Millenials

Star Wars was a pop culture phenomenon that gave Generation X its noticeable and important traits. Thinking about my generation, the changes we have encountered and traits that we have, I think that a pop culture phenomenon that had a huge impact on us was the TV show Friends. It shows many important characteristics of how/what our generation (the millenials) value in life today. For instance, With the development of social media, the millenials put a lot of value into having a large social group. Friends kind of started that movement with this group of 6 people who were all very close; even lived across the hall from each other. This is different from the generations before who tended to stick to one or two close friends. Friends also pushed the idea that marriage and having children weren't necessarily the most important thing and expected of you anymore in our society. None of the characters were married until their late 20's/early 30's and some had children without being married. Casual sex was a veryyy familiar theme on the show, and was always portrayed as normal and accepted, which also plays into the themes of our generation. 

Reality TV

When Chuck Klosterman writes that real people are starting to think and act like a certain archetype when cast on a reality television show, I don't think he is necessarily right. I understand the point that he is trying to make, in that there are so many reality tv shows nowadays that people who are cast for a new show or season maybe know what to act like to get their '15 minutes of fame' from their stint on tv. Klosterman's idea of repetition is very important in making this point as well, because of all the exposure that we have to reality tv stars. But on the other hand, I don't think that it is all the cast mates' fault behind acting to encompass a 1 dimensional archetype.

I feel that the editing process takes a HUGE role in making people seem like they are 1 dimensional on screen. With the digital editing processes and technology we have, we can make people say sentences that have never even been formulated in their mind. I think that many people on reality tv shows are manipulated and edited to portray an archetype, not acting like it. I think of a reality show I enjoyed as a teenager, called The Hills, starring Lauren Conrad and Heidi Montag. I remember being unhealthily emotionally involved in the show for so long, then a few years after it was cancelled, reading and seeing so many sources that quoted Lauren saying that the 30 minute episodes were so manipulated, slanted, and warped summaries of what actually happened that she didn't even recognize most of the situations. Nowadays, I follow Lauren, Lo, Audrina, Heidi, Whitney, and everyone else on various forms of social media and I feel that they are very normal, multidimensional human beings who don't really fit into a social archetype at all.

Accidental Racist

After comparing/contrasting country and rap music in class we listened to a song by Brad Paisley and LL Cool J entitled 'Accidental Racist'. This song ended up causing quite the controversy in pop culture because of some of the words used to describe the history of race relations in America, and also the stereotypes that come along with rap artists and the hip-hop culture.

One of the topic of discussion by the media was the choice of words by LL Cool J about his gold chains, do-rag, and baggy clothes. There were a lot of people that were bothered by this because it conveys a negative stereotype about black people that many find is not true. Not all black people fall under the 'gangster' stereotype, and some feel very insulted by it. People were also bothered by the fact that LL mentioned that perhaps he could 'forget' about slavery which is wrong on so many levels.

Another topic of discussion by the media was the ideas of Brad Paisley and the fact that his confederate flag shirt supposedly was not supposed to represent slavery, just the fact that he was a fan of the southern band Lynyrd Skynrd. There were quite a few people who disagreed with that, saying that the confederate flag will always represent slavery and people need to remember that when they choose their clothing.

I personally think that this song was a good effort to patch up race relations, but it seemed so thrown together and not very well thought out. I think that they could have done a little bit better job with word choice as to avoid controversy, but it was a good idea to reach out to a very diverse and cross-over audience.