Reactions to presentation on Korea, Trolling, Festivals and Chapters 16&17

Last week in class, we spoke about Korean culture, trolling on the internet and festivals in America. I found these presentations to be extremely interesting. I definitely think I learned the most from these presentations. Learning about Korea and the culture there was so interesting especially because we were hearing personally from two students who were from Korea themselves. On Thursday, hearing about trolling on the internet was new for me not in the sense of me not being aware about bullying on the internet, but in regards to the term “trolling,” I was not aware this is what it was called and then realizing how severe of an issue it is. Lastly, in class we learned about festivals and the only festival I knew of in America was Coachella, so learning about so many different festivals and the history behind them was very informative.

On Tuesday, what I found most interesting in learning about Korea was how big the plastic surgery industry is. I learned that plastic surgery is something that is extremely common in Korea and many people, especially young girls go and get surgery. A large part of the influence for these surgeries comes from the media. Girls and guys in Korea see their favorite pop stars (who have also had surgery) and want to look like them so they go and get surgery. Some common surgeries are widening the eyelids, slimming the nose and lifting the cheekbones. I was blown away by this, because we make a really big deal out of plastic surgery in America. Each time a celebrity gets plastic surgery (i.e. Kylie Jenner), we are quick to make a huge deal about it and make sure everyone is aware of what is fake about who. However, in Korea, plastic surgery is casually given as birthday and graduation gifts.

 

 

I also thought it was crazy that in Korea many girls do not leave the house without makeup. This helped me to understand why I see a lot of students from Korea dressed up in really nice clothes with their hair and makeup done. I always thought it was fascinating to see this because we as college students usually don’t have a lot of money or time to get dressed up. However, Korean students are always wearing really nice, expensive clothes and look like they took a lot of time to get dressed.

On Thursday, what I found most interesting in learning about trolling was how common it is. To be honest, I never really got trolled before. It is probably because I don’t spend too much time on social media, or read comments that people write on other posts either. I know people get bullied on the internet and people say hurtful things, but I thought it was more common amongst celebrities or other popular people on social media, not everyday people like me and my peers.

What I found most interesting about festivals was the drug usage during each of them. I was actually really surprised to learn that so many different kinds of drugs, ranging from alcohol to weed to ecstasy were used at these festivals. They seem to be the center of them. It made me feel like these festivals weren’t really to celebrate anything, but were used more as a reason to get really intoxicated all day every day for days straight.

Besides the presentations in class, I also learned a lot from the textbook chapters. In chapter 16, it mentioned that an after school program in Chicago called Digital Youth Network uses money from a grant to teach students how to use digital photo, video and audio-editing software to produce projects that they post online. I love this because it integrates the usage of these softwares with the school’s curriculum so students are interacting and learning about technology while also producing projects to help inform others about something. I think this is a great program that should be integrated in more schools.

Another thing chapter 16 spoke about was “digital literacy.” Digital literacy is so, so important in this day and age. I think it is so important because technology is only advancing and instead of trying to ban it and be afraid of it (more for older generations), we should teach people how to become digitally literate. I really appreciate this class for helping me to become more aware of media literacy and for helping me to become more aware of the influence the media has on me. I hope other people can get this experience as well.

Lastly, I enjoyed the authenticity of chapter 17. I think a lot of people only focus on the negativity of social media, when there are so many positives as well. I remember having a conversation with professor Nichols about the power of social media and how we as young people should use it more as a platform to make money and spread awareness of an issue not many people know about. This conversation really opened my eyes to think about the power of social media in building voices, organizing protests, spreading messages and helping younger people to become more involved politically.

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