Twilight seems to be this year's Harry Potter.  Ask any middle-school, high school, or even college aged girl and they have either heard of it or read it...some have even committed certain parts to memory.  I will admit that I've read the books.  I thought they were decent, maybe a little too long at points, but a good way to waste time at the beach over the summer nonetheless.

I think what makes these books so appealing to so many readers is their ability to relate to them in a way that allows them to sort of escape their real lives and live in this fantasy world with Bella and Edward.  Now, it may be difficult to understand how someone could relate to falling in love with a vampire, but, when you take away Edward's state from the equation, you're left with a pretty generic fairy tale.

This fairy tale being the girl who is always down on herself, has few friends or is new to a certain place, falling madly in love with the cute, yet unattainable (at least to everyone else) boy.  It's something that arguably most girls want. This is not to say that most girls are self-conscious or don't like themselves, but I think the majority of girls can relate to wanting someone to come and sweep them off their feet.  This is precisely what happens in Twilight. 

Young women (and even some older) read these books as a way to escape their lives and live a fantasy for a little.  In fact, it would seem that this is why we interact with any media.  Not that we are particularly unhappy with our lives, but we just want to see what it would be like to live differently for a short time.  Chalk it up to wanting to see how the other half lives.  Authors make their characters' lives seem so interesting and eventful and it is easy to get lost in this fake world when our own world seems so dull in comparison.

Most of us lead pretty normal lives.  We deal with things as they come and try our best to avoid drama.  However, there is some appeal in the overly emphasized drama of television, movie, and book character's lives that draws us in.  It seems as though as long as its their drama and we could look or sound as glamorous doing it, it would be okay to deal with unreal levels of drama--only for a little, though. 

Internet Dating Becomes Cool

During our discussion about Auto-Ethnography, we briefly discussed internet dating.  I recently saw a commercial for a cell phone carrier in which a father confronts his three daughters about their telling everyone that he's on an online dating website now that they have unlimited minutes.  The character appears embarrassed that people know he's on the site, however, I feel that now online dating as moved into a realm of greater acceptance.  

Growing up I don't remember any commercials for online dating.  I do, however, remember my parents getting little surveys to fill out and send back to a dating service.  These cards were always treated as a joke (maybe this was because they were married), yet it was still easy to see that my parents, probably along with many others, saw this sort of process as an extreme last resort; something that "losers' would do.

There is the notion out there that college age and twenty-somethings should be able to easily find Mr. or Mrs. Right.  In college you spend the majority of the year surrounded by attractive people your age who (at least by attending the same school) share common interests with you. Why, then, would a young twenty-something college student need online dating?

The answer is that people want to see what's out there.  Match.com says it perfectly in their "It's Okay to Look" campaign.  Even five years ago it would have been "lame" to look at online dating sites and it would imply that there was something so wrong with you that you couldn't find a date the college and young-adult setting.  Now, however, with the prevalence of the internet and several catchy and interesting ad campaigns, men and women are joining these sites at younger and younger ages.  Because after all, you never really know what's out there until you look.

The stigma has certainly been lifted from what it was when dating services first started to become popularized.  I can now name several couples who I know met on online services such as eharmony and Match.com.  In fact, my roommates father and his fiancée met via Eharmony.  

It seems only natural, especially for college aged men and women to look to the internet for dating.  After all, we spent the majority of our time on the internet looking at Facebook, blogs, Twitter, and other networking sites, so why not join just one more? 

140 Characters or Less

I haven't joined the site, but it seems to me that out of no where Twitter has become one of the most popular websites.  Celebrity blogs have even been buzzing that Jennifer Aniston and John Meyer ended their relationship because he seemed to favor updating his Twitter page over spending time with Aniston.

Frankly, I don't really understand it.  It's cool to be able to see what your favorite celebrity is doing at any give moment, but for the non-celebrity why is it so important?  

At the request of her boss, my Aunt must use a Twitter in her job as a Marketing Director of an e-marketing firm.  140 characters is not technically a lot, but she says she finds herself staring at the computer wondering what she should write.  She says that she can't think of anything interesting enough to write.  Furthermore, she only has a handful of friends on the site so why would this small group want to know when what stage she's in during the planning of a conference or who she's talking to on the phone.

I guess I cannot wrap my head around the idea that someone would want to take time out of there day to post their almost hourly activities to a website.  Can't you just call someone on the phone? Send and email?  

I understand to a certain extent the appeal to following a celebrity's Twitter feed.  As a society we have this need to know how the other half lives and to follow what they do.  I think it is to reinforce the idea in our minds that they are no different from us--the only thing that differs is their occupation and wealth.  With that being said, I understand why someone would want to follow Solange Knowles Twitter about her passing out after taking too much Ny-Quil, or read M.I.A.'s constant updates as she's giving birth to her son.  One would feel a personal connection and and ability to relate to someone who once was considered totally unreachable.  Even so, isn't this what fansites are dedicated to?  

"Do You Have Facebook?"

Inevitably, if you ask that question to just about any college age student, they will say "yes."  Facebook has become the primary way that students in college and high school communicate with each other.  While many other demographics use Facebook and studies have shown that the site's core market of 18-34 year-olds is down, the site was started as a way for students in college to network.  So pervasive has Facebook become that it is now a way in which people determine how popular they are and the primary way in which they interact with most of their friends.

It used to be that to talk to a friend to to relay a message, you had to either call them on the phone and actually speak to them, or meet them in person and actually see them.  However, with the invention of Facebook, you can write a wall post in a matter of seconds.  The site, however much I may like it, has drastically reduced the face-to-face time we spend with our peers.  It has made a legitimate relationship out of a "friend request" and effectively reduced the sanctity of the old-time friendship.

It seems now that events are only legitimate if they're posted on Facebook.  For example, when a boyfriend and a girlfriend break up, it becomes "official" once their relationship statuses on Facebook read "single."  Some go so far as to say that if you're not friends on Facebook, you can't be friends in real life.  I find this ridiculous.  Being friends with someone on Facebook means that they have access to your pictures (which is arguably what most college aged men and women go on Facebook to look at).  It does not necessarily mean that you share the connection and mutual trust required to have a friendship.  It simply means that you have yet another hyperlink to click on when you're surfing the web. 

In a recent Fortune Magazine article, Mark Zuckerberg expresses his wish that Facebook become the only social utility and networking site and that it eclipse the use of the telephone, email, and other methods of communication.  Essentially, in Zuckerberg's world, we'll all be glued to our Facebook accounts anxiously awaiting wall posts, messages, and instant messages from friends, families, colleagues, and even strangers...

It is disconcerting to me that a website that started out as a way to keep in touch with people has become a way to define our society.  I have 388 friends on Facebook.  I can say with absolute confidence that I am not friends with 388 people in real life.  I probably don't even know half of those people or haven't spoken to them in ages.  However, it is this number or the number of photos you have tagged, or the number of events you get invited to that defines your popularity.  Yet, right now (despite Zuckerberg's intentions) it is just a website, and how can a website define us better than we ourselves can? 

As a final thought, my friend has 1,331 friends, so if you look at it purely by the numbers, is she almost four times as "cool" as me.  I would like to think not.  

Whether Facebook will eventually become the only social and networking utility our society uses remains to be seen.  It may fizzle away in popularity like AOL's Instant Messenger or it may continue its meteoric rise.  All that is certain now is that it is a powerful tool for social definition and should we let it continue to define our self-image and the way we relate to society, it could be extremely damaging. 

 

Sad but True

One of the greatest functions of pop culture is to make ourselves feel better about our lives.  I can think of no other reason that shows like A&E's Intervention and MTV's True Life exist.  Sure we have a fascination for watching and in some ways experiencing the way the other half lives, but our preference for these shows highlights something much more important in our society: our need to feel better than someone or someone else. 

Admittedly, when I watch an episode of Intervention and I see a girl my age who is jobless, homeless, shamless, and shoots five to ten bags of heroin a day while popping Xanax like they are candy, I feel a lot better about my indecision about what to do after I graduate college.  Is it wrong to feel this way? To a certain degree, yes, but it gives me a sort of confidence and power to realize that things are not as bad as they seem.  

As another example, when my mother watches Jon and Kate Plus 8, she feels significantly less stressed.  Sure she might have 100 emails to answer, patients to see, and lectures to develop, but somehow when she sees how Kate deals with 8 children under the age of ten without her head spinning off, she feels at ease.  No matter what she is feeling at that moment, she could imagine having all the responsibilities of being a parent eight times over and realize that answering a few emails and seeing some patients isn't really that bad.

Society looks to the people we see in various documentaries of other "normal" non-celebrities to boost our self confidence.  To a certain extent it is an exploitation of another human being.  We are saying that we do not really care or relate to their problem or illness in anyway, we are watching it to realize that it can always be worse.  These shows are aired so that we as viewers may feel a certain amount of empathy for the people being documented, however, rarely do we feel empathetic.  Rather, we feel empowered, like any challenge we may face we will be able to overcome because it is probably not so great of a challenge in the grand scheme of things.

Our society also does this with television sitcoms.  When our favorite cast member undergoes a trying time, we use this as a justification for the meagerness of our trying times.  Even though the people who play these characters experience none of these issues and the events are entirely fictional, there is part of us that still takes them to be true and applies them to our lives as if they were true.  If we as a society take these events and use them to increase our self esteem, the boundary between what is real and what is fiction is significantly blurred. TV is no longer TV, it  has become a reality for us, much like an episode of Intervention or True Life.  We are willing to justify the legitimacy of something so long as it makes us feel "good."

Should something make us feel bad, for example hearing the world will end in 2012, we choose not to listen to it and to write this off as being "fake."  I am not an expert in any of these doomsday predictions, but I would imagine that there are some writings from Nostradamus, the Mayans, and others that have some loose association with it.  Either way, they are significantly more "real" than, say, an episode of Gossip Girl.  However, because such programs tell us something we do not want to hear or something that makes us feel worse about ourselves or uneasy about our lives, we choose to discredit its validity. 

Society, then, is in some ways backwards.  We take to heart things that are unreal and push to side those things that may be real but upset us.  In this way, we highlight ourselves as being entirely self-serving creatures who will look and appreciate only those things that make us feel good.

The Decline of the Hills

A couple of classes ago we discussed how the MTV hit reality show "The Hills" has recently come under fire.  While I was a fan of the show in its initial seasons, now I see it as a program that a few eager producers piece together from the lives of four or five main "characters".

The point of reality TV shows is that there are not characters--only people.  However, over the five or six seasons of the Hills, Lauren, Audrina, Heidi, Spencer, and Whitney have been made to fit into certain molds.  Lauren is the sensitive, yet headstrong leading lady who seems to never experience anything really good in her life.  Audrina is (was) the doting best friend who was always there for Lauren during her many ups and downs (despite a very rocky love life herself).  After a couple of seasons, Heidi and Spencer have become the clear villains and Whitney stands as the voice of reason (for a reason that will always be unknown to me).  The point is, none of these "characters" are the real Lauren, Audrina, Heidi, Spencer, and Whitney.  They are the characters that MTV producers created to enhance drama and increase ratings. 

The situations these characters are placed have become just as manufactured as their personalities.  What started out as a show about a young girl entering the big city chasing her dreams as a fashion designer has just become and endless advertisement for popular fashion brands and the Las Vegas and Los Angeles night life.  Sure they're making money from being on the show, but in reality--real reality--what other 20 something can afford to go out every night to swanky night clubs, while wearing a different designer outfit every day and driving a brand new $100,000 Mercedes?

Furthermore, what message is this sending the younger girls in America?  Is it okay to put off real work for a life of parties and material riches?  Growing up I always learned that you had to work for everything you wanted and it seems more and more that the Hills is showing that if you're "cool" enough you'll just get it.  The popularity of this show has probably made hundreds of girls look at the television and say "I'm going to go to LA, enroll in school (which I won't go to...ever), and start my own fashion line".  Goals and dreams are good...the "Lauren Conrad" goal is unattainable--unless you have the full force of one of the nations most popular television networks behind you.

Lauren Conrad's entire life since the time she was in high school has been scripted to enhance drama and tension.  True, she has achieved some pretty remarkable things, however, her continued involvement in the show jeopardizes the legitimacy of her accolades.  It becomes increasingly difficult to separate the successes she has garnered from the all of the fame and notoriety she has received from being associated with an MTV production. 

Furthermore, stories continue to surface attacking the shows legitimacy.  Gossip magazines publish stories that detail how each scene (because apparently we lead our lives as a series of scenes) is played out and how members of the show are casted.  One particularly troublesome revelation was the rumor that Lauren Conrad does not even attend school anymore and when they film school scenes, her and her classmates have to change clothes half way through to make it appear as though it were two different classes.  

MTV is sending a terrible message to young female Hill's fans.  Aside from the fact that the show is not reality at all, they are telling these young girls that they can be like Lauren and her friends and should.  However, Lauren and co. are not actually what they appear to be.  They have become socialites who work occasionally on convenient projects.  They have little or no formal education and probably little or no plans for the future except for acting in a movie now and then and working on a clothing line.

Who would make it their goal to be like Conrad, then?  In my opinion, in five years no one will care about Lauren or her posse.  So, what will the goal of looking like her mean then? What are all of her adoring fans going to do when she is no longer popular?  Chances are they'll move on to the next "it" reality TV star, start wearing their new clothing line, and believe that the things they see on TV is what actually happens in real life.  

Chris Brown and Rihanna's New Duet....Seriously?

Today on PerezHilton, I read that Rihanna and Chris Brown are planning on recording a new duet together. Yes, this is coming after Brown reportedly (well, it's difficult to dispute now that pictures have surfaced and Rihanna is scheduled to appear in court against Brown) beat Rihanna up.

While Brown's career is on (as my favortie blogger Michael K. of Dlisted says) "the fast track to irrelevancy", this new addition to the story has the potential to be most damaging for Rihanna's career. It is safe the make the assumption that most women are disgusted by Brown's actions and have clearly sided with Rihanna--even many famous men have stepped out and said that Brown was out of line and deserves serious sanctions. However, Rihanna runs the very high risk of losing all this support if this duet rumor proves to be true.

Should she actually work with Brown on this venture, she would in effect tell society that she is over the incident and is willing to forgive and move on. However, it would seem that most members of society would want to see Rihanna move on from Brown, not just the situation. It has already been reported that Donald Trump stated that Rihanna is just as "useless" as Brown in the situation after rumors surfaced that the two were in Miami apparently reconciling.

It may be that there was a previously established contract in place for these two young stars to colaborate on a song. Yet still, if Rihanna actually agrees and this turns out to be more than a rumor, the singer would essentially convey to society that she values business arrangements and money more than she does her self-respect.

Obviously domestic violence in relationships is a very difficult situation to deal with and simply becuase they are celebrities, Brown and Rihanna are no different. However, the actions they take in reconciling these problems and the next steps they take in their relationship will be carefully watched by soceity. It is imperitive then, that Rihanna--at least to save herself--think less about the impact this has on her career and more about th eimpact it has on her as a person.