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A Reflection

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Throughout this ongoing assignment, and this class, I have learned a lot about media and my experiences with it in the past and present. I consume a borderline insane amount of media on a daily basis. From the point I wake up, I go on my phone to check Snapchat and Instagram, and then I go on it to watch TV, communicate with people, and do other often useless things on my phone. On average in the past week I have spent 6 hours and 36 minutes on my phone per day, and that’s 13% less than last week. That daily average will realistically only go up during the summer. This constant media makes me procrastinate way too much, makes me get distracted very easily, makes me feel like I need constant stimulation, and makes my work quality a lot lower than what I know I am capable of. Being aware of this high, unhealthy level of media consumption has not affected my use of it at all throughout this semester because for some reason I managed to trick my brain into thinking that it was no bi
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Pride Month and False Support

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As I’m sure you’ve seen somewhere by now, June is pride month. While this month dedicated to the LGBTQ+ community is important and celebrates the impact of LGBTQ+ people on the world, many companies are turning it into a branded holiday. Brands including Nike, JCrew, SoulCycle, McDonalds, H&M, Lululemon, Nordstrom, Adidas, and Bloomingdale’s. Additionally, President Trump tweeted a pro-LGBTQ+ tweet that basically goes against everything he has said about the community in the past. In my opinion, I do not think companies should be taking advantage of the pride month for profit if their proceeds from the products that are pride themed do not go back to the LGBTQ+ community. I think that companies are using this month as a way to gain credibility with their consumers and become viewed as a good, inclusive brand rather than because they truly care about the LGBTQ+ community. And, while not all brands are using this month and pride products for extra publicity, I think that th
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The Media vs. Georgia

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Last week, several large media companies made statements addressing the restrictive heartbeat-bill that is being considered in Georgia right now. The companies announced that they would consider pulling out of filming in Georgia if the law was put into effect, something that would greatly affect Georgia’s economy. The companies who joined in with this, as of now, are Netflix, Disney, WarnerMedia, and Comcast’s NBCUniversal. Production companies like Killer Films, Blown Deadline Productions, and Duplass Brothers Productions. If this law makes it through court and gets passed, it would take effect on January 1st, 2020. This law restricts women’s rights over their bodies and their right to choose to keep their baby or not. The law would make it to where women could not abort a fetus after 6 weeks, when a heartbeat can be detected. The problem with this, though, is that this is a mere two weeks late off of a woman’s period, which can be normal for a large number of women with irreg
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Jake Paul vs. Cody Ko Scandal

Earlier this week, youtube Cody Ko was featured on another youtubers channel, Jeff Wittek. He went on Jeff’s channel expecting the usual to happen, Jeff would interview him and they would talk about some personal and funny topics while he got his haircut. This is how the beginning of the video went, but as the haircut came to an end, Jeff had a surprise for Cody: a visit from Jake Paul. Jake Paul is a very controversial youtuber who is more often than not involved in some sort of drama. From lighting his backyard on fire to being awful to his employees, Jake is a complicated and arguably awful person. Seeing as Cody makes videos poking fun at cringy or bad media, Jake has obviously been featured on his channel many times before. So, Jake took that anger from being made fun of (in a light, joking way) and attacked Cody for it. He set up a camera and then used the footage for his own video. In the video, Jake runs up to Cody and tells him he bullies little kids and that he’s an aw
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MissRepresentation

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In the film, MissRepresentation , there were many parts that stood out to me, but only one that affected me the most. That part affected me the most was where the film talked about how when young boys see sexualized women or women being less than men in the media, it leads them to treat women that way in real life. While this was not something that I didn't already know, it is still something that hit me because of how much I experience it in my life. This is noy just something that people experience in stories or movies, it is something that affects real people every day. At a young age, from playing video games or watching movies where men abuse and sexualize women, boy will reciprocate those actions onto their female peers. On playgrounds you will see boys being physical to girls, their actions defended by adults by saying it just means that the boy “likes” the girl. But those defensive adults are just another reason that boys grow up continuing to be affected by the media.
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Mooks and Midriffs in Modern Media

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In the PBS documentary, Merchants of Cool , the concept of media using a “mook” or a “midriff” to draw in teen viewers is brought up. A “mook” is a character used to draw in teens by appealing to their immature nature. They are usually crude, misogynistic, loud, and angry, and are usually found to be funny by teens. We have a lot of these kinds of characters in the current media landscape and I would say that the best two examples are stand up comedians and youtubers. Not all stand up comedians and youtubers and mooks, but there are definitely a lot of them that are. I do not really watch a lot of stand up comedy because I never know where it is streamed, but I have seen a lot of clips of comedians on Youtube and Instagram as well as seen a few specials that Netflix has put out of stand up comedians acts. The kinds of stand up comedians that I am talking about are ones like Seth Rogan, Kevin Hart, Hasan Minhaj, and Ali Wong. They tend to focus on funny, sexual, or crude things tha
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A Quizzical Addiction

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I’m sure you have heard of the huge media company, Buzzfeed. On their various platforms (their website, instagram accounts, youtube channels, twitter accounts, etc.) they put out a variety of different things out there. They report on important topics that a brand like CNN would report on, but they also post about more trivial things like DIY’s, challenges, story telling, and people testing out tiny houses. One of the more addicting and unimportant things that Buzzfeed puts out there is their quizzes. Buzzfeed quizzes have their own tab on their website and I am fairly certain that it is impossible to do every single one of them. There are so many ranging from titles like “Pick 5 Pizza Toppings and We’ll Tell You What Your Most Desirable Quality Is” to “Are You Snobby, Introverted, Or Just Sad?”. These quizzes are very unnecessary, so why are they so popular? It all comes down to how Buzzfeed markets these quizzes. I imagine at some point, Buzzfeed launched their first handful of q
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