Switched-On :: Blog

On the news recently, there’ve been a lot of stories about an attack on a 17 year old that was filmed and put on YouTube. The beating took place in Chicago and was supposedly in retaliation for the victim’s involvement in a prior fight. Seven teens are being charged for the attack, which went on for several minutes. Obviously, it takes a pretty stupid person to be able to hurt someone else like that. But it seems like another level of stupidity to videotape yourself doing it and then post it to a website where your friends, parents, and the police can see it. YouTube is filled with videos of amateur fights, all of them difficult and depressing to watch. This recent story has made me wonder whether there are so many fight videos because of YouTube, or whether people just happen to have a place to put their videos now. Do people start fights ignorantly hoping for YouTube fame? Is YouTube encouraging violence by hosting these videos on their website? If any of the teens who participated in this beating did so because they thought that they’d make a popular video out of it, that raises serious issues about YouTube’s role in our culture.
- Will

Some of us look at magazines, others look at mirrors, some at the music videos; we are always constantly comparing ourselves to someone else, to something else, and if we don’t fit that idea then we aren’t pretty enough. I remember I would look at the music videos and they were usually the same. The same kinds of women always appear on TV as if that’s the way every woman should be. On magazines, it’s always about having the latest things and looking a certain way, as if anything else would be wrong. Then there is the mirror and for some it’s their worst enemy. We spend our days comparing what we don’t have to what we wish we did, but how often do we spend talking about what we do have? The things that make us stand out and make us, us? The media is powerful, but our minds are what guide us, we are all beautiful and unique it’s just about finding it inside us.
- Steffanie

I don’t usually judge what other people watch on TV. You can have your I Didn’t Know I Was Pregnant, I will have my Chopped, and we will coexist peacefully. But a few days ago, a line was crossed when I walked in on my mother watching Jersey Shore. This is wrong. I should not have to see this, nor should I have to hear my mom say “Snooki” or “Jwow.” This has to be some sort of sign that reality television has infiltrated our lives to a dangerous extent. When our parents start watching this stuff, something is wrong. Reality television has been going strong, ever since the first Real World season on MTV. But it seems like it’s on every channel now, at all hours, not to mention available on demand. I can only hope, for my own comfort and our collective future, that this is some sort of bubble. When it pops, we’ll realize how foolish we were to spend hours watching people interact in painfully contrived circumstances, and we’ll go back to spending our television hours watching important stuff, like Top Chef Masters.
- Will