Zoë's Media Blog

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...

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. ...

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...

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...

I watch Youtube an almost unhealthy amount. I tend to watch it while I do homework or while I am procrastinating doing said homework, so I see a lot of advertisements each day. One ad that had recently caught my eye for a number of reasons is the new Olay skin care commercial featuring several empowered women. In the ad, Youtube star and activist Lily Singh is the narrator of the ad and throughout its entirety gives a small motivational speech telling women that they are not “too anything,” that instead they are just the right amount of whatever they want. Then, multiple other strong female influencers come on screen dancing, smiling, and being casual, showing off what they stand for (be it body positivity or their stereotype-breaking career). I would say that this ad appeals most to a need for affiliation and a need for autonomy. Although affiliation and autonomy are basically two opposites, they work together in this ad to make it impactful to its target audience: women. The ...

For months I have been seeing advertisements and commercials for the new movie about Ted Bundy, “Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile”. I have a passion for watching crime shows and movies, especially on my Netflix account that I use almost daily. So, naturally I have been counting down the days until this movie came out on Netflix. The day after it’s release, I began to watch it while I redid my bedroom and in this post I am going to explore my thoughts on the movie in how it made me feel, how the advertisements for the movie reflected the final product, and why this controversial movie was made the way it was in the current political climate. While I actively enjoy watching and reading true crime related things, each one that I take on still continues to add more and more caution to my life. This movie, for example, went in to detail about Ted Bundy’s life and how “normal” it all seemed despite him being capable of murdering over 30 young women and injuring many others. Bun...