New Media (Response Essay #4)

New Media

            New media has been a big impact on society as a whole. It concerns almost everyone including, the 90 year-old grandma and the 4-year old toddler. Technology as a whole has grown extremely quick this past decade causing many new apps, social networks, blogging sites and online shopping etc. to emerge into something bigger. The variety of different things one can look up or do right at their finger tips has increase drastically. At a social gathering one has more interactions with their phone than the actual people around them. You can sit down at a party observing the interactions with new media around you. Look to your left and you see a group of girls taking a selfies then,  you look to your right and there is someone updated their  Facebook status. When you look in straight ahead you see someone uploading a video of something that just happened. They girl next to you might be checking her Snapchat  and your phone in your pocket is vibrating from a text you just received. New media is taken place almost everywhere and at anytime. The older age generation is getting pressured into having a cell phone for the younger generation to keep in contact with them or vice versa. If you take on the media away from those situations imagine how much more interaction would happen with people face to face. One of the effects with the new media is the impact it has on social interactions when people are in person.

            It's not unusual to be talking to someone about something you may feel is important then have the person listening pull out there phone and answer a text mid-conversation. Instead of being there and at least pretending to listen, it shows that even mannerism has taken a downfall. The real life connection with the world in front of people is drifting away, as the social-media world is reeling people in. World interactions can easily be missed by paying more attention to the screen in front of your face. The screen in front of your face, however, causes many different interactions in a whole new perspective. Now you have seen the pictures from last night's party, you know that Molly is finally engaged to Ben, and you just laughed at the funny Vine video. However, you  have just missed your sibling's story on what happened during their day, the funny joke your dad just told and that your dog just tore apart your shoe. By being so involved in the media people's connection, physically and emotionally, are detached from the actual movements and socializing that's going around them. As you open up your phone,  it's like opening up a portal to a whole different world. This is a negative affect because people miss out on important things that should be cherished in life. You don't have forever to get to interact with the people right in front of you, so it is important to not take advantage of it.

            We constantly meet new people in our daily lives. We interact with people we don't know too well when we go to stores, school, parties, work, and events. It's important to pay attention and have good manners when meeting new people. With our generation things can get awkward after saying, "Hi, nice to meet you".  Some people don't know how to strike up a conversation when it comes being face to face with someone. Being on the other side of the screen you have more options. You can even choose to not reply ever, or you have more time to ponder on what to say.

Response Essay #3

Friends

            As a little kid you can't wait to get older. You are barely in first grade sitting in your little chair and small desk. There is a pencil box at the corner of your desk and your name that you decorated at the very top. You can only imagine what can possibly be ahead of you. As you get older you can't wait to be in high school finally. To finally be able to drive, stay out later, go to prom, and start dating. Once you get to high school it becomes what you did or didn't expect and then it ends, in a blink of eye. After that, the next chapter of your life begins. It can consist of moving out maybe, getting new jobs, paying some bills, going to college, still figuring out the whole dating thing, saying bye to friends and making new ones. In America we are give these opportunities that once we start getting into adult hood we the power to literally do whatever we want. We can choose to go to college or just work full-time. We can also decide to maybe take a risk and move across the country or stay in just where you are. The decision making can seem like you're trying to count all the stars in the sky with a limited amount of time.

            With all the choices I've realized I've had to make while barely entering my twenties, make watching the television show Friends that much more comforting. This television show follows the lives of six friends who are trying to figure out most things young American adults go through. These six best friends all in their twenties, are trying to overcome the struggles of work, life, love and common mishaps or chaos for people in this age. Even though the show is taken place in Manhattan and in the 1990's it is still effective today and catches many young viewer's attention. The majority of the people that watch the television show are also people in their twenties making them the targeted audience. Although there can still be younger and older viewers like, my mother and sister, who also view it and seem to enjoy it. Since these friends are in their twenties it reels in other's in the common age group most because of the similarities of their lifestyles.

            One of the major popular culture believes are the stereotypes in the group of friends. There are three women and three men in this group. Out of the men, there is one who is sarcastic, funny and an insensitive man who is afraid of commitment who has a good decent office job. The other one, which is his roommate, is the dumb hot guy that sleeps with a lot of women who has big dreams of becoming a big time actor. The last man who is a hopeless romantic, is the one who always embarrasses himself  when talking to women. He also has had continuously failed marriages and has a kid with his lesbian ex-wife. He is a paleontologist which also makes him the smartest and goofiest of the group. In a nutshell this seems to sum up most stereotypes of men in America. The girls in the group also date some men which brings a broader variety of characters to relate to in the show. For some reason it's hard to put a man together that can be a mixture of all of them.  It is implied most of the time in varies way in popular culture that it's hard to find the perfect man who is smart, goofy, handsome, funny/sarcastic, shy, sensitive and with a great job. 

Friends

      Netflix has become my addiction more times than I would like to admit. Once  I see an episode of a show I became quickly fond of, I can't help but get hooked on it and watch every single episode as soon as possible. My most recent television series that I am absolutely hooked on is Friends.  It's about a group of close friends living in  New York in their twenties trying to overcome the struggles of life such as love, work, friendship, financials, and common life hiccups for people in that age group. I had seen some episodes before it was on Netflix but starting at one seemed to give me the whole scoop and give me satisfaction to my unanswered questions because of something I might of missed. The whole reason I knew it was on Netflix and started watching it is because some of my friends on Facebook were posting about and how much they have gotten addicted to it. Yes, I gave in right after I read the third post about it. I told my sister to start watching it with me and we made it sort of like a bonding time between her and I. We both can relate to certain situations and laugh because of the personality the actors carry. While watching it, we connect to the character's life and say stuff like, "That seems like something you would do, or Something so so would encounter".  The experience of watching Friends has been good. Each episode is 22 minutes and I get excited when I have time in my week to just sit on my couch and enjoy the "pleasure and escape" from my daily routines. 

         It gives me time to be sucked into their lives and realize that I'm not the only one not knowing what I'm doing with my life sometimes, or confused about a certain somebody or that doesn't like their job all the time. It leaves me craving for more because I always want to know what happens next or what they will do or react in the situation they just put themselves in.  I can put myself in their shoes and wonder how I would deal with it or how I have dealt with it.

          Entertainment's ability to provide pleasure and escape in popular culture creates a bond between reality and what's on T.V. Even though it's not always spot on to how society actually is, one can always find similarities with the Vampire on Twilight, the blue girl on X-Men, or the alien on American Dad.  These T.V. shows can bring people that don't really seem alike, together. It gives people entertainment in their lives away from their reality. Entertainment manipulates popular culture by showing things that are trending, cool, or situations that their targeted audience may be experiencing.

Insights

The implication of consumers being less in control of their privacy can take some people out of their comfort zone. Some people feel violated because their own information isn't just their own anymore. They constantly have to be aware of what to put out and what to keep in. Others, are completely okay with it because their perspective is that if the information you give out willingly is yours , then you understand that it's is no longer yours, no matter if you know what they will do with it or not, when you "give" it away.  After discussing it with others in my class, I was seeing both sides evenly. Before, however, I was completely one-sided and didn't like that I wasn't in control of my own information.  Then, I realized I've been dealing with this in real life. I have secrets and real personal information like my social security number that if I tell my best friend, or a family friend or whomever, it quickly becomes not just my personal information but theirs because they know it.  At the end, you just have to be careful on who to trust and what information is okay to put out in the world to others. If you are super paranoid about it there is options to avoid it, but the chances are still there. How many times do you write your social security number on a paper?  That can land basically anywhere as well.

                The thought of personalized advertisements targeting me because of internet tracking seems just a part of my everyday life. I already advertisements everywhere and some do appeal to me without even trying. Some try to appeal to me and don't catch my eye at all. It's mostly on what is most likely to appeal to someone and a certain time and that's great. Sometimes it actually does work. I also think that advertisements do sell notions of "pleasure" that reflect harm like McDonalds and obesity, but you get to chose if you want to eat it every day or having a 5-hour energy drink on your early mornings. There's been research that those drinks aren't healthy for people. It's like that saying too much of anything can't be good but we can control our decisions. I don't think these trends are harmful if you are aware of what they advertisements are trying to do and if you give in, it can be positive because you can end up satisfied... sometimes.  It's just in the perspective one holds.

Dove Beauty

Advertisements can be really strong and manipulative when you can relate to the situation that the people in the ad are also going through. I am a victim and constant consumer of Dove Soap. I love it and I fell for all the commercials and ads. It's basically the only soap I use. The soap I was using before was making my skin feel really fresh BUT it was drying out extremely. I saw a commercial for Dove about leaving your skin smooth and moisturized and saw that all these different kind of women were trying it, so  I gave in and it worked better than my previous soap for me.

                Dove has many commercial and ads out there because they sell hair products, body soap and wash for men and women. The advertisement I want to focus on is the one with all the different types of women standing next to each other.  There are different shapes, sizes and colors of beautiful women. This gives many women out there like myself to feel connect to one of them because one has to have the same shape, size or color as me. It's easier to compare myself to one of those women than one in a Victoria Secret advertisement.

                The Dove advertisement is trying to sell that everyone has beauty and that beauty doesn't have a strict straight forward definition with women. This makes the consumer feel more pleased, opened and comfortable in their own skin. It's almost as if Dove is giving you a great compliment. It gives the consumer the idea that they are beautiful and so are all those women and every women in the world. The women in the add are very giggly and happy. They are smiling, implying that once you get the soap you will feel the same and a part of their campaign. The advertisement is persuasive because I know when I watched it, it made me feel good and beautiful and in return I wanted to buy their soap.

                In all reality however, soap is soap. Its main purpose it to get you clean that's it. It doesn't have to make you feel moisturized, soft and pretty. For hygienic purposes, however, it is something you need.  A narrative that's embedded in the add is that everyone is beautiful and happy when they have nice, clean and soft skin if you are a women it is almost a must. I don't believe, however, that this belief  is harmful or inconsequential. It's important to stay clean and to see yourself as beautiful everyday!

"The Rise of Popular Culture"

As popular culture emerges constantly as something more profound and different society starts to learn more from it. What was then released in books and music is more easily released now through Facebook pages and Youtube. People then were concerned that television could have the power to corrupt the younger generation which is similar to how the older generation of our current time is concerned with technology ruining the younger generations to come. The dominant, high class, and conservative group seemed to have more power back then on what was open to the public society which is very different to how the system runs now. The middle class and lower class people have increasingly found more ways to let out how " common people" live their lives every day.  My understanding of popular culture has grown enormously from the last few weeks. I use to think that popular culture was just a common thing now but, it has been rising for a while. It has become wilder and bigger starting in the 1960s in the United States with more diversity and perspectives from varies minds. Trends and styles started to get more "sexy" and less conservative kind of how it is seen now according to some of our grandparents. I hadn't realized that you can learn  a lot from history from  learning about how popular culture has been changing and viewed by others before our generation.