In the past week, I have noticed an interesting new app that my friends were beginning to use on Facebook. The app is called Bitstrips, and is basically a cartoon status update.  It allows you to make yourself in cartoon form, and gives you templates of different situations or scenes, so that you can express your status through a cartoon strip. The app can be downloaded on your phone, or used over Facebook. When I tried it out, I immediately thought of how Bitstrips is basically a graphic life narrative. The user is describing and sharing a feeling or scene from their life in graphics and words.

How it works is that you first create a cartoon image of yourself, picking face shape, eye-shape, eye color, hair style, body shape and outfit. You can even put make-up on your face if you feel that it expresses yourself more precisely. Basically, the app tries to give you a good amount of freedom to express yourself and how you think you look.

Next, you pick one of the three categories—“moods”, “situations” or “announcements.” Then, from, for example, “moods”, you pick from another few, relatively vague,  categories such as “good”, “bad” , “weird”, “mad” and “miscellaneous.” Within these categories are very random, mostly jokingly funny comics with pre-written scene descriptions on the bottom, which you can change or re-write yourself to make it more personalized to your situation. You can also change your face (such as emotion) and body position in the comic. Baically, Bitstrips is a more detailed status which allows the user to better express their identity through graphics and words, instead of the typical status update. It also gives the user prompts, so perhaps they would think of a new, or more interesting or funnier status than they normally would.

Bitstrips has even created a separate program for education, called Bitstrips for Schools, which is made to be used by teachers in primary schools to educate children in collaboration and creativity. It motivates them to read and write while creating their own expressions and characters. Check out their website here: http://www.bitstripsforschools.com

I find it interesting how comics always seem to be able to relate most to kids or young people. I feel that creating graphics is simply easier than using only words to express identity and feelings at a young age.  When children are still developing their language skills, expressing themselves through art reveals a lot more about their personality and emotions than writing can. Perhaps this is why Marjane Satrapi decided to use the comic form for her autobiography–Persepolis. Since she was writing it in her child-mind’s point of view, a comic strip is most likely the best way a child would be able to express her feelings. And this is shown by the popularity of Bitstrips as an educational tool in schools. Teachers on the website express their satisfaction with Bitstrips, for example, one teacher, Lindsay Porter, said “Bitstrips for Schools is a great motivational tool for reluctant writers. Students who would normally shut down at the thought of a traditional writing assignment end up asking to stay in at recess to work on their comics.” This evidence shows that children strongly react to the ability to express themselves using graphics. It is motivational, and forces them to think deeply about how they want to represent themselves or personal situations. This relates very much to Persepolis, which allows the child’s, Marji’s, identity to come through using artwork.