This year in LIt

This class has been full of information that has definitely made me think inside and outside of the classroom. I have become much more aware of my surroundings and the things that go on in society. The many novels and articles we have read have all provoked some kind of emotion in me. Some good, some bad, some of utter disbelief. I enjoyed the chance to discuss readings within a small group, I think it enhanced my understanding of the different materials, and made for some very interesting conversations and discussions.

I know now what a powerful role the media plays in our everyday lives. I know I will take this knowledge with me throughout the rest of my time here at Shippensburg and even further into my future.

No more books

I think if there were no more books, at first no one would miss them. I think after time they would be missed. I know that I enjoy reading a book for fun, of my own choice. It relaxes me. They also help us to use our imagination and creativity. You get to imagine scenes that are described and what the characters of the novel might look like. Without books our creativity may go down the toilet.

I think we are metaphorically burning books everyday when we go see movies, even just watching tv. We are too lazy to read books most of the time. We come up with excuses like there is no time for them. I think we should start making some time for them, before they are gone forever.

Hunger Games

"Hunger Games" was extremely disturbing, but in a weird way very relatable to our own reality today. I thought it was very interesting that the actual games became a love story. I think in reality shows we see today, viewers can't turn away from a good love story.

An example that comes to my mind is "The Real World". The show is not based around love. It is based on seven, sometimes eight, crazy strangers thrown into a crazy environment, and forced to live together and get along. Just like in "Hunger Games" the producers of "The Real World" are just like the gamemakers, they control the environment that these strangers are thrown into: the location, the house, and even the access that they have to the outside world. They do not allow them to have cell phones, TV's, or radios. They have no form of entertainment. It forces them to interact with each other, get drunk, fight, and most importantly "hook up".

Here is a trailer for the current season of "The Real World"

The cast of "The Real World" is very aware of the fact that the crazier they are, or the more they appeal to their audience, the more air time they will see. As you can see, there are plenty of fights, and tons of "hooking up". After reading "Hunger Games" and seeing how Katniss faked her way through the games, making viewers believe she was in love with Peeta, makes me wonder how real "The Real World" really is. Are these hook ups and fights genuine? Or are the cast members actually smarter than we think. Are they watching us, the way that Katniss was watching her audience?

Reality TV- America's guilty pleasure

No one likes to admit to the fact that they enjoy reality television. Even those who claim to dislike it, I am sure have watched it at some time or another. How could you not? It's everywhere. And it would not be all over our television screens if no one was watching it.

"But what makes reality so darn entertaining? In the first place, reality, even edited reality as in "Survivor," has the advantage of suspense. If the basis of storytelling is the surprise of what's going to happen next, reality can be better than fiction because no one, not even the protagonists themselves, can predict the outcome," Gabler said. 


This is entirely true. As viewers, we have no clue what is going to come next in a reality TV show, but what makes it more exciting then any "regular" TV show is that we are watching REAL people and their REAL lives. Reality TV has become a guilty pleasure, that most American's like to hide.


One of my own guilty pleasures was "The Hills". This trailer explains the entire gist of the show. 

The episode I watched, again, for this assignment was the 7th episode. There is loads of drama that occurs when Lauren's best friend betrays her by "hooking up" with the guy she is kind of seeing. She finds out that her other best friend, Heidi had something to do with it, along with Heidi's boyfriend Spencer. This clip shows how Lauren reacts to Heidi about her and Spencer's part in the drama.

The last clip explains it best, when the advertisement at the end says, "you can relate." That is the force that drives reality TV. We feel like we can relate to these people. 

My feed

Here is a glimpse of what my feed might look like.

I love Nike. This is an ad for Nike Women, and I am sure it would pop up on my feed quite a bit. I am addicted to their shoes, and athletic wear. I am sure my feed would pick up on this pretty quickly and bombard me with these type of advertisements. 

I love to wear make-up, so I am sure advertisements, like this one, would show up on my feed a lot. I can't quite afford Dior make-up, but the advertisement looks cool.

I know soda is not good for you, but I LOVE Mountain Dew. If I have to stay up late to study or do homework, I always drink one to give me a bit of energy. I also think it is very refreshing at times. I am sure my feed would realize how obsessed I am, and throw advertisements like this one at me all the time.

I love watching football, and especially if the Giants are playing. This is an advertisement I would definitely see on my feed.

Feed

Thoreau’s Walden, was very fascinating to read. The idea behind Thoreau’s experiment, I think, was a great idea, but would be hard to give up your life, as you know it for an entire year. Honestly, I do not think someone could do that now. As a whole society, we have become so reliant on technology. To give up even one type of technology seems mind boggling to most people. I know that I would have a hard time even giving up just my cell phone.

            At first, Feed seemed very extreme to me, but the more comparisons I made to society today, I realized it is not quite as far fetched as I first thought. We are not as reliant on our technology as the characters in Feed, but I do think that we are headed down that path. We do not have actual Feeds in our brains, but I do believe that we are very much controlled by the media and popular culture. There is so much money spent on researching us all to shape advertisements to appeal to us, just like the Feed’s do to the characters in Feed. Whether we all choose to believe it or not, we like what we are told to like, and do what we are told is cool to do. Even those who consider themselves “non-conformists” have things made just for them by the media. I do not believe that any one of us is entirely unique. I just wonder who is to blame for this.

Dumbest Generation

            The article, The Dumbest Generation, was quite shocking. One of the opening quotes says, “two thirds of high-school seniors, in 2006, could not explain an old photo of a sign over a theater reading COLORED ENTRANCE.” Speaking for myself, I would be very much capable of explaining the meaning and significance of the sign. Therefore, it is hard for me to swallow this statistic.  In the clip we viewed in class, Mark Bauerlein says that no one should trust anyone under the age of 30, due to our ignorance. Bauerlein places the majority of the blame on our generation. However, if we are unaware of such major past events whose fault is that really? I think it has a lot to do with the education system in America. I do not think that the educators are bad, I think they are told what they must teach, and teach so that their students will do well on state tests, so that they can keep their jobs. We may not know everything there is to know, but I do not think we are dumb, or even close to it.

Furthermore, the article discusses multitasking. It says, “multitasking forces the brain to share processing resources, so even if the tasks don’t use the same regions, there is some shared infrastructure that gets overloaded. Chronic multitasking—texting and listening to your iPod and updating your Facebook page while studying for your exam on the Italian Renaissance—might also impair learning.” I think older generations are very critical of all the multitasking our generation attempts to do. I think we grew up in a very different time. We have grown up with constant noise around us, bombarded with advertisements, that we have had to become good at processing what is important to us, what is not, and how to handle all of this being thrown at us at once. Therefore, I believe this has made us more capable of multitasking, and I do not think it is necessarily a bad thing, or taking away from our education.