Posts

Gender stereotypes - 4/28

There is no question that a great deal of progress has been made toward gender equality, and this progress is particularly evident in the workplace. In the period piece known as Mad Men, women are portrayed as being mostly secretaries, as the show takes place in the 1960s. With men running the agency that is portrayed in the show, they always have the final say in every decision that is made, with the women that are involved with the clients only being a small piece. One notable stereotype about men is that they always want to take control of a situation whereas women are more passive. This proven to be untrue, as there are plenty of people of both genders that are this way, and gender is having less to do with exercise of power. Gender roles are something of a problem because, like most, stereotypes oversimplify situations and are almost always inaccurate. Even during the real life eras of Mad Men and other similar pieces, women were just simply not allowed to have the same luxuries a...
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The end of the Bernie Sanders presidential campaign - 4/20

On April 8th 2020, Bernie Sanders suspended his presidential bid. The first election I got got to vote in was the 2016 general, and I did not get to vote in the primary. Like last time, the nomination came down to the wire. In my opinion, there are too many moderates within the Democratic Party, and tis cannot help combat the opposing party that seems to get more radical by the week. When Clinton was running 2016, there were a lot of issues that she opposed that Sanders supported. These issues include Marijuana Legalization, Economic equality, and LGBT issues. To make matters worse, republican candidate Donald Trump took moderate stances on issues that his opponents were against, gaining his one issue voters. It comes at no surprise that there is a lot of slander and mudslinging that comes with every major election, and certain issues stir different types of responses. When it comes to Sanders dropping out of the race, of course it saddens me. Don't get me wrong, I will always vote...
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Online Hate Speech - 3/13

Throughout the internet, it's so surprise that a lot of hatred exists. This goes for every social media platform. It's a fact that racism has been a problem for many years, and the presence of the internet has only made the problem worse. A lot of mainstream sites such as Facebook, Reddit, and Instagram have made an effort to cleanse their sites of this content, sometimes going as far to ban users that are spreading this kind of discourse. There are many young, conservative comedians online. Some of these figures include Steven Crowder, Ben Shapiro, and Gavin McInnes. These figures are quite active all social media platforms and are garnering young audiences to spread the republican agenda with content that contains racism, homophobia and everything else in between. While a lot of these figures following is achieved on their own, there are multiple sources that give them a platform to humanize them, thus adding to the problem. A podcaster named Joe Rogan is possibly the most ke...
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Microaggressions - 3/22

Microaggression is a term used for brief and commonplace daily verbal, behavioural, or environmental indignities, whether intentional or unintentional, that communicate hostile, derogatory, or negative prejudicial slights and insults toward any group, particularly culturally marginalized groups. A lot of microaggressions can seem like harmless comments, but they can actually be quite harmful. Some examples of microaggressions are "You don't act black" or "You don't look like that race." While not saying these things to people might seem obvious to most, this problem exists in our society. When it comes to discussing the reality of this matter, it is important to realize that comments like this can do a lot of damage. One idea that the New York Times brings up that interests me is that discrimination, no matter how subtle can do a lot of damage. My opinion on this matter is that we need to educate ourselves what is okay and what is not okay. In a University...
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Media Ethics - TheNeedleDrop youtube channel - 3/20

EVERYONE has an agenda. This is one of the first things I learned at the University of North Texas in the journalism track. In my introduction to media writing class, we were always taught to fact check to maintain credibility. One of my favorite modern Hatchetjobs to discuss is written by music website The FadeR. The subject of the piece was popular music critic, Anthony Fantano. The article was written about Fantano's interview with internet comedian Sam Hyde. For those who are not familiar with Fantano's work, the music critic is one of the internet's most acclaimed music commentators. The youtube channel has north of 2 million subscribers, and continues to thrive today. In the 2017 article, The article starts out by addressing Fantano's 2nd youtube channel titled "That is the plan." The channel was made originally for Fantano to post humorous content about music and other subjects while keeping his main channel for his regular content. There is a lot of ...
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3/17 - Bad Advertising

I had a class project over a poor advertising campaign but I felt the need to discuss this topic more in detail here. There are a lot of advertising campaigns that leave people confused as to why someone would run such a thing. One ad that scratches the surface of this is an ad for Reebok products. The copy reads "Cheat on your girlfriend and not your workout." While this is humorous in a dark sort of way, it does not seem like the best message to send. This ad sticks out to in particular because it does not appear to have any good intentions at all. With most bad ads, you can tell what they were trying to do but it can come off as distasteful and off color. Since I started at this University as an advertising student, critiquing ads has always been a big part of the curriculum. One thing one a my advertising professors has said that sticks out to me is to never say something simply "Sucks." This sticks out to me because I agree that every ad should stem a discuss...
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Undocumented Immigrants - 3/15/20

The size of the undocumented immigrant population the us is difficult to measure. This is a difficult topic for me to discuss because I have not had any first hand experience with this issue. It is no surprise that most of the undocumented population is largely from the country of Mexico. What surprised me the most about the current research on this topic is that most undocumented persons come from visa overstays. This is alarming to me because I think that citizenship should be granted to someone who is employed for some time in the United States. In contrast to President Donald Trump's statements about building a wall to curb illegal immigration, building a wall will not stop illegal immigration if the case of undocumented persons is stemmed from visa overstays. According to an article written by a staff writer at NPR, there have been 7 consecutive years when Visa Overstays have exceeded the amount of illegal border crossings. My take on this issue is that there are a lot of busi...
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