Reflections on Fieldnotes and Feelings

 As I observed my group of subjects at the U outside Overlook South, I made a discovery. I witnessed not one, but two females who sat down and vaped! This shatters my previous question of "Is vaping male-exclusive," and also proves that females can and will vape, just much more rarer. The main group of vapers mostly sat around and conversed about various topics, same as usual, except including the amount of "lit parties" they would be going to and how it is now two months into the semester. Time really does fly when you are at college, engrossed in schoolwork and social activities. The amount of people passing by was increased by a slightly larger amount, seeing as it was Halloween night. I saw many costumes, and even some of my vaping group were dressed up. I asked via several informal interviews to some members as to why they vaped and I got a plethora of responses, the most common either being,”I like the many different flavors they have for juices,” to ,”I put nicotine in mine so it gives me a head buzz,” to ,”After I put nicotine in my vape I became addicted,” which poses the question of ,”Why would you want to add nicotine to your vape, even though nicotine is highly addictive?” I could understand going from a certain amount of nicotine and slowly weaning yourself off, as is the actually reasoning behind vaping, but to add nicotine and make yourself addicted to it is mindboggling! Granted, vaping is still healthier than cigarettes, but depending on if you have nicotine in your vape, you are still getting addicted to it, and will most likely continue to vape, which just defeats the purpose of why people primarily vape. Not for the social aspects, but to get off of cigarettes! As a whole, vaping is still a male-dominated activity, but it is not exclusively male, due to my witnessing of two females vaping. This just shifts my data and forces me to re-look at all my data to see any kind of pattern. I have already ascertained that everyone in the group that vapes hangs out with one another at some point and are very approachable for conversation. Potentially, they could have classes with one another. Or, could vaping have brought them all together to create a clique of vapers? People of different social and economic backgrounds, united by one common activity? This gives me another question of, ”Does vaping bring people together?” Same as with the females however, vaping appears to be a Caucasian male-dominated activity. I do see a few African-Americans sit down and vape with the rest of the group, but like the females, there are very few that will go vape. Does vaping not appeal to African-Americans? I hope to make a few more observations before I can truly pass judgement on it.
-Jorrel K.