Romance: As Seen on T.V.

Chuck Kolsterman talked about romance is his article, This is Emo. But not just regular romance, the kind that people base their real life romances off of. I'm talking about our ideas of romance and love that we get from the books we read and the shows and movies we watch. He said that people want the kind of love that fictional characters have, so they base their real life love off of that and almost always come out disappointed. He himself said that he could never satisfy any woman and vise versa, because they both have an image of what love and romance is supposed to be that could never be real. Klosterman even said that he wants a marriage like the Huxtable's had. But those sort of thoughts are unfair to everyone, because no one can ever be that happy or that in love.

I, myself, have fallen pray to the happy love that I see on t.v. or in movies. My favorite kind is sort of like Disney princesses, but not at the same time because I don't always have the idea of those princesses in my head. I can't really explain where I personally get my misguided ideas about love from, but I see it all over the place. He gets the girl, she gets the boy, she takes him back, he falls for her, she falls for him, they are finally together after a hard struggle, she changes him for the better and they walk off hand-in-hand; either way you slice it, it's all lovey dovey unrealistic ideas that are drilled into our head. Klosterman gets very upset with this idea and blames Coldplay and John Cusack  for his "the one that got away" moment. I personally think he's just a little bit bitter about the subject, and should realize that everyone is going to feel this way and think this way. It's been drilled into everyone's heads and as long as they can accept that real true love is messy and hard and almost impossible, I think he (Klosterman) and the rest of the world can get along just fine.

That being said, I believe that I personally love the relationship that Corey Matthews and Topanga Lawrence. I grew up with their love and while I know it's unlikely that I'll ever find anything like what they had, though they were pretty realistic, I would still like to try. I mean, I'll go in knowing that it will be work, but I think anyone can find true love.....a girl can dream, can't she?!

Killing My Candy

Okay, I would first just like to say that this picture angers me so much I'm not ever sure how to describe it. Part of me wants to think that this is fake, but the other part knows it's not and it sickens me. I like KitKats. They are one of my favorite candies, but after seeing this, I'm really thinking about never buying another KitKat in my life again. This ad is so off putting that I don't even want to think about the product it's selling. I'd never buy it if this was all I had to go off of.

Now, to get to the assigned part of this post. Jean Kilbourne is a former model who made a video called, 'Killing Us Softly', which is about ads in magazines and media coverage in general that degrades women. She made several points about ads that promote violence, disrespectful action, and inappropriate sexual towards women. This is obviously highly inappropriate and degrading to this women. I never really noticed it much when I flipped through a magazine, because I never really cared about the ads anyway, but not that my eyes have been opened, I'm outraged.

This ad clearly is suggesting sexual activity happening out of frame towards this women. And coupled with the words off to the side, I cannot help but feel awkward about this picture in several ways. Does it mean that an extra finger is needed from the person off screen or does it mean using the candy bar? That may be a bit of an inappropriate question, but the text clearly implies it. After seeing this, I'm going to think twice when I hear the oh so familiar and formerly appealing jingle, "Break me off a piece of that KitKat Bar."

Sexiness In Today's World

In class we went in depth about sexiness and what people think of it in today's culture. Yes, it is still something that people don't really like to talk about when it concerns their own involvement with it, but society now is much more open to sex and sexiness now. Personally, I think that is a huge step forward for society as a whole. We accept sex right up front. Take Miley Cyrus for example, she is huge in pop culture right now for her VMA video and her giant overly racy leap from Disney star to "rock star". She dominated the media, which is no stranger to sexiness at all. Since reading these articles, I've noticed a lot more sex portrayed in the commercials I see on t.v. and on the internet. Yet, it's so subtle (sometimes) I don't even know it's happening to me. Other times, however, sexiness is the whole basis behind the ad.

I found this more common in the internet ads I see when watching YouTube videos. After reading Klosterman's article about pron and how it furthered and was a major driving point for technology, I can see why it's still used on the internet now, just with a little more clothes on. Sexiness is just a part of our lives now. I expect it, you (presumably) expect it, the whole world more likely expect it because that's just where we are now. It's in television, movies, and the media and since these are things we all watch and see on a daily basis, it's hard to not just jump on the bandwagon. Celebrities are even getting into it, just like in the articles; it brings them closer to us, so that we can feel like they are more human. And what to make someone feel more human than good old fashioned sex?

Blending Popular Culture and Happiness

Some parts of mixing popular culture and happiness are confusing to me, but then again I sort of understand it. I mean, in my Popular Culture class last week we took a small quiz on popular icons and household names to see how well we all knew pop culture and I felt really good and happy when I knew who Luke Skywalker was and who a little cartoon doctor was, but once it was over, I was just back to my usual "whatever" mood. Not to say that I'm just a lazy person who never feels anything or has a cruddy mood all the time, but I mean I just felt whatever. Like once it was over, nothing in my life changed. 


Popular culture is a part of everyday life and it's hard to pick it out of a line up of a typical day. However, in my class we talked about social media being a huge part of pop culture and that's when it hit me. Almost all of my friends have Twitter or Facebook or both! I too have both, but I'm not totally obsessed with it like my friends. I know people who get upset when they don't get more followers on Twitter than someone and for the longest time I secretly thought they were so dumb for caring so much for people that they didn't even really know. Then I found Pinterest. At first it was just another site like Facebook and Twitter, but after awhile I became just as obsessed as my friends had with their respective social media obsessions.  Now I find myself getting on and smiling when I see that I have new followers. I'll brag to my friends when someone knew follows me and I'll even say to myself, "You're pinterest is much better now that you follow me." I never thought I'd get so caught up in something like this, but who care? I am genuinely happy when I get onto Pinterest and add things to my boards, so why should I worry? Pinterest makes me happy and so does One Direction and The Big Bang Theory. This happiness might not be something that will make me happy forever or longer than watching an episode or listening to a song, but that isn't bad, because then I'll just fill it with something else that makes me happy.....like Pinterest. I'm fine with being caught up in popular culture as long as I'm happy with it.