Week 10 Lab: TED Talk videos

For this week, I chose the lab option and watched two TED talks about stories and storytelling.

In the first video, "The Danger of a Single Story" by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Adichie tells of growing up in Nigeria and experiencing a lack of representation in children's books. She began writing, and her characters resembled the White American/British characters of the books she was reading. Eventually, she was able to read African literature. This helped her reframe her view of books. She then talked about the concept of a "single story" that leads many to misunderstand people from other parts of the world, including her college roommate in the United States. People may be well-meaning, but have a skewed perception of countries like Nigeria--just one country in the diverse, complex continent of Africa. "Single stories," framed by people in power, can paint entire people groups in one way repeatedly. Ultimately, Adichie concludes in the lecture that a single story "robs people of dignity." In the talk, she highlighted how stories can be used for both bad and good. I really enjoyed learning from Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie and hearing her powerful perspective on the importance of stories. It definitely changed how I conceptualize stories as a society-affecting tool.

The next talk, called "Imaginary Friends and Real-World Consequences," was given by Jennifer Barnes. Barnes is (or at least was at the time of the lecture) a professor and psychologist from right here at OU! She notes the massive amount of time and money that humans consistently spend on consuming fiction, whether books, TV shows, or movies. She also examines how fictional stories and fictional characters end up affecting us. The relationships between humans and fictional characters (or even real people in general that we only know from media) are called "parasocial relationships." She also discusses the philosophical concept of "alief," which I thought was fascinating. I learned a lot from this lecture! She also talked about the effects of having fictional friends being comparable to having real friends in some ways. Knowing how people engage with characters psychologically will help me in crafting stories and characters going forward in this course. 

Fan art representation of Lupin from the Harry Potter series, one of my favorite fiction characters. 

Artist:  Mademoiselle Ortie aka E. Tihange. Source: Wikimedia