MTV Teen Mom Debate

The MTV show Teen Mom 2 is coming back to television starting on December 6 to start its new season. I have heard a lot of hoopla about this show in the past and am starting to hear it again as it will soon be back. There has been a lot of conflict about Teen Mom and whether it is appropriate to have a show on MTV, which is known for younger audiences, about teenagers having babies out of wedlock and at such a young age. I myself do watch this show and find it to be entertaining, as do a lot of people I know. I have heard many people say that this show makes them feel better about their own lives because they are so much better off than the girls on the show. I find it very interesting that people are now watching television to make themselves feel better about their personal lives, and not just as a way to be entertained. Many of the girls on this show live in less than ideal situations, but about half have made the best out of their situations and have tried to live a happy life. I still feel bad for all of the girls on this show because they are exploiting their lives, and the lives of their children, to make money. They are so desperate to make money to support their children that they need to be filmed and have an audience who watches the show to make their lives look better than the ones on TV.

Kim Kardahsian's Divorce

I'm pretty sure that all of us have heard that Kim Kardashian filed for divorce after only 72 days. After spending so much money and getting so much publicity it is obvious that she fabricated her wedding for money. Which brings to to the question of do reality T.V stars really care about their fans? After reading the Jenkins article about participatory culture i began to rethink of who benefits the most from the relationship of fans.The tv star of the fan. Sure fans get good music or good movies but ultimately the person making a profit from being a fan is the celebrity. So many celebrities have let their fans down. Kim Kardashian, Tiger Woods, Paris Hilton etc. makes me think people who are hardcore fans should rethink the motives for which they are a fan. The Kardashian have clothing lines, perfumes, nail polishes, stores, they are pretty much sucking as much money as they can from their fans. The wedding scam was pushing it too far in my opinion. I think we have be part of a selective participatory culture.

The Influence of Media in My Life

It is the constant teetering between love and hate that expresses my relationship with modern media. As we discussed in class we look back on our past experiences with television shows that influenced us as children, the commercials with our favorite toys, and the songs that inspired us to grow and become who we are today. This formation of identity is without a doubt intertwined with our relationships with media, and the capitalism that fuels American society. I cherish these memories of Saturday morning cartoons with my family and prime time "marathons" at friend's houses, yet I can't express the same genuine expressions for modern media representations. It is a sense of bitterness that I feel in response to modern programs, whether targeted towards kids or adults. I don't feel confident in the direction mass media culture is taking, especially in regards to the advertisements and skewed realistic portrayals that are repeated on a large scale regardless of channel or network. It is this abundant amount of stereotyping, materialism, and enforced hegemony/ gender roles that I now solely identify in media. Regardless what the premise of a show is about, there are blatant portrayals of gender roles, racial discrimination, "othering" ethnicities and cultures, and other forms of prejudice. It is a whirlwind of controversy that top media controllers understand and regulate, then filtering it down to the consumers who eat this mixture of unrealistic constructs and irregular means in which to shape one’s needs and wants. It is with hesitance that I think about the media of the future, but I truly hope the continuous pattern of simplified, sex-based, and general stifling of individual creativity dissipates, or at least is acknowledged and therefore changed.

Thinking Back

Thinking back over my personal experience with celebrities, I was never really much one to get excited over them. Yes I would jump up and down in excitement whenever we would start watching an Olsen twin movie that I hadnt seen yet but other than that I didn't care for them. I listened to boy band music back in elementary but I never knew their names or cared about their personal lives. Even as a teenager I would listen to rock music and it would only be the groups I cared most about would I know their history, names, etc. To this day Escape The Fate is the group I know most about. And it's not because I'm not a fan of the group, it's just because I'm not obsessed with them. To me there are more important things to live than to waste my life on obsessing over a strangers. Do I go nuts everytime I'm at a concert? Yes. Do I have posters up all over my room dreaming that they're watching me while I sleep like a creepy stalker? (Twilight reference joke) No.

And two of my best friends are the opposite of me. One is a huge Kpop fan and she'll tweet the celebs she likes and get overly excited and spasm and flail all over the place for days when they tweet her back or some huge exciting news happened like they changed their hair color...Oh so exciting.

And the other listens to Arabic music and actually knows the celebrities because her relatives work with them overseas. And she'll get crazy anytime her favorite singer comes to town and she gets to talk to him at a dinner or see him at a club or he mentions her. Which is understandable if someone you're a huge fan of, who is internationally famous and whose music comes on whenever you're at a party, knows who you are and then asks how you're doing, not because its good manners but because they actually care. Its like if Justin Beiber ended up being the family friend of a twelve year old female fan who had photos of him all over her school books. Yes she would be excited and talk about it for like a month and keep a picture of them together on her cell phone as the back ground wall paper but when actually there talking with them, they'll have the sanity and the curtesy to remember they're just a friend coming to visit and hang out.

Kids Today

I was thinking about how much society changes over time. When I was young all I looked forward to was coming home from school and going outside to play. I hardly see any of the young kids in my neighborhood do that anymore. One of my favorite childhood games was kick the can. My friends and I used to make up so many games when we were young. Now all I see is kids on cell phones or computers not using their time to do anything fun. I wish kids knew how much value going out to play has on yourself. You use your mind to be so creative and make up stuff. I didn't even get a cell phone until high school and I guarantee you it wasn't an Iphone either. I just wish kids today would enjoy life because all I think about now is being young again.

Power Rangers & Baby...

When I baby-sat my two cousin last week, it got me thinking about my childhood. My boy cousin Joel brought some power ranger DVD's to watch and Sara had the Baby-Sitting club book. Although I not a hardcore fan of P.R., I can remeber the times when me and my cousins would agrue over which one of us, is the pink Power Rnager, of course I always lost, because they were older then me, and in those situation I never won. I forgot to ask Joel which P.R. he perferred but with the ALL ooh's and ah's coming from him, I suppose it would be quite diffuclt for him to decide. Sara on the other hand did have something I was a die hard fan of and it was the Baby-Sitting Club, I had all there books and somehow I still believe it somewhere in the house, but reading the book with her brought back fond memories and new memeories that I will now have with her.

Just a Celebrity Theory

Over the summer, I had been working out a little conspiracy theory -- actors like Paul Rudd and Justin Timberlake are getting a good fan base now because of their work years ago. People are subconsciously remembering good experiences with them, thus making us want to show them more support now.
Paul Rudd was the goofy, smart heart throb in Clueless (1995), then it seemed as though he disappeared until Anchorman in 2004. After that, he was in bigger movies and even got his own shot at leading man in a few of them. People went to see these movies and show Paul Rudd his support, but how many remember him being in Clueless? It's not until people look up his past movies that they even think about it.
Justin Timberlake never really left the public eye, yet he's quickly taken himself from teen-pop sensation, to solo artist, to comedian (SNL -- you cannot deny the hilarity of "Dick in a Box"), to actor. He's succeeded in all of these fields. Is it possible that we go to see him initially because he's one of those guys from the *NSYNC who undoubtedly entertained us (in, what? Fourth grade?)? Or maybe we still feel bad about Ashton's Punking that made Justin cry...
Either way, I think that we are subconsciously supporting these two actors (and maybe more).