Twitter and the Election

https://vimeo.com/54318581

When Sports ans Politics meet

            In class we watched a video and had a discussion about sports and politics. The point of the video was to state that sports and politics don’t mix. I’m here to say that a lot of times they do. In class I mentioned that when a championship sports team reaches their ultimate prize one of the awards is that they get to meet the president of the United Sates. This dates back to 1865 Andrew Jackson met with the Brooklyn Atlantic baseball team.  Atlantic had just beat the National Club of Washington baseball team in game played on the White House grounds. This has become a common theme. Also some times the president will meet with a team who hasn’t even began playing. This would include the case of when President Barack Obama meet the University of Wisconsin’s men’s basketball team during his campaign in the latest presidential race. Still with the president as the topic of the 44 presidents 5 played college football including Gerald Ford, Richard Reagan, Nixon, Dwight Eisenhower & John F. Kennedy. This to me shows that sports can be compared too and help prepare you for politics. Another example of when the two mix was the recent National Basketball Association games that were broadcast on Veteran’s Day. Many of the NBA players were headband, wristbands, or shoes that were the colors of the American flag. When people from professional sports teams support their country it allows other people to see that it is “cool” to do so and makes them want to do it as well.

Are you a Hipster?

Have you ever wondered what a hipster is? Well according to dictionary.com, a hipster is a person who follows the latest trends and fashions, but according to the average college student a hipster is someone who goes against the normal trends just to be cool or get noticed. Now after reading the definition you might ask yourself “Am I a hipster?” Well… if you answer yes to any of the following question you are probably a hipster: are you wearing glasses when you have 20/20 vision? Are you wearing a fur coat with skinny jeans or tights? Are you wanting to "become a writer" when you've never written more than half a dozen poems? Are you wearing boat shoes, moccasins or loafers without socks? Buying Apple products and conveniently forgetting that they are "mainstream"? Now I am not saying that I think hipsters are in any way bad or criticizing people who call them selves’ hipsters. I am just saying to might want to look in the mirror or ask yourself a few of those earlier question before you go and judge people. According to a previous article we read in class called “ The culture of Cool”, hipsters do not exists because the definition of a hipster goes completely against what hipster say they are all about, kind of an oxymoron. But I am not here to argue over whether or not hipster exist but to merely ask you to take a look at yourself before you go name calling.

"Not now I'm saving the world, Son"

The article WII Shall Overcome brought up some vey very interesting ideas. The first one that I thought was interesting was having video games have a specific and meaningful purpose. Many people today believe what they are doing in the video game has real meaning, I think many people play video games to give themselves a sense of worth that they may not be getting somewhere else, like in their own home. If we could develop video games that actually have a true meaning people could feel better about them selves and have a real reason for doing so. The problem is what types of games could have a real meaning? The closest game I could think of that has real purpose is the WII FIT; you can set goals for yourself, such as weight loss, flexibility increase, and workout duration. These types of goals have real purpose, which can help an individual live longer and live healthier. The problem is that people already think that what there doing does have real purpose. The best example I can remember of this is a quote I heard one of my friends father say. As we walked in the living my friend said “hey dad”, without any other words being spoken his father replied “not now son, I’m saving the world.” What was he really doing? Playing the newest version of Call Of Duty, while he may have not really believed that what he was doing had an actual impact on the world, I think some people do. Young people today believe that there video game playing makes them ready for the real world, and the only solution I can think of is to have the video games they play teach them about the real world or have real world effect.

Hyper Masculinity in Youth

Hyper Masculinity may be a term that I have just learned, bit when thinking back on it, it has been an idea instilled in my life since the time I was a child. The first example I can remember from my childhood was my superman underwear. From the time I was in 1^st grade I loved Superman and thought I needed to be just like him. Looking back now Superman wasn’t just masculine when he had his cap on, he was also masculine when he was in his “disguise” of Clark Kent. Clark had a cool job, was still large in stature, and got the girl. Why the creators of superman may have not intended it they were my first childhood memory of hyper masculinity. My second memory of hyper masculinity that I can remember form my childhood is also the one that sticks out most to me. Men are supposed to be tough and not afraid to fight so what would be better for young boys to learn that then box gloves for children?  Sockem Boppers is what I am referring to. According to their ad from 1997 “they’re more fun than a pillow fight”, this sounds perfect for boys, since boys aren’t supposed to have pillow fights anyways right? Those are two examples of hyper masculinity that I can remember from my childhood. Today I believe there are even more examples in he media than when I was a child. Some of those examples would include the recent rise in super hero movies and the recent popularity in sports like MMA. 

Vote Or Die,

Today more than ever people (especially college age) turn to social medias when they want to research current events. The events that seem to be dominating all social medias right now would be the political races. Whether it’s the presidential debate, a commercial for a senator, or just a celebrity giving their two cents. This brings me to the main point of my blog; celebrities today have more influence over who we vote for than ever before. Everyone remembers the vote or die campaign that was backed up celebrities like P.Diddy, Bruce Springsteen, and Russell Simmons. But did anyone really think it changed the amount of voters? Well it did, tremendously. According to an article titled  “Vote or Die? Well, They Did Vote” after the Vote or Die campaign the votes of the youth increased by 4.6 million. Nowadays celebs don’t have to come out with a huge campaign to support their candidate, they can just simply send a message in less than 160 on twitter and it be seen by over a million people. But do what the celebs say make a different on the actually votes of a young person? According to a study done at Washington State University “Celebrity endorsed campaigns successfully lowered complacency and helped young people believe in their own impact on the political system”, or in other words, yes. This to me had become a problem students like me are swayed on who to vote for strictly based on their favorite celeb. Now I do not know about you, but I don’t thing I have the same values and beliefs as the millionaire dollar a year tweeter.