Friday, September 1, 2017
Welcome!
I meant to do this yesterday, but it was crazy. So, anyway, welcome. If you post today or tomorrow I'll give you extra credit. Feel free to post about any or all of the clips we watched on Wed. night or to talk more generally about your feelings about pop culture, or to tell us something about yourself, etc. Next week and until the end of the term, you will be required to do at least two weekly entries.
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Hi, this is Koichi- a Japanese who is eager to know about US culture. I just wanna raise the question that I mentioned at the end of the class.
ReplyDeleteLike every body knows, there is a matching for everything, eg. (tough) Heroes and Explosions, Super Ball and Pizza, Travelers for Japan and Mt. Fuji, etc. I don't wanna even imagine a sweaty delicious pudding...with soy sauce, it is yucky.
A narrator may wanna match a serious topic with a tense atmosphere. I can't imagine any politicians are convinced, if we chuckle and raise an issue that we are going to argue about. Why did the comedians raise such serious topics (women's right, racial discrimination) with laughing?
Hi, Koichi!
ReplyDeleteI think Americans can use comedy to bring an important message to a broader audience, in a more approachable way. High school and college students might not be up-to-date on certain politics and current events because they don't read The New York Times or watch CNN. Comedians like John Oliver and Aziz Ansari can bring more people into the conversation in fun, inclusive way.
It makes sense. Thank you for helping with my understanding. I thought the audience would be politicians so I worried about the way the comedians (the media) took.
DeleteDo you think this really works?
I mean most high school students are not able to elect politicians and college students, even they are attracted to these topics, may not take it into account when they go to elections. People who are interested in the topics, like childbearing women and immigrants, may not like the way that the media takes... of course, politicians don't.
If you want to argue something and really want to change something, you may wanna go there directly...this is somewhat what I know. I am doubting whether the media really wanna tell something or just wanna increase ratings of their television program.
What you're talking about is satire. It's true that satire is a more indirect way to make a point than an opinion piece or simply going out and protesting. Why might satire by an appropriate tool sometimes? (Btw, Koichiro, there is Japanese satire too. Maybe a topic for a writing assignment?)
DeleteThat's a good idea. Yes. I think about the way it works. I saw some Japanese paints that were created as satire, but I haven't thought how they worked. Thank you for your suggestions.
DeleteHi I am Bridget Richards, I originally came from Guyana South America. The culture there was different from America's culture. However, to day the Guyanese culture is changing rapidly they are adopting the American culture in ma y ways.Imagine one of my relative ask me to send a leather jacket. Guyana is a tropical country country it is warm all year round. I think some cultures teaches little boys to be tuff, they should not cry or show emotions. They usually grow up to be men with that mind set. So in the clip that we watch in class these men were not suppose to look back at the flames etc. However at one point I saw a few of them looked back.
ReplyDeleteMy name is Stanley .What most people don't realize about me is that im very hood. I'm from Brooklyn East New York and I was raised in one of the most dangerous neighborhood in the East . Everyday feel like it could be your last day . Constant gun shootings, selling , scamming , sex for money and harassment by the cops . My reason for exposing this about myself is because I want people to understand why I act the way I do . Even though I was raised by the streets because my parents wasn't there for me . I don't potray myself to be from there . You wouldn't guess that I've seen people before my eyes and jumped over petty ties. Pop culture is around us in our everyday lives . What we do as humans is our culture itself . What we eat , wear , and talk is all apart out pop culture but the media plays a big role into that because they enhance the culture by persuadaing us to do something a certain way . I disagree with one statement in class , which was " pop culture is always changing ." Certain trends just stays in closure until someone hype it back up again like fashion .
ReplyDeleteThanks for the honest post, Stanley. I think you're right that things do work in trends/cycles which doesn't mean that culture isn't always changing.
DeleteHi my name is Valeria. I'm 26 born and raised in Jamaica queens. I have two kids and work as a medical assistant. My major is liberal arts as I'm not to sure if I would like to stay in the medical field. Pop culture to me is a way of expression. I'm very interested in today's pop culture because it is obviously very different from when I grew up in the 90's but fashion from then seems to be trending now. But kids are what push me to learn more because it's all this technology around them and social media that I need to know about for their safety.
ReplyDeleteHi, my name is Alex. I'm 19 and am very excited for this course. I try to pay attention to pop culture as it is constantly evolving and shaping our society. I was very happy to see clips from Broad City and Aziz Ansari. Ilana and Abbi from Broad City have to be the funniest people in comedy right now and their show is just brilliant.
ReplyDeleteI'm excited to learn more about the evolution of pop culture and how it defines each generation and their ideals. I'm a child of the 2000s, so I grew up on Britney Spears, Justin Timberlake, etc. However, a lot of artists who I idolize grew up in the 90s. With that, my pop culture references range between those two eras. I'm curious to see if past popular culture can predict future pop culture, since it seems as if we've entered the age of 90s nostalgia.
hey everybody, my name is Christopher. I grew up in Haiti and then I moved to New York when I was 15. I am now 31 years old. Growing up, I liked reading French comic books and I recently bought two online. In Haiti, Haitian Creole and French are spoken. Haitian Creole is the language that the vast majority of people speak. French is the language that people are educated in. Math, Biology, History books, etc. are all in French. When I moved here I took French in High School and one semester of it in college when I was like 19. I stopped practicing it after that until two years ago. I am now reviewing and learning French on my own using duolingo and memrise. These are great free language-learning websites. They might not be the best websites to learn a language from scratch though and they are definitely not enough to become fluent in a language but you can learn a lot from them. I use these websites everyday. Haitian Creole is a French-based language but it is so different from French. English is my most active language and then French comes in third. Learning French has improved my English actually. When I come across a French word that I don't know, I might find that I also don't know the meaning of the English word for it. I then look it up, so learning a foreign language expands your vocabulary in your native language (in my case neither is my native language). I have also read that learning a foreign language improves your memory, decision-making skills and provides other benefits. Besides comic books, I used to read whatever was around when I was growing up. I read different types of novels that was around. I am also a big fan of action movies and comedies. I love family guy, south park, Seth Rogan type humor. I am a fan of basketball. I used to watch different soccer tournaments in Haiti but once I moved here, I only watch the world cup. Haitians are big soccer fans, the country is divided into Brazil and Argentina fans and a few are fans of Italy and other teams. The last time Haiti made the world cup was long ago, but that has not stop them from being super fans. I have three careers in mind. I want to be either a filmmaker, a translator or an English professor. All three careers demand good writing skills so hopefully this class will improve my writing
ReplyDeleteHello my name is Edwidge,
ReplyDeleteI'm eager to learn where this class will take me by the end of the semester. This is my 3rd term at QCC. Hope the experience in English 251 will really improve my writing skills. Not too knowledgeable in Pop Culture, but ready to learn about different eras and artists.
I think he was uncomfortable with his voice, however. Think his voice matches the kind of songs he sang. Sound like country and western.
ReplyDeleteI think the progression maybe he wanted to really grab the attention of his fans.