The isn’t as complicated as Facebook, or Mysapce (which generally requires the use of HTML to make your page).  This way more computer-illiterate users can join in on the fun.  An update, also known as “tweet” are short  sentences that usually describe what an individual is doing, something they like, or can also be self-promotion.  The short statements must be less than 140 characters.

Famous celebrities, politicians, muscians, and ordinary people have begun using Twitter.  One of the most notable people to use Twitter is Barack Obama.  This is the type of online sensation that encompasses all of popular culture.  It uses a the internet as a channel of popular culture, but it is also referenced on television shows, but celebrities, on the radio, and even in magazines.  When the media want you to know what a TV host, or rock group is doing 24/7, they will want their “celebrities” to Twitter on a daily basis.

I have just recently joined Twitter, and found out that I am also able to update the world on what I am doing through my Mobile cell phone.  Does the world really need to know that I am eating a sandwich, or on the can?  I guess only time will tell.

Dancing in the Distraction Factory

The text is a left wing associating avant garde with hope of changing things.  The books touches on radicalism, and a reiteration of ideology.  It believes that popular culture and culture can act as ideological test-sites of contex.  It goes on to discuss how capitalism produces inequality, and how we live in a social world that is highly ideological because it is inequitable.  Stimulations have replaced the real.

 He believes that Music Television is essentially promotional.  The text goes on to discuss how television is paid for by advertisers, and discusses the concern about television regulation.  When discussing popular music, Grossberg argues that it is generally conservative.  One of the main points of the reading is that MTV is not only postmodernist.    He believes his “argument as a whole demonstrates that when music television is understood in relation to music and the music industry, the arguments of postmodernism falter” (p.182).

He says about MTV that “music television must be understood in relation to the music industry and the music it produces.  This is because of the importance of the contexts of both production and consumption” (p.187).

I generally enjoyed reading Dancing, and was actually able to not only read, but understand the meaning of the text.  I wish I could say the same about Grossberg’s text.

Rock and Roll has long been seen as the music of rebellion, but it was laregely conformist.  Our society is made up of dominant mainstream — many of which are wrong.  These mainstream ideas about broadly shared notions are steadily approved because they keep the notions in place.  On p.137 of Lawrence Grossberg’s we gotta get out of this place, he states that politics of rock don’t come from the song itself.  In other words, you cannot predict the political affiliation of rock.  It can be conservative, liberal, feminist, or anything else.  There have been moments where particular sounds have affiliation, for example, gospel music is affiliated with social justice, and punk with the left.  However, rock doesn’t guarantee a particular political outcome.

In the United States, the state is subordinate to the intereste of the economy.  For the past 30 years middle class wages have remained stagnant.  Rock has been seen as many things, from anti racist (Grossberg, p. 144), to depicting women as sexual beings.  Most people can agree that rock celebrates sensuality, sexuality, pleasure, and interacial relationships.

A statement made by Grossberg that justly describes the state of rock music is that “at best, rock is able to disrupt and perhaps change the possibilities — the rhythms — within everyday life itself.  Without constructing a space outside of everyday life for itself, rock can only celerate insecurity and instability even as it contructs secure spaces” (p.156).

Tina Chen was a youtube sensation.  She became an instant youtube phenomenon by posting humiliating lip syncing videos on the popular video site.    Bloggers online, including self-proclaimed Queen of Media, Perez Hilton, became obsessed with the young video maker, and has posted many blogs with titles like “How Could they do this to her (Again)??”, “Tina Wants to Remain Pure”, “Youtube leaves Tina Heartbroker”, and “Rejoice”.

Tina’s video collection includes popular songs made famous by artists like the Backstreet Boys, the Jonas Brothers, High School Musical soundtracks, and numerous other teen sensations.  In her videos, Tina lip syncs and dances to the beats, and speaks in a difficult to understand voice.  Many of the comments bash Tina, or make fun of the videos,  for example: “You sound like a Cat Being Strangled” , “fat bitch”, and “i dont hate you cuz youre fat, youre fat because I hate you. Dude. Buy a bra. Those puppies are everywhere. I dont need to see that. Stop being a horrid singer and get a new day job. Arnt you like 16. Get friends and a life. really thought… you suck.. Epic Fail. ”

Many of the videos Tina has made have been removed from youtube, it is unclear if this was due to hackers or Tina herself.  Either way, Tina’s music have been watched by many, and have given thousands of people a good laugh, whether or not that was their intent.

Online video makers used Diet Coke and Mentos to make sprinklers in a video.  This video proved to be very successful, and Diet Coke and Mentos too notice.  The video acted as an ad for both products, as they saw sales increase after the video had been made.  According to the New York Times, the two men in the video “have signed video production contracts with the Coca-Cola Company and Perfetti Van Melle USA, the American unit of the European-based makers of Mentos.”  They have been guests on Letterman, and The Today Show.

Diet Coke and Mentos also saw their sales increase,  The New York times goes on to say “[Mentos] posted a second three-minute Diet Coke and Mentos video, “Experiment 214,” which was produced under sponsorship agreements, one with the Coca-Cola Company and the other with Perfetti Van Melle USA. Everybody seems satisfied. Mentos sales in the United States climbed nearly 20 percent last year, their highest such increase ever. “It is safe to say the whole EepyBird Mentos geyser craze was a big part of the increase,” said Pete Healy, the company’s vice president for marketing.  Coca-Cola is so enthusiastic about EepyBird’s use of its product that it ran “Experiment 214” for more than three months on its home page at coca-cola.com. It also promoted a competition this month to encourage people to submit their own videos.”

This is a perfect example of Youtube videos having an influence on a large audiance, and acting as an advertising channel.

Every few weeks a new video on Youtube becomes extremely popular, and the number of views received skyrockets.  This is exactly what happened to the video “Charlie Bit My Finger – Again”.  The video has over 89 Million views, making it one of the most watched videos of all time on Youtube.  Many people wonder what’s the big deal?  The video was posted on March 22^nd, 2007, and is about two young brothers – Harry and Charlie.  Charlie bites Harry, who then repeats the phrase “Charlie bit me”. 

Numerous parodies, remixes, and even self-descriped “adult versions” of the clip have surfaced on the internet, with many individuals trying to get in on the fame the video has garnered.

Like most internet sensations, the kids (or their parents) continued posting videos, attempting to stretch their 15 minutes of fame.  They wanted to achieve comparable success; however, the videos did not achieve anywhere near as much attention as the Charlie Bit My Finger video did.  Harry and Charlie have recently started blogging (http://harryandcharlie.blogspot.com/), but their  success has dwindled, and their (parents)  should accept the success they have had.

Like everything else, money making was involved in this simple Youtube video. Everything from Tshirts, to hats, to bags, to even bandaids were made to capitalize on the success of the video.

Andrew Keen describes an amateur as “a hobbyist, knowledgeable or otherwise, someone who does not make a living from his or her field of interest, a layperson, lacking credentials, a dabbler.” (The Cult of the Amateur, p.36)    

He discusses the impact amateurs are currently having on the entire media industry:  “What happens, you might ask, when ignorane meets egoism meets bad taste meets mod rule?  The monkeys take over.  Say good-bye to today’s experts and cultural gatekeepers – our reporters, news anchors, editors, music companies, and Hollywood movie studios.  In today’s cult of the amateur, the monkeys are running the show.  With their infinite typewriters, they are authoring the future.  And we may not like how it reads” ( The Cult of the Amateur, p.9)

Fred Figglehom is a six-year old fictional online character made up and played by Lucas Cruikshank, a 15 year old American who decided to be an amateur online video maker.  He became famous on Youtube, and is the most subscribed channel on the entire site.  The Fred videos may seem random, but are actually following a storyline, that has gone into three seasons.  

Cruikshank has achieved success outside of the internet, as he has been featured on an episode of iCarly (Nickelodeon), and was also nominated for a People’s Choice Award.  This is a perfect example of how amateurs are being incorporate, and taking over, the entire media industry.

No other nation outside of America consumes more American popular culture than Canada does.  Although this may be the case, Canada still has its own values.  The ideal Canadian family was the white family in the 1950s.  The myth of the time was consensus – that everyone agreed to the way things were.  When people think about 1950s the visual image that comes to mind is one of a small southern American town.  Southern America has had very different values than the Northern United States, which are much close to those of Canada. 

Between the 1960s and 1970s, the struggles of minorities became much more commonplace.  Black, women, and gays began fighting for equal rights.  The white man was displaced from the top of the hierarchy, and by displacing the white male through the liberalization and privileges and rights gained by other groups, the heart of the conservative philosophy was created.  The 1980s was a time of deregulation, thanks to the conservative President Ronald Reagan. 

In 2000, Bush was sworn in as President of the USA, and he, more than any other president of the USA, accepted to pass bills using the “except for” power the president possesses.  Carl Rose’s agenda was to have a constant Republican majority.  He wanted to, through illegal orders, ensure that republicans maintained rule for a long period of time.  Karl Rove’s “influence marks a transcendent moment in American politics: the rise of an unelected consultant to a position of unprecedented power” (Bush’s Brain, p.12).  These republicans win elections partly because they say something to get the popular vote, and do something to maintain power.  They dislike the liberties that belong to a group. 

In Canada, the opposite attitude, and opposite set of rules are in place.  American laws put the individual over the group, which is not the case in Canada, where section 319 of the Crimal Code states: (1) Every one who, by communicating statements in any public place, incites hatred against any identifiable group where such incitement is likely to lead to a breach of the peace is guilty of (a) an indictable offence and is liable to imprisonment for a term not exceeding two years; or (b) an offence punishable on summary conviction.  2009 is a step in a new direction for America, with Obama as their new President.  Only time will tell how this new era unfolds.

She is known as a feminist and who believes feminism is good for the entire society: “Feminist movement has created profound positive changes in the lives of girls and boys, women and men, living in our society, in a political system of imperialist, white supremacist, capitalist patriarchy” (Hooks Feminist Theory: From Margin to Center, p. xiv). She believes that “awareness of the need to speak, to give voice to the varied diemsnions of our lives, is one way women of color being the process of education for critical consciousness” (Talking Back: thinking feminist, thinking black, p.13). Once these women are aware, they can thrive to greater potentials.

As a teacher she believes that her students in Harlum were just as smart as her students from Yale, but that what they believed was smart was very different.  She is an excellent speaker, and has greatly expressed her thoughts and opinions about issues that are truly close to her.  

Here is a clip of bell hooks speaking publicly: