Yesterday in class we talked about the paranormal and media. I found a lot of the things we talked about really interesting. You don't have to be religious to believe in spirits or any other types of paranormal activities, and we talked how 3 out of every 4 Americans believe in some type of paranormal activity whether that be: horoscopes, astrology, yoga, faith healing, and many more.
I found this video on YouTube that goes along really well with the story that was told in class of the mirror that supposedly, if broken, gave the person who broke it 7 years of bad luck. This video is titled: "25 terrifying objects that are genuinely linked to freaky paranormal events". As the title suggests the video goes over 25 objects that supposedly bring bad luck or are evil in some way. Here is the link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7uKVEYk_sLA
Personally I believe that there are some objects that are linked to some freaky stuff like wigi boards, and there are some things on the paranormal activity list that I believe in, but you'll see in the video that a lot of the things that they list as "genuinely freaky" almost make me laugh because of how foolish it is. I think that the media has created a lot of stereotypes in what we see as freaky in society, and we as a society than believe that the things depicted in the media are freaky. So media definitely, in my opinion, shapes what we as a society see as scary and linked to paranormal events.
A few weeks ago, we talked about a reading by McGrath called When killing is a game. The article talked about how video games have changed over the years and how it's corrupting our minds, mostly men. The more popular the video games, the more violence it brings. In the video below, it shows the bad effects video games have on us.
Children who play more violent video games are more likely
to have increased aggressive thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. Too much video
game playing makes a person socially isolated. A person may spend less time in
other activities such as doing homework, reading, sports, and interacting with
the family and friends. Games can confuse reality and fantasy. Besides all the violence, it could also increase high blood pressure, heart rates, and stress.
Below is another video of what video games could do to a person's brain when addicted.
All these violence and addiction could be stopped. A person should limit their time playing video games, and start balancing their lifestyle. Do other activities like something outdoor or with friends. Also, if choosing a video game, make sure it is acceptable. Try and buy games with less or no violence, and think about why you shouldn't get it. A study shows the negative effects it could have on a person, and how it could ruin a person's life forever.
If the word paranormal popped into your head, most likely scenes from horror movies come along with it. And probably even haunted houses, ghosts, communicating with the dead and maybe even witches. In other words the list that Gallup surveyed. And your thought would be very much like most of our culture being that paranormal is defined as being demonic.
Anette Hill defines paranormal as “…a proposition that has not been empirically attested
to the satisfaction of the scientific establishment but is generated within the
non scientific community and extensively
endorsed by the people who might normally be excepted of their society to be
capable of rationale thought and reality testing.”
Dictionary. com defines it similarly as well,“of or pertaining to the claimed occurrence of an
event
or perception without scientific explanation, as psychokinesis, extrasensory perception, or other
purportedly supernatural phenomena.”
It is interesting to think that even though we relate paranormal as bad, evil and demonic, really it is anything that is falls under things that science cannot explain, so things like horoscopes, reincarnation, belief in aliens, folkloric creatures like big foot, and even religion
We can find paranormal scenes in the recognizable movie Matilda. (Sorry for the bad voice over work. It was either bad video or bad audio; take your pick.) Don't have to watch the full scene you can just start at the time 2:50.
We can see the paranormal of "magic powers" in the film that Matilda possesses.
And one more clip for the holiday spirit where we find paranormal in the cultural famous story A Christmas Carol.
Now I quickly want to look at the paranormal activity of superstitions. Do you believe or not believe?
We have superstitions all over in culture. This is kind of a longer video, but worth watching. Shows the history to some popular superstitions, a few of them I didn't even know about.
I know I have had my superstitions as an athlete and I think that comes along with the athlete culture because we seem to think that every great athlete has one or two. We kind of assume you can't be a great athlete without one. But outside of sports I don't consider myself superstitious, like I am sure many of you don't think you are either. But do you still tend to avoid superstitions? For example, avoid crossing the path of a black cat anyways, even though you tell yourself you aren't superstitious. So does that mean you are subconsciously superstitious?
Social Media has become almost a necessity in the world today and it is almost used for everything and every occupation. I never thought I'd see the day that they would have people specialize in using social media for an occupation. Of course when it first started I just assumed that it would be an easy way to connect with friends and people you hadn't talked to in a while, but now it has become a medium in the world of advertising, communication, and promoting. You cant do anything without seeing it because some company or job you apply for is always requesting that you like them on Facebook or follow them on twitter. We really might as well not even have the news any more because big time stories always end up hitting the social media stage within minutes. I don't mind social media though, because it is an easy way to get God's word out to a multitude of people and it assure you that somebody will eventually see it and it will hopefully impact somebody for the better.
Let's look at packaging. I'm sure we all already realize the significance of package design in our world today, but do you think young children know? Packaging design for the most part in my opinion is heavily geared towards young children. For instance, look at cereal boxes like Cap'n Crunch here. Lots of contrast and complimentary colors, fun fonts and cartoon characters. Simple red background to lessen it's distraction. To finish it off, hardly any text at all. This is obviously designed to be a visual attention grabber.
Now that we've grown up a little bit, let's look at a more adult approach to packaging. Here is the Netflix login screen. Although there aren't cartoon characters or fun fonts, you still are shown a very simple layout. A small amount of text in the sign in box and the Netflix logo is the only text you see on the page. The clean image for the background isn't too flashy to distract you from signing in. And then there is an attractive woman to give the background some actual information to process, kind of like Cap'n Crunch up there.
I think the "Steampunk Culture" in our society is so interesting and I was actually pretty surprised when I found out that it was part of our curriculum for the Media & Society course. It's interesting how this movement has become such a phenomenon in certain communities and how it has created its own small subcategories of pop culture.
Last January, the DSU Theatre department did a production of Hedda Gabler, a play written by Henrik Ibsen that takes place in 1896 (right during the Victorian ages). The story has very dark themes, so the director decided that he wanted his concept to be "steampunk" with "lots of jewel tones and gears." One of my friends who was the costume designer listened to his concept and tried to create a more steampunk version of Victorian fashion. This included some very nontraditional Victorian things, like exposed corsets and short hair on women. The main character, Hedda, is the one who showed the most steampunk in her look, because she is the darker more serious character of the play.
Here is a production shot that shows Hedda's costume (sitting on couch).
I find it interesting that the director went with this Steampunk concept in a show that already takes place in the Victorian era. It just goes to show how steampunk has become its own time and style that is inspired or reflected off of an actual time period.
I am personally not a huge fan of the Victorian era, because the first thing I think of is the lack of personal hygiene, but this era has influenced an entire population of people who have created something new from it. There are many other eras that are romanticized and that have produced their own following, for example there are fans of the Regency era (Jane Austen) who romanticize that time in history and try to live that way as well. There are also people who romanticize the "roaring 20s" or the 50s and have created their own style of living that adheres to the ideals and styles of that time period.
I find that especially today, our generation is so influenced by nostalgia and the past. I find this most evident in the clothing of today. The interesting thing about fashion is the change of silhouette. In the past, most decades or eras are pretty defined by their silhouette in clothing, but if we were to give a single silhouette that defined the fashion of today, it would be nearly impossible. Dress styles from the 50s and 60s are becoming much more fashionable and everyone is all about "vintage" clothing and shopping from thrift stores. It seems that as we move into the future, our styles are moving back into the past.
Here are some funny clips that kind of parody the "Steampunk" style and type of person:
And here is a Vimeo link to the second video since I couldn't find it on youtube:
Talking about Jensen's Theory of Convergence made me think about all of the different things that originated as movies and then expanded across so many different platforms of media. The one that stuck out the most to me was the Disney movie Frozen. For Halloween, hundreds of thousands of Elsa costumes were sold. Olaf stuffed animals, Anna action figures, Sven blankets, the whole 9. There are video games, books, ring tones, all of the songs, and I'm sure a sequel will be made. This movie stretches across the Internet, Movies, Books, Music, and many more platforms of media. Whenever a popular movie or series is made, they stretch it across as many platforms as possible to squeeze so much money out of the original idea. You think of Star Wars, Lord Of The Rings, Harry Potter, any superhero, and all of these do the same thing. So the converging isn't just a technological idea but a business technique.
