Blurred Boundaries

I recently read a shocking article online that showed how a jumble of fantasy and reality can be very frightening. A 12-year old girl was found stabbed 19 times by her two friends in a forest. Her two friends, who were both also 12-years old, told the police that they were planning to kill her friend so that they can "impress a ghoulish character called slender man"(CNN). They explained that to impress the Slenderman, they had to kill a friend of theirs. The Slenderman is an urban legend born from an internet meme that has been going around for some time now. He is supposedly a tall man with no face who abducts children. I believe it is actually getting pretty famous and popular among the American culture, as many images of him can be seen online (like the one above) and even many virtual games about Slenderman are being created.

The girl's injuries were not life-threating but it is unbelievably freighting to hear that very young kids could potentially grow the thought of killing their friends based on an urban legend born from an internet meme. One of the two girls was known by her family that she has been showing a great deal of interest in the fictional character, Slenderman for a long time. According to her brother,  she was a "normal happy 12-year old with a couple of weird interests". She was a frequent visitor of this website that posts fictional horror stories, many of which are written to make them seem like true stories. I believe this could be seen as a common problem in the world right now where any kind of information could be accessed instantly by anyone. This girl probably didn't start to grow violent thoughts until she got exposed to all of the horror-related information online. The over exposure to the information on the internet made this girl lose sense of what is real and what is not. It is very dangerous how boundaries for reality and imagination has become very blurred in society nowadays. So many information, both true and false, are so easily accessible that it could make people become numb in determining what is reality and what is imaginary. Especially to young kids, like these 12-year old girls, it will be much harder for them to fully differentiate the information that they get exposed to. This makes me realize the fact that convenience always comes with a down side and it is the younger generation that gets affected the most.

Too Much Skin on Yearbook Picture?

As people get their high school yearbooks, they get amazed by the beautiful senior pictures in which they are dressed so nicely. However at one Utah high school, many female senior students were outraged after they have seen their senior photos. These students' yearbook photographs were arbitrarily edited by the school. Their photographs were edited by the school because these female students apparently violated the yearbook dress code. However, the reliability of the code came into question after many learned that the code failed to apply the policy to everyone who has violated the code. It turns out that the code was very obscure and it applied it's policy to very random students. There were even two students who wore the exact same cloths but only one of them got it's exposed skin photoshopped, whereas the other student didn't.

When I read this article, I was shocked to know that there are schools that do such things. It was not like the school prohibited their students from wearing skin exposed cloths everyday to school. It is hard for me to understand the motive behind the school's dress code policy for the yearbook pictures, which even turned out to be very ambiguous. Why suddenly install a strict dress code for the yearbook pictures? It is also unbelievable that the school board didn't expect any hostility to be aroused by the students when they arbitrarily edited the pictures without even asking the students. The school probably understands that yearbook photos are very important to seniors and to their family. Editing those pictures without any approval of the students or their family will obviously  cause opposition. There are many questions surrounding the motive behind the school's decision of creating the yearbook dress code.

Why do you think the school created such an obscure dress code?

Police Commissioner Forced to Resign

"I believe I did use the 'N' word in reference to the current occupant of the Whitehouse. For this, I do not apologize - he meets and exceeds my criteria for such."  These were the words written to a resident of a town in New Hampshire by the police commissioner of the town. The controversy started when one resident of the town overheard the commissioner Rober Copeland making racist comments about president Obama loudly in a public restaurant. The resident wrote a letter to the town manager about the incident and Copeland replied by the words I have on the top of this paragraph. The commissioner, Robert Copeland, who is currently 82 years old, sat "with his arms crossed at a packed town meeting" while angry residents called for his resignation over the racist comment he has made in a public place. (CNN) It was later confirmed that the police commission received the resignation letter from Copeland.  Read the full article here.


I feel disappointed to hear a news like this, and I believe it was a very reasonable decision that Robert Copeland decided to resign his position as a police commissioner. It is very sad to hear that a person who had a job that was supposed to protect people of the town, ends up resigning his job because the people desired him to. At the same time it makes me wonder if anyone in the police commission bothered to stop Copeland before he had to go far enough to make a loud racist comment in a public restaurant where everyone at the place could have heard him. I think it makes the people who chose to overlook the commissioner's racist personality be at the same level with Copeland.

Senior Prank Taken Too Far

As seniors in high schools show increasing excitement each day as the last day of high school for them is getting closer, the schools must brace themselves for the last and biggest hurdle which is the senior pranks that will be happening. Every year, unique senior pranks are seen in a lot of schools and some of them are indeed funny but there are also ones that could be taken as offensive to some people.

In this article, there is a story about a senior prank that was taken too far at a high school outside of Atlanta. A bunch of senior students at this high school hung a banner from the school's rooftop that said "N---a We Made It." The sign was meant for celebrating graduation, but it obviously struck many people who read it as offensive. The phrase on the banner was taken from the lyrics of a song written by the rapper Drake. Every year, there are senior pranks that involve offensive images or languages to a certain group of people. As many teachers and parents show concern for these excessive and offensive senior pranks happening every year, I think it is inevitable that these kind of pranks come out because these offensive words became a part of the American culture. The rapper Drake is a very popular rapper in America and his songs could be heard on the radio very frequently. Many of his songs have explicit language in it, and although the words are censored, it is very obvious what was actually being said. I feel like in our culture today, many offensive words that are frequently used are considered as "cool words" rather than words that was once used to disdain a certain group of people.

The principal of the high school in Atlanta commented that, "Even though it's a popular song lyric that you appreciate and like doesn't mean the whole world and our society in general are going to appreciate that." I found it interesting that the principal used the word "popular" because popular  means that something has been accepted by a large number of people. The hit song that included the phrase on the banner written by Drake became popular because many people liked it, which means most of them have accepted the lyrics too. Any kids or teenagers nowadays would inevitably come in contact with these offensive words in the American culture that is present today. Even in New Trier, which is considered to be one of the top schools in the nation, offensive phrases could be heard every day and no students react to these words because they have simply become a natural part in our society. I understand that the principal had to say those comments to fit in the good principal image, and the n-word phrase written on the banner was certainly offensive to some people, however no matter how many solutions the schools come up with, students will continue to use offensive words on a regular basis because they have been "accepted" by the society.

Most Popular Baby Names

According to Social Security's top 10 baby names of America in 2013 that have just been released, Noah became the most popular name for newborn boys which beat out Michael and Jacob, that have been reigning as the most popular names. For girls, Sophia held it's number one place for the third year in a row, although Sofia with an "f" is also coming up in the list. 
An article on CNN indicates that the trend for baby's names in America is heavily affected by it's pop culture. The fastest rise for baby girls name in 2012 was Arya, who was a popular character in the TV show "Game of Thrones". In 2013, the name Jayceon made the biggest jump in popularity. The reason for the sudden popularity for the name Jayceon can be traced to the name of a popular rapper, Jayceon Terrell Taylor, who is commonly know as The Game. Read the full article here.
This article made me wonder how serious American parents think about naming their kids. For me it is hard to believe that some parents in America name their kids after a rapper. How serious do you think parents in America think about naming their kids?

The Unprecedented Effect of Movies We Watch

The prevalence of excessive violence in recent Rated-R and PG-13 movies in America has been conspicuous and the effect of being exposed to constant violent media is known to have serious negative effects on viewers. Sexual contents in American films are very restricted to viewers, for including only a couple of swear words in a movie could have it rated Rated R. However, the exposure to constant sexual contents in movies are known to have an effect on the viewers that could actually be worse than the effects of violent media. A research was conducted in University of Missouri where over 1,200 kids between the ages of 12 and 14 were asked the number of movies they have watched that contained sexual scenes. The scientists later followed up with the participants and they found out that teenagers and young adults who have answered that they have watched a large number of movies that contained sexual contents when they were young were more likely to become sexually active at a younger age and were more likely to engage in risky behavior such as not using condoms during sexual intercourse. 

We all have watched many PG-13 movies and Rated-R movies that contain sexual contents. It is very scary to think that while we watch these movies, our brains become naturally affected by the sexual images and it ultimately affects our views and actions towards sexuality. The effects really differ from person to person but next time you watch a movie with sexual references, it won't be a bad idea to keep in mind that the sexual images we see could be subconsciously affecting our brains.

Not so PG-13

As I have been doing some research on CARA (Classification & Ratings Administration), for my Junior-theme why question, which is "why in American films, sexuality is considered more unsuitable to the audiences than violence?", I realized that I really have no clue how to answer my why question. I have read a couple articles online and a part of a book so far but no answer was found for why sexuality is considered more harmful to viewers than violence in American movies. For this blog post I will write about one of the biggest questions I had when I was researching about this topic, whitish focuses on one specific film rating: PG-13.

 The question is, why is violence so prevalent in PG-13 films, especially in modern films? Violent scenes in PG-13 movies nowadays are quite tremendous. People getting pierced by bullets, stabbed by knives countless times, engulfed in bomb blasts, crushed by debris,  etc.... The ways of people getting killed in PG-13 movies are becoming more elaborated and gruesome as days go by. The same can be said with horror scenes in PG-13 horror movies, but the overload of violence in recent PG-13 movies is way more concerning. A research by Ohio University shows that the number of PG-13 movies that contains gun violence has tripled since the rating first came out in 1985. Researchers feared that the huge increase in gun actions in PG-13 movies could strengthen the weapons effect and could cause teens to become interested in using them. I believe not only movies but games like Call of Duty or Battlefield, which are war games that has the players shooting their opponents to death, could add fuel to the fire of teens becoming less cautious to using guns.  Sexuality in PG-13 movies is at most actors using curse words or words that indicate sexual content. The lack of balance between the amount of violence and sexuality allowed in PG-13 movies is obvious but the reason behind MPAA handling sexual contents more strictly is just a mystery.

Although I'm still in the midst of a long research to go, I feel like I can get some good answers to my why question if I research more about the prevailing violence in PG-13 movies.