John Krall - johnnyk - section 041 - journey log 3 - ranger

Habit of mind used: Responsibilities and Curiosity

The video by Bo Burnham on pop and country music was one of the things we talked about in class that I really enjoyed. Firstly I liked it because it was a pretty funny video. At the same time, the video was deeper then it appeared on the surface. In the video on pop and love songs, Bo mixes comedy while conveying his message on the concept of how society is creating an unattainable image for a girl. The video then directly attacks how marketing teams for pop singers then help make songs to say all the same in different ways to make profit off these insecure listeners. It creates a sense of failure in the girls and, "According to Common Sense Media’s report, children as young as 5 years old “express dissatisfaction with their bodies" (Pittman). This was something that i was interested in because it was something i never really knew much about, as being a guy i hadn't really had similar experiences. After researching this topic it became clear that there is a sense of responsibility in the better part of society to point this out to people in who are affected by. However while i was researching i came across something interesting. On the same sight that was addressing the problem, as i scrolled down there was a related article that popped up. In the related article it showed pictures of people that the website deemed as "Body Image Heroes." What i found interesting was that in all the photos, the famous people that where chosen where either over weight or border line over weight. In my opinion, encouraging an unhealthy life doesn't help fix the problem of creating a society where self consciousness of there body doesn't exist. It just is something on the other end of the spectrum to where the girls then compare themselves to these people who are over weight and feel a false sense of encouragement to where they feel better because they aren't as unhealthy as those people. And if they are then they see how successful they are as encouragement.

The next reading i gravitated towards was the one we all had to read for the monsters vs villains readings. The thing that really stuck out to me was the concept of how all everyone in society has a degree of insanity in them. while researching this i came to understand a view on insanity that made this concept more easily agreeable. It was that insanity is what helps us to progress and that even "Natural selection wants us to be crazy — at least a little bit" (Nixon). Insanity can be seen as doing or thinking in away thats against the norm. When thinking about it like this, it is easy to relate it to the invention of new technology and the development of new abilities. Everyone has different levels of insanity while too much and too little being a bad thing. Insanity often leads to curiosity because in most cases your doing something or thinking in a way that most people don't or haven't thought.

Works Cited

Nixon, Robert. "Why We Are All Insane." LiveScience. Purch, 5 Aug. 2008. Web. 07 Feb. 2017.

Pittman, Taylor. "Young Girls Explain Why Beauty Standards Are So Impossible." The Huffington Post. TheHuffingtonPost.com, n.d. Web. 07 Feb. 2017.