an abundance of laughter. I grew up on his movies and his loss hit me like nothing else had ever hit me before.

I never experienced grief like this and I'm sure there are others out there who feel the same way. We're all mourning the loss of a wonderful and kind man that was taken from us due to an awful mental disease. The question is, how do we deal with this loss and learn to live with it?

Source: BigStockPhoto

The following are pieces of advice taken from different sources, such as Help Guide, WikiHow, and WebMD. Everyone experiences loss differently, so please feel free to adjust these suggestions to better suit your grieving situation.

1. Don't Ignore your Pain

Distractions may be great to cope with loss in a short-term sense, but they just make it worse in the long run. You need to acknowledge your pain in order to move on from it. This, by no means, is a suggestion that you need to wallow in your pain in order to properly mourn. Know the healthy middle-ground that works for you.  It is better to spend your days doing productive things and surround yourself with good people than to concentrate on the sadness that comes with loss.

Suggestion: Try watching your favorite Robin Williams films or shows. It will make you sad and you may cry, but by emerging yourself in nostalgic memories and laughter you will begin to move to a proper place of healing.

2. Get Support

This one is extremely important. Sharing loss can help the stress and overall burden of grief. Do not try to fight this battle alone. Support will help you heal.

Suggestions: Turn to family and friends and discuss your feelings. If you do not have a support system like that, try talking to a counselor or therapist. If you're worried about the cost of such services, dial 2-1-1 and ask about free or discounted sessions. There are several types of support groups you can join to ease the grieving process. 

3. Help Yourself

Remember, please do not ignore your well-being during your grieving process. Make sure to eat properly, sleep and exercise. Healing will be more difficult if you ignore your health during this time of loss and healing.

Suggestions: Take time to make sure your body is getting what it needs and avoid abusing products that will hinder your efforts, such as drugs and alcohol.

4. Know Your Limits

Suicides go up when a famous person dies after losing their battle with mental illness. If you’re thinking of suicide, call 800-283-8255 or any of the appropriate hotlines listed here.

Suggestions: Don't let anyone tell you what you're doing to heal is wrong or to simply "get over it." It is okay to feel the way you feel. Know what works for you and plan ahead for events and situations that will trigger an emotional relapse.

5. Work Towards Your Happiness

Allow for time to heal in the way you were meant to heal. Let the sad thoughts in, but don't let them consume you.

Suggestions: Do something that will honor the deceased. In Williams' case, you could donate to a charity that he supported such as St. Jude Children's Research Hospital. If you do better with physical items rather than ideas, Spiffing Jewelry is donating the proceeds from their Aladdin necklace to the National Alliance on Mental Illness.

Remember that everyone grieves differently. These may work for you, they may not. You might cry a lot or you may not cry at all. You may be done with your grieving in a day or you may be done in a few months. This is okay. You do what you need to do to properly heal. One day, you will be okay with your loss, whether it is Robin Williams or anything else. You will be okay. 

Robin Williams was and will forever be my childhood hero. I’m heartbroken that he passed in the way he did. I’m sad he was sad. As someone who suffers from depression, I know how awful that disease can make you feel. He made people so happy and I just wish he was as happy as he made others.

Soruce: Ashley's Dallies & Doobles

Robin, you made the world smile so much. I hope you can finally smile too.

Thank you for the memories. The world will mourn the thought of a future without you, but we're so thankful for the joy you gave us.

I have a counter on my computer that reminds me of the days I have left until graduation. I also have a corresponding jar next to my bedside table that holds the same number of paper stars that serve as a visual reminder. This number has been my rock during this semester, which has been one of the hardest semesters of my life, both in and out of school.

That number, by the way, is a little more than one hundred. I’ve been in school since I was six years old and I’m going to be done with my education in a little over a hundred days.

See? I wasn't lying.

One of the classes I’ve taken this semester has been “Ethics, Law and Diversity in Strategic Communications.” It is a capstone class here at the Mayborn School of Journalism at the University of North Texas. As I round my final days of this particular semester, I’m wondering what I got out of that class. How will I use the knowledge I have gained in my professional career? At what moment during the semester did I learn something that made me go “wow?”

Well, ethics, in my opinion, was a public relation’s driven class. As an advertising student, I sat there very fascinated by the case studies we read about, took what I needed to from these lessons, and moved forward. A lot of the advertising ethics we did learn about were things I was already aware of or things that felt like common sense to those in the industry.

I’m not saying I didn’t learn anything in that class. That’s hardly the point of this post. The point is that the lessons I have gained in this class during this class did not begin early January 2014 when this semester began. They began my first day of community college.

My Days at Tarrant County College

As a transitioning high school student, I was terrified of college. No one can tell you what college is truly like until you’re there experiencing it. Even as someone who is nearing graduation, I could not properly describe college to someone that would justify the experience of it all.

At TCC, I took a lot of basic classes in order to receive my Associates Degree. I can hardly say I’ll use my knowledge of the taste of halite in my career as a potential advertiser (if a client asks me this in the future, I can let him know that halite tastes like salt). However, I can say that I learned how to fend for myself in community college. I learned how to be proud of my work and praise myself in areas that no one else will. I learned the art of persuasion, symbolism, and a lot of tiny skills that I would have not known if it weren’t for those seemingly meaningless English and Speech classes.

Community college built up my confidence both as a student and as a human being. It taught me that it did not matter if I did not make the top ten percent in high school; I was still smart as a whistle. I took that same confidence with me when I graduated and moved onto university.

My Life at University of North Texas

University life excited me. After taking prerequisites for so long, I was almost yearning for classes that would legitimately apply to my future career.

That is where I learned another lesson.

The Terrible Triad - Young Free Michigan

See, I went to UNT because it was close and all my friends already lived in Denton. I had no idea how great of a school it was and was equally unaware of the brilliance of the Mayborn program. As a student of one of the best journalism colleges in Texas, I learned many valuable things that I hope to apply to my career. However, this discovery came with a sacrifice.

See, I held myself to a very high standard in terms of academics and I was not about to let that go. Mayborn is a very demanding program and not for the weak hearted. My main lesson, minus the career skills I have gained, came from time management. It taught me not only manage my own time, but the time of the students of the multiple group projects I ended up in. It taught me leadership skills that allowed my groups to complete tasks before deadline and with sparkling regime.

I did learn a lot of great things in both college and my ethics class. I learned that the world of ethics is not so black and white. There are many rules and theories that apply and a finely tuned system in order to make them work to your advantage. I also learned that Steven Colbert has talked about almost every subject and I desperately need cable again.  Most importantly, I learned that teachers like Samra Bufkins and the rest of the professors at Mayborn have easily challenged me to a level I never thought I could reach.

Class isn’t about taking notes and tests, but about you apply the tiny lessons you’ve built up during your academic career to your advantage. It’s about learning about yourself, how you work, and adjusting to the situations that life throws at you.

That, my friends, is what I learned.

This blog can also be read on Eagle Strategies Blog.

A thought that hit me at the beginning of this semester was how much I have changed in the few years I have been in college. They say college changes a person, but I never understood to what degree. I used to be something of a prude, for lack of better words. I won’t go into what I believed, as it is not the point of this blog topic, but I can say that I held a certain moral standard for me that I thought was a borderline sin if others did not believe as well.

I am only a few months from graduation and I still hold that same moral standard in terms of my own person, my body, and my overall being, but not of others. I believe more in the freedom for each individual to choose what is best from them, despite what I think or if I believe it is right or wrong. As long as your opinion or actions aren’t harmful, we’re good. As Voltaire would say, “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it."

In short, I am a feminist.

Again, my declaration of views and moral standing is not the point of this blog. So, what is the point?

Getting to the Point

There is one thing I contribute to my changed views and open-minded nature: Tumblr. I joined the website

around three years ago, back when I was finishing up my associates degree, and my mind has been steadily molding ever since. I learned so many things that I never even thought about thinking before: slut shaming, gender roles, sexuality, and general women’s rights related issues.

I began to wonder if websites like Tumblr have opened up minds like mine. My curiosity over the subject had me thinking that if this website opened up that many minds to feminist ideals, did other forms of technology also influence feminist behaviors over the past century?

Feminism & Technology - SXSW

Research Shows…

Social Media gives people a voice. It gives them a medium for discussion and sharing ideas. Sometimes these ideas aren’t that great, but there is a lot of good that can come out of it.

The question that remains is how the development of technology has helped the spread of feminism and other related ideas. That answer may take a great deal of research, but we do know these facts according to the Timeline of Key Events in the American Women's Rights Movement and Famous Invention Timeline:

• Although feminism existed way before this, the movement truly began in 1848 with the first women’s right convention in New York. This is also the year where the first color photographs began to develop.
• The women’s suffrage movement began in May of 1869. This is just two years after the typewriter was invented.
• The 1960s-1970s were widely known for the movement fighting discrimination against women in the workplace. This comes with the rise of popularity of the Television.

What do all of these huge movements have in common? They all coincide with major media related inventions. With the release of these events comes another boom in the timeline of feminism.

Strong and intelligent women have always existed. Laws and education standards have always been in place to control them one way or the other. Sure, there would be an educated woman once in a while would release a revolutionary book, but that is still backed by the education that women received. However, technology just hasn’t truly let women reach other to talk about these ideas on a massive scale until around twenty years ago.

In the early 90s, the term “cyber feminism” became popular just as the internet became a household tool. These are women who interact over cyberspace to share and theorize in ideas together. This led to the growth of feminism to what we know it today.

Maybe it’s just a coincidence that major media and feminism dates intertwine with each other, but maybe not. Is it thanks to photography that women knew there were others like them who thought about equality? Is it thanks to the typewriter that these women were able to easily express themselves in written word? Can it be thanks to television for spreading the message far and wide so that when the internet began, feminism already had a strong ground?

I do not know these answers for sure, but I can say that I am very thankful for technology for giving me the ideals I have now, for I believe I am a better person because of it

This post can also be found on the Eagle Strategies Blog.

As an advertising student that often deals with several aspects of media relations, I often wonder what my favorite part of social media is. There are so many wonderful things that it is rather hard to pick just one: being connected to news and friends 24/7, the quick pace of knowledge available right at our fingertips, etc. The more I thought about it, the more I realize the answer to this question was clear as day. My favorite part about the social media generation is the idea and action of signal boosting.

#Lostbear's Journey - Tumblr

Signal boosting is not a word that will be commonly found in a dictionary, but it should be. Informal dictionaries like Urban Dictionary has defined the word as “a communique intended to spread awareness of an issue, typically through mass media such as amateur radio or the Internet”. The popularity of the word has been in part thanks to websites like Tumblr, but the act can be seen around the web on other websites such as Twitter and Facebook.

I have seen several campaigns that have run solely on “signal boosting.” People employ the use of these advertising methods to win internet contests, spread awareness of an issue, or even fund medical bills for their pets. Whether you enjoy the concept of signal boosting or not, you have to agree that it works.

It makes sense that signal boosting has become as popular as it is. The term is a branch of word of mouth advertising, which people trust 92% more than traditional advertising, according to Business News Daily. Mix that with an empathy factor and you’ve got a successful self-run campaign.

Signal Boosting in Action

My favorite example of signal boosting comes from Lauren Bishop Vranch on Twitter. She had found a

#Lostbear's Return - Tumblr

teddy bear at a train station in the United Kingdom. She took the bear and posted a series of photos under the hash tag “lostbear” of the bear and different adventures it was having as it continued to miss its original family.

The pictures were retweeted several times and eventually reached Ben Simpson, father of the little girl who owned the bear. Roar, the name of the lost bear, was quickly returned to the Simpson’s. A situation that easily could have led to the permanent separation of the two instead turned into a happy ending that will probably be talked about for years to come.

Advertising can’t ignore the power of signal boosting, or at least they shouldn’t. I believe this form of reaching people will be, if it is not already, the prime way to get your message across to future consumers. If you don’t believe me, you can ask Phoebe and Roar what helped them more: traditional advertising or signal boosting.

I have mentioned before that there are “no ethics in advertising.” I have been told this fact far before I even decided on studying it in college.

 “Aren’t advertisements exaggerated?”

“All advertisements try to do is persuade you, despite if it’s truthful or not.”

“Advertising just makes people buy things they do not need.”

Anyone in advertising could tell you these accusations are all false.  Advertisements do persuade you by nature, but they also inform and educate you over product and service benefits. People can use their own free will to decide whether or not to actually purchase these said products or services. After all, it’s not like advertising agencies are complete evil masterminds. They simply act as the middle man in the act of meeting marketing objectives in a creative fashion.

Freedom of Speech- Tundra Tabloids

However, the public does have a point. Consumers simply do not trust advertising commercials. In fact, Nielsen reports that people are more than likely to trust word of mouth recommendations rather than traditional advertising.

This is a common fact for anyone in the world of marketing and beyond, but the question is why. Why don’t consumers trust the nature of advertising?

This question leads us back to the quote “there are no ethics in advertising.” Now our question isn’t about trusting, but why consumers think the way they do.

To understand why consumers believe there are no ethical advertising surroundings, we must observe that nature and very definition of the words “slander” and “libel.”

Slander vs. Libel

Consumers, according to Huffington Post, believe product claims are misleading and generally untruthful. These beliefs usually stem from false statements. If one of these false statements happened to result in a bad opinion of someone or something, it is considered defamation.

Traverselegal states that in order for something to be defamatory in nature, the following conditions must be met:

• The statement must be a fact and not an opinion.
• The statement must harm reputation.
• The false statement must be made without due diligence. In other words, the statement must be made with full knowledge of its falsity.
• If the statement involves someone in the public eye, malice must be proven.

This is where we get into slander and libel:

• Libel is where this defamation is written, such as on a blog like mine.
• Slander is where this defamation is spoken, such as on commercial advertisements.

According to US Legal, Advertising does not exactly follow defamation “rules” to a tee. The biggest rule it needs to follow is if these “statements” in fact are inaccurate enough to lead to consumer deception and harms a competitor.  However, for this blog, we are referring to humans and not product advertisements. Thus, the statements above remain in play.

Political “Product” Claims

Anyone who knows me personally knows I am not a fan of politics. I have my views and beliefs like every other person do, but I keep it to myself. I do not enjoy the banter and hate that surround political debates and things of that nature and I generally try to avoid subjects that relate to them.

I am not the only one who disagrees with the ways politicians act. The Washington Post states that 71% of all Americans have negative views of politicians, despite what party they’re from. If we relate what we know to why regular consumers do not trust advertising, we can easily see why political consumers feel the same. They both do not trust the “product” claims.

The unfortunate fact of that matter is that political speech is protected by the First Amendment as long as it is not defamatory in nature. However, it is my guess that consumers may not know the difference between deceptive politics and general political commentary. Thus, the distrust of politicians remains prominent.

The fact of the manner is that politicians want to convince us to trust them. These same politicians know that competitive advertising is one of the most powerful marketing tools available to them. As consumers of these political “products,” we know that this competitive nature can sometimes get out of hand in the form of baseless accusations and assertions.

For example, according to Amy Sullivan of TIME:

•       John McCain thinks Latinos are dumb.
•       Barack Obama wants toddlers to watch porn.

Luckily for the politicians who originally said these things, they are protected from defamation laws because they are, according to Dana Radcliffe “excellent examples of [advertisements] that…might be factually defensible, but overall…misleading."

Many political claims like the ones used in the examples take certain remarks or statements out of context and put it into a scenario that gives it an entirely new meaning. It is similar to a loophole in political defamation. You can also say things that may be true, but lack evidence and other deceptive statements of that nature.

These kinds of misrepresented facts are unfortunately protected by the First Amendment. In my opinion, this unstable system is the core of the reason of why people do not trust politicians and feels as negatively about it as I do.

Where is the Truth in Advertising?

People do not trust advertisements, whether they are for a product, service, or politician. It’s hard to distinguish what is truth, what is exaggeration, or what is a fact taken out of context and skewed in such a way that it’s no longer recognizable. We have laws to protect the knowledge we are force-fed, but when there are so many loopholes in those said laws, is it even worth having them in place?

It is no wonder people think there is no ethics in advertising.

This post can also be found on the Eagle Strategies Blog.

When I was around 19, my dad and I took my nephew to the circus. When we got there, there were a handful of protestors shoving graphic imagery in the face of my 3-year-old nephew and telling my family how terrible we were for supporting the circus.

Social Justice Sally Meme - Tumblr 

And I was livid.

I am trying to have a good day with my family and these jerks keep yelling something about mistreatment of Elephants. Can you blame me for being angry?

After the show, we’re walking out to our car when a lady kindly hands me a brochure and simply says “Some information about the circus.” I took the brochure without a second thought. 

Turns out, the brochure was informative about the mistreatment of animals at the circus. It sparked my curiosity, so I went to the website. There I saw all these terrible, terrible videos and articles explaining the cruelty these animals go through.

As you can see, when someone tried to guilt me, I reacted negatively. When someone calmly tried to educate me? I listened and changed my views. Now I’m EXTREMELY anti-circus.

However, I can promise that this wouldn’t be the case if the aggressive protestors were the only people that talked to me that day.

What does that have to do with anything?

I am fairly active on the microblog Tumblr. I mostly post pictures of cute cats and funny images from television shows I like, but I also post a decent amount of social justice activism. That’s why I adore this website! It allows people of all stripes and colors to tune in, share their opinions, and spread the word of inequality so that others can be informed.

But that’s also why I hate the website.

See, there are two types of social justice bloggers on Tumblr: those who forgive and those who don’t.

Social justice blogging, according to “Know Your Meme,” is a type of blogging where they spread awareness about inequality amongst different races, women, LGTBTQ groups, the disabled, and etc. In theory, this is a great form of activism. However, their behavior states otherwise.

The Daily Dot states that these types of bloggers are similar to mobs. They make violent threats, are influenced by emotion, rather than reason, and generally take issues way too far. 

So, what’s the problem with that?

The problem with these types of bloggers is they do not account for lack of knowledge prior to argue incident. These types of bloggers hold everyone to the same standard and if you break them, then you are a terrible person, whether you knew about the issue or not.

If I had the opportunity to speak to every one of these bloggers, I’d tell them this: People are allowed to make mistakes. It allows us to learn, but you can’t yell at the person for making a mistake. The art of persuasion implies that this is the exact opposite direction you want to go.

One of the most important rules of persuasion, according to Psychology Today, is to keep negativity out of it. Do not make the person feel worse about their mistakes! If anything, do NOT guilt the person for their past actions. This will have the opposite effect and you will never get your point across (i.e. my circus story). 

So, if you’re trying to belittle someone for making a mistake, continue what you’re doing. If you want to actually educate people and provide them with knowledge that will allow them to make better choices in the future…Then look at how you speak to people.

You have a right to be upset, but I have to question what these bloggers are getting out of starting internet fights. Are they just ranting, or are they trying to educate the offender.

I’m all for spreading knowledge, but you have to do it in the right way.

Nothing will change if you let emotions guide the conversation. Nothing will change by yelling at others. Nothing will change until your attitudes and how you treat people does.