Concerned Citizen

KVM - Taylor Ottesen - Concerned Citizen

Originally when I read this assignment description, I immediately thought of someone I knew that lived in Provo that I felt was one of the most concerned citizens I knew.  He's a mechanic that accepts payment for fixing people's cars in the form of fruit, bread, and verbal expressions of gratitude.  I consider myself lucky that I had Brandon as my partner because he knew someone that sounded much more interesting, no offense to my acquaintance.  We actually bounced a few ideas off of each other about who to do our documentary on, but when we presented the idea of the person we ended up featuring to the class, all of our classmates loved the idea, so we didn't even present the others to our classmates.

As our piece indicates, Taylor Ottesen helps young people in India pay for education in order to further their careers and thereby help them to provide for their families and escape the clutches of extreme poverty and hardship.  The biggest reason we wanted to feature Taylor is that he is a college-aged young adult that figured out a way to help other people on the other side of the world after one simple act of kindness.  Because most of us don't have the money necessary to travel to India to have a similar experience, we wanted to show that experience to other people to hopefully motivate them to look for ways to be more concerned citizens, not necessarily with Taylor's foundation KVM, but even in their own communities.

Reflecting on the videos we saw in class, we wanted to show parts of these destitute Indian villages to help those that view this video get an idea of what these people's lives are like.  We show harsh conditions, but we also show smiling people.  Taylor showed us many photos of himself with the natives who look happy and content, even amid hardship.  While the video about porch-sitting didn't show neighborhoods quite as destitute as these, it does reflect a similar sense of community.  Just like the people featured in that video, Taylor has helped people and accomplished much, even though it may not seem like much to a citizen of the United States looking from the outside in.

While considering our reading from the last week and the differences between Storyland and Dataland, we feel like what Taylor is doing is combining the two ideas to make considerable contributions to a community.  Not only do we consider the Storyland aspect of the satisfaction of helping people and inspiring others to action by getting a glimpse into their lives, but we also get an idea of a Dataland aspect of his plan because he lets us know exactly how much we can help and how little we have to do to do it.  His story motivates and inspires us, makes us want to believe that even small acts of charity can help people, and he gives us a concrete and physical plan to do it.

Protest Poster

It took some time for me to land on the issue I wanted to protest for this assignment.  I didn't want to talk about "Obamacare" or other social issues that are widely discussed on social media platforms.  I finally landed on an issue that I feel has been wrongly portrayed by almost all forms of visual media I can think of:  bullying.  And when I say bullying, I am talking about the most traditional and physical kind experienced mostly by young people between the ages of about 6 to 18 years old.

The reason I thought of this issue was that in almost every film I can think of featuring protagonists of this age, some form of physical bullying occurs to a misunderstood and mistreated boy or girl, with very few exceptions.  I actually searched for films that feature bullying on Google.com and the number of results was astounding.  Some of the results that support my idea are as follows:

List of different movies that feature bullying
Another website listing some of these movies

My motivation for creating a protest poster to this issue is that, in my own life, I have never witnessed bullying to the extent portrayed in these films, or met anyone who has complained about it, or expressed that these portrayals are an accurate description or portrait of the teenage experience in school (especially public school).  While in elementary school, junior high school, and even high school, I can never remember anyone being picked on maliciously because of their fashion prerogatives, sexual orientation, interests, heritage, race, or hobbies.  I never witnessed physical abuse, badgering, or fighting on the basis of being different.  While I have witnessed verbal and even physical fighting, it was largely a result of issues such as school rivalries, protection of a girlfriend or boyfriend, and acts of revenge.  I never saw anyone have his or her lunch money stolen, a “kick me” sign pasted to his or her back, etc.

Of course exceptions occur, but my point is that too many television programs and films are often trying to illustrate a real-life teenage experience or capture the heart of adolescence and they often miss the mark.  In a real way, just as Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie described in her speech about the danger of a single story, they support stereotypes that teenagers care about being popular more than being happy, that boys who play sports ridicule and physically abuse the scholarly students, and that trendy girls constantly gossip and backbite.  While some films such as Mean Girls are satirical commentaries on the interactions of young people, most forms of media include these roles and characters in a matter-of-fact fashion to try and immerse viewers into the teenage world and experience, and I never saw this type of experience occur while I was growing up.  In a way, I feel that media has unjustly portrayed the young people in our society as a whole.  While certain kids are more intelligent and wise than others and some are more kind than others, for the most part, young people aren’t cruel.  They don’t seek to hurt or harm others for sport.  Most young people don’t care about fitting into a certain clique outside of their genuine friends.  There aren’t enough forms of media showing teenagers and young people doing good, being kind, getting along fine with their classmates, etc.  The media has polarized young people into those that oppress in some form (physical and verbal) and those that are oppressed.  I also found other news reports and articles that say that even real statistics of bullying may be misleading (see this article here or this one here).

In reaction to my poster on my social media sites such as Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram, I have found that people's reactions mostly confirm that my peers experiences were similar to my own.

Webspinna Battle

I think that, like most of my classmates, my first impressions of the Webspinna Battle were those of a fun and exciting excitement.  It sounded like an interesting and interesting assignment.  As the day of the battle approached, I began to wonder more about the specifics of it, like the requirements or the minor details.  I suppose I should have expected the directions or guidelines to be slightly vague since almost all of the assignment requirements are, but I have come to learn the benefit of looser and more abstract guidelines and I am teaching myself to not think how I normally think when doing “homework.”

I was fairly proud with Marshall and myself for thinking of a conflict of Ninjas vs. Pirates.  I felt like it was different than most of the other conflicts that were presented and it also provided us with an opportunity to be campy, comic, and slightly nerdy.  I have dozens of examples of sound I could have used for ninjas because I have numerous Japanese and Chinese films, because there is a famous group of hip-hop DJ mixtapes called “Ninjacuts” from the late 90s/early 2000s that I’ve enjoyed for a decade now, and because Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles were my favorite toy growing up as a child (as well as my favorite movies and one of my favorite cartoons).  I felt that I had a well of inspiration and that I identified easily with ninjas.

The challenges of this assignment came when it was determined that I would take the position of pirates in the battle.  This was a challenge because I generally hate pirates.  The only film I enjoy that features pirates is Muppet Treasure Island (which I used in the battle).  I had to figure out a way to remix my own identity with sounds associated with pirates.  Therefore, I used hip-hop remixes of Pirates of the Carribbean music, a song from Muppet Treasure Island, and the song “Shipping Up to Boston” by the Dropkick Murphys, which describes salty sailor types and sounds like a resounding seaman anthem.

Because of my distaste for pirates, I had the idea that we should present both a ninja and pirate side to this battle, but somehow have the pirate side “lose,” thus presenting the opinion that in a fight, ninjas would dominate.  However, upon searching for sword fight sounds, canon fire sounds, or musket sounds, I was unable to find anything substantial or action-packed.  All of the sounds that I found were quiet, dull, or slow.  My search for some kind of sound that would suggest a pirate dying or losing a physical fight also proved to be fruitless.  Because of this, we ultimately left the decision of who would win in a battle between ninjas and pirates up to the listeners and their opinions.

I'm reminded of "The Ecstasy of Influence" when the author says that "Invention, it must be humbly admitted, does not consist of creating out of void but out of chaos." I think that we both struggled through putting together various ideas and determining which internet resources to use to create something that the students could identify with.  Hopefully we accomplished that.

"Shipping Up To Boston" - Dropkick Murphys
Long John Silver (film)
Jack Sparrow intentions scene
"He's a Pirate (remix)" - DJ Chaos
Pirate Soundboard
Professional Pirate (Muppet Treasure Island)

Webspinna Battle

I think that, like most of my classmates, my first impressions of the Webspinna Battle were those of a fun and exciting excitement.  It sounded like an interesting and interesting assignment.  As the day of the battle approached, I began to wonder more about the specifics of it, like the requirements or the minor details.  I suppose I should have expected the directions or guidelines to be slightly vague since almost all of the assignment requirements are, but I have come to learn the benefit of looser and more abstract guidelines and I am teaching myself to not think how I normally think when doing “homework.”

I was fairly proud with Marshall and myself for thinking of a conflict of Ninjas vs. Pirates.  I felt like it was different than most of the other conflicts that were presented and it also provided us with an opportunity to be campy, comic, and slightly nerdy.  I have dozens of examples of sound I could have used for ninjas because I have numerous Japanese and Chinese films, because there is a famous group of hip-hop DJ mixtapes called “Ninjacuts” from the late 90s/early 2000s that I’ve enjoyed for a decade now, and because Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles were my favorite toy growing up as a child (as well as my favorite movies and one of my favorite cartoons).  I felt that I had a well of inspiration and that I identified easily with ninjas.

The challenges of this assignment came when it was determined that I would take the position of pirates in the battle.  This was a challenge because I generally hate pirates.  The only film I enjoy that features pirates is Muppet Treasure Island (which I used in the battle).  I had to figure out a way to remix my own identity with sounds associated with pirates.  Therefore, I used hip-hop remixes of Pirates of the Carribbean music, a song from Muppet Treasure Island, and the song “Shipping Up to Boston” by the Dropkick Murphys, which describes salty sailor types and sounds like a resounding seaman anthem. 

Because of my distaste for pirates, I had the idea that we should present both a ninja and pirate side to this battle, but somehow have the pirate side “lose,” thus presenting the opinion that in a fight, ninjas would dominate.  However, upon searching for sword fight sounds, canon fire sounds, or musket sounds, I was unable to find anything substantial or action-packed.  All of the sounds that I found were quiet, dull, or slow.  My search for some kind of sound that would suggest a pirate dying or losing a physical fight also proved to be fruitless.  Because of this, we ultimately left the decision of who would win in a battle between ninjas and pirates up to the listeners and their opinions.