The Labyrinth that is Popular Culture

In the video we watched about the cultivation theory, the theory is described as the phenomenon where people who watch TV begin to align the plots of the shows with the reality of their lives. For example, when someone watches a lot of violent shows or movies they expect that crime rates in the real world are going up. John Oliver begins to slightly touch on this when he discusses the use of torture in shows. These shows make torture seem effective which in turn makes the general public believe that torture tactics are, in fact, effective when it's been proven that they're not. People are majorly influenced by television programs, whether they'd like to admit it or not, and in turn it effects the way they make decisions and live their lives. That is the cultivation theory.

People are drawn to sports. Some like to play them, and others simply like to watch them. We often see spectators develop relationships with specific teams that they consider to be superior to the rest. There have even been a couple terms coined about these people who enjoy watching sports. The first is BIRGing. BIRGing stands for 'basking in reflected glory.' This is when people associate themselves with the success of a team to make themselves seem or feel more successful or accomplished. They do this by doing things like wearing shirts and hats with team logos on them or celebrating and bragging to people about the 'big win.' We sort of see this in Stephen Colbert's Comedy Central clip where he talks about the bet between the governor of California and the governor of New York. While they are betting on their team, a considered part of 'BIRGing,' what they're betting makes it seem like they don't have too much faith in them, but still enough to ma...

After watching the video of Jane Mcgonigal's ted talk, "Gaming Can Make a Better World," and reading the article "Why We Play," it's clear that there is deeper meanings to games, specifically video games. In both the video and the article a subject that is a major factor in game playing is that it makes people feel good. Life is sort of like a game where there's is many obstacles you have to endure before you feel the satisfaction of reward. But unlike life, games are capable of giving these rewards quicker and more frequently thus making people feel good. Everyone likes to be rewarded especially people who feel they haven't been rewarded enough in everday life. Another factor is that it causes people to persist and not give up, a tendency a lot of people suffer with in the real world. When someone's playing a game they're more likely to stick with it to the end no matter the obstacles they face. They do this because they want the reward of f...

For decades there has been major backlash and panics over new, popular trends. Mainly by parents who are unfamiliar with the popular culture of their children's generation. In Karen Sternheimer's article titled, Media Phobia , she says, “Panics about popular culture ebb and flow throughout history. They are often masked attempts to condemn the tastes and cultural preferences of less powerful social groups.” By this she is calling out the (mainly white) parents, for panicking because they're afraid of the integration between their children and children of minorities. We are more than aware of the systematic racism and white privelage that blankets our country and a lot of adults who grew up with this privelage don't want to lose it, so they blame things like music for being too sexual or violent thus masking their true opinions. When Rock 'n' Roll first swept the country parents panicked because Rock 'n' Roll was created by people of color. As more artist...

In the film Digital Nation we are taken into classroom settings in all kinds of schools across America. It's clearly apparent that technology has changed the learning atmosphere in schools drastically but is this a good or bad thing? We're taken to a college campus where students brag about their ability to multitask but we soon learn that multitasking isn't as impressive as it's made to sound. Students don't put as much effort into their work and end up half-assing everything instead of doing a solid job on each task individually. We are also taken to a middle school in the Bronx where students are each given their own personal laptop to do homework online and use it for resources to study. The gift of providing technology to these students has brought test scores up and decreased violence in the school immensly. According to an article on nsba.org titled "Creating and Connecting: Research and Guidelines on Online Social- and Educational- Networking," 5...

H ave we become zombies to the real word? Have we lost ourselves to the addiction and fast-satisfaction of electronics? While new technologies seem to appear everyday making people excited and 'happy' they're not as great as we probably credit them to be. I'm not an exception to the large portion of people eaily entertained by the little devices but I'm not so blind to the negative sides of them either. I love spending time with my friends. It's quite frankly been my favorite part of life since I was old enough to make friends. You know when you used to make up crazy games, go on wild adventures and just about die laughing all day with your friends? How could you not love that? I suppose now it's a lot harder because everyone's noses are buried in there phones and nothing exciting really happens unless someone captures it on Snapchat. Sherry Turkle gives an example of this during her Ted talk by sharing a photo of her daughter and her daughter's fri...

Becoming a Celebrity, a Cruel and Unusual Punishment Often times in today's society we hear the word celebrity and immediately associate it with a positive connotation. However there are some exceptions. Justine Sacco was no where near a celebrity before she made the decision to write this tweet that would drastically affect her life. Image from BuzzFeed Now yes, while it was a bad tweet the meaning behind it, according to Sacco, became completely distorted and inaccurate with every new impression it made. She claims to have been, "making fun of the bubble" that American's tend to live in when it comes to third world countries but when the retweets and favorites began to skyrocket, Twitter ate her alive. She was an unwilling celebrity and for a long time unaware of her new found infamy. People became seemingly obsessed with Sacco, or more so obsessed with ruining her. They were working incredibly hard to try and get her fired. They were relentless and judgm...