Bill Nye the Real Fly Science Guy

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 BILL BILL BILL BILL (inertia is a property of matter)

Educational television, I know — but I loved it, and so did thousands of other kids. William Sanford ('Bill') Nye's enthusiasm and excitement for science went hand-in-hand with my love for museums and my then-steadfast resolution to become a paleontologist. That last one didn't really work out in the long-run, but to this day I adore science and I suspect a vast fraction of young adults in STEM fields today have similar feelings.

This is why I was enchanted, and slightly baffled, when I saw Bill on Dancing with the Stars.

Pictured: Bill Nye dances the robot. What a time to be alive.

Bill Nye is not really who many of us think of as a celebrity. He's getting on in age, he's an educator, he ran a public television kids science show, he's a committee member for the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry, and a face of climate-change research efforts. But most of all, he's remembered for his kids' television show.

But he's also done battle with Fox News on the subject of climate change. He's used his star power to address creationism in schools and how anti-science sentiments might harm future generations. 

This is a great redefinition of what a celebrity is, and one I wish would happen more often. Without media that connected him to the public, Bill Nye would not be a celebrity. And he holds great meaning for the consumers he connected to, despite having no trappings of what society commonly considers as star material.

He is a population-picked celebrity. There's no agent doing publicity for him, or selling his image to magazines. He's not releasing singles, taking movie contracts, or advertising himself. And yet, everybody knows who he is, anyway, because we like him and we like to see him. He has meaning to us.

That's the power of media, I think, in its most base form. It doesn't just lift the stars above everybody else, it lifts people who would never have been stars into the sky, based on a television show that is barely considered important to popular culture.

But the consumers consider it important. And that's why Bill Nye isn't just dancing with the stars, he is a star.

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Redefining Lines: 'parody' videos and their discourse.

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 it up.

For anyone still in the lurch, Blurred Lines and it's music video is a catchy hit that proclaims that the line between yes and no in sexual situations is 'blurred.'

Pictured: music video pretty much everyone will agree is sexist.

This philosophy is famously unpopular with progressive consumers, leading to intense outcry in the wake of Blurred Lines' popularity. Accusations include that the song promotes rape and rape culture, that the video objectifies women, and overall the combined effect is simply just too creepy. 

However, something interesting to come out of this are the multitudes of video 'parody' songs that satirize the message in Thicke's song. 

Here's the Law Revue Girls turning the tables and flipping the video's gender roles, combined with a pro-feminist message:

Pictured: a very inopportune video preview but a fairly empowering video.

Here's YouTube artist Bart Baker, who specializes in these parody songs, turning nearly every #1 hit into a comedy. This video has over 8 million hits:

Pictured: Less empowering, but does raise some good points about the video.

The song's tune was even adapted to popular TV shows and other fandoms, riding on the song's popularity. Some fans show their love for Doctor Who and forget the unfortunate naked women business:

Pictured: Their enthusiasm is adorable but nobody here should quit their day job.

This trend didn't begin with Thicke, of course: previous hits like Gagnam Style, nearly everything Lady Gaga has ever produced, and beyond have had loving fun poked at them. The genre might even be traced back to Weird Al Yankovic, who supplemented his weird and wacky albums with much-beloved parody songs of popular releases. To have a Yankovic single is even considered a badge of honor by some artists.

Under Fair Use, anybody can make a parody video without risk of legal action.

However, I think something interesting happened with Blurred Lines and its spoofs that rarely has taken place with other jibed material. The parodies on whole aren't loving. Anything but: the overwhelming message of the satire directed at this song is hateful, and it can be argued rightly so. Despite Thicke's success in the charts, his reputation has been forever tarred by the dialogue these spoofs open up.

Other media that's been poorly received (despite monetary success) by the public has been given the same treatment, even more dramatic treatment. In the case of the much-detested Twilight series, a whole satirical movie was made in protest of the themes and uncomfortable plot devices it popularized:

Pictured: Dislike strong enough to fuel an actual movie release.

Satire as not only a means of criticism from certain formal sources (See: the Daily Show, MAD magazine), but as a publicly-available weapon against toxic or hostile messages is an essential part of our modern storytelling landscape. It's one thing to publish criticism, to write protesting articles, to leave poor reviews, but it's another entirely to speak back in culture's own language.

"Hey baby," slurred Blurred Lines, a Solo cup full of tequila sloshing in one fist, "What'chu doin'?"

"You're catchy, but piss off," the public replied, and slapped the hit single's wandering hand off its vast and disapproving thigh.

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