Duke Freshman Pornstar

     In 2014, a freshman at Duke University was caught doing porn as her side job to help pay her tuition. She faced all types of criticism and bullying and the mass media ate this story up. The interesting thing about this story is the way that different media outlets handled it. For example, the internet show, Take Part Live focused mainly on the money aspects of things. They took it more lightheartedly and even made jokes about it, while other media outlets took it more seriously. They did not understand the outrage over this whole situation and compared it to stripping. They just thought of it as another college student trying to make ends meet and do what is necessary.
     In comparison to Take Part Live, the online news channel, Young Turks focused on a different part of the story. They took it a little more seriously and talked about the vicious bullying that this young woman was going through. People online were giving away her personal information and she was receiving death threats. They also believed that she shouldn't be shamed for doing porn but they were more centered on the fact of how bad she was bullied, unlike the Take Part Live crew. I think this is a better way to approach it because they show the issues she went through, unlike the Take Part Live who didn't take it as seriously.

Fake Love-This is Emo

     In the article, "This is Emo" by Chuck Klosterman talks about the idea of fake love. Fake love is being in love with the idea of love rather than being in love someone. Many people see fictional couples and they aren't realistic expectations of what real love is because they are often in situations that ordinary people are not. An example of this is Troy Bolton and Gabriella Montez from the High School Musical trilogy. This couple exemplifies the idea that each partner fills the other's needs and makes their dreams come true. After they find each other their lives are happily ever after, which in real life is not usually the case. Young people see this in the movies and expect that their lives will be like this and this will happen to them. It gives kids unrealistic expectations of what to expect from true love. Not every relationship is going to be like Troy and Gabriella and people need to realize that there are ups and downs to relationships and it isn't happily ever after. Although all of us want to obtain the relationship status of many fictional couples, it shouldn't be the expectation.

Mean World Syndrome

    The Mean World Syndrome was an idea proposed by George Gerbner. Basically, he said that the media that we are exposed to is extremely violent such as in TV shows and movies. This violence in the media makes us think that the world is way more dangerous than it actually is. Violence is so popular around the world because it is easy to understand in many cultures and, well its entertaining. If there is s fight going on on-screen it is pretty easy to tell what is going on no matter what language it is in.
    Having so much violence on television can change the way we think when it comes to racial minorities. For example, many Latinos are depicted as being violent and dangerous and are rarely given roles that have them in a nice family setting. Another example is of Arabs or Muslims. They are almost exclusively on television to be portrayed as terrorists and nothing else. This is not a good thing to be portraying because most of the time these groups aren't like this in real life. We dehumanize these groups of people and many Americans think these things to be true and they will treat people in real life as they are depicted in television as terrorists and violent people.

Celebrity Culture- Timothy Caulfield

    After watching an interview with Timothy Caulfield regarding celebrity culture, a few things stuck out. He talked about many factors of becoming a celebrity that many people don't consider.

    The first thing he mentions is the shifts over time regarding celebrities. Values of celebrities have increased over time. Nowadays, people obsess over celebrities more than ever. The odd thing about this is that becoming famous is more attainable now than it ever has been. You don't even need a skill to be famous and we tend to obsess over regular people who are "celebrities". 

    Another one of Caulfield's points was that many people today have a certain illusion of becoming a celebrity. Parents are taking their kids to talent agencies and trying to help them become a celebrity. People also believe their chances of becoming a celebrity are much higher than they actually are. These people are usually delusional about their talent and aren't anything special. 

    The last thing he talked about was one's social mobility. The U.S.A. has a relatively low social mobility level compared to other developed countries, but we have an extremely high celebrity obsession. These things don't usually go together but it shows that Americans have a different way of thinking. 

Pro's and Con's of Pop Culture

     Pop culture is inescapable and there's nothing we can do about it. In "Escape From Pop Culture", by Diablo Cody, she writes about how she goes on a camping trip to try to get away from everything and by the end of the trip all she could think about was pop culture references relating to everything she was doing. There are positives and negatives to pop culture and that's okay because nothing is ever going to be perfect.
    Pop culture can help bring people together who could've never met. Many people we hang out with are most likely people who we share the same interests in music, television, politics and other subcategories of pop culture. Pop culture gives us each our own "social currency"which is used to connect with other people. This social currency helps us achieve desired positive impressions among people who are important to us such as our family, friends, and coworkers.
    There are negatives to pop culture as well. Pop culture can create negative social views from people who don't understand it. A good example of this is the Dungeons and Dragons craze in the 80's that led many parents believing that the game was some sort of devil-worshiping game simply because they didn't understand what was really going on. Another example is how a form of pop culture like social media, can ruin people's lives and promotes bullying and negative behavior. Jon Ronson did a TED talk about how one lady told an inappropriate joke on Twitter, and her life was ruined by it due to the backlash of people demanding she be fired and wishing harm to her.