I really enjoyed that video, very funny too. There is no doubt in my mind people follow the group, I see it everyday. Its interesting how the one guy tried to fight the conformity, but couldn’t. I feel that’s where I’m at with my hobby of drifting. There are new rules for 2011 for the PA and NJ events. If you don’t know what drifting is, it is sliding a rear-wheel drive car sideways in a controlled manner through a set of turns. Google or YouTube “drifting” to find out more information and get a better understanding. Anyway, the new rule changes were to push people harder to take care of their drift cars and keep them as nice looking as possible throughout the season. Drifting is about destroying bumpers, but not your car (you actually get bonus points for scraping walls as long as it does not effect your drift, aka sign of skill). The unwritten rule and root of the sport says, you have got to keep classy. Drifting is meant to look good, a pos looking car just wont do you justice in a judged sport. Here is my dilemma, NO BLACK WHEELS. Not black polish, matte black, black chrome, nothing. Well I have black chrome wheels and they are banned because they aren’t cool anymore. I was selling my black wheels before this rule came out, it makes me want to keep them now. However, I know I will face the fact that I will eventually get rid of them and stop purchasing black wheels. Now I feel like I’m in the LeBron commercial, “…what should I do?” Should I fight the rule because the group has considered my wheels not cool, regardless if I care what they think? Should I just avoid the bs and get rid of them asap? Maybe the reason I was selling them before was because I wanted a different color and style anyway? It’s just going to come down to the invisible string deal, I’m eventually going to make a decision to go with the group or fight it. And I’m not sure what the factors will be that are going to determine my decision. All I know, is that I wouldn’t be the third person in that video, maybe more like the first two.

How do I describe myself in other countries? I like this question because it hits me pretty hard, so I had to blog about and flip it a little. That’s a difficult question to answer here, but I have to say I don’t change my answers being in another country. You have to be real off the bat with people if you want them to gain trust in you. Well the answer is, I was born in the United States, in Philadelphia, and grew up there. I love baseball and all sports in general (I found Europeans love talking US sports for some reason). I tell them, I like to travel and adventure, party hard, work hard, I’m honest and real and don’t like discussing politics. I went to Europe last June for the month. I started in Amsterdam, ventured to Belgium, Paris, and all over Italy. As I mingled with locals and people from all over the world, I found one that I had one interesting thing that kept coming up from the people I met. They kept thinking I was really Canadian.?.? My friendliness and rational conversations led them to think I was Canadian because I was so laid back and realistic. Our society constantly runs into confrontations with opinions that are so out of wack, I have no problem admitting what is really going on. This leaves me realizing how much these Europeans disliked most people from the US. They see the shows on MTV, met a few belligerent drunk Americans, and started comparing me, to these people who I would want to have no association with. I just try my best to be a good person, be friendly to strangers, celebrities, anyone you meet. Then again, I don’t just sit around waiting to meet people. I’m they type of person who will make lemonade out of lemons. Try to make the best of every situation and you never know what you might learn by going off the beaten path. Most of “my” trip was based on staying away from tourist traps and getting out into the new subcultures to learn about the area and the people. Maybe the United States culture really is messed up to a degree, but I’ve learned that historical success in the United States, takes cultural European roots to learn from and adapt to fit the US society. You have to interact with people of other cultures to better understand their lifestyle, and they appreciate the interest. My trip to Europe changed my lifestyle to a degree, and definitely for the better, so maybe this is a part of what needs to be done to help break down cultural and ethnic boundaries. Sometimes you just need to put yourself out there and cross into territories you aren’t comfortable with, have a good attitude, and learn.

Teenage pregnancy is being brought up more and more in the media. It was interesting to watch that video in the fact they were blurting out possible solutions two-thirds of the time. Why does this high school have such a high rate of pregnancy? 800 students, 90 of which are pregnant, or 11%, and that is including the male students! Where are all the invisible strings that group these girls together? Is it the new female teenage fad? Are all these girls trying to get on MTV? I think not… However, important details I noticed was that the high school consisted of mostly low-income households and even noted that most of the students even receive free lunch. If these students can’t afford high school lunch, how are they going to afford to buy condoms? Is low income the only factor here? I have to be realistic and think that is not the case. There is a lot of information to find out, and knowing how low-income the school is by it’s programs is not a way to find out why this is happening. It just reinforces the fact that the school is in a low-income area. The video also talks about Federal funded programs, to local/city-funded programs. How many programs do these students really need? I really do not think it’s possible to tell a bunch of high school kids to not have sex if they don’t have condoms, I don’t care how many programs they have or how big of a program it is. There is still an issue though, which means something is not working. The programs in place need to be replaced or modified. I do think additional sexual education needs to happen too, as described in the video, as well as making it easier for students to obtain free condoms. Now, thinking like a sociologist, why didn’t the video bring up free condoms to students? Can’t the public be exposed to the realism that teens are going to have sex? Was the station trying to cover that up on purpose to give the image they don’t support teen sex? All of these questions without answers really got me thinking, what is really happening to our society?

Why do we need to be politically correct? Great question, however, I feel that everything needs to be taken in to context. Let’s think outside of the box on this one. People try, or try not to offend others by things they may say or write. I think being blunt in a non-offensive manner goes a long way. I have friends of different religion and race. When we get into situations where race or ethnicity comes into play, we can be real about the situation and discuss the racism that just occurred. I think, as long as you are in an environment where you are comfortable where you don’t feel obligated to be politically correct, I think that’s when the realism comes out and real knowledge is gained. On the other side, I feel that in a more unknown environment, its important to be respectful and polite until you feel some type of acceptance. For example, I was in Italy for the 2010 World Cup, and my father and I ditched my mom and sisters to go watch Italy play(almost all the shops in the town were closed for this one). We found a nice little local bar to watch the game and grab some beers. We quickly realized we were the only non-Italians watching. As the game grew intense, the crowd got rowdy, screaming at the TV’s. We realized we better be cheering for Italy. I saw a terrible call and I was blown away and happen to make eye contact with the craziest guy at the bar and it didn’t words for him to understand I was just as upset about the call as he was. As Italy fell behind by a goal in the second half, we knew it was going to be intense. I mean, these were the defending champs down by a goal with minutes to go. While we were cheering and watching, some other tourists gathered and one guy decided to take a picture of the crowd. The crazy guy jumped out of his seat and chased the guy down the street and made all the tourists leave by screaming and yelling at everyone but, my dad and me. By trying to “live like the Italians” during our trip, we succeeded in being accepted during a potentially scary situation. So its sort of another way of crossing cultural boundaries with political correctness, in this case, not with language, but “football.” After Italy lost, I paid our tab and gave my respect to the now saddened fans. I could tell they appreciated us joining them for the entire game and the experience was wild. This is the type of knowledge I mentioned in the beginning, and the type I will continue to cherish and look for in the future.

Even before watching the video, I thought to myself, “this is news?” I really took a second to analyze my thoughts and realized that they are only just toddlers. Aren’t they supposed to be cute and funny at these types of things? I think some parent do go too far when it comes to these types of things, but after watching this particular interview, I didn’t think the parent went too far at all. The whole act was meant to be funny, it got positive and negative results. When someone is performing in front of a crowd, everyone in the audience becomes a critic and not everyone is going to agree with each other. I thought the host brought up a good point about how it’s all in the “dirty” minds of the adults. I actually might have to agree with that point because that never really crossed my mind until he said it. I thought the mother was level headed throughout the interview and brought up good points. Her main point being, if her daughter didn’t want to be up on stage, they wouldn’t be there at all. As long as her daughter was having fun, that is what matters most.

I think stereotypes keep their hype due to our constant exposure to the medias. I think due to Television and the Internet, people tend to stay in more, rather than go out and explore the world. What I mean by that is to expose yourself to different cultures and lifestyles of living. From first hand experience, it’s a culture shock. It is usually a positive experience because if gives you real perspective of what is actually going on in the world you live in. The History Channel and Discovery channel can only show moving descriptions of what is going on, but its still not the real deal until you are placed into that lifestyle and understand what those people are really like. By only having limited exposure to other cultures and lifestyle through media, it can be hard sometimes to distinguish what is real, or just only a stereotype. The main thing that stands out to myself is comedy. Stereotypes are used all of the time in comedy, its pretty much the baseline jokes for Comedy Central’s, Tosh.O. People tell racist and stereotypical jokes all of the time. The jokes appear on the Internet, via email communication or websites. The jokes are all over TV, not just comedy central. However, it is not just comedy shows, people get exposed to stereotypical slander through all types of shows. This would include reality shows, like on MTV, things like that. But then it may just come down to an unconscious prejudice based on the race of the producer of the media content. For example, possibly the producer of COPS, showing over 80% non-white arrests… Maybe it just me, but this is my opinion based on my observations on why we can’t break out of the stereotypes we know. It is a simple fact the most people don’t know any better sometimes. Or, maybe it can just become a naturalized reaction to others, as Sam brought up in class this week… I’m curious what others may think of my take, any opinions?

soc119, soc001