What kind of blogger am I? (Not NICE, just ICE)

Bakhulule Maluleka 609M1417.

(Primal Scream) (Tongue Sticking Out) (Hearty Chuckle) – These are my asides. As a follower of this blog, you will get used to these, because they tend to communicate more than what is written down. In trying to overcome the imaginative barrier between words and gestures that print sometimes necessitates, the asides function as my ‘virtual face’. “Why the need for a ‘virtual face’?” you ask. Because my real face has a life of its own. The ‘virtual face’ has a ‘virtual body’, ‘virtual heart’ and ‘virtual mind’: his name is ICE. He says it’s nice to meet you. It’s seldom that he’s so nice – just as his name suggests, he tends to be icy. He’s the mean one.

The blog’s name is Sugar Honey Ice Tea (S.H.I.T) and it represents the avatars you will encounter on this blog. As first-year journalism students, Sugar-Honey, Tea and I have a unique outlook on the world. We think that some of the media we are exposed to is at times irrelevant, inappropriate or plain useless – while other media is well-written, clearly-defined and gives the reader a great deal of knowledge. What we seek to do is gather all the types of media we find interesting and comment on them. But our main concern is not going about it willy-nilly – we want to focus on entertainment news. Entertainment news is a broad category, so over time, we will try and narrow it down to specific media products – but for now, we’re more interested in defining our virtual avatars’ personalities. And this can only be achieved through audience interaction.

So WE ASK YOU AS OUR READERS TO COMMENT on anything that you find comment-worthy. Since all three of the avatars will have different viewpoints, this should not be too difficult. If you don’t agree with Sugar-Honey’s positive reviews (maybe they’re too sweet for your liking), you can disagree with Ice (he can take it) – or you can be neutral like Tea. Our aim: to begin an interactive exchange between most readers of our blog in order to get them to start viewing issues from more than one or two perspectives. If readers can start thinking of issues more critically and not just accept everything that’s handed to them, we will have done our jobs. Also, we believe that as journalism students it’s important that we develop ways to voice our opinions without feeling as if we will be punished or scrutinised. But as with all things, please keep the comments clean. Other than that, there are no rules!

I now leave you in the very capable (yet somewhat frigid) hands of ICE (and the team).