Final Project: A Dose of Greek

Just copy and paste the link below:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1hrtSfHnoKc&feature=youtu.be

Parasocial Activity

Like many of my classmates have admitted, I have a problem with parasocial relationships. When Corey Monteith died, I shed actual tears. I read every news article and I couldn't help but feel overwhelmingly upset for Lea Michele. Never having met the duo, I couldn't be sure but from their interaction on social media avenues and their relationship on Glee as Finn and Rachel, I always thought they were a perfect couple. My heart broke thinking Lea was without a soul mate. I still can't watch an episode of Glee without crying. My period of mourning for a person I have never met is nothing short of sad and weird. I also have a parasocial relationship with the Kardashian family. In my head, I am a Kardashian. I know, I know. But, if you every need Kardashian factoids for a game of trivia I am your girl, just call me Keleste (haha) but really.
Why is it we develop these relationships with people we have a less than likely chance of ever encountering? It's not like celebrities are sitting in their bedrooms at night going "God I wish I could be best friends with a girl from the Midwest." We identify with these people because we find ourselves in them in some way. The glamour of the Kardashian lifestyle and the on screen/off screen love story of Cory and Lea pulls me in because I'm able to keep up with them in real time like the lives of my real friends via networks like Twitter and Instagram thus making them all the more real to me.

Sexy vs Silly: A Marketing Ploy

While talking about gender in class, I ran across a buzz feed post that talked about the difference in marketing between male and female underwear. I won't recreate their work on here but I will elaborate on it because I did find it extremely interesting and relevant.

Victoria's Secret, a company that is near and dear to so many women, (I can't tell you the last time I purchased my unmentionables anywhere else) is a lingere company that markets its self as being sexy and chic. They also have a line targeted at a younger market, Pink, that focuses on being flirty and fun. Every December you can spend an hour hating your self and planning your next diet watching the Victoria Secret Angels prance down the cat walk in this seasons bejeweled negligees.  You can see countless commercials, even during the Superbowl, advertising these bras and underwear to not only the women who wear them but the men who want their women to.

On the other hand when you look at the marketing for mens underwear with the popular mens brand Fruit of the Loom, you see these 4 characters with no more skin showing than their faces. In the commercials they sing songs and do goofy things while talking about the comfort of their product.

Like every other thing centered around gender in this country, these advertisements are obviously not only saying something, but confirming it. It's not that there aren't brands that sexualize men in their skivvies or that offer comfort to women it's just that these brands don't receive as much airtime. But once again women are portrayed as stick thin, beautiful and exotic sexual objects, a them that is all too common.

"Adjectived" Identity

Reading for Wednesday's class, I found the articles to be overwhelmingly true. Now I am not currently nor ever have been a girl that participates in the comic book/heroic movie scene but when it comes to the "adjectived" identity that these articles discuss I am completely onboard.
For the entirety of my life I have always been so confused why people feel necessary to add such descriptions to people, and not just in gender. For instance, if someone is telling a story about their day more often than not if they are talking about someone they interacted with they will say "this black guy" or "this mexican guy" instead of simply stating that they interacted with a guy. By having to add these adjectives we automatically are implying a "guy" is a white guy. The article about "strong female characters" really struck a chord with me because like the article says this implies women aren't inherently strong.
These descriptions of people are completely unnecessary. No two men, women or children are alike so why generalize them with an adjective like black, strong, sensitive. People are a lot more than a laundry list of descriptive words strewn together from an outsiders perspective so why use any at all? Let the  "guy" you run into at the gas station be a "guy" and leave it at that.

Learning to be a Princess

I have never been into the Disney princesses. If you asked me to tell you the story line, I could because of their existence in popular culture but not because I myself I had seen the movies--apart from The Little Mermaid that is. I grew up though, a princess. I didn't play in frilly dresses, but I did dress up as a Spice Girl and put on concerts for my grandparents in cowgirl boots and a blanket dress most days. I played with Barbies and babies, had a pretty sweet 90's Easy Bake Oven. I was a girly girl by all means of the word with no brothers or male cousins to influence me otherwise. I have been a dancer my entire life, did a few kid pageants, cheered in high school. I will admit too that I grew up a spoiled brat. I never wanted for anything and that is what contributes to a lot of little girls "princess identity".
Now at the age of 21, I sometimes catch myself feeling entitled and hyper feminine like the chapter discussed and that disgusts me beyond belief. Whenever my mom and I get into a fight because I want something and she doesn't think I need it, it upsets me way more than it should. The privilege that comes with the princess culture we teach little girls has to end sometime in their lives but how do you go from hearing "yes" your whole life to hearing "no do it on your own, don't be entitled." I like to think that I have grown a lot and the world doesn't have to be quite so glamorous but it is so easy to get wrapped up and forget that maxing out my $1,500 credit card was a horrible decision. I think the princess culture, at least on my end of the spectrum, is definitely fed by consumerism. Keeping up with the Jones', or in this case the Kardashian's, is what fuels my interest in the material and is where I continue to unfortunately live in the "princess" world.

Making Food Choices

Last night my roommate and I, freshly home from Fall Break were standing in the kitchen talking about how our parents keep yelling at us for eating out nonstop. When you're over 21 and a college student at Ball State it is more than likely you'll see a laundry list of "Dill Street, Puerta Vallarta, and Scotty's Brewhouse" on your bank statement each month. The reason for this being convenience. I can't even begin to tell you how many times I have searched my fridge looking for dinner to ultimately decide on eating Tidal's Dip at Scotty's with a pitcher of beer. Do I think that this is a healthy lifestyle choice, no, although it is probably worse on my bank account.
As a fairly health conscious person (I buy 90% of my groceries at Trader Joe's or Whole Foods and read food blogs like the New York Times) it makes me absolutely sick to watch documentaries and see fat kids and adults who think that they can't financially afford to eat food from the supermarket. I think that that like we talked about in class the problem doesn't lie so much in the financials but in the accessibility. With the amount of trips I take out to eat every month I could surely afford to stock my fridge full of healthy choices, fresh fruits and vegetables but instead I choose the convenience of grabbing something prepared by someone else and trying to choose the somewhat healthiest thing on the menu. Most of these working or lower class families that choose to go through a McDonald's are families on the go. The could very easily find a supermarket meal under $20 to feed their family of 5 but instead they go for what is readily available to them.

Culture Of Cool: How to tell when someone is being genuine.

So today in class we discussed how it is sometimes hard to decipher the difference between genuine personality and following the "calling of cool". I think that more often than not we allow ourselves to be pulled and urged to change our likes and interests to keep up with whats new in popular culture. I don't think that this is necessarily a quest to be cool but instead growth of a person. This is not to say that there are not extremist, people who gulp down the latest and greatest like a value meal from McDonald's but, generally speaking most people build identity with age and lose interest in being "cool". Having the latest iPhone seems more important at 20 than it does at 40 being a mother of 3. I don't think cool is so much of a destination but a path to who you are. There are plenty of fads that pass by and I don't entertain because they don't appeal to me. If I try something new, be it "cool" at the time, even if its 15 minutes of fame pass I will still continue to enjoy it because its still of interest to me and not because of social pressures to maintain status.
This is how I think that you are able to determine people for who they really are. The example I gave in class was of my friend Gracie who has always marched to the beat of her own drum. She has never tried to give off this image of herself and never changes her personality make up to fit in with another group of people. She was raised to love the Beatles and be vegetarian and to appreciate people. She is the only person I know who in 2013 is still wearing denim skirts. She will never change, just age. People that are unfaltering no matter what the media masses attempt to push on them are genuine people. Obviously people get most of their social influences from the mass media so it's impossible to avoid everything that gets deemed cool but, if you go from Marshall Mathers to Marcus Mumford in less than a months time, you are clearly a cool craver.