Awinters’s Blog

Memes are covering the internet as fast as viruses. Everyone has experienced a meme, or forward that has something funny or entertaining attached to it. Memes can easily be that “annoying” email that you want to just add to the spam box. But do you ever think about how many people this is sent to? How many people that you are connected to by this one email?
I feel that memes are something that can connect the whole world in one way or another. One little email can be sent to everyone in your contact list, then everyone in everyone elseses contact list. This is a way to connect everyone in an entertaining way. With everything going on in the world, everyone deserves a laugh and that can come from one little meme.
Internet memes are a way for people of all cultures, backgrounds, ethnicities, etc. to bond with one another. Even if that bond is for a 30 second clip that has nothing to do with you, the bond of laughter is something that we can all share. Memes are just as much of a media source as an entertainment magazine, if not more.
Alternative media is something that informs, entertains, and reachs all different kinds of people. Memes are no different, and to me are the ones that reach the most people. Granted, you have to have access to the internet, but the amount of people that are involved in just one meme is unbelievable. One particular meme that comes to mind is the most recent YouTube phenomenon of “David After the Dentist”. This is not just a video posting, but a meme that has had so many views through YouTube and even email forwards. The one thing that lets me know the success of something, is when i can talk to my grandma in Nebraska, and she knows exactly what I’m talking about. The success of memes not only reaches throughout the US, but also throughout the world. This shows how alternative media, even without a specific definition, is important to media communications.

I agreed with what Rodriguez de Gerada was doing because he also had a valid point. Advertisers are putting up billboards everywhere, from the high posts across highways, to buses, and even popping up on the internet. They know that adolecents are going to be seeing them, and they are the most easily persuade age group. But what happens when these adds can be harmful to kids? Is there a certain responsibility that advertizers should take upon themselves? In Gerada’s arguement, he mentions how these ads show activities and glamour that kids in the ghetto are not exposed to. this creates intruige from younger teens to see what a product is all about. Smoking a cigarette on a sailboat looks amazing to someone who has never seen a beach. This then becomes a false reality to them, and adds in the persuasion tactics that say “if you smoke you can be this cool and see the ocean”. Is this even fair?
I feel that culture jamming is something that expresses ideas in a way that is even more creative than Commissioned advertisers. This is just another example of self-expression through a form of art. As I read in Naomi Klein, No Logo, there are many places that dedicate their ground to culture jammers trying to make a difference. In SoHo Down & Under on West Broadway in New York, there are examples of culture jamming that you are able to buy. This in itself turns into its own advertisement. But, there is still the question of whether defacing property is okay, even for the better good?
Not only culture jammers are trying to spread a message, but so were the protesters of the WTO in Settle, WA in 1999. To see the amount of people that stood up for themselves was incredible. With that though, came nervousness. The city officials were scared to see this many people ban together for a cause and called the police in. Like we talked about in class, I think that there would have been even more police brutality if this would have happened today because of the attacks that have been made on this country. Does that give them an excuse? No. But to think that the police, people we supposedly trust, hurting people that were standing up or what they believe in, in a nonviolent way, is still occurring in our present day is scary. Is the freedom of speech and right to assemble going to be a distant memory for us? With actions such as the ones from the WTO protests, one would think it is a high possibility.

In the 1970′s punk music went into full swing because of many teens that were tired of the “artists that compromised their integrity” as Dylan Clark said in the article “The Death and Life of Punk, The Last Subculture”. Many of those teens were the influential generation that consumed punk music in its prime. Was the appeal of something controversial intriguing to these teens, or the idea of something less mainstream and more their “own” the main appeal? The beginning of punk was the beginning of a new “subculture”.
In the movie, “American Hardcore”, influential bands of the time are interviewed and help us understand where punk music originated from, and why. For many teens, anger is a common feelings whether it is toward the world, parents or society, it is there. Those teens were the ones that needed an outlet from the world, that punk music eventually gave them. Punk music was their alternate source of entertainment to what was being produced mainstream.
Punk music had a DIY mentality that led to its popularity. The idea of this being the alternative scene that angered teens could be a part of was enticing. This was the outlet that many parents probably feared because they simply did not understand it. I feel that there is a certain appreciation that goes along with anything that has a “DIY” mentality, and punk music is no exception. Was the idea that these bands were self-proclaimed even more appealing to teens because they were dealing with their own hardships?
I am not a personal fan of the music that I heard on the movie, but the whole idea of promoting yourself on your own was awesome. I felt that it was part of the idea of punk as a whole too because it was something that was different, and promoting yourself was not something that was commonly done at that time. Now-a-days we have Myspace which enables people to promote themselves and become “overnight” celebrities, if you will, but this was not something that was available to these bands at the time.
As a result, punk became more of a movement than just a type of music because of what it represented. But, has it really a “dead” movement, or are there bands that still embody the same message and style that the original punk rockers had?