The theme of technology consisting of a series of processes has come up with great frequency in the latter weeks. As Ian Bogost suggested that video games teach by process, technology is innately bound by process. Binary, the language of computers, is a process. 0’s and 1’s; on and off, it’s all a series of code, and the code is a process. In Nathan Brown’s The Function of Digital Poetry at the Present Time, he writes of how a poem in a book is like an event, that is it was printed on page once and will stay there for as long as the physical paper can stand to exist. When a poem is conjured online, however, its presentation is a process. A physical location in which the poem exists hardly exists at all. If a server is looked at from a distance, or from close up, no evidence is present that it could contain a poem. Upon looking at a hard drive’s disc, the case is similar, no poems visible.

It would be more accurate to call a digital text a process rather than an object.

The implications of this can be seen more clearly from Jonathan Jones’s The Body in Electronic Literature. Here, Jones draws an example of a virtual tour of a library. Here, text must meet image, and image must meet process. The three must exist in harmony should the experience to be immersive, which is after all its original intent. The three seldom do exist in harmony, however, which leads to a noticeable disconnect. On one hand I am sitting at a desk looking at a smattering of pixels, which seem to represent a library, yet I certainly do not feel that I am physically there. There are technological barriers that are preventing me from truly experiencing this library. Poorly placed links and perhaps a lacking interface for navigation could lead to a “disembodied state of being.” The tour will yield some benefit, as images and text cannot convey absolutely nothing, yet the experience was not completely enjoyable. This is just one example of a poorly executed virtual tour. Here is where art comes in. Making an online experience smooth and effortless is certainly an art form and one that is taken quite seriously. A computer programmer may know how to write code like he does his native language, yet his knowledge of computers far exceeds that of the average Internet user. The challenge lies in the programmer being able to see the world from a common civilian’s viewpoint, that is one of slight ignorance. Having a link in the middle of a line of text may not be troublesome to a computer veteran, but to some it removes their mind from the experience. Making these links incorporated seamlessly is a challenge to say the least.

Jones’s incorporation of My Body–a Wunderkammer shows the embodiment of online frustration. By clicking on individual parts of an illustrated body, the reader is taken to new pages, which describe further that body part and various other textual elements. The viewer cannot truly experience the whole body, however, a feature that is representative of digital processes, cool but incomplete in scope. The reader feels a sense of frustration for not being able to experience the whole thing at once. Take the ever-popular Kindle. This e-reader displays text much like paper and can only be read by available light around you. While I find kindles to be almost a perfect invention, as one can store thousands of books on the go, all weighing less than a notebook, there is one issue I find frustrating. Simply put, one cannot flip through the pages of a book or jump around very easily, let alone feel the physical weight of hundreds of pages stacked upon one another. Here, the old debate of the benefits of technology versus their pitfalls comes up again. On one hand, it is great to take as many books as you will ever need on the go, in something that can fit in any backpack or briefcase. On the other hand, we are limited to only seeing one page of text at a time, and lack the ability to feel a personal connection with the physical pages themselves.

To sum up endless years of debate, one could say, ‘Technology: can’t live with it, can’t live without it.’ Technology is not perfect. But technology can help us reach new heights and open doors never believed to be possible. Human beings are not perfect, we have flaws and drawbacks that make us who we are. So does technology. It is not perfect and will probably never be and that will just have to be acceptable for the time being.

Ian Bogost, a Video Game Connoisseur

Ian Bogost, a videogame designer and academic on the subject, is an eminent presence in the study of video games. As an infant medium, video games are yet to be heavily pondered or critiqued. While many jump to the conclusion that video games are reserved for the lazy and young, Bogost argues differently. In a 2007 interview, Bogost clarifies some skepticism I had after reading his paper The Rhetoric of Video Games. Bogost is not claiming that all video games are in some way trying to persuade their audience into thinking a certain way. Instead, Bogost wishes to only focus on a niche genre of games, those that are informative and instructive in some way of the world around us. While Halo or Gears of War may have been created purely for entertainment value, games do exist which hope to instruct their players into thinking a certain way.

My original thought while reading The Rhetoric of Video Games was along the lines of why should I care about The McDonalds Videogame or Take Back Illinois? To be perfectly honest, not many know or care about such games and they could be seen as almost not worth mentioning. Yet Bogost’s argument deserves a good deal of respect, and indeed such games deserve an equal amount. The simple truth is that video games can perhaps be broken down into two categories: those that entertain and those that carry social meaning. Just like any other medium, like film, not all artifacts exist for one purpose, but instead can exist for many. Both An Inconvenient Truth and Jackass exist under the genre of film, yet their intents are completely different. Similar is the case with video games.

…Video games can make claims about the world. But when they do so, they do it not with oral speech, nor in writing, nor even with images. Rather, video games make an argument with processes.

Video Games can be boiled down a series of decisions and actions made by a player. These actions can range from a deadly headshot of an enemy to whether or not to genetically modify your virtual cows. Either way, these actions are reflections of both who we are and what exactly the developers intended. An example given by Bogost in his aforementioned interview of the merger between informative gaming and entertainment-driven gaming is Grand Theft Auto by Rockstar. Playing a character in an impoverished part of town, the only choice for food is fast food, which can lead to your character’s decline into obesity. This inclusion of lack of culinary choices in Grand Theft Auto is, in Bogost’s eyes, a statement about the obesity and food crisis in America today. Whether or not this aspect of the game was deliberately included by Rockstar’s developers is debatable, as it could be seen as merely a realistic touch coded into the experience. Should it be taken as a social commentary, Rockstar’s developers would be perceived as attempting to persuade their players into thinking a certain way about fast food and its various associated dangers.

Bogost asks us to look at video games not as a lazy child’s hobby, but instead as a medium like any other. Such mediums have the power to change people’s minds, and so do video games. Will games like Take Back Illinois ever be seen flying off of GameStop shelves worldwide? Probably not. But this is not necessarily Bogost’s end goal. Bogost simply wishes to transcend the stigma attached to video games and have them viewed by future generations as an experience even more powerful than film or the written word, one that is interactive. While an orator can elaborate on an issue for hours trying to persuade your mind, no choices are being made by the recipient of the words that will affect future outcomes. In a video game, however, your choices echo and influence one another down the road. Video games allow for us to see a realistic view of what could happen or go wrong in any given situation. In Animal Crossing, for example, your character could plummet into debt and no one is at fault but you. Such experiences allow us to feel the consequences of such actions more so than other mediums.

To further distill Bogost’s ideology, actions speak louder than words. Video games allow for us to experience action, a concept far more potent than letters on a page. A player that genuinely feels his virtual character climb into debt, for example, is far more persuasive than a paper outlining why debt sucks. It is for this reason that video games are a valid form of rhetoric.

Technology is commonly met with angst and skepticism, and perhaps for good reason. Plato was extremely wary of the technology of the written word, claiming it would be the kiss of death for the human memory. Martin Heidegger believed that technology limits our worldview to only what the earth can be used for to benefit ourselves. Now, many doubt the viability of computers as tools for writing and the creative process. While the argument of whether or not technology is ultimately beneficial will rage forever, it cannot be debated that it will keep moving forward at a rapid pace.

Personally, I prefer something like note taking to be done by hand. Studies have shown that handwriting notes aids in retention of the material down the road. Our brains are wired to know the motions required to write the letter “C,” for example, and the very motion signals our brains to comprehend all that the letter “C” represents. Hitting the key on a keyboard between “X” and “V” doesn’t seem to have the same mental impact as handwriting, but perhaps this is a generational issue. My peers and I were raised in a transition period; born alongside the digital revolution. We were raised leaning both old world writing techniques as well as their digital counterparts simultaneously. Perhaps my brain comprehends the handwritten letter “C” better than a keystroke because that is what I was taught from the beginning. Drawing a specifically shaped semi-circle on a page seems natural and it ignites an idea in my brain, however minute. But maybe someday people will be raised only on keyboards and then the act of moving one’s index finger to the bottom row of a keyboard and striking “C” will ignite the same idea in their brains as mine when I write the same letter by hand. In other words, typing could someday phase out handwriting and become the dominant vehicle by which we express our thoughts.

Then there’s the issue of where we write. Would Walden be what it is if it were written in a coffee shop on an iPad? Probably not and there, case in point, is why location matters. Imagine Thoreau sitting on a Herman Miller office chair with his Starbucks latté typing away on a MacBook in a florescent-lit library. I hardly think that ideas would be flowing out of his mind. While libraries may be conducive to scholarly work, they are hardly appropriate for many other forms of writing. The simple issue is that we feel a different sense of identity depending on where we are physically.

Finally, sensory deprivation tanks. Here, comedian Joe Rogan discusses his experiences in a tank that deprives you of every sense.

You become gone, you disappear.

My point here is that when we are devoid of our senses, we “disappear.” This proves the point that what we see, hear and feel greatly influences how we think. While this is clearly obvious, it stresses the fact that our environment greatly changes our thought process and therefore will alter our ability to write in a certain way. Just as the white female would feel out of place at a rowdy bowling alley, a writer can feel equally alienated should he not be in an appropriate setting.

Writing is a gentle process and one that is not resilient to our outside world. What we write with and where we are writing have the massive potential to change the words we write.

So as it turns out, the art of graphing data goes deeper than many imagine. While the word “graph” may conjure images of bars of data for a middle school science experiment, their potency goes beyond proving that, say, atmospheric pressure affects boiling points of water. A graph tells a story and it is up to the designer of said graph to tell that story in such a manner than can persuade its recipient to believe in something.

To say the least, a simple pie chart is often not enough. Maybe that pie chart has too many elements for one circle. Or maybe the data becomes muddled and unclear. So maybe you try a bar graph only to find that it is equally confusing and banal. In the case of Ed, the intrepid “grapher” in question, a line graph proved to be the most efficient at conveying the message he wanted to get across. But just plugging numbers into Excel and having a line graph come out does not guarantee maximum efficiency and persuasiveness. So Ed must tinker with color, thickness of lines and where labels will go. Should there be a legend? Or should each line be labeled individually?

You might be wondering why any of this matters. Take a courtroom for example where an attorney’s job is to persuade the jury to think like he wants them to. Telling a story and appealing to the jury’s pathos is a good move, but pathos alone won’t win trials or even have them take place at all. Evidence must be introduced so that the ruling will have a factual basis. Graphs can play a role in determining innocence or lack thereof and can appeal to the jury’s logos and ethos. Logos is appealed to by the data. Numbers are facts and presenting them in a clean and easy to understand graph can mean all the difference. Should the jury find a graph confusing and not informative, it may as well have not been introduced at all. Ethos is appealed to here because a jury will be impressed and more likely to respect an attorney that has prepared such well-made graphs for a trial.

An online legal dictionary describes graphs and their role in demonstrative evidence in the courtroom as follows:

Graphs and charts are perhaps the most useful forms of demonstrative evidence. These tools can vividly illustrate a loss of earnings, a decrease in life expectancy, and past and future medical bills. Clear and concise charts can help a jury to arrange a complex set of events in a chronological fashion… Graphs and charts can be presented to a jury in a variety of ways. In addition to offering the standard large prepared poster board on an easel, some attorneys prefer to create charts as they speak to the jury, using large blank pieces of poster board and colored marker pens. Other attorneys like the dramatic effect of dimming the courtroom lights and using an overhead projector or computer screen to focus visual attention on their illuminated charts and graphs.

Charles Kostelnick is a professor of English at Iowa State University. He specializes in the area of visual rhetoric and communications. In his paper The Visual Rhetoric of Data Displays: The Conundrum of Clarity discusses in depth the connection between data displays and rhetoric.

It would almost seem a stretch to connect rhetoric with data graphs and displays, yet the two share a number of common elements. Like persuasive oration, a data display must in some way convince its audience of thinking a certain way. A graph cannot be a smattered mess of bars, crooked lines and circles, it must be organized and digestible, not unlike an orator choosing and organizing his words with great care. Similarly, if an orator comes off as dull and uninteresting, the audience will lose interest and any possibility of persuasion will be gone. With graphs, if not presented in an appealing fashion, the reader could simply overlook it and disregard its information. Finally, like we learn in science classes in school, the data on a graph must be displayed accurately, yet in such proportions to itself that the data stands out and one point does not get confused as another. An orator, too, must be objective and honest about his knowledge, yet be sure to emphasize certain points to more effectively get his point across.

The process by which we as humans understand and interpret data displays and oration differ. Like Kostelnick suggests, we understand data displays only because we have been taught how to read them, or by nurture. We understand oration, however, from the point in which we understand words, or by nature. Data displays are not built into us intrinsically, so we must learn how to interpret bars and numbers and points on a plane. While words are taught by nurture, to persuade an individual with them, however, is as much part of us as our own bodies.

Electronic text analysis goes beyond how many times a word occurs in a given corpus. While this information is useful in its own way, its implications are somewhat limited. Exactly how much the frequency of a given word tells us is significant yet narrow. When important parameters like context are taken into account, what a word frequency means changes. The frequency of the word “men,” in a given corpus may indicate how prevalent the topic of men is but beyond that the data reveals little. When the context is accounted for, one can see in what light men are portrayed in the given corpus.

Going beyond word frequency yet, an entire phrase can be examined in a similar fashion. Adolphs uses the example of the phrase, “a bit of a…” which as it turns out occurs quite frequently in the English language. Adolphs points out that when analyzed, the phrase “a bit of a…” is often used in correlation with something negative. As Adolphs puts it, the phrase carries a “negative semantic prosody.” By searching an entire phrase, one can see if that phrase is used in conjunction with positive or negative surroundings.

In yet another application of word frequencies, the practice can be applied to creative works not to necessarily collect data but instead to learn more about the portrayal of a given character. Searching for “Anna” in Anna Karenina, for example, brings forth a list of contexts in which the name Anna was used. From this, one can determine how the author surrounded her name in the novel and more importantly how the character is seen by the reader. In addition to searching for just a name, one can substitute a personal pronoun such as “she” in this case.

In addition to the previous application in the creative field, one can search a corpus or even a single novel to reveal whether or not a narrator is being used, or from which point of view this corpus or novel tends to be in. All of these uses of word frequency go beyond the rather trivial knowledge of how often a word occurs in a given corpus. That knowledge is limited, but given the words context one can see just how that word is being used and what larger implications are at play.

The written word is something most consider to be an art of some type. We spend innumerable hours dissecting writing, looking for invisible subtext and personal meaning behind the words. We write with little care of frequency of word use and its implications, instead with a flow ignorant of numeric values.

Then electronic text analysis exists in accordance with writing as a compound blend between art and science. This is by no means a bad thing, however, as text analysis sheds light on whatever patterns or codes the analyzer might be looking for. Adolphs stresses the importance of selecting a corpus to be examined. This makes sense of whatever one might be looking to find in textual analysis by limiting its field of view. By looking at religious texts, for example, one can analyze how frequent the word “divine” might surface and draw conclusions based on that knowledge, especially when compared with other selected words.

In 2011, a study was done on divorce causation in the UK, citing certain words as key players in such actions. The most prominent of which was found to be “Facebook,” popping up in one third of behavior petitions in divorce cases. What was revealed by this study was the finding that Facebook carries great weight as not only a relationship starter, but an ender as well.

This study also proves the point that word frequency in a corpus can hint at certain correlations. The word “the,” for example, usually comes up as the most frequently used word when filtered through electronic text analysis. Yet “the” alone holds no meaning and few conclusions can be drawn from that data. The frequency of “Facebook,” on the other hand, when paired with its origins in divorce filings, can point to the fact that certain words do hold meaning when their occurrence is frequent in a given corpus. Facebook does hold the position of a major player in divorces, it was found, due to the easy nature of being able to communicate with those outside of a relationship. This fact, paired with the lack of privacy and security on Facebook make it a force against faithful marriage.

WordMining, a form of frequency in text analysis, is a popular form of visually outlining which words are used most in a given work. Here is an example found of Thomas Paine’s Common Sense.

Richard Lantham, Professor Emeritus at the University of California, Los Angeles, is an academic on the subject of prose and in this case, economics in chapter 1 of his book The Economics of Attention. Lantham discusses first how physicality means little in modern society. So many things are available to us at our fingertips that physical objects and locations have degraded in value.

Surgeons can cut you open from a thousand miles away. Facsimile Las Vegas casinos deliver Rome and New York on the same daily walk. You don’t have to go to the office to go to the office. You can shop in your kitchen and go to school in your living room. And, sadly enough, when you actually do go out shopping, one mall seems much like another. For what actually matters, physicality doesn’t matter anymore.

He continues to ponder how things that are physical in our lives are not precious or ever meant to mean anything to us on a personal level. He uses the example of the now disposable nature of cars. “Real men engineer brands not engines. And you don’t buy a car anymore — you lease it like a piece of software that wears out its welcome in three years.”

Lantham’s words on attention and its place in society can be found in the text, as well as in an interview he did for the University of Chicago Press in which he discusses attention as a resource.“The scare resource is the human attention needed to make sense of the enormous flow of information, to learn, as it were, how to drink out of the firehose.”

Like Lantham, many other contemporary philosophers/authors have written on the subject of attention in today’s world. David Foster Wallace, author of Infinite Jest also considered the subject and discussed it at the 2m10s mark in this 2003 interview.

httpv://youtu.be/39UJuPogwiY?t=2m10s

Wallace alludes to the fact that there is little time or place for silence in America today and connects this with the fact that many people today simply do not enjoy reading. He likely believes the reason for this lies in the contemporary notion that our attentions should not be directed at one thing ever, let alone for several hours, a state that reading often requires.

Lantham connects the economics of attention with rhetoric. He states, “…it proves useful to think of rhetoric… as a new economics.” He continues to discuss the art of persuasion and in plainer terms, arguing with someone.

…You had to arrange [your arguments] in a convincing order. You first stated the question to be resolved, and then presented your arguments, the story you asked your audience to believe. Then you tried to refute the other side’s story and then you presented a summary that you hoped would stick in your audience’s mind.

Like Aristotle, Plato and Cicero, Lantham provides us with instructions on the art of rhetoric and persuasion. The previous passage outlines in what order one must present their claims with. Only if such an order is followed will your rhetoric be successful.

Quintilian was a Hispania- (Spain) born rhetorician that lived during the Roman Empire. His “Institutes of Oratory” is a celebrated work focused on the art of oration. Quintilian’s writing is perhaps more philosophical than most and focuses on the character of the speaker.

For it would have been better for us to have been born dumb and to have been left destitute of reasoning powers than to have received endowments from providence only to turn them to the destruction of one another.

Quintilian’s intentions here were to stress the concept that an orator must be a good person above all. The art of oratory, Quintilian believed, is potent and must be used for virtue over vice.

…the orator must not only instruct his audience, but must move and delight them… the difference between the orator and the dialectician is as great as that in the courses of rivers of an opposite character, for the force of streams that flow between high banks, and with a full flood, is far greater than that of shallow brooks with water struggling against the obstructions of pebbles.

Quintilian, like both Aristotle and Plato, made distinctions between oratory and dialectics, with the summation being that an orator must involve some level of emotion and personal interest to aid in the persuasion of his audience.

Like Quintilian, Cicero was of the Roman Empire and wrote on the similar subject of rhetoric and oratory. Known as having a massive influence on European language, Cicero’s knowledge and style can still be felt today. What I found compelling about Book 1 of “De Oratore” is the attention placed on the fact that orators simply must know what they are talking about in order to be effective.

It would have been nearer truth to say, that no man can be eloquent on a subject that he doers not understand; and that, if he understands a subject ever so well, but is ignorant how to form and polish his speech, he cannot express himself eloquently even about what he does understand.

Cicero elaborates on the need for emotion and an appeal to the audience by stating that the orator’s base of knowledge must be vast and extensive should he wish to be successful in oratory. To put it simply, an orator must know how to connect with an audience while having the intelligence and knowledge to back up his style.

In Cicero’s oration against Lucius Catilina, Cicero employs several of his know tactics of oration to make his points clear. Catilina, a Roman politician attempted to overthrow the Roman Republic. Reacting to this, Cicero examines his character and faults.

What? when lately by the death of your former wife you had made your house empty and ready for a new bridal, did you not even add another incredible wickedness to this wickedness? But I pass that over, and willingly allow it to be buried in silence… I come to those things which relate not to the infamy of your private vices, not to your domestic difficulties and baseness, but to the welfare of the republic and to the lives and safety of us all.

Here, Cicero establishes himself as a good and moral individual by briefly mentioning, yet bypassing Catiline’s personal life and all vices included. He also displays supreme knowledge of every facet of Catiline’s life, proof that Cicero was indeed a highly educated man. Lastly, Cicero appeals to the emotions of his listeners by displaying a concern for the Republic above all else.

A more contemporary example of supreme oratory can be found in political leaders or from any of those in power. John F. Kennedy’s 1961 inaugurational address was a turning point in American history, as great changes, social, political and otherwise, were about to take place.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PEC1C4p0k3E

In the long history of the world, only a few generations have been granted the role of defending freedom in its hour of maximum danger. I do not shrink from this responsibility — I welcome it. I do not believe that any of us would exchange places with any other people or any other generation. The energy, the faith, the devotion which we bring to this endeavor will light our country and all who serve it — and the glow from that fire can truly light the world.

Rhetoric is defined as, “The art of using language effectively so as to persuade or influence others…” (OED) Aristotle (384 BC – 322 BC), the Greek philosopher’s seminal work on the subject, appropriately titled Rhetoric exists as the standard guidebook for those concerned with the written or spoken word. Aristotle begins by describing the similarities between rhetoric and dialectics, defined as, “The art of critical examination into the truth of an opinion…” (OED) He continues to state similarities between the two arts.

It is clear, then, that rhetoric is not bound up with a single definite class of subjects, but is as universal as dialectic; it is clear, also, that it is useful. It is clear, further, that its function is not simply to succeed in persuading, but rather to discover the means of coming as near such success as the circumstances of each particular case allow.

Yet perhaps the most widely regarded contribution Rhetoric has bestowed on us are Aristotle’s use of Ethos, Pathos and Logos. Here, Aristotle elaborates:

Of the modes of persuasion furnished by the spoken word there are three kinds. The first kind depends on the personal character of the speaker; the second on putting the audience into a certain frame of mind; the third on the proof, or apparent proof, provided by the words of the speech itself. Persuasion is achieved by the speaker’s personal character when the speech is so spoken as to make us think him credible.

These three aspects of persuasion have become commonplace among orators and writers alike since their creation. By breaking down exactly what makes a persuasive speaker, Aristotle was able to put into words a set of criterion for which any speaker/writer should follow.

I find it difficult to argue with Aristotle’s claims made in Rhetoric. The author simply lays out what makes strong persuasion possible and how to avoid fallacy in arguments. In Book II, Aristotle emphasizes the importance of emotion and connecting with one’s audience in rhetoric. I find this to be a self-evident truth and one that will last forever and will always be at the heart of strong speaking and writing. Throughout history, the best speeches, written works and rhetoric in general have made an emotional connection on some level with its audience, as is necessary to evoke a strong response.

Closely linked to this idea is the focus of Plato’s (242 BC – 348 BC) famed Dialogue Phaedrus. While much of the work centers on the idea of love, rhetoric is discussed as well (and is related in its own way.)

Oratory is the art of enchanting the soul, and therefore the orator must learn the differences of human souls by reflection and experience—they are so many and of such a nature, and from them come the differences between man and man.

Like Aristotle’s emphasized importance on emotion, Plato’s idea of oratory being an “enchanting” art give rhetoric and persuasion the credit it deserves. What makes oratory enchanting and what Plato describes in the above quotation is the emotion Aristotle was describing. The connection between speaker and audience through emotion is something enchanting and worthy of consideration.

Considering the fact that both of these texts came several centuries BC, their impact and relevance are still as great as ever. If I had any remarks to make on the works it would be that Aristotle could have better described exactly how rhetoric differs from dialectic. Yet their deep look into what makes someone persuasive and convincing in speech and writing is highly interesting and important to be aware of.

Danah Boyd, an expert on media and communication at Microsoft and NYU published her paper, “A Blogger’s Blog: Exploring the Definition of a Medium” in 2006. In the journal, Boyd discusses the finer points of what exactly a weblog or “blog” is and how the concept is still widely misunderstood and should be defined with more clarity. Boyd compares blogs to not online diaries or journals, but instead more to paper. What she means is that blogs don’t need to be defined by a certain type of “blogger” or any one type of writing. Instead, Boyd makes clear that blogs have many different purposes and don’t even have to be reserved for the written word.

By conceptualizing the blog as a medium instead of a genre, it is possible to see how blogs are more akin to paper than to diaries. It is not the conventions or content types that define blogs, but the framework in which people can express themselves. Using paper, people document their lives. The same is true in blogs. Using paper, people take notes. The same is true in blogs. Paper and blogs are used for everything from creating grocery lists to publishing innovative research, drawing pictures to advertising furniture for sale, tracking personal bills to writing gossip columns. Mediums are flexible, allowing all different sorts of expressions and constantly evolving.