TED Talks and Speech giving

A good speech can be identified through different aspects of the speaker such as tone, dialogue, body language, and compatibility  with the audience.  All these aspects can either create a wonderful and moving speech or a boring speech that the audience simply wants to end.  Through watching these TED Talks speakers, I was able to find the good and the bad within the individual speeches.

              The first speech I watched was by a woman named Susan Cain, talking about the "Power of Introverts".  As soon as the speech began I was second guessing on if I truly wanted to watch this speech or not, but I gave it a few minutes to see if she could grasp my attention.  As she introduced the speech she was somewhat timid and awkward, but as she got into the bones of the speech I found myself pulled in due to her passion for the subject.  Talking of her personal experiences a child, she was personable and self-deprecating which made the audience loosen up and start to enjoy her speech.  She spoke of the way the world now wants everyone to be an extrovert while the introverts are shunned or simply looked over with such passion that she made me really start to believe her point.  As a presenter, she used the stage well and kept eye contact while beginning with a prop, a suitcase, to signify her days at summer camp as a young girl.  The use of a prop was fine for a minute but then began to look like a crutch to help her along with the presentation.  Once she put the suitcase away she began using her hands a bit too much, as if she was trying to either hide behind them or force her point upon the audience.  In the end, however, her hands and her prop did not get in the way of her informative and moving speech about the power of introverts.

              The second speech I watched was by Jarrett Krosoczka about his Lunch Lady graphic novels.  From the beginning, he grasped my attention with his infectious smile and his happy, almost laughing, tone.  He remained stationary on the stage and he really did not have to move, his voice and use of a slideshow were more than enough to keep the audience interested.  He spoke of how his old lunch lady from high school had been working there for 40+ years, while his brother who was twenty years older was in school, and while the speaker himself was in school.  When she began updating him on her life, he was shocked that the woman had children and grandchildren, that she had a family and a life outside of the cafeteria.   He then wrote his graphic novels about lunch ladies, serving up food by day and villains by night.  He glorified the lunch lady name while making the general stereotype associated with them die down.  I never got distracted during his speech and genuinely wanted him to continue as his story had touched me.  He did not lecture, he told a story and that is what made the speech so wonderful to me.

              A good speech can come in many different forms and there is no ‘one way’ a speech can be given.  A good speech just depends on the person giving the speech and what he/she does to make it phenomenal or a dud.

Nude Photo Leak Scandal

Scott Medelson’s article, “Jennifer Lawrence Nude Photo Leak Isn’t A ‘Scandal’. It’s A Sex Crime” goes in a different direction than most articles would when regarding a supposed “sex scandal”.  While most people make the point that nude photos shouldn’t be taken in the first place, Mendelson simply states that women (and men, for that matter) have the right to take and store nude photos in their phones or on their computers “with the expectation that said contents will remain private or exclusive to whomever is permitted to see them (Mendelson).”  He claims that the stealing and posting of nude photos is a theft and “exploitation of the female body (Mendelson).”  Medelson makes the point that the women affected by the leaked photos should not be ashamed and should instead feel that their personal belongings have been stolen and exposed.

              Though my initial reaction to the leak of these photos was that these women knew better than to take the photos in the first place, this article soon had me rethinking my harsh judgments.  Though I don’t agree with the practice of taking and saving/sending nude photos, it is within a person’s rights to do so.  I also agree with his reasoning that women should not have to take extra precautions in order to stay safe, people should be taught not to commit heinous crimes against women in the first place.  The women whose photos were leaked have nothing to apologize for as they did not commit a crime or even release the photos on a whim.  The person who leaked the photos and exposed these women’s private lives is the one who should apologize.  Mendelson’s article had me look at this situation (along with others of the sort) in a new light that puts the blame, not on the victim, but on the victimizer instead.