This is a pretty funny article that makes you think about privacy settings on facebook. This person apparently inadvertently shared that she was reading articles on sex toys. An app posted that she had read an article about vibrators. There are definitely some things you don’t want on facebook, one of them is your browser history, especially if you aren’t careful about what you look at.   

I loathe cable companies so I would have to say yes to this. Not only do most cable companies basically have monopolies in most areas, they are consistently awful in the area of customer service. Each month we pay hundreds of dollars for service so why not get a break when they screw up for a couple hours. Okay so maybe you aren’t home anyway or you aren’t using the service and you have no idea it’s out, but the fact that they aren’t providing you service for those times should translate into a rebate in my opinion. 

This article not only talked about the fact that The Avengers has surpassed previous box office records for opening weekend, it also claimed that part of the success of the film was based on the advertising it has been getting since 2008. The author reminds us that the first hint that there would be an avengers movie was in 2008 in Iron Man. This is a pretty good strategy. It lead to almost four years of anticipation that paid off big time for the studio.

This is John Tortorella, coach of the New York Rangers. He doesn’t like the media and sometimes it gets him in trouble. I read an article that said that Tortorella was fed up with all the attention that he and his team are getting in the playoffs. But isn’t this part of his job? How can he complain about interacting with the media if it’s part of the job description. Granted the reporters at press conferences have a knack for asking annoying questions, but shouldn’t they be ready for that?

I’m just curious what other people think? Should coaches be fined if they don’t interact with the media, or do you think they should be allowed to show their feelings like normal human beings?

The last article I posted about the insecurities of men about their appearance got me thinking that there are quite a few expectations put on men about the way they act. We are expected to be tough, obviously, and we are expected to be effective problem solvers. We aren’t allowed to ‘take shit’ from anyone.

I would still say men have it a little easier than women as far as social pressure is concerned but there are definitely expectations from men that are a little silly. Men are still expected to be the bread winner in the family. There is a mechanic at my dad’s work whose wife is a very successful real estate agent. I’m just guessing here but I would say she probably earns two to three times his salary, and he certainly hears about it from the other guys at work. Why does it matter if his wife earns more money in her profession than he does? He’s employed full time in a position of skilled labor, he’s a great dad and husband, and he and his wife enjoy their life. So who cares? He certainly doesn’t. 

I came across this article on the Yahoo homepage and it reminded me a lot of what we talked about in class. The article discusses a couple of the things men tend to obsess over in relation to their looks.

These are pretty obvious and probably universal for the most part. Guys are expected to have a certain about of strength and muscle or else they look ‘wimpy’. And they are expected not to be overweight (although I think women still feel more pressure to be slim.

Under this section of the book they shared an interesting quote from Steven Cohan. To paraphrase it, he says that people judge you based on your taste in entertainment. This is absolutely true in my opinion. Cohan’s example was that people will assume a man who owns a Judy Garland CD must be homosexual. Of course we know this isn’t true but we still judge people on a daily basis in matters like that. We call our male friends ‘gay’ if they watch a TV show that’s ‘for women’. We assume anyone watching Fox News is some kind of Nazi. In doing this we forget that there are many ways to read a text. Maybe the person watching Fox News is pretty liberal, but is watching one of their financial shows. Or maybe the guy watching ‘America’s Next Top Model’ is just wants to see the model’s bodies.

Reading about stereotypes in these chapters made me think back to the video “Tough Guise”. While I was watching that in class, all I could think of was how often Latino people really are portrayed as either fiery and overly-passionate or tough but troubled. 

It seems like every detective show from the 90’s had a cop on it that was a Latino ex-gangmember who ‘went straight’ and now has the unique ability to relate to troubled Hispanic youths. These cliches are awful in many ways, but I don’t think the people who write for television shows are racist. I think they are lazy. We see these stereotypes so much that we begin to identify with them and they become natural. Anyone who has workshopped in a creative writing class knows how often the characters in people’s writing are total cliches. It’s just hard not to think of racial groups in stereotypical terms when that’s what you see everyday in the media.

In my opinion, we live in an odd time as far as race relations are concerned. Almost every commercial that you see these days for a large company features a group of people, each from a different ethnicity. I guess the idea is to represent a variety of genders and racial backgrounds.

That’s great, except it seems so contrived. Commercials love to show guys hanging out in groups of three or four with one or two white guys, a black guy and either a Hispanic guy or an Asian person. Doesn’t it seem odd? And aren’t advertisers just using racially diverse groups to market their products to more people?

I don’t really have a point to make here, I guess, but it just seems so odd to me…

I thought that what the book said on 387 was pretty interesting. The examples they gave of the punishment cyclists put themselves through is applicable to many sports. We definitely celebrate people who can push their body beyond the normal threshold of pain to overcome an opponent. Almost any endurance sport is really just a opportunity to see people overcome pain.

But the authors basically say that it’s just a male thing. They say, “male sport is understood in terms of power, strength, and competition”. I think it’s unfair to point only at men in this regard. Women’s sports are the same way. In my opinion, the reason we are drawn to any sporting event, male or female, is to see people test themselves against an opponent. It is acceptable now for women to be shown as powerful athletes and I think they are celebrated for their physical achievement and pain tolerance as much as men are.