Link: Book Reveals Youth's Views of Politicians

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. But to go with the reality that shook the 2008 and 2012 presidential elections, the youth demographic is typified as disenchanted and apathetic to politics, which is just as often stereotyped as an old man's game.

A book published by Professor John Street, Dr Sanna Inthorn and Dr Martin Scott, seeks to dispel ideas that young voters have no sense of care about politics.

Personally, I wish that it didn't top off at nearly 100 dollars on Amazon, but then how would they make money off college kids who need it for their courses?

Of note to me personally, the book does this by examining research about popular culture and media icons, and how young voters (aged 17-18 years old) in the UK see politics through the lens of that popular culture. By examining what young people thought about celebrity icons and if they could be 'trusted,' and then comparing those findings to what they thought about political figures, researchers like Professor Street could analyze how to appeal to younger demographics and even what might be wrong with current approaches at presentation in modern politics.

The linked article provides some interesting summary of the team's findings and some of their interview statements,

Politicians need to come across as people who care about and understand an issue, and young people like to know if someone's personal experience has informed their political views. Politicians willing to reveal a little bit about themselves, who explain why something matters to them, might not gain 'legend' status like certain musicians or celebrities, but might improve their chances of being trusted and listened to.

As a  young person myself, I wholly agree with this statement. A flaw of delineating on party issues, to me and to a lot of my peers is that understanding an issue is not a political statement to me, it is a pre-requisite for participating in a discussion at all. Much of the current political race is denial of facts and of realities that I and my peers face daily, in the most advantageous way as to appeal to party and corporate benefactors.

Many people my age can see right through politicians. You can pretend to us all you want about how much you care, but if the answer to the question, 'why are you here,' is 'because it's advantageous to me' or 'My peers think I will win the election for them and give power in the government back to their party' then we don't want that. It's an unsaid but obvious, painful throbbing reality that Street and his researchers seem to have stumbled upon: on average, younger voters want to see a personal connection to the issue.

And nothing is a more personal connection than the media we love, and the experiences we go through every single day:

"The links between popular culture and politics are dismissed when it is thought that popular culture diminishes politics, for example when politicians appear on television shows like I'm a celebrity get me out of here. The assumption is that what they are doing is a desperate attempt to appear 'relevant' or to revive a flagging career. "But there are times when these links are taken with the utmost seriousness. During the Arab Spring of 2011, much was made of the role played by music and musicians inspiring the rebellion in Tunisia or the crowds gathered in Tahrir Square in Cairo."

The media we love and the celebrities we watch and the shows we take seriously and the books we read as if they're our personal canon, matter. They are portraits of what we look for when we want something to enjoy and admire.

There's that old adage, 'be the change you wish to see.'

Well, we have hours and hours of media that's exactly what we wish to see. Why don't politicians look for something to be, there?

I absolutely promise that if you are a politician and you can pull off the presence of Optimus Prime, the wholesomeness of Superman, the kindness and duty of Steve Rogers, the responsibility and class of Captain Jean-Luc Picard, you're going to be all set.

And maybe the good looks of Tom Hiddleston, I think that would land you the tumblr vote.

And if you're not a white guy, which would be great, we need to use this fact that pop culture is relevant to make it absolutely necessary  to add more idols of color, female idols, that can have an impact in politics and beyond.

If pop culture is well-known to manifest in politics, then it becomes an imperative that pop culture be representative, else all we're going to do is promote inequality in politics.

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LINK: Showcase creativity, not racism, this halloween

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 to know why.

The fact that we can thoughtlessly steal and regurgitate the images of cultures and peoples until they are a generic, meaningless mush is one of our media's least beautiful legacies: cultural appropriation. The Mass Media summarizes it thus,

Look at the models wearing those costumes. They all feature people who look pretty Anglo. They are literally playing dress-up, using another culture as a costume.

“We’re paying respect to other cultures,” some may argue. No, you’re not. If you genuinely wanted to show respect to another culture, you’d do it on a day that isn’t reserved for shenanigans and soliciting treats from strangers.

Our media is dominated by white, male, heterosexual voices. This is undeniable. But it can also lead people to internalizing that white, male, heterosexual narrative as part of their mythology without even noticing. White people don't have to think about how their culture is pictured as a savage or as minstrels. Male people don't have to think about how degrading it is to be presented nothing but revealing, straight-male-gaze inducing clothing as costume options. Straight people don't have to think about how queerness is dismissed as either clownish or threatening.

But we should think about this, because do we really want our mythology to be looked back on like this? 

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Link: Demanding Representation of Black Girl Nerds in Geek Culture

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, those names are probably unknown.

True fact about me: When I was little, I thought Storm was the coolest of the X-men and I don't redact this at all today.

She also relates her own childhood as a black female nerd, and connects the issues. It's a fact that mass media doesn't adequately represent women of color. But what is the impact of this narrative, that your heroes don't look like you, on the people growing up listening to it?

We’re given so few characters that I’ve always felt that if I wanted more, I had to be grateful for what I’d been given and put my money where my mouth is. But I’m not going to lie –- that strategy doesn’t seem to be working. I’m getting really tired of just accepting whatever scraps are thrown our way. I’m completely over struggling to find the silver lining in an obvious token black character while on the other end of the spectrum, people who have never had to think about finding racial representation in popular culture feel justified in raising hell over color blind casting in a sea of predominately diversity starved movies -– yeah, I’m looking at you, people who acted like Rue’s casting in the Hunger Games was a personal slight but interestingly enough seemed completely OK with the damn near catastrophic white washing in "Avatar: The Last Airbender."

It's a fact that watching television reduces self esteem in children for every demographic except white males. And yet, the stereotype of a 'nerd' is a white male. Is it any wonder that many 'nerdy' or 'geeky' culture artifacts are media-based, then? Is it any mystery that these media-heavy cultures are exclusionary to women of color, when it's so difficult to like what you like without feeling awful about it, unless you're the dominant cultural demographic?

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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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Link: Seven Things I Learned from Reading the Hobbit.

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 to our daily lives.

And it's not a surprise that they do. The Hobbit is high adventure, but it's also a story about a journey. Not a Hero's Journey-- that's about the adolescence and tribulations and personal growth of a hero character.

It's a story about having your life up-heaved to go on a trip that you're not sure will end well.

Plenty of us call ourselves some kind of profession, but don't feel qualified or were forced into it and now we just sort of play along... though with luck few of us are burglars.

Plenty of us have had to muddle through vast conflicts that don't even include us, and yet, we've had to make decisions that influence them.

 And plenty of us have happened across something totally by chance that's changed the entire game: sometimes, for the worse. Though hopefully none of my readers have found the One Ring.

Hopefully.

"G... Google! Blogspot!!

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