House Hippos Never Say No To Panda.

I realize that I am being advertised to almost 24/7.  Even outside this school there is a giant billboard advertising McDonald's specials (it once advertised a double Big Mac and that it the only time that a billboard has been successful in enticing me). This should be scary to me, I should feel violated in some way, shouldn't I?

Well, I don't. When I see a really good, funny, and effective ad, I laugh at it. When I see product placement in a movie it does not send me into a spiralling rage about how the art of movies is dead and nothing is real. None of it phases me in the slightest. This isn't to say that I'm wowed by ever ad and dial every 1-800 number that flashes on the screen, but I have enough thought to know when I'm being advertised to, and to take things just at their entertainment value.

Advertising is treated as a soul-sucking satanic demon in our society, and many times it is. When we analyzed ads in magazines, all I could see were airbrushed, photoshopped, unrealistic women. This can be damaging to many young girls and women. Ads appeal to our desires to be beautiful, happy, popular, and successful. And while many view this as exploitative, we need to realize that companies are never going to stop doing this. Instead of pointing fingers at the companies, maybe we should be learning how to be more critical. When girls see a model editing beyond recognition they should say, "That is not real, that is not me, and I don't need that to be beautiful." I think that's a better way to counteract advertising.

This way, advertising can't effect anyone. We can all sit back, relax and enjoy life and television and movies without feeling like we've been violated. We enjoy commercials for the beautiful and funny things they are, like the hilarious Panda cheese ads,



Sure, they're selling me something, but I'm also laughing too hard to care. And I'm certainly not flying to Vietnam to get some.

But I don't think anyone can explain it better than my favourite PSA, House Hippos. It taught me a lasting lesson of "be critical". This message translates not only to ads on TV, but to all forms of media. Everyone, young and old, can learn something from House Hippos.



Stop worrying, start enjoying. Don't be an idiot, be critical.

Television

I don't even know where to begin.

In the 2 years that I have had Netflix and been able to *ahem* download almost anything, the amount of TV I have watched has skyrocketed. It's just so convenient. We live in a world where all the entertainment you need is at the click of a mouse. Just a few weeks ago I re-watched all 5 seasons of Breaking Bad within the span of a couple days.

That is where I have a problem.

While this amount of convenience is, well, convenient, it can be somewhat soul-sucking to say the least. Even now I have my Netflix tab open and I'm forcing myself to do this assignment instead of watching the entire new season of Orange is the New Black that was uploaded just a couple of days ago. It's like falling into a deep and dark dungeon that I can never escape. I'll be doing homework and maybe I'll take a break to watch a cute little episode of Avatar or Bob's Burgers, but then suddenly I'm at the end of the episode and another will be playing automatically in 13 seconds but I'm not exiting the window (Why aren't you exiting, Liz?!). No, one episode becomes two becomes three becomes the whole season and suddenly I have no work done and it's 3 in the morning and I am the one who has to wake up in the morning for school.

That is the troublesome relationship I have with TV. It takes me on a downward spiral worse than crack. But it isn't crack, it's the magical land of Westeros, or the fabulous life of NY socialites, or Tim Gunn. So why is it such a problem?

For me, I get sucked into an endless black hole of TV whenever I open my laptop. And half of the time, it's not even quality TV that I would regularly watch. Once I watched an entire season of Keeping Up with the Kardashians just because it was there. I don't even like the Kardashians, it was just really convenient for me to watch. This is where I start to draw the line. TV can be wonderful, just like movies or any other form of entertainment. But the minute I start reducing myself to fake-tanned, bottom-feeding trash reality shows then it becomes an issue.

TV, like movies, should be well-imagined, well-filmed, well-acted, well-written entertainment. But more and more as I scroll through my Netflix feed I see shows like the Kardashians, Jersey Shore, Khloe and Kourtney Take Miami, any of The Real Housewives, the list goes on. These kinds of shows are awful, they aren't reality shows that even merit their contestants based on talent like Project Runway or Chopped, they instead glorify stereotyped, catty, trashy women and stupid drama. And yet these are the shows in the 'most popular' section, these are the shows even I'm tempted to click on everyday. Something about these shows are so captivatingly terrible that everyone wants to watch them, the people in them are viewed as stars, and are making millions of dollars.

I'm going to stop supporting shows like that, as tempting as they may be. I'd rather sit down and watch something that has decent quality and effort put into it, instead of exploiting dumb people for entertainment value. In fact, I may just check into rehab and stop watching so much TV altogether (if that's possible).

The All-Consuming Twitter

2,280.

That is the number of tweets I have posted on my account since its inception last year. That is approximately 6 tweets per day for the past year. This pales in comparison to some of my other friends who are over the 10,000 mark, but I'm proud of it nonetheless.
Yes, I am proud of it. When I scroll through my twitter page and read what I've written, I don't feel like I've wasted time or like I should be ashamed. I see my comic musings and opinions from everyday and I'm proud of the things I've written. Sure, you can't write some amazing novel on twitter. But everything I tweet is a small amount of me, and I try to personalize everything I tweet, even if it's something mundane like buying socks,



Or asking for birthday presents,



Or chronicling events at work,



Or reporting on new fashion trends.



I try my best (I try really hard) to make my tweets funny/ interesting to read. And there are many
(more popular) accounts that do the same thing if not better with their own accounts. When I scroll through my twitter feed I am constantly being shown small 140 character punchlines from various comedians and actors, some of whom even made their start on Twitter. Despite the trash and idiotic ramblings that Twitter is infamous for, there is a lot of people who Tweet funny and inventive things.

Rob Delaney, an average married father, made his start on Twitter, and has now blossomed into a published author and comedian.


Or Mary Charlene, one of my favourite Twitter personalities, who has amassed a whopping 150k followers and over 12k tweets.


Twitter can even be used to spark social change and raise awareness of certain issues. For example, a recent trending hashtag has been #YesAllWomen, where various women and men post about rape-culture and women's rights.





All this isn't to say that Twitter isn't filled with a lot of this,



or this,



because it is. There's a lot of dumb tweets just as there are a lot of funny, affecting tweets. But isn't that true for anything? For every scholarly novel there is a book about Spirit Animal Guides and a Justin Bieber biography. Twitter and all other social media get a bad rep for being un-educational, "brainwashing" garbage, but often times we disregard all of the benefits social media can provide us. If you're willing to look past a little trash, you'll find that social media can be unifying, entertaining, and if used properly it can change the world. In what other generation would I be able to wish my aunt in B.C. a happy birthday, interact with my favourite celebrities and comedians, or spread awareness of a cause that could reach hundreds of people at the same time? I think instead of pushing people to reject social media, we should be encouraging people to use it in a way that could be beneficial to themselves and others. Social media, like anything, can be as great or as terrible as you make it to be.

The Bling Ring

I just finished watching Sophia Coppola's "The Bling Ring".

The premise of this movie is based of a real story about a group of teens who broke into celebrity mansions and stole over 3 million dollars worth of designer clothes, accessories, and even some furniture.

Overall, I thought this movie was pretty good. Despite Emma Watson's terrible american accent, I thought it was really well acted and executed. It was more entertaining than educational, unless I was researching the contents of Paris Hilton's closet.

Due to the content, the movie did have a lot of product placement. The main characters were drowning in Chanel, Versace, Alexander McQueen, Louis Vuitton, Dolce and Gabbana, Bulgari jewellery, anything you could imagine. Usually I would find this amount of product placement gratuitous, but it worked so well with the story that I didn't even mind. To see these teens freak out over a Chanel bag at Paris Hilton's house was not only amusing but also aided to the development of these fame-crazy characters. There were also many cross-promotions with celebrities such as Lindsey Lohan,
Orlando Bloom, Rachel Bilson, and of course Paris Hilton. At one point Emma Watson even held up a shoe and said, "Wow, I didn't know Paris had her own shoe line!" I'll admit that was a bit excessive.
It also included a few stereotypes. The only gay guy was of course obscenely into fashion and occasionally cross dressing. All of the girls were vapid and only cared about how they looked. Again, I didn't feel like it was so obvious as to take away from the movie, but it was prominent enough to mention.

I think this movie was effective. It can appeal to a variety of audiences, especially teens. I think everyone wants to live that celebrity lifestyle. In the movie the main character Marc says that he feels like he isn't handsome, not good-looking enough to be on the red carpet or to live a fabulous lifestyle. He commented that having those beautiful things made them feel important, like they were part of that lifestyle. I think, although vapid, a lot of people (especially teens) can relate to these values. Everyone envies stars and their fabulous lives in some way or another. It's important for movie to make these connections with audiences. I think a good movie is one that anyone can watch and see a part of themselves.

Out of all the units we've studied, movies are the form of media I'd want to spend more time with. Every time I watch a movie I am transported into another place. I can be in Middle Earth, or on the day of Don Corleone's daughter's wedding, or even a spaceship headed to the end of the universe. This is a beautiful and amazing thing to me, to be able to be entranced with something at the push of a "play" button. While, like many forms of media, movies can be rampant with product placement, ads, and stereotypes, the magic isn't lost within them, and sometimes they can be used to enhance the experience. If I'm going to be advertised to, why not have it be on a fictional billboard in the background that gets blown up by Batman in some attempt to save Gotham? That seems like a better option to me. As long as you remain critical of when you're being advertised to, I see no harm in sitting back and enjoying a good ol' fashioned movie. There's nothing wrong with entertainment for the sake of entertainment.

Moncton Shootings

In the wake of the recent horror caused by the Moncton police shootings, I thought it only fitting that I post about them.

I was looking at an article on the CTV website today about the police arresting the suspected Moncton shooter. The article itself was appropriate and well written despite the subject matter, what surprised me was the other media displayed on the same page. On the side of the page showed other popular videos and articles. Among them were a video of a cat that survived a flood, and a video entitled "The MJ The World Didn't See".

I was surprised and shocked by these. It makes me sad to think that our society values news about a cat and Michael Jackson at the same level as a horrific tragedy such as this. 

I checked on other sites to see if it would be the same. Globe and Mail was even worse. The most popular videos were about Rihanna wearing a scandalous dress, Rob Ford doing something idiotic, and Channing Tatum defending Jonah Hill over 'gay' accusations. I was equally disturbed. 

News is not a tabloid, and should be held to a higher standard. For every hard-hitting article, there is an idiotic fluff piece to "compliment" it. Celebrity gossip should be left to 17 Magazine and cat videos should be left for Youtube. If these kinds of stories start dominating the news there will be no way for us to learn about the parts of our culture that can be viewed as shocking or disturbing. I'm sure most people would love to watch a cute video of a cat rather than one about a police shooting, but in the end which is more important for us to know? Why is the top Canadian trend on twitter about Orange The New Black premiering on Netflix and not about a recent tragedy in our own country?

I'm tired of our society worshipping that kind of trash and ignoring important issues. The news should be trash-free, but instead it is now cluttered with it.