Generation Like

The Frontline documentary “Generation Like” explores the relationship between Internet users and corporate marketers. In the film, Douglas Rushkoff explain how in our generation the consumer turns into the marketer by reaching out to their peers through social media, in turn selling the product for the company.

Rushkoff explain how teens are spending more and more time in digital spaces they know nothing about, eventually creating a demographic profile about themselves and thus voluntarily handing out information about themselves to companies.This is because the value of companies such as Facebook and Twitter aren't based on profit, but based on the volume of likes they can generate. Now here we see the game of likes.

Through social media platforms, teens can participate in something bigger than themselves and engaging with figures that they idolize is what keeps them continuing to like and engage via social media. However, what is really occurring is that corporations are employing kids to sell their product, making them work for free without knowing the role they are playing in the marketing process. In our generation any ordinary kid has the opportunity to cultivate an online fan base. Kids feel validated by the number of likes they receive, skewing their notion of success and creating a meaningful impression. New world marketing is where it's no longer "the medium is the message" and more of "you are the medium".

How powerful is the connection between the effect of social media and the structure of the Hunger Games? 

In “Generation Like” companies profit by selling out identities. Teens are victim of manipulation by marketers and large corporations and playing into a system they aren't aware of. Teens feel empowered and like they part of a meaningful social community when really they are just “players in a corporate version of The Hunger Games.”

As seen in the clip above, Rushkoff uses the Hunger Games as a metaphor and makes a direct comparison between advertisers and the game makers from The Hunger Games, the ones who create arenas where teenagers fight each other to the death for sponsorships and the viewing pleasure of adults. It's where hidden game masters set the rules that you need to follow, and where the only way to receive benefits from sponsors is to get as many people to like you as you can. Jar of miraculous healing ointment anyone? This inclusion of profound parallels between the subject-matter and the plot of The Hunger Games, and its incorporation of clever transition methods, helps to convey a story that’s tackling a heavy subject matter into a simple and cohesive structure for the audience to enjoy.

The connection between the effect of social media and the structure of the Hunger Games is a profound message. For today’s young adult audience, a world of instability is just the norm. When young adults read these books, stories about teenagers who must fight for their lives and fight for their freedom in a world that a previous generation has wrecked, they are reading a metaphorical representation of their own world. Today’s kids have been handed a world their elders mismanaged, used up, polluted and wrecked. 

The relationship with the games being just like social media, gives the audience something to relate to. They understand the issues with the games, not only from the character's point of view but with their interpretation of it as well, Associating this to social media gives them a further understanding and makes them question the social media game.

We Need To Talk About Lily Allen

The Internet exploded when iconic British pop star Lily Allen released the music video for her long-awaited comeback single “Hard Out Here”. It is incredibly ambitious and catchy as hell. "Hard Out Here" has Allen referencing everything from the sexual double standard for women to the glass ceiling. It's a feminist pop anthem you can blast at parties.

At first, we find Allen stretched out on an operating table, undergoing liposuction while silently protesting criticism about her wright from her old white manager. “How do people let themselves get like this?” Her gross white middle-aged manager asks. “Um, I've had two babies,” she responds. This aptly captures the pressure woman in the music industry must feel. She aptly instills the idea of female empowerment, cleverly discussing the objectification of women, sexism in the media and the fallacy that sexism no longer exists. She introduces the concept of the glass ceiling and her attempt to expose and break it. This is probably the most effective scene because she liberates herself from the revolting sexism it creates by getting up and singing.

The lyrics aim to ridicule common tropes perpetuated about women in pop music, and are supported in the video by clever references to other music. The repetition of the refrain “hard out here for a bitch,” is a reclamation of “bitch” as a term of power and a reference to Three 6 Mafia’s “It’s Hard Out Here for a Pimp”. This actually contrasts with the ideology that "males are active and females are passive" within media texts.

She also satirizes the standard "Robin Thicke and Miley Cyrus" approach to Top 40 by adding an inter-textual reference to Thicke's video "Blurred Lines" and Cyrus' "We Can't Stop" video and performances. As a widely recognized gesture, this became a successful satiric statement. She replicates this to show how insignificant the assertion was to the the actual narrative of his song and making a point of how ridiculous the content of pop videos have gotten and how the 'patriarchal society' allows this.

The only problem with Allen's video though, is that it undermines its own message.

Lily Allen uses a satiric approach to her music video. In trying to make a comments about the sexism and materialism in hip-hop video and pop music, Allen's video was interpreted by many as perpetuating racism The problem was that for satire to have a real effect, mere imitation is not enough. In her attempt to satirize, Allen still manage to alienate.

The video cuts to black women twerking, an obvious parody of the use of black women as props in music videos. While Allen may not have intended to dehumanize and objectify the women of color twerking in her video, she succeeded in many ways. But even when she’s dancing with them, it seems she’s still kind of making fun of them, or at least keeping her distance. We get the message yet the entire video is laden with half-naked ladies twerking. We see women licking various objects as phallic symbols and spraying themselves with champagne; there are gratuitous close-ups that reduce women to jiggly butts and crotch shots. Further to that point, Allen is the only three-dimensional woman in this video yet the dancers never stop playing up the bottle-popping, booty-shaking roles they've been assigned—roles she’s already condemned and rejected. Meanwhile she sings, "No need to shake my ass for you cause I’ve got a brain.” Exacerbating this is Allen demonstrating her own superiority by being a clothed white woman parading amongst semi-naked women of colour.

The biggest issue here isn't that Allen chose to satirize the twerking dancers in hip hop videos, but that she chose to satirize something that doesn't actually affect her, that she could stand apart from and present as a sort of oddity. That's ultimately the problem with Allen's brand of pop feminism, though. In order to empower women just like her, she's had to exclude and make a mockery of countless others.

Written Task 2 Practice

 How and why is a social group represented in a particular way?

In this article, I'll be answering the question above in relation to LGBT advertising.

There are 2 types of techniques marketers use to advertise to the LGBT community. Gay window advertising is one of the earliest and most common strategy targeting gays. It features “average” and straight-looking characters that can be read as buddies or roommates by straight audiences and as gay couples by gays. This advertising strategy tries to appeal to lesbian and gay consumers without offending, or even alerting, homophobic audiences. In addition, through the use of in-group language, gestures, and symbols of gay sub-culture, an ad is able to appear “innocuous” to heterosexual audiences and induce a gay reading from gay audiences simultaneously, thus creating a multivocal article. However, gay window advertising only secretly and ambiguously acknowledges and entertains gay audiences which may become a glass closet, or the “closet of connotation”.

Now, the gay message is beaming through more clearly these days.They now use LGBT families or LGBT individuals in campaigns that reach mainstream audiences. The LGBT community isn’t as ghettoized as it used to be. Gay marketing, like gay-everything, has seeped into the mainstream.

 

Despite this, we've changed tactics. Does sex still sell? More specifically, how are gay men depicted in gay men’s magazines? Is sexuality used to sell products in ways that are similar to the way sexuality is used to sell products in mainstream men’s magazines? Are gay men more sexualized than straight men?

The de-sexualization of LGBTQ media is often articulated in terms of an attempt to make “respectable” the gay civil rights movement.

FOA

The gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender community is a multi-billion dollar target audience, estimated to be worth around $835 billion.


AD 1:


The 1997 ad for the Volkswagen Golf, called "Sunday Afternoon," featured two guys (one white and one black) driving around. It's been called memorably ambiguous.


Now this ad is a basic textbook example of gay window advertising, one of the earliest and most common strategy targeting gays. It features “average” and straight-looking characters that can be read as buddies or roommates by straight audiences and as gay couples by gays. This advertising strategy tries to appeal to lesbian and gay consumers without offending, or even alerting, homophobic audiences. In addition, through the use of in-group language, gestures, and symbols of gay sub-culture, an ad is able to appear “innocuous” to heterosexual audiences and induce a gay reading from gay audiences simultaneously. Multivocal


The gay window advertising is a 1997 Volkswagen commercial which features two hip young men who salvage a discarded chair and place it in the back of their vehicle as they drive around aimlessly. Here we see subtle touching and physical proximity. Mainly, we can see the playful wrestling with the action figures. The characters could be read as roommates, or partners, especially considering the fact that it was first aired during the much publicized coming-out episode of Ellen, an expensive spot that charged advertisers twice the normal rate.


Some advertising meanings are deliberately opaque to induce higher involvement in the message. This indicates that consumers gain pleasure from decoding or making sense out of ads. This ad would cause controversy and further publicize the ads. The best communication is through the people.


However, gay window advertising only secretly and ambiguously acknowledges and entertains gay audiences which may become a glass closet, or the “closet of connotation”. LGBT are seen but not recognized by the mainstream society.






AD 2:


Within the last year we've seen advertising come out of the closet, and now use LGBT families or LGBT individuals in campaigns that reach mainstream audiences. The LGBT community isn’t as ghettoized as it used to be.


Many big brands are now using the out-of-closet technique; a daring strategy to target their gay consumers explicitly in the hope of winning their loyalty.
Ads Break During NBC's Coverage of Sochi Olympics Opening Ceremonies. Russia's stringent anti-gay laws have created an issue for sponsors and advertisers of the Sochi Winter Olympic Games, with some skirting the issue and others confronting it.





"While what it means to be a family hasn't changed, what a family looks like, has," notes the voiceover. "This is the new us." The spot ends with Chevy's tagline for the past year: "Find New Roads." With this ad, Chevrolet is making a big socio-politcal statement.


LGBT consumer demographic as a means to get "their message through the clutter to the buyer."






The spot blends real-life events, news clips, and social media to show, as Chevy put it, “that even though the world is constantly changing, the things that matter most remain the same.”


The ad is certainly heavy on depicting the constant change. It begins, Like the old love, the new love starts with a kiss, shifting from a shot of a heterosexual couple smooching at a race to the gay nuptials.


Like the old success, the new success still takes hard work, the ad continues, with a fast-moving stream of scenes depicting generational and ethnic diversity, family occasions, heroism and fun, social-media applications and technological innovation — and ending with a rat-tat-tat melange of new Chevrolet models.


The LGBT community tends to be more affluent. They spend more,” he said. “They’re more loyal to brands that use LGBT people in their ads and have LGBT-friendly policies. They also tend to be more influential — especially for certain products.


In the commercials explicitly targeting gays, no gay stereotypes such as sissy gay men are presented. Gays are not shown in peculiar settings, wearing flamboyant clothes or talking in a certain theatrical manner; gayness is a treated like a norm in the ad story.


Active portrayal: showing the person interacting directly with the product.


Affect Transfer: Supporting the LGBT and diversity is human rights. This activates thoughts of ethical goodness which extends to the evaluations of the product.


Participation in the mass market was equated to membership in mainstream society.


If you’re invisible in the media, then you’re basically invisible in society, and how the media portrays you is how society is going to see you.


It’s saying ‘We got money. We contribute to the corporation. We contributed to big business. We got families. We are part of the mainstream now.’


Targeted advertising was identified as an essential step in achieving social and political inclusion. ‘Consumer rights, citizenship, and civil rights are intricately connected in the United States. When we express our identity as a consumer that reinforces and strengthens our identity as a citizen.’


Here, not only does Chevrolet present an LGBT household, but it goes further and creates diversity with their choice to include multiple races.


AD 3:


It is crucial to note which group of gay people from the community is privileged to be presented in these ads—white, upper-middle class males, similar to the findings from previous studies concerning gay representations in print ads. The consequence of identity-based marketing has a tendency to focus on the prosperous white man as the representative homosexual since the social dominance of whiteness and maleness leaves the gay part of their identity as the most salient. Although the ads explicitly targeting gays can subvert stereotypes by portraying gays like “normal” people, (i.e. the heterosexual mainstream), those “positive” gay images have also been criticized for offering a counterproductive version of gay visibility that perpetuates the “dream consumer” stereotype.


Role-product congruity: advertising affective as can be increased when appropriate models are used. The Acceptable image. Reliance on stereotypes.


Some were willing to give up something of their sub-cultural identity for the sake of total acceptance in society. This stereotype is also implicated as it is with racism in the mainstream society as well as gay community which would hinder many gay people of colour from affirming their gay identity.


The de-sexualization of LGBTQ media is often articulated in terms of an attempt to make “respectable” the gay civil rights movement.


It can really have an impact on people's perceptions towards the community. Ads are something that people see every single day and truly do have an influence in our culture, and not only does the inclusion raise more awareness, but it gives the LGBT community more of a sense of acceptance. The media is broadcasting gay acceptance, the political climate indicates it, and advertisers are capitalizing on it.


AD 2 and 3:


These ads indicate a fantasy for gay people to be accepted by the mainstream as well as to escape from everyday discrimination, as scholars have suggested that escapism is one of the most common motivations attributed to users of the mass media.


They are associating acceptance with the product.


The intended function and meanings of advertising messages can change as they migrate from the textual context of their presentation to the context of social interactions.


Conclusion:


Double Edged Sword: Acceptance yet Stereotyping. Assimilating into the mainstream by representing them as average individuals.


However, the representations of LGBT people in advertising are further implicated with racism, sexism, and class bias in the LGBT community. Power conflicts are demonstrated in the filtered gay images in advertising so that a certain group from the queer community—white, middle-class, gender-normative, and mostly male—is found to dominate the advertising space.


Because these representations provide a mirroring function for LGBT people, they potentially have an effect upon gay subjectivity and agency, i.e., how gays and lesbians think of themselves and how they view marketing practices and consumption behaviours in relation to group interests.

Reflection

In class, we analyzed a Marlboro cigarette advertisement from the 1950s. We found out that Marlboro consisted of three main ideas; love, affluence and exoticism.

Marlboro was in the now by reflecting what was happening in the world. Air travel was beginning to commercialize but still reserved for the more wealthy and affluent. This is amplified in the advertisement with the use of not only Guatemala as a backdrop as an 'exotic' location but also the couple's look and wealth. They are affluent in their clothing and possessions. Their healthy relationship is portrayed by the man's chivalry to the woman, the arch closely resembling an arch of marriage.

The idea was that Marlboro could give you all these things. Even if you weren't as rich as them, Marlboro could still provide you with the experience and euphoria. Smoking Marlboro would just be like jumping on a plane and enjoying all you riches. The Bandwagon Effect: Where you want to do as the same as everyone else. Also known as peer pressure.

Marlboro was specifically leaning towards woman in their ad. As you can see, the woman is the only one smoking and the fine print under the cigarette pack advertises beauty tips (red). The tobacco industry capitalized changes in the social and economic status of women. Female consumption in increased rapidly, especially in World War II. After World War II, women were often represented in cigarette ads as 'brides taking cigarettes on their honeymoon' as they were largely encouraged to relinquish their wartime roles in favor of more traditional ones.

Cats vs. Dogs

Ahh, the ancient battle that shall be waged on for an eternity. Their battle is one that has been debated for millenniums and yet we still have not found an answer. Well, not to worry everyone for I shall reveal all....  So, while we wait for the inevitable Dogpocalypse and Catmageddon, you should probably know why cats are better than dogs.

1. Cats are clean. I personally think that this one is a deal breaker. Firstly, cats can be litter trained. Cats naturally are clean animals. They will go in there, do their business and won''t rest until their mess is covered up and there's no trace of it. They'll smell the area to make sure that you can't smell it. See how gracious they are? Cats bury their poop. Dogs dig up poop and act like they hit a gold mine. Dogs demand to be walked out and do their business outside while you pick it up. What if it's raining? Nope, no excuse. Cats are leash-less. They don’t require walking and they're great lap-warmers. Cats NEED to be clean. They generally smell better than dogs. You know it's called 'dog breath' for a reason.

2. Cats commonly use their lateral thinking skills to solve massively complex logic puzzles such as the classic “inaccessible toy mouse beyond the door” brain-teaser. Once more, cats are much more thoughtful. Have you noticed why cats go in a box? Here, a cat philosopher contemplates the difficult problem of whether we are always already part of an immersive totality or whether we are perceiving subjects in a world full of objects. Now that's a genius. We should all go and explore the feline exploratory methods. I mean, have you seen their yoga moves?!

3. Cats are a natural insect repellent. Forget the expensive gels and sprays. Half the time, they don't even work. But get a cat, and voila! By the next week, you will have no arthropod encounters of any kind. They're natural born exterminators. And all for free!

4. Two words: Laser Pointer. Even better than TV. That dancing pinpoint turned cat play into a fast-forward ballet. Cats never tire of racing after that elusive speck. Slapping hopeful paws over it, they're baffled when it seems to escape. I swear, this will hold you for hours.

5. Cats are braver. It is an old and wise adage that “even the most fearsome footwear is no match for a determined cat.” Cats are vigilant guards. Why do you think they sleep so much in the day? They need to watch out for you all night.

6. Cats look better in selfies. They're photogenic. It's a fact. Just try it.

7. Cats also make better fashion choices than dogs -- have you seen some of the outfits dogs allow themselves to be seen in? But no self-respecting feline would don a hot pink hoodie without clawing it to ribbons first. 

8. No sound in the world rivals a cat's purr. Cat purrs are scientifically proven to be medically therapeutic for many diseases. Cat owners have 40% less risk of heart attacks. Petting a purring cat calms down, lowers stress and blood pressure. No wonder cats just come and sit on your work demanding to be pet. They want you to be stress free and happy.

9. Cats are funnier than dogs, even if they don't know it themselves. Cats have a total of 30,400,000 monthly Google searches. GASP! More than Kim Kardashian! Cats go viral more than any other animal. Marketing campaigns even you them to add visual and humorous elements.  They have become an international phenomenon. We have created weapons of mass cuteness and we've been doing it for 10,000 years. There’s something about the cat video that transcends language and transcends culture, And it’s more than simple entertainment, because people feel such a strong connection.There’s definitely something much deeper to it. I mean, we've even got cat celebs. Anyone don't know Lil BUB. 

10. Cats will age gracefully with you, they will learn and change and grow as you learn and change and grow, and they will comfort and support you throughout the entirety of your life. They're loyal till the end. That's one of the most important things you look for in a friend. 

Dogs are winning the battle but cats are winning the war!

Practice Paper 1 Essay

Audience and Purpose:

• Type of text: The text is an autobiography of Mary Seacole. 
• It aims to inform the reader of the dire circumstances faced by the English settlers in Jamaica (yellow fever). It recounts the influential events of her time in Jamaica. Her experiences inform the reader of the (maybe overlooked) non-idealistic life as a colonist. 
• Maybe for those interested in British imperialism and life on the colonies. 

Content and Theme:

• The text is about Mary Seacole, a woman we assume is a nurse, living in Jamaica during the time of the yellow fever. She discusses her experience working in close proximity to death and suffering. 
• 1. “Indeed, the mother country pays a dear price for the possession of her colonies” → Great Britain has lost many lives due to this fever (gained territory, but lost lives) 2. Message about Death that she had learnt through her experience to meet “him with a brave, smiling face, and this he taught me” 

Tone and Mood:

• The tone is serious and filled with emotion. 
• The mood is melancholy. She is not grieving for those who died, so much as telling a sad tale of loss that was one of her experiences. However, she still feels sad when she thinks of those who died. “the thought of which stirs my heart now” 

Style and Structure:

• Biased, her viewpoint is the only one considered, not purely ideological but states that how we bear death depends “on the aweful and important question of religious feeling”.
• Uses first person pronouns.
• She directly states her residence in Jamaica and draw the reader in with strong words “gloom” “suffering”.
• The selection has 4 paragraphs. She uses mainly imperative sentences. She states her experiences plainly. 
• The effect of gloominess is created by lexis with strong connotation: words such as suffering and gloom strong imagery: “to see young people in the youth and bloom of life suddenly stricken down” figurative language:”a little distance on their way into the Valley of the Shadow of Death” (also allusion to Psalm 23)

Written Task 1 Draft

Now, let’s talk China’s 60 year hidden ‘cultural genocide’ in Tibet. The Merriam-Webster definition of cultural genocide is “the deliberate and systematic destruction of a racial, political or cultural group.”

In world history, language is maintained for not just communication but for national identity; it defines a culture. In many societies throughout history, the suppression of languages of minority groups has been used commonly-especially by conqueror- as a deliberate policy in order to suppress them. Resulting in a large number of the world's languages lost with the processes of colonization and migration.

It has been estimated that approximately 10,000 spoken languages have existed throughout human history. Today, only about 6,000 languages are still spoken and many of these are not being taught to children. About 2,000 of those languages have fewer than 1,000 speakers. It is predicted that more than half of these languages are unlikely to survive the next century.

The current cultural genocide of the Tibetan language by the Chinese government is through the removal of Tibetan language from schools replaced with Chinese; to make Chinese children out of Tibetan children.

Buddhism and culture depend on Tibetan. It is a rich and developed language with a complex and intricate history that could all be gone in just a few generations by Chinese policies in schools.

Beijing alleges that it has “liberated” Tibet from feudal theocracy and serfdom, propelling it into a “golden era”. However, the only feudal slavery the Tibetans have suffered is the present one where “progressive” reforms have imposed systematic destruction of the Tibetan people and their unique culture.

The genocide of the Tibetan language is an abuse and a humiliation. The Chinese communist authorities in Tibet do not accept and respect the Tibetan language as a mother tongue; this means that the authorities act like USSR dictators, who prohibited the languages to be used in the occupied states.

At least 1 million, a sixth of the entire population have been cruelly slaughtered, among hundreds of thousands of monks. Practically all of Tibet’s magnificent temples, monasteries, its ancient cultural artifacts and libraries, everything sacred to their civilization, their culture, their identity has been methodically razed and pillaged in a cracked frenzy of extermination.

There are no human rights for the Tibetans. They are forgotten people like many before. Out of sight, out of mind. At least a third of the people reading this would not have heard of the Tibetans before. But you have heard of China and despite being a growing nation and vast area, many of you do not know the different cultures and identities interspersed. Tibet emerged in the 7th century, a culture so old, rich and profound. They may be a minority but they are part of humanity, they still have identities, culture, belief and most importantly knowledge.

We as humans have evolved to not just using language as a form of communication for survival but to the extent where we have created. Now, knowledge is passed down in culture. The knowledge of Tibetan not only contributes to world peace and harmony but also one’s Dharma study and practice. To study Tibetan is to essentially practice the soul of Buddhism, which even many scientists say potentially have an important and productive influence on modern science.

Texting has become a widely used communication system within our generation. Is it accepted? Even now when I'm typing the word 'texting', it is underlined in red, claiming to not be in our universal dictionary. I have no doubt many linguists have started dissecting and analyzing the global phenomenon known as texting, eager to understand the depths of this recent happening.

Both widely known linguists, John McWhorter and David Crystal have distinctive theories the phenomenon Crystal has labelled as Textspeak. Here we'll discuss textspeak, comparing both McWhorter and Crystal's theories.

How did textspeak come to life? Texting is 'fingered speech'. McWhorter states that language is speech and that writing is 'a kind of artifice'. He then goes on and discusses the history of language. In distant era, it was common for people to speak like they were writing. It was formal and structured and perfectly natural at that time. But, could we write like we speak? At that time, no. We were limited in a 'material, mechanical sense' and thus communication was limited. However, as the new dawn of mobiles came along, he concludes that "Once you have things in your pocket that can receive that message, then you have the conditions that allow that we can write like we speak. And that's where texting comes in." So texting had initiated to finally allow humanity to write how we speak.

Crystal, on the other hand, finds that we have adapted our communication to suit our growing and new found demands. He claims that our 'linguistic creativity' is evolving and thus the need for a new system was in place. He suggests that our new technology has created a new medium for language which is why is grabbed soo much attention. However, with the constraints of a small-screen, the result was 'one of the most idiosyncratic varieties in the history of language'. Both McWhorter and Crystal conclude that technology as new medium has aided in evolving a new language. However, while Crystal suggests that this is an evolutionary extension to our language, McWhorter finds this new phenomenon as an entirely new language created by the young generation.

Who knows, maybe one day we'll see textspeak in Google Translate.

The Issue Of Cultural Appropriation

Dear Editor,

I completely disagree with your opinion. People should not be forced in their own cultural homogeneous bubbles just because racism hasn't been eradicated yet. Your article includes many examples through pop culture but you poorly prove and conclude your argument.

You ask "Why shouldn't I be allowed to twerk, or wear a kimono, or call myself a sassy, black woman or do whatever else the f** I want." or that you "think that it’s bull** to have to uphold values or beliefs that are not my own." What you should ask yourself is why there's soo much uproar.

You should first look at the line between cultural exchange and cultural appropriation. Although there has been drastic change with views on different races, the movement still hasn't completely dwindled. The fact is, Western culture invites and, at times, demands assimilation. “Ethnic” clothes and hairstyles are still stigmatized as unprofessional, “cultural” foods are treated as exotic past times, and the vernacular of people of color is ridiculed and demeaned. So there is an unequal exchange between Western culture and marginalized cultures. There are those of us who have been forced and pressured to change our identity just to earn enough respect to stay employed and safe and gain acceptance into society. Using someone else’s cultural symbols to satisfy a personal need for self-expression is an exercise in privilege.

Further, people shirk “ethnic” clothes in corporate culture, but wear bastardized versions of them on Halloween. There is no exchange, understanding, or respect here – only taking without permission. This is what cultural appropriation is. Cultural appropriation is itself a real issue because it demonstrates the imbalance of power that still remains between cultures that have been colonized and the ex-colonizers.

Going back to your claim of dividing races as a solution, you have to think about race itself. Race is a socially constructed concept. It derives from people's desire to socialize and classify. The current mainstream view in the social sciences and biology is that race is a social construction mainly based not in actual biological differences but rather in folk ideologies that construct groups based on social disparities and superficial physical characteristics. The official position of the AAA, adopted in 1998, finds that advances in scientific knowledge have made it "clear that human populations are not unambiguous, clearly demarcated, biologically distinct groups" and that "any attempt to establish lines of division among biological populations [is] both arbitrary and subjective."

Really, this is a discussion of a very narrow definition of a phrase which actually has a much broader meaning. It doesn't attempt to be a comprehensive argument but as a simplistic little rant about Taylor Swift twerking while black people are shot behind. You completely disregard the concept of mixed race.

What you should be doing is not arguing but starting an actual conversation with both sides. Until then, there won't be any unity. There won't be communication and no compromise.  We have to stop fighting and talk and humanity won't be able to come to the conclusion that we have to unite as a species and stop dividing ourselves into races. 

I fell in love with pop music when I was seven. It was the girl power message from my favorite band growing up; Spice Girls (and still a favorite) that made me pursue music full time."Youth Against Fascism" was what inspired my political awakening and it really did spark something in me and I just instantly connected. When you become a teenager, everything gets turned upside down. Your head is just exploding. There were the first band I fell in love with when I became a teenager; the first band to kind of show me that way.. They were my teenage soundtrack and Black Flag, S** Pistols, The Clash and all the grunge stuff of course, like Smashing Pumpkins.

I was a trouble teenager. I was uncontrollable. When I was 18, we formed an electro-pop punk band Mor, travelling across Europe and I was also in all these left wing organizations. It was very, very political, very, very "F** society". We played all kinds of squats, weird places, everywhere. It was so much fun. We would take over houses that were empty and demonstrated and got drunk and threw parties in my parents house...It was a lot of fun and I think that's also why I'm so inspired by the teen years when I write music, because everything's so f*** crazy and amazing and so intense. You don't understand anything going on around you with all these changes in your body and in your mind but at the same time you have all these first time experiences like love and you're just so free and no strings.

The changing point of my career was turning from punk to pop. In Odense, Denmark the punk environment and the hip hop environment were very close and connected. When I was in my 19 and 20s, me and my girlfriends started hanging around with these graffiti boys and skaters who listened to very cool hip-hop. I thought they we so cool and even started dating one of them. He knew everything about music and he gave me all this hip hop stuff. and heavy electronic music. I just fell in love, deep and hard with that music: J Dilla, MF Doom, Wu Tang.

But, I still love punk. I still am a society critic, I just didn't play in squats anymore. In Denmark, they have a more socialist political system which means you get money for studying, you get money of you're sick and you get money even if you can't find work. Of course it's a good thing that people get help but there's always a dark side of the moon because people tend to exploit these things. What happens, is lifestyle diseases -depression, laziness and this suffocating fog of stagnation that the young people can't seem to shake off. They have all these opportunities and everyone will just throw
money ahead of them. I think it's important that people have something to fight for and I think we all need a passion and fire that keeps us going. It's like being spoon-fed yet starved.

Once, I was visiting some of my old friends and we had a night that I like to describe as the "f**-it-all" high of being young. I was almost waking up in the afternoon, when I dreamt the chorus. I woke up and just ran to the piano. I'm only 25 years old and I'm still living out my youth. MØ is the danish word for "maiden" which really fits in my lyrical universe. I wanted it because its the idea of a pure and unspoiled girl so it was ironic too. A lot of my songs are about growing up and entering all this chaos but in a way, you always want to retain the purity inside you.We don't have any guidelines to life, And we kinds of have to find ourselves in all this chaos with a society that settles for less and doesn't encourage you. With my music, I wanna say, 'Hey man, life is f*** hard but we can do it together.'

I'd have to say my favorite song is Pilgrim. That song is just about being yourself. It's giving the finger to our society which is so hysteric sometimes. I know it's a bit cliche now but I really think it's true. You gotta do your own thing, pave and walk your own road and just f** of from everything. Don'get me wrong, I like living in the big city but sometimes you really just need to get away from all that superficial stuff. Just sit under a starry sky and experience how insignificant you really are.

I don't know if I've changed that much since I was 20 but I do love my new life. I think expressing my identity and communicated with my community through music is my way of life.  A lot of my fans comment on how I don't put up an act or cover like Lady Gaga.  Some people say that I should but I think it's so important that you are yourself. I wouldn't even be able to hold up the masquerade. It would crack and show. I also think it's very important that when it comes to meeting fans that you're just being yourself. That really helps connect with them and you just meet a whole new world and really feel like you're influencing people.

Mother Tongue

Hello!

Personally, I don't usually read essays for fun. In fact I was assigned to read Amy Tan's essay "Mother Tongue"for homework. However, I thoroughly enjoyed this piece and it presented me with a new style of writing. Usually when I write essays, they're analytic or descriptive or a comparative but always academic. What I found extraordinary with Tan's essay was how effectively she used her language and experiences to convey the message of the purpose of language. In fact, she states first that "I'm not a scholar of English or literature...I am a writer".She describes her own memories so vividly that it's like we are there with her. The piece is practically oozing with emotion in a way that enables us to understand her.

Before reading this essay, I rarely thought about language. It was part of my daily life and I never stopped to think about it. It seems like this was one of many things that zoom past us in life. Now, I find myself thinking what is that I am speaking, who am I speaking to, do I change how I speak? and so many more. Tan's piece has made me take a step back and gain a more introspective look at language. To me, Tan's piece conveys the purpose of language: to convey oneself.

One issue that stood out to me was the stereotypes of non-native English speakers that our society has seem to have adopted. Tan points out the "narrow-minded attitude toward people of different culture and language backgrounds." Immediately, we can see that her mother played a key role in her life. She gives us many detailed experiences where her mother was treated differently because of her English. One case that really bothered me was when her mother went to the hospital to receive her CAT scan to check her brain tumor and they claimed they had lost it and gave no apology whatsoever. "She said they did not seem to have any sympathy when she told them she was anxious to know the exact diagnosis, since her husband and son had both died of brain tumors." However, when her daughter comes in and talks to them with perfect English, they immediately apologize and promise a conference call. In our society, doctors are held with high respect and are known as 'heroes and saints'. To see a doctor judge a patient's significance with her language is concerning.

Of course, everyone has done this at least once even if we didn't know it. We're brought up in a society where we believe that language reflects intelligence and significance. Similar to Tan, I had my own experiences with this. My mother''s Indian accent and her limited knowledge of English had put us in many similar situations. Once, when we went to an embassy to apply for a visa, the man working declined her even with all the right documents. I was furious and enraged to think that he could talk like this to my mother. I stepped in and asked to see his manager. After my own 10 minute confrontation, we received an apology and the visa. I could personally  relate with Tan.

Tan does not like to refer to her mother's English as 'broken' or 'limited' because she can understand her perfectly. "Her language, as I hear it, is vivid, direct, full of observation and imagery. That was the language that helped shape the way I saw things, expressed things, made sense of the world." By beginning to understand the importance of her English from her home, a product of her culture - her 'language of intimacy'- she found her writer's voice. I think what Tan wants us to see is that there is beauty, passion and most importantly meaning in the way her mother talks even if we don't see it.

Hi, my name is Rasha Hamza and I was born on the 10th of October, 1998. My ancestors originate from a small beautiful village situated between Palakkad and Thrissur, Kerala, India. I, on the other hand, was born on the Island of Pearls, Manama, Bahrain. Currently, I live in the UAE.

Since I was a child, I've always wanted to be a writer. I loved reading ever since, well, since I could read. By the time I was 4, I already learnt the alphabet and before I knew it I was in grade 4, reading the Inkheart Trilogy. Now, I'm balancing my love for both reading and writing, and the arts. 

I now know 2 different languages fluently, English and my native tongue; Malayalam. I also study French and Arabic. However, I think language can be anything. Anyway you communicate with other beings. Personally, art is another language that I love expressing myself in. You can communicate messages with colors, lines, space and etc. 

Honestly, I'm not that talkative but I can still communicate with my body language. For e.g, a wave or a wink or the position of your body. I find it amazing that humans can create and develop languages. We've always gathered into civilizations and created order and society. We've created our own cultures and languages. We have even created computer codes, a whole different language to solve a complex problem. 

To me, culture is basically a way of life. This includes traditions, beliefs, social behavior and etc. Language is a product of culture. I'm born Indian but I have in fact never lived there. I'm the only one of my siblings who knows our home tongue thus this creates language barriers when we visit. It's not easy to communicate ideas with our family but they compromise with body language and their own version of sign language (like in charades!). Living here and studying here, I've adopted many western ways into my own culture. Studying in the IB, allows me to have a global and open-minded perspective, especially on different cultures.