All the Wrong Questions

On a recent TED Talk that I saw, interviewer Chris Anderson spoke with Edward Snowden regarding Snowden's actions involving leaking NSA documents to the press. It is quite a long video, so I'll just point out the only part that truly stood out to me. Anderson asked Snowden, "You've been called many things in the last few months. You've been called a whistleblower, a traitor, a hero...what words would you use to describe yourself?" Snowden responded with this:

"Everybody who is involved with this debate has been struggling over me and my personality, and how to describe me. But when I think about it, this isn't the question we should be struggling with. Who I am really doesn't matter at all. If I'm the worst person in the world, you can hate me and move on. What really matters here are the issues. What really matters here is the kind of government we want. The kind of internet we want. The kind of relationship between people and society."

To me, this was one of the most powerful statements I had ever heard. So many people say that Snowden was a traitor that betrayed the government, but if you consider the other side, Snowden was only trying to help the people of the United States to gain back the privacy we are guaranteed in the Constitution. But people are so quick to judge him and look past the government and their role in these issues. By taking a step back and looking at the big picture, it's interesting to see that this whole situation has become solely about Snowden and his mistakes, when really it should be about what his actions meant and how he was only trying to help, and the government's role in this whole situation.

So many people are pointing fingers at Snowden and labeling him as either a hero or a traitor, but those things are not what matters, as Snowden had said. It's interesting to see that whenever something happens concerning society and how it is run, the people always try to shift the blame to someone else, and often forget about the true issues at hand.

In the Eye of the Beholder

A recent app in the App Store caught my eye the other day; Hot or Not, an app in which people upload an image of themselves and others on the app can rate it either "Hot", or "Not". This app really surprised me, and in my opinion isn't something that should be encouraged and sold in the App Store.

There has always been an obsession with looks and beauty since the beginning of time. Old ads used to encourage beauty in the products they sold, claiming that you would become as beautiful as the model if you used their product. Here is an example:

If you can't see the quote under the picture, it states, "You'd hardly believe that the same face could become so beautiful, would you?". By this phrase, we can tell that the ad infers that the image on the left isn't beautiful until the model puts the makeup on. 

In the 21st century, these ads persist. One example that we see everywhere, and I mean EVERYWHERE, is this: 

Victoria's Secret. It's no secret (no pun intended) that they represent one body type that is seen as beautiful, and encourage people to buy their product to help mold into that body type. By claiming that it "adds 2 cup sizes", it is saying that to achieve this beauty you need to have a bigger chest, and the image shows that a smaller stomach and skinnier legs are sought after as well. 

So how do these ads compare to the Hot or Not app? Well, these ads show up in magazines, on billboards, all over the media making it nearly impossible for girls to miss. They encourage women around the world to care more about how they look, even causing them to turn to plastic surgery to improve their looks, searching for the beauty that the media represents. It even leads them to post pictures of their selfies to see if they are truly seen in other's eyes as beautiful, and have indeed achieved this goal. Beauty has become the sole importance to girls around the world, and it isn't fair that these ads are leading them to believe that looks are the only thing that matter, when really they should be confident in their own skin without relying on others for reassurance.

All Jokes Aside

Today, I came across a trending video on YouTube called "If Google Was A Guy". I found it a creative parody, and a funny approach to what people search on the internet. It's a short video, so I suggest you watch it, but if not I'll give you a short summary: There is a guy sitting at a desk, with the nameplate "Google" in front of him. It shows people in a line waiting to ask him questions in the way they would type it into google, and the man at the desk (Google) is quite judgmental of some of the things people search.

At one point in the video, there is a woman sitting at the desk, and says "Terror Pictures", which prompts another man in a suit to rise from behind the desk, to represent the NSA, and to show that they follow our searches and watch what we look up on the internet. When she corrects herself, saying, "Whoops, Terrier pictures", the man goes back behind the desk, the whole situation being a false alarm. It's quite an entertaining video, and although it is supposed to be a joke, it's quite true about the NSA and the power they have over our privacy.

Obviously, the people who created this video have a strong opinion of the NSA and are completely against the power they have, but instead of creating another more serious video they slipped the man in there to make a joke about it, and I think this is even more efficient. It's also funny because it comes off as a joke, but this reminded me of a time when my father was telling me something serious and told me a joke about it, but I knew that it wasn't a laughing matter.

I think it's interesting to see that the people who created this video make a joke about the NSA and the things they do, but in a way it's an efficient way to get a point across. Humor is a great way to inform someone of something without coming on too strong. One article I read stated, "Humor is one language that everyone can understand. It breaks down barriers between people. If you can share a laugh with someone, you've connected with that person. It is also a model of efficiency. It can generally get your point across with less effort and verbiage" (Creation).

Do you think this video was a powerful and efficient way to inform people of the power the NSA has, and how it is too much? Or did it undermine the importance of the issue at hand?

Schools Kill Creativity

Near the beginning of the school year our class had a discussion about how schools often want you to think in one way and that way is the right way. Those who have different interpretations are immediately shut down and told they are wrong. Thus, imagination and creativity is discouraged and even worse, forgotten.

I watched a TED Talk yesterday, the most watched in history (having about 25 million views), that was about how schools undermine the creativity that people are born with. Ken Robinson, former college professor and creativity expert, explains how schools often strip away the creativity that students have naturally. He says that although people think that people need to create their own destiny, they are already born with it but have lost it due to the education systems. I strongly suggest you watch it, and even though it's 20 minutes long, it's one of the most engaging videos I've seen in a while.

"Every education system on Earth has the same hierarchy of subjects. At the top are mathematics and languages, then the humanities, and at the bottom are the arts." It's interesting to see that there is always such a systematic and structure-filled approach to learning, and even from the way that classes are ranked by importance we can see that some classes are discarded because they are not taken with priority. It's almost sad that the humanities and arts are often so belittled that they become unimportant and unachievable in the work field, which undermines their importance in life.

Near the end of the video, Robinson states, "Our education system has mined our minds in the way that we strip mine the Earth for a particular commodity. And for the future, it won't serve us. We have to rethink the fundamental principles in which we are educating our children." I couldn't have phrased it any better, and I think that this American Studies class is the first step in this improvement, as our class encourages creative and innovative thinking and urges people to think things in their own interpretation of it, which should give other classes an idea of a more efficient and beneficial way to teach. 

The Things You Own Will End Up Owning You

Last week, my Spanish teacher was trying to access a video on YouTube to show our class. We demanded that she make it full screen, but she soon pressed the wrong button and another video began to play. She apologized profusely, as the class erupted in groans of impatience at the prolonged process of playing the video. It was then that I realized just how prominent of a disconnect there is between the past generations and the children of today regarding technology.

I was talking to my friend about this topic and she brought up the fact that in her American Studies class, which is obviously not as awesome as ours, they discussed that our generation, as in, the teenagers today, are the last to fully understand what it was like when technology was not at its full capacity. Even the kids I babysit, who are seven and nine years old, can easily navigate the iPad and iPhone and beg to use mine to play games on when I'm with them. What ever happened to board games and playing outside? It's weird to think that at one point, we didn't even have phones, and when I was growing up, all people had were flip phones whose only function was to call and text (if you were patient enough to press the numbers multiple times just to get one letter). There were no such things as apps. But the children growing up today never experienced life without technology; and this is a detriment to their growth as human beings. 

I read this article today about technology, and the author, Jeff Sorensen, connected a quote from Fight Club's Tyler Durden to modern day technology. In the movie, Durden stated, "The things you own will end up owning you." In a way, this is exactly how our electronic devices are today. We possess these deadly objects that could cause us to lose our distraction, proving to be a hazard on the roads, and create a huge method of procrastination. It seems that nothing else matters when you have your phone in your hands, absolutely blurring out the world around you. Sorensen brought up a blackout that occurred in 2003, claiming that after going three days without power, "People were actually reading books and talking like human beings again. They started learning how to live without the training wheels of technology" (Huffington Post). It's interesting to see how different people act in everyday situations when technology is inaccessible, and Sorensen proves a point when he warns his readers to avoid being "owned" by their cellphones, as they have the potential to take over our lives.