Nat Carson's RCL Blog

In this image, the main argument or ‘power’ I see behind it is the emotion in a place many overlook, which could be referenced in the man walking by in the background. Every day those in our armed forces put their lives on the line to keep our country free, leaving their loved ones and everyday routines at home. It’s something we take for granted, and the purpose of this image is to remind us of the amount of stress and responsibility being placed on these citizen’s shoulders, as represented by the tears brought to their faces when they are finally allowed to come home.

Along with this, the picture is an argument against those who kneel for the flag for societal reasons in our country. It’s saying that by kneeling for the flag, you are disrespecting those who give up their rights every day and only get to see their families in small moments like this. It really uses pathos to its advantage to show how our armed forces are just humans like everyone else.

In fact, that’s the most important point displayed in this image; those in any army or armed forces are just humans. While we may only hear about the killing, death, and tragedy caused on the news, at the end of the day these are just citizens taking order for a cause. It’s telling us to see the humanity the symbolism, and that even if you’re against war, it shouldn’t be taken out against the people in the front lines.

In this speech, the speaker essentially discusses the importance of worth and patience with investing in all aspects of life. In his example, he uses the at first mind-boggling comparison of turning a paperclip into a house, but once he shows his method it isn’t so unbelievable; while the final product is from having a paperclip to owning a house, there are many steps in between that aren’t shown. He at first trades the paperclip for a fish pen, then trades the fish pen for a crazy looking doorknob, and so on. The main idea of his presentation is that people see value in objects in different ways, and with a little bit of creativity, you can get great value out of invaluable-seeming objects, like a red paperclip. This helped expand my overall view of investment in that most of investing is about patience and waiting for things to gain value, as well as finding the right person that sees value in what you have investments in.

The speaker of this Ted Talk really left an impact on the audience with his quirky personality and humorous delivery. His words seemed natural and he gave off a positive vibe that was inviting to his audience and led them to want to keep listening to the presentation. In this way, he demonstrated how he was not just giving a speech word for word, but connecting with the listeners through his presentation and having an actual conversation with them instead of just speaking at them. Overall, the speaker showed that success in presentations and prepared speeches like this come through personality, openness, and a little humor.

Although this is dramatized, this clip from Drake and Josh perfectly depicts exactly what NOT to do in any given speech or delivery.

First of all, Josh begins thinking about the possibility of making a mistake, which is exactly when he starts tripping himself up! In order to succeed, one must clear their head, relax, and give their presentation without worries of mistakes. Everyone will mess up, so don’t let it get in your head.

Second, Josh’s delivery does not sound natural. His words come off as unnatural, and he begins to stutter and trip over his sentences quickly into the news cast. In order to avoid this, make sure your speech is well-rehearsed and about a topic that you feel comfortably knowledgeable about; that way if you do make a mistake, you have the knowledge to correct yourself.

Third, Josh’s body movements seem unnatural. While it’s obviously dramatized, Josh begins to twitch, tighten up, and give uncomfortable face expressions (not to mention sweat a lot). To boil it down to our speeches, don’t be stiff! Make yourself look comfortable in the environment and you will in turn feel comfortable as well. In order to do this, maybe visit the OBS a few times to get an idea of what presenting there will be like.

The main thing that I got from this article is “correlation doesn’t equal causation”. As a statistics major, I have spent a lot of time hearing this over and over again when learning stat, and it’s one of the elementary ideas. However, when it comes to news headlines and debate focuses, people seem to not realize this important detail. Either that, or they choose to ignore it as to fool their audience. Whenever reading any type of information, always check to see, “is this cause and effect, or is it just a correlation?”.

Another important point that the article made is that research is always used as a blanket term now. Everything is about everyone when it comes to new psych information, when in reality each person is very different from the next. To say that Steph Curry is merely good at shooting the basketball because he practiced a lot does not take into account so many factors, such as athleticism and sport IQ. This is another case of correlation and not causation; although he definitely practices a lot to get better, he may just practice because he’s already got a talent and passion for basketball, not because he started terrible and wanted to be amazing. For every person it is completely different on how their ability will pan out in any given area of strengths and weaknesses, and with the 10,000 hours idea, this could never be a more general expression over the human race.

While hip hop has its roots going all the way back to the 1970’s, I’m choosing to focus my essay and TED talk on the 90’s until now to better explain why such a big paradigm shift occurred in rap music and culture. To be more specific, this shift relates to hip-hop being considered ‘black music’ to it now becoming one of the most popular genres in the world.

This shift is important because it can give insight into how different ideas, cultures, and genres gain widespread popularity. It also help explain what ideologies in society have changed to allow the genre to gain popularity and what formed it into what it is today. As expected, rap is nowhere near the same as it was 20-30 years ago, so exploring how society has changed with it can maybe answer why some of these changes in sound happened.

With this topic, there are many different angles I could approach it from; how has the culture changed due to a shift? How has rap’s popularity changed due to a shift? As I glean more information, I will focus more on one that I feel is the most interesting and has the most background for me to make a thorough argument.

The paradigm shift that the author is trying to relate is the change in kids’ and teens’ lives due to ‘screens’. Kids have began replacing the time spent doing outdoor activities and going out with connecting with friends online through Snapchat, Instagram, texting, and more. With this shift in how kids and teens socialize, there have been many other factors that have come out of it; higher rates of depression, less social interaction, less dating and sexual relationships, and others.

One thing I agree on is that the shift in social behavior due to smartphones has definitely affected mental health and sleeping. For many people in my high school, depression was a very common thing and our grade had one of the highest depression rates of recent years. I have no doubt that this has something to due with the pressures of social media; wanting more followers, wanting more likes, cyberbullying, wanting to look as good as other people online, etc. So many factors come into play online and people feel an urge to be something their not when on social media, creating a real identity crisis. Along with that, sleep has definitely had a major effect from this smartphone usage. For me personally, I use my phone right before bed almost every night, use it as my alarm, and wake up with it the next day, just as the author described. And I believe this has had effects on my sleep. Whereas I used to get a healthy 8 hours of sleep at least, in high school I found it tough to even get around 6 hours a night, and had a tough time waking up in the morning. The amount of screen time were getting is only wiring our brain to be awake way later than it should be, as the bright phone light only blocks our brains natural slow-down to make us sleepy. In this vein, I think there are a lot of problems that come with the paradigm shift in kids lives.

However, I don’t agree that kids and teens are going out less now than they were before; if anything, they could be going out and socializing in real life more. With the advent of texting and other messaging apps, it’s now exponentially easier to meet up with somebody by simply shooting them a text asking to meet up, and with group chats you can get a bunch of people together with only one message. I would definitely not say my real-world socialization declined at all due to smartphones, and dating as well was super common in my school too. I don’t know where the statistics for that come from, but if there is any difference from 30 years ago to now, I would certainly say there’s nothing to worry about with it.

In my speech, I talked about the inspiring life and death of Navy SEAL and Marine Travis Manion, and how he led others in his belief of ‘if not me then who’, being a leader for the people around you. For my essay, I decided to compare him to someone else who made huge sacrifices for their beliefs: Colin Kaepernick. While his sacrifices did not include his own life, his ideology of being a leader for the people around him is the same.

Kaepernick began kneeling for the pledge in 2016 to symbolically protest the mistreatment of black people by police and the US government. His idea was that he did not want to stand for a flag that didn’t truly represent him, and it surely got the message across. However, his acts did not stop here. Earlier this year, Kaepernick was featured in a Nike advertisement about overcoming adversity and silencing those who oppose you, alluding to his actions in the NFL but also representing athletes who train for success. This crossover advertisement was very polarizing as a lot of people praised Nike for their work in representing the black community, as a lot of black athletes are signed to Nike. However, many people began to boycott the company because of its inclusion of Kaepernick. I liked this artifact a lot not only because of how polarizing the topic is, but also because of its recency and connections to major companies (NFL, Nike). Seeing companies get involved with public issues is always very interesting to me because of how much power their opinion and choices hold in the community; if Nike is behind Kaepernicks protest for equal treatment, then who can stop him?

In the same way I would like to connect this to Travis Manion in my essay, since even after he died an organization (Travis Manion Foundation) was created in order to further his message. The power that companies and groups have in the world is remarkable, and if more brands could put themselves behind social issues then it would bring much more power to the people he need it most to get their voices heard.

Of all the arguments for why to support Trump, this one is easily the weakest:

 

 Link to website shop can be found here

Instead of actually giving a detailed reason or logic behind the reason to support Trump, it simply says that any belief to not like Trump for is invalid because no matter what he’s still the president. While it is obviously true that he is the president, it is FALSE to believe that there is nothing that people can do about it if they don’t like him. This ideology held by Trump supporters that he can do whatever he wants now (such as many of his plans when campaigning) because he won presidency is faulty. On the other hand, those not in favor of Trump shouldn’t believe there’s nothing they can do now since he is President, as there are many ways to counter bills, laws, and other government actions you don’t like as a citizen. First of all, they could simply work to support other candidates next presidency, which is much closer than it may seem. Secondly, they can call their local representative to inform them of decisions they are in favor of and those they don’t like, considering there is an entire system of checks and balances with the Senate and House.

The t-shirt slogan has ‘logic’ behind it saying that although you may not like Trump, he has already won presidency so it’s implied you can’t do anything about changing him. While it is true that he can’t simply be impeached for being disliked, it’s ignorant to say imply that the people can’t do anything to counter him. This t-shirt wasn’t necessarily designed to be totally logical, though; it was meant to be a jab at Trump’s opposition who weren’t in support of him from the beginning and possibly voted for another candidate. It’s a simple brag, and the flawed logic is only meant to be irritating and obnoxious to non-supporters.

Ah, the Super Bowl, one of the biggest American sporting events of the year. A clash of the two most dominant football teams in the NFL going head to head for the famed Lombardi Trophy. And this wasn’t just any old Super Bowl either, it was the big 5-0, a whole half-century of the game. However for those who don’t have so much interest in football, the commercials are what to look forward to, as they are just as grand and flashy as the But just as the NFL was having a historical season, the commercials this year were making history for… other reasons.

The date is February 7 in the year of our Lord 2016. You sit down on the couch with your family and friends to enjoy the big game and root for your favorite team. The drive ends, and the screen fades to black with NFL on FOX horns playing in the background as you and everyone else eagerly anticipate the new ads. You are not ready though, not at all prepared for the unholy abomination that is Puppy Monkey Baby.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nQcfK9EKfL4

You stare dazed and confused at the screen as the next commercial rolls by, unable to trust your eyes. You think to yourself: Why? Why a puppy monkey baby? How does this relate at all to a Mountain Dew Kickstart? Is there something that I’m not getting?

To answer the last question in short, no, it’s just a terrible advertisement. But let me break down exactly why it’s so bad anyway.

In this commercial, Mountain Dew was attempting to market it’s new drink Kickstart, what they refer to as a mixture of dew, juice, and caffeine. Keep in mind, this was an era when Old Spice had become wildly successful with its campaign of ludicrous advertisements that excited the public with just how zany they were. So, it only made sense for other companies, like Mountain Dew, to try and get in on this success, too. Sadly, their attempt only came off as unimaginative and weird for a few reasons.

First of all, the concept of a puppy monkey baby hybrid of sorts being  comparable to the “awesome” combination of dew, juice, and caffeine in Kickstart was simply lazy. The creation constantly repeats its name “puppy monkey baby” as the scene plays out to drill the concept into the audience’s head, but that doesn’t make it any more interesting. Is it supposed to be cute because a puppy, monkey, and baby are widely seen as such individually? It sure doesn’t come off as cute but actually just super annoying. Anyone can put three different things together and call it an “awesome’ combination (just like the combination of dew, juice, and caffeine in Kickstart). I’ll even demonstrate to prove it: a mixture of a Clifford the Big Red Dog, Mario, and Obama. Now, picture the same ad in your head except replaced with my Frankenstein-like humanoid. Has anything really changed marketing-wise? No, it didn’t, and this is because it was an unoriginal idea to begin with that really had no place on television.

Along with this, the actual product being shown off is barely even depicted at all. It isn’t until the final five seconds of the clip that something is even mentioned about it, and even with that it’s only description is having dew, juice, and caffeine. This is something I would expect in a Mountain Dew anyway, so how is Kickstart any different? Why is it barely explained? Sure, you could argue that throughout the ad they are seen drinking Mountain Dew Kickstart, but honestly if the final five seconds were not included I don’t even know if I would’ve caught that. The concept of a puppy monkey baby chanting its existence over and over again is so distracting that the actual product in place is unnoticeable. To summarize, this promotion fails because it doesn’t highlight the drink, but rather distract viewers from it with an absurd concept.

But in the end, my real bone to pick with Mountain Dew is something I hinted towards earlier, which is that it’s a clear rip off of the Old Spice campaign. But where Old Spice was original and entertaining (for the most part), this was just hollow and bland. I actually used to get excited when an Old Spice commercial came on just to see what kind of outlandish stunt they would have Terry Crews do with his deodorant in hand. You know a product is well advertised when you have the audience ecstatic about a bar of soap or spray can. So when I saw this Mountain Dew commercial, it only left a bad taste in my mouth. If you’re going to clearly steal another company’s shtick at least do it well. Or at least make any kind of attempt at all for that matter really.

Well, that’s my full rant front and center of the page. I hope you hated this ad as much as I did, because it really doesn’t deserve to be remembered in any good light. But even with so many terrible commercials in circulation, we can all still hope for a few good ones when the next Super Bowl rolls around.