Kate Giglio 3

Listening to Jennifer Siebel Newsom speak on Wednesday I had so many thoughts running through my head. I would never consider myself to be a huge, true, committed and involved feminist but none the less, I am a woman and of course I have my own opinions and beliefs. Hearing Jennifer speak of her experiences and her accomplishments was so empowering. Her talk of her relationship with her father is really what struck me the most. I am so blessed and so lucky to have a father who believes in his daughters and his wife. He is the manager of the Radiology department at one of the hospitals in our city and it never occurred to me that he would not hire a woman or treat a woman with respect because of her gender. I am so lucky to have such a wonderful male role model who respected in such a way that I never thought that disrespecting a woman was even an option. I could never imagine having a father who did not support me and believe in me. What a strong woman Jennifer must be for breaking out of the father’s mold and becoming her own person.

Another topic that struck me as extremely interesting was her talk to “Tabloid Trash.” I am not one to get very caught up in reality television. I am not a watcher or supporter of many MTV shows or the Bachelor or shows on that genre. But my dirty secret and guilty pleasure is the Kardashian family. After thinking about the topics discussed and comparing it to the Kardashian family I have realized that Kourtney is probably the biggest feminist of the family. So even in this “tabloid trash” situation there are still potential cases of feminist. Granted, this example may be my personal form of purging the guilt for being such a lover but it was just an observation.

Overall I really enjoyed the discussion with Jennifer Siebel Newsom. She is such an amazing woman with an incredible story.

Welcome to BK

First, since we were talking about what's cool today we need to mention Portlandia. Portlandia is a television show that is dedicated to making fun of hipsters in Portland, Ore. I immediately thought of a specific episode while reading Why do people hate hipsters?

In this skit Fred Armisen, one of the main actors, is the hipster with a large beard, tattoos, gages, big glasses, flannel and only rides a bike. He goes to his favorite bar to drink micro brewed beer and sees a clean cut guy with khakis and button-up shirt. He wouldn't even go into the bar. He got angry, and rode away on his bike. Throughout the cuts in the scene Armisen slowly becomes more clean cut and the other guy becomes more hipster until they switch places. Then the used-to-be clean cut guy rides up to the bar on his bike and sees the clean cut Armisen sitting at the bar having a beer. That guys gets angry, and rides away on his bike to repeat the cycle.

Portlandia makes fun of all the different kinds of hipsters there are. Each skit has a different kind of person. Which explains why it is so difficult to distinguish between counter-culture and mainstream. Each person is sitting in their own spot on the spectrum of counter-culture on one side and mainstream on the other.

In the article by Gladwell, he interviewed the coolhunters. I had to laugh at the part where DeeDee said that whenever she sees the Joe Regular Guy somewhere hip she has to talk to him. That Joe Regular Guy looking person is my boyfriend. He literally works at IBM, lives in Greenpoint Brooklyn with five hipsters and goes to their bands' shows in the basements of bars. He works all day in until 8 at night and promises his friends he'll make it to their show. He goes straight from work in his suit. I've seen it happen. Which is where I think the articles focused too much on dress and style and not enough on lifestyle.

Do you know how much rent is in Brooklyn? Rent is so high that if it were a 30 year mortgage for a house, which is standard, a lot of people could have 1.6 million dollar homes in almost any other city.  And most of them are artists, which means they don't make a lot of money. Maybe they shop in thrift stores for a reason. And maybe because it's New York the coolhunters decided to push that fashion on everyone else in the country.

I'm sure all of us have participated in some kind of counter-culture activities at some point in time. It just depends on how you decide to spend your time.

Does Cool Exist?

Just recently i got into a discussion with a few of my friends about hipsters and trends. We were talking about how we think hipsters are constantly trying to separate themselves from whats mainstream and from common trends. We talked about how ironic this is, because they spent so much time trying to  be different from everyone else but by doing this they are actually creating their own culture as well. This trend of being a hipster is starting to become a mainstream thing. A lot of things i had discussed with my friends we discussed today in class. 

It is almost impossible to classify anything as "cool" because there is not just one meaning for cool. Depending on the person, the area, the era and society, cool is always thought of differently. I think thats what frustrates me when it has to do with hipsters. I think that for some, being hipster is a way of dressing but for others its a lifestyle. I don't agree with the fact that a lot of hipster people are so against anything mainstream. Just because something is popular and mainstream, is it wrong to like it? Sometimes having the same shoes as everyone can take away from an individuals identity and become very mundane, but what if you really like those shoes? Is it so wrong to buy them because everyone else has them? That's when i think things can get a little ridiculous. When people try so hard to go against the grain just to prove their point and be different, it can be a bit much. 

I think cool can sometimes have a negative connotation, implying that people feel pressured to act or dress in a certain way to be "cool." But thinking something is cool can also be a personal choice. I think whats cool and whats not all depends on the person. Proving the point that cool doesn't truly exist. 

The art of being cool (or the mindset)

Today in class I learned a couple of key things that I didn’t pull from our reading about being “cool”.  The first and most important is that cool is a state of mind and if your trying to be the cool then you are doing it wrong. The second thing I learned is that criticizing hipsters (I can’t believe hipster appears without a red line under it!!!!) seems to take a gratuitous amount of cursing. The third thing was a point I inferred myself that is also pretty pessimistic. Overall I think finding cool as something you can achieve starts as a self esteem complex, because if being cool is truly unattainable than we should learn to all be comfortable where we are. A perspective that is so quickly passed up in society is that true individualism comes from acceptance of all people, and taking note that all people includes your self and the image you may portray to others. Once we accept that we may never be the “cool” society wants us to be we can figure out that we are all individuals no matter what we wear, believe, or make at home rather than the grocery store. I think this relates to Frank’s argument, because this means that a true counter culture may be just as unattainable as cool. This comes idea comes to fruition in the fact that the ideas I previously stated (finding your own individualism) are only achieved in our society through consumerism, which means that the corporate American can easily create what is rebellious or different for every generation. In the end I think it all comes back to one question do you know who you are, and if you don’t then you might want to take sometime to figure it out, because if we are never comfortable in our own skin (which is impossible if it is made for us) then we may never reach the top of Maslow’s pyramid of needs (self actualization and or reaching your full potential).    

I'm concerned...

for our society. Why are we defining our coolness and authenticity by what we wear or buy?

I am writing this sitting on my Goodwill couch, Converse clad feet propped up on my hand-me-down table, chunky Ray Bans sliding down my nose while texting multiple people on my iPhone.

But I'm not concerned as to whether or not any of that equation makes me cool or not cool. Because I'm not measuring my authenticity against what culture deems as being "cool".

I don't shop for my morals at Urban Outfitters, my hobbies don't come straight off of Pinterest, my opinions are not formed by what's going around on Tumblr.

I have spent 21 long years getting to know myself, getting to know what I genuinely like. Yes, that might look like Ray Bans and some clothes bought off of Mod Cloth, just like what everyone else is doing, but the difference is I am not trying to do all of this to make me authentic, to make me the snowflake unlike any other, my authenticity comes from within.

Cliche, I know.

But try it, try defining yourself by stuff you can't buy. Maybe after we all do that, we will stop tweeting about how "uncool" we apparantly are, because I listened to all of your opinions today and I think you're all pretty neat.

One Grand Night of Television

Ratings for Sunday Night

I just want to quickly discuss the night of television that was Sunday night February 10, 2013, and how it was absolutely impossible to keep up with it on social media. Last night on there was The Grammy's, The Walking Dead, college basketball, and plenty of other new episodes for shows that I don't know about. It got to the point where I literally turned to my roommate and asked him, "who did this to us?" I made the decision very early that The Grammy's were definitely not as important to me as The Walking Dead. I also made the decision that tweeting during an episode as important as last nights episode was not going to happen. So I definitely felt left out when it came to the social media aspect of everything that was going on that night. I just made sure that I got to see Fun perform and that's all I needed from The Grammy's. It became clear to me very quickly that I was among the minority after making that decision. There were plenty of tweets and Facebook posts about The Grammy's and they continued even while The Walking Dead was on. My theory is that most people decided to watch The Grammy's and catch a re-airing of the new Walking Dead episode later on that night. So I did get that left out feeling, but it's okay because I'm still happy with my decision. I'd rather watch zombies being dismembered than a dumb awards show any day.

Media's Effect on Children

Jennifer Siebel Newsom began her presentation last Wednesday evening with the story about the birth of her children, Montana and hunter, and the stark contrast of reactions from both family and friends regarding the birth of each child. When her daughter Montana was born, she received pink clothes and compliments on her beauty, while when her son Hunter was born, he received blue clothes and compliments on how successful he was going to be. It's in this very moment, that children are first exposed to the gender roles and identity they will be molded into by not only friends and family, but cultural factors such as media and advertising. From an early age, children are gently nudged in the "correct" direction by external forces, in the form of blue clothes and trucks or pink clothes and dolls. It's in these first years that children begin to understand what's acceptable, what's not acceptable, and how to behave according to their gender.

As they continue to develop throughout life, children are bombarded by a media environment full of advertisements selling them products to enhance how they look, in order to fit "appropriate" dimensions as deemed by the authorities in charge. Women see digitally enhanced female figures with these "perfect" physical attributes, and are reaching for this unattainable goal of perfection. How is anyone expected to be physically and emotionally healthy when they're constantly trying to accomplish something that's impossible? Aside from the advertisements, messages from the television, movies, and other entertainment medias disseminate this gross representation of women as objects, demonizing any woman in power who speaks out, is absolute in her words, and contributes a substantial intellect. To the entertainment media, that kind of woman is the opposite of what women are supposed to be. How are we supposed to teach our children about developing a healthy sense of gender identity if we're locked in the current system at home and with advertising and entertainment media promoting this negative, objectification of women in roles of power and authority?

Jennifer Siebel Newsom said that first, we, as the United States, need to be clear on who we are. The United States has a moral imperative to be a media role model, and break away from the celebration of a singular female and male body type, and discontinue perpetuating this unattainable concept of perfection to our women, and end the promotion of "emotional constipation" to our men. Entertainment media can be a part of the solution by recognizing women in roles of power as women of substance, instead of criticizing their style. Our advertising leaders can follow the trend of the United Kingdom, as the country now monitors misleading advertising. And we can make a change in our individual households by educating our children about the importance of individuality and self-worth.