Accidental Racist

The message that the song LLCool J and Brad Paisley produced when they came out with their new single, "Accidental Racist" was about racism and our country's problem with it. In this song he talked about how easy it was to be racist on accident, like when he walked into the coffee shop with his confederate flag t-shirt on. Racism in America is still considered a soft spot today. The point they were trying to get across was that we still judge each other today on ancestors past.

Klosterman made a good point of saying that we like to hear lyrics that are easily interpreted. People love artists who they can understand and relate to their lyrics. "Real musicians" are mostly considered with country artist because they aren't all about appearance. They focus solely on the music. Most of them will play instruments as they sing and that's what makes them "real musicians". When it comes to rap music, they normally focus on misogyny, materialism, and murder. I feel  like that was mostly true early on in the peek of rapping. In class today when we listened to the top rap songs, most of that didn't occur. Today in rap music I feel like it is more about drugs and sex. But we tend to stereotype rap music with the ghetto which brings it back to the judging on appearance.

"Happiest Place On Earth"

As we discussed in class, Disney World is considered the happiest place on earth, and yes I do mean the whole wide world. Many people from around the world take the time to come and visit this magical place. Personally I have been there three times and I would go back to if I had the chance, you can never be too old to go to Disney. One place that I believe that is a place you must visit before you die is Time Square in New York City. Time square is filled with bright lights and huge buildings with great stores. A lot of people go to watch Broadway shows like Wicked or Lion King which are very popular. Between all of the shopping and fine dinning, a visit to times square can be pricy but definitely worth it. Like Disney World, people make out big plans to take a visit to the big beautiful city. In 2009, Macy's Day Parade changed their route to where it would end in the gorgeous Time Square, but in 2012 they changed it again sadly avoiding it. All of the bright lights, music, food, and shopping, Time Square it a great place that everyone should visit before they die because it's un-American to not.

Intertextuality

In this picture we have a book bag with the theme of the popular book and movie series, Twilight. Twilight carries a lot of obsessive fans. Most are separated by which character they believe is hotter than the other. A lot of people carry book bags around with them on a daily basis, so by combining something you use daily with a movie that is very successful, you get a popular item.

I believe in the picture above is a great example of intertextuality because it does a nice job of combining two popular things. Monopoly is a board game that has been played for years. Everyone you would ask would know how to play this entertaining game. The Walking Dead is a extremely popular TV series that everyone I know, besides me, watches. My social media sites are normal blown up with information about this hit show.

"Cool"

In the advertisement for Trix cereal, they showed how kids should be in the "cool group" so they aren't constantly chasing things. In class we discussed how important it is to us to be cool and fit in with the crowd. Quart believes that teens today will do anything to be cool and start new trends. A lot of advertising focuses on teens and are also developed by teens. If we see a lot of people wearing a new type of shoes, most of us are going to want to get a pair. For example, Nike and Uggs are very popular within our age group where everyone owns a pair. But Klosterman believes that today we try to be cool by not being cool if that makes sense. Kids just don't want to be uncool and feel out of place. He mentions that if a lot of people had more of one thing then it wouldn't be so cool anymore since the fact that everyone had it. But I believe that  teens do try hard to be cool. If they see something starting to trend, they almost immediately want to get it too. Sometimes the things that trend aren't very cheap either witch shows how much some people want to be cool.

Violence

In class this week we discussed the topic of media violence and how it effects children. In the article, Violent Television Programming and It's Impact On Children, it talked about how there should not be laws to help regulate TV violence because they don't see a problem. The FBI has also but out a  statistic stating that violence in children has actually decreased within the past couple years. Violence on TV has become so normal and popular that kids are now desensitized to it. But in the video, "Mean World Syndrome" Gerbner talks about how media violence doesn't make us more violent humans, but it makes us more scared of violence acts happening to ourselves. Gun buying rates in the past couple years have increased because a lot of people want to feel more safe. I understand how crime rates have gone down, but there are some things that children should not be accessible to. Todays televisions have it set up to where you can block certain TV stations, so parents can control, at least at home, how much violence their children sees.

High School Football

The video we watched in class showed us how much  more intense high school football has become. Football players have dreams of getting a scholarship and continuing their career not only in college but have high hopes to making it to the big league. In order to become the best though, a lot of work it needed inside and outside of football season. As we saw in the video, players are training all year long through all types of weather conditions. Kids suffer from heat strokes during the summer when the temperature can get as hot as 115 degrees. Our generation is obsessed with the idea of winning. Most of us will do anything to be the best and to win which can be dangerous in football. There's also a big problem with the amount of concussions that happen during football practices and games which leads to brain damage later on in life. The expectations our society has on winning today puts a lot of pressure on these young high school athletes.

Romance

Everyone wants the perfect relationship like the kind of love  Rachel McAdams and Ryan Gosling share in The Notebook. The way mass media has portrayed love has everyone getting their hopes up when they face reality. Even song lyrics make us fall in love with the type of relationship we want to have. Klosterman called this "fake love" that we are all addicted to. Fake love is something we all wish we had, an absolute romantic, spontaneous relationship. But we know it's not true so we cling on to songs or movies that display fake love relationships.

Jean Kilbourne would  not agree with this advertisement because of how "dehumanizing" it is. In this ad, they are trying to sell a car but the car is not the main focus as you can tell. By using a woman and a man in bed, they are trying to draw an older audience to notice. For some reason, people tend to read more and actually read the ad if there is some type of sexual scene displayed. Sex is used to get attention of buyers and every company does it.

Sex Symbol

America's sex symbols change easily, going from Marilyn Monroe to Pam Anderson in the 90's. If I had to pick only one person who was todays sex symbol I would have to go with Beyoncé. Models have portrayed an image in our heads on how women should look. But frankly being  a stick isn't what people find sexy these days. Beyoncé has become a very famous celebrity that a lot of people look up to. She is the one who made it acceptable to have big thighs and butt. In a lot of her videos she will wear sexy oufits and dance the whole time, like in her new music video "Drunk in Love".

Millennials

The millennia's generation has a lot of positive and negative factors. A negative part of our generation is that we tend to want the latest, normally most expensive items. If we see our friends with something cool and new, of course we want to have the same thing they have. Because of this habit, people tend to develop poor money managing skills. We tend to spend more money depending on our emotions. Most of the time is we are sad or stressed out, we cope by going out and buying things. On a positive note, our generation has improved on many levels when it comes to technology. The different types of ways we have come with to communicate through technology is incredible. The internet has been a very  helpful source if you understand how to use it. Everyone is our generation loves to update with all the new technology as soon as it comes out. If someone else has it, it is a must that you get it.

Happiness

Chuck Klosterman's short story was about his experience with the video game "The Sims". Most video games would create a fantasy world for you to escape to, but Sims creates a game that reflects on real life. In order to be happy in this game, your avatar needs to buy things. For example, SimChuck felt like he needed to buy his girl gifts in order for her stay with him and be happy. But in the article "The Futile Pursuit", Jon Gertner states that people tend to react on what we think is going to make us happy. We tend to exaggerate when we say things like, "this is the best day of my life". I believe that money can't buy you long time happiness, but it can allow you to have happiness for a short amount of time. For example, buying a new pair of shoes or a new electronic will make you happy for a little bit until it's time for a new pair or an upgrade.