The won--younger years

As quite a fanatic devotee of the show Jon & Kate Plus 8, upon finding out that the family patriarch and monarch were getting divorced I felt extremely saddened and troubled.

This was a family that not only had I watched every Monday night for the new episodes, but viewed practically every day on TLC.

Upon discovering that they were in fact filed for divorce I couldn’t find it in me to watch any more episodes that I had to. I resorted to Monday nights only. Every time I saw “Jon & Kate Plus Eight” on my TV guide I felt a deep feeling of sadness... how could I watch this new, happy and future-oblivious family playing around and having a joyful time knowing full-well in a few dozen episodes they’d turn sour?

This morning however, upon scrolling through disappointing channels I decided to click upon a repeat episode of Jon and Kate for the first time since June. To my surprise it was the very first episode where the happy family of ten were picking pumpkins from a pumpkin patch, each assigning a pumpkin-look-alike to a member of the family. I couldn’t help but watch the adorable children – the people whom I’ve grown so attached to – at such an adorable younger age. Aiden getting lost in a corn maze, Cara crying about an apple bucket... but what I couldn’t help but notice was the pure and loving marriage it appeared Jon and Kate once comprised.

Holdings hands, laughing together... sitting beside each other on the same couch! Kate even said during the interview, “the fact that we’re still here, pulling for the same cause – our family – really shows we love each other.” Jon even slapped Kate on the leg and enthusiastically exclaimed, “We’re a great team!”

It is disappointing to know that tummy tucks, hair plugs, fake tanning, man-earrings, Hailey-effing-Glassman’s and the inability to stop being celebrity-driven people would soon be the take-down of a beautiful family.

Far Out, Psychedelic Flower Child

Since the young age of six, I've decided I was born in the wrong generation.

While young girls were overwhelmed with the Backstreet Boys or immitating Destiny's Child members I engulfed myself in music from the 60's. I've been listening to the Beatles, the Monkees, the Beach Boys and the Mama's and the Papa's for as long as I can remember.

I have always gawked at my mom’s childhood pictures with affection and a mere hint of jealousy. The 60’s style was so profound and apparent - qualities I feel cease to exist in the 90’s to present.

I have perpetually felt drawn to the beehives, bellbottoms, love music, shag carpets, and one mustn’t forget the platform shoes. Upon day-dreaming about these seemingly “love-peace-happy forward” times I can’t help but wonder what my kids will think of their mother’s time. Will we be the generation remembered for one hit wonders? Random style? Indiscriminate music? A generation of mix-ups and misfits?...

Movies like Now & Then have a special place in my heart, as I watched them routinely as a young girl, urging my friends to watch as well, in hopes that perhaps the 60’s would make a comeback.

So here I am, listening to "Sirius Radio – 60’s on 6"... singing along to legendary and well-recognized tunes, knowing full-well that in 2040 no one will be listening to Lady Gaga or Beyonce.

Participatory Culture

Three years ago I was introduced to a show called Sex and the City. Once I got passed the graphic sex scenes and coarse language I began falling in love with the show. Attempting to avoid sounding crazy: it is an amazingly written show taking place in New York City about four, very realistic characters (Carrie, Samantha, Miranda and Charlotte) that all have different personalities. I started watching the episodes on TBS in their later seasons and was always curious about what the show was like in the earlier years. This is when I began purchasing the seasons DVD. Last Christmas I finally completed my series so I can enjoy my favourite show whenever I want.

Over the years I have also purchased Sex and the City accessories, trivia games, books, etc. This was all fun but very individual; I wanted to converse with people about Sex and the City. It was not enough to simply enjoy all of its greatness alone. When I made my Facebook last January and started getting the hang of things I realized I could create Facebook Groups. These are groups that anyone on Facebook can join to talk about whatever they like. There are Facebook groups about practically everything from Favourite Hockey teams to Celebrity Fan Groups to your preferred position when sleeping!

I decided to create a Sex and the City Facebook group entitled Addicted to Sex and the City. Within days, hundreds of people had joined my group. It appeared I was not the only one who felt like chatting. A month later I hit 1,500 members and am now at 5,460. This Facebook group was perhaps the most rewarding experience I’d participated in – including the merchandise I had purchased throughout the years. Creative discussions formed like “Did you catch that mistake?” “Finish this line...” and “A Baker’s Dozen” games.

Hundreds of comments and replies were filling the discussion board.

I looked forward to logging onto Facebook every night purely for this group and even now I often get e-mails from fashion and make-up companies, or author’s of books related to Sex and the City that ask me to promote their products on my popular group site. I often agree to do my best in helping them out, after all: what would Carrie Bradshaw do?

Two-Faced Media?

The first things that come to mind when thinking about mass media are radio, television, movies, books, iPods, cell phones, newspapers, blogs, the internet and magazines. I feel most people would probably think of those mediums as well; what differentiates those items is how we feel about them. While many people worship new media, I feel a little more spectacle about them.

Don’t get me wrong, I love my blackberry just as much as the next person, and I can’t imagine my life without my television or laptop; I can’t help but wonder, however, how beneficial these mediums are. Sure they can give us hours upon hours of entertainment... but why are they here? What is the real purpose behind new media?

All of the mediums I listed from radios to television and cell phones to magazines seem like they help humans communicate and become social with one another. The television gives us something to discuss with co-workers and classmates; cell phones help us keep in contact with friends and family; radios bring us information about people and places all over the world; magazines bond us together with those who are also, oh-so-concerned about Britney Spears’ babies. Right?

Neil Postman said in his keynote speech, The Humanism of Media Ecology, “In Democracy in America, de Tocqueville worried that the printed word would lead Americans away from a sense of community and toward what he called egotism. De Tocqueville could not know of radio, television, or the Internet, but if he could, I’m sure he would ask of them, Do they help maintain a balance between a sense of social cohesion and individuality, both of which are necessary to a humane democracy? I do not think he would be impressed by media whose formats encourage isolation.”

This is an amazing, eye-opening point. Isolation.

As we move forward and embark newer and newer media, humans are distancing themselves further and further away from each other. Now we can buy groceries online without having to step a single foot in the local grocery store! We can purchase clothes on eBay instead of shopping at malls. We can video-call our friends instead of really seeing them. We can order movies through cable instead of going out to the video store. We can even “poke” people through facebook. We can virtually do just about anything we want without leaving our homes. This is a frightening reality and it is happening now!

So while I understand why people value new media, I encourage them to also step outside into the real world. This is where they can really smell fresh air, feel and touch real objects and communicate face-to-face with each other!

Information Junkies

In Neil Postman’s keynote speech he mentions a quote from Henry David Thoreau Walden that really moved me.

“We are in great haste to construct a magnetic telegraph from Maine to Texas; but Maine and Texas, it may be, have nothing important to communicate... We are eager to tunnel under the Atlantic and bring the old world some weeks nearer to the new; but perchance the first news that will leak through into the broad, flapping American ear will be that the Princess Adelaide has the whooping cough.”

This statement jumps out at me for being so true to our world today. Postman later referred to us as information junkies. Humans today have the world at their fingertips and while this may seem enticing and brilliant many of us have somehow slipped through the cracks of our keyboards and can’t seem to get out. We are obsessed with our computers... our personal private investigators; whether it is the latest news on Brangelina, the hurricane in Texas, Sarah Palin’s impregnated daughter, or your next-door-neighbour’s boyfriend’s sister’s friend, we are fixated on news and people that really don’t affect us. Because it is all “at our fingertips” however, we find ourselves trapped behind our computer screens discovering information that is high unnecessary. The form of media I feel endorses this obsession most, in my life and the lives of many, is of course: facebook.

Facebook has become overwhelmingly popular in the last four years; and while some try to kid themselves into thinking it is just a “social networking website” the truth is that it is a human search engine. I cannot count the amount of times I have seen received friend requests from people I do not even recognize. After sending a private message to them asking them who they are and how they know me, often I receive a message back explaining either “we met at that party!” or “I’m Amanda’s friend’s brother!” After reading this most people, inlcuding myself, just accept the invitation and get on with their lives, leaving Amanda’s friend’s brother and that random guy at that random party on your “friend’s” list.

Another term that facebook tries to fool us with: friend.

To me, my friends are the ones that know practically everything about me and truly care for me and, well, who I’ve conversed with for more than 15 minutes! Facebook uses this familiar and warm term to describe perfectly anonymous strangers. It is because they are so mysterious that we find ourselves creeping their pictures, comments and statuses to find out more. We always want more! With the click of a button we can find out what they wear, what their friends look like, if they’re in a relationship (if so, what kind? Married, engaged, dating, it’s complicated?), if they are partiers or home-bodies and even what they did last Friday night. Because of the vast number of “friends” everybody has - usually anywhere between 100 and 700 – humans can find themselves on facebook for hours, even days lurking the lives of others.

My point? I feel this is the greatest waste of time known to man! This is the definition of insignificant information. We shouldn’t be aware of what everyone has done on their own time, or if they are in a relationship or what their sexual orientation is. Those pieces of information should only be known by those who are truly friends. Those that do not require facebook to find them out.

People are fascinated with facebook so much so that it is corrupting our lives. I was shocked to find so many facebook screens appear in my lectures. University is thousands of dollars and people are paying attention to facebook instead of their professors! Tasks like assignments or even doing the laundry seem to take so much longer because of our “facebook break times”. This seems insane! Why is it we feel so compelled to log on to facebook every time we are on our computers? Why do we accept friend invites when we do not really know the person? Why do we feel obliged to post pictures up every few weeks? Why do we feel the need to comment on others’ albums and facebook defaults?

You may ask yourself why I still have facebook if my feelings are so strong. The answer is simple. I too, have fallen through the cracks of my keyboard.

Implications of Media

Put on your head phones and you’re in the zone. The sounds from your white head phones blast through yours ears and pound at your ear drums. You feel the music in your head; in your soul. The sound buzzes through your body. It can make you move; it can make you stay perfectly still. There is no pressure to be friends with your iPod; you are automatically compatible the second you connect the USB port to your computer. You do not have to impress the iPod or feel shy around it. The iPod does not judge you. You sing if you feel like singing, dance, cry, laugh – you can do whatever you want. He’ll fit in your pocket, coat or hand. He can grab a hold of you and pull you out of time. He can crawl into your thoughts and tease your ideas. He can make you look at things differently and impair your judgement on everybody and everything else going on in the real world.

The real world: something that enters your mind when the teacher nags, “hey, can you take those things out and pay attention?” or when a parents yells on the family drive, “turn those things down, you’re going to wreck your ears”. You lose focus to the words you are listening to. You lose sense of rhythm and you are conscious again. Your parents try with all of their might to hold on to their cognisant child but you loose eye contact and go back to starring out the window and carrying on the tunes.

How has this tiny mp3 player influenced and taken over society? For one thing, four of five people reading this know what I am talking about. If you do not own an iPod, your brother, sister, friend, cousin or even teacher does. So great! Now everybody has something in common to chat about! The question is: do we chat? Do we still know how to communicate now that these iPods have so comfortably moved into our lives?

Some feel no need to talk or communicate with others for they have their loyal iPods tucked inside their pockets. Why start up a conversation with someone when you can listen to your favourite song? Isolation. We are conforming to the feeling that there is no pressure of conversing with others or paying attention during a class as long as we’ve got music playing in our ears.

This small object can affect our society in more ways than one. The music we chose to listen to truly does affect our views and outlooks toward society. Listening to heavy, angry music when at a park might cause the listener to become interested in a deep dark area of the park with lots of trees; whereas listening to light, happy music may cause them to find significance in the swings or light blue sky.

Consequently, music affects our moods which affect our actions which, in turn, affect society. Can we control this? Next time you go for a walk or take the bus home, attempt to turn off your iPod and listen to and examine the things and people around you. Do not isolate yourself – those bright white wires are no excuse. If the desire to put those headphones back in your ears arises, go for it; but make sure that your tunes stay in tune.

New & Old

It wasn't until I randomly decided to watch an old episode of Sex and the Cty when I realized no matter how much we bicker about how great newer episodes, movies, fashions, technologies are... its just a matter of time before we love what's old again.

King of Pop

Michael Jackson has been dead for 55 days.

I still feel like I'm in mourning.

While I can't ever hear enough of his music, I feel like the new stories created so often should be laid to rest.

Clearly the MJ story intrigues masses... but perhaps social media should include "Recognizing Michael's Talents" segments. Just an idea...