November Media

This month I reactivated my social media accounts. We also had some issues with DirecTV customer service, so they gave us all the premium movie channels to appease us. I watched a lot of movies I might not otherwise have seen. Audiobooks have taken over my listening. More books meqns less time for podcasts and music. Mostly I've just been trying to get through the end of the semester....


Audio Books
The End of Oz
Necessary Lies
The Silent Sister

Television 
Real Housewives of Orange County
Preacher (season 1)
Blacklist
Survivor
Big Bang Theory
The Walking Dead
Shameless
Black-ish
Jack and Ozzy's World Detour
Gray's Anatomy
Shameless
American Housewife
This is Us
Stranger Things S2
Fresh Off the Boat
Speechless

Movies
Wrong Turn
Casper
All Things Must Pass
Ex Machina
Nocturnal Animals
Ouija: Origin of Evil
Love The Coopers
Krampus
Jeepers Creepers 3
The Conjuring
The Conjuring 2
Man of Steel
Happy Death Day
Lights Out
Bad Moms
Suicide Squad


Podcasts
The Nerdist - Jon Bernthal
The Vanished Podcast - Brandon Lawson
The Nerdist - Duffer Brothers

Screen Time

A comparison of a typical week with social media and without. You can see that overall screen time changed very little. The difference is a couple of hours. When I disconnected from social media, I just transferred that screen time to something else. Namely Google and Group chats. When I have Facebook, my phone usage is typically in the morning while I'm convincing myself to get out of bed. While having coffee and waiting for the dogs to finish their morning routine. In between classes when I'm walking across campus or waiting for class. Those times didn't change without social media, they just shifted to newsfeeds and group chats.

I tend to disagree that screentime is inherently bad. I think every new "technology," dating back to the written word, has had detractors. Socrates thought books would make people stupid. If you didn't need to remember information because it was written down for you, you'd just get lazy. Movies would make people not want to read if they could get their entertainment from a screen. Now the internet and social media are bad.Even though very few college students today know what it was like to research without the internet (when I was in high school there was no internet. The first time I attended college, internet sources were not seen as accurate or acceptable.) Every time a new method of mass media evolved, someone was around to tell the public about its dangers. The argument that this new technology is bad for us, is nothing new. When the telephone was invented, newspapers reported on its dangers, going so far as to claim we'd all become "left eared"

For me, my phone is the lifeline to my friends and family. I did not grow up here. All of my family and most of my friends are in other states. When we are together, I'm not on the phone, but when we are apart, we depend on the internet, and social media, in particular, to stay in touch.

Could I walk away from social media and still keep in contact with these people? Absolutely, but "screen time" is convenient.
I know there is a compelling argument that too much screen time for young kids is bad, and I understand that, but at the same time, kids today will need to keep up with the new technology. I don't see internet and smartphones going away. If anything, they will become more prevalent.
As far as the question about addiction or cultural shift, I think I'm firmly on the side of cultural shift.
Like anything, it could become an addiction for some people.  Some people claim to be addicted to shopping, but we don't expect the entire population to curb shopping habits. While some people get a dopamine boost seeing those Facebook notifications, others can look at that little red dot with the numbers climbing and never be inclined to look at it (these people are weird.)

October Media Log

This is the month that I gave up ALL of my social media. Instead of browsing Facebook, I listened to A LOT of Podcasts. I got bored with the "murder podcasts" of last month (or finished the season), so I moved on the one that snarked on Law and Order. I love snark. I also read a lot of web articles. Mostly passing time between classes, when I would usually flip through Facebook. I started an audiobook version of a book I've had sitting on my Kindle for a year, and started working on a couple more that I'd started and abandoned.


Books
Anatomy and Physiology for Dummies
Scrappy Little Nobody by Anna Kendrick
Silver Screen Fiend by Patton Oswalt

AudioBook
The End of Oz - Danielle Paige


Web Links
Thoughts on White People Using Dark Skinned Emoji
It (2017): The Surprising Subversiveness of Beverly Marsh
SNL Has a Donald Trump Problem
How America Has Silently Accepted the Rage of White Men
Why You Should Stop Referring and Addressing Women as "Females" explained...Again
Scott Glenn on 'The Defenders' and Why 'Silence of the Lambs' is a Coming-of-Age Movie
The Madness of Donald Trump
Kids For Sale: My Mom Was Tricked
#Solidarity is for White Women
The "Food Babe" Blogger is Full of Shit
Lupita Nyong'o Speaks out about Harvey Weinstein 
The Joy of not Wearing a Bra
Let's All Stop Saying Bless You 

Television
Ten Days in the Valley
Big Bang Theory
Real Housewives of Orange County/ Dallas
Lucifer
Grey's Anatomy
Inhumans
Survivor
Flipping Out
Blacklist
Garage Rehab
Misfit Garage
Mr Mercedes
Blackish
American Housewife
Gotham
Big Bang Theory
The Monster Inside Me

Movies
It (2017)
Bigger, Stronger, Faster
Geostorm
Trapped Sisters
Patton Oswalt - Annihilation
Cult of Chucky


Podcasts
Serial Killers - HH Holmes
Serial Killers - Aileen Wuornos
Serial Killers - The Vampire of  Dusseldorf
Serial Killers - The Ken and Barbie Killers
...These Are Their Stories - L&O: The Murder Victim is a Horse
...These Are Their Stories - SVU: Scott Bakula Names His Penis King Sebastian
...These Are Their Stories - SVU: The Rape Comic is a Rapist
...These Are Their Stories- SVU: John Stamos has 20 Kids and Gets Blown up with a Knife
...These Are Their Stories - SVU: Teen makes his own kiddie open site
...These Are Their Stories - L&O; The One That's TOTALLY Not Based on Martha Stewart
...These Are Their Stories - SVU: I Didn't Stab the Captain with a Pickle
...These Are Their Stories - L&O: The Bikini Girl, The News Anchor, and The Ponzi Scheme
...These Are Their Stories - SVU: Grifters Fake a Rape to Extort a Trump-like Billionaire
...These Are Their Stories - CI: Goren Faces Off Again with Nicole Wallace
...These Are Their Stories -  L&O: The Militia Guy says the Fringe  on the Flag Makes him a POW
...These Are Their Stories - SVU: Come Back with my Frozen Embryos!
...These Are Their Stories - CI: Goran Suspects Everyone in the Family Bludgeoned Dad
...These Are Their Stories L&O: The Stalker Strangled the Soap  Star
...These Are Their Stories SVU: The Prep School Rapist & The Cherry Pickers Club
...These Are Their Stories L&O: The Holocaust Survivor Marries the Nazi
The Nerdist: Russell Brand
The Nerdist: Whitney Cummings
The Nerdist: Jason Blum
The Nerdist: Aidy Bryant
The Nerdist: Deon Cole
The Nerdist: Neil DeGrasse Tyson (TWCH)
The Nerdist: Max Brooks Returns
Anna Faris is Unqualified: Alanis Morissette 
Anna Faris is Unqualified: Jim Jefferies

Music
Cold - Maroon
What About Us - P!nk
Believer - Imagine Dragons
Thunder - Imagine Dragons
Mary Jane's Last Dance - Tom Petty
Don't Come Around Here No more- Tom Petty
You Got Lucky - Tom Petty
Quit Dragging My Heart Around- Tom Petty
Into the Great Wide Open - Tom Petty
Learning to Fly - Tom Petty
You Don't Know How it Feels - Tom Petty
Yer So Bad - Tom Petty
I Won't Back Down - Tom Petty
Free Fallin' - Tom Petty
Runnin' Down a Dream- Tom Petty

Some Content May not be Suitable for all Audiences

For purposes of my semester project, I am not currently using social media. This post is an analysis of my typical social media usage.
If you looked at my Facebook page, you would probably think I don't have a filter. For the most part, I do not. I was a stay at home mother for a very long time and had no boss to answer to, so never worried about what my social media presence would say to an employer.

Online, I am witty, never at a loss for words. My humor is sarcastic and sometimes self-deprecating. Aside from the rare mention, You might not even know that I am married unless you looked at my "In a Relationship" section. You are warned right off that I may not be your cup of tea, with my pronouncement that, "I am mean, crass, and rude. You wouldn't like me." If that's not enough, there's my cover photo...

My profile pictures are usually carefully crafted.

She seems fun, I'd want to hang out with her

My Facebook is a representation of myself that has her life together. She isn't worried about the decisions her kids are making. She isn't sleep deprived. School may be a challenge, but she's got it handled. She's fearless and always up for an adventure.
What you don't see are the same problems, worries, challenges, disappointments that every other person has. I'm terrified of heights. I've had panic attacks during races. My kids aren't perfect. And I'm just waiting for school to figure out that I don't belong here. I am incredibly vulnerable in  my everyday life, so I do not let those vulnerabilities bleed into my Facebook profile

 If "the medium is the message," Facebook and other social media accounts allow me to send the message that I am bolder than I may seem in person. This is not a false identity, but more a fragment of my identity. I am bold and outgoing, in the right setting. I censor myself based on circumstances. My husband's employer does not need to know that my favorite cuss word is "motherfucker," so I that part of me stays home when there are office functions. When I'm with my friends, that part of my personality comes out

 And while I will tell you I'm mean and you wouldn't like me, the truth is that I'm one of the most loyal and loving friends a person could have. I started running almost 10 years ago, even though I hated everything about running at the time, to honor a friend. When I started doing triathlons, I did one in honor of my best friend's son, who died at the age of 17. My heart still aches over that loss. Next year, we are teaming up and doing this again on what should have been his 21st birthday.

So, it might be easy to think I'm different online, if you got to know me, you would see that I'm not THAT different. Facebook just gets the highlight reels


Edited to add:
When I was telling a close friend about this post, we started talking about my social media hiatus. He stated that he couldn't wait for my return and I replied: "I miss social media SO BAD!" We talked about how my initial thoughts going into my experiment were that Facebook was a time waster, but now I've come to view it as a lifeline. His response was: "I'm interested in what caused you to change your mind. You're a tough cookie." - So, even someone who is as close as family, and knows all my insecurities and flaws, still sees me as a "tough cookie," when most of the time I feel more like a hot mess.

How Does "It" (1990) Represent Minorities

With the release of the new version of this story, a lot has been written comparing the book with the movie versions. I waited nearly 30 years to watch the original version because just thinking about Pennywise terrified me (and I'm a fan of horror movies.) Needless to say, I have not seen the new version.  This analysis will be about the original, 1990 version.

Starting out easily enough, how does this movie represent minorities? Not very well. For starters, its main characters are white boys/men with one lone female, a token black kid, and a Jewish boy who had to hit every stereotype to drive the point home that he was different. Even as an adult, Stanley becomes a "successful accountant," one of the more stereotypical Jewish jobs.  Even the townspeople are all white. Mike, the only person of color in the movie, is terrorized by the town bullies and marginalized as an adult. When the film opens and Mike is trying to tell police that the new murders are just like what had happened in Derry when he was a kid, he's basically told to go back to the library
Speaking of what they become as adults... The boys (except Mike) all leave Derry and have successful careers. Beverly too is outwardly successful, as a fashion designer,  but is still being used as the "damsel in distress." She is the girl who is sexually assaulted by bullies while neighbors turn away, and possibly her father, (although the made for Tv version of the movie does not make that clear. She is definitely physically abused by him.)  She is the helpless female who escapes to the comfort of the (male-dominated) Loser's Club. As an adult, she is a woman in an abusive relationship where she once again has to escape to the Loser's Club.

Much like we saw in the episode of Master of None,  the motivation seems to be to make a movie with "universal appeal". We can't have too many minority characters defeating the monster, because....then it would be an (insert minority here) movie. The idea is that a "white" movie is universal. Everyone can relate to the group of white men/boys defeating the monster. Right?

Like I've said before, media reflects society, reflects media. We see the images we believe because we believe the images we see. Women need the protection of men, and minorities are often dismissed. Given that this movie was made in the early 90's and was set in the 50's it can be easy to give it some leeway. I am now even more interested in seeing how the newer version handles this inequality of characters, but from what I've read, I'm not sure it bothers.

September Media Log

An account of media I've consumed during the month of September. I have a stack on Anatomy and Physiology, Chemistry, and Sociology textbooks I read for school, but I only added books I read outside of those assigned. I didn't listen to a lot of music this month. I watch a lot of terrible tv. It's my mindless escape from the rigors of school. Spending so much time labeling bones and parts of bones, and shadows and indentations and lines of bones...I don't want to think too much. There's not a lot of thought in a Real Housewives episode. I fall asleep to Food Network or Cooking channel most nights. Those shows are not listed.


Books
The Brave Athlete: Calm the F*ck Down and Rise to the Occasion
The Triathletes Essential Week by Week Guide
Anatomy and Physiology for Dummies

TV
Real Housewives Orange County/Dallas
Flipping Out
Ink Master
Midnight Texas
Mr. Mercedes
Survivor
This is Us

Movies
Despicable Me
Transformers: The Last Knight
The Hitman's Bodyguard
It (Original)
Baby Driver
47 Meters Deep
The Girls with all the Gifts
Gerald's Game

Podcasts
The Nerdist: Dominic Monahan
The Nerdist: Andrea Savage
Unqualified: My Favorite Murder part 1 & 2
My Favorite Murder: Sharpest Needle in the Tack
Up and Vanished - Season 1



Music
Got wrapped up in murder podcasts and didn't listen to much else this month


Recommendations
I love The Nerdist Podcast. There have been several guests that I either wasn't a fan of, or didn't know a lot about, and still enjoyed the interview. I am a fan of Chris Hardwick and he tends to get stuff out of his guests that other interviewers might not. It doesn't feel like a formal interview, more like a conversation you get to sit in on. The "Chilly Gonzales" and "Keanu Reeves Returns" episodes are particularly interesting.
If Podcasts aren't your thing, check out, The Girl with all the Gifts. This was a movie I reluctantly watched. I wasn't interested in it at all. I ended up enjoying it more than I thought I would.

Generation Like

This is my second viewing of the documentary Generation Like. My immediate thoughts are... it makes me uncomfortable. The way some of the kids (and parents) behave for "likes" brings out my judgemental side. Starting out with the kids carefully crafting their profile picture to get the most comments, likes, retweets, shares; it's representative of the social media society we have right now. When you're sitting at home comparing your life to everyone else's "Greatest Hits Highlight Reel," it can be hard to remember that real life isn't a carefully crafted Facebook status and filtered profile picture
But then I have to step back and remember that my friends and I were pretty terrible as teenagers, we just weren't being recorded and uploaded for the world to see it. We were caught up in advertising and brands as well. We had to have the white Ked shoes with the blue tag on the back (if it didn't have that tiny Keds tag, don't bother). We were all walking billboards for Addidas, Nike, Keds, Sam&Libby and the like. We even had songs about it.

Kids are still kids, they just have a much larger stage today.

Today, I try to be aware of when I'm being advertised to. I'm sure that I am so numb to it that I don't even realize it anymore.I can remember being a kid and noticing product placement in The Karate Kid(1984).

"During production, the studio (Columbia Pictures) was actually owned by Coca-Cola, who insisted that it's products appeared on screen. Minute Maid at the breakfast table and Sprite in Miyagi's workshop, for example.

Ralph Macchio objected to this, especially after having to actually say "Minute Maid" in the breakfast scene and so, did his best to spoil the Sprite product placement by deliberately covering the logo with his hand... So they made him redo the scene. This time, Ralph showed the Sprite logo for the smallest time he could get away with.

If you watch the scene knowing this, its really obvious." Source

It feels like today's product placement is a lot more blatant, whereas in the past you would simply see a character using a product without much discussion about it. I was recently watching a tv show and in the scene, two people are driving somewhere having a conversation, but one character is busy playing with buttons on the car dash. The second character asks a question, like "Are you listening to me?" and the first character says something like, "I'm sorry, I just can't believe all the feature on our new (car make and model)" Then went on to list all the features of the car. There wasn't even an effort to seamlessly integrate into the storyline.
In this day of watching tv through online streaming or DVRs and skipping commercials, advertisers have to get creative. Putting the ads in the shows we are watching is just one way of doing this. As much as we block ads on our computers, algorithms will still catch up to you. Even typing this blog about advertising will probably get me on a list somewhere and I'll start seeing ads or "suggestions" about Nike.
I'd like to think that I'm not caught up in labels and brands, but I am. I am, obsessed, let's just cal it what it is, with a certain brand of workout clothes. The company creates a fervor by releasing limited designed "Art on clothing." The fans of the clothing clamor to get the newest release before it's gone forever. The resale of these items are at retail and above (shirts have sold for over $200 on ebay). It's ridiculous. I recognize that. But my closet is full of this brand.
As I've started doing triathlons and getting involved in the social media of triathletes, there are discussions about so-called "M-Dot" tattoos. When someone completes an Ironman, they want to show off this accomplishment (and believe me, if I ever swam 2.4 miles, rode a bike 113 miles, then ran a full 26.2 mile marathon, I'd probably never shut up about it). But, Ironman is a brand. You can do this distance without paying Ironman. But, people not only pay the Ironman corporation upwards of $700 to compete in the event, they then adorn themselves with Ironman gear, and then some....get tattoos of the Ironman logo. Just imagine if you loved Pepsi so much you got the Pepsi logo tattooed on your body. In the triathlon community, an "m-dot" tattoo is almost seen as a rite of passage.
Commercials, as we know them, may be fading away, but advertising will always exist. Companies will always want you to know about their product or brand, and they will find new ways to get you to notice them.