MEDIA-CEPTION

            Wow, it's the last media blogs of the season, huh? Everything is winding down to a close. As a sort of last but not least, I'd like to do a bit of reviewing on the media blogs of my peers.

            Firstly, I'd like to address a post done by Grace Clark, called "Shrinking Women (it's about to get real, you guys)". When I read this post, I was struck by the power of the poet's words. Men, as the grow older, only appear to increase, to balloon up until they consume all that exists. Conversely, women shrink in on themselves until they disappear. Grace also notes a few parallels in her own life that she has noticed. For males, it is ok to be loud and outspoken, but when a female does it, she is seen as brash and offensive. Assertive women become aggressive, even if the intent was opposite. This post makes that double standard clear. Yes, apples are not oranges, males and females are different, but such an extreme standard is ridiculous.

            Ben Schwartz (*has trouble spelling 'Schwartz'* Edit: I really cannot spell. Sorry, Ben.) wrote a post that I really liked for its honesty called "Men Wear Masks and Women Wear...Very Little". One of the reasons I like it so much is because Ben sort of screws over political correctness for the truth. As a class, we watched a film called MissRepresentation. However, Ben discusses the sibling video to that: The Mask We Live In. He really hits on how the issue with men's representation in the media doesn’t tend to be discussed, which I have noticed myself. He also mentions that while women are controlled by men's standards, in a way, men are also controlled by women's standards (and he proceeds to explain that it is a relevant diagnosis because the majority of society is heteronormative). Steffany Wong described it as a "vicious cycle" on Jonah Wiener-Brodkey's blog post about the same film. This post was interesting to read because it is to-the-point and truthful about these issues. There are impossible standards for each sex to uphold-- the more they are perpetuated, the harder it becomes for people to move past them and to show themselves as a more complete individual.

            I think this was the first post I commented on. Ethan Lee created a post called "It's Just A Prank Bro" where he discusses the issue with social experiments and the (sometimes) losers who do them. He also asks an important question, "But when is a prank no longer considered a prank?". I enjoyed this post immensely, because it speaks to a subject that I sometimes have issues with: jokes are supposed to be funny for all involved. People like to call things pranks or social experiments instead of what they really are, which is a way to humiliate others and deny responsibility for it. I tend to be overly serious when interpreting the words of others, so I sometimes have trouble (especially if I am not well-acquainted with the individual) seeing the nuance in their expressions. However, if a joke isn't funny, I can still definitely tell. Anyone who knows me knows when I find something funny. And if you're trying to poke at people from some safe place where you can say, "It's just a prank, bro!", then you need to organize your priorities.

            Out of all the blog posts I read, these three really stood out to me. That is not to say that I didn't enjoy any others, made by different people. I just really got into these specific three. I was pleasantly surprised by the depth of my classmates' thought (again, not to say they aren't usually deep). These are complex social issues, and when high-schoolers go in for the kill on them, it is pretty cool to see.

            As a larger media connection, I think that the response to media done by my peers goes deeper than most. The media madness tends to be accepted by the masses, but seeing my own classmates sort of rear up in response to the outrageous gives me hope. I learned some things about these specific people from what the wrote as well. Grace wants to be equal-- she is also a woman ready to act, she just hasn't quite decided her game plan yet. Ben is honest and straightforward. Steffany sees the connections, and recognizes (in her comment) that there may be no end in sight. Ethan is more sensitive than he lets on. This is what media can bring out of people. And I think that this was what our media blogs were all about.