Commercial Analyzation

America is the land of the strong and the brave. "Real" men are the ones who get the girl and save the day. So what do you're trying to sell a pink fluffball as your protagonist to an audience who swoons over manly men? Try to make him over into a bad ass, of course!

For anyone who has never played a Kirby game, Kirby is a fun and light-hearted platforming adventure. The cartoon graphics are whimsical, just like the settings Kirby runs through. The player acquires new abilities through inhaling certain types of enemies. The game play is hardly what one would consider "macho." The game itself consists mostly of flying around, sucking in enemies, and utilizing various attack abilities to advance through the levels. People who took that commercial seriously and were actually attracted by it were probably unpleasantly surprised by the title screen...

This ad clearly shows that the advertisers think that Americans have a very macho point of view. Americans don't want their children emulating "weak" protagonists, so instead of showing Kirby for the adorable little pink ball of fluff that he really is, they painted him as a tough man, always ready for action. While many could easily consider Kirby a "weapons expert" because of his many abilities, some of which call for props like a sword and flying saucer, the other claims such as him being a "street fighter" and "physical powerhouse" seem laughable when you look at Kirby in other settings. Playing through the game isn't "level by nightmarish level" unless you scare quite easily. They're trying to attract a young, male audience to a game that is, on the superficial levels, completely wrong for them. We only get a few glimpses of the Kirby as we see him in the actual game, and the different shots flash by so quickly that one can hardly get a feel for what type of game it is. Little boys may assume that Kirby is "one tough cream puff" and long to play because of these stereotypes instilled into them by the American culture.

The ad further tries to attract young people through the fast edits. It keeps short attention spans occupied by constantly switching the scene. The narrator himself sounds like he was stolen from a B-list action movie. Music usually highlights the mood one can expect from the game, but the rock music sounds nothing like the actual upbeat 8-bit soundtrack. It's not even a remixed version of an already occurring theme. The rockers who would head bang to this sort of thing wouldn't care to listen to hours of bips, beeps, and boops of happy melodies that playing this game contains.

In another way, one could see this drastic misinterpretation of the game as a way to reach out to a target demographic that may otherwise be displeased with the bubbly atmosphere of the game. By encouraging them to view the game as something cooler and more adult-like, the children are more likely to ask their parents for the opportunity to play as a pink ball of fluff. These kids may be displeased with the game they actually get, but the marketers don't care about that. All they want to do is increase the sales of Kirby's Adventure, and misdirection was apparently the best way to achieve that.

Radio

North Dakota is not a state known for its entertainment value. Not only are the available events few and far between (both physically and chronologically), but I lived out in the country, so I had an hour commute just to get to them in the first place. Hap, my old bus driver, loved to play that country twang over the speakers. My siblings and I traveled to my mother's place every other weekend, and instead of conversation, my dad used the radio as a crutch to avoid the vehicle's silence. On average, I heard at least an hour and a half of music from the radio daily as a child.

I do not consider myself an active listener of traditional radio stations anymore. Most of my listening time derives from passive hearing of songs I don't quite process in public areas like stores and the dining centers around campus. As a freshman at North Dakota State University with an obligatory meal plan, the sounds of the radio oft grace my ears. Unfortunately, my lack of attention prevents me from remembering what station the Resident Dining Center or Memorial Union Buffet play over the intercom simply because when I leave my dorm for food, that's exactly what I'm looking for: food. The music is simply a superfluous detail that I don't need to process. If a song I enjoy comes on, I bob along and hum, and if I don't care for the the song, I focus on my own thoughts and ignore it. Unless I have explicit control over what I'm hearing, I can't bring myself to care as much about the songs washing over me.

New online radio stations like Musicovery and Pandora remedy this problem of control for people like me. With Musicovery, one simply chooses the type of song they wish to hear on a graph with sliding mood scales from dark to positive and calm to energetic. Pandora implores you to enter in an artist or song name and builds a station that plays songs similar to the ones you input. Each station can have multiple "roots," resulting in a listening experience tailored to the variety that pleases you. Furthermore, Pandora also keeps track of the songs you don't like so you never have to hear them again.

Now that I have found radio stations that reflect my passion for interactivity, I am no longer satisfied with the traditional radio setup. As long as I have control over my listening experience, I'm satisfied.

lonelygirl15

The producers of media have long toyed with its consumers. These hoaxes provide free marketing and sheer fun for media practitioners. What better way to get people to talk about your product than to create some sort of mystery surrounding it?

Lonelygirl15 first began her YouTube journey with this unassuming video:

YouTube viewers assumed that Bree was a vlogger (video blogger) just as many of them were. When Bree was revealed to be an actress by the name of Jessica Rose, many felt outraged. They watched these videos and reacted to Bree as if she were a real teenager talking to her webcam, not an actress filmed by a production team. Finding out that this "sixteen-year-old" was actually a nineteen-year-old disgusted many viewers. Of course, a controversy on this scale warrants international news. Though based in America, lonelygirl15's vlog reached across the world, so news stations from around the world picked up the story.

Why does this even matter? Who cares if this stranger on the internet isn't exactly who she says she is? At the time this phenomenon occurred, this is exactly how I thought because I didn't understand the sense of betrayal lonelygirl15's fans displayed. The actions by Jessica Rose and the producers, they felt, were completely unethical.

When people seek entertainment, they want to know the reasonable reaction one should have to the source. They want to know if what they are seeing is real. If it's fake, the media consumers aren't responsible for anything they see. They don't need to be truly concerned about any of the people they watch because those characters aren't real people to them anymore - they're only people pretending to be other people. This doesn't stop viewers from empathizing with characters, of course, but the characters don't have the same emotional grip on them that watching a real person does.

Bree did not explicitly state that she was a character, so people assumed she was a real person and cared for her like they would another human being rather than the figment of another's imagination. The producers purposely did this to exploit the attachment people feel for one another, especially the trust that comes with seeing another person talking directly to you. They involved lonelygirl15 personally with each viewer.

The producers may argue that they only launched lonelygirl15 this way to garner attention for it, and all the free publicity they received only proves them right. While I don't agree with their methods, their plan was ingenious. After all, why should someone suspect what another has to say on YouTube? They reason that these strangers posting videos have no reason to lie.

The controversy over lonelygirl15 just goes to show that media producers will do anything for more attention.

Media & Me

The media always fascinated me, a fact which has puzzled those around me for as long as I can remember. I loved observing media. I bugged my older siblings to play the video games I loved; luckily for me, they also did not tire from the joys of the Super Nintendo very quickly. My constant companions were books, pens, and a notebook. I doodled and wrote, creating my own print media in every spare moment I had. Even when I didn't have paper, I still managed to draw.

My best friend at the time was also an artist, though she was much more serious about her work than I would ever be. To me, drawing was simply a vehicle for expression; she hoped to craft this skill into a career. I joined a site called deviantART on her urging. My brother became a member shortly after. This site exposed me to more art styles and, through those, ways of thinking. I began seeing art everywhere in my life. Suddenly, previously mundane things were beautiful or at least were capable of producing beauty through only minimal coaxing. Even supposedly antiquated practices that I enjoyed, like crocheting, were capable of art.

When I was growing up, I lived thirteen miles out of town with no car to call my own. With all that free time at home, I became hooked on the internet. Facebook, deviantART, and MSN Messenger became familiar avenues through which to contact others. Though these didn't help me overcome my shyness, they insured that I never became completely closed off from the world.

My main connection to the world was through music. Choir and band exposed me to a unique medium that you had to take and reproduce for yourself. This process fascinated me, and submerging myself in it helped me take my mind off the negative aspects of my life. Escapism became my primary goal with music. I learned how to sit down and let go of myself to the point where I could improvise on the piano. Whenever I was too stressed to concentrate on anything, I slipped away to the band room and caressed the ivory keys.

Throughout my life, I sought for expression through many forms of media. Without this fascination with media, I wouldn't be anywhere near as sensitive or aware of the world as I am today. For this, I can only be thankful.

The Question of Culture

Culture is continuously changing. Though the prevailing culture in a country may be collectivist or polychronic, one can easily find co-cultures within the culture that may be staunchly individualistic. Even if one manages to dissect a culture into pieces like this, it's impossible to place each part into one category or the other, for these guidelines are more like opposing ends on a scale than two absolutes that one must choose between.

Is the American culture experiencing a shift even as this blog entry is typed? Absolutely. As a reactionary entity, it is impossible for any culture to be static. We are undergoing a communication shift just as people in the past have. Before printed media, all cultures were oral cultures; those involved in the culture didn't have a choice but to receive their information purely from verbal exchanges with other people. As printed communication became more efficient and widespread, the information people received came from these physical resources rather than from their neighbors. Now that we are entering a new era of communication through electronic media, people try to compare it to the past by labeling it as being more like a print or oral culture, but this line of reasoning seems faulty at best.

In today's culture, one has to choose how he wants to receive his communication. Each individual person determines for himself whether he lives in a primarily print or oral culture. Does he keep himself enlightened through newspapers and literature? Then he participates in the active print culture. Does he keep his world view smaller through only hearing the local news from his friends? In this case, he lives in an oral culture.

What if the individual turns on the radio or watches CNN? What kind of culture do these media belong in? This is where the confusion begins. Are electronic media a part of print culture in the sense that the source is impersonal and not instantaneous? Are they part of oral culture, considering that the viewer listens in to the newscasters' "conversations"?

Because this is an entirely new way of getting information, putting television and radio into the categories of oral or print communication can ever be completely accurate since it contains aspects of both. Perhaps it exists on the continuum between oral and print cultures. Until we can dream up of a definable category for electronic media to claim for itself, we should accept that we can't fit it into the classifications we currently stand by. The prevailing American culture today can not be neatly tucked away into the definitions of print or oral culture; America's obsession with individual choice forces that option upon each citizen. Therefore, the only culture any person can define is for himself.

So - which culture do you live in?

Media Artifact Analysis

Fiona Apple beautifully illustrates the confusion of a naturally destructive person in her music video "Fast As You Can." Through most of the song, she warns the listener to cut her out of his life before she has too much of a hold on him. Fiona's haunting facial expressions and unkempt appearance pair with her intense lyrics in a desperate attempt to push the listener away from her. Simply watching her mouth reveals so much about her real disposition. After declaring that her "pretty mouth will frame the phrases that will disprove your faith in man," we're treated to a particularly menacing half-smile.

She'll tear your world apart... and love it.

Fiona's haggard image is made even more disconcerting by the intentional mismatch of audio to video applied sporadically throughout. It makes her seem off-kilter and unstable, which is exactly what she's trying to get across.

She also employs another unusual technique: touching the camera itself. By dirtying the lens, the viewers are limited to only exactly what she wants them to see. The bridge of this song is sung through this visual effect, sometimes shielding Fiona's entire face. She seems uncomfortable with this softer, more vulnerable aspect of herself illustrated through this section. She cleans the camera as she's singing to give the viewers a better glimpse of her, but she does this intentionally badly. She wants to look like she's letting her guard down without actually leaving herself vulnerable and easily hurt by disclosing anything more to the intended receiver. One could also view this section as Fiona's attempt to clean up the mess that she's left this relationship in. She only puts forth the minimal effort to give the appearance that she cares, but in reality, she has little attachment to the viewer himself. She wants a relationship, but she obviously has no idea what she actually needs from it for herself. After all, who offers to be another person's pet? Even if the relationship does continue like she half-hopes it will, it won't be healthy. The smudges on the camera hide how she's feeling, and she obviously intends to keep that shield up. After the revelation that she does want to be with this person she's so desperately trying to push away, a look of disgust flashes across her features as she smears the camera again with her dirty cloth, effectively undoing any progress she had made.

The song ends over clips of Fiona smiling in various degrees of sincerity and certainty. She herself isn't sure of the validity of the message she's sending or whether she should have said anything at all. Either way, what's done is done, and she'll accept that with a grin.