The Fear

            What drew me to Lily Allen’s music was her catchy and fresh take on pop, but I stayed for her cheeky lyrics. Sometimes, she is simply sharing her life experiences flippantly; others she is making genuine commentaries on society, and wrapping it up in a delightfully tongue-in-cheek package. The lead single of her sophomore album, “The Fear,” seems to combine the two perfectly. It is focusing on the consumerist behaviors and thought processes that plague our society, as well as what we have come to value through the years.

            The verses are written as if Lily really believes that looks, fame, and money are the most important things in life, while the chorus shows how she feels she is losing herself by the constant presence of said beliefs.

            I looked up an interview of Lily speaking about “The Fear,” and could not believe my eyes when I discovered the advertisement before the video was for an anti-aging skin product. I then noticed a picture ad next to the interview of L’Oreal makeup artists at the Cannes 2013 Film Festival. In the interview, Lily described the song as being about how she is “not really liking…the way the world has become so obsessed with celebrity culture and aesthetic beauty and money and consumerism.”

This obsession manifests itself in propaganda, and apparently is virtually unavoidable. Recently, there has been an increase of action against the perpetuation of shallow and degrading content in the media. Hopefully such voices will be heard and changes will be made. In the meantime, however, I will appease myself by listening to Lily’s powerful and feisty music.

            

Just who is Ms. Jackson?

I believe both of these musical compositions about "Ms. Jackson" are  good examples of symbolic interaction. Ms Jackson is a perception, and label in my mind. Ms. Jackson is an influential perception, and label.

In the case of Outkast's Ms Jackson, I think it is trying to show the other side of single mother hood, the struggles of the father who works, supports his children though child support, can barely take care of his self, yet still is looked down on by the mother who may or may not be caring for the child in the best ways, her family, and society.

On the other hand, Panic at the Disco's Ms. Jackson , to me is all about Ms. Jackson- the addiction. Addictions that range from smoking, drug use, sex,  gambling or alcoholism. 

Either way, I like these songs, Enjoy!

Are We Prisioners of Socialization?

How were you shaped by socialization? Family influences, and culture very much influence our perceptions about ourselves and they greatly influenced how we interacted socially as children. In addition to our family structure, our experiences within that structure and the quality of the other social structures in which we are exposed to greatly influence the self whom we grow into, the way we perceive society, and the way we behave within our life time.

Many of the people that I grew up around came from an educated and loving home environment. As a young child I developed many positive relationships with my peers and have fond memories of my elementary school years. But as "times grow longer, and children get older"...Interests, and activities differ between ourselves and others and often we grow apart; or we nurture those friendships, and spend lots of time socializing and growing up as great companions.

When you reflect back to your late childhood and early adolescence was your family dynamic still the same, as it was years before? For many of the same people I knew,  it was. Morals and reasoning skills begin to develop, and be used. Many adolescence are able to keep up with added volume of school work and extra curricular activities while being supported by their home environment. These adolescence  in-turn reflect positive social development, and academically continue to advance. But for others, school work has become more challenging, developing a true sense of self  is distracted by "identity searching" , morals, and healthy social relationships can also be merely absent because of the absence of a positively functioning home environment, and positive social support.

For the adolescent whom lacks the positivity in their early and latter development, often times begin to Deviate from the norms of society without the realizing that socialization plays such a large part in our lives. Sometimes the deviance continues, and then becomes harmful to the individuals and others around them. Either in form of gang activity, substance abuse, and or violent actions.

For some, the enlightenment of social order never comes,  and then deviance continues their entire lives. For others, this enlightenment comes later in life. Some are capable of make positive changes for themselves. but for some, however, only become aware of the social exceptions enforced by society after being stripped away from their self-identity and put into total institutionalization (Jail or Prison) 

The self awareness of  how society is shaped and the part we play within it;  is a very rich quality to posses in my own life. This way of thinking was not influenced by my parents. I think I am lucky to have the "light turned on" during my early to emerging adulthood after the experiences during my adolescence. The song I have chosen to apply my blog to is called  "You've Got Time" by Regina Spekor, it is the opening theme song to the Netflix Original Series Orange is the New Black. A show that shares the perspectives of institutionalized women in a prison in America.

Macklemore and Ryan Lewis: Same Love

Published on October 2nd, 2012 was the song Same Love, by Macklemore and Ryan Lewis. In this song he talks about a taboo in some parts of society, homosexuality.

Starting this song off were some important lyrics, explaining what and who make him think he is gay. 

When I was in the third grade I thought that I was gay,
Cause I could draw, my uncle was, and I kept my room straight.I told my mom, tears rushing down my faceShe's like "Ben you've loved girls since before Pre-K, trippin"Yeah, I guess she had a point, didn't she?Bunch of stereotypes all in my head.I remember doing the math like, "Yeah, I'm good at little league"A preconceived idea of what it all meant.

Lets break this down a little bit so you have a better understanding of what this all means. First we will start off with:
"When I was in the third grade I thought that I was gay,

Cause I could draw, my uncle was, and I kept my room straight."

When Macklemore was a kid he thought he was gay due to the fact that he was good at art. Society views art as more of a feminine trait and things like sports as a masculine trait. Macklemore also had four uncles that were gay, growing up around not only a family of gay people but a town of gay people was a huge influence on him. When it comes to him keeping his room straight, that was another stereotype that he was fed as a kid. He believed that because other boys were so messy and he was very neat and clean, that he was gay. 

The next part of the song that we are going to break down is:
I told my mom, tears rushing down my faceShe's like "Ben you've loved girls since before Pre-K, trippin"Yeah, I guess she had a point, didn't she?Bunch of stereotypes all in my head.I remember doing the math like, "Yeah, I'm good at little league"A preconceived idea of what it all meant.

Macklemore said he has tears rushing down his face when he told his mom because he knows that homosexuality is not accepted and he was scared of her response. The rest of the text in this verse demonstrates the range of the word gay has to children, all the stereotypes kids think associate with homosexuality. 

In this song, Macklemore is trying to open our eyes about homosexuality and why it is wrong to discriminate against it. Really expressing how gay is synonymous with the lesser and it should be human rights for everyone because there is no difference between a straight person and homosexual. Hopefully you all can take the time to listen to the video and see what this songs true message to society is, because it is a strong one.

Californication by Red Hot Chili Peppers

      Secretly, who doesn't love this song? I remember blaring this song on road trips growing up and nearly everyone in today's society has at least heard it before. Once you hear it, it kinda sticks with ya. Anyways, this song is really great. It's pretty obvious that this song is about California, mainly Hollywood, and it's 'fake' appearance. To begin with, we will look at the lyrics ... then we evaluate the video with the meaning of lyrics as well. First of all, in the first chorus, it talks about "steal[ing] your mind", and little girls from Sweden dreaming of "silver screen quotations". Then, it ends this chorus by stating"If you dream of these it's Californication". This song makes Hollywood and California out to be a form of a little 'cult' and even more so, it's own subculture. It shows how Hollywood has it's own little trap with "stealing your mind" and the "little girls" shows how many girls dream of Hollywood and get almost 'sucked in'. Another good line is that Hollywood "sells Californication, Pay your surgeon very well, To break the spell of aging". This really highlights the fake Hollywood world and false images it portrays. As far as selling Californication, the lyrics point out that everything about this 'subculture' is fake and materialistic. 

     The music video does a really good job of showing the fake attributes that this song tries to highlight. The entire music video, as you can see, is a video game with a whole bunch of ridiculous outrageous things happening.. but they all look really fun and are pretty entertaining. Isn't that what Hollywood is all about? Entertainment and fakeness? That's why this song is showing!! I first of all noticed that the characters don't have shirts on and are running around with little six packs looking like studs. Within just the first few seconds one of the characters outruns cops and a big "bonus" pops up. This itself gives a lot of images about society and suggests that California almost gives 'kudos' to rebellion, going against the norms, and acting out of sorts. The entire 'video game' music video is stinking hilarious because it is so fake and outrageous. Another thing I noticed with the 'video game' for the music video is that the main player throughout switches appearances or characters several times. Kinda showing how in California you can become whoever you want to be, once again with having lots of money and "pay[ing] your surgeons well". There are a whole bunch of hilarious situations with the players swimming against sharks and dodging them effortlessly, skateboarding and surfing in thy sky, and even riding bugs through Hollywood above all the tall buildings. 

      This whole song basically depicts how fake California is and the many things that are wrong with Hollywood and the many bad images they show for "little girls". It has a line of how Hollywood is changing ideals of little girls from "unicorns" to "hardcore softporn". This part of the lyrics really highlights the main points this song is trying to make. The ending of the music video is hilarious as it just says "game over" and the 'video' ends ... makes me laugh because it reminds us once again that "Californication" in Hollywood is a big fake game  that will suddenly end when you don't meat its ever-changing standards. 

      I hope you enjoy this song and see how it relates to sociology through both the lyrics and the music video! Even if you don't see how it relates to sociology, I hope you enjoy the hilarious video..but really, I don't know how you could watch this video and not see how it relates to sociology. 

ENJOY!!

Unpretty by TLC- How the media effects us

The media today portrays an extremely unrealistic body image of both woman and men. It is all around us. Women and men all over the world are trying to look like these photoshopped surgery enhanced people in the magazines. Because it is such a normal thing to see, people think it is realistic and normal, but its not. Unpretty by TLC is a very obvious example of how the media effects people. Here are two healthy looking girls who are influenced into thinking that they don't look okay and they have to change the way they look to be accepted by society. This also goes for the boy in the video. He sees pictures of women in the media and he thinks that that is how real women look, and so he tries to have his girlfriend change herself by getting breast enhancement surgery to fit that image. It seems like he doesn't even notice he is doing anything wrong because it has become so normal. At the end of the video both of the girl realize that if it weren't for these influences they would be fine with who they are and how they look already.

Adolescence

Song: "I'm not a girl, not yet a woman" By: Brittany Spears
          Adolescence is the time in life where a young person hits their "puberty" phase and develops from a child to an adult. In this song it explains how being a teenager has made her hit a phase where she is not a girl anymore but she still knows that she isn't mature enough to be a woman. She is realizing that she has to start growing up and learning how "real life" is. She is developing into an adult. She explains how she is starting to notice that she does not really know everything like every teenager thinks they do. Also, that life is not fair and that she needs to face her own problems. She also explains how since she is going through the adolescence phase; she can make her own decisions and learn from her mistakes, and that with her being a young adult she has seen more than what the average adult thinks she has.