Entry #9 - Is Our Food Really Food Anymore?

Can't help but wonder...

So, it's fairly well-established at this point that I love using memes in my blog posts.  Many times they help offer a visual representation of a point I'm working on making.  ...that or they're just hilarious.  Sometimes they manage to be both and I might like those the most.  I've been posting a handful of entries regarding food and, as such, I've been searching for a lot of food-related memes.  I've found a lot of really good ones too but some have been significantly more thought provoking than others.  The following one in particular stuck out to me:

Now isn't that some "food for thought"?  When you really stop to think about it, the accuracy of this simple statement is glaringly obvious.  While superficially it's a very direct statement, what the image is speaking towards is a much deeper issue.  Addressing the viewers directly makes it personal and when it comes to the food we consume the topic is indeed an intensely personal one.  When we think about it, the questions start coming, sprouting up like newly growing vegetables in the garden of our minds.  How can my food harm me?  Why could it harm me?  What foods can help me be healthier?  How do I find out what foods are safer to eat, are better/healthier to eat?  Is my food really slowly poisoning me?

I grouped these two together because they both reference the same topic point: "food" as we call it today is no longer the healthy, nutrient rich fuel for our bodies that our grandparents once enjoyed.  Today, "food" has become the title given to over-processed, nutrient-deficient items which take the shape of foods familiar to us.  Somehow, our grandparents (and their grandparents and their grandparents) managed to survive without all this processing.  They didn't find the need to inject their vegetables with nutrients because they didn't process them to the point their foods lost all the natural nutrients they possessed.  They raised their cattle in grazing hills and slaughtered them humanely, taking only what they needed.  They didn't have to force feed the animals antibiotics to prevent infections because of the deplorable conditions they were kept in, or slaughtered in.  The standards for food were taken seriously and were upheld.  And then "mass-production" started coming into the picture.  Suddenly it wasn't cost-effective to do things the right way, the humane way, the safe way, it was about speed and producing as much as possible as fast as possible. 

Processed foods are cheap because by the time they make it to the grocery store they're barely what someone could consider food anymore.  When you systematically strip all that makes a food healthy, coat it in pesticides or stuff it full of antibiotics because of the deplorable conditions it's taken from, is it really food anymore?  How much of what we eat is really just food-shaped chemical and lab-created nutrient additives?  Why do we have to pay more for foods that aren't going through this mass production?  It would seem like the less work that's done the less expensive something would end up, not the opposite. 

A conversation I rather literally just had with my husband, while in the midst of writing this post, had to do with issues I saw in how people are treated in healthcare.  Being a nurse affords me a unique viewpoint on this topic.  Specifically he'd asked me about taking melatonin (a naturally occurring hormone in the body that helps in falling asleep and staying asleep) as an everyday pill to help stay asleep if someone is having issues.  My position is that no, they should take take the supplement everyday.  My reasoning for it is simple but complex at the same time - if a person's body isn't producing enough of a hormone, taking a pill to off-set what's lacking helps, yes.  And then the body realizes that there's a new source of this hormone and begins producing even less, resulting in a person having to take more pills to continually off-set the gradual, continued decrease of the hormone within the body. 

See where this is going?  We end up becoming so dependent on pills to "fix" what's wrong with us, we don't look at the fact that all we're doing is fixing the symptom and not the cause.  Most visits with a doctor are 10-15 minutes, if you're lucky, and consist more of "Ok what's going on?  Alright you're having XYZ symptoms, here's a prescription to deal with them."  While that's helpful for the immediate moment, it doesn't deal with the root of the problem.  Health care isn't health care - it's symptom management.  If we were truly caring for people's health there would be more conversations on how to help a person be healthy, not just throw pills at them to deal with symptoms. 

While my previous comments may seem like a bit of a departure from the topic, it goes hand in hand with the topic really.  Our diets, the food we put in our bodies, directly impacts our health.  Good food, healthy food, real food that isn't filled with additives, sprayed with pesticides, injected full of antibiotics and HGH and God knows what else is what will make an impact on our health.  While medication has it's place and it's importance, it shouldn't be the ultimate answer to everything that ails us.  If we made a true and concerted effort to improve the quality of the foods we eat we would find ourselves improving our overall health. 

So here's my question to you, anyone who happens to read this blog and this post, is the food you're eating capable of working as a medicine for your overall health and well-being?  Or are you steadily ingesting poison in the guise of food?  If you are what you eat what would you be, an organic being or an artificially nutrient-added, mass-produced, antibiotic-glutted, processed being?  The choice is yours.

 

EC Entry - Aka Battle of the Food Documentaries!

Okay, maybe not a BATTLE... maybe minor skirmish?  

So, guess what this entry is about?  That's right!  I did a previous entry about the documentary Fresh and now there shall be an entry about Food, Inc.  One thing which is immediately different between these two documentaries, despite the similar topic, is the tone of Food, Inc.  Whereas Fresh had more of a hopeful, positive, and helpful approach, Food, Inc. has more of a depressing, negative, and hostile approach.  Food, Inc. makes it clear right off the bat that it's playing hardball.  No pulled punches here, nope.  The documentary is very informative, there's no question about that.  It gives an approach that puts the viewer directly in line with the topics that the film is trying to broach.  

From the meeting with the chicken farmers to the text over explaining that, after multiple visits from the production company, the farmer no longer was willing to allow the film crew inside the chicken buildings, the film makes it clear that the information that they are seeking to present is not information the corporate industries want the public to be aware of.  The first portion of the documentary focuses on this aspect regarding animals, from their treatment in how they're raised and prepared to an aspect of how they're taken to be slaughtered.   Parts of the movie are difficult to watch and somewhat startling, like watching one of the chicken farmers having to go into her chicken buildings and pick up the dead bodies that are just lying on the ground to dispose of them. 

Conversations with other farmers that focus on growing grains gives a more in-depth view of their interactions with Monsanto GMO issues, including bringing to light that Monsanto has investigators that do nothing but investigate farmers from claims that they've withheld seed.  Which is to say that the farmers are not allowed to keep any of the seed from their crops to then grow new crops - they have to buy more seed each time from Monsanto.  Why?  It's a GMO.  When you genetically modify something, it becomes your property, thus Monsanto owns a vast majority of the seeds which are used in farming today and farmers have to pay to use them.  Every time.  Every crop.  They have full-time investigators for nothing more than to stalk farmers to make sure they aren't keeping any seeds.  For you know... farming.  And sure it'd be easy to say "Just buy seeds that aren't from Monsanto."  Yeah, have fun with that.  Try finding a seller of seeds that isn't Monsanto owned.  Monsanto is worse than Big Brother.  At least people knew about big brother, the average person knows little to nothing about Monsanto or it's insidious reach.  

Yeah, it's really that bad.  And that's before even touching on the corn issue.  Oh yes.  Corn.  Lovely little veggie.  Delicious and such fun to eat off the cob, smearing freshly melted butter on our fingers and faces as we gnaw away merrily.  If only it were always so good.  If only so much corn wasn't used for so many other aspects of food production that it ceases being healthy and instead becomes something immensely detrimental to the entire population. Case in point - corn is made into corn syrup which is then further modified and refined into high fructose corn syrup, a cheap additive to sweeten foods.  Problem?  It's in everything practically, even items that we would think are "healthy" for us but actually aren't because of the presence of this additive.  

Now while the majority of Food, Inc is most assuredly something which can be viewed as an attack against industrialized production of meats, grains, and vegetables, it does try to bring things to a slightly more hopeful note near the end.  As the film builds to it's conclusion, it takes care to point out that some supermarkets like Wal-Mart are increasing the areas which specifically note food items which are organic.  This makes much more noticeable to consumers what foods are organic and makes them more easily accessible.  

It's a hopeful thing to see and something which anyone who's been in a grocery store lately can attest to being a big change: entire organic sections of the supermarket.  The downside?  Organic foods found in the supermarket are significantly more expensive than the alternative.  That alternative is the highly processed, nutrient deficient, additive laced "food" that the vast majority of the population can actually afford.  So while the healthier, organic food is there, in many cases it is prohibitively expensive.  There has definitely been steps made in the right direction but overall these are baby steps along the path towards a true return to the healthy foods which our grandparents got to enjoy.  Hopefully, these won't be the last steps that we take towards improving the diet and health of Americans.  Maybe more documentaries will come out that draw the attention of the populace to the inhumane, unethical, and downright disgusting ways in which animals are raised and slaughtered to stock our meat departments.  Perhaps in time, we'll see a shift away from the process of grain and vegetable production that strips the nutrients from what should be healthy foods and then 'adds' them back in, yet they still end up lacking.  It all starts with knowledge, understanding the realities of what's happening with our food production and making choices, conscious, thoughtful choices, on the kinds of food that we choose to put in our bodies.  Good luck.

 

Entry #8 - And Now For Something Complete Different

A momentary break from the norm...

Normally, I tend to keep my pairs of entries along the same theme.  One talks about a review of blogs, the next focuses on one in specific.  The next is about a social media personality and the follow-up entry is about another personality.  Essentially, I attempt to keep the flow steady and present so as I do each set of entries they more or less mirror one another in topic.  In this case, however, I'm going to break away from my previous pattern and turn this a bit more personal. 

An interesting facet of writing is that your audience never knows when you have to get up and walk away from the keyboard.  They can't see the distress, the discomfort, the shame or even sometimes the tears that may come.  On the other hand, that disconnect can make it easier for the writer (aka me) to put the words out there, to actually get them out.  Not having to look someone in the face as they expectantly wait for me to formulate words to talk about something that is beyond words makes it easier to get through the writing.  So, that being said, I'll get on with this.  

So if the previous meme didn't make it clear, consider this the preemptive warning for triggers.  This is not an easy topic, especially for those who have experienced this kind of situation.  If reading further would be something that would be too painful or reopen old wounds, now would be the best time to stop reading and go find something else to read.  Just saying.  

When I was 19 I got into a serious relationship with a man who was six years older than me.  I moved out of my parent's home and into an apartment with him and spent the next three years of my life with him.  I worked hard during that time and made my way up to become a store manager of a quarter of a million dollar retail store at 21.  For lacking a college education, I was doing rather well for myself and making a very nice salary with bonuses multiple times through the year based on sales.  Things should have been great.  On the surface they were.  Over the three years I was with my ex I had become very good at making things appear great on the surface.

As with most every story of some form of abuse that I have heard, things obviously didn't start with my ex-boyfriend being a total asshat.  Things were great in the beginning.  Looking back, seeing as hindsight is 20/20, I can see little signs that I missed in the moment that should have been warning bells.  There were lots of little ways that he invalidated my opinions.  We always went with his decision on anything.  It was always his choice.  Always what he wanted.  But it never seemed that way.  "Interesting" fact is that a lot of abusers are exceptional manipulators.

 
In a way I wish I had seen something like this 12 years ago.  The first sign would have been a major tip off.  As my relationship progressed, I found myself censuring myself to avoid saying or doing things that would upset my ex.  I stopped voicing my opinion on things because, unless they agreed with his, they would automatically be dismissed.  He talked over me a lot, to the point that I didn't talk as much around him because.. what was the point?  He wouldn't listen to me anyway.  I always had to account for where I was to him.  If we had a fight (which is to say that I disagreed with him and he yelled at me for it) and I went for a drive alone to clear my head, he would become even more incensed because he didn't know where I was or what I was doing.  Again, hindsight being what it is, I can see how now utterly controlling his behavior towards me was.  Understanding it doesn't make it any easier to remember the way it felt.  



Long before things ever became physical, the emotional and mental abuse had been going on for some time.  It's embarrassing to admit to this, but the first time my ex ever hit me was over a video game.  While it's embarrassing to admit it, I include the reason because I think it's important to point out just how petty the reason was for actually striking someone you say that you love.  He was playing a video game (one of the Zelda ones) on his GameCube (that he insisted on buying along with the games to go with it instead of paying our utilities first, and with my money as he didn't have a job at this point) and he oh so graciously offered to let me try playing.  I didn't play video games (we never had a console growing up) so I'm admittedly not very good at them.  As he tried talking me through what to do and how to do it, he became increasingly... emphatic.  "No! Don't go there!"  "You should do the other quest first, I don't care if you want to do this one, the other one is more important!"  "LISTEN TO ME, you're doing it wrong!"  

The more he yelled the harder it was for me to focus and finally I snapped at him, "Stop yelling at me, I'm the one playing the fucking game!"  And no sooner had the words left my mouth than I felt his hand connecting with the side of my face.  He apparently had terrible aim too as instead of getting my cheek, he actually hit the side of my head.  Maybe he hit exactly where he meant to, it didn't leave a visible mark (like bruising on the cheek), it took a couple days to not have a slight ringing in my ear and my ear hurt so bad I couldn't sleep on that side for about a week without it making my ear/head throb.  

There are a few things about that event that greatly bothered me, both in the moment and in the years after.  In fact even to this day some things bother me more than others.  The first and most overwhelming thing which bothers me is that I didn't simply walk out the door, go to my parent's house, and never set eyes on him again.  That would have, by far, been the smartest move.  But it isn't what I did.  Instead I stared at him, stunned, and then tossed the controller down and went to our bedroom and went to bed without speaking to him again that day.  The next part that bothered me was the next day, our roommate came up to my work.  She hadn't seen what had happened but she'd heard the strike and put enough together to know what had occurred.  However, when she came to 'check on me' at work, the words that left her mouth destroyed any thoughts I had of telling anyone about what went on.  "Well you know he has a temper, you shouldn't have yelled at him like that."

With just a few words, it became my fault.  I did know he had a temper, he was displaying it loud and proud in the moment too.  As much as him hitting me had hurt, my roommate's words cut deeper.  All of the emotional and mental abuse, all the manipulations that belittled me, that made things my fault instead of his, came full bore into my mind and shit got all twisted up in how I looked at it.  I knew I didn't deserve to be hit, but "I shouldn't have yelled at him."  "He wouldn't have hit me if I'd just kept my mouth shut."  "He hit me, but it's my fault because I pushed him over the edge."  Yeah.  I actually thought those things.  And it disgusts me to this day that I thought that way.  Welcome to the power of emotional and mental manipulations and abuse.

During the three years we were together, my ex only hit me twice.  In a lot of ways I'm lucky it was only two.  It's still two too many, but it could have been so, so much worse.  Things with my ex fizzled (gee I wonder why) and we drifted apart.  While we still lived together due to leasing contracts, we slept in different beds and the relationship was pretty much dead.  I figured, hey, great, better that it slowly dies off than to be this whole blown-up affair.  Then I met my now-husband.  Oh boy did my ex freak out then.  Suddenly he was 'desperate' about going on without me.  He was sorry about everything, he'd change, he'd be better.  Whatever I wanted, he'd do it.  By that point, I was so afraid of actually talking about all that had gone wrong during our relationship, I refused to actually speak to him face to face.  I made him leave the house and go somewhere else and we talked over the phone.  I was afraid of talking to him about our problems.  I was afraid of him.  No matter how he begged and pleaded, I had finally reached a point that I heard all of his lies for what they were - lies.  Empty promises.  Bullshit. Somehow, that just made it hurt all over again.

Needless to say, I moved on to a much healthier relationship.  My parents and both of my older brothers heartily approved of and love my husband.  A comment that he said to me early on in our relationship has always stuck with me: "If I ever lay a hand on you in anger, you have my permission to use a shotgun on me."  He knew the situation with my ex (he'd met my ex in fact) and he rather astutely realized the kind of environment I was existing in when he asked me, "Are you going to be safe here when I leave?"  It's sad when you hesitate to answer that kind of question because you honestly don't know if you would be safe.

My life is much different now, but there are still lingering traces of that experience that exist.  Every time I speak up to voice my opinion, I have to overcome the voice in the back of my head telling me to shut up, that no one wants to hear my opinions.  Every time I stand up for myself or have a higher expectation of what I deserve (expectation of proper compensation for example) I question if I really deserve it.  Even going back to school was difficult for me because the whole process terrified me.  I know logically I'm an intelligent woman who is capable of facing all kinds of challenges.  Emotionally?  I doubt myself every damn day.  And every day I overcome those doubts.  But it's a battle that will never truly end.  I changed during those three years with my ex and I changed in the years after him.

I'm no longer the person I was before I met my ex, the experiences I had with him destroyed who I once was and someone different came out the other end.  I'm still me, just with more doubts, more inner struggles, more inner scars.  Emotional scars are a thing, they are as real as physical scars.  It's just that only the person who has them is constantly aware of them.  No one can look at someone with emotional scars and think to themselves, "Damn, that must have really hurt."  There's no physical proof validating the pain and struggle that was gone through.  But it still exists.  It never goes away.  It just gets a little easier to deal with on a day-to-day basis.

I was talking with a friend online while writing this blog, during one of my "I need a break" moments.  I told him what had me upset and he was supportive as best he could be and he apologized to me.  My response to him was: "Physical wounds can leave scars.  Emotional wounds do too, you just can't see them.  Acknowledging them is painful and it hurts but it's a pain that you can live with because you lived through it, it's a pain of looking back and realizing you survived it."  That's the truth of it.  I survived it.  Maybe a little cracked, maybe a little dented, but I survived it.  Every doubt and every fear that I have that originates from that experience with my ex is one that I will find a way to overcome.  He might have cracked and dented me, but he didn't break me.

While I know that this entry is already getting rather long, there's one other aspect I want to cover.  This was a personal situation I went through.  While emotional and mental abuse aren't viewed the same way or even acknowledged sometimes as legitimate abuse compared to physical abuse, it's still, in general, considered something that happens.  To women.  There's a whole other story that gets ignored though.  Men are more likely to suffer emotional and mental abuse.  A lot of abuse against women is physical (as men who would abuse tend to be physical and aggressive).  However, abuse against men does happen.  It happens a lot.  And whereas men are physically aggressive, women's weapons are our words.  Women get called catty for a reason.  We can be vicious.  And when that's turned towards a man, when words are used to belittle and demean, they are just as hurtful as fists - just in a different way. 

The meme I used earlier on the "5 signs of an emotionally abusive relationship", it doesn't specify "your boyfriend" or "your husband".  It says "your partner".  An example of this:  I have a good friend, for this example I'm going to call him Bob.  Or maybe I should call him Fabian just to get a laugh out of him when he reads this.  We'll go with Bob.  Now Bob and I haven't been friends for too over long but we have one of those wonderful friendships where we hit it off almost immediately.  We are exactly each others kind of 'weird' and we get each other's humor.  Bob is, simply put, amazing.  He's a great friend.  He's a wonderful listener, very supportive, he's hilarious, he has a huge heart and he's very kind and thoughtful.  And he went through a horrific relationship with his ex-wife that was very emotionally and mentally abusive.  To the point that it upsets him just talking about those feelings and the lingering emotions of still caring about a person who hurt you even though you know they're no good for you.

Now here is an exceptional man, the kind of man that women should fall over themselves for because of the kind of personality and temperament that he possess, and he has been emotionally abused by his ex-wife to the point that just talking about that situation is painful and brings up feelings of anxiety and other negative responses.  It doesn't matter if you're male or female, physically intimidating or physically weak, well off or dirt poor - abuse is abuse.  Physical abuse is acknowledged and frowned on and laws are in place for people who physically abuse another person.  Emotional and mental abuse?  Those aren't really talked about the same way.  It's easy for the general population to look at a person and say "Oh they must have really been through hell, look at the scars they have left over from their experience."  It's not so easy when all the scars are on the inside.  It still doesn't mean they aren't there.

So, just a suggestion, a friendly piece of advice, don't dismiss it if someone says you did something that hurt them.  Don't dismiss their feelings.  Don't think just because a man does what a woman tells him he's 'pussy-whipped', it might go much deeper than that.  Don't think that a woman who is compliant to her partner to the point of detriment to herself is 'just taking care of her man', she might not be allowed to make mistakes without being made to feel insignificant.  Keep your eyes open to the interactions between people.  Don't put blinders on to the existence of this problem.  As long as we ignore that it exists, our inaction allows it to continue unabated.

I know I've made it a habit of 'signing' off each post with a goodbye meme.  Despite the... heavier nature of this post, I won't abandon that habit.  I'll endeavor to lighten the mood in the next post.  So, until next time.

Entry #7 - You Are What You Eat

Let's hope we don't all turn into hamburgers!

While it would be amusing, and generally speaking it's easy to laugh at this concept, the idea that we essentially are what we eat suggests some disturbing possibilities.  

Okay, thankfully that is not really a possibility, but it's still something to think about.  Imagine all of the hormones that are in our mass produced and selectively available foods that we find in the mainstream grocery stores.  The amount of antibiotics that are fed to animals that ends up in the meat that we consume has an impact on more than simply our health.  Medically speaking, the use of these 'preventative' antibiotics (because the conditions in which the animals are 'raised' is disgusting and they have to take antibiotics to avoid massive infections) ends up in the meat we consume, which then ends up in us.  This has a direct impact on the usefulness of antibiotics against infections that we develop.  "Superbugs" exist because of the over-use of antibiotics.  That, however, is a topic for a different day and I'm going a bit off tangent.

I watched a portion of the 2009 documentary Fresh and it presented an interesting approach to a topic I've been aware of before.  The film presents a handful of people from a man who took a few acres of industrial wasteland and created a farmland in the middle of a metropolitan center to a family-owned grocery store owner who supports fresh foods and farming by stocking his stores with meats and produce from a local cooperative of farmers.  The feel of the documentary is less judgemental of those farmers that have contracts with "agribusiness" conglomerates, allowing a perspective that offers a sympathetic understanding of the position these farmers have been placed in.  Without the contracts with these conglomerates, the farmers are the ones who are hurt - not the agribusinesses.

One of the farmers that was interviewed mentioned that the subsidies that they were paid were the only reason they stayed afloat, that the sale of the corn itself wasn't enough to cover the costs of production.  It's frankly heartbreaking to realize that these farmers essentially can't provide for their families without being tied to these mega-businesses that seem to have overtaken the control of agriculture.  It's no longer about providing healthy, fresh foods, it's about mass production to make a hefty profit.  Who truly loses out however?  The public.  The corn that is bought from these farmers is used in the production of high fructose corn syrup, something which has become as prevalent in foods as water.  In fact, it might be more prevalent than water.  High fructose corn syrup?  Well, I could write a whole blog about nothing but that topic but the short explanation is that it sweetens food and drinks, has resulted in the veritable addiction of the national collective to the "sweet" aspect of foods and has a direct impact on the public's health.

Now here's an interesting thought: how we eat currently is not the way we should be eating.  I'm not talking about the prevalence of fast-food replacing actual meals prepared at home that utilize fresh ingredients.  I'm talking about the fact that canned corn has high fructose corn syrup added to it.  Corn.  Corn does not need to be sweet to be able to eat it.  It doesn't need to be sweet to be delicious.  Beyond that, one type of corn is "sweet corn" which is naturally sweet without needing to have additives put into it.  And that's just one vegetable.  What's even more concerning is that so many of the natural nutrients that exist in produce is being stripped out of it as it's going through production.  The answer?  We'll chemically add nutrients back in!  ...here's a better idea - don't strip them out of the food in the first place.

I think what frustrates me about this topic more than anything else is that the food that is most affordable is the food that has gone through this kind of production.  That is to say that for those who are of lower economic status are forced to buy the "most affordable" food that will allow them to stock their pantries and fridges.  The food that fits this description?  Food that has been stripped of the nutrients and artificially had them added back in.  Food that is rife with high fructose corn syrup.  Food that takes vegetables and manages to make them unhealthy.  This has gotten so bad that it's not uncommon for a person to try "fresh" foods without all the additives and flavorings added to them and find them bland.  However, if they continue eating these foods and their taste buds readjust to how food is supposed to taste, suddenly the 'taste' of food takes on a whole different meaning.

Let me leave you with some food for thought: how much of what we taste when we eat our food is processed additives and flavorings instead of the actual taste of food?  For that matter, do we really even know what food is truly supposed to taste like anymore?

Entry #6 - I Totally Did My Homework!

You can't prove a thing...

Okay maybe you can prove that I haven't done my homework when I get a zero for it.  *shifty eyes*  I have little in the way of an excuse except:

You see, it's a completely legitimate argument.  I had planned out my evening and what I needed to have done, I had a good flow going, and then I went to look up a YouTube channel to link a video for a previous blog post.  And that's where it all went WRONG!  Oh so terribly, horribly, amusingly, and entertainingly wrong!  Before I even realized it, hours had gone by and I still hadn't finished the original blog post I went looking for the video for.  I must now hang my head in shame.  For shame.

So while this is a funny situation, how many of you have been in a similar kind of situation?  I was talking with the Hubster about this situation and he recalled more than a few times he'd found himself in a similar situation.  It's something so silly, getting distracted by YouTube videos to the point that you forget what you were working on in the first place.  Yet it happens a lot.  And not just to Hubster and me.  I asked a bunch of my friends that are in a group skype chat with me (hey ya'll!) if they had ever run into this sort of situation themselves.  A good number of them affirmed that they were just as guilty as me.  While not being alone in this fact is somewhat comforting, it's still a bit worrying that it's such a common phenomenon.  ...is it still considered a phenomenon if it's common?  Is that an oxymoron?  *hand waves*  Let's not get distracted again!

Even memes are distracting!  And, let's face it, it's well established that I do love writing with a lot of memes sprinkled throughout.  Do you have any idea how many hours I spent looking for memes?  I bookmark ones that I find particularly amusing to figure out how to use them later.  I need to join memes anonymous or something.  But they're just so FUN!  They're almost as bad as YouTube videos.  In fact I may have clogged up my browser with an insane amount of meme tabs and YouTube tabs and it's some kind of epic battle to see which gets to claim my attention.  The lure is there.  I can practically hear the YouTube videos calling to me.  They sing the song of my people - the procrastinators.

I work better under pressure.  Raise your hand if you believe that.  Oh wait, I can't see that, never mind!  Just testing you!  Congratulations, you passed!  *coughs*  Right then.  Moving on.  This is seriously a 'thing', though.  Hours are 'spent' (read: wasted) skimming the internet for really no purpose whatsoever.  We get sucked into endless YouTube videos, screen after endless rolling screen of meme images, and Facebook wall doom.  It isn't as though it's boring, if it were we wouldn't really be doing it now would we?  In fact there's a lot of entertaining content to be found in random scrolling, it's what keeps us scrolling for the next interesting tidbit.  However, am I the only one who's a little worried about how easy it is to lose HOURS of time to random internet surfing?

   See, I'd like to consider this more in depth, but the problem I'm running into is the more I try to look into it - the more time I keep losing!  I just lost 20 minutes finding the above meme, giggling for a good three minutes, and then fighting with Blogger to get it uploaded!  Complaining about lost time using memes about lost time should not be this difficult.  Or result in more lost time!  I think maybe I should stop while I'm ahead, or before the time warp gnomes find me and suck my brain out or something equally concerning.  So, before I get utterly lost in the YouTube or memes world once more, please, post in the comments and let me know if you've experienced this sort of situation before as well!  I'm honestly curious to see how many of us are out there, losing time together.  

Entry #5 - Say What?

Well, this is a little disturbing... 

No, really, I can't help but find this a bit disturbing.  What is "this" you may ask?  Well, "this" refers to a pod-cast that I was listening to about status updates and social media as a whole.  Take a listen to the first part of it below: 

This American Life - Status Update 

Now, right off the bat the part that grabbed my attention and made me wonder if I was hearing things was when the girls were talking about how the 'norm' is to get two "likes" in the first minute of posting something.   

This is more or less how I feel about this.  Just a great big pile of "say what?" all over those comments.   I'm no small bit stunned here, "Usually there's two likes in a minute."  In a minute.  At 11AM.  For one 13-year-old and two 14-year-olds.  They end up with six likes in a minute.  I might not get that many likes on six of my own posts combined!  It just keeps going from there, too, as the girls explain about how it's practically an obligation to like their friends' posts and to comment.  What are the comments you may ask?  Well, that's the next part making me speechless. 

 That's right, the comments are along the lines of "gorgeous", "pretty", "stunning", "you kill it", "you're so pretty" and things to that regard.  The only thing off limits is "sexy", as it's stated as being a different connotation.  I suppose that's something at least, the comments aren't about making the other girls sexual in appearance but just complimenting them.  As the pod caster states, it's the opposite of online bullying.  And, this is a good thing.  It is.  It's also a very worrisome thing however.  

These girls are talking about how the comments are repetitive, all of them use the same phrases to each other and there's no unique qualities to them.  Even more worrisome however is the admission that the girls don't feel the "need" to have these comments made but it makes them feel better.  Beyond even that, however, is the kind of currency that comes with commenting.  You can comment on someone's picture because you're close to someone or because you want to get close to them.  And then there's your response to their response and the wording can be slightly different but it speaks volumes to these girls who put so much stock in to this otherwise unknown special language that's been created by these young, teenage girls.  

 One of the girls even states something disturbing outright: "It's like this whole set of unspoken rules that everyone follows."  How?  By definition unspoken rules means they aren't stated, so how do these girls know how to follow them?  And what if one of them does it wrong?  Will they be shunned?  Mocked?  Or just ignored and have comments and likes withheld?  The girls may have said they don't "need" the likes, but they all admit to liking them.  We all enjoy that sensation of someone acknowledging that we're pretty or complimenting us.  So this is where this whole portion of the pod cast really worried me: they say they don't "need" the likes and comments but what if they didn't get any?  That sounds suspiciously like an alcoholic who says they don't "need" to drink, they just like it.  Or the gambler who says they don't "need" to gamble, it's just fun.  And how much of these girls' psyche is being affected by the confirmation from others that if it's removed will be damaged?  

Seriously, this is kind of a 'heavy' topic to be thinking about!  It's really worrisome to think about the impact seemingly little, trivial things can be having on a generation that's still essentially in its infancy.  I wish there were some funny way to approach this or wave it all away but the simple fact is there's really not.  It's food for thought, things to consider.  Things to really consider.  Give it some thought, if you have any opinions I'd love to hear them in the comments section.  I'll try and go with something a little more lighthearted next time.  Till then.

 

Entry #4 - The Nostalgia Critic

NOTHING IS BETTER THAN THIS! 

Well, some things might be better than the Nostalgia Critic, but personally I feel it would be very difficult to identify those things right off.  For those of you who have not had the pleasure, let me introduce you to one of the most amazing YouTubers out there:

Alright so I might be a little biased, but the fact is still that the Nostalgia Critic is in fact awesome.  His tagline "I remember it so you don't have to" seems to sum up most of the purpose of the channel but it's how he does his reviews that truly takes his videos to a whole different level.   While the majority of his review of a movie consists of an unusual amount of over-the-top rage at the occasional ridiculousness of nostalgic movies, at the heart of it his reviews are actually rather insightful.  His sarcasm, body language, hand motions and over-exaggerated movements just serve to make the review more amusing and enthralling.  The way he behaves keeps the viewer interested to get to the more insightful parts, almost as though he's slipping in an actual review into the humor so we don't realize we've actually learned something.  (*gasp* The horror!)

 

The character of the Nostalgia Critic is played by Doug Walker.  He and a number of others work hard on the production of the reviews that are done and the effort put into them is clearly evidenced.  The premise is a singular camera view on the Nostalgia Critic as he watches a movie that is nostalgic to him.  Generally these movies consist of those that were released from the 80's to current day and a number of views have been done about a 'classic' movie and it's 'reboot' modern counterpart and the comparison of them.

Often times, the review of a nostalgic movie is done in a manner to peel away the veneer of time and look at the movie with fresh eyes.  When we think back to movies we loved as children, we tend to think of them with a kind of haze that comes from time and a lack of maturity at the time we viewed the movies.  What the Nostalgia Critic does is to review these movies, looking at them again as an adult, and through the expressive disdain he displays often ends up showing us the ridiculousness of some movies.

This isn't necessarily a bad thing either.  Sometimes when we look back at movies we enjoyed as kids, those aspects are still there that we enjoyed.  However, we're now privy to more mature jokes that we likely missed when we were children.  A good many movies that were geared towards children also have adult oriented humor interspersed throughout the film to appeal to parents that were watching along.  Then again, sometimes movies that are meant to be for "children" and "family oriented" in theme are... a bit disturbing for that target audience. 

While not all of the reviews offer a degree of positive response - let's face it, not everyone likes all movies - the reviews whether positive or negative are still just... funny!  Doug Walker has created a character in the Nostalgia Critic that is actually as interesting and engaging as the movies that he's reviewing.  All told, it's really a YouTube series that I love watching.  And if I'm being honest, just in the course of writing this entry about the Nostalgia Critic, I got side-tracked more than a few times watching some reviews that I came across and realized I hadn't seen yet. 

If you enjoy movies, honestly I'd check his reviews out.  At the very least you're likely to get a laugh out of it and who knows, you might just get a bit more insight to movies you've enjoyed (or even hated) that will offer a different perspective from which to view movies from your childhood.  Take a look and see for yourself.