The metaphor I came up with for assignment 1 is ‘messing with your middle school Chromebook’ because of my memory in middle school where kids would show the inspect element of the website they were at to seem cool and knowledgable with code. Looking back on this, it is extremely hilarious that all the seventh graders went along with this as if using the inspect element was a cheat code. Something that seemed so ‘neat’ really takes just four steps, and I’m sure other people had similar things happen at their middle schools. Now that I’ve learned a lot more about code, I still feel like I’m showing this cool trick (that is not really that impressive) to my friends, but there is definitely more of an understanding of what each line of code means. Looking at the source code of a web page is important when making web pages because it is a great resource for ways certain things look on the page that you want to replicate and if you have any issues for your web page to reference other web pages.

Although not for this class, I did use the inspect element to find the source code for a pixel game using javascript through P5; the games original P5 code was not available even though the creator thought it was, and I was making a P5 pixel game and wanted to see how the creator’s game worked and if there were any elements I wanted to use in my own game. Although the code was thousands of lines long, I found some elements, like dialogue options, to reference. It is important to see how things we consume are constructed because it helps with our understanding of how we create ourselves. As artists, if we understand how our surroundings work, we can use this in our pieces. In a larger sense, understanding how we consume gives more power and agency to the consumer and holds others accountable for their creations. In the ingredients list of foods, companies must list all of the ingredients, but they can change the wording of how they market each ingredient. For example, ‘natural flavors’ is not a term verified by the FDA, so any ingredient can technically be called a ‘natural flavor’ even if it is not naturally occurring. Knowing how we consume marketed foods changes our choice in products and in lifestyle.