Week 7

     Last night we had a very interesting class. We talked about a topic that I feel I have a lot to say about… pornography. We read a couple articles, which basically all had an agenda leading to the same point: the kids in our society are being exposed to porn at younger and younger ages. For example, my mom is a middle school teacher and she teaches the seventh grade. I could not count the times she has come home in a funk because of the things she hears her students say (mostly pertaining to sex). I remember when I was in middle school, I vaguely knew what sex was (it made babies). I wore basketball shorts to school so I could play harder outside during breaks, I had braces (with springs), I thought boys were gross. These days, middle school girls look older than me, and middle school boys know more than me (not in the academic sense, if you know what I mean). There is even a meme I have seen where it says "me at 13" with some cute, dorky little girl beside a picture that says "13 year olds now"with a girl who looks like she's going out to a club.
     My mom does say that she has some students that still have their innocence about them. So, it is possible to raise your children with some sort of morals. However, with phones it is hard to tell what curious kids are looking at in their rooms all by themselves, or at a sleepover with friends. Sometimes, it is not the parents who are doing something wrong. I think the problem stems from kids being introduced to sex through pornography. They are too immature to realize that what happens in porn is not actually what happens in the real world. Then, when the time comes that they choose to have sex, (which is younger, too) they are strongly disappointed that it was not like what they see on their phones and laptops. Pornography desensitizes these kids so much that nothing in reality will ever live up to their expectations. I believe this causes people to sleep around more (hoping to find someone who resembles the girl/guy in a porno), and have to find something--for lack of a better word--kinkier. This thing could be child pornography or sadism and masochism. I find this such a scary thought.
     I am a religious person, and I do have many of my morals stemming from my beliefs. Setting all of that aside, I still believe that this is a big problem in our society. Children should not be introduced to something that is meant to be special by porn stars on the internet. Parents need to talk to their kids and let them know what sex is and what pornography is, because they are different. Middle school is an age where kid's minds are still being shaped and they should not be shaped by the garbage they see on the internet. To sum up my point, I am going to use an idea that was in one of the articles we discussed. The mom was writing to her son to explain to him that if he wants to watch porn, she cannot stop him. However, she does not want him to base his expectations of his future partner on what he sees because he will never be satisfied. I think this is the approach that has to be taken these days. Children have so much access that we can never completely monitor what they see. Instead, we have to talk to them beforehand and take a preventative approach. In all likelihood, they will see pornography, but it is up to the parents to let their children know the difference.
   

Week 6

This week in class we discussed a topic that I found very interesting: are we missing out on life by being so addicted to social media? This is a topic I have thought about many times before, so I was glad to be able to discuss it with others and get new perspectives on it. Personally, I do not think I am addicted to social media. There are days that I do not check anything all day long. I do enjoy going through my timelines when I have time, and I admit that it is a great way to pass time. However, I think there is a difference between "passing time" and "wasting time." I use social media for only minutes (maybe seconds) at a time sporadically throughout the day. I am not the type of person who knocks out an hour on social media. I believe that is a waste of time. In an hour, I could get a homework assignment done, chat with friends on campus, eat lunch, make it to the gym, and so many other things that I could not accomplish in a few minutes. Those random few minutes are what I dedicate to social media.
    I know there are probably more people unlike me in this sense than there are like me. Many of my friends seem to always be on social media. It is like an addiction. I truly think we are wasting our lives when we spend so much time in an alternate reality. I admit, there are good things that come out of social media and the internet, but there are also really bad things. It all lies in the way we choose to use it. I do not want to miss out on memories with my family in real time. I want to always choose to be present. Real life first, alternate life last. The moment that really sculpted this way of thinking was when I went to a concert of my absolute FAVORITE band. It was one of the most exciting days of my life. My boyfriend, Alex, actually surprised me with tickets for my birthday. When we got to the concert, I of course starting taking pictures. I wanted to remember this special moment for the rest of my life. During the concert, I took a video of a segment of the first few songs. Finally, Alex told me I was missing out on so much so that I could get a good video. From that point on, I put my phone down and just enjoyed. I got so much more out of the real-life experience then I ever could out of a video. To this day, I have never gone back and looked at the videos (although I have travelled down memory lane plenty of times since then). I am so glad I did not waste the life experience. Basically, I think social media can completely overtake our lives if we let it.  We are so afraid of forgetting a memory that we fail to make new ones. I think social media should be used for change and not for escape.

Week 5

     This week in class we discussed what makes something go "viral." We talked a lot about memes, and even looked at some famous ones. We watched YouTube videos with millions of likes. The one question we asked, though, was is it about these videos that makes them go viral? There doesn't seem to be a trend… some are funny, some are sad, some are exciting, and quite frankly, some are stupid. I think the main reason that things go viral is because they have had a "tastemaker" bring attention to them. For example, I used to watch The Soup on E News, and the host pretty much made fun of things that had been posted on the internet over the past week. There were times that I saw a short clips, and then searched them on YouTube so that I could see the rest. So, I'm assuming that has a lot to do with it going viral. You need someone who has a lot of attention to BRING attention to something.
     I was also thinking to myself… what makes certain memes funny to me and others not so much? I came to a conclusion: I like memes that make me realize something about myself that I never really thought about before. I like when I see something and it makes me think "Wow, so I'm not the only one who does this or thinks in this nonsensical way?!"For instance, I saw a meme the other day on Facebook. There was a cat staring directly at the back of a plain couch (very boring) and the meme said "People at modern are museums… 'Interesting piece!'" What is funny to me about that is that although I have never thought much about how uninteresting modern art museums are to me, I completely understood the point of the meme. What makes it even better is that there are so many other people that feel the same way. So, I think that is what makes a meme go viral. Unexpectedness in the sense that it makes you realize something about yourself, while also making you excited that you are not the only one who thinks that way. If a meme makes many people say "OH MY GOSH!!" when they see it, it probably has a decent chance of going viral. People live for unexpectedness.
     I guess we never really know what makes something go viral (if science cannot even figure it out, I definitely can't). However, I think I have a pretty decent theory!

Week 4

     This week in class, we discussed important points out of "Here Comes Everybody" by Clay Shirky. I found some interesting points that I have never given any thought about before. The chapter 3 title pretty much sums it up: Everyone is a Media Outlet. Shirky talks about how professionals are specialized in a field, and the scarcity of the amount of people in that field are what makes them professionals. He described it as "In the same way you do not have to be a professional driver to drive, you no longer have to be a professional publisher to publish." He calls this "mass amateurization." Basically, the internet serves as an outlet for literally anyone to publish (although not necessarily professionally) anything they want to. For example, here I am publishing a blog, yet I have no background experience or specialization in the art of journalism or publishing. So now, you do not have to be a journalism to report or a publisher to publish. This is what makes the internet so full of junk. Millions of people are publishing works on the internet that nobody cares about. On occasion, however, you may come across something worth seeing. This brings us to chapter 4: "Publish, then Filter." Shirky's point here is that everyone is just throwing stuff out onto the internet without a second thought, and most of it is stuff that nobody cares about. So, all this stuff is being published constantly, and then the internet users (us) have to filter through it and decide what is important and what isn't. This is opposite of the traditional way of filtering, then publishing. Just to reiterate, this is the reason for the massive amounts of (for lack of a better word) crap on the internet. Shirky wrote "Surveying [the internet's] vast collection of personal postings, in-joke photographs, and poorly shot video, it's easy to conclude that, while the old world of scarcity may had some disadvantages, it spared us the worst of amateur publishing." I couldn't have said it better.
     Another point that was brought up that I found interesting was the amount of people who have become "famous" for their amateur publishing. For example, anyone can have a YouTube channel, where they can post just about anything they want. Ninety-nine times out of one-hundred, it is garbage. But maybe one of those posts is actually worth watching. It goes viral. Ellen Degeneres sees it and invites him or her on the show. Millions of people watch the show, search the guest on Instagram or Twitter, and follow them. Not that I consider that fame, but it is definitely more famous than I currently am! My favorite, by far, are the people who start working out to become healthier, and all of the sudden they become a fitness instructors and change their Instagram name to "Fitness-(insert name here)," and post photos of them eating healthy foods like avocados and pixilated videos of them doing crunches.
     Anyway, Shirky gave me a  new perspective on the way I look at this "mass amateurization." The word "famous" does not only include musicians, comedians, or actors and actresses. It also includes the "Instafamous" or "Youtube famous" people. I wonder if we will ever get to the point where fame does not mean anything anymore.