After generating ideas for a small experiment to challenge or bend some social norms. I decided to somewhat play around the concept of reputation. How can I apply it in a way that would cause someone to feel a bit insecure or maybe annoyed over something that doesn’t occur on a daily basis for someone? I like to call this little experiment: “Being A Parrot.” Like most parrots, they tend to repeat whatever an individual has said before. They would mimic someone’s voice in real-time or repeating a word or phrase from a previous conversation. Like recalling a memory.
For this experiment, I was meant to have one friendly conversation with one friend, to illustrate an owner and his or her pet parrot. But, minutes later a bunch of my other friends came along, forming a circle, and joining the conversation. I was contemplating whether a large group of people would improve or hurt my experiment. So I just went along with the ride.
According to the short audio piece, this was the best result I’ve gotten from the experiment. It recorded a glimpse or a simple picture of how this “Parrot” experiment went. The piece sounded like a normal conversation among friends; the subject was mainly about websites and how some of my friends designed their sites for a class, but, when I butted in like a parrot it changed the flow of the conversation. I started repeating whatever last word or phrases some of my friends were saying. At the back of the mind, it felt more of a game than an organized experiment. But, at the middle of the piece, I captured a good snippet of how the outcome of the experiment had turned out. When one friend was trying to “unify his website,” I repeated the word “unify.” There was a pause and a couple of giggles that seemed to throw off my friend. While the rest of us found it funny, my friend who was talking about his website, didn’t find it funny at all. That’s why he responded, “Oh come on!” causing him to lose his train of thought for a minute before continuing his story.
Overall, I would have liked to make this experiment more uniformed and organized. Besides having multiple amount of people talking constantly without any breaks, it would have gone smoothly. I would have liked to record a video to illustrate a better sense of the experiment, but, it would have ended too soon over how some of my friends might have found out they were being recorded. So I ended up, tucking my phone inside my jacket’s pocket the whole time while recording. Well, most of them didn’t notice.