*Cringe Attack*

The gross shuttering feeling when you remember that you made a blog for your media studies class. I have no idea how I managed to pass that class. I am way too proper for typing "fun" blog posts.

Oh. My. God. SNOOZE FEST.

Kill me.

Because of my cringe attack and I have decided to create a totally new blog. Leaving this one in the past is going to be the best decision ever. The worst part is, I'll probably never delete this blog and the next one that I'm making in hopes that I forget all about it and remember it when I'm like 40 and technology is better and Blogger is going down the drain (like Facebook should be).

I am such an asshole for planning a future cringe attack on myself, but I take pride in being a complete jerk so it's okay. Sorry future-self. You were a total loser.

Adios, farewell,

Tiffany Bomberry, 2016.

New blog: yeezy2020.blogspot.com

The Future's Past

Today’s post is going to be about the following statement:

“Reality TV is a positive force in our modern day popular culture, and it reflects the best values and ideas of our society.”

First of all I want to ask you, the lovely person reading this post, if you laughed when you read this statement; because I did.

The thing is modern day popular culture is a joke. Reality TV doesn’t have a positive force, and it reflects anything but our best values and ideas. With shows on TV like Jersey Shore, Fear Factor, and Teen Mom it clearly shows that our values as a society aren’t as positive and as good as we thought they were.

Jersey Shore has to be one of the biggest and best examples of our society’s terrible values. Although it was one of the biggest shows on TV, this show was the least bit positive. Unaware of what they were watching, people all over the world were being promoted a vast variety of things that people between the ages of 12 and 17 shouldn’t be promoted. The men in this show (if you even want to call them men) would go out almost every single night and scout out for girls that they thought were cute-enough and would be an easy bang. A lot of the girls that they referred to as “grenades” (meaning “ugly”) were actually really good-looking girls; but they didn’t fit the criteria for these boys. A lot of girls watched this show and were googly-eyed over the boys; how do you think they would feel if who they thought was really pretty, was considered not-attractive to the guys that they had fantasies of dating. If anything, Jersey Shore is a negative force in our modern day popular culture. And god am I glad that show ended.

On to the next reality show: Fear Factor. This show is a great example of our culture’s values and ideas, which aren’t the best. This show clearly is for morbid sadists that enjoy watching other people’s pain. It clearly shows that the people of today’s modern culture are willing to do literally anything for a cash prize (in this case, $50,000). One episode which NBC was a little too afraid to air had the contestants drink the semen and urine of a donkey! Now is that worth $50,000 in your opinion? Our culture really has the best values and ideas, doesn’t it?

The last reality show I’m going to talk about is the very well-known 16 And Pregnant. Although 16 and Pregnant showed young teens the truth of being pregnant at such a young age, it also promoted being pregnant at such a young age. When this show first started out in 2009, my friends and I were only a mere 10 and 11 years old. I never saw an interest in this show, but most of my friends did. I don’t talk to most of my elementary school friends anymore, but I can tell you that most of them did get pregnant around the ages of 15 to 17. I’m not blaming the show, but I feel like if it weren’t so promoted when we were younger they would’ve had different fates. I also do know that a lot of teens tried to get on the show after it grew popular. So you tell me if this show was a positive force on our modern day popular culture.

Reviewing the Media

During the course of the semester, my media studies class watched a various amount of movies and videos; most being really bad, but some being bearable and entertaining. We watched t.v. shows like Duck Dynasty; Youtube videos like the Monsters Inc. Fan Film; Movies, some with sound and colour and the other half black, white, and only containing an energetic and heart pumping song to fill the silence.

Duck Dynasty: a show about being a redneck, family values, and the behind-the-scenes of owning a duck-call company. When we first started talking about this show, I was very one-sided about it. I hated it. I hated the fact that a class I was looking forward to was talking about a show that I could barely stand. Before our many discussions on this television show, I thought Duck Dynasty was just a show for people with no sense of humour. I thought that one of the characters, Mountain Man, was just paid to act slow and absent minded but then I connected it to people that lived in my town. There's a part of town where I live where people whom live there are known for being slow and absent minded, like Mountain Man; that's when I decided that maybe he is as slow as he comes off to be. Many classes passed and I started to open my mind up to the show. I still don't like it, I would still turn off the t.v. if it were the only show on, but I don't criticize the characters as much as I did before. After studying what happens in that family, and hearing about how they handle things over the news, I can actually say that I don't completely hate Duck Dynasty.

Linking television shows to movies, the next thing I'm going to write about is The Truman Show. When I first started high school, my year nine english class watched a clip from The Truman Show for reasons that I cannot remember. Ever since we watched that clip, I had a need to watch the entire film. Luckily I joined Media Studies and we got to study it. Whenever I think about this movie, I always think about the question "how the heck did the writer come up with this", and then that eventually leads to The Twilight Zone, which eventually leads to the Sims trilogy. Basically what I'm trying to say is that this movie is one big Sims game. If you're a paranoid person, like myself, this movie will most likely mess with your brain. After we finished this movie, I was always anxious because I always thought about the possibility of my life being a t.v. show for someone on another planet or someone in another country. Maybe I'm famous in Japan or Venus, who knows. Despite the afterwards anxiety that this movie made me feel, it was really good. Well scripted, I enjoyed the cast, I enjoyed the plot, I enjoyed looking into the movie afterwards with the class and pointing out things like the fact that the creator of The Truman Show's name was Christof. I would definitely show my family this movie and recommend it to friends and such.

Speaking of movies, one of my favourites that we watched in class was The Sprinkler Sprinkled. This black and white film was played a lot more than once, and it was one of the only things that we watched in class that I didn't get annoyed of. In the past, I had a hard time getting into black and white film but this film kept me engaged. The thing I like about silent film is the music, and the over exaggeration of the actors. The actor's reactions to the things happening around them was priceless, and it definitely added to the film entirely. This silent film engaged my class so well, that I think that it could probably keep my 5-year-old cousin entertained and she'd want to watch it again and again.

One video that we watched in this class that I had a hard time liking was the Monsters Inc. Fan Film. This video is for the group of people that enjoy things that are so horrible, they're good. When this video was first introduced to the class, I had a hard time liking it because it was just... bad. We watched this video more than 5 times in one class, and by the end of the third replay, it was already annoying and made me want to stab my eardrums with a spork. After figuring out the words to the video through the row that sits beside me, it started to get stuck in my head. After a couple days of torture, a couple days of denial, and a couple days of acceptance, I started to enjoy the video. Although I am still in a little bit of denial, and I can say that this video slowly turned me into one of those people that enjoys horrible things.

Analysing the Media

Justin Bieber - As Long As You Love Me (ft. Big Sean)

As much as I want Justin Bieber to fight for my love and the approval of my father-figure, this video is not a realistic view of the world. Although this isn't a realistic view on the world, this is one of Justin's most realistic videos. With the opening and closing sequences, I get the vibe that the director of this video wanted fans to connect with it on an emotional level. This video certainly fits the meaning of the song, which basically is: no matter what challenges Justin and his love interest face, he will always want to be with her. With how the video so strongly connects to the song, it also connects with the fanbase. I mean, it's every girl's dream to have Justin running down a train station hallway on his way to steal you from your overly-protective father that just doesn't understand how in love you are. In today's pop culture with songs mostly being written about heartbreak or love, this video certainly fits the criteria. Not only does the song itself give you a mental image of a handsome lad loving you through all of the bad times in your life, the video gives you the actual visual (which makes it even more perfect).

The stereotype displayed in this video is that overprotective parents have a hard time trusting their kids. This is shown in the beginning of the video when Justin went to the video girl, Chanel Celaya's house and was turned down when asking for approval from her father. He was told that her father knew guys like Justin and that he didn't want his little girl to get hurt.

In the song, however, the stereotype is that true love is worth fighting for. During Big Sean's verse he says:

So I know we got issues baby true

But I'd rather work on this with you

Than to go ahead and start with someone new

By saying this he knows that his relationship will go through it's struggles, but in the end it's worth working out because he is so in-love with whomever he's singing about.

The values that this video is expressing is that love hurts emotionally and physically. Emotionally with Chanel being distressed that her father won't allow her to see her beau; and physically with Chanel's father beating up Justin at the end of the video because he tried to run away with his daughter.

The lifestyle choices that this video portrays are the rich (Chanel and her father) and the poor (Justin). You can tell Chanel and her father are rich from the opening sequence. They live in a big beautiful home, with a lovely yard, and gates guarding the front of the entrance. You can tell Justin's lifestyle is poor because he's not calling his love from his cellphone or from his house phone, he's calling from a pay phone. Although he drives to the girl in a nice car, in one scene he was carrying a duffle bag. Probably holding his belongings. I can see his parents kicking him out of the house for being troublesome or him rebelling against his parents and moving out.

In this video the two groups of people shown are adults and teenagers. The adult in this video is wealthier than the teenagers; he also has a lot more power. He is seen as an intimidation and as a threat to his daughter's love-life. The teenagers are seen as hopeless romantics. They both want to be together because they believe that they're in love. They're also seen as rebellious. Ignoring the implied consequences, Justin and Chanel disobey Chanel's father by running away together. No matter what happens, they still try to be together.

This is an effective way to sell the song, as it is giving a visual to every teenage girl's fantasy of being with Justin Bieber. Seeing the music video will put an image in to their head, thus giving the viewer something to think about while they're listening to the song on their iPod or on the radio.

The target audience of this song is 14 - 18. It appeals to this audience because when you're in your early teen years, all you want is for that perfect guy to sweep you off your feet and to fight for your love. When you're in your late teen years, you want to find Mr. Right that will stay with you throughout the ups and downs of your relationship.

Overall this is a good music video because of how it fully displays the meaning of the song. Giving the listeners a visual that is so complex to the song that it ties it together. It makes the viewer feel an assortment of emotions, that can range from pure happiness to anger and frustration. It is also a good music video because from the dialogue and the scenery, it is shot like as if it was a short film.

                  Chanel Celaya                                                          Justin Bieber

Life with the Media

I believe that media is one of the most important things in my life. It plays an important role in my life because it helps me stay connected with things that go on all over the world. Without the media I wouldn't know what was going with my favourite celebrities, and I wouldn't know who the newest breakout-artist is.

One of my favourite types of media is social networking. Without social networking I wouldn't be up-to-date with the newest internet trends and viral videos/photos. I would still be listening to radio music (oh god), and I wouldn't know what is going on with my favourite bands and celebrities. The main social networking sites that I enjoy using are Twitter, Tumblr, and Youtube.

Another one of my favourite types of media is books. I really enjoy this type of media because no matter the type of book, I always get right into it. It's hard for me to actually pick up a book and start reading, but when I do it's difficult for me to put the book down.

And my last (but not least) favourite type of media is advertisement -- preferably commercials. I know most people hate commercials, because I am one of those people, but the only reason why I do like commercials is for the people that are in them. I like the actors in the commercials because while they're trying to sell you the product, they can either do it well and persuade you to buy their product or, they can make complete fools out of themselves and make you laugh instead of make you want to buy the product that they're advertising.

What these three types of media have in common is that they can make me happy. Social networking with keeping me up-to-date on the world; Books with taking me into a completely different world; and advertisement with some of the crappy actors that are casted to try to sell you a company's product. 

One of the things that struggles to make me happy, but could if I gave it some time, is today's popular culture. We live in a time where technology is starting to get more advanced and things are beginning to get a little more difficult. We are the most modern generation, yet some of us have troubles with figuring out how to work the newest technology. It's like how your parents are when they decide to buy a new computer, or decide to get a phone that doesn't flip. With time, yes, we will get used to the new technology that is coming out, but it's annoying when I finally get used to an update and then the software or the website updates again.

I use the media mostly for entertainment. When I can't sleep at night I usually stay up and watch Youtube videos until I get tired, or I go on Tumblr and reblog pictures that I think are nice and go with my blog. I also use the media for shopping. Pictures on Tumblr influence my sense of style, and sometimes I browse my favourite clothing websites and I buy things.

One type of media that I have a strong, passionate connection to is music. The reason why I have a strong connection with music is best said in the cliche saying "music has been there when no one else has" (ooo so deep). Artists like Of Mice and Men, Justin Bieber, and Tyler, the Creator have helped me a lot throughout high school. If it's not through their music, it's through what they believe in and what they try to influence their fans to do. Of Mice and Men's music has helped me with my minor anxiety in year nine. Their album The Flood has been one of my favourite albums, and it's always been like a "safe place" whenever I feel anxious during school. Justin Bieber's music has helped me through a lot of tough times because hearing his angelic voice makes me happy. His newest album Believe is my favourite album of his because it was his transition album; he went from the "Baby singer" to a more mature artist. Tyler, the Creator's music is definitely the most played in my iTunes library. His music always ends up messing with my brain because to me he's a lyrical genius. My favourite album of his is Wolf. I can connect with some of the songs on that album, and the ones that I don't connect with get me excited and hyped up.

These three artists have both changed and influenced me as a person to do better in life. If it's not through their music, it's through the things they say in interviews and on social media websites like Twitter.