Paying College Athletes

Comm322 Video Project


Shannon Grosenbacher, Carly Poor, Terry Lee Miller, Vic Scotland, Corey Bell, & Aaron Strombeck

War Video Games

I want to start off by making the disclaimer that I am not a gamer. I've played Call of Duty with my boyfriend for maybe 5 minutes before getting flustered by all the buttons and confusion of how to work the controller. The extent of my gaming was playing Mario Kart on the original Nintendo game console. After 9/11, games like Conflict: Desert Storm and others became unbelievably popular. I can imagine the boys and girls who played these games subconsciously thought they were being patriotic and contributing to the war. I believe the intention of the games were positive in a sense that it would make children aware of current events. I can understand the argument that these games are blurring the lines between citizens and soldiers, ultimately desensitizing the person playing the game. I grew up having a lot of guy-friends who enjoyed playing games with war, shooting, and fighting. And I can tell you that these boys did not grow up to be malicious killers desensitized to violence and others. I can understand the fear of the influence these games might have on the players themselves, but from my experience with it, I don't see much correlation between the two. I think people are influenced by their parents and the environment in which they grow up in. I think there is a very small influence that comes from these games that people play in their spare time. I look at serial killers like Jeffery Dahmer, and I don't think his intent to kill came from a video game he played. With most serial killers, there is a deep psychological aspect that plays a role in their behavior, not video games.

Food Inc. Video

          The video that we watched in class was very near and dear to my heart. Unfortunately I couldn't help but step out of the room 20 minutes before class was over. I tried to bare through watching the slaughter of cows and chickens, but once the documentary took us to the largest slaughter house in the country, I had to step out. I work on a dairy farm, working with cows from as early as 4 in the morning until 9 o'clock at night. Being that it's a dairy farm, we don't raise our cows for meat or sell them to be slaughtered. We individually name each cow and each one has a unique personality. We let them play in the pasture and try our best to keep them happy and healthy. So you can imagine why I couldn't bare to watch the slaughter of animals.

          I'm not trying to preach my love for animals or deny people from eating hamburgers or chicken nuggets by any means... I just feel so appalled by the inhumane way some of those farmers treated their animals: keeping them in a small dark barn with no sunlight, piling many of them into one small area, putting them on moving belts that drop them into metal bins. Working on a farm, I do have to witness heart-wrenching things. Hearing a mother cow call out to her still-born baby waiting for a response in the middle of the night was so difficult. If we're ever left with a cattle that doesn't make it through childbirth, or perhaps a cow that has grown too old, we find a burial and bury them individually. It makes sense for farmers who raise their cattle for meat not to develop any emotional feelings towards them, and I don't blame them for that. I just wish that these animals were treated not as products for human gain, but as something we can cherish and be thankful for, being that these animals provide us with nutrients we need to survive.

          The best solution I can think of is to have stricter government regulations on the way these animals are treated. Like one of the farmers said, if the these slaughter houses had glass windows around it, people would drastically change the way they eat and the way they look at the food industry overall.

Boy or Girl? Does it matter?

I remember hearing the stories about Caster Semenya when there became speculation on her gender after blowing her competition out of the water in the 800 meter dash. After reading the article for class and listening to the discussions being made, I feel like I've gotten a better insight on the whole subject.

First off, after competing in track for so long, I understand that men and women are anatomically built differently from one another, and men typically have an advantage over women when it comes to athletics. I've come to understand what times in races are "expected" from both  men and women. And when Semenya got a 1:55 on her 800 race, I was very impressed; however, like someone mentioned in class, that is not the time an Olympic man would get. While her time was very impressive, I could understand if they were suspicious of her taking enhancement drugs PERHAPS, but it really saddens me that the media would question Semenya's talent by demanding a gender test. This is something she had probably been dealing with her whole life, and after years of working her butt off, everything gets ripped out from under her because "women can't possibly do that well in athletics."  It's just a very sad story, and I'm not happy with the way the media handled it. I wish the media would have made it a private matter, tested her for enhancements if necessary, and let her race. I think the media is obsessed with framing specific newsworthy events to draw audiences in. People look at Semenya and see "a news story;" they don't see the individual. She's become a product of the media and now has to face harsh critics. Her body naturally produces more testosterone and it's not like she can help it. The fact of the matter is that she identifies HERSELF as a female, and has worked incredibly hard to get to where she is today.  It's not like she was getting the time an Olympic man would get in an 800 meter race either. It isn't fair for people to dehumanize her and undermine her success just because she was born with both female and male characteristics. 

"Cool"

"Cool" was the word that I used to describe the girls in middle school with Hollister t-shirts, stick-straight hair, and who sat at the table in the center of the cafeteria. Regardless if you go to a public or private school, we have a superficial outlook on what it means to be "cool." I don't necessarily think "cool" is a word to describe someone who is "a rebel" or "hipster," but more-so someone who is seen as "better" in some way, shape, or form. And in middle school, those girls sitting at the "cool table" were cool in my eyes because they received the attention of everyone, including boys. I wasn't exactly the most...curvaceous  girl out there. So I couldn't really identify myself with the "girls-who-developed-really-really-early-and-made-all-the-boys-come-to-the-yard" group. And this was a real bummer, because I had my fair share of crushes on boys. And, of course, hearing that a boy doesn't "like you like you" is nothing short of the end of the world.

The media constantly told me that being average wasn't good enough. For a long time, I molded my own identity into what I thought others wanted from me so I could be perceived as "cool." It wasn't until I got a huge slap in the face from REALITY when I realized that our definition of "cool" is forever changing. And if you continue to mold yourself to fit the current criteria of "cool," you'll lose sight of who you really are. "Cool" is now a word I use to describe someone who is confident in themselves and cherishes the things they choose to value. I don't use "cool" to describe a superficial and similar characteristic of a group of individuals, but I use it to describe someone whose actions portray the things they value and cherish.

Social Networking Changing Standards

Shannon Grosenbacher
1/29/13

We can all agree that technology has flourished especially in the last ten or so years. But has it gotten to the point where it's become a threat? It's as if it's gotten to the point where our self-worth is shattered until someone non-verbally makes it known online or through any type of social media. Since we’ve been given the “luxury” of social-networking, we’ve been able to put ourselves out there, keep up with old friends, check up on ex girlfriends or boyfriends (oops), etc. Ever since the Myspace era, more and more young people have been brainwashed to believe that their worth stems from the amount of Likes, Comments, and attention they get towards their personal posts, pictures, and video.

And that’s not what I have a problem with. I have a problem with how far people go to receive this attention, whether positive or negative. I’ve seen people on numerous occasions post vulgar comments to ruffle a few feathers on the Internet. This, in turn, is turning the audiences attention towards them. Granted, the attention that they’re receiving isn’t a positive one; however, too many people feel like they don’t have a voice unless they post something outlandish or taboo.

There’s also a hidden evil on the other side of the spectrum. We often try to make our life online appear majestic and perfect. I'm as guilty as the next person. And for many girls with appearance issues, they use picture-editing to air-brush themselves to perfection.  However, there is a fine line. I feel like these tools are creating false images of oneself and damaging the self-esteem of society. Since our standards of what is "beautiful" are sky-rocketing so much, people are finding flaws in themselves every day. Beauty is becoming defined as having perfect skin, symmetrical teeth, and a bronze tan.

Don't get me wrong, I do believe that social networking has the intention of being good for increasing social capital. But I think it's becoming dangerously close to a virtual world of unrealistic standards of "happiness" and "perfection."