The Self Stories - Social Media

Spring 2019

This past semester I interned for “The Self Stories,” a website created by Jen Morabito that tells the journeys of yoga practitioners around the world. Each week, I had a list of several tasks to complete and would review my work and assignments during a weekly call with Jen. One weekend Jen and I were able to meet in person (she is living in Binghamton currently, but visited Buffalo) where she gave me a lesson on photography and conducted a mock interview with me so I was able to get a feel for that element of her work. My duties as an intern consisted of transcribing interviews and then shaping these interviews into full stories that would appear on her website’s blog. Cutting 3-5 page interviews down to about 500 words, I had to make calls of what points were most important, unique, or meaningful from the interviews, while also capturing the unique voice and character of the people Jen had interviewed. Another task I completed for “The Self Stories” was running its Twitter page. I created graphics on Canva to draw attention to new stories and posted tweets that aligned with the mission and brand of Jen’s website. While running the Twitter, Jen would frequently send me articles or encourage me to research social media trends and platforms and rely back to her what I had learned.

Through this internship, I took away the most from the storytelling tasks. Each interview was different from the next, so having to switch voices and convey a new person’s experiences and message was both interesting and fulfilling. As someone who practices yoga, I had a genuine interest in what I was writing about, however this internship may be difficult for someone who has no experience or interest in yoga. When writing the stories, I would highlight key quotes to be featured as captions on the Instagram page for the website. After writing my first draft, Jen would return my stories with comments, which we would also discuss during our phone calls. From there, I would revise and resubmit the stories to her with the changes she suggested and shortly after, my stories would then appear on the website. I learned to take criticism and how to go about a revision process through this internship. In my classes, I usually submit my papers, get a grade and that’s it—in this internship, I had to actively work with Jen to make the stories into what she wanted too. Sometimes I had to change stories several times before she felt they were ready to appear on her website, and other times there were almost no changes made. Additionally, listening to the interviews allowed me to understand how to conduct narrative pieces. So often in journalism classes, we focus on investigative or report interviewing. This internship was unique because interviews were much more centered around personal journeys and the interviewees had more freedom to talk about what they wanted.

The benefits of this position were that it was online, I had a lot of freedom, and I genuinely valued the work that I was doing. Being able to complete my tasks from home was very helpful—I saved time by not having to commute anywhere and money on gas. I enjoyed having the freedom to try new things. Jen encouraged me to bring new ideas forward and ultimately shape my tasks around what I enjoyed or thought would help me most. Most importantly, I valued the work I was doing. I enjoyed feeling like what I was doing had a purpose and that I was doing good by getting these individual’s stories out for people to read. The drawback to this position was that because Jen was in Binghamton, it was difficult for me to conduct an interview of my own. If she had been in town for longer I would have liked to do an interview with her present; however, with the time crunch, this was a difficult task. Also, because the internship was online, time management was difficult. It was easy to forget about my tasks in their online folder and sometimes my poor planning ahead left me stressed in order to finish everything. I picked up this internship after already being enrolled in 5 classes, so for my schedule personally, it was an overwhelming semester.

Looking at Jen’s vision for her website and her ability to bring it into fruition, I could see myself doing something along those lines in the future. I enjoy writing, photography, and interviewing—which were the key parts of her website. She creates her own schedule and has the flexibility and freedom to shape her own schedule and personal brand. She travels and meets very interesting people; she is her own boss. That aspect of her work really appeals to me. Although working as an employer’s writer to create their vision is good, I definitely appreciated that Jen gave me freedom to decide things for myself because that is something I value in a future career. Completing this internship reaffirmed my decision to major in Communications and English, hopefully working in a career in writing or has creative aspects/ freedom.

For any students considering this internship, it is important that you manage your time well. Jen was very understanding during finals time, and respected that I had other classes and work, but looking back I would have liked to spend more time working on stories rather than rushing to get them done before the due date. Additionally, this internship would be very difficult to do if you do not have some passion or interest in either health, yoga, or meditation. Every story is centered around an individual’s value of yoga; therefore, if you have no experience or interest in it, it would be very challenging to find the motivation or appreciation to complete tasks. Jen is easy to work with and is super passionate and motivated. She is an amazing mentor and is someone who I felt very lucky to learn from during this semester. She understands college stress and was very flexible with scheduling our phone calls.