Being involved or informed with politics is incredibly powerful, even if government is a depressing topic for many. Socially, few more powerful demographics exist than young people, save for corporations and their lobbyists. [...]
Link: Book Reveals Youth's Views of Politicians
Posted by Alexandra Salazar on Saturday, November 9, 2013
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Boycotting the Ender's Game Film, I.E. Trying to Abort a Problematic Franchise
Posted by Alexandra Salazar on Tuesday, November 5, 2013
If you're a fan of Science Fiction, and even if you're not, you should already know a few things about Orson Scott Card's Ender's Game. One, that it is famous in that pseudo-classics-written-by-a-white-dude way, and [...]
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Real Modern Day Myths
Posted by Alexandra Salazar on Sunday, October 20, 2013
Just because we make up our own new pantheon, doesn't mean the old's gone. In fact, one of the prevailing inspirations for fiction is mythology: both ancient, and modern folklore. For a single example, David Pfanner wrote [...]
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LINK: Showcase creativity, not racism, this halloween
Posted by Alexandra Salazar on Saturday, October 12, 2013
You really shouldn't have to ask why you can't dress like a 'Gypsy,' an 'Indian' or 'a Mexican in a sombrero,' a 'tribal person,' a 'tiki person,' or wear blackface when Halloween comes around.
But here's a reminder if you do have to, or if you want [...]
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Feeding the Trolls: Social Media in Politics
Posted by Alexandra Salazar on Friday, October 11, 2013
Anyone who has ever had access to comment boxes, discussion threads, or any kind of unmoderated forum knows what trolls are. Well, maybe not everybody; the definition's been a bit muddied, but the original one is still [...]
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Link: Blaming Rape Culture on Social Media
Posted by Alexandra Salazar on Thursday, October 10, 2013
Thinkprogress' Tara Culp-Ressler reports on the blaming of rape culture on social media. Every media major and sociology major who reads it groans (or ought to groan) in recognition and agreement:
The takeaway from these [...]
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Link: Demanding Representation of Black Girl Nerds in Geek Culture
Posted by Alexandra Salazar on Wednesday, October 9, 2013
When Chaka Cumberbach asks her readers to name some black female superheroes, she mentions that the nerdiest among us might forgo Storm and remember Bumblebee, Nubia, or Misty Knight. However, for anybody less comics-savvy, [...]
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Nature vs. Technology: A Harmful Theme in Advertising
Posted by Alexandra Salazar on Tuesday, October 8, 2013
Example: Orange Juice.
Evan Stewart at the Society Pages notes that there's not a single person in this commercial below.
Pictured: Fresh lies are a part of a balanced breakfast.
This is weird, because nice homogeneous [...]
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Link: Can Social Media Save NASA?
Posted by Alexandra Salazar on Monday, October 7, 2013
Selena Larson of ReadWrite made an interesting conclusion: For NASA's 55th anniversary on October 1, it got a government shutdown and completely frozen funding. 97% of its employees, many scientists and other highly educated [...]
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Link: While Superheroes Conquer Media, Comic Books Battle Stigma
Posted by Alexandra Salazar on Sunday, October 6, 2013
This article by Melissa Rayworth of the Arkon Beacon Journal reports well on a very strange phenomenon: the mass-media bullies that once and still bully comics for being either too childish or too adult, too intellectual/nerdy [...]
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Analysis of a Parthian Shot.
Posted by Alexandra Salazar on Saturday, October 5, 2013
Is this now going to be a short series on feedback media? OK, I guess this is now a short series on feedback media.
A few days ago, I discussed how feedback can create a dialog between consumers and content producers. [...]
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Are Banned Books and Bad Science Connected?
Posted by Alexandra Salazar on Friday, October 4, 2013
According to Kevin C. Pyle author of upcoming book Bad For You, an exploration of the 'war on fun', and Scott Cunningham: Yes. And they answer it with a comic.
The 'he' being Fredric Wertham, and the answer [...]
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Bill Nye the Real Fly Science Guy
Posted by Alexandra Salazar on Thursday, October 3, 2013
I, like many others, have childhood television memories. Not to say I was parked on the couch often; I remember eating dinner (plain spaghetti, with Parmesan cheese) and watching Bill Nye the Science Guy on PBS.
BILL [...]
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Link: Seven Things I Learned from Reading the Hobbit.
Posted by Alexandra Salazar on Wednesday, October 2, 2013
It's a geeky forecast, today.
The authors of the minimalist MS-Paint webcomic A Hard Hobbit to Break published a really great essay on the 7 largest themes in J. R. R. Tolkein's The Hobbit and how they can relate [...]
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Talk Nerdy to Me.
Posted by Alexandra Salazar on Tuesday, October 1, 2013
There's a fairly popular cultural meme that there isn't just a nerd, there is a super nerd, the one who knows Klingon and can speak it, too. Perish the thought of this being for squares only. Stephen Colbert can speak Quenya.
Here's a handy introduction [...]
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An Interesting Obituary.
Posted by Alexandra Salazar on Monday, September 30, 2013
On Sept. 20th, the New York Times reported the death of Hiroshi Yamauchi, retired president of Nintendo: responsible for the happiness of both old and young consumers. However, they made an interesting error.
Minutiae [...]
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Comment Box Beatdown: A New and Violent Dialogue.
Posted by Alexandra Salazar on Sunday, September 29, 2013
I'm going to assume that almost everyone reading this knows what a comment box is. There's one below every post here. Bastions of free speech: moderated comments allow anyone who cares even a vague amount to express their [...]
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4 Rules to Make Star Wars Great Again: Fans Lay down the Law
Posted by Alexandra Salazar on Saturday, September 28, 2013
If there's anything that permeates childhoods spanning the last 30 or so years, it's probably Star Wars. Whether you're a fan, or if it's 'that science fiction series' to you, you probably know the names of the characters. You probably know who Darth [...]
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Redefining Lines: 'parody' videos and their discourse.
Posted by Alexandra Salazar on Thursday, September 26, 2013
I'm not sure you can toss a stone on the internet without hitting somebody mad at Robert Thicke right now. Whether it's people defending his song Blurred Lines (and it's top spot on R/B charts) or ripping it to shreds, the blogosphere is eating [...]
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DC Creative Team Leaves after Ultimatum for Lesbian Batwoman
Posted by Alexandra Salazar on Wednesday, September 25, 2013
The 2011 run of Batwoman comes to an uncomfortable close. Citing editorial interference, creative leads W. Haden Blackman and J.H. Williams III have left the project; despite two on-panel proposals between Kate Kane (Batwoman) [...]
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Blog: The Pilot Episode
Posted by Alexandra Salazar on Tuesday, September 17, 2013
There are at least a million popular culture blogs.
There are at least a million nerd/media culture blogs.
This is one more.
But it's not a blog about gawking. It's a blog about the significance of the media that is given a second-class label in [...]
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