Bullying Intro

Bullying has been a problem for as long as we could communicate.  All it takes is being rude to another person.  How easy is that?  The problem with bullying is the damage it does to the person being bullied.  Bullying causes low self-esteem and low self-worth in both the victims and the bullies.  The results are often so sever that the victim attempts suicide, often more than once.  It is saddest when those attempts are successful.  The three most basic types of bullying are physical aggression, verbal aggression, and relational aggression.  While physical and verbal aggression are self explanatory, relational aggression is not.  Relational aggression involves gossip, spreading rumors, social isolation, purposely being left out of activities, and cyber-bullying.  For the most part, physical and verbal bullying as well as most relational bullying stay at school or on the playground, however cyber-bullying usually takes place at home and allows other bullying to go everywhere with the victim rather than having a place of refuge as with physical bullying.

Now here is the thing with bullying laws and policies, they only do so much.  While 49 states have anti-bullying laws that define bullying and policies for schools (Montana is the state with no laws), only 20 of those states define cyber-bullying and include it in the policies.  Of those 20 states, only two include cyber-bullying originating of campus so that the schools can get involved directly.  Most of the other states have left the policies open so the schools can decide if they want to include off campus bullying in their individual policies.  I have been reviewing Utah State Code on the definitions and policies and the definition is clear about physical, verbal and cyber-bullying, but not the other forms of relational bullying.  As the code includes cyber-bullying in the policies, it does not include cyber-bullying originating off campus or after school hours.  There is not currently any federal code on cyber-bullying.  The Megan Meier Cyberbullying Prevention Act is still in review three years after being introduced to congress because of the controversy with freedom of speech.  Constitutionality of any anti-bullying law is an issue because of the first amendment.  Do these laws cross that boundary or not?  The jury is still out.

Here is another item of interest.  Most of the Public Service Announcements, advertisements, and films that are anti-bullying are produced in Canada including the new movie cyberbu//y.  I also found more videos on YouTube that were made outside within the US.  We are behind the times as a nation on this very serious issue of bullying, particularly cyber-bullying.

Manovich Points of Interest:
(I don't have my book with me at this point, so I am guessing.)

• Integration
• Compositing
• Human-Technology Interface

iPhone 5 Home Page Paragraph & Manovich-isms

The iPhone 5 is a touchscreen smartphone created by Apple Inc.  It was released on September 21, 2012.  This is the sixth version of the iPhone to be released since it all began just 5 years ago in 2007.  In just the first 24 hours of going on sale, Apple sold over 2 million devices, and after the third day Apple reported sales in excess of 5 million!  Weighing just 3.95oz it is the lightest and thinnest smartphone of its kind.  The iPhone 5 received strong praise for the new larger screen measuring 4-inches diagonally.  Criticism came when Apple announced that a new universal connector/charger would be required for the phone.  This lessened when consumers learned that all forthcoming iOS devices would use this same connector and that it was done to be able to make their future products more thin.  It has now been nearly a month and a half since the pre-orders began, and the device is still sold out worldwide, and the back-orders won't ship for at least 3-4 weeks.  Apple has clearly created a product that is desirable to millions worldwide and we look forward to seeing what is to come!

Possible Manovich-isms that could appear in the final project:

• Numerical Representation
• Modularity
• Automation
• Variability
• Transcoding
• Hyperlinking
• Interface
• Operations
• Illusions
• Forms
• Database Logic

Arrested Development videos

Nearly all of the videos I found are manipulations of official media- some are poorly ripped from DVDs or online streams of the show.

Many are compilations, like best of the show, best of a character, or scenes relating to a certain theme.









Some are set to music, like this one to the "Mahna Mahna" song (popularized by the Muppets) with "Mahna Mahna" replaced by people saying the name of one particular character.




These last two are great. Like every other mature adult in North America, my favorite song this summer was the complex and artful "Call Me Maybe," by Carly Rae Jeppeson. Luckily, Arrested Development has a character named Maeby. One video is short clips of the show set against the song's tune to make the characters "sing" it. The other is set to the original version of the song and showcases George Michael's crush on his cousin Maeby. (I know, I know, but trust me, its funny.)





Nearly all the videos I found are intended to be humorous. I think the cultish nature of the show led to the creation of some of the videos- fans wanted a way to keep it alive in some way and contribute to the continued cultural relevance of the show. The final broadcast episode aired in February of 2006 and people are still recycling the content in new ways over six years later.

Bullying Videos

So, wow,  I can't believe the videos I found.  I didn't expect to find anything funny or light.  I expected to find heavy stuff and it all was, sad heavy.  I din't know how many I would find, but they just kept coming up.  There is a lot of stuff on bullying, almost all of it is campaigning against bullying and several of them are from across the world.

There were several links to news broadcasts including more than one link to the news anchor's reply to a bully.  I also found links to the movies Bully and cyberbully.  You can watch all of cyberbully on Youtube if you want to.  There also ant-bullying commercials.

Most of the amateur bullying movies I found are the "I have a Secret" videos.  These videos involve no talking from the person on screen; the person holds up cards telling their story.  All of the stories are very personal and sad.  They usually end with a message of hope or recommending a hotline or website that can help.  The video below is an excellent example of these videos.

I did find a few videos that were done by high schoolers about bullying that were actual movies.  The editing was simple, but the message just as strong as the "I have a Secret" videos.  One of them was soft music, pictures of somebody's sister, and words telling her story.  Others have quotes and stats about bullying and end with a call to action.  The one below is one of my favorites.  This one was definitely done by amateurs, but still had a strong message, both with the story and the stats.  They were also careful to mention that it was a true story of a nameless boy that committed suicide at 13 due to bullying.  After giving some stats, they use a guilt trip as a call to action.

Non of the videos I found were particularly funny.  They all pulled at your heartstrings just as they were designed to do.  I especially find the "I have a Secret" videos powerful.  These videos have a profound effect because they are all personal stories.  There seems to be a whole community of these movies.  Teenagers are making their own videos because they are seeing them.  Some of their posts talk about their reasons for posting the videos.  One girl wanted to start the new year letting people know that there is help for those in situations like hers.  While not all of the "I have a Secret" videos have to do with being bullied, they are about depression, suicide attempts and/or mental and emotional illnesses resulting from abuse of some sort (bullying fits the abuse category).  I wonder how many of these kids make a video for therapy.

Grammar Videos

OK, this one was pretty fun.

Not surprisingly, I found several videos that were about "grammar nazis". I mean, YouTube is all about funny videos, right? And the "grammar nazi" angle is one of the only ways that you can be funny when it comes to grammar. The other videos I found were strictly educational in nature. You know, boring videos that look like you are sitting in a college class. There isn't much to say about the educational videos, other than the fact that they were created by some grammar enthusiasts with very little production value.

The humorous videos, on the other hand, were all over the place as far as production value goes. There were some videos that looked like a 13 year old kid made them with his phone, and others that were literally shown on the Disney channel. (The Disney one was absolutely awful, by the way). Like I said, a majority of them went with the "grammar nazi" theme. Most of these videos followed a similar story line: somebody doesn't use proper grammar and is rebuked by someone else (the "grammar nazi"). I should note here that I pretty much hated all the so-called humorous videos that I found. The "grammar nazi" angle is pretty well-worn, and there are only so many ways that you can go with it.

One that did make me laugh, however, still went with the "grammar nazi" theme, but kind of had a more literal take on it. First, a little context. This video is one of many "Hitler rant" videos that I have seen. The footage is from a movie about Hitler, but the subtitles are made up. I don't know when the first of these parodies was made, but a few notable examples include "Hitler reacting to the Kanye West vs Taylor Swift VMA moment", "Hitler getting banned from XBOX live", and "Hitler reacting to Usain Bolt setting the 100M record". Same video clip, different captions. So here is the grammar one. WARNING: There are a few swears! (In text only).



Funny right? I liked it. So this is a meme, only in video form. I found it interesting that we didn't discuss too many video memes in class (besides the Rick Roll, really)... But there are quite a few of them out there.

So there you go. Who would have thought you could find humorous parodies that involve the topic of grammar?

iPhone 5 on YouTube!

Enthusiastic Apple fans like to think of themselves as a very "creative" type of people.  The valiant will argue that the Apple products help them to expand their creativity and create whatever their minds can conjure up.  These theories were proven true as I looked through the various fan-videos for the iPhone 5 on YouTube. 

I knew that I would see some pretty creative things, but what I found was that the "die-hards" have a great deal of time on their hands!  I found everything from CG concept videos that were created as speculation prior to the release if the new iPhone to "drop tests" done with the iPhone 5 and its closest competitor, the Samsung Galaxy SIII once the phone had been released. 

The most common videos done by amateurs currently are "un-boxing" videos of their new iPhones.  This is to give a first-look of the phone as they unpackaged it for the very first time.  It is very painful to watch for those who have not yet got their iPhones, given that they are back-ordered for over a month right now!  Other videos include comparisons with older iPhone models as well as with other brands of advanced smart phones. 

Picking one of my favorites to post on the blog was actually very difficult! I narrowed it down to three videos.  I'll post first place below, but I think it's only fair to mention second and third place here. 

Third place was a prank done where a man dressed up as an Apple employee, and would walk by lots of different lines of anxious fans waiting in line the night before the release.  He had a stack of "boxes of iPhones" on a dolly that he was wheeling toward the store.  As he stopped to ask some of the fans if they were excited, he would accidentally stop the dolly too quickly and the boxes would fall.  It was so funny to see some of the people's reactions, who just thought their new iPhones had been broken.  That video can be seen here.

Second place was a drop test done on a cobblestone pathway.  This was a test done using the new iPhone 5 and the Samsung Galaxy SIII.  It's very interesting.  The man performing the test drops both phones from 3 different heights (the waist pocket, mid-torso, and the ear).  I was surprised to see that the Galaxy screen cracks on the second drop, and the iPhone 5 screen never cracks.  It's actually quite fascinating to see.  This video can be seen here.

First place I will show below because I think it was the most creative and probably took the creator the most time.  This is a concept video created before the iPhone 5 had ever been announced.  It is a video portraying what this fan hopes to see in the new iPhone or at least in a coming iPhone.  Although the only feature that was true is the new thin design, it is awesome to see what he has done with computer graphics and his imagination.  Enjoy! :)

Arrested Development: The Novelization

The first two chapters of the Google narrative set up the background for Arrested Development. Chapter One contains all the information you could ever want about, "an American television sitcom created by Mitchell Hurwitz for the Fox Broadcasting Company. The show centers on the Bluth family..." thanks to our faithfully know-it-all friend, Wikipedia.Then, in Chapter Two, IMDb teaches us more about our cast of characters. "Level-headed son Michael Bluth takes over family affairs after his father is imprisoned. But the rest of his spoiled, dysfunctional family are making..." All this background has me dying to dive right in. Ready?

Chapter Three contains an unexpected turn of events. We find from Arrested Development Music that "in celebration of their 20th year anniversary, Arrested Development will be performing many dates across the USA beginning in September and continuing..." An odd surprise to throw at us so early in the book, but surprises are good, right? We'll come back to this later. 

Chapter Four takes us to a place where novels have not yet dared to go- video! It reads, simply, "Watch Arrested Development online | Free | Hulu Watch Arrested Development free online. Stream episodes and clips of Arrested Development instantly." From here, we can dispense with all this pesky reading and rot our brains in front of some moving pictures. That's not the only non-novelistic surprise Google has for us though- Chapter Five is made entirely of still images of the family. Looks like they have family portraits taken quite often, huh?

Words make a comeback in Chapter Six, as TV.com gives us more background. "The Emmy Award-winning comedy series ARRESTED DEVELOPMENT revolves around MICHAEL BLUTH (Jason Bateman), the "normal" one in a family of crazies, who..." Fine, we get it. Michael is soooooo great. Why do you keep bragging about him, and why are we just now hearing about this Emmy Award?

Chapter Seven looks to the future: Why Arrested Development on Netflix could change everything... Fascinating! What else? "As plans for Arrested Development's return spread, many details indicate that thanks to Netflix, the popular cult series has the opportunity to not..." But, wait- when did this happen? We'll get the news that launched this news later.

Chapter 8, brought to us by Balboa Observer-Picayune: An Arrested Development Fan Site gives us more of that broad and fascinating background information we've been craving, this time from a source no one recognizes! "A fansite for the FOX TV show Arrested Development with everything you've ever wanted to know about the Bluth family." Hooray!

Finally, a chance to buy something. Chapter Nine gives us a place to purchase the videos we watched for free in Chapter Four, but this time we get to wait for physical disks to be delivered to our homes. Uh, thanks, I guess, Amazon. We did get something new from them though- vague testimonial. "Season One: Winner of the Outstanding Comedy Series Emmy its first year out,Arrested Development is the kind of sitcom that gives you hope for television." Wow, that really makes me want to buy and wait for something I could see for free immediately.

In Chapter 10, we learn more about the music via the most relevant website ever, MySpace. "ARRESTED DEVELOPMENT's official profile including the latest music, albums, songs, music videos and more updates." Does this really belong here?

1. Chapter 11: We've already heard why Arrested Development on Netflix is great, so here's the announcement from the LA Times that new episodes of the show will be aired exclusively on Neflix. Great. Now Chapter Seven makes more sense. Wow. That was a great ending.