An Examination of Megan Greenwells’s Exposition: “The Adults in the Room”

In Megan Greenwell’s essay, she describes what its like to work for a company that doesn’t listen to their people.

 The tragedy of digital media isn’t that it’s run by ruthless, profiteering guys in ill-fitting suits; it’s that the people posing as the experts know less about how to make money than their employees, to whom they won’t listen.

Megan Greenwell

Megan writes this message on her last day working for a company that just got sold to another company and could sense that all they cared about was their own wallets.

This company had a good platform and strong brands; all they needed to do was hire a few people who could make it profitable. All they needed was adults in the room.

Megan Greenwell

There is a clear emotion on anger and disappointment Greenwell uses throughout the paper that digital media companies are constantly surrounded my misogynistic white men that believe that are smarter then everyone else due to the fact that they have more money. She explains this concept by saying they act like the adults in the room and they treat everyone else like children. That even people who are senior positions and have done a life long practice at their job that these white men with “ill-fitting suits” will come in and discredit everything because they believe they know everything.

They have driven out several senior managers—most of them women, myself included—by undermining us and condescending to us at every turn.

Megan Greenwell

As I was reading I could tell why this essay was considered to be one of the best. This concept isn’t just something that is happening in just this job field nor is done in companies no one has heard of. Greenwell brings up big company names and the fact of this being in New York City makes it a real place. This essay not only shares a relatable factor to anyone who has or had felt put down in anyway but it shows that even the biggest companies have their weakness.

David Foster Wallace’s infamous piece “Consider the Lobster” has perplexed most audiences since it’s release in the 2000’s. I was so astounded to find that this piece was in fact about lobsters. I truly thought it would have been some perplexing representation for something, and perhaps it is. However, at its center, it is basically about the morals of bubbling lobsters alive alongside Wallace’s serious despising of the Maine Lobster Festival.

While Wallace investigates the complexities of bubbling lobsters alive, he furthermore represents an intriguing interpretation of the Maine Lobster Festival. He was sent there to describe the Festival, yet rather composes 7000 words, saying nothing positive regarding the celebration for the initial twelve parts and afterward spends the remainder of the story thinking about why we even eat lobsters.

When analyzing this paper, I was confused by Wallace’s emphasis on the ethical quality of the Lobster Maine Festival. An assignment that appeared to be so basic transformed into a significant examination of eating animals. At the same time never frightening the utilization of animals however plunging into the reason behind such a brutal demonstration. He faces the awkward part of the subject and questions why we approve of slaughtering our nourishment, explicitly characterizing the scarcely observable difference among guilty pleasure and being barbaric.

For me, the most dreamlike part of “Consider the Lobster” was the investigation of the various kinds of torment various animals feel. Wallace investigates this close to the ending of his paper, portraying how, in spite of the fact that, lobsters are not as sincerely perplexing as people, they respond very close to people when being bubbled alive. Tossing in bits of humor all through the paper refines the uncomfortably of the topic. It causes the reader to feel as though this genuine subject, isn’t really genuine by any means. However all through the whole paper is Wallace’s continuous flow, in spite of the fact that he is mixed with respect to why we treat these animals the manner in which we do, he never downgrades his perspective in the process.

Despite the fact that Wallace incorporates his continuous flow all through the article, he never reaches any resolutions or makes opinions on the eating of animals. He recognizes the awkward parts of killing one’s meals, communicates his detesting for the celebration, and afterward proceeds onward with his day. He doesn’t leave the reader needing more but of his absence of an end.

Elizabeth Royte’s essay “Remains of the Night” investigates the importance behind why individuals litter overall, however particularly with regards to littering sex stuff. Royte is an American science and nature author most popular for her book Garbage Land, which she makes reference to a few times all through “Remains of the Night”.

“Remains of the Night” is on the website Medium, an internet platform. Royte uses this stage by including plenty of pictures all through the exposition. She leaves little to the creative mind by giving striking portrayals of the things she and her gathering find nearby pictures and photograph conflicts that urge society to tidy up after themselves by including pictures of the sex stuff that has been found.

This advantages the influence of her essay since it permits the peruser to see precisely what she has found. In the exposition, she talks about finding a handmade sex toy produced using a cigar pipe enclosed by a blue condom. While the depiction gave me a smart thought of what this article resembled, some portion of me despite everything needed to see an image. At the point when I looked down, I discovered precisely what I was searching for and I was appreciative that she provided me with the proof she found.

In any case, despite the fact that this whole essay is tied in with scrounging in the forested areas, there was a basic message behind everything. Royte splendidly utilizes Medium as an approach to gradually acquaint these stunning pictures with the viewer. Beginning first with some stunning foliage and nature sees and in the end progressing into the crude and dirty truth behind sex trash. In any case, in the main picture, there are human shadows that add a touch of eerie to the more nature-focused photographs. These shadows portray the possibility that a few people are bound to stow away in the shadows, much the same as the demonstration of having intercourse in an open park, generally, cover-up in the shadows.

The pictures Royte uses to keep the viewer connected all through the story. By easing back presenting the more rough substance gradually as the essay unwinds, it makes the theme increasingly safe and easier to read. Royte regularly makes reference to how finding these bits of trash that are utilized at extremely private occasions is energizing. Investigating who is behind these single wastes is a captivating front.

Writing Assignment: For the episode you were assigned, pick out 2 stylistic elements and 2 research elements from the podcast that you’d like to take for inspiration for your own project.

Stylistic Elements:

1. Interviews put into the podcast, while the host voice overs the what happened.
2. The musical elements put behind their voices.

Research Elements:

1. Using living people, who are experts in the subject matter.
2. Audio recordings from the past and Interviews from people who lived through events.

Using Google Docs, Slack, or the chat program of your choice, have a discussion among your group about the podcast episode that you listened to. What were some of its stylistic qualities? How did it use research? How was it organized? How did it tell its story? Edit your discussion into a roundtable discussion format, and post it to your WordPress sites.

Beth: I listened to the podcast on Heyoon and it was actually very interesting. The style of it really helped keep my attention because it started off in a story format. The main speaker, Alex Goldman, is telling the story of going to Heyoon, a pavilion in the middle of a random field in Michigan, as a teenager. While he tells this story, it switches on and off to a narrator along with sound recordings of a group of people going to Heyoon. Goldman later goes on to speak to the actual owners and creators of Heyoon which was really interesting. What were the rest of your podcasts like?

Stefano: The Every Little Thing’s podcast where they discussed Winnie the Pooh’s age was very interesting and fun to learn about. The overall atmosphere was light-hearted and had a childlike sense of curiosity throughout the age discovery. What about you guys?

Breanna: The podcast I listened to was You’re Wrong About: Kitty Genovese and “Bystander Apathy where they discuss the murder of Kitty Genovese in 1964. The style of the podcast was set up like a book or a magazine article telling the story of Genovese and her life that led up to her death and what happened after her death too. The two hosts’ names were called Sarah Marshall and Michael Hobbes and they went back n’ forth talking about Genovese. While Marshall tells the story more, Hobbes reacts to the insane things that took place in how she was murdered and how 38 bystanders almost did not do anything about it. What was your podcast like Ruby?

Ruby: Serial produced the podcast I listened to about the murder of Hae Min Lee in 1999. “The Alibi” follows Sarah Koenig, a woman who took interest in the murder case as she believes the alleged murderer is innocent.  Adnan Syed, who is currently in prison for the murder, claims to be innocent so Koenig goes through the process of figuring out a normal day 16 years later to prove this alleged innocence. Through a series of interviews dated back in 1999, when the case occurred, Koenig acts as a narrator while incorporating these discussions in place of her storytelling. Her style is informative while keeping a constant entertaining progression towards the truth. Her pathos is clearly shown throughout as she became emotionally involved in what was intentionally a truth-finding process. Beth for your podcast, how did they use their research?

Beth: The research used comes straight from Peter Hayden, the owner. Because this was such a mysterious and unknown place, there was no real research the producers could have done themselves. The organization of first telling the details of Heyoon and what the place was like and then going on to the interviews made the podcast easier to follow along. Stefano, how would you explain your research for the podcast you listened to?

Stefano: The research began with a professional age guesser to see what human characteristics helped him guess an age. From there, the discussion shifts to a wildlife ecologist who knows about bears and their characteristics. Lastly, a pediatrician was introduced, who wrote an academic essay about Winnie the Pooh, specifically about the book The House at Pooh Corner. Herein lies the answer to the driving question of this episode. Each piece of evidence made the audience more engaged to find out more and the level of professionalism on the main topic increased over time. Overall, I really enjoyed listening to this podcast and even found myself wondering what other random things do people not really know the answer to. Breanna, how did your podcast use their research?

Breanna: The research used to help Marshall explain the story comes from news articles and New York Times stories taken from before and after the murder took place. She also uses historical research, data, and articles to explain the “gay culture” from the time too because Genovese was also a lesbian. There was a lot to account for in her murder more because of all the things that got invented or started due to her murder. Better street lights were put into place, bystanders learned the true cost of not helping or asking for help, and telephone number 911 was started four years later. What I liked about how the podcast sums her story up as it is said that this woman had this happened to her and how even sadder that people’s lazy or “1960’s brains” reacted to her murder because this would never happen in today’s world. But her murder got coined as the “Genovese effect” meaning the only reason this would not happen in today’s world is that this awful event occurred. Ruby, did Koenig use her own research?

Ruby: The research was conducted by Koenig herself, as she used court recordings and self-conducted interviews. She dispersed the information in the order of the case, giving researched details as the story went on. This led the story along, eventually going past the horrific event, court appearances and family interviews to a modern search for the truth using the same type of research. 

Writing Assignment: Post a 500 word essay on your WordPress blog discussing how Rosen’s idea of how new journalists should know “everything about something” applies to how your group work. Why aren’t interviews enough?

In the article, When starting from zero in journalism go for a niche site serving a narrow news interest well by Jay Rosen, they talk about how if you are just starting the journalism career, that with any piece you do that you should do it with full knowledge of the subject they are writing about.

How I could see this contributing to my group work is, as a group, we need to know a good chunk of what we are talking about and not just pulling information from the air. Interviewing helped my group with getting personal testimonies and the survey that we conducted to get people to tell us their top three fears. But that does not tell us what fears stem from or if this everything we need to know about fears.

I do understand that part of the project before us actually recording the interview that we are working as journalist and that we need to understand what we are talking about and possibly teaching people about fears. Needing to understand not just one part of the our topic will not help our group in speaking on the podcast portion of the project. What helped was when we started doing the research and understand not only about fears but also about what we are focusing on which is the fear of death. We came to that conclusion from the survey we did and also the interviews we conducted.

I do feel if someone asked our group questions we could answer the majority of them, whereas before we could not tell you and if we were given less time to produce this podcast it would have been harder to do. Of course, given us more time would also add to that but to be realistic with “college time frame” is why we have the amount of days we do have. But still I think the amount of time we did recieved was good enough where we had time to plan our project, research, make a website, and record and edit the podcast.

I would not call anyone one of us “experts” in the field of because we have not been studying this subject for years or anything but I would say we have a good grasp on the subject to keep a conversation going. I also say that as a group we collectively would be able to say more on the subject than anybody off the street who is just thinking off the top of their head.

Writing Assignment: How do the first episodes of Millennial, and Startup work to lay out the vision for the show, and convince listeners to keep up with what follows? In your group, decide which member is going to listen to which episode. Then post a short entry to your WordPress answering the above question about your individual episode.

The episode starts with Megan Tan explaining how she was always one of those kids who was always excited about school. That she had always dreamed of college and doing all the possible things available to do, such as, studying abroad and internships. But the underlying problem that she was facing and what she assumed others her age are and were facing was what to do after college ends.

Tan intrigues the audience by saying each episode will be about different twenty year olds problems and even puts in news broadcasters talking about the difficulties of being in your twenties in this day and age. She follows it with her personal struggles after graduation and problems at home that she really didn’t think were problems until she was at the front steps of her house. Being that most twenty something year olds have similar problems that seem to be unsolvable, this podcast should be captivating to that age group that “80 million” are in.

Writing Assignment: Of these cases of authorial misconduct, which do you think is the worst? Which is the least objectionable? Why? Post an entry to your WordPress about how the Zakaria, Lehrer, and Anderson stories match (or don’t match) with your concept of ‘plagiarism’, and how the differences between their stories matter (or don’t matter) to you.

Plagiarism is a topic talked wildly through schools, careers, and considered to be a cheating tatic. There has always been mixed feelings about the topic because some do not see the harm in accidental use, but people who even accidentally use it get the same punishment as someone who intentionally plagiarize. It is even considered plagiarism to quote or use your own work in future projects that you may work on.

Out of the three articles, I think the Jonah Lehrer case is the most objectionable. While it is never alright to steal another person’s work, it is a completely unique thing to make up sham statements to use in a book about somebody’s life. In any event, overstating the statements, Lehrer has a past filled with counterfeiting all through his work, a perspective I accept is difficult to disregard or excuse. While I don’t accept his discipline ought to be as serious as some schools propose, I do think it says a ton regarding what sort of author he is. Above all, he is definitely not an upright or valid one.

The least unacceptable article was Fareed Zakaria’s case. My comprehension of copyright infringement is the point at which you use another person’s work and swearing it as your own. For Zakaria’s situation, he was utilizing his own work and I don’t see anything amiss with that. He makes reference to in the article that he didn’t know whether he should cite himself which is a legitimate contention. I don’t figure he ought to get genuine repercussions for remembering his own contemplation’s for an article regardless of whether they are from an alternate source.

On WordPress, list 1) three times that Kline ran into a dead end, and how she dealt with it and 2) three additional things that Kline learned about in pursuit of her mystery that she may not have, otherwise.

Kline, who was investigating the owner of a unique belt buckle, in the process of trying to find the owner of the mysterious belt buckle she encountered people who were only connected through the name that was on the belt, Hans Jordi. From the the beginning of the podcast she talks to the man Carson, whose friend found the belt buckle and gave it to him when they were teenagers. In the process of following his thoughts on who he thought Hans Jordi could be Kline talks to people who ended up knowing bits and pieces of Hans Jordi life.

Kline did end up running into people who would give her dead ends because they could no longer giver her anymore useful information about the mystery man in question. She first spoke to a woman, Donna Beers, who was Hans Jordi art teacher ten years ago.Klina had found this threw a clipping from a news article she found. She then questioned Donna how Hans Jordi to she if one remembered her student from tens years ago and if she could describe him at all. Donna then shares some clothing items should could remember him wearing and even shows Kline a picture of him ten years ago when he was in her class. But that is all she got from Donna, that he was a German-Swiss guy and that he was a memorable guy.

Kline then would speak to another person from Hans Jordi past. She spoke to a the owner of the blog The Sated Epicure. Sated has told Kline that he had worked with Hans Jordi in an internship. He said that he was a super fast cook and also super fast at everything he did. Sated was 19 when he met Hans Jordi and said he was around 50 years old. The dead end she got with him was only able to confirm that he was a chef that on his off time dressed like a cowboy.

The third dead end to note the Kline came across was the second name that was on the belt buckle, Bob Six. Kline had thought it was the man called Bob Bland, who was a chef that had worked alongside with Hans Jordi. But when she eventually met Bob Bland he was unfamiliar with the name and didn’t find out until she eventually met Hans Jordi that Bob Six ran the Continental Airlines and he hosted a staff retreat at the Ranch that Hans Jordi worked at. Bob Six, as a gift for ten years of service, gave Hans the belt buckle in gratitude for cooking for every staff retreat for ten years.

What I can say that Kline learned along the way of her mystery was historical events taken in Hans Jordi life. She met interesting people who have live successful lives. They all had some interesting to say about Hans Jordi and their ties to him.

On Word press, discuss how this podcast attempted to present research on an extremely complex topic, and communicate it for listeners. How was its approach different from the “Fast Fashion” podcast? Write 300-500 words.

What I like about this podcast over the “Fast Fashion” podcast is the they show brings in their sources. They have live interviews with people who were part of the problem of the giant pool of money and experts that really watch all this money. Whereas the other podcast, which in my opinion was more of an entertainment purpose, seem to be pulling at straws for sources instead of completely understanding the sources they were using.

I like the immerse of having these people alive and explaining what happened during the early 2000’s. These people explaining there own businesses or what they did for a company. The whole show from this podcast company all in it self seems to really understand not only what they are discussing more but knows their sources speakers a lot as well.

The topic that they discuss on the show also sounds more of a serious problem compared to “fast fashion”. They basically explain the huge drop in America’s financial status in late 2006 and early 2007. Everything had an influx of pricing but peoples wages were staying the same or lowering or people were losing their jobs. Causing all the smaller banks to close and the “big guys” aka Wall Street people to take some big damage hits to their businesses.

This podcast approach comes out more like a Ted Talk and making sure not only them telling you important information but also having real life accounts explaining what happened as well. Whereas the other podcast seeming like a “gossip group talk” of a show. Where they keep throwing big names at you to make it seem like they know what they are talking about and that their sources support what they are saying but instead it was more nonintellectual. Though both shows are sharing something important that the average person should know, how they addressed theses issues was what made the one stand out better than the other.