Reading Blog #10

Before I can apply it, I must first thoroughly understand what is meant by the term 'hegemonic masculinity'. The key part of this term is hegemonic. Hegemony is the subtle 'push' given by society (in this case) to make someone act the way that's acceptable. So, by adding the word masculinity to this, it is how society tells males to act in today's society.

A perfect example of this are general beer and alcohol commercials. The 'ideal American male' is portrayed in these commercials. Usually as a young to middle-aged man wearing a sports jersey, drinking beer with his friends. He's often seen as the hero of the party when he brings the beer in (appealing to the male's sense of hierarchy, and need to be seen as #1). Along with these images, are images of attractive, usually scantily-clad women who seem to levitate towards the beer drinkers, almost seeming to point out that a man drinking a beer is an aphrodisiac. It just seems to me that these images are attempting to reinforce the typical male American stereotype, by using images ripe with hegemonic masculinity.

Research Blog #13

The Master Of Memes.

Authors:

Grossman, Lev

Source:

Time; 7/21/2008, Vol. 172 Issue 3, p50-51, 2p, 1 Color Photograph

Document Type:

Article

Summary:

The main points of this article are simply quantitative, not giving much insight into the mentality of the website 4chan. Statistics such as monthly users, total posts, and daily hits are given, along with how the website is able to affect peoples' everyday lives, even without them really noticing it. Mr. Grossman goes into detail after an interview with 'moot' (Christopher Poole, the founder of the website) about the site's humble beginnings, and general morph into what it is today. It could be considered a mecca of internet memes. He then delves into how moot is having problems keeping the site running, with the extremely high amount of bandwidth needed.

Reading Blog #9

Discussed in Chapter 9 is the idea of 'authenticity'. Authenticity, as it applies to popular culture, could mean a large variety of things. But the most broad and easily-accepted definition is something that is original, non-replicated, and appealing to the general senses. The book gives a few words on 'authentic wilderness'. It says that authentic wilderness "came to be seen as a place free from human society, and economic activity in particular..."

So this raises the question; is it possible to witness authentic nature? Purely by the definition, once a human, or a human-made object comes into contact with this authentic nature, it is no longer purely authentic. Sure, we can see what has never been touched by man, yet, is it truly possible to know that authentic nature is exactly what we think it is? I do not believe so.

Authenticity, in my opinion, is a term that has been created, modified, and thrown around in human culture as a source of inspiration and possibly, slight ignorance. Authenticity is supposed to be seen as something that is pure, creative, and new. But still, don't all ideas originate from some previous plan? For example, some people may see a new fighter jet, and call it an authentic creation. Yet, the only way it was able to be created was by having previous knowledge of flight. (Going far enough back to the Wright brothers, who first took flight.) Yet, even the Wright brothers weren't authentic in their idea for flying. Mankind's hope to take to the skies has been shown for centuries before.

My main point being, I do not believe authenticity is something that is palpable. Instead, it is something that is ideal, theoretical, and unachievable.

Research Blog #12

After reading Chapter 8, 4chan.org can be classified as either a subculture, or a counterculture. In many cases, the members of this site have attempted to change something that they saw as 'unjust'. For example, a story came out a few weeks ago about a woman who was videotaped throwing newborn puppies into a river, letting them drown, and laughing while she did so. The members of 4chan.org attempted to track this person down, in order to make her pay for her crimes. (Their intentions on her punishment are still up for debate, whether they would take the law into their own hands, or call the authorities.)

Yet, I do believe that it should still be classified under the definition of a subculture. The site is very out-of-the-way of mainstream internet (facebook, YouTube, Twitter, etc), and definitely has its own language. For example, if you ask someone off of the street what the words '4chan', 'troll', 'meme', or anything of the like means, they most likely would not give the same definition as somebody who frequents this site.

Reading Blog #7

In the film Bamboozled, we are subjected to a torrent of racial slurs, generalizations, and stereotypes. Yet, the film turns out to be comedic to us, and evokes emotions such as anger, sadness, and frustration. Why is this? Through connections of ethnicity, we are able to see into each character's mind. We know how they feel, act, and what ethnic background they are a part of. To the fullest extent, we see the use of identity as difference in this film. We are fed generalizations of each person in the movie, and whether they hold true or not, they always stay in the back of our minds.

This is how we group the characters in the movie. The gang members all have similarities, so their identity as difference is very small. However, the difference between Pierre and the senior vice president of the television network is huge, allowing us to easily discern them.

Reading Blog #5

An icon, that is quite possibly the most encountered one by anyone who happens to read this blog. It is, of course, the simplistic icon of social networking super-giant, Facebook. Simplistic as it is, it still represents more than anyone can easily imagine. The lower-case f has become symbolic of hundreds of millions of people being interconnected by a single network. Wherever you may be on the internet, it is quite likely you will see some kind of Facebook icon somewhere on the page. (Most likely, being a 'like' button, or a link that says 'Follow us on Facebook!') What is very surprising, is that Facebook no longer has to advertise, and put their logos in places. Since the Facebook logo is already everywhere, why would advertising be necessary? If you're without a Facebook page now, you can be barraged with questions as to why you don't have one. It is now, quite simply the social norm. But the symbol itself is very simple, as stated before. As much as people do not consciously realize it, humans are attracted to the simple. The more simple, or clean, something looks, the more appealing it is to our senses. But as it comes along now, other companies end up using Facebook as a propellant in their own endeavors.

Research Blog #6

I have thoroughly described the main page of 4chan.org in the last research blog. So here, I will focus on Page 0 (the default page) of the image board known as /b/ (Random). It has to be understood, before anything can be described, that this image board is commonly known as one of the most disgusting and vile places on the internet, yet so many ideas and artifacts would not be popular without it. Just taking a look at the advertisements on the main page of /b/, they are all for pornography sites. It is a good guess to say that 25% of the posts on the image board contain some kind of profanity. This could be swearing, pornography, or other less-than-acceptable images or text.

The way that the members of the board seem to be representing themselves to others on the board is through a 'dialect' of acquired humor. Yes, it is true that many of the things posted on this board can be considered profane, but the members of this site can look past the profanity, or even embrace it, and see the humor behind it. This is what makes these people stand out against others, even in different situations. In many cases, it is possible to tell that someone is a regular member of /b/ by how they act, talk, and go about certain routines.

But to others, who have not had as much experience with the site, it may just seem to be a complete array of profane humor. It definitely does take a certain person to enjoy and appreciate what goes on in the image board, but if you don't have an open mindset, you will be disgusted, and never return to the said site.