Media

This is supposed to be about media and how it has impacted me or something like that. But to be honest I have no idea how the media has done anything to me. I don't know to what extent the media has influenced my life, because its something that has always been in my life. It's like trying to imagine my life if I were a boy. I don't know who I'd be if media wasn't in my life.
Now I'm not trying to sound like the media has control of my life, because it doesn't. What I am saying is that who knows what i'd be like if there wasn't media. Would my music choices he different? What about my religious views? Would I still be this shy? Would I have decided to pick the career I did?
The media, wether formal or informal, is in everyone's lives. The commercials on the radio, bits of gossip, news shows, magazines and newspapers. All give you information about all sorts of things. Some important like the weather, marriages and deaths, and some not important, like which celeb is in jail or just broke up. WHO CARES? I certainly don't see why everyone cares so much what Kim K is doing all day everyday. Why are we so wrapped up in the lives of people who are famous? Why is there more celeb gossip on the news all the time?
I guess what I'm getting at is that we are all effected by the media. We read it, watch it and listen to it everyday. Who would we be if Keeping up with the Kardashians didn't exist? Would we be a different society who was into different things? Without the media would we have different cultural norms than now? It's hard to tell how much the media has effected me the last 21 years and how it will continue to effect me.

Eggers- Critical Post

As I was doing my reading for this week, two particular passages stuck out to me. The first passage says "Flashbulbs of course, and the screaming of things, mostly things like We Love You Bill, because everyone does love him now, because he is in the Bay Area, and he is our man, he says things we believe and is so thrillingly articulate  and he knows we love him and has come here to bask, in Berkeley even, at Chez Panisse, our town, our restaurant  and here he is, to be adored and received and thanked and urged on. Because we are in Berkeley and the president is here we are, Toph and Kirsten and I- at the white-hot, center of the entire world and history to date." 
The second passage says, "But Toph can't see, because suddenly some ugly rat bastard has shoved himself in front of us. It's unbelievable  I want to push this gut over, want to throw him to one side. How could we wait for so long and be so devoted and ready, only to have this round-backed asshole devour our chance for an audience with Bill?" 
In the first passage he is so happy and so excited to see the president in his town, but then in the next paragraph he is so angry and wants to beat someone up. His mood always changes so quickly. He can be happy and then instantly sad or mad or just ranting on about different things. These mood changes make the reader feel like they are in Eggers mind. Eggers writes what ever he is thinking in that moment, and that's why his mood changes all the time. The way he changes his tone in these two passages reminds me of when I get into a big crowd. At first your like "This is awesome! There's so many people!" And then the crowd starts to get bigger and it gets hotter and people start pushing you, and then you get angry. That's what's happening here. At first he is so excited that the president is there and then he's mad because Toph was pushed out of the way. These passages show a constant stream of thought as the crowd gets larger. The tone changing keeps the thoughts moving and really shows what Eggers was thinking at that time.

Eggers Emulation

So, I come home for winter beak. It's December 2012. I am 20 years old, a month shy of my 21st. I come home one night at about one in the morning. The next day I get a text from my mom.
"Where were you last night"
"With my friends"
"Where?"
"This place."
"Who were you with?"
"I told you my friends"
"K"
"Mom I'm 20, you can't treat me this way"
This is a typical conversation between her and I. And it's always, ALWAYS, over text messaging. Why? I couldn't honestly tell you. It's like she only knows how to communicate over technology.
But that's how everything is now. People communicate only over technology. There are no more long phone calls or sending letters. Instead we have text messages and Skype. In a way this is better, but is it really so good to be wrapped around technology?