This is also something rat owners joke about a lot, but I must say I sure prefer the faint clinking sound of the drinking bottle than my rats starting to passionately redecorate (read: destroy) their cute little cardboard box houses at 6am.
I'm sorry
And to conclude this mini-series of rat memes of course we must end it with something addressing the current world situation. Stay safe everyone!
Since seeing various meme posts from my marvellous classmates I also wanted to make one. And what could I make it about other than rats.
True story, actually works.
All rat owners will know what this is about. Cleaning and decorating their cage is all fun and games until you put the ratties back in and they start to redecorate, because you clearly have no idea what you're doing.
This has happened to me too many times. It's an interesting experience to wake up in the middle of the night with a rat on your face. They are very intelligent little creatures and can learn to open their cage doors among other things, so you gotta be careful or they'll outsmart you...
And since this is also me, there'll most likely be a part 2 in the near future. Stay tuned for more rat. đ
Since following the story of Seraphine (that I talk about in this post) I had an interesting revelation: virtual inluencers are a thing. Of course I already knew Seraphine is not the only one of her kind, but what I wasn't aware of is that there are so many of these non-human influencers with insane amounts of followers on their social media accounts. Inspired by this I actually made a short presentation about virtual influencers for Finnish communication class, so I thought I might say a word or two about them here in this blog as well.
So we can agree that an influencer is someone whose opinion is valued by a group of other people, and this is where influencer marketing draws its power from. Usually when we follow someone on social media we get a peek into their life and might even converse with them in the comment section or through direct messages. This creates a feeling of knowing them on some level, so it's very easy to trust their opinion as if it were a friend's. When an influencer tries a product and then shares their experience with us, it feels way more genuine than watching an advertisement. Even if they only picked up the product because they're being paid for testing it.
What on Earth are virtual influencers then? Simply put they're digital characters that are created and managed by brands and individuals. Many of them are CGI-created and closely resemble real humans (sometimes so much that it gives you the creeps), but that's not always the case as some of them are also very cartoon-like. As regular influencers, apart from working with different brands they make posts about their everyday life: they have their own drama and some of them are also vloggers or even artists on the side.
One of the most famous virtual influencers right now is Lil Miquela (pictured above). She started on Instagram in 2016 and back then no one really knew who had created her and why. Now it's public knowledge that her creator is Brud, a startup company based in Los Angeles. Brud's website is hilarious by the way, it's just a short and simple Google Docs document. Here's a video about them and their virtual influencers (yeah, Miquela's not the only one):
The video's from 2019 but the information still holds true for the most part.
Miquela has worked with various big-name brands such as Moschino, Prada, Calvin Klein and Samsung. Currently she has 2.8 million followers on Instagram and 560,307 monthly listeners on Spotify. (Yes, she also makes music!) On her Youtube channel she's got 248K subscribers and there you can find her music videos, vlogs and even some interviews. To top it off she's also on Twitter, TikTok and Facebook as well. Talk about social media savvy.
Another virtual influencer I find quite interesting is Imma, who was created by the Japanese company Aww Inc.
According to Yumi An Anzai, a director at Aww, Imma was originally intended as an art project rather than a marketing tool. She just happened to attract a lot of attention and the market followed. I personally think she looks eerily real. Just look at this video of her "living" in Ikea Harajuku.
Even though virtual influencers are occasionally referred to as "AI influencers" and for example Miquela defines herself as a "robot", the fact is that there's no AI or robotics involved in their creation.. Yet. There are studios that have claimed to be working on it, so perhaps in the future these influencers will be even more human-like and require no help from real humans to produce their content. Time will tell.
I am one of those people who can immediately tell when a blood vessel breaks in their eye. To me this happens when I spend a lot of time staring at screens and frankly, it feels quite disgusting. Like someone poking a needle in my eye. Since starting my current studies I’ve also had a twitch in my right eye at least once a week. That’s also rather uncomfortable. I know both of these things can be signs of stress, dry eyes and not taking enough breaks. Nowadays we spend a lot of time sitting in front of a screen, be it a computer, tablet or a phone. The current world situation has normalised working and studying online and many of us also rely on different kind of screens during our free time. Various pastimes that were paper-based in the past are digital now (ebooks, games etc).
So please, dear reader, take this opportunity to stand up, shift your gaze away from the screen and relax your eyes by looking into the distance. It’s also a good idea to blink (might seem obvious but we actually forget to blink enough when staring at a screen for a long time). While you’re at it go ahead and stretch those shoulders a bit. You could even do a jumping jack or two. If you're a coffee kinda person, pour yourself a cup of that hot elixir of life. Tea also works, or just plain old water. Take a moment for yourself. You know you deserve it.
Impostor syndrome is not really a mental condition despite its name. Psychologists would rather call it the impostor phenomenon and it is defined as the constant gnawing feeling that your success is due to luck, not because of your hard work, talent or qualifications. On top of that you're also worried that other people (for example your workmates) will find out you're a fraud and actually not as capable as they thought you were. It can be a real problem in working life and it seems to affect all kinds of people from diverse backgrounds, no matter their age, gender or occupation. About 70% of people experience these feelings at some point in their lives according to a review article published in the International Journal of Behavioral Science.
Mike Cannon-Brookes is a 40-year old billionaire and the co-founder and co-CEO of Atlassian, an Australian company that develops products for software developers and project managers. Their products include for example Jira and Trello. If you check his biography on the official blog of Atlassian, it says he "was a driving force behind Australia getting the world's biggest lithium ion battery". While this might indeed be true, he has a very interesting story behind it, as you can see if you watch his Ted Talk on How you can use impostor syndrome to your benefit. The video is almost 14 minutes long but if you suffer from said syndrome and have a bit of time to spare, I'd definitely recommend watching it.
When talking about creative work I feel it complicates the concept even more. Art is something very subjective, what is "ugly" for one is "beautiful" for someone else. In one of their recent articles Yle interviewed six Finnish professionals about their experiences with impostor syndrome regarding their work. Actress Krista Kosonen confessed that, despite having confidence in her professional skills, every time she starts a new job she experiences feelings of insecurity. She says that acting is difficult as hell and she never gets how to do it well the first time. With every new role she has to start from zero again. If you think about it being an actor is, in fact, being an impostor of sorts.
Blogger Jenni Rotonen with her blog Pupulandia is not the only one who doubts her skills once in a while. Being a blogger is something that many people still don't consider a "real job". Rotonen says part of the reason might be because there's no official education on how to build a business around your social media channels. She states that it's very common for people to think that someone without an official title cannot be as capable as someone who has completed studies on the matter (whatever it happens to be). The truth is knowledge and professional skills can be acquired through other ways than higher education as well.
The key for someone who struggles with impostor syndrome could be accepting it in the first place and questioning one's own thoughts. Perttu Pölönen, who is a professional speaker among other things, tells Yle the biggest help for him has been trying to turn the impostor thoughts into a source of inspiration and empowerment. He says instead of comparing yourself to others you should focus on looking up to the people who you think are better than you. When you look up to someone, you want to be like them and they inspire you to reach your goals. Surely this is a better point of view than seeing everyone else as competition and getting discouraged because you feel you're not at their level.
I guess in the end no one really knows what they're doing all the time, however professional they might be. And that's the beauty of it really. What would life be without a little challenge and surprise?
The one thing that bothers me most is that RATS ALWAYS SQUEAK IN MOVIES. Whenever a rat is on screen, it makes a squeaking sound or even shrieks. In reality they do make these sounds, but only in certain contexts: when they're nervous, scared, in pain or in distress. So these sound effects are something that's added to the film afterwards (I hope) to draw the audience's attention to the rats. As a side note, it is true that we must also take into account that rats are very intelligent animals and know that playing drama queen or king can sometimes work in their favour. For example during their free roaming time one of my rats might squirm its way into my wardrobe and squeak in protest when I take her out. But the point is that for me it's very weird to see rats just walking around squeaking or practically having a conversation using these sounds.
The other thing is that rats are very social animals and always live in packs. If you want to get a rat as a pet you must always get at least two, though many would argue that it takes three to make a pack. Or should we say a mischief, as a group of rats would correctly be called. This means a lone rat will live a very depressing life, as we humans can never substitute the company of other rats. (I must mention there are also rare cases of rats that are aggressive with any other rats, but that is a whole another story.) Even if we're talking about something purely fictional, I hate to see pet rats kept alone. This gives us the wrong idea about how to properly care for rats, as movies might even inspire some people to get a pet rat of their own.
Disclaimers!
There might be spoilers in this post.
I don’t remember seeing any of these movies except Ratatouille. I chose the clips based on what I could find on Youtube with the search words “rat movie scene”, because I knew most of them would prove my point true. I’m stating this because sometimes context matters (e.g. Harry Potter, where in fact the rat is not a rat).
Also, there are TONS of movies where rats are used as a horror element or to torture someone (Game of Thrones, anyone?). I’m not going to talk about this kind of movie scenes for two reasons: I don’t really enjoy horror movies (nor violence), and on the other hand I can’t seem to take them seriously if they include rats. I feel like I somehow know too much and don’t really experience the same immersion. For example there was this one movie clip from Deathwatch that I watched on Youtube. The clip is about a soldier who is eaten alive by rats, you can watch it here if you're curious (you’ve been warned, it is kinda gory). When I saw the rats I just started analysing the colour of their coats and thinking about what they were actually fed while filming, and the supposedly gruesome scene just seemed fake to me. I’m usually very sensitive when it comes to violence and the actors certainly do a great job portraying the horrors of the war, but he cute rats kind of help me remember this is still a work of fiction.
Bad examples
Okay, now on to some examples. Let's start with one that has it all...
Home Alone 3 (1997)
A lone pet rat? Check. Rat squeaking while not being harmed in any way? Check.
At 1:08 when the camera focuses on the rats we suddenly start hearing a lot of squeaking. Of course.
iZombie season 1 episode 8 (2015)
At 1:27 they look for the rat and conveniently it starts squeaking while it's.. washing itself? I mean it must be awful to be covered in all that fake blood but I don't think she would mind that much. The protagonist picks the rat up from the floor and the poor creature just seems to keep squeaking like if it was in a lot of pain.
Bad Boys II (2003)
Here we go with the squeaking again. When the guy actually shoots at the rats, the squeaking stops. Uhh, okay, makes all the sense in the world...
Good examples
I'm sure you get the point with the bad examples, so let's go for some that are actually pretty decent.
Vacation (2015)
A lone rat? That's okay, he's not a pet and probably just wandered off on his own! Squeaking when he falls off the guy's shoulder? Makes sense! His nail seems to get stuck on his collar and a rat would certainly feel pain in that situation. Though of course I wish the rat was not actually harmed during filming. (Also gotta love how the guy proclaims he doesn't know the rat before storming off, haha.)
Avengers: Endgame (2019)
No squeaking? Just a rat minding its own business? Brilliant! Though I must mention you can hear something while the rat's walking on the buttons... But to me those sounds seem to be coming from the environment rather than the rat.
Ratatouille (2007)
How could I not mention Ratatouille? Perhaps we can't focus so much on realism when talking about an animated comedy film (with talking and cooking rats instead of squeaking ones), but at least they beautifully highlight the importance of the pack.
This time the pictures are mine, what better to illustrate this post than actual pet rats! ♥
