Facebook- Just Another Teen Networking Website?!

One of the teen websites that I choose to analyze was facebook. Facebook
is a networking website that once was only open to certain college
universities. Over the course of a few years, the available schools
increased, it then became open to highschoolers , and finally became
available to everyone. When I was working on my first undergrad degree
at Worcester State College, we were let into the network my senior
year, and I remember it being a big deal. Within the first few days of
it going live, about half of the student body had already registered
for

an account. Having an account for three years I’ve witness the evolution of facebook. Originally
it was used for networking. You would befriend people who you had class
with, it was then easier to get in touch with them if you had a
question on coursework. It was also easy to invite friends, oracquaintances to parties and social gatherings, at anywhere from your apartment to a nearby bar. Nowadays since more and more people are facebook
members the site has changed. It’s a place to see and be seen. People
friend request people that they barely know. “Friend whores” is what
they are called. Some people have anywhere from 500-1000 friends. Who
could possibly know that many people! There is also a function on facebook
that allows people to be linked together by joining groups. The topics
of these groups have ranged from serious issues/causes.



I find that this has always been the safer alternative for myspace.
One of the reasons is because it's built upon networks. As I stated
previously the only networks it has was your school/college. The only
way to join a network is to have a school issues email address. Now
they have geographical networks that anyone can join (however you can
only be a member of one) and work networks as well. You can set your
privacy settings to whatever makes you comfortable, however, even at
most lenient,
only those in your particular network are allowed to see your profile.
Although they slightly encourage you to share more info (phone number)
their privacy options are amazing and you can make it so only certain
individuals see certain aspects of your profile.

Another way teens build their 'status' is via picture tagging. When someone puts pictures up on facebook,
they have the option of 'tagging' both themselves and their friends in
the photo. This links the tagged photos to whoever Else's
profile also. The more pictures/tags, the more 'popular' one is
presumed to be. I mean seriously if your in over 1000 drunken party
pictures, how fun are you?!Haha. The pictures aren't quite like the ones on myspace
. The don't have many of those, this is me taking a picture of me,
looking in the mirror, trying to look sexy. It's different than the myspace scene.


One of the downfalls is it allows for people to be mean to each other.
Some of the things that go on, I don't believe that people would do/say
to the individuals faces. One of my friends actually has a 'group'
about hating her. I find that, absolutely ridiculous . I don't know the
history, or the when and the why this exactly went down, but there is
no excuse. However, when these three girls run into her the other day,
they said nothing. One actually even smiled and waved.

There
are several 'applications' on it, and you can pick and choose which
ones you want. One of the few applications I have (and haven't
immediately deleted) is the Bumper sticker application. This allows you
to post random pictures on your profile, and also send some to your
friends. Some of them are funny, some of them are sweet. And then some
of them are downright mean. People use the application, to create a .jpg file, about someone they dislike, and put it on the Internet.
All it has to be is maybe a picture with a nasty caption. After
watching/reviewing mean girls not to long ago, it almost makes me
wonder what they would have been capable of had they beenfacebook savy.

One of the things facebook
does is it basically publishes everything you do on the website in
something called a 'feed' when you log on. This feed can only be seen
by your friends however, I find this an invasion of privacy. I remember
when my ex-boyfriend "facebook friended"
me (and that is an acceptable expression, any of my digital natives
will agree) I was horrified that other people could see that we werefacebook friends. Only because we were friends for real also. That's another thing about facebook, when people are mad at you, they withhold their facebook friendship from you also. I've had friends purposely delete me because we weren't on good terms. Yes that's juvenile
. I feel the need to add the fact that although there are some people
who will friend everyone. Those are the same people who will 'defriend' people they've had a falling out with. In short, facebook friendship can be a pretty big deal to some.

Items can be places up for sale. Friends Birthdays are announced. There are many good functional uses for Facebook.
Invites can be sent to social gatherings. So the negative features of
the website are far outweighed by the positive. And the absolute best
part aboutfacebook, no glittery graphics that take 10 minutes to load, and in some cases may cause seizures!

The Hills - How Real is It?!

The Hills is a show on MTV, said to be one of their most successful shows ever. Keep in mind MTVs target audience is those between the ages of 12-24. Therefor majority of MTVs viewers are teens. The Hills is a spin off of Laguna
Beach. It travels with Lauren Conrad, to LA where so pursues her
fashion career. She attends FIT. She interns at Teen Vogue. And spends
all of her time in between partying at all the LA hot spots and
lounging around the pool with her friends. Impromptu trips to Vegas,
summers in a Malibu beach house. I was inspired to look further into
the show when I picked up the current months issue of The Rolling
Stone. It was actuallylabeled one of the most influential shows MTV has
ever had! This shocked me. If you've ever seen the show, And caused me
to actually think about things, after reading the lengthy article.
Leaving me to come to a few conclusions. This is a show that appeals to
a large audience. Everyone loves it, or hates it. Either way they still
watch it.

The only problem that these girls have is what they are going to wear to the club that evening, and which male suitor
they are going to have on their arm. These girls do not have bills.
Money is never ever talked about. They go shopping and They have no
issues getting particular jobs. Lauren works as an intern at Teen
Vogue, a position that would bevitally impossible to get as an ordinary
person. These girls also get treated better than ordinary citizens.
They get into the best clubs, drive the best cars, date the most
attractive guys, eat at the bestrestaurants, and go away on exotic vacations whenever they so desire.

It gives the viewers
very false sense of reality. One of the main characters, Heidi, drops
out of school on her very first day, and magically lands her 'dream
job'. This does not send a positive message. To me,struggling through school it was actually
one of the worst messages on television. However, without her
connection to the show, it may have been a lot more difficult to
actually land a job. Especially in LA of all places. Not only are these girls
loaded, but they also famous. Their level of social class is many
levels above our own. Young girls watch this show and want to be like
them. They want to wear what they're wearing, and that's simply not
possible on a middle class budget. Many viewers have accepted that
fact,
and we simply live through them. One of the reason why I believe many
people watch is because Lauren is a likable character. We like watching
hersucceed
in everything from work, to friendships to relationships. Another
reason is because people enjoy watching drama. And by this I mean
fighting. Way back in seasons one and two, Lauren and Heidi were the
best of friends. Somewhere between season 2 and 3, that friendship was
over. The fighting became almost the only focus of the show. It's sad
because I feel as though MTV feeds off of of this feud, and encourages
it. It also majorly profits off of these girl's broken friendship.
Pictures of the four main hills cast members all together go for
$200,000. For at least a year they wouldn't even get together they
wouldphotoshop it to make it appear that way!

Either way
this show gives us our weekly insight to how the other half lives "the
good life." They say the grass is always greener on the other side, and
"more money more problems" and that may be the case. The characters
never actuallyacknowledge the fact that they are on the show, and that has to cause some sort of issue. I do now agree with MTV that the show is very influential
, but I also think it's only to a certain extent. The viewer decides
how much their going to be influenced. Sometimes it's more discrete due
to the fact that certain songs played on the show quickly become
popular, maybe not because it is on "The Hill" but because it's
exposing the large audience base to the music. In a lighter sense it does a good job of showing who teens are, for the most part.

"On Wednesdays we wear pink!" - Review of Mean Girls

Mean Girls is a screen play written by Tina, Fey, from Saturday Night Live. It's about Cady Heron, a girl who was home schooled in Africa for the first 16 years of her life, and then returns to America, and enrolls in public high school. Cady is totally un socialized, and high school is like an entirely different world for her. Often throughout the movie she compared the high schoolers to the animals from her homeland. The titled Mean Girls is used as a fairly accurate description of the four main characters.
On Cady's first day of high school, she is understandably overwhelmed. The subcultures and cliques are a totally new concept for her. The film shows a very exaggerated version of high school. The cliques in it are very definitive. When Cady meets Janis and Damian, and they take her under their wing, they draw out for her exactly who is who by their location in the cafeteria. In real life high school cliques aren't quite as cut and dry. Many kids belong to more than one "group" and do not feel the need to be confined to one solitary clique.


One of the major staples in the movie was a scrapbook type book, The Burn Book, that Regina, Gretchen, Karen, and Cady (collectively known as "The Plastics") created. This book had pictures of majority of the other girls that they went to high school with and had less than stellar things to say about them. Granted, yes high school girls can be critical of each other, and yes downright mean. No high school girl is ever quite as vicious as these girls (although after the movie came out I'm sure it was an inspiration to many, and burn books were made). The film make girls seem way worse than they actually are. Especially the girls in this movie. They are all privileged and beautiful. And do not seem a tiny bit insecure for the most part, so them finding the need to put down others for their own benefit is slightly difficult to believe.

One of the more humorous potions of the movie is the sex education class that is offered.

Don't have sex, because you will get pregnant and die! Don't have sex in the missionary position, don't have sex standing up, just don't do it, OK, promise? OK, now everybody take some rubbers.

This is an exaggerated version
of the sex ed classes that we offer our youth. We want them to stay abstinent, and fail to tell teens the real, dangers of sexual intercourse. We choose rejecting the subject over educating them on sex, and the responsible way to, 'do it.'
One of the unique features about this story is that since Cady is new to the whole environment, she is very susceptible to falling into culture. She is a math genius. When she develops a crush on one of the boys in her class, she pretends to be bad at math, in order to have something for her to ask him for help with. This goes with the old theory that guys do not like smart girls. Fortunately, she eventually breaks out of this idea, and fulfills her potential as a student, and also goes on to join the Mathletes. However for that short period of time she is displayed as a girl who will do whatever she needs to in order to get the guy. At one point in the movie, she was even throwing herself at him sexually. I did find some truth to this. Girls, especially younger girls do things like with the theory that if they get a guy to hook up with them, this guy will in turn like her.
In the movie, there is a stereotypical party scene. Serious binge drinking, people and going off into rooms together
to hook up. Never in my life have I been to a party remotely like that (okay maybe a frat party.. but that's different). These party scenes show teenagers as irresponsible. It's also slightly disappointing. I remember when I was younger seeing movies/scenes like this and expecting that to be what high school parties are like, and they weren't anything like this.

In my thoughts this movie would horrify parents of any teenager. It shows them that teens are vindictive whores, who will do whatever they need to in order to get what they want, and they don't care who they hurt along the way. It shows that teens will pretend to be people they are not, and be what/who they believe others want them to be. The movie actually ends well. It teaches a lesson on what the general 'meanness' can do to a person.Cady learns a lesson which goes along with the famous Dr. Seuss theme:

Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind.

"All babies want to get borned"

Juno was a movie about a teenager, who gets pregnant and gives her baby up for adoption. This movie portrays teen pregnancy in a different light. What I found most interesting was that PaulieBleeker's mother was entirely unaware of Paul's part in Juno's pregnancy. Much like life, the father of a child is less burdened. Especially in this particular case where the child was given up for adoption. Paulie had
little to do with the baby, and virtually nothing to do with the decision making. Juno was the one who had to tell her parents, meet with adoptive parents, carry the baby for 9 months, and deliver the baby. Paulie was barely present for most of this, and he was not ridiculed like Juno was. The ONLY thing that was ever said to him by an outsider linking him to the situation was when his running partner said, 'Hey did you hear Juno McGuff is pregnant? I hear it's yours." And oddly enough, none of this makes
Paulie unlikeable to the audience. On paper he may sound like a jerk, however your heart still goes out to him, because he still appears to be a good guy.

Although as we talked about in class, this movie does not show teenagers responsibility. The movie took place in a period of a year, and let the audience know what season we were in. It started in the summer, and when the following summer rolled around, it was like nothing ever happened. It was just Paulie and Juno again,
happy, singing on the steps. In reality, the emotional baggage that goes along with giving up your child is barely shown. The only time that they even hint at is is when Juno is in the hospital after just given birth. When you give up a child you will always wonder about many things, Was it the right choice? What is he like? What does he look like? Does he ever wonder about me? Does he resent me for the fact that I've
given him up? This movie shows teens that this is a decision that won't affect them for the rest of their lives, only the nine months that they are carrying the child.

One of the brighter spots in Juno was that it weighed all of the options for teenage pregnancy, although it did not portray them accurately. Well, other than the fact that it was never ever mentioned even for a second for Juno to actually keep the child herself. And no one ever offered that option to her either. However, she went to the abortion clinic and decided that was something she could not go through with. The representation of an abortion clinic was not very accurate. It was a fluffy version of the real ones that I've only heard about. The protesters was a solitary tiny Asian girl with poor grammar ("All babies want to get borned !"). Not very intimidating. The entire adoption process was also a lighter version of reality. All she did was pick out a cute couple in The Penny Saver. Adoptions in real life take months, have lots of
legalities, involvelots of paperwork, and even more money. The movie made it seem like a very quick, easy process. She met with Mark and Vanessa once, and she decided that this would be the quickest, easiest, and even most regarding way to get herself out of the 'mess' she got herself into. A closed adoption was thought to be the easiest for her also, she wanted to 'kick it old school' and wash her hands of the situation.

The most powerful message that this movie illustrates is independence, and some have even labeled the movie to be feminist. Juno is a very strong character. Although I previously mentioned the downside of the absence of PaulieBleeker , the father of the baby, there is still a positive side to it. Juno did not need him to help her deal with the emotional distress, or the many decisions she had to make. Most importantly, Juno never asked Paulie to be there for her.

Overall, I did enjoy the movie. Juno was a witty quirky character that I felt like I could relate to. There was some funny aspects, as well as some emotional scenes. It was a good balance, and the film seemed to go by quickly.

My Space/You Tube

After reading the articles on myspace and you tube, and having some knowledge of the topics myself I realized a few things. As one of the articles had pointed out it's a space that teens go to. Back when I was younger we used to have places like roller rinks where we could go and hang out with our friends. Nowadays they are subjected to doing these things online. For the reason that a lot of these teen spaces have closed down, and also for the fact that we are now living in a digital world. Teens use myspace and youtube for their voices to be heard, by both their friends and even strangers that live 2000 miles away.

One of the major things that I've noticed about myspace is that it's a place to see and be seen. People reference back to others myspace all of the time, aka 'look people up.' Kids use it as a place to be validated. The more friends you have, the better. Most people on a teenagers friend list they do not know who the person is. They use crazy glitter graphics (mostly girls) to make their pages as pretty as possible. They post pictures up far too frequently and want these pictures to be commented on. They also promise that if you comment on their pictures, in turn they will go back and comment on yours. It's attention. These pictures are all of them, in the mirror making different faces. It's basically trash. I find that myspace use for those of us over the age of 20, is totally different. We use it to keep in touch and share milestones in our lives.

Youtube is another way for teens to get attention. I found it cool that there was an entire course on youtube. It's a great website, there are great videos, and there is a lot of absolute trash on there also. I think it's really cool that the class itself is posted on there however I do not know who would actually watch it. This youtube class definately is for the digital natives.

Listen Up

After watching a few of the videos on listenup.org, I was able to make a few general assumptions. First of all, I noticed how professional and well put together they were. From the editing, to the credits, to the background music. These were not simply kids standing in front of a camera saying whatever came to their minds. A majority of them had a positive messages, about issues that we currently face as a society.

One of the more powerful videos that I watched was Babies, Bottles & Diapers: Reality of Teen Pregnancy. This video showed teen parents both male and female. And how they had wish that they waited because they are children themselves. It is a short clip of what it is like to be a young parent. It leaves the viewer with something to think about even after the film is over.

One of the other videos that I was able to watch was about the debate about the "Stop Snitching" t shirts that are out. This video goes into explain the origin, and the meaning behind them. Mainly the goal of this is to inform the public of the misunderstanding that surrounds the t-shirt, as well as the phrase. This message will then be understood by anyone who takes the 3 minutes to give this film their attention.

There are so many different videos on here it's virtually impossible to watch them all, or even those that appeared interesting. One of the other things I noticed was that some of the videos had rather random topics. These videos were meant to be more informative. They were about things that often most people don't even think about, therefor don't know anything about. For example, life of a hopeful fashion designer. These videos seem to be produced to get someone to simply listen to their story, and realize that it is unique. Overall the website appears to be a fairly good (and somewhat controlled) outlet for kids to use their voice in a positive way. I'm not sure exactly how you get your video posted on the website, but it seems to have more of a criteria than youtube. I say that mainly because there appears to be less 'trash' on the website. Although I'm not entirely positive.

Kid Nation

After viewing kid nation in class.. it was actually better than I though. The reviews made it seem like it was the worst show in the world. However, it was quite interesting. And I may even view more episodes when I have time (I haven't quite caught up on this season of The Hills yet, and that takes first priority).