The Catfish Epidemic

James Riley, Matthew Perry, Shane King, Dawn Stump, Kolleen Whitford, Kourtney Cooper

More Media Minded

This course has introduced me to many cultural sinkholes that I have been falling into. Escaping the fallacies that I have put myself into isn’t easy. The media has a lot more input into cultural aspects than I even realized. The media influences many things they should not such as free thought and they can even convince someone to change their freedom of speech to fit into the culture the media is forming around us. From putting politics into sports to strategically placing advertisements around us to suck us into spending money on nonsense. 

After being in class and thinking for myself I have made a promise that I will try harder to be more free thinking when it comes to buying into the media circus that surrounds us. I will try not to buy into social media and define my own version of what I think culture truly is instead of letting it be formed around me through social media.  This is going to take more mental power than usual to recognize when something is wrong and taking the time to think for my self and develop my own opinions and views on the world around me. I can do it and I am glad I could take a class that opens my eyes more and lets me think for myself.

Are we being trained for War?

After hearing Stahl’s Thesis on War themed video games, I put the reading down rather scared of the future of the United States. I never once stopped and thought that I might be being trained to fight in a virtual war.  I have played many war-based video games in my time but I never thought that I am being trained to be a solider. However, after thinking about it I can see how it can be true. As soon as the war began, more war based video games started hitting the shelves.   

The Call of Duty series as well as the Battlefield series have both been very popular and have been complimented on their realism. I have thought to myself how cool I thought the games were just on the basis of realism during gameplay and it really did make me feel like a solider in the war and made me feel like I was somehow doing something. The games do give you a sense of patriotism and a sense of belonging to the cause of fighting in the war or against terrorists. In turn I never really thought bad about the war, I thought we were doing what needed to be done to protect the United States and the citizens that reside in it. In many aspects I was a “virtual citizen solider” in the war and I was buying into it hook, line and sinker. I have since come to my senses and formed my own opinions but sadly I know this will not stop me from buying these games just be cause I enjoy them so much.  I am still a virtual citizen solider.

blah blah blah Hipster

I have heard the word "hipster" thrown out a lot over the past few years. The word hipster itself is a word with an ever-growing definition. Is it someone who is always down with the latest underground music? Someone that hates all mainstream items and things that everyone else likes? These are things that I have heard to describe the "typical hipster".  Also, that Hipsters have "special snowflake syndrome", which basically means wanting to think they are special or different than everyone else, and different but that's what a hipsters whole persona is about. Friends, as well as myself, have been accused of being hipsters, a few others and myself by our clothes and a few by what they choose to indulge themselves in.  So which of those is the true hipster? I have a mixed opinion on the whole Hipster ideology. I think a hipster is more about the style of clothing than the attitude of “I liked it before it was cool”. Let’s face it, everyone has special snowflake syndrome, everyone wants to like the next big thing and be able to say they knew about it first, making them special. The “hipster dress” ie Flannel, thick glasses, etc, has become the new way to dress in this generation. Dressing like a hipster has went mainstream and now more people have started dressing like this.  This is where the most popular hipster falls in. Not someone with attitude but someone who enjoys the clothes and the mentality behind it.

Why do we like feeling sorry?

After we talked about the young man that was a victim of hate crimes for being homosexual, I was thinking about the way people reach out to cases like these. So why do we as a culture enjoy feeling sorry? We have so much to worry about in this life and so much to care for. So why do we have this incessant need to grab onto the woes of our culture? I am not leading on to say that we shouldn't care for cases like this but more to the root of why. As I talked about in class, a good modern day example of this was the Amanda Todd suicide. This girl tried (and failed) to kill herself with bleach, then posted a video about her life and her reasons for wanting to die. After posting this she succeeded in killing herself by hanging. This video has gone so viral that the group known as "Anonymous" got involved and has since claimed to have hacked into the man's, they believe responsible, life and posted his name, address, phone number, etc all over the internet for everyone to see and take action against.

So why, of all the suicides and deaths attributed to bullying, is this girl's story the one that gets taken to this level? The easiest way to say it is from our reading, she was pretty, young, and dead. There are a lot of children who are bullied and harassed daily but a YouTube video and claims of innocence from the victim later, and there are riots in the streets to find who is responsible and ask why there weren't measures taken to prevent this from happening. Since that video and Todd's death there has been evidence that she wasn't so innocent in all of her claims but still the outcry is loud and the evidence is being ignored?

All of this only leads me to believe that the reason we enjoy feeling sorry for cases like this is because it gives everyone something to talk and argue about. With few exceptions all the response to the video has been yelling, strong opinions, and questions of why didn't anyone do anything. There are few things actually being done. This story has given the internet something to argue about. There are hundred of YouTube videos made in response to Todd's death, but none featuring what was being done to stop bullying. More reason to believe that we as a culture need this emotion of feeling sorry so we can turn around and argue about it. This is far from a blog about not caring at all about people. It is simply that maybe we as a culture should stop feeling sorry just so we can argue and voice our opinion. Then maybe we can solve some of these issues so we won't have to feel sorry anymore.

Who is a Hipster?

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I have heard the word "hipster" thrown out a lot over the past few years. The word hipster itself is a word with an ever-growing definition. Is it someone who is always down with the latest underground music? Someone that hates all mainstream items and things that everyone else likes? These are things that I have heard to describe the "typical hipster".  Also, that Hipsters have "special snowflake syndrome", which basically means wanting to think they are special or different than everyone else, but that's what a hipsters whole persona is about. Friends, as well as myself, have been accused of being hipsters, a few others and myself by our clothes and a few by what they choose to indulge themselves in.  So which of those is the true hipster? I have a mixed opinion on the whole Hipster ideology. I think a hipster is more about the style of clothing than the attitude of “I liked it before it was cool”. Let’s face it, everyone has special snowflake syndrome, everyone wants to like the next big thing and be able to say they knew about it first, making them special. Also, who doesn't want to get attention from every direction on how weird or "out-there" their music and dress are. The “hipster dress” such as Flannel, thick glasses, etc, has become the new way to dress in this generation. Dressing like a hipster has went mainstream and now more people have started dressing like this.  This is where the most popular hipster falls in. Not someone with attitude but someone who enjoys the clothes and the mentality behind it. So who is a hipster? It depends on your definition and what you want to be seen as.

 

James Riley

Is Disney really so bad?

          So after talking about how Disney is forcing children to become princesses, I thought a lot about it. Yeah Disney is some big corporation but are they really that bad? Is it so bad that Disney made characters that girls could pretend and escape reality to? I really don't think Disney went into making princess movies and stories with the intent to ruin the futures of little girls by making them selfish, materialistic little brats. I think they honestly went into it with good intentions. 

        That being said with the recent addition of an African American princess movie I think they are now taking it to far to make money off these children. When Snow White was made in the mid late 1930's, I don't think it began as a shameless ploy to brain wash young girls into believing they have to be princesses in order to get a handsome prince. I can remember my sisters watching all of the Disney princess movies when I was younger and they turned out as normal as the next kid.  This argument is no different than saying that all kids who play violent video games will become violent. I believe that parenting is the reason why children do or don’t become brats. If you let your child go around bossing people around and give them everything they ask for, than yeah, they will be little spoiled brats. Especially if they are called “Daddy (or Mommy’s) little princess” while all this is going on. Parents sometimes just need something to blame for why their kids are running crazy and a reason why it isn’t their fault. So for now Disney gets to take the blame for trying to give little girls a enchanting land to go to get away and imagine what it would be like to be a princess. 

James Riley