Final Project: Life360 & Find My Friends

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Reality TV

Reality Tv definition from UrbanDictionary:

"A truly saddening development of modern media. Programming which lacks any redeeming social, intellectual or moral value but is nonetheless poigniant in a macabre way due to the reflection it offers of a rapidly declining western culture. Primarily watched by mindless, brainwashed Americans who are long since bereft of any intelligent thought or recognizable human values (greed and self-interest notwithstanding)."

The day I found out Laguna Beach and The Hills were scripted and not actual reality....I cried. No, I'm definitely not kidding about that. Those two shows came out when I was a young teenager and they advertised these shows as 100% true life and not scripted. There is something about reality television that draws people in and it definitely drew me in when I was a young teenager. I wanted to be just like those girls, but yet the show portrayed such an unrealistic version of how high school and after high school should be. These girls were insanely rich, went on amazing spring breaks, hung out with the most gorgeous guys, and their lives were what every girl in America wanted. The main character Lauren Conrad moved forward with a spin off show which followed her on her journey moving from Laguna to LA. She lived in a lavish apartment, went to clubs every night, attended FIDM (Fashion Institute), drove a BMW, had an internship at TeenVogue, etc. No regular 19 year old could accomplish all of those things at such a young age, like come on! Then to find out it was all scripted killed it for me. I always wanted a life like Lauren Conrad but come to find out that she accomplish all of those things on her own made it so much more unrealistic for me to achieve that. 

Now reality television has gotten so much worse with shows about 19 kids, moonshine, honey booboo, real housewives, guidos, etc. They have shows now for every kind of person and non of it is actually 100% real but yet we fall for it anyway. Im not sure if people watch it for the humor or watch it because they idolize these kinds of people, but reality television is not a positive thing for American society what so ever.

Not Just A Game: Women's Sports

After seeing the video today in class I was curious about the topic of women in sports and particularly women in college sports. When I was researching online I came across the Feminist Majority Foundation's website feminist.org and found some interesting statistics.

"Male college athletes receive 36% more scholarship dollars than female college athletes at NCAA institutions. Men's college athletics receive more money than women's in scholarships, recruiting, head coach salaries, and operating expenses. Men have substantially more employment opportunities than women in college sports. Women are 16.9% of the Athletic Directors, 44% of the head coaches of women's teams, 2% of the head coaches of men's teams, and 27.8% of the full time athletic trainers."

While I'm not shocked by these statistics because everyone knows men's sports are a million times more publicized and watched than women's sports, whether it be college sports or professional sports, I still think it is crazy that there is such a big divide between them. In my opinion women's basketball is one of the biggest examples of this. Women who play for the WNBA make significantly less than those males who play in the NBA and women's basketball has no where near the air time or the crowd numbers that NBA games have. Stepping back a bit to college basketball it is the exact same thing. Men's college basketball is again much more publicized than women's college basketball. The scholarship money given to these men is much more significant than what is given to the women for basketball. The men's NCAA March Madness tournament is a highly televised event all throughout March where fans will literally watch nothing but basketball for weeks straight. Honestly, I didn't even know women's college basketball even had their own March Madness tournament until recently. Ticket sales for the Final Four for men are significantly higher than Final Four tickets for women basketball. It's crazy to think that the exact same sport played by two different genders can have such a significant difference in salaries, scholarship money, fan attendance, ticket prices, etc.

geeks

Urban Dictionary definition of Geek:
"The people you pick on in high school and wind up working for as an adult"

If you've read any of my other blogs you might see that I really like looking up definitions on Urban Dictionary. I find their definitions to be funny and typically pretty dang accurate. This definition I would say is pretty accurate as well. Now, I wasn't ever the girl that made fun geeks in high school but I definitely knew people who did. Today during Caleb's lecture we talked about what makes someone a geek. When he asked I honestly couldn't configure my own definition. When the class started spitting out that geeks were people who were overzealous about certain topics like comic books, books, games, etc. Geek has such a negative connotation tacked on to it but honestly now that I'm older I don't see how being super enthusiastic about something you love is a bad thing! I honestly wish I had something like a book or game that I was insanely crazy about. The concepts of these conventions I hear of people going to sound like a lot of fun to me and it would be awesome if I had something I cared about a lot and could attend an event totally dedicated to it. Caleb's knowledge of that world was honestly super impressive. Sometimes I caught my self going "What on earth is he talking about?" but then would quickly catch back up with his lecture. My view on geeks now after this lecture is much different than it was before. Geeks are very bright, intelligent, creative people who fixate on something they love and run with it. I don't see it as a weird or bad thing at all.

Gaming

Today in class we were talking about how people think that we can use video games to solve some of the worlds largest problems. For me the lecture today wasn't totally convincing for me so I decided to look into it further online.

Online I have found some articles talking about how and why they think video games can help solve world problems. The main article I will be referencing is " http://www.businessinsider.com/jane-mcgonigal-on-how-games-can-change-our-future-2012-6 " and it is a synopsis of what Jane McGonigal spoke about at the World Innovation Forum. The first reason they had come up with was that gamers are apart of an enormous community. They showed the statistics for Call of Duty, Angry Birds, etc and how so many people play these games already and how diverse all of these gamers are. The next reason was that gamers log a ridiculous amount of gaming hours and that redirecting these problems into a game version will have people spend a longer amount of time on these projects. They spoke about how there is a study that gamers are more creative than those who do not play games and that it will bring in a lot of out of the box thinking.

Towards the end they say that 1 billion gamers would be ready to work with scientists, economists, etc but you have to tell them what the next challenge is. The way I took that is that yes they can tackle these challenges but only if the challenge is laid out in front of them, they cannot just come up with things on their own without a guide.

Princess

The Princess Complex definition from Urban Dictionary- 
"An attitude fed to women by the media and other females that bestows upon them illusions of superiority and selfishness. Also brought on to many attractive females over time by means of many males who have ventured into the friend zone by catering to the respective female's every beck and call."

First off I just want to say how completely spot on this definition is. When we were discussing the princess complex is class I was torn back and forth within my self on whether I believed it was true or not. Yes, the emphasis of pink, barbies, and princesses are thrown at girls as soon as they come out of the womb, but to me I just couldn't understand how it could affect us as much as we were saying it did during class. The Toddlers & Tiaras clip that we watched during class on Mackenzie was definitely a dramatized version of the princess complex but it was 100% an example of it. The second I read this definition I a) laughed hysterically and b) thought to myself... "wow, this is actually 100% accurate!" As a female I feel that a man should always hold the door open, pay for dinner, be the bread winner, and do whatever they can for a woman. Now, I know not everyone will agree with me, that's totally cool I understand completely, but I think this way just because that is how I was raised. From television shows to how my father treats my mother, I got sucked up into this princess complex without even knowing it! This class has done an amazing job of opening up my eyes to how everyday things affect me so much without me even knowing it.

Male Models

In class a few weeks back we talked about how men and women should look a certain way when modeling. Men should be always be masculine or else society will see them a different way. This season of Americas Next Top Model actually is a season where the girls compete against the guys for the first time. Majority of the males competing are very fit and masculine looking except for one contestant, Corey, who considers himself an androgynous model, which means he appeals to both sexes. Corey is a gay male who I consider to be absolutely beautiful. He is a slimmer model with gorgeous eyes and very distinct cheek and jaw lines. Throughout the season Corey is constantly criticized by the judges and photographers that he needs to look more "manly"! As a viewer watching this show I think it is crazy that he is absolutely beautiful but has to constantly worry about looking more manly while he is being photographed. I do not think someone should have to change the way they are just to fit a certain mold. People can adapt and I honestly think if someone looked at a photograph of him they wouldn't care that he did not look manly enough, they would look at the beauty captured in the photograph.

Corey actually makes it to the finale of this season of Americas Next Top Model and I think that is amazing because he is not the typical male model and people were looking past the fact that he doesn't photograph as manly as the others. Social media plays a huge part in the judging for this season and the fans at home absolutely love Corey and thinks he photographs amazingly. I have no idea if he wins or not, the finale airs this Thursday so I guess we will see!