#GETREAL

Watching TV Is Hard Now

I've always considered myself to be a pretty critical person, but this class has pushed my critical thinking skills past what I thought the limit could be. I'm sure other people feel like this, right? You sit through these classes that teach you to see past the surface level of what pop culture is producing, and then you can't help but notice how screwed up everything in the world is. Okay, that sounded a little pessimistic. What I'm saying is that I can't help but view the world around me with a super-critical lens ever since I've been in this class. It happens the most with the concept of branding. I'm really skeptical of every commercial's true intentions since we talked about branding in class. It has made watching TV a lot less mindless for me; now it's like work, and I like that. Since discussing branding, I've watched a couple of video clips and documentaries that have validated my dubious thoughts. Pink Ribbons, Inc. and the Dove beauty campaign have made me seriously consider how harmful branding can really be. For those of you who may be reading this and have no idea what those two titles refer to, I won't spoil it. I will say, that the pink breast cancer awareness ribbon and the Dove beauty campaign aren't all they seem cracked up to be. You should check them out and take a closer look for yourself.

Anyway, it makes sense that I would be critical of these artifacts within a classroom setting, but now it's starting to seep further into my personal life. For example, I was watching ESPN the other night and saw a rerun of that Ian Up For Whatever Bud Light commercial from the Superbowl. Instead of not really paying attention to it (like I would have normally done), I found myself thinking, "Niiiiice try, Bud Light. Your brand centers around status and adventure, but my life will not be like that if I drink your beer. Also your beer still tastes awful."

Now, don't get me wrong, I love being able to make what I learn in class applicable to my real life, but now it seems like I have a critical opinion about EVERYTHING! Kind of like nothing can be mindless anymore. I guess I know that dumb commercials are now a lot less likely to trick me into buying their gross beer. But, god, learning makes things so hard sometimes :)

Control Freak

My little brother got in some pretty serious trouble about a year ago today. In summation, he verbally took his pent-up anger out on his girlfriend at the time, and said a ton of things that could have landed him in a really scary place. Brody is and always has been a pretty avid gamer, so when he became super aggressive (a characteristic quite unlike him), my mom's first instinct was to take away his access to his Xbox. No war/battle/killing games. I can still remember sitting in my room back in high school listening to my brother yell and curse at his friends, via his headset, because one of them messed up their mission (or whatever they're called). So it makes sense, right? Take away the video games that perhaps teach it's okay to take out your anger in an aggressive manner. Well, as a result of his blow-up, Brody has been seeing a counselor since last summer. I've noticed something equal parts strange and impressive since he regained access to his beloved Xbox: Brody is way more nice over his headset. Rather than demanding his friends make a certain move, he suggests plans and engages in discussions about the best way to beat the game's level. It seems as though he is applying what I assume he's learning about anger management in counseling to his war/battle games. While reading Gilson's "Wii Shall Overcome" article, I couldn't help but picture Brody as a member of McGonigal's 1,000 year long game to amp up skills like cooperation and coordination. If you would have asked me a couple of days ago if I thought Brody's video games were good for him considering his behavioral issues, I would have said no. However, Gilson's article helped me open my eyes to the good that video games can do for people and our society. McGonigal may be onto something, and I'm inclined to believe in her ideas because I have seen first hand how gaming has helped my brother work through his interpersonal issues in a healthy, practical, and fun way. First one teenager, then, maybe, the world. Here's hoping.

Why I'm Glad Brody's Room Looked Like The Sky

I went to my hometown for an overnight stay this past weekend and somehow found myself sucked into the black hole that is family photo albums. I came across a photo of the room by brother stayed in as a baby; the photo was taken once the nursery had been finished, before Brody was born. It was designed to look like the sky. The top half of all the walls were painted very dark blue with yellow stars stamped all over. The bottom half of all the walls were painted yellow. So there was sort of a sunrise effect going on. As I looked at the photo I couldn't help thinking, "If I didn't know any better, I don't think I'd be able to tell if this nursery was meant to be a baby boy's or a baby girl's." It got me thinking about the discussion we had in class about how our society sort of breeds young children to become "girls" or "boys". Look, the pink aisle of the toy store has always rubbed me the wrong way, and someone needs to seriously reconsider the value Western society places on fairy tale princesses. But I think what I hate most is when the sex of a baby is determined, and all of a sudden family and friends are buying everything in pink or everything in blue. Like, what if the kid likes orange? It seems like we're setting up our children to be gendered robots who only make decisions about what they like later in life based on the environment forced upon them when they lacked agency. Problem. Gender shouldn't be a dichotomy, nor should the objects that represent gender be a dichotomy. Everyone should be allowed to like everything, even if it is pink. So, I applaud my parents for making the decision to raise my brother in a sky-themed room, after all, the sky is for everyone. I might do something similar if I ever had children of my own. What I won't do is tell anyone the sex of my hypothetical child. They can nose out and keep the gendered onesies to themselves.

Zombies Are Actually Super Relevant

The craziest thing happened to me today! Well, okay, it's probably not that crazy, but maybe just kind of coincidental. I had an interview for an internship today that will largely be dealing with social media and advertising. The man interviewing me was talking to me about how important it is to attach the company's message to the right types of endorsements, and to make sure that the company's reputation isn't compromised by misrepresenting their motto (Serving friends, enriching lives). He then started to give me an anecdotal example. He said that last summer a run was held in the area and his company was asked to donate money. He said he had to refuse because the run was zombie-themed! He said to me, "I don't like zombies. The whole idea of them just makes people want to start preparing for an apocalypse. Why would I want to attach my company's motto to apocalyptic thinking?" So I had to explain to him that I had just heard a talk about zombie rhetoric. After the interview, I found myself thinking about how strange it is that zombie culture has gone so far as to affect the way companies do their business. Dr. King Watts wasn't joking. The idea of zombie media seems so trivial, but really is a powerful entity that sends messages with a serious impact. Who knew? I'm thankful Dr. King Watts was able to speak in our class. My favorite thing is when somebody talks about something that seems so meaningless, and I finally see the meaning in it. This is what happened to my view of zombie culture. Now runs are being themed after it? I guess it goes back to branding, huh? You're part of this zombie-cult? We can advertise to you; join our run. Well, I know at least one person who won't be participating in any zombie runs anytime soon.

Binge-Watching

I found today's lecture on binge-watching to be especially interesting because I am a binge-watcher and didn't even know "binge-watching" was a thing. While I was reading the articles for class I kept thinking, "There's a title for watching 6 episodes of Dexter back to back with no breaks? Oh. Oops." So it's sort of funny to me how binge-watching has made a kind of sneaky appearance; I'm sure this has something to do with the growing popularity of mediums like Netflix and OnDemand. I know that, personally, OnDemand is my best friend when I am home for breaks. I don't have cable at my house here in Muncie, so I use my down time to catch up on everything I've missed. Maybe it's just me, but I feel especially prone to binge-watching because I have a problem where I cannot watch episodes of a TV show out of order. It drives me absolutely crazy. When I can find all seasons of an entire show OnDemand, it's like Christmas to me. I mentioned in class today how, during Christmas break of my freshman year, I watched all 6 seasons of Dexter in about 2 weeks. My family had been telling me all about how much they loved it and that I absolutely needed to watch it because they knew I would love it too. So I indulged and got 100% addicted. At the time I thought that was my low point, but then over Christmas break this year, I found myself binge-watching movies. We didn't talk about binge-watching movies today, but I feel as though it's pretty similar to binge-watching TV shows. I was fascinated by this world outside my own and, thus, productivity was at a serious low. I'll admit, before break I had a list about 70 titles long of movies that I wanted to see. This list existed for no other reason than I was tired of having conversations with people that went like this: "Have you seen [insert movie title here]? No. Oh my god it's SO GOOD, you HAVE to see it!" So over break I made a pretty good dent in my list of movies I HAD to see. I watched about 30 in 2ish weeks. Some days I'd watch 3 or 4 movies back to back. What I found was this: at the end of break, I couldn't remember a whole lot about the movies I had watched. Basic plotlines, yes, but names of characters, nuances, etc...all out the window. So to come full circle, I was thinking a lot about my movie binge-watching experience in class today while we discussed how binge-watching Orange Is The New Black affects the message we take away from the show. In my experience, I don't see how it couldn't. If binge-watching affected what I remembered about the movies I had seen, how could it not potentially warp what I take away from what I view? Much in the same way cramming for a test negatively affects one's ability to remember class material long-term, binge-watching may have a serious impact on the way we interact with media messages. Good or bad? I guess I'm not sure. Honestly, though, it probably won't stop me from binge-watching the latest season of Shameless when I get home for the summer.