What makes this guy so white in my opinion is the way he speaks and his actions. The way he speaks and his word choice, I believe, says it all! For instance, he say is not very confident in what he is saying. He often repeats himself throughout the video. One thing he continually repeats is the fact that you have to wear the thing low. He says it about 5 or more times in this five-minute video, and he does not articulate it very well. Typically an ad for a product will articulate very well a specific aspect of the product, he just says the same thing over and over with no significant variation. Also, he is almost monotone. There is nothing in this video at all that excited me. I felt bored by the end and this video is only five minutes. An advertisement that is five minutes should not make me bored by the end. My favorite part, however, was when he was doing the demonstration! I felt so awkward at this part because he kept telling the camera that he had gym shorts on so it was okay, nothing would come out or happen. I thought this was so hysterical. He made sure that we knew that these shorts were on. He was so nervous about it! He made sure to tell us twice that he was wearing them. It is also important to look at how unconfident he is in the video. The multiple uses of the sound “umm” and the awkward pauses are signs of a lack of confidence. I think that this makes a person seem more “white.”

I also like the fact that this is a sort of advertisement for a gun holder. I think it’s hysterical that men need to have this bolster to hide their gun under their pants. His awkward demonstration of getting the gun out is priceless! He sticks his hand down his pants! I think it is so funny! Also, when he says, “…you can even wrestle with your kids in the living room with this holster on,” is hysterical to me. Why would you have a gun on while playing with your kids? Also, it’s such a white dad type of thing, in my opinion: wrestling with your kids on the floor. It just seems so “white.”

First of all, what an outstanding speaker! From the moment I clicked play, until the audience started clapping at the end, I was fully captured and engaged in what she was saying! She knew exactly how to speak to us as an audience and knew what to say in order to keep our attention.

In her speech she talks about how casually we treat casualties. I thought this point resonates deeply with the American public. Sure there are many that it does not stand true for, but for the majority of the public, casualties are treated very casually. To many people casualties are just another number on a television screen. We turn on the news as background noise while cooking or eating dinner. Zainab Salbi specifically refers to the number of women raped and pillaged in front of their children. To us this is just a number. I believe that most people treat casualties this way because not many know the feeling behind it. Not many people have an involvement with war. Until it is you or a loved one that is affected by these numbers, you (meaning a specific member of the public) are not concerned. As an example right here in our home land, when the twin towers were attacked, those of us living on the Eastern coast were terrified because any one of our family members could have been involved, whereas on the West coast it almost seemed like a foreign event. Unless people from the West had family living in the East, the casualties became just another number.

A really interesting thing I noticed while watching the speech was the set she was put on. Everything around her was something that had to media. Though she never specifically mentioned the media or blamed the media for anything, I found it very interesting that she was placed around all forms of it. Behind her in some shots was a telephone, in other shots you could see televisions, microphones, record players, etc. This makes me wonder if there was another message trying to be made by the company producing her speech.

I also took notice that the catch phrase for the company TED is “Ideas Worth Spreading.” I think this is a great idea to spread! Spreading the idea of peace and caring, of knowledge and being informed. Most people are uninformed and when they become informed, they do not let it affect them. This was a great and powerful video! I’m very glad to have watched it!

I found this article to be very interesting. I myself have thought the same thing that religion will wither away. However, I know it will not die out any time soon. I was raised in the catholic faith, but, after I made my first communion, was not forced to attend mass or Sunday school. For the longest time I did not go to mass and then I made the choice to go to an all boy’s catholic school. I disliked public school so much and I wanted a better education. In my required classes during high school, I had to take Theology. Theology included studies of morality, spirituality, and the bible. From these classes I was able to actually make a decision based on my knowledge and opinions rather than just saying, “I don’t want to.” I began to identify myself as having no religion. I believe in God, or a being that has higher power than us, but I do not believe in all of the man made garbage that the Church makes up. I think it is pointless because most people do not understand what they are doing and why they are doing it. They think, “oh, the church says I have to so I will.”

I am someone who is very spiritually in touch with myself and the world around me. I feel that I do not need religion to help me through hard times and I do not need it to give me order in my life.

I think that it is true to say religion will eventually die out. I know more and more people realizing that they do not need religion to live. I also know so many people that still go to church every Sunday and pray before every meal. But I feel like because it’s the way they grew up, they feel they have to do it. It is again those invisible strings shaping everything we do. We cannot escape how we grew up and what we grew up with. I was lucky to be given the “freedom” to choose on my own, but even that’s not on my own. Because my parents never forced me to go and they didn’t go themselves, I never felt the need. Later in my life I just was able to find a justification to it.

This was an absolutely compelling speech! I do not think I have ever heard a speech on this topic put so well! He spoke of everything that is an issue. But honestly, what is the difference between raising a child with gay parents and raising a child with straight ones. Can a single parent still have a child? Of course! So what makes have two same sex parents so wrong? Why should LGBT couples have to stand in the background and not be recognized as a family?

I believe that the reason politicians and people in society are scared to vote for this because of religion. No matter how much we say there is a separation between church and state, we know there really is none. The church says it’s a sin to break the law and the law is heavily influenced by people’s morals. But really, people who say they are against gay marriage say so because they have a strong connection to the church. They say it’s a sin. No! It’s not a sin to love someone of the same sex, however, it is do commit sexual acts with said person. But LGBT couples are not looking to be given the right to have sex with who they want, it is to be recognized by law that this is a family. It is a union between two people in love. IT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH THE CHURCH. LGBT couples just want the same benefits that the law gives to straight couples. That’s all.

In his speech he says that a family is “…the commitment we make to each other...it’s the love that binds us.” Why can’t the law recognize that love as real, and see that people raised by gay parents have had just as much love, if not more, than a person raised by a straight couple?

This video has so much in it that I have been recently thinking about. I just went through a period where nothing was feeling right to me. I started to question my life and most of all my education and why I was here at Penn State. I discovered in my questioning that it was because I have always been driven to believe that I NEED a degree to get a job. In a way I think this is true. It is not enough to just go straight to work after high school, although lots of people do. However, as an actor, no one cares what your degree is and where you got it, what matters is if you are talented and look right for the part. So, with this thought in mind I started to look into going to a school for two years that is a very specific training that would not give me a degree but would prepare me for auditioning and such. As much as I would LOVE to do that, my mind tells me that I shouldn’t because I will need a degree to get work that doesn’t involve acting. Ninety percent of actors are unemployed. This makes me want a degree because it would be easier to get that temp work.

My second thought was about if I needed a degree from Penn State. Why am I at this school specifically if what I want to do is just get a basic degree and train my craft? My answer to myself was because this is a reputable school. Having this name on your resume is a big deal. There is a very large base for networking and such. I just don’t think one can escape education in today’s day and age. If one wants to be “successful,” it is highly encouraged that one goes to college. This includes Grad school now too. It almost seems like having a Bachelors is equivalent to what a high school diploma was and a Masters is like what a Bachelors was. It is just so hard to escape the educational system! Even though I want to so much!

First of all, what an incredible video! I found that I had to watch it twice to actually grab the message because at first I was so into the drawings and how it followed the video. But now to sociology.

If I were to accept what the man is saying, I think my world would end up changing drastically. As a human in modern society, I have a laptop, a cell phone, good clothes, etc. I think that if I were to accept what was said, I would not have any of these things. I believe cell phones and laptops make us less empathetic. Sure we can feel things based on our interpretation of the text, but it is not the same as actually seeing the other person and really feeling their energy and reacting off of it. I really enjoyed the point that business, education, government, and parents are repressing our empathic nature. This point made it clear that with our empathy repressed, we become narcissistic, materialistic, violent, and aggressive.

I also believe that some people do not show as much empathy as others because it is socially unacceptable. Men especially hold in their feelings. Men tend to repress their repressed a lot more because for some reason it became unacceptable for men to express feeling in public. Society needs to lighten up and have more feeling for one another.

I have seen so many videos just like this one. For some reason they all do the same thing. The man at the very end was so funny though! He just followed every little thing that the actors did. I watched that part probably six times because I was so amazed. I realize many people would say that in this situation they would not turn, but I feel if I were in an elevator and I knew what side the door was going to open, I would stay facing that side. It is like when on a subway. When you are on it you have to face the right way or else you will miss the stop because it stops so quickly. Honestly I don’t even know what to say to this. I think humans are stupid for the most part. I just don’t see how people have to conform to everything. I myself am guilty of it, maybe not to the extent of the video, but in small groups. I loved what one person said on this blog and it was that we live for this “monkey see, monkey do” world. Why can’t we just pursue a life worth leading? With us only doing what we think is in the end the better choice for we as humans.

Just in looking at the page again, I was reminded of a line from Inherit the Wind. It goes something like “Conform, conform, conform. What do you want to do run the jury through a meet grinder until they are all the same?” This is what conformity is. Making everything the same so there is no difference. These experiments confirm the human nature to conform even though there is so much resistance toward high authorities.

In talking of freedom, I would say these children are not free at all. These children are being completely controlled by their parents. I have personally watched this show on a number of occasions. I can never seem to stop myself from watching because I am so amazed at the mothers on the show. I was very luck, as a performer, not to have parents that forced me into anything. I started performing because I told my mom I had an interest in it. She then helped me in perusing my interest. I am now here at Penn State because I wanted to continue my training. The mothers, and sometimes fathers, on this show are out of control. They force their kids to do ridiculous things! In my experience of watching the show, I find lots of the women controlling their children are over weight. They are living through their daughters, and in rare cases sons, because they cannot do it themselves. They will never be “beauty queens” because they are simply too large.

To this specific video: The little girl is two years old! I am sure she does not even know who Madonna is. It is obviously not this little girl’s choice to dress as Madonna and dance around the stage. She may be having “fun,” but she was taught to do that and to make it seem like she was having fun. Her mother probably taught her that this is what “fun” is. It is absolutely crazy for anyone to think for a second that their parents are not controlling them. Their parents dance along with them in the audience! I mean really now.

I think that adult women who participate in beauty contest are somewhat freer in their choice to participate, how they are not completely free because of all the constraints on weight and height and such. However, I think it is wrong to exploit a child in the same way adult women “choose” to exploit themselves in beauty contests. I think that child contests should not exist. They do not teach children the right way to act. They teach selfishness and uncaring of the world around us. These children will not even remember specific experiences because they are not old enough to remember.

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