We All Have a Voice – By: mOUNTbRENDON

I wrote this the other day while planning on writing a paper. I didn’t start on the paper, but I think it was worth it. The plan was to edit and revise it, but now the paper, along with another paper, have caught up to me, so I’m just going to post it as is. Uncut and uncensored…and unedited. You got me at my most vulnerable. 

Quick note. We have an opportunity that has never been presented in the history of mankind. Let’s take advantage of it…

 

I read an article for class last week that talked about how television does not report news, it creates news. This is becoming more apparent to me with every passing day. Obviously it’s more of a complex issue than I make it sound, but I am a hypocrite and don’t want to bore you with the details…

I have come to admire and respect public figures who strive for a simple life. The Henry David Thoreaus, Sufjan Stevens, G.K. Chesterton, etc. These people detect the fakeness that can come from technology. Everything is a representation. Relationships are built off of a series of pictures and short status updates. They realize a life truly experienced is a life away from technology, immersed in the reality of our world. But to live and experience the reality of our world, one must be aware of and immersed in technology. It cannot be ignored.

It is an extremely difficult balance to embrace technology and fear its influence at the same time. Technology is not evil. The internet is not evil. But it most certainly can be and allows for evil a booming voice.

For the last two or three years, I took a hiatus from popular television. Not fully, of course. But I have tried to avoid it as much as possible. I couldn’t put it to words, but I detected that something was broken. Sure, I watched the occasional episodes of various sitcoms and other shows on Netflix, and still do. But, other than weekend visits to my parents’ home in Cheyenne, local and national news stations were invisible to me. I even let SportsCenter drift away from my consciousness (something I spent hours watching every day in high school).

So, if the theory I read about television creating news instead of reporting news is accurate, the media has to be the single most influential aspect of our culture. It forms the way we think. If we surround ourselves with media centered around sex and booze, we will find ourselves almost literally molesting each other at the local bar or club, which will lead to bigger things. We will find ourselves holding onto unhealthy relationships because of the sex, or just the idea of being in a relationship; or going to the bar for an easy hook-up, a quick fix to one’s loneliness; or idealizing celebrities and their glorious lifestyles and finding ourselves spending money we don’t have as a result of our desire to live like them.

I have news for you. Happiness is not found in wealth or sex. Fulfillment cannot be instant.

Though I may be criticizing right now, that is not my intent with this post. It turns out I have been encouraged by technology lately.

Why?

Because it gives everyone a voice and everyone an opportunity to be heard.

If we allow it to be, we can use it to undermine those who are trying to control us with their advertisements and their celebrity. We can turn this world around on its head.

Thanks to the internet, music, movies, art, and subcultures that otherwise would never have been realized are finding homes all around the world. Musicians can record on their own, without being forced into a product by record labels; independent movies without sufficient funds can find a passionate and loyal fan base with the will to sacrifice their own money for its continued production; sports has found the importance of the fearless role player – the one without the big shoe contract and without the big billboards.

There is a ton of deception and artificiality found on the internet, but there is equally as much passion, genuine spirit, love, and hope. We have an incredible opportunity, because we can decide what succeeds. We can decide what we are influenced by.

We can recreate this world.

Propaganda – By: mOUNTbRENDON

Only a very soft-headed, sentimental, and rather servile generation of men could possibly be affected by advertisements at all.
– G.K. Chesterton

Out of curiosity, I just google imaged “North Korean Propaganda Posters” followed by “Pepsi Ads”.

The results were disturbing to say the least. Open both at the same time and compare the two and you’ll clearly see how strikingly similar they are.

This morning, I watched a documentary on North Korea called National Geographic: Inside North Korea. It was a heart wrenching experience. The people of North Korea have been essentially brain washed by its leaders Kim Il-Sung, then Kim Jong-il, and now Kim Jong-un. The people worship and have worshiped them like gods for genrations. Everywhere you go, according to the documentary, you see the propaganda that supports this. They rule out of fear and marketing.

What’s the most depressing of all, is that I see many similarities to the United States of America. You know, the greatest nation in the world and all.

Only our nation isn’t led by a fearful dictator. It is led by large corporations with money and marketing, when it comes to influencing how people think. Obviously the North Korea situation is far more extreme and far more frightening, but I’m really beginning to believe that, aside from being more extreme, there are few differences between them and us.

Instead of worshipping a dictator, we are worshipping celebrities, and the ideologies imposed by their marketers.

“Drink this, and you can be rich and famous,” they tell us, when actually, if they were telling the truth, they would be saying, “Drink this, and you can make us even richer and yourself poorer.”

I’m not saying that all famous people, all name brand products are inherently evil. But they are if you allow them to be. If you only listen to popular music, if you only watch popular movies, if you only watch popular television. If you idolize these celebrities and these “beautiful people” in advertisements. If you start drooling over a picture of Katy Perry and her perfume, or Lebron James selling Nike. If do all of this without thinking about what these things are telling you below the surface. Because if you look below the surface, it can be terrifying.

Side tangent: I once was in the campus habitat hot tub and the other group that was there was having a conversation about Adam Levine, the lead singer of the band Maroon Five, who was playing from one of the phones outside the pool (of course). “Well, he’s married to a super model,” one of the girls said after one of other people were criticizing him for some reason I don’t remember. “So props to him.” I don’t think I need to say anymore about where our values are as a nation. It is undeniably affecting the way we think.

If you look at all the products you buy at face value, as a finished product, you can live in your own personal heaven on earth. But if you explore what goes into making those products, you might be forced to think twice.

What’s scary is that it effects us unconsciously, because we’re not aware the messages are even there, outside what is on the surface. I just read an article by Marshal McLuhan called The Medium is The Message for a class I’m taking and he uses an interesting metaphor for this idea. It’s like the electric light. Everyone knows that it’s there, but no one considers that it carries any meaning in itself, as a medium.

So, for the next few posts I write, I am going to analyze things like popular music videos, hopefully to reveal that possible unspoken meaning behind them. Because if we continue down this path of blindly taking in what we are given, I’m sorry to say it, but the similarities to the North Korean situation will grow.