Renee+Mak

s __My Experiences with Media__

I encounter media everyday, all the time. It is something that is almost impossible to ignore in our time and age. One specific type of media that I want to specifically talk about is music.Music is a very important thing to me. I listen to music every day without fail, whether it is on the bus, in between classes or in my room when I'm doing homework, music is with me all the time.

Here, I will list a short timeline of when I usually listen to music throughout the day.
 * When I get to school, before first period starts
 * Occasionally during first period, if my teacher allows me to listen to music while working
 * In between first and second period
 * Again, occasionally during second period, for example, right now as I am working on my media log
 * During my lunch
 * During my spare
 * and occasionally fourth and fifth period, for the same reason I stated previously
 * After school on the bus
 * In the evening when I am working on my homework
 * At night when I can't fall asleep

This is usually the times I listen to music during a school day. I never get tired or listening to my music, it helps me go through my day and it can be calming when I'm having a bad day.

__Peep Culture__

"Peep culture is reality TV, YouTube, Twitter, Flickr, MySpace and Facebook." This is a quote from Hal's book Peep Culture. This is just the beginning of a list of things that Hal mentions are things that is Peep Culture. I want to focus on one of the sites that Hal mentioned, YouTube. I want to concentrate on one specific part of YouTube that contributes to the worldwide site and makes it what it is today. This is YouTube celebrities. Under YouTube celebrities, there are categories that branch out from the general term YouTube celebrity. One that I want to talk about are the beauty/makeup gurus. Here is a famous makeup guru that is from Nothern Ireland. [] Her name is Lindy Tsang and she has over 85000 suscribers. You would think that all gurus do is make makeup and hair tutorials and that is all they do that benefits the viewers, but it seems that they do more than that. media type="youtube" key="NNQFaP1YzS4" height="315" width="560" Here is video from her vlog (video log) channel. The video is about a girl who wanted to meet Lindy, and through Make A Wish Foundation, she, her sister and her parents flew from Australia to Hong Kong, where Lindy was currently living. You can see that Lindy is more than just a makeup guru, she is someone whom people look up to, and she inspires people. Everyone is watching these YouTube celebrities, they're part of peep culture, in the way they set trends, create a role model for people to follow and inspire others. __Celebrities __ Celebrites are an important factor of media. The world is watching them all the time. Similar to YouTube celebrities. their job is to entertain us. The difference is they're famous, on a larger scale than YouTube celebrities. They also get paid to entertain, while most YouTube celebrities either earn money by making their own products to sell. (For example, bubzbeauty has her own clothes line and she recent released her new makeup brushes online) Celebrities' goal is to spread their fame. Some sign contracts that agree to modeling for certain clothes or makeup stores and some promote in other countries. An example of this is the growing love for a Korean girl group called 소녀시대 (SoNyeoShiDae) which means Girls Generation. The nine member group debuted in 2007 with their song Into The New World. They immediately gained attention from netizens (Korean natives). They had a couple of songs after Into The New World before the came out with their hit song Gee in 2009. Gee instantly spread all over the world, and almost everyone knew the song, even if they didn't know who Girls Generation was. media type="youtube" key="U7mPqycQ0tQ" height="315" width="420" Here is their music video for Gee. Knowing that their popularity was growing, the company that they were under, SM Entertainment, arranged for them to debut overseas in Japan. In 2010, SNSD debuted in Japan, with Japanese versions of their songs. They first made amusic video for the Japanese version of their originally Korean song Genie. Shortly after, they came out with the music video for the Japanese version of Gee. They were well known among the Japanese people and they had great success in Japan. In 2011, they came out with their first Japanese album "Girls Generation." They set a record for having the highest sales (for their album) for a foreign aritist in Japan. Not too long after, SM Entertainment announced that the girls will be coming back with a new song in Korea AND debuting with an English version of the same song in America. Fans were ecstatic as they anticipated Girls Generation's comeback. On October 18, 2011, they released both the Engish and Korean version of their song The Boys (along with a full Korean album, which is their third Korean album).media type="youtube" key="6pA_Tou-DPI" height="315" width="560" Here is the Korean version of their song. They broke many records, sales for their song on ITunes went above 100, which is something (that never happened for...Korean artists?) This is an example of cebrities that spread their popularity but promoting and debuting in other countries. They also finished their first Asia tour, holding concerts in many countries and also participated in the SM Town (where all the artists from their company gather to perform) conert in Paris. They have a lot fans worldwide and are still going strong, continuing to gain more fans. This is an example of how celebrities impact media greatly.

__Free topic – makeup, hair and beauty__ In our society, things change rapidly, all the time. One thing that is consistently changing is fashion. Seeing clothes change throughout the years is rather intriguing. I remember when I was younger, bell bottom jeans were in style. Now, skinny jeans from the 70s are back in style. It’s interesting to see how people perceive the way others dress as well. Some people think that the way some girls dress now is too revealing, too provocative. Looking back though, we see that there were similar thoughts, even in the 60s. After World War 1, some girls who changed their style of clothes from others, were called flappers. They wore their skirts higher, and the clothes that they wore were more revealing than what was worn there. Now, the concept is still the same, even though it seems that the lengths of the skirts seem to be even shorter. So the question is, how far will this go? If skirts in the 60s were called provocative when they reached the knee, and the skirts now are called provocative when the reach mid thigh, what will happen in the future? Another thing that I tend to notice a lot is makeup. Back when my parents were teenagers, makeup was not worn often, especially when it comes to teens. My mom tells me that natural beauty is the best. Now, more and more people are wearing makeup, I see 12 year olds, 13 year olds and younger wearing makeup. Do they need to wear makeup? What is the age limit to wearing makeup now? These questions certain flow through my head as I’m writing this. If this trend continues, will elementary school kids start wearing makeup in the future? It seems as if our world is hiding, becoming more fake as we try to please others, wearing the trendiest clothes, wearing pretty makeup. How will this continue? Pop Culture Like most people have probably said, pop culture is all around us. We are influenced by it, and it is something that shapes us, moulds us into what we are now. For me personally, I don't follow celebrities in North America, I keep up to date with Asian artists and celebrities. (As you can probably tell looking at my celebrity entry) I keep up to date with their clothes, their new hair cuts, their new songs and scandals. Here is a website that I dedicatedly keep up to date with everyday. [] It has new articles about all my favourite stars and it updates hourly, sometimes within minutes. It is a big part of my life, and without it, my life would be very different. It motivates me to learn new languages like Korean, and it pushed me to take Japanese last year in grade 10. Some of my friends ask me, "Are you willing to pay $100 if your favourite Korean band comes to Toronto and holds a concert?" Without hesitating, I immediately replied with a yes. I'm happy when people tell me I look like a Korean celebrity. The phrases I use to express myself sometimes are Korean or Japanese. (That's how much I want to be like them!) I could list a lot of other things that would show how much my life revolves around pop culture. I think pop culture is very influential and it is a big part of most of our lives.