Status Update: In Wake of the Quake, How the Facebook Generation, Gen Y, Reacts at CSULB

What do you observe from the picture you see above?

The photo was taken at a Long Beach Rite-Aid after Tuesday's 5.4-magnitude rumble dubbed the Chino Hills earthquake. And, aside from the obvious story here—a mess of product splattered sloppy all over the floor—you might also notice the low-quality resolution.

And just as ABC7.com is fascinated by their viewers' personal snapshots, it's times like these when the demand for everyday photos by everyday people make the most sense. It's proof to how our often-obsessive relationships with our technological gadgets can serve as a positive tool in a worrisome, catastrophic time. Taking photos like these—as ABC7.com says, "See It. Shoot It. Send It."—and showing the rest of the world what you've experienced may help to cool down those otherwise negative tensions of frustration and confusion.

Keeping in tune with our communication networks via our camera phones and texting systems, for example, expedite the show-and-tell process of what's really happening and, most of all, they help us tell our own stories and help express our innermost, intimate thoughts in world-against-Man episodes, such as today's.

Our own stories seem to matter the most. And it seems like younger generations are first to share.

I noticed that minutes, if not seconds, after the 11:42 a.m. rumbling occurred, a steady flood of status updates popped onto my Facebook news feed. Friends on vacation celebrated "enjoying a fault-free Sweden," while some mellowed in cool one-liners: "I am an aftershock."

A stream of dialogue continued on MySpace.com's Cal State Long Beach discussion boards, students revealing fears of "the big one," to sharing how the quake interrupted a SOAR (Student Orientation, Advising, and Registration) session in a Liberal Arts building—the leader dashing for the door.

When you stand in your living room doorway alone, miles (maybe oceans) from parents at work and friends at school, all you want to know is if they're fine. One of my friends simply quieted panicked inquiries with the status "is alive to tell the story."

But thanks to a society that's grown accustom to catering a Wi-Fi generation of bloggers, paparazzi-like picture-takers and 24/7 Facebook fans, worrying on how to get in touch with friends and loved ones is no obstacle.

You want to know where everybody's at and how they reacted to the newness and wackness of Mother Nature swaying what she's got. And you get it.

"Earthquake! Yeah, I ducked and covered," filled in a friend.

Updates multiplied as the day went along. Though some came as fast as the CSULB Alerts rushed through my e-mail and rung through to my cell phone, announcing evacuation, then building marshals and police officers checking buildings for key obstructions, like "structural damage," and then finally announcing re-entries.

Here are some status updates taken from Facebook.com that were expressed by CSULB students after the Chino Hills quake:

Amanda Martin is alive in Chino.

Jeff Taylor's truck was shaking at a stoplight. (Alumni, '08)

Joshua Lofgren just felt an earthquake. (Status updated 11:52 a.m.)

Michael I. Cruz-Herrera is having a California day: An eathquake, a brushfire, and a police chase.

Jon Nieva has either experienced an earthquake or is hallucinating. Maybe both.

Anthony Guy saved the television before saving himself. Nice earthquake.

Nina Nguyen went back to sleep during the earthquake.

Taylor Hensley was in my first earthquake this morning!!! Ahh. (Alumni, '07)

Kirsten Brzezinski had never felt an earthquake before!

Nick Hayes I was in the kitchen, washing a dish, when I felt it. So I came out.

Melissa Jeffes 's cat felt the quakes coming. That is cool.

Emerson Gregori that was a big one. (Status updated at 11:52 a.m.)

Andre Ashook found out that the abc studio is in glendale, the news guy said it every 3 seconds.

Kyla Gore just experienced her first earthquake!!! on the 14th floor! (Status updated at 11:46 a.m.)

Ben Farris thought the earthquake was kids running in the hall till it kept going. (Alumni, '08)

Rebecca Goldberg is welcomed back to California with an earthquake! (Status updated at 11:52 a.m.)

Jeffrey Blutinger was quite calm during the recent unpleasantness, standing quietly by my china hutch as the room swayed and creaked. (Jewish Studies professor)

Angela Hsu is 45% applejuice, 45% chicken noodle and 10% earthquake.

Jordan Laurence Digby lost 2 turtles in the earthquakes. R.I.P. Johnny Storm and Reed Richards.

Kristi Marie McLaughlin ... At least the 405 didn't crumble with this one. Sunshine and earthquakes—gotta love California! lol.

Keisha Sankweno Kintaudi damn earthquake came from nowhere. (Status updated at 12:10 p.m.)

Servando Alvarez is enjoying the earthquake!!

Matt Moocarme I'm an adventurer!! Just in my first EARTHQUAKE weeeeeee!!!

Victor Camba used to be terrified of earthquakes as a kid. Not so much now, apparently.

Spenser Garden shake that thing.

Patricia Anderson was sanding her walls on a ladder when the earthquake started, with a hurt ankle... Not cool Mother Nature. Not cool.

Melody Plastow just heard about the earthquake! Is everyone OK??

Jonathan Kiser So, what's all this talk about an earthquake?

Kevin Shin that earthquake was fun.

Lorraine Rowan enjoyed the earthquake today!

Alejandra Campoy is cleaning up all the earthquake messes... And likes reading all the statuses about earthquakes too. Haha.

Piera Alvarez JUST FELT A STRONG EARTHQUAKE! RUNNNN!!!

Tom Blanchard is picking up all the pictures that fell during the quake.

Brendan Hurt The quake f*cked up my omelette.

Loren Edwards is enjoying her Earthquake Day, So Cal's version of a Snow Day, and not having to go back to work.

No expensive airplane fare, or alarm clocks! In L.A.: We're sleeping in for a tourist-like summer.

Instead of steeping yourself deep into your ordinary, air-conditioned dwellings, why not step into a new dimension of Los Angeles reality—pointing your feet into tourist territory?

Poking your head down Ocean Boulevard or Second Street will give you a hint: Tourists are already here and will take over.

“It’s a party. Let’s join them!” shouts your traveling heart.

Strap on your walking shoes, smooth a creamy one of those SPF 30 potions and equip your abdomen (fanny pack, anyone?) with a comfy kind of collection of cameras, notebooks and maps.
Transforming yourself into a tourist to your own city may be just the right kind of adventure amid the bitterness of a headline-popular, ruffled economy, anyway.

High ticket prices in consequence to higher fuel prices? Charging an additional $25 or $50 for an extra checked bag? Having to pass through suspicious eyes at the metal detectors, and barefooted? Coping with daylong delays? And then encountering a rotten news that there will be no more complimentary meals on board?

Skip it!

Apparently, airlines are facing financial hardships like many others, but they still expect us to sign up for a reward-racking credit card issued on their credit? No logic there. What’s a more sound logic: avoid the airports and stay local.

Ouf.


IT'S NOT UP THERE. There's more summer magic when you stay grounded at home. Photo by Barbara Navarro.

How to be a tourist in your own city…

1. Get Lost

Without losing sense of where you are, you may never truly achieve the complete tourist experience. Get in your car and make turns onto streets you’ve never used before. Explore a new path. Keep going until you find some place completely unfamiliar, but appealing, like an indie theatre or breathtaking coastline, and take pictures of the new things you observe.

When stopping for a rest, be sure to ask somebody for details of where you are. (You can start a conversation with a mysterious stranger at a coffee shop to serve this purpose, even.) For fun, change your name, for example, from Jack to Giacomo.

2. Timing is Everything

Slip into a new time zone (think seeing the sights of Long Beach’s famous art deco buildings), or halt time altogether (think spending a day in a coffeehouse reading your favorite books).

Whatever you do, don’t let too much time go to waste, but instead opt to take public transportation that’ll allow for a tourist favorite downtime activity: people-watching.

3. Go Out and Play

By 7 p.m., you’ve watched the sunset from a spot on Mulholland Drive. By 8 p.m., you’ve had dinner at one of Lindsay Lohan’s ex-boyfriend’s restaurants (Pink Taco) in Century City. By 9 p.m., you’ve caught Will Farrell exiting from his Hollywood premiere somewhere in Westwood. What else can you do? Become your own star. Dress to the nines and join tanned Euro swanksters in line at ‘it’ clubs dotting Hyperion Boulevard in Silverlake.

It’s summer. It’s hot. It’s time to sleep, eat, dream and disappear. Become your own person, or become someone new. You’re in Los Angeles, so there is a lot of legroom to leap out into “the unknown.”

Yard sales, bargain binges for the young and posh! From glossy Paris to our trimmed lawns.

The phenomenon of the yard sale—also known as a “garage sale” or “rummage sale" or, its modified version, a "sidewalk sale"—first emerged in our neighborhoods. And now, the kiddies of yesteryear are hosting their own yard sales. And these are, to be clear and precise, rather exclusive yard sales easily described as over-the-top.

Culture icon to the young and juicy fashion and music scene of Los Angeles, the sleepy-faced blog star, Cory Kennedy, has nearly single-handily lured the appeal of yard sales back into the mainstream.

A magazine camera crew followed her to Paris last month, in fact, to document bubbly guests with French accents musing over Kennedy’s out-of-date, nearly-new designer dresses and imported robot toys.

“It’s so Hollywood,” gushes one glowing shopper in the video.

Another young girl is shown holding tight onto a nondescript beanie cap, and then, with a cool expression, announces its price of 300 Euro.

The setting adds a twinkle to the scene. It seems perfect for high-dollar spending sprees, even if the goods are second-hand and are sold in what seems to be the bosom of a huge, Parisian tree. The surroundings, however, are picturesque panoramas of tall, cream-colored buildings with teeny, trademark-European windows.

It’s a sunny day at Kennedy’s Paris yard sale. Customers are lined up, and the cashier, Kennedy’s photographer boyfriend, The Cobrasnake, is happily flaunting to the camera the colorful bouquet of Euro bills he’s collecting from the shopping fans. The yard sale, he says, will be coming to a city near you.



So, are these kinds of soirees or, uh, yard sales really yard sales?

There are plenty of twists and fun elements borrowed from an otherwise swanky lifestyle, that it’s only a matter of computable time before these newly defined, new age yard things get christened with a modern, catchy term. But, for now, they are yard sales.

And the idea is smart, and it’s practical in an economy where consumers are “unsettled by continuing recession fears,” explains New York Times fashion writer Ruth La Ferla in a current report about high-end shoppers seeking spending relief at consignment shops.

The situation is unique.

Whereas our parents would prepare the details of their Saturday morning bargain retailing with posters, telling all their friends and neighbors, and then negotiating good deals, the evolution of yard sales dictate that all you need are really nice, expensive things to sell. And some sweet lemonade for the guests!

That’s exactly what art group ISM Community advertised in their sleek ads leading up to their Saturday evening “Garage Sale,” adding some color to the occasion.

“We will be serving lemonade and beer. Bring your iPod and share some songs,” said the signs. Other details suggested the goal of the night was a “fundraising effort to support future community projects.”

Lined up against the gallery walls inside Koos Art Center in the Downtown arts district, where gallery space is shared with the ISM Community, art pieces ranged in size, pizzazz and price—the most expensive item going for $5,000.

“I just wanted to do something different for the art scene,” said Kevin Staniec, founder and executive creative director of ISM.

I say, the new age of poshy yard sales has arrived to Long Beach!

Welcome to The 'It' Bit: What's in an 'It'?

‘It’ things reflect trends, and trends are blooming at all times.

Trends can be tasty. Trends can lead to disaster. Trends can be anything they want, but with a strong evident muscle of interest at work. To becoming a trend, that’s the key—people setting the patterns, setting waves of ups and downs, with hues of brightness and shadows. Trends run and they fall. They’re soothing. They make a mess. They happen. And some are fascinating to follow, right until you are a part of the flow and can’t stop.

Trend xyz wasn’t here yesterday. But trend xyz is here today.

Be careful… A trend can also be about having no interest at all.

My goal with The It Bit is to capture some of these trends happening in our world, whether they’re very local, or simply something that’s lightly tapping on our shell asking for permission of entry. I’ll introduce the trends here and probe them, asking others to probe along with me. I’ll try to answer the important question of So what?

My name is Barbara Navarro, a journalism student and assistant to the features desk at the Daily Forty-Niner (or the Summer Forty-Niner for now), the campus daily at the sunny California State University, Long Beach. We’re "The Beach" year round, looped, precisely, into a thriving port environment and attractive L.A. vivacity all at once. On campus, the scene is healthy with variety of studies and cultures.

There is much to examine. So, let’s get to it!

Welcome to The It Bit!

—Barbara Navarro
Assistant Features Editor, Daily Forty-Niner