Author: Alexandria Dorato

“Bill OReilly”, “Bell Hooks”, and “Beyonce: Sex Terrorist” discuss how Beyonce isn’t considered a “role model” anymore because of how she acted. I believe that her fans were just looking for a way to get Beyonce’s attention. Hooks stated “I see a part of Beyonce that is in fact anti-feminist, that is assaulting – that is a terrorist. Especially in terms of the impact on young girls”. This is how OReilly feels… “why on earth would this woman do that? why would she do it when she knows that devastation that unwanted pregnancies, which we will deal with in a moment, not with you, but in another segment, and  fractured  families, why would Beyonce do that”?

I chose to use these pictures for my media share because it illustrates Beyonce’s fans admiring her at her concert. The second picture illustrates how her fans feel after what she did and how they were pointing fingers at her, calling out her actions.

Hip Hop History: From the Streets to the Mainstream

Rap music is still to this day judged. Whenever I’m in the car with my mom and I put my playlist on, she isn’t the biggest fan of it. This is because most boomers only like the music that they grew up with which is classic rock. Hip-Hop has evolved a tremendous amount and my age group is who mostly listens to it. One of the social issues that Jay Z discusses is drug use. “Jay Z returned to Brooklyn, where, he says, he spent his early twenties selling crack cocaine”.  I chose to use the article above for my media share because it discusses the advancements of Hip Hop throughout history. Back then, it wasn’t “cool” to be a rapper but now, rappers embrace it and like to talk about their lives. Eminem is a perfect example. If you have noticed, he frequently raps about his struggles in life but he found his passion and started to rap and became successful.

In the reading “On Rap and White Noise”, Jace Clayton refers to the social issue of racism by using a song to grab the readers attention in the introduction. Racism is still an issue in todays world. I chose to relate “Where is The Love” by the Black Eyes Peas because it talks about the lack of love in this world and how everybody is causing madness. This song expresses the social issue just like Jace Clayton does when he uses a song to tie it into the social issue he is explaining.

In the text “Art at Arm’s Length”, Jerry Salz discusses the significance of selfies. I decided to share this picture of Khloe Kardashian which is clearly photoshopped on the left since she looks totally different on the right. I don’t want to sound like a hater but in my opinion, photoshopped pictures don’t have significance being that they aren’t natural. Photoshop on selfies can cause low self esteem and body image issues. However, a natural photo does have significance being that the person shows that they are confident with themselves and they don’t need photoshop to make them happy with changing how they actually look. This also illustrates how social media is toxic because not everyone realizes that a picture is photoshopped so they just think the person is perfect. This effects people in many ways causing them to feel insecure and they create unrealistic images of what they are supposed to look like in their head when the picture they are looking at isn’t even natural.

1. I chose this picture because it relates to the ideas of internet addiction in the texts “The Viral Virus” by Lauren Duca, “Addicted to Addiction” by Christopher Lane, “Issues for DSM-5: Internet Addiction” by Jerald G. Block and “The Evolution of Internet Addiction” by Griffiths et al. These texts discuss how the internet can have a negative impact on a person if they spend an excessive amount of time on it. This picture illustrates a child so addicted to the internet that he starts crying when his parent tries to take away his Ipad. Early age addiction to technology can lead to social issues while growing up because kids invest so much time into electronics so they wouldn’t know how to socialize and make conversation. For this reason (when I have my own kids in the future), I refuse to give them technology until they are older and I feel they are responsible enough and ready for it. I am also guilty of spending too much time on my phone sometimes but I taught myself how to take breaks by realizing life is too short to spend hours on my phone and I rather invest time into my family and friends. People need to understand the negative effects that the internet could have on a person.
2. Even though these texts are related to being addicted to the internet, a song about drug addiction came to my mind. “Lemonade” by Internet Money, Gunna and Don Toliver resonate with the ideas with these texts being that both have to do with addiction. In the song it says “off the juice, codeine got me trippin” and “Adderall, fentanyl, xanax bars, aye, I was fifteen, I sip codeine with my dawg, yeah”. Both of these addictions are social issues that I could possibly write about for Essay 2.

For this weeks media share, I shared this video with you to relate it to Sepell’s text. The text and the video are similar since they both represent police brutality. The officers that arrested Eric Garner were so violent that the victim later died. Eric Garner clearly wasn’t able to breathe but the officers didn’t seem to care and proceeded with attacking him. Violence is never the answer and the situation could have definitely been handled differently. This video also relates to Serpell’s text since both the video and text have “what was said”. In Serpell’s text, the “what was said” was the recording of the incident and what you are able to hear in the video. For example, when the officer was attacking the girl, you are able to hear “what are you doing? You’re hurting her”. It is the same thing for the video I shared except you don’t hear any witnesses, you just hear the pain in Eric Garner’s voice when he says “I can’t breathe”.

Here is a list of weird/disturbing things I have seen over the years on the internet:

-Salad Fingers

 

-The Annoying Orange

 

-The Mannequin Mob

-This weird looking cat

-These tiny scary looking things

-An Underwater River

-Pigeon People