Red Light, Green Light

I like a good pie chart as much as the next person. But what's up with all the systematic charts about dating?

My roommates were looking through BYU's dating magazine, TWO, this week. It's been sitting on our table all week so I thought I'd look at it in case there was something funny I could blog about. I saw this chart as I flipped through the pages.

Now, in general, I don't take much of what's in these kind of magazines seriously. But these sort of things really bother me. There seem to always be these types of charts as if there was a rule book or manual for dating. I think we'd all LOVE a map to navigate dating and "the game," but if it was this easy or simple, we wouldn't need one! Maybe there's a lot of truth to it, but I think it gives people skewed views of what every situation should mean or not mean. Yes, one guy might follow this to a tee, but I think there are lots of cases where these "signals" only apply to a certain type of person. It does a real disservice to a lot of people, guys and girls, to generalize. 

I know it's just a fun, little magazine, but I think we should do away with this sort of thing. Or maybe I just don't like this chart because I never liked the game "Red Light, Green Light" growing up...

Gilmore Girls is Ruining My Life

With all the hype about Gilmore Girls in class on the first day, I decided to find out why everyone loves it so much. It only took me three episodes to get hooked. I laugh, I cry, and I feel like I'm getting vicarious diabetes from all the junk food they eat. I should do a study about how my eating habits change while I watch it. It always makes me hungry. Anyways, it is a really entertaining show that is witty and real. I love the characters and how the pace of the show matches its small town setting. I also enjoy the relationships between the characters and how they develop.

One of my favorite things about the show is seeing different parent-child relationships. Lorelai and Rory have a very unique relationship, very different from Lorelai and her mother. They are often more like friends than mother and daughter, which is understandable given their relatively small age difference. After watching the first season (and almost the second), there are a few good things and a few bad things that the show portrays through their relationship.

Good things:
1. Mutual trust makes for a much healthier relationship between a parent and child.
2. Both mother and daughter support and encourage each other. When something goes right or wrong for one or the other, they smile or cry with the other (Mosiah 18: 8-9 - solid Christlike principle!)
3. They spend a lot of quality time together which, from a human development perspective, is extremely important for adolescents.

Something I don't like as much, is a common issue in most relationships to some extent. Lorelai models a lot of immature and unhealthy behaviors and attitudes for Rory. While that is inevitable, I get bugged by it sometimes. That being said, I think there are more good things going on than bad. Sure, I don't agree with some of the things Lorelai does, but I think she is a really good mom and does a good job parenting.

From a critical media standpoint, I think it's a relatively good influence on its audience. But it's addicting and eats my free (and not so free) time, so it's sort of ruining my life. But at least I'm getting a good laugh!

Sharing Goodness

I've been noticing a lot of posts on Facebook about the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The messages are so uplifting and I love scrolling on my news feed to see so many good things. Of course, posts affiliated with the Church are not the only good things on Facebook. I appreciate those even more because I love seeing people post positive things instead of filling social media with pessimistic, "Debbie-Downer" type media. These are two posts I recently saw that made me smile! Yay for sharing goodness no matter who you are or what your religion is!

I cut off the picture/name to ensure privacy! :)

Sometimes You've Gotta Dance

Dance parties. Sometimes you've just got to go.

I grew up competitive dancing so I LOVE to dance. I'm almost always excited and willing to attend any dance party. I know, so "freshman year." But I love to dance... so I go.

ANYWAYS, I went to one last Friday and it made me so sad. Normally the music is great and it's a fun atmosphere, but this one was SO not that way. I usually get the details about what "kind" of dance party it will be and who is throwing it so I can make an informed decision. I thought this one would be good, but it just got worse the longer I stayed. I felt a little sick because of the music choices.

This situation made me think about how much music affects me. I could feel a real difference when I left that party. I think it's really unfortunate how easily I accept the top 40 hits because they are catchy, when most of the lyrics are complete garbage. The problem seems to be that many of the songs aren't outright offensive, but they promote ideas and behaviors and label them cool and accepted.

I'm making a commitment to be more aware and critical of the lyrics of the songs I listen to. I think the more lenient I am with what I allow myself to listen to, eventually I will be so desensitized that I can't be a good, critical consumer of music.

Memes on memes on memes

Let's talk about memes.

There are good ones and bad ones. And by that I mean that there are well-executed ones and the ones that don't make sense after staring at/rereading it for another 2 minutes.

But what about "good" and "bad" in a different way?

In my experience, there are some that make me laugh like this one:

There are ones that make me laugh and then feel bad that I laughed like this one:

Others make me smile because they are cute:

There are some that make me cringe like this one:

Some make me wonder who thought it was a good idea to waste time making that meme:

And some are great because I completely relate to whoever thought of them:

My friends and I used to look these up for fun when we were bored and I thought it was a good time. While I was trying to find ones to put on here, I realized how meaningless they are. Sure, I think they have entertainment value, but I've decided I don't want to spend any chunk of time viewing them. Some of them are so crass and pinhole certain cultures or types of people. Don't get me wrong, I laugh at these as much as the next person but I don't know if I'd label these "good" in the sense that they uplift me and make me a better person after viewing them. 

I LOVE kids. I think they are the cutest, funniest human beings. Confession: I would rather hang out with them than my peers/friends usually. This week I was shown a lot of funny videos about kids doing funny things. I've probably watched these videos an unhealthy amount of times, but such is my love of tiny humans.

Here are some of my favorites:

Obviously these videos are entertaining. I bet you watched them at least twice. But what other value or influence do these videos have? I've never thought beyond their entertainment value, but upon further review, I think that the videos are influences for good. Yes, the kids fall over themselves or their words, but it isn't the kind of humor that is at someone's expense. These videos remind me of the innocence and goodness of children. It encourages me to say "I'm okay!" when I trip and to be open to new experiences and to persevere when I stumble. And I learn to not be embarrassed and self-conscious about those experiences when I might otherwise want to hide my head in a hole! So I definitely consider these videos to be good forms of media.

Moral of the story: Kids are the absolute best.

Bag of Chips

So why "Media Munchies?" As I've thought about how to go about blogging about media, I keep coming back to the concept of consumerism. We are constantly consuming in our society whether it is food, information, resources, or media. One of the issues we all face is what we will consume and how it affects us, whether or not we are aware of it.

 Recently, I got in the habit of reading food labels. I have been trying to eat less preservatives and processed foods to try and help the headaches I get. It's done wonders for my critical analysis of food ingredients! So my shopping and consuming of food has radically changed from my previous lackadaisical walk down the grocery aisle. I want this blog to be analogous to my grocery store changes. I hope to be a critical consumer of "virtuous, lovely, good, and praiseworthy"1 media.

So if, like me, you've got a case of the media munchies, let's work on being fine diners!

*I reserve the right to still like Munchies, despite its obvious conflict of interest to this post.