Jake's Blog

Final Reflection

jakenemeth — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 23:06:54 +0000

Looking back at the start of my first quarter as a student at Ohio University I have realized how little did I know about pop culture until I took this class. I was kind worried about the blogging at first but soon realized how much of a help it was for me to understand what we were talking about in class. It really helped me relate the readings to everyday things that we encounter in our life and helped me see how much pop culture has an effect on our society.

Like I said, I was kind of worried about the blogging assignment because I thought it was going to be difficult find ideas to write about. I really had low expectations for the assignment because I just thought it was going to be boring and take up my time, but it was actually the complete opposite. I enjoyed looking at things of Pop Culture and relating them to the reading. It allowed me to express my ideas about pop culture freely. I think now that this assignment was a great tool to help you understand more about the ideas we discussed in class. Specifically it helped me find great examples of hegemonic masculinity in pop culture. I was kind of confused at first but the blogs helped me see it everywhere in pop culture.

Because of the blogging, it helped me understand concepts a lot easier and as a result I think it helped create one of my best works. My best work in my opinion would be my Terry Tate post about Hegemonic Masculinity. In this post I really understand the concepts from the reading and it allowed me to see the characteristic of hegemonic masculinity everywhere in pop culture. This post was the best because it also related to one concept to another. It related hegemonic masculinity to a meme.

One of my weakest post had to be my first because I was writing off topic and didn’t really relate to what we were talking about in class. Although with proper instruction I was able to re-edit my post at relate it to topics in class. After I did this It became very clear what was expected of me for the blog so this mistake helped me learn for the future about the rest of the posts.

I don’t think I would change anything about the project. Like I said it really helped me relate concepts from class to things in pop culture. The only thing I might tweak would be the amount of post. I felt like that we had to do too many. Also I might change the due dates on them. Some students in the class didn’t post any till the week they were due so I had to do a lot of responses in one week in order to meet the deadline.

This class has really made me see pop culture in a different point of view and I recommend it to anyone who has a passion for pop culture. It made me think in a different way and helped me relate the readings to things in my life. It was my first time blogging and it was a great method to understand the ideas and concepts that are in pop culture.

Re: Popular Culture Pinning

jakenemeth — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 22:28:23 +0000

I completely agree with Thomas‘s idea about these pins being the ” precursor to Facebook groups”. It is completely like a Facebook group, all you need is the pin and your apart of that group. Its kind of like on Facebook, all you have to do is click ” become fan” and your instantly apart of the group. Like Thomas said people of the past wore their profiles on their clothing. Although Facebook has been the most popular way to display their likes and dislikes i stilll feel like that pins still exist and are constantly displayed around us. I think that they mostly exist with bands and people want to display their loyalty to a band for everyone to see. I have been to many different concerts and at all these concerts they have pins to purchase and to show to the world that you support that certain band. I guess i am a good example of this because i have a button from practically every concert i have been to. I many different types of these pins I have a few on display on my book bag that i carry around from class to class. I guess Facebook is a great way to show your profile but I stil feel these pins are the best little way to show your interest or beliefs.

RE: Arrogance. Is It Worth It?

jakenemeth — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 21:24:42 +0000

I completely agree with Anthony Feola‘s post about celebrities and how they sometime act out just to get attention. They are sometimes arrogant in order to be in the spotlight just a little bit longer. Also the celebrities do this so that they are talked about and are always on the mind of the public. Also there is a possibility that they are afraid of becoming a non celebrity any more so being mean or arrogant to fans or paparazzi allows people to talk about them. A good example of this is when Tom Cruise got shot in the face with water by the reporter. Any other person might have taken it as a joke and just laughed by he proceeded to go back to the reporter and call him a jerk and give him a lecture and be very mean to the reporter. I guess Tom Cruise is a great example cause i just thought of the time he was on Oprah or the other time he was explaining about scientology. I think this is just an attempt to stay in the spotlight over the years and i guess i would have to say that it works. It works because they are talked about all over the internet and in Kanye West’s case it was great publicity before his new cd came out. I think it works for a lot of celebrities and they do it just so they can stay popular. Also due to their arrogance internet memes sometimes result in their actions. For example the Tom cruise Oparh meme, because of the way he acted on the show people made a meme out of it on the internet. celebrities become arrogant sometimes in order to say in the spotlight and it actually works because people are always talking about them. I dont see any time soon where this will stop because there will always be celebrities that are afraid of becoming un popular or out of the spotlight.

This video shows how arrogant Kanye can be in order to stay in the spotlight, he was at an airport and he threw a reporters camera to make a scene and be talked about on tv.

Re: Advertising. Does it Really Influence?

jakenemeth — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 23:31:12 +0000

After reading Anthony Feola‘s post i couldn’t agree more with him. Advertising is one of the largest industries in the world and they try to put advertising where ever is possible just so you will buy their product. Like Anthony I too have fallen victim the advertising industry and have noticed i too have the products and brands that are advertised in these shows. The Brands im talking about are the ones like Axe , Gillette, or the latest video game. I guess I am a perfect example of what the advertising industry is doing because I have the products that are advertised. Along with advertising in commercials of more masculine TV shows there is also subliminal advertising in TV shows and movies. Like Anthony said about the Matrix and Transformers advertising different cars, TV shows have done the same. You can see in shows like 24 that they advertise different cell phones during the show because they are on phones for a good part of the show so seeing them with the latest cell phone might make you want to go out and buy the phone. Another example of this “product placement” is the types of cars they drive to the Starbucks or Dunkin donuts coffee cup they are drinking from. This type of advertising goes undetected in our minds and makes us want to buy the products we see in order to fit in to society.

Re: ….Wow. Props.

jakenemeth — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 23:06:55 +0000

this is response to Andrew’s post . I was very surprised to hear that someone else felt the same way about Glee. I too decided to watch an episode on Hulu one night and after it was over i thought to my self ” wow that actually was pretty good. I thought it was funny that Andrew mentioned ” Not only did I feel as if i was losing a bit of my hegemonic masculinity but I immediately began to stereotype the show as just another high school clique based show” because I felt same way. Which is why i was kind of hesitant of watching it at first. I didnt want people to know that i was watching it on Hulu so i went to my bed ( the top bunk) and watched a few episodes from there. I think i started to like it because of the stereotypical high school clique and i agreed that it was very much like the Breakfast Club. I did like the episodes that i watched and i wouldn’t say that i am a fan but i might occasionally watch it from time to time on Hulu when i have nothing better to do. I am a fan of the show The Big Bang Theory which i watch on tv every monday night on CBS. I basically agreed with everything Andrew had to say and i found it to be very interesting that we had the same exact view points, the show actually doesn’t suck and it’s actually alright.

Fandom Revisited

jakenemeth — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 22:03:15 +0000

Since we had an extra post for whatever we like I decided to talk more about fandom and what comes to mind when I think I am a fan of. I guess I would say I am a fan of the band Streetlight Manifesto. For those who have never heard of the band the genre of music they fall under is Ska. According to Wikipedia Ska is defined as “Ska is a music genre that originated in Jamaica in the late 1950s, and was the precursor to rocksteady and reggae. Ska combined elements of Caribbean mento and calypso with American jazz and rhythm and blues. It is characterized by a walking bass line accented with rhythms on the upbeat.” I am a huge fan of this band. I guess I would fall under a few categories as the Trekkie according to Jenson. I have purchased many different merchandise from them and I sometimes feel that some of it is pointless. I have all their cds pins, posters, t-shirts and stickers their set list, guitar picks. I guess I am a “brainless consumer” according to Jenson. Also I have seen them more than 5 times when they have come to town. I might be said to have a “cultivation of worthless knowledge” to the band because I actually had the chance to meet them and talk to them multiple times. Maybe that is why I am such a fan it’s because I have connected on a personal level. But what is so wrong with being devoted to such a thing. I really do not see what’s wrong with being a Trekkie nor do I see what’s wrong with being a giant Streetlight Manifesto fan. They are almost the same although the Trekkies are looked as lame and any fan of a band is not perceived as lame. Just because the media decides what is lame and what is not Trekkie have always been ridiculed but I think that there is no reason to make fun of someone’s interest. Being a fan of something allows you to be connected to a group of people who have the same interest. I know whenever I run into someone who is also a fan of Streetlight Manifesto we have always had something to talk about and you sort of develop a bond because we have common interest and friendship usually comes from it. The point I’m trying to make is that there is nothing wrong with being a fan of something. It give you a chance to have friendships a be connect to a group of pop culture.

Re: Internet=Connection

jakenemeth — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 06:06:45 +0000

Looking at all the responses to Erika’s post i just had to also put my 2 cents in.

I completely agree with her. I think that the internet is connecting us in so many ways than before. A decade ago no one would have believed you if you said there were going to be these web sites where you can create a profile and talk to all your friends all over the world. Or also another example is Skype. I would be shocked if you have not heard of it, but anyways it’s like AOL instant messenger with video. People would never have believed you would be able to have a face to face conversation over the internet. It is just now becoming huge, but in the past year it was not so popular. It’s one of the newest ways to connect to people and people are taking advantage of it. I remember the first time Skype came out, my friends and I used to talk to each other as we played an online computer game and I guess we were ahead of the trend because we were kind of with the first mass of people to experience this new form of connection over the internet. Skype has really helped me stay connected with my friends and we use Skype in many different ways. For example I used to talk to my friend when I had a problem I couldn’t figure out on my math homework or sending a video and pictures to my friend who lives in Germany. Skype just does a really good job at connecting you to each other and since my friends and I have went separate ways and are all at different colleges it becomes easier to stay in touch on a more personal level. Since everyone in college has a laptop now and it has a web cam it was easier than ever to talk to friends that have never heard of Skype before. Skype has really connected people closer than ever because it is very personal and it’s very easy to have a conversation face to face with someone. Who knows what will come out next because of the internet but whatever it turns out to be it will connect people together more than before.

Reality TV smackdown

jakenemeth — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 04:56:54 +0000

Every reality TV show now a day is all the same, no matter what show you are watching the same stuff always ends up happening and some people are actually shocked that it happened on the show. So to narrow the things that always happen on the shows I would like to center in on the fights. There is always a fight on every single reality show that you watch and we watch it because it’s entertaining. I think a majority of people would agree that a big reason they watch these shows are because of the fights and the drama that leads up to the fight. Now the question I was wondering was why there is always a fight on these shows? Chuck Klosterman said “Technically, these people were completely different every year, but they were also exactly the same. And pretty soon it became clear that the producers of The Real World weren’t sampling the youth of America – they were unintentionally creating it.”

I think it’s because the producers of the show know that people want to see it and will watch it because of the fights. On the Real World there is always a fight that happens and the producers of the Real world are selecting people that will probably cause a fight just so they can have more viewers and this is the problem with reality TV. Whatever reality show you look at and there is usually a fight and this is because of the casting done by the producers. It is even more obvious in the shows because you see those huge guys in tight black shirts jump in and break up the fight before anyone gets seriously hurt. The producers know that there is going to be a fight because they selected the cast and they hire these huge guys to break up the fight.

Another reason there are always fight on these shows is because the people want their 10 seconds of fame on TV and want to be remembered. This goes along with the producers selecting who they want on the show. They select those people who want to be famous from the show and they know they will do whatever it takes. They might even start drama just so people will start talking about them and this is exactly what they want. This drama usually results in fights and is the reason why these show still exist. Reality television has the potential to turn its participants into national celebrities so the people who end up causing all this drama and are in fight end up getting their own show. This is because the producers know that people will watch them because of their behavior. For example New York from the reality show Flavor of Love received her own show called “ I love New York” because of her actions on the other show. She was always the one that was in fight and bad mouthed the other girls and this made people watch the show. Reality TV is really fake because of the producers selecting the cast on the premise of they are going to cause a problem and this leads to fights and instant celebrates which in turn creates more money for them.

A great example of these popular fight and instant celebrities is this video from Flavor of Love with the ever so famous New York. People watched the show because of her and i dont think she was put on the show just by luck of the draw, it was because of the way she acted and the producers knew that people would watch these fight and all the drama. Also she got a tv show out of the whole thing too proving how they become instant celebrities.

Live long and Prosper

jakenemeth — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 07:07:22 +0000

Over the weekend i came across a great example of a Trekkie in one of my favorite tv show ” the Big Bang Theory”. For those of you how dont watch the show its about a group of friends who are physicist and are very nerdy and tend to get into awkward situations due to the lack of social knowledge. In this clip the one character Sheldon relieves a christmas gift from his neighbor and instantly becomes shocked. He fits the form of a Trekkie because he is like a brainless consumer that will buy anything that has to do with Star Trek but in this case he receives a gift and is at a loss for words of how much it means to him. To normal people its just a napkin with an autograph on it but to him its a napkin with an autograph plus the DNA of Leonard Nimoy that he can use to make a clone of. Also he displays throughout the show he is a social misfits who has become so obsessed that it forecloses other types of social experience. An example of this is when he hugs penny, he normal does not do this in the show because he lacks and social or emotional qualities a normal person would have. Penny is also shocked that he is hugging her because she is aware of his emotional immaturity. Due to his social awkwardness he did not know what the proper gift to give her. He was basing his gift off of the value of penny’s gift but since he is social awkward and he thought the value of the napkin was priceless so he brought her all the gift baskets which is completely ridiculous. If you have seen many episodes of The Big Bang Theory you could easily tell how much of a Trekkie he truly is. He displays many random facts about the show and references different episodes of star trek to make a point about whatever they are discussing. Also he likes to use what he has seen in the tv show and use it in real life. He often references episode numbers and says he just got to do this like Spock. Also Sheldon has said many times” Now what would Spock do”. Sheldon depicts many qualities of a Trekkie and is a great example of what Henry Jenkins said about a Trekkie. He has the worthless knowledge of the show, a social misfit and emotionally immature but as we have seen in the SNL skit it make great comedy.

Family Guy and God

jakenemeth — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 04:56:59 +0000

From Vanarragon’s writing he says that “Family Guy regularly lampoons religious practitioners, doctrines and objects in the way that goes beyond almost anything else found on broadcast television.” This is completely true and I think that they do this in a way that might even offend people of that religion. The reason people feel this was is because religion has always played a big role in our society and when you mock it they are mocking something that many people feel is important and shouldn’t be mocked. Since it’s such a touchy subject to begin with, when the makers of Family Guy lampoon religion during many of their shows it is something that people take offense to. But I believe that people should not be offended at all. Like we talked about politics, which we need to laugh at it because it’s such a huge part of our world and it could cause people to lighten up about issues of religion or politics. I think what Family Guy is doing with religion is completely fine. It gives you an idea on how people might portray your religion. Also it might show you how an idea in your religion is flawed but it’s always good to laugh at it. Family Guy sometimes take religion to literally to produce humor from it like in the first episode where peter is at church and is getting communion and says “is this really the blood of Christ, this guy must have been wasted 24 hours a day” . This example shows how taking things literally is a way to make fun if ideas a beliefs of religions in a way that’s good to laugh at. Family Guy’s religion references is a great way to shows how it teaches people that they need to lighten up a bit and it’s good to laugh at themselves.

This video shows how family guy takes things literally in order to create humor in a way that makes you laugh at yourself or shows how other people could view your belief or idea. This clip is how Stewie went back in time when Jesus was alive and his powers where nothing like they were said to be. This scene kind of suggest how the bible could have been wrong or flawed and over exaggerated in a funny way that I feel allows one to make fun of ideas or beliefs in your religion.