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.