I'm not really sure what to write here, so I guess I'm just going to do a reflection of my experiences in this course.

Going into this class, I had high hopes for myself. I planned on doing all my work studiously because it was summer, and I had a lot more free time than I did at school. Unfortunately, I did not factor in random things that life can throw at me. One thing, for example, was how tired I would be after a day's work, and how the last thing I wanted to do when I came home was homework. I tried pushing through it, but I always ended up saving things until the last minute because I've got a terrible habit of doing so.

I like having the ability to work at my own pace (within the due dates, of course) because I only have myself to blame if I don't do something on time, or if I wait until the last minute. This class did however go by a lot faster than I originally thought it would, so that really put things into perspective when I realized in week 4 or so that my time would soon be up to make any improvements.

Despite my own shortcomings, I did learn a lot from this class. Every time I take a class, especially those in my major, I feel like I gain a stronger ability to look at things in different ways, and, as obvious as this may be, in a more educated way. My experiences in this learning environment will only help me improve on my abilities to work independently, and I am glad that I learned a lot.

Back in my day, T.G.I.F. meant sitting in front of my TV, eating pizza, and watching Boy Meets World.

Fridays used to be cool, but now it seems that they are apparently an excuse to write annoying songs.

First, we had the infamous "Friday" by darling Rebecca Black, which exploded the internet and made way for a ton of  memes and jokes all at the expense of this poor girl. And now, on an even bigger scale, Katy Perry has released a song along with a video called "Last Friday Night (T.G.I.F)." You can watch it, if you want to spend the 8 minutes watching it, please do so.  It's full of guest stars from the 80s, 90s, and today. That's the gimmicky, slightly redeeming quality of the video if it has any.

I suppose this might be a personal taste thing, but at the same time, this song and video just ANNOY me. I usually don't have a problem with Katy Perry or pop music, because it's pop, and it's supposed to appeal to the masses. But I don't think we need anymore songs dedicated to days of the week, catchy and relatable as they may be. Personally, I think The Cure did it the best with "Friday I'm in Love," and he managed to cover all the days with that.

So, this week while reading our textbook for class, I noticed one part of the book that used the word "meme", and it had an asterisk (*) next to it which lead to a note at the bottom that read:

"*meme - see Wikipedia on this controversial term."

Not only did I find amusement in the fact that the word "meme" was featured in my textbook (I automatically assumed it meant internet meme, but as I read on I realized this was not the case), I got directed to go on Wikipedia to learn something by a textbook. What? I mean, I understand that this is a media textbook, so it can be a bit lax on what it uses as sources for these kinds of things. But really? I find this so fascinating. I completely respect the book, I just have never been directed to Wiki something so forwardly in the academic world.  I mean, It's no secret that we all have used Wikipedia in one way or another to do a research paper or a simple homework assignment, but it is usually frowned upon in my experiences so I tend to try to avoid it as much as possible unless I need quick clarification on something simple that doesn't need a citation.

I guess my point in all of this is that this is once again a reflection on what the world has become in terms of technology and our insane dependence on it. The book didn't say, "go look the word up in a dictionary, or in the back of the book in our glossary," it directed us to an internet source. It makes sense, though, because they directed us readers to a source that would have probably the most thorough definition that could be found with minimal effort.

I think the funniest part about all of this is that I actually related to our textbook, because I probably would have done the exact same thing if someone asked me what a meme was (in the internet sense, at least).

The Social Network of Life

To those of us who are members of Facebook (which is likely the vast majority these days), we are used to one day logging into Facebook as we normally would and seeing that once again Mr. Zuckerberg has made some changes to the website that we have all finally become familiar with after the last time he's changed things around.

When this happens, my newsfeed usually blows up with a billion complaints. And now, on Tumblr, it has just happened. There's posts all around my dashboard full of "WTF's" and "what is this, make it go away."
The funny thing is, people will do this for a few days or so, and eventually get over it. Once the novelty of the new/different features wears off, it doesn't matter anymore. We all become victims of habit and just kind of go with whatever is presented to us. As long as it still works and serves its purpose without any problems, the changes that you posted and complained about are meaningless.

The novelty wearing off on this kind of reminds me of the way that we hear the news. Something huge will happen, and then slowly, the hype will die down, and it will just eventually become a footnote or an in-between story to update. The disasters in Haiti and Japan for example; how often do we hear about these anymore? Once something happens, and it is not in our daily lives, we seem to forget about it and simply move on, sometimes without even noticing that it happened. It's an almost unkind and strange way to live, if you think about it, but that's the way that it seems to be.

Ha.

The first part is kind of inappropriate, but hey, I found it on the internet. SUE ME! And I thought it was kind of finny and interesting and kind of relates to our class in a way in terms of "media," so I figured I'd share it here.

Video Killed the Radio Star,

and Netflix, Red Box, and On-Demand killed the Video Store.

Yesterday I was leaving my local CVS, and I noticed that they had installed a Red Box machine outside of the store. I began to get nostalgic (as I too often do) about going to the video store, renting a movie, watching it at home, and then bringing it back. As much as I love being in an era of instant gratification, I miss it. Maybe it's being able to feel the tangible object that you paid money to watch, or maybe it's the memories that go along with going to my now long-closed video store Airport Video. Or maybe it's the fact that I always wanted to work in a video store growing up as a part-time job, but now I'll probably never get the chance because they're all closed.

Now, moving away from that personal digression: Movies, television, and really anything that was made on film and relatively popular is now easily accessible with the click of a few buttons on a remote or a computer. Thousands of movies are available at an instant. I would know, I've got 8 bucks coming out of my bank account every month for my Netflix. Even movies that are out in the theaters can be found (illegally) online if one knows the right places to look. It just amazes me that maybe 10 years ago, for a nice round number, so little of this stuff existed.

All of this quick advancement makes me think: What could possibly be next? Can getting movies/tv shows/media get anymore convenient/instantaneous than it has already become? How?

25

The end of an era.

Today, the final episode of The Oprah Winfrey Show aired. Actually, it just concluded, and the show's namesake spoke on her show for the last time. All the hype over its conclusion has gotten me thinking.

For 25 years, Oprah Winfrey's show has changed and impacted the lives of its viewers. I will fully admit that I was never a dedicated fan of the show; if nothing was on at 4, I'd see what she was up to, or I'd watch it if I heard that someone cool was going to be a guest.

Despite the lack of enthusiasm for The Oprah Winfrey Show over my 20 years, I can't help but appreciate and respect the impact it has had on culture (and to tie into my lovely studies class) the media. High profile interviews from people of all walks of the worlds of entertainment, politics, and everything in between have been a staple on the show. People would reveal exclusive information about their lives in the public eye, scandals, they have been involved in, or even simply about a movie they had starred in.

The show has just been such a big part of television that it is sad to see it go. There will certainly be an empty space where her show once was in the world of media.