Response to "And Now a Word from Their Cool College Sponsor" by Kate Zernike

In her article “And Now a Word from Their Cool College Sponsor,” Kate Zernike talks about two California, college aged, surfer boys (Chris Barrett and Luke McCabe) who have a surfing sponsorship (with First USA, a credit card company) that pays for their education. Being an athlete, I think this is an amazing situation. One of the conditions of their agreement is that every time they make an appearance on campus they need to be wearing First USA gear. They were equipped with "surfboards, surf shorts, camp shirts...and an entire wardrobe's worth of clothing" from First USA. This is a change of pace based on what we usually see—which is paying to advertise for someone with the clothing we chose to wear. The boys are being instead being paid to advertise for the company! Again, this article makes the point that advertising is impossible to escape. I know that for the sponsorship West Chester University has, you are not allowed to wear another brand during competition (other than our sponsor’s). I think this is a fair agreement. In addition to wearing all First USA gear, the boys also have to maintain a C average and behave appropriately at all times. First USA’s goal is to get more college students to have their credit card since the advertising is coming from college students. Credit card companies are usually very tricky but they are proving that they can be trusted by using our peers as advertising. It becomes so common that people don't even realize it's advertising anymore! It's almost like it's invisible.

Response to "Salespeak" by Roy F. Fox

Advertising is something that is inescapable. This is a point that Roy F. Fox makes very evident in his article “Salespeak.” He starts by telling “a day in the life” of Pepsi Anderson. Pepsi was named after the brand of cola and other products, Pepsi. This is a stretch to get people to realize that advertising is everywhere! At an ATM, in stores like Wal-Mart, gas pumps, lines in amusement parks—they all have some form of advertising for something. The last time I went to the doctor, there were a couple of TV screens scattered around the waiting room and there were ads for new drugs, quizzes to test your knowledge about various medical conditions, and general information about health insurance. With recent technology such as TiVo, you can record shows and watch them back. I know that when I watch shows back I always fast forward through the commercials. Advertising agencies needed and did find new ways to advertise now that less people see commercials. Right now, as I’m writing this blog and ad came up for an online dating website. Also, right now, I’m currently on AIM and my buddy list is on the screen right next to this page and at the top there is an ad for Netflix reading, “Rent Movies From Netflix—Only $4.99 a month. Click here!” Sometimes I feel like I am so used to advertising I almost don’t notice it anymore. Fox did a good job of bringing to light all the places we do encounter advertising on a daily basis.

Response to "Meet My 5,000 New Best Pals" by Janet Kornblum

Reading “Meet My 5,000 New Best Pals” by Janet Kornblum made me really evaluate the amount of friends that I have on Facebook. I only have a Facebook, I never got into MySpace. I was always under the impression the Facebook was safer and less creepy because you had to have a network that was usually a school of some type. Kornblum points out that 90 percent of the people we are “friends with” we have virtually no contact with. I had an interesting experience one night when I was at a friend’s house. It was a rather large gathering so I didn’t know a majority of people who were there. There was one girl in particular that really got on my nerves. I wasn’t a fan of the way she carried herself and how she portrayed herself to guys. Anyway, I pointed this girl out to one of my friends and the next day I was on that friend’s Facebook page and I discovered something interesting. There is a little box on Facebook that when you are looking at someone’s page it tells you how many friends you have in common with that person. While browsing the pictures my friend had put up of that night I looked in the friends in common box and recognized the outfit of the girl we saw at the party. I was friends with her on Facebook and didn’t even know it (or her for that matter!!) Ever since then I am very careful about who I accept to be my “friend.” It is a whole separate world that has become a college phenomenon!

Response to Kathleen Sweeney's "Supernatural Girls"

In “Supernatural Girls” Kathleen Sweeney focuses on the growing role of women as power figures in recent pop culture. Women have until recently been portrayed as the “damsel in distress,” always needing to be rescued or saved. Recent shows like Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Kim Possible have helped shape the newer idea that girls and woman are independent and don’t need to be saved. Sweeney brings up a good point that in Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Buffy even had men that acted as her sidekicks. The men in the show were sometimes portrayed as “insecure” which in my opinion is a good thing. I feel like as much as women are portrayed as helpless, men are portrayed as always being able to fix everything. Men need help sometimes too. Hermione Granger from the Harry Potter series and Harry have an interesting relationship. Sweeney says, “she is the brains of the operation,” meaning that without her knowledge Harry wouldn’t accomplish such great things. They are dependent on one another; they rely on each other. TV shows today are spreading a much healthier idea of the relationships and roles that men and women fit into. “Supernatural Girls” are the role models of girls growing up in the current generation.

Response to "Leading a Double Life" by Irene Sege

“Leading a Double Life” by Irene Sege opened my eyes to a world that I didn’t even know existed. The article focused on Second Life which I would describe as another whole world—a virtual world. It is a place where humans create an avatar for themselves, which to me seems much like an alter ego, which they live through online. I was actually really disturbed by the article. In my opinion, I think places out there like Second Life are creepy. There was one man in the article where his cyber-friend died and he held a virtual funeral for her. How well did he really know this person? They were dating in the Second Life world but I feel like their whole “relationship” could have been a lie; they had never actually met each other in person! Second Life is giving people a chance to portray themselves as something they are not. It takes away from the personal experience of knowing someone. Even with blogs like MySpace, you don’t necessarily know everyone you are friends with. People can know things about you without actually knowing you. I am very hesitant about the whole cyber-world of communication.

Response to Gerhardt's "The Rules of Attribution"

In “The Rules of Attribution” by Deborah R. Gerhardt, Gerhardt uses a couple interesting analogies to compare different topics to the rules of plagiarism. The first analogy she uses is about the rules of basketball. She says, “We don’t send our high school basketball stars onto the court without teaching them the rules of the game,” and she continues how our secondary education system doesn’t do a well enough job of preparing students for higher education. In my opinion, using analogies is a powerful way of providing more understanding and insight into a situation. She uses another analogy that it is just common knowledge to recycle paper, plastic and glass. When you see a recycling bin, there is no question in your mind what they are used for. Personally, I think recycling is very important literally and figuratively. So I liked when Gerhardt stated that there was a difference between plagiarism and “the recycling of ideas.” She says that all writing is collaborative writing. In my writing class last semester, I had to do a couple of in class collaborative writing assignments. I liked it in some ways but not in others. With more than one mind thinking of the same idea or topic, you have different ideas and different ways of looking at the same thing. If I would struggle trying to word something just right, it was nice to have someone who understood what I meant and therefore they were able to help me get the idea across, making it stronger and more concrete. I think it is smart to think about all writing as collaborative writing because if you are using a source to help you, it is technically using someone else’s ideas to back up your ideas. When I was finished with my collaborative writing assignment, I put my name on the top as well as the two people who wrote it with me. So if you are using another piece of work to back up your work, it is only right to give the credit to the person who was “helping” you.

Response to "Cultural Renaissance or Cultural Divide?" by Bill Ivey and Steven J. Tepper

When reading this article, the section about the radio stuck out in my mind. I agreed with the information the author pointed out about how radio stations only play about two dozen titles per week. Whenever I listen to the radio, I feel like I only hear the same 10 songs over and over again, in the exact same order! I can only listen to the radio for so long before I start to get annoyed and frustrated with the lack of variety. This must make it hard for newer artists to get their material listened to because the field of what is actually played on the radio is so small. This makes me wonder who has the authority to pick what is actually played and therefore listened to on the radio.
Next, I think that reality TV is a huge contributor to the Pro-Am Revolution. Even though most reality TV is scripted and planned it still takes away from the art of acting. A new reality show comes out every season and there are those people who will religiously watch. In some cases people are just being paid to be themselves, good or bad, on national television. Some people just go on reality TV because they want to pursue acting; it’s a way of getting their name out there. In certain fields, the Pro-Am Revolution is more visible. In my opinion, reality TV is a somewhat easier way to get exposed than getting a new song heard by a record company.