finals

Why oh why are finals so sucky? I hate them. Facebook becomes my absolute best friend during finals week to the point where I hate IT by the time it's over, just because i've looked at it so much! This finals week, or two weeks rather, I had my friend change my password and not tell me so i couldn't get on facebook and procrastinate. it worked pretty well i should say! Apparently deleting facebook really doesnt deactivate it, it just shuts it down from other people's views but all you need to do to get on is log back in and everything is right there again! Sooo basically, you're just refraining from logging in. The password change thing was great because my friend would check my page regularly and tell me of anything urgent, and everything else just slid by as i studied my heart out. I think i found a new finals week tradition:)

cleanin

I just cleaned my parents house for money. I am officially a poor college student. The worst part is, they paid me more per hour than i make at my real, part-time job. That I have worked at for a year. Yeah. Sucks. Why does the job market make me want to crawl under a rock and hide?

metrostation

Miley Cyrus' brother sings in this band called Metrostation, right? Well, has anyone seen this kid? He is tatted up, wearing makeup, and totally a punk lookin kid. This is the kind of person Miley sees as an influence. His music is so sexual and while I love it, and it's great to dance to, it just seems strange listening to it knowing that it is Miley's brother. For some reason, Miley is stuck in my head as that cute little 12 year old that played on Hannah Montana and sang about being famous. I know that is the image she is trying to fight, and that is why she is practically stripping on national television, and has become a partier and all of that. It is just normal teenage stuff, except maybe the stripping, but her good-girl image has totally accented the contrast. Apparently her parents don't really care what she does, they just want to make money off of her, and her brother's rebel appearance seems to indicate that they didn't care with him either. I know it's everyone's prerogative to dress how they want to, but it just seems to stark a contrast to little Hannah Montana. Regardless, I still love Metrostation and think Miley is trashy:)

facebook official

How many times have i heard someone ask, "is it facebook official?" about a relationship. There is no personal connection anymore, apparently. A new relationship has to be official and up on facebook or its like it doesnt exist! Noone cares about the actual relationship, they just want to be able to "like" the new relationship. Technology's prevalence in our daily lives has reached new heights and I'm a little bit scared to see where it goes from here. Progress stops for no man!

House Music

I just turned in a paper I wrote on House music. It was for my other pop culture class and it was a pretty kickass assignment if i do say so myself. i wrote about how house music has increased in popularity lately and has totally invaded top forty pop music. Aside from my Michael Jackson papers, it was the most fun to write. I love pop culture!!

Psych

Saturday was my birthday and my brother got me the same thing he got for me last year, another season of Psych. I love that show but it is little bit uncreative if you ask me. That aside, however, the show is so good. i watched some episodes from season 3, the season he got me, and it has gotten quite a bit heavier than I remembered it. It is still funny, but there are heavier issues presented, like a guy tried to kill himself because he was terminally ill and if he died by accident, his family would get a million dollars per his life insurance policy, but if he died due to his illness they would get nothing. Sean, the psychic, found out and confronted him and tried to talk him out of it but he went through with the suicide anyway. How depressing! I still love the show but I just wonder why the show decided to go in that direction. Is that what audiences want?

bloodstream

"I think I might have inhaled you
I can feel you behind my eyes
You've gotten into my bloodstream
I can feel you flowing in me"

ONE OF THE BEST SONGS EVER!!! A friend of mine gave me a mixed cd for my birthday this last saturday and she made her own little case cover and everything and the title of the whole mixed cd is "Bloodstream." This song inspired the whole cd!! Listening to it makes me feel inspired too it's so moving and personal and the beats just sink into your skin and you can feel it all the way down in your soul. This song is badass and I don't think I'll ever get tired of it

studying music

I am in the library studying with a group of friends and it seems imperative that we have music playing in order to study. I don't know if it is because music just helps people feel less bored or if people actually study better with it but when the music goes off someone always says it is too quiet. In our culture music is played everywhere from the car, to the office, to the restaurant, to the public restroom, and shops. There is never true silence and I think when people encounter silence, they feel uncomfortable. I know I do. I think that is proof that our society has become too media-oriented, if we can't even sit comfortably in silence.

Jersey Whore

Everyone has been hating on the Jersey Shore lately! It's been brought up in my classes time and time again about how ridiculous the people act and oh my, for halloween? every party had at least 5 Snookie's and Pauly D's. It seems that a lot of people don't like the people from Jersey Shore but I happen to love them. I find them so ridiculous but the thing about it is, they KNOW they are ridiculous and they just roll with it. They aren't really as stupid as they may seem. They know how dumb they look with their fake tans and their muscles and tattoos and their nights of partying and hooking up. That's the whole point though. They have been given an opportunity to live a life, at least for a time, of no responsibility. And they are taking full advantage of it. Who cares if people don't like them, they are having the time of their lives while they still can and I for one, am jealous. They have drama sure but it keeps life interesting. A girl in one of my classes talked about how awfully mean the guys were for the way they classified girls as "grenades" and such, but I think it's hilarious. They are just speaking the truth with some exaggeration and putting on a good show and if you don't like it, don't watch the show! Monica! People call them Jersey Whore's and things like that but they are just having a good time and it's their choice what they want to do just like it's your choice to watch the show. I think it makes someone less of a person when they watch a show for the sole purpose to hate on and criticize the characters than for the Jersey Shore cast to go out and party. I am tired of hearing how everyone hates Jersey Shore. If you don't like it don't watch it. It's simple. They are an accurate representation of what a LOT of young people in this day and age would love to be able to be and do, they just don't have the means for it. In the most loving way, I would like to say to all the Jersey Shore haters out there, YOU are the Jersey Whore.

victoria's secret runway show

It's that time again, time for the annual Victoria's Secret fashion show. It's the night when girls gather around to eat carrots and drink water while watching, and every boyfriend and husband of semi-normalcy goes M.I.A. I wonder why it's such a big deal? I mean, there is so much porn available to us, just a click away, with really hot girls in underwear and less...I understand these are supermodels we're talking about here but really? They're just beautiful women with good bodies wearing not very many clothes. That is readily available on the internet. Maybe it has to do with the whole show of it. I think that's what it is for the girls anyways. Or their excuse. Girls want to look at the beautiful women and think about how badly they wished they looked like the models did, and how they are going to try to do their hair and makeup the same way and walk with confidence so men will want them. They say it's about the cute underwear and costumes but I think it's an excuse to look at what the media has told them is the ideal. Men just have a great excuse to look at what is practically porn and have it be socially acceptable to do in public. No matter what the reasoning however, it is sad that these supermodels that probably do nothing but work out and throw up have become the ideal that women should look up to. It's an entire night dedicated to showing women that a specific body type and a specific style is sexy and if you don't have it, then you're just out of luck and you better hope you find a guy who will love you for the inside. Everyone, men and women both, has been trained and programmed through repetition to believe that the model type is the ideal standard of beauty.

clubs as a means of escape

All throughout class today I was so frustrated with everyone's critiques of the music videos we watched. They were club scenes and about drinking and things like that. People kept saying they felt like the videos and the lifestyle was geared towards lower intelligence teenagers and basically saying only ignorant people would buy the message being sold. I personally am a considerably intelligent person in my own opinion, a gpa of 3.9 and in the honors college. I also work two jobs in conjunction with going to school full time and paying all my own bills. I am in no way a lazy delusional teenager that sees the club as an ideal. It is an escape. I love going to the club and when the lady in the front said that thing about everyone that walked into her bar became stupid as soon as they walked in...it's because the club is an escape from responsiblity! I go because it's fun and I can be stupid and I can be silly and crazy and not worry about the pressures of day to day responsiblity. I don't go because I am irresponsible or ignorant or of lower intelligence, I go because I work hard and I am responsible and on the weekends I like to have fun and relieve some stress. Yes, the videos are an exaggeration of the activities at the clubs and yes there is the issue of woman's subjegation, but everyone repeating the idea that the videos were geared towards people of lower intelligence really got to me and I appreciate the professor trying to downplay that idea towards the end of class

jonas brothers concert

Last night I went to the Jonas Brothers concert. On the surface it was sooo fun and I had a blast of course. But from the time I was waiting in line to the time I left I couldn't help but notice how capitalistic the whole thing was. Everything was for sale: a better place in line, an upgrade in your ticket, a meet and greet pass, water and beer, and of course, a chance at happiness. If only I could be closer to the front of the line, if only I could meet the Jonas Brothers, if only I could spend 12 dollars on a beer to quench my thirst I would be happy. T-shirts with the Jo Bro's faces on them were $40, water bottles cost $4, and you could rent binoculars for $20. Capitalism. The faces of 3 brothers were being marketed to the public as something worth spending their money on. No one really got to spend any quality time with them or get to know them. They aren't well-respected humanitarians doing good for the world. They are, in essence, a boy band that is probably about to break up and incite riots amongst groups of 8-13 year olds who are dying to simply be in the same arena as the brothers. Don't get me wrong, I love the Jonas Brothers and I had a wonderful time at their concert, but it epitomized capitalism, marketing schemes, and the public's desire to be obsessed with something, it doesn't really matter what it is. People want something to stand for. That's why people tie themselves to trees that are about to be bulldozed. The thousands of screaming girls were taking a stand on their love for the Jonas Brothers, who really just lend faces to a brand name.

half-naked women

I found it very interesting in class the other day when we were analyzing the Guess jeans ad. We talked about what the sexy model represented and said to our subconscious when we looked at the ad. What I thought was interesting was as we were transitioning into a different topic, the prof casually referred to the model as a "half-naked woman." However the woman was fully clothed, with capri jeans on and a t shirt that covered her shoulders and her chest. The only abnormal skin showing was a few inches of skin at her midriff which is common to see on teenage girls at the mall. The woman was fully clothed and lying on her stomach but the fact that she was beautiful and on a billboard caused her to be classified as a half-naked woman. I just wonder what this says about the idea of sexiness in our society. It seems like you can't be beautiful or sexy in advertising without being put in the category of half-naked sluts who bare it all. This begs the question of whether or not there is a middle ground. Can a woman only be plain and dowdy or a hussy? Why is an attractive woman, fully clothed, referred to as "half-naked" by a socially conscious intellectual?

role of a critic

The role of a critic is to be able to study and analyze something through the lens of objectivity. A critic should be able to remove themselves from their own feeling and emotion and objectively make observations about whatever it is they are criticizing. The role of a critic of popular culture specifically should be able to analyze popular culture to see why it is popular, what the underlying aspects are of whatever it is they are looking at that cause people to be attracted to it and take it up, and understand the effects that popular culture has on a person or a group of people. I believe in the class I am supposed to be objectively learning. Learning about methods of criticism, about other people’s ideas and theories and deciding my own, and learning the lenses of criticism through which to study popular culture. I think that we study popular culture in order to better understand ourselves. By studying popular culture we see inside people to what they desire and what they respond to and by knowing what people in general desire and care about, we are able to discover what we ourselves care about and respond to. Understanding the why behind the popular nature of different aspects of popular culture not only offers a lens of insight into society or a subset of society but also into oneself and I believe it is very important for every person to know themselves. I hope to get out of the class a little more insight into the mass mindset of society and a little more insight into myself and my own innate desires and respondents.