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A discourse community I am A discourse community I am a part of is art. I have been taking art classes since fifth grade. For me, art serves as my “journal”-- something that I used to keep track of my life. I record, every once in a while, how I felt these days, what I went through, how I changed, etc. Sometimes it's a very simple sketch, sometimes it can be a painting that takes a few weeks or months. I especially like acrylic painting and watercolor compared to the other forms of art.

With art, I can make the choices of how complicated I want it to be, how long I want to take, etc. It not only is the way I express myself, but also the way I kill time and calm down. I can’t say that I am a professional artist because art is such a long path, and there’s still so much to learn, but I can illustrate, with art, the ideas I want to tell others, or tell myself. In fact, art is not something only professionals can do. So I believe everyone can be a part of this discourse community so long as they express their artistic side.

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A discourse community that I am a part of is Plato’s Closet. Plato’s Closet is a type of thrift store where customers may bring their used, unwanted clothes to sell in exchange for cash. I started working at Plato’s Closet in my junior year of high school and to this day I am still working for them. I decided to join Plato’s Closet community because I enjoy thrifting and fashion. Once getting into this group, everyone was extremely friendly and welcoming. All the older workers acted as a mother figure to me and helped me navigate all the unique terms and equipment that our workplace uses. Some of the commonly used terms are “Instagram bin,” “buyer,” and “tagger.” The term “Instagram bin” is used when we find an item of clothing or accessory that is currently on-trend or we believe will sell quickly. There are also the terms “buyer” and “tagger.” These two terms describe the person’s task for the shift. For example, if I were a “buyer” that day, I will spend my shift looking through all the used clothes that customers bring in, select items that are believed to sell well in our store, and put them in our system for it to price the item. If I were a “tagger” that day, I would spend my shift putting the printed tags and sensors to the items that were bought by the “buyer.” Although it may be difficult to get into this community, as you have to get interviewed and fulfill the requirements needed to work at Plato’s, once you get hired you will quickly start feeling as if you were one big family.

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A discourse community that I am currently part of is the art studio.  I have been drawing ever since I was a child. I have studied many subjects and learned many skills, but I believe that creating art is a way of my life. Art supports my feelings and helps me understand others by seeing what they have expressed and created. Like many people, my artistic journey began in elementary school. I started along my creative path at the age of seven, when my mother first enrolled me in art classes. These classes taught me how to create values and shading forms in my drawings. After finishing elementary school, my family and I moved from China to the United States, where I continued my artistic enlightenment. I attended classes at the local art studio and created many projects that share my memories, dreams, and thoughts. The greatest joy I derive from making art comes from creating a wonderful world that belongs to myself. At the beginning of this month, I was finishing illustrated a children's book. I joined the group with seven college students from the top art colleges together we developed this project. During the quarantine time, we decided to start it because we all have a lots free times, and the project is about to finish I believe before Oct 15th.

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A discourse community that I am a part of is comic. Since I was 12 years old, I started to reading manga which is a Japanese word which refers to the comics and graphic novels from Japan.

At first, I read the free pirated manga without awareness of copyright and consciousness of intellectual property protection. After I meet some friends in the forum of manga community, they taught me how to embrace the community in a right way.

I joined in the comic club in my high school. We not only communicate the manga we read, but also create our original comic by digital illustration with the tools like SAI2 or PS. We use many specific words or technical terms to communicate such as inker, penciler, panel……

Comic community welcomes everyone who love comic. You can find this community and people of the same hobby on every social media. If you want to do some artwork related to comic, you can also find some clubs or groups to join in and learn to do that.

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I don't know if this counts as my discourse community since it’s not my hobby but just a group of people that just feels like a discourse community. So, I recently moved to Davis to dorm for the fall quarter and I was placed into Tercero’s Redwood Hall. Tercero’s Redwood Hall is known to be the home for the living learning community known as APACH, or the Asian Pacific American Community House. As an asian american, APACH has welcomed me with open arms and shown me love and care. We, the residents of Redwood, share many similarities that allows us to bond and grow close to one another. Not only that we are very open to those who wish to become involved in the Asian culture that we share. We all share experiences, enjoy watching anime and kdramas, as well as share similar goals like creating a safe environment for everyone and graduating together. It is a place I can call my second home. No one in APACH is mean or in-exclusive but instead they are open and create various events to get to know one another. Before I moved from SoCal to Norcal to dorm on campus, I felt scared and nervous that I would be alone and just staying in my room. But in reality  my hall’s community, the APACH community, is a very welcoming environment. I am so very thankful as well as grateful to be part of the APACH community my first quarter at UC Davis.

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A discourse community that I just began is the college community. I came in late September 2020. It is a different atomsphere than where I am from. Davis is a college town, so anywhere I go I feel that feeling of being a college student.

Some features of memberships that I use in the college community is ways of communicating with other members. Recently in Davis, the ways I communicate with others so far is through zoom. Zoom helped me meet new people because of the OL meetings. Another feature we use is specialized language or jargon. We use AATC:  Academic Assistance And Tutoring Centers  it is very helpful in the college community because us college students need a person to help us keep us in the right track.

I can recognize members of the college community because they are either riding bikes with a back pack on or sitting down on a computer. Also when conversations involve being stressed or talks about classes.  I'm excited to see how the college community is when it is back to normal.

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A discourse community that I recently joined would be the crochet community. My entrance to this community started when I saw a video of a girl crocheting squares and then turning that into a sweater for her to wear. I found the idea so cute that I started to do my research and watch youtube videos and read blogs to learn more about crocheting. Soon, I began to understand some of their vocabulary like a "chain", "slip stitch", "double crochet" and "yarn over". It took me a while to understand many of the terminology and while I am very new to this community, I have been learning more and more.

Everyone is so supportive in this community. Through blogs and social media, people help provide tips and stitch patterns so that we are all able to crochet many different things like sweaters, hats, and many more. If a particular pattern was hard, people would come out and show easier patterns for those who were beginners and I was able to receive a lot of help from the community. I am very excited to become a more experienced member of this community so that in the future, I can help someone who may be new to the community and need help like I did.

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I am currently part of the anime discourse community. I am not very active on the UC Davis Anime Club however I plan on partaking in streams starting next quarter. People mostly in the community generally like communicating via online, especially apps like Discord.

There are certain commonly used terms like “weeb” which generally has a negative connotation however it is used to describe a non japanese person who is obsessed with the japanese culture. There is also another term “otaku” which refers to someone who only likes anime and is very antisocial. “Normie” is also another term most used to describe someone who only watches the mainstream animes and not the old/ classics. There are not a lot of people who watch anime however coming to Davis I noticed there is a dedicated number of people who do. It feels nice to witness more people embracing the fact that they like anime (japanese cartoons).

The anime community welcomes everyone. Oftentimes we are open to recommend a show to any newcomer in the community. People generally like reading manga beforehand because oftentimes animes are based on the manga series. It is a fun community to rave about your favorite shows and mangas together.

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One discourse community that I am part of right now would be the football community. Playing football and watching football. I have played football since elementary school up to high school. At first, it was just regular flag football. Once I got to high school I started playing tackle football. I want to try out for the team at Davis, but I am not sure if or when they’ll have tryouts. To be acknowledged, you have to understand the sport. Know how the scoring works, what the fouls are, and know football. If you play football, you have to understand the plays for defense and offense. Know when to go into cover 1, 2, or 3 which, are the basic defensive plays. In offense, you need to understand what the routes are. For a fan, I would say knowing who your team is, the players, and their positions. You have different positions in both defense, offense, and special teams. For defense, the main positions you might know are safeties, cornerbacks, linebackers, and the d-line. For offense, they might be the wide receivers, the quarterback, slot receivers, and the o-line. I’d say there are levels of being a fan.

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A discourse community that I am a part of is soccer. I started playing soccer when I was 4 years old and played for 10 years, but because of an injury I could no longer play competitively. To this day I still love to kick a ball around while being extra cautious. All though I am not an active member I still enjoy watcher soccer in person and on TV and I always went to all of my sisters soccer games. Some of my best high school memories are of going to the soccer games and watching our team dominate the field. You can tell if people are part of a discourse community by the language they use when talking about the game or how they play. Long-time players have certain strategies they use and you can see how well their footwork is and how the player is almost one with the ball. You can also tell by how the crowd interacts with the team. if any of these actions are shown you are more and likely going to be accepted into the discourse community. Soccer games are always full of yelling wether it is players or coaches communicating across the field or fans cheering or the announcers in the announcers booth and for some one who is never been to a soccer game and is say used to golf this would be very odd for them and they may not be used to all of the noise happening while the game is being played.

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A discourse community that I have been a part of, for a significant amount of time, is Track and Field. I started in this community my Freshman year of High school. Although I stopped, competitively running, I consider myself a continued member of the Track and Field discourse. I think members of discourses can be "accepted members", if they continuously are in practice with the group. When it comes to a sport, it can vary. However, with track, if you continue to run, follow the sport, and understand the terminology, you are able to be classified as a member of that discourse. Track and Field is full of different people. Long distance, sprinters, mid-distance, jumpers, throws, and many more. This allows for discourse communities, within a discourse community. For me, I am a member of the sprinter community within the Track and Field community. We understand the terminology of events, the different apparel terminology; these allow us to discuss and converse about specific topics. I think that sports are a larger discourse that encompass many people. I find it interesting to connect with people and learn about their discourse communities. Not only is there the aspect of connecting with people in your community; but to learn about the communities that other people confine in.

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One discourse community that I am in right now is a church band. This community of musicians has been a part of my life for over 6 years. Before quarantine, we would meet for 2-3 hours every Saturday to practice for Sunday sets. I would say that this group was a bit exclusive because we try to pick people who know how to play an instrument, and even if a lot of people know how to play an instrument they tend not to join because they don’t feel comfortable on stage or playing in front of a big crowd. Unlike other communities, I would say that this community is harder to get used to and it takes time to blend in. For example, during practice, we use a lot of musical terms like chorus, bridge, build-up, die down, etc. This may seem simple when said, but during songs, the singer can’t literally say those words while singing, so they signal the other band members. Knowing the specific hand signals is very important. We also have to know the “number system” which even many musicians don’t use. So for example, during a song, the singer might want to change the pattern of the chords. If the song is in the key of G and the original chords are G, C, Em, D, that's the same thing as numbers 1, 4, 6, 5. Then suddenly the lead singer fingers to the band 2, 4, 1, 5 and that would be Am, C, G, D. Trying to match the chords to the numbers took awhile for me to get used to, but once you get it, it's hard to forget. Just little stuff like that makes this tight community of around 20 people pretty exclusive in my opinion. I think because it was a tight community, it was more special to me. Being able to work as a team and having people that I could have fun with musically was really enjoyable for me.

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My interest in volleyball began as early as 5th grade, but despite this interest, I didn’t join a team until my freshman year of high school. I can say that I knew the basics of how to play, but I was still confused about the way players moved around the court and the technique they used. I easily began to understand the jargon and other methods used to work on a team within a few weeks. My ability to learn and become familiar with this form of communication was crucial because this vocabulary was used both on and off the court, during games, practice and outside of school. The positions, rotations and plays were the most important. For example, rotations consisted of 4-2, 5-1 & 6-2; the first number indicating hitters and the second number showing how many setters are on court. Finally, the plays are called by the setters in which they set either a 4, a 5, a 2, pipe (back row) or a 1. From my experience, the volleyball community can either be very encouraging or very intense; it all depends on your teammates. There are many platforms such as Instagram, Facebook and Reddit; I generally see a lot of people posting and discussing what kind of plays are shown or what alternatives could be used.  

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I have been going to Disneyland ever since I was a little kid. We only went occasionally when I was younger but over the past five years or so I’ve had many more opportunities to go through school and have even had an annual pass. Over these years I’ve learned the lingo that frequent Disneyland visitors use such as DCA, fastpass, magic mornings, APH, Fantasmic, etc. When people in this discourse try to meet the goal of attending Disneyland frequently, they naturally learn more of the lingo. As Disney is pretty popular, the general community is all over the world. However, the discourse of people that like going to Disneyland specifically is a little more confined to California or the United States. People in this discourse sometimes do things like write blogs, post on social media, or buy Disneyland merchandise in order to communicate and stay connected. These blogs and posts consist of information about new foods, rides, or merchandise being released in order to keep people up to date even when they cannot visit the theme park in person.

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During quarantine, I set a goal for myself to be productive. One day, I stumbled upon a time-lapse video of someone doing embroidery. I was so immersed and wanted to try it out. Embroidery became one of my current hobbies, and as another way I can express my creativity. The most common terms in the embroidery community are french knots, running stitch, lazy daisy, satin stitch, and turkey stitch. I was initially intimidated by making mistakes because I knew fixing mistakes is a hassle, but as time went on, I learned that the mistakes were crucial to helping me get better. Ever since I picked up embroidery, I have been sewing patterns or designs on my old clothes.
The embroidery community is very kind and eager to help one another. There are a lot of Youtube Channels and a Reddit forum that I follow where people show a tutorial, give project ideas, and even give great advice to each other. I really enjoy being in the embroidery community because I feel safe and inspired every time I visit the community.

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A couple years ago my family bought a Peloton bike for our home, but I never really got around to using it because I always enjoyed going to the gym. Over quarantine, however, going to the gym wasn’t a possibility, so I gave the cycling classes a shot. When joining the cycling discourse community, I at first felt confused and out of place, but then I slowly began to learn more about the different lingo and techniques used by the community. These words include: lead right, lead left, off saddle, pulse, and so on. The Peloton cycling community is huge and has members of all ages that interact with each other via Peloton chat, Facebook, through the Peloton app, and Reddit! Members are able to post progress charts, RSVP to different cycling classes, host cycling parties virtually, and invite others to become members. There are many different cycling classes the community can choose from such as pop music rides, cool down rides, low-impact rides, and everything in between. It’s a very supportive discourse community because every trainer and member wants every individual to reach their cycling goal.

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I recently discovered a new hobby that involves building mechanical keyboards. After seeing a custom keyboard being built on YouTube, it caught my attention. At first glance, custom mechanical keyboards look and sound incredible. Like other discourse communities, this hobby uses new and unique terms such as: switches, GMK’s, stabilizers, PCB, plates, Krytox lube, and etc. When I first became a part of this community, the discussion posts were confusing to read. After doing some research and spending a lot of time watching videos, I became familiar with the words and was able to follow along with the conversations. The keyboard community is slowly finally getting some attention after famous streamers have commissioned their own custom keyboards. Newcomers that are wanting to get into this hobby are always treated well. There are many ways you can communicate to the community like reddit, KBD fans, and geek hack which are dedicated websites for the mechanical keyboard community. The members will upload photos of their builds and others could comment on it. Just a warning, this hobby is a rabbit hole. Once you start, it will be difficult to quit.

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Over the course of high school, I have picked up a love for running. I planned to join the XC team in high school and I also did a little bit of track, but running in general is something I started to enjoy. There are those who like to competitively run and those who like to run just for fun. I like to place myself in both types of those communities of runners. As a competitive runner, I like to see how fast I can run while trying to be beat my own times and records, but I also try to have fun with running and to make it fun for others as well. I think running with others is a lot of fun, especially when you're on the team. Either practicing together and making new friends. We reach out to one another and our coaches about stuff and while we're running we cheer each other on. Some things only runners know and are familiar with are chips, bibs, your heart rate, cadence, strides, as well as some other ones. When we try to achieve our goals, we do so through practicing, whether it be alone or in a team we practice to reach our goals so that when it comes to a big race, we can achieve them. There is no like restrictions on becoming a runner. Anyone can really run and everyone has run before. It is just those who run consistently and maybe even as a sport are when you're in a community. So if you have running shoes, but you don't run, I don't think you can consider yourself a runner. I think the most expert runners and experienced can make it really big or just turn it into something they can give off to others, whether it is becoming famous or just becoming a coach.