Oprah

Whether you love or hate Oprah, it's impossible to deny her impact on pop culture. Her opinion can influence your next pair of shoes or your next book to read. In her famous yearly show, "Oprah's Favorite Things", she selects many products to promote and give away to her audience. This year, some items included a refrigerator, Ugg Boots, iPods, and many other expensive things. Her promotion of these items usually lead to highly boosted sales. One year Oprah featured Graeter's Ice Cream. Now, the Black Raspberry Chip Ice Cream is common in most households in America.
Oprah's influence is now reaching a new height. She is now campaigning for Barack Obama for president. I understand most Americans do not focus on politics, but I don't think that taking an opinion from a woman who promotes shoes and ice cream is a good idea. I think Oprah does a lot of great things (the school in South Africa, the many charities she works with, the promotion of women's rights), but her campaigning is crossing a line. Why can't Americans think for themselves? Do the research on some candidates and think! I enjoy Oprah's show, but I do not want to see her pushing her political ideology on her many viewers.

Check out Oprah.com for anything you've ever wanted to know about Oprah and the things she likes.

Scrubs

The popular TV show Scrubs is now in it's seventh and final season on NBC. The show is about several doctors and their hilarious struggles to deal with life in the hospital where they work. Within the past two years Scrubs has been syndicated on several channels such as TBS, Comedy Central, WGN and UPN. The show has also had six of its seasons put on DVD. It seems like at every big Halloween party you attend there will be half a dozen people each dressed as a different character from the show.

Brent Black

mp3

In the years since Napster was created about a decade ago the mp3 has gradually become the medium of choice for music listeners. In that decade we've seen the advent of mp3 players that started at a 32 megabyte capacity to a staggering 160 gigabyte capacity (the new iPod Movie). Several mp3 players also play videos so that the user can have their favorite movies at their fingertips. There are now more successful mp3 players than just the iPod. The Zune has managed to gain a foothold in the mp3 market as well.

http://www.apple.com/itunes/
http://www.zune.net/en-US/


(I can't believe no one has posted about this, but I hope it receives a lot of comments.)

Brent Black

Call of Duty 4

As we are talking about video games in class recently, I would like to talk about a game called Call of Duty 4. It is a war type game and can be played online as a multiplayer type game in which most people choose to play. People like the online play because they can play with people from across the country in a fictional war game. As I was home over Christmas break all of my friends that had a x-box 360 were playing this game. Before I heard about it I really was not that big of a gamer and didn't really care for it too much. All of my friends told me how fun it was and I ended up playing it with them, and I instantly fell in love. When I came back to Ohio State for my second quarter I realized everyone in my dorm was playing it too, not only that but I saw it a lot in magazines as well. As I also saw in commercials, the game was also awarded game of the year. It is a lot of fun and I had to purchase it since my roomate has a xbox 360. It has been taking the gaming world by storm and is a really fun game to play. I must warn people, it can be very addicting because it is so fun.

Political campaigns

I'm beginning to notice that no matter how much I try to avoid it, news about the presidential election follows me wherever I go. It's to the point now where my roommates and friends actually watch at least portions of the debates when they're on TV. I think this is fueled by everyone wanting to know who will win between Hilary Clinton and Barrack Obama. It's also become an almost nightly topic on the popular Comedy Central shows The Daily Show and Colbert Report. Whether we like it or not it seems that until the November election we're going to be subjected to hearing about the campaign.

Brent Black

I first noticed an episode of this show, about a group of twenty-somethings trying to figure out what to do with their lives, on YouTube. I thought it was interesting so I tried to look up more episodes, which led me to the "Quarterlife" website, which is an entire online community similar to MySpace, where users can friend one another and post pictures and artwork and videos for other users to see. The intriguing thing about the site is that the characters from the fictional show, also titled Quarterlife, have their own blogs on the site, which are very in depth with new posts or videos added at least several times a week, corresponding to what is happening on the show. People comment on these blogs as if the characters were real people, offering them encouragement and advice. Maybe this is common for fan sites, but I have never seen anything quite like it before. Also, I read that the show was just picked up by NBC, so it will be interesting to see if it succeeds and how the website might affect the success and vice versa. Here's the address:

www.quarterlife.com

http://www.popculturemadness.com/

Pop culture madness is actually a site that lists the latest pop culture news. Something that caught my eye was the news spot about Lindsey Lohan recreating Marilyn Monroe's famous last shoot. Marilyn was one of the greatest pop culture icons of all time. She has had tons of staying power....Lindsey Lohan on the other hand falls short! I can't imagine Lindsey even being comparable to Marilyn. I would definitely say Marilyn Monroe surpassed pop culture and is part of true art. Lindsey Lohan is just another trend.

Quarterlife

I first noticed an episode of this show, about a group of twenty-somethings trying to figure out what to do with their lives, on YouTube. I thought it was interesting so I tried to look up more episodes, which led me to the "Quarterlife" website, which is an entire online community similar to MySpace, where users can friend one another and post pictures and artwork and videos for other users to see. The intriguing thing about the site is that the characters from the fictional show, also titled Quarterlife, have their own blogs on the site, which are very in depth with new posts or videos added at least several times a week, corresponding to what is happening on the show. People comment on these blogs as if the characters were real people, offering them encouragement and advice. Maybe this is common for fan sites, but I have never seen anything quite like it before. Also, I read that the show was just picked up by NBC, so it will be interesting to see if it succeeds and how the website might affect the success and vice versa. Here's the address:

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Crochet Art

I’m not sure if you remember, but the first class I referenced a friend, whose talent and passion for crochet have gotten him a scholarship to pursue his master’s degree in art at UCSD. I asked him to send pictures of from his first art show out there and I was pretty impressed. His work is not your grandma’s crochet mittens. Check it out and please let me know what you think!!! (click on pics to see the larger view)

either the most racist or the most anti racist site ever...

www.blackpeopleloveus.com

this was a web site that caused quite a stir a few years ago. There were tons of letters sent to the creators of the site commenting on the hilarity or absurdity of the content. This site may offend some, it kind of offended me at first, but i guess it's just poking fun at stereotypes. and stereotypes are what fuels a lot of pop culture so take a look!

The Onion

The Onion is a magazine and website that makes parodies of current and old new stories. It takes a serious story such as Hurricane Katrina and changes the facts to make the story funny. While many take offense, many more enjoy the content. The website now features video parodies of stories as well.

www.theonion.com

Despite controversy, the Onion is popular and part of our culture. The Onion.com is visited by 3.6 million every month and the company has revenues of upwards of 7 million per year. The Onion is popular culture because its stories are based on popular culture.

Digg.com

Digg.com is a website that allows people to ‘digg’ a news article if they find it interesting. The more people who ‘digg’ an article, the more prominently featured the article on digg’s homepage. This process allows the best articles to be shown to the masses because they are chosen by the masses. In my opinion this is better than traditional news sources because it is more democratic and less prone to slants.

Admittedly digging is prone to rigging – certain companies or entities unfairly ‘digg’ their own articles so that their articles are placed prominently. Despite that though, in my opinion, I think Digg.com is still better than traditional news sources in terms of democracy because for every slant in one side, there will be a slant in the other side as well.

Digg.com is very popular and is part of our popular culture. Millions of people visit it every month and according to some, it’s worth over 60 million dollars after only being in business for a couple of years. Digg.com is pop culture because its content is pop culture and is chosen by popular demand.

www.digg.com

Star Trek episodes (on the web)

After seeing Plato’s Children in class, I searched for Star Trek episodes online. I used to watch Star Trek until I realized that some of the characters and episodes were based on historical events, entities, or figures. There are definite parallels between Romulans and Romans, Bajorans and Jewish people, Federation and America, and between the Enterprise and an aircraft carrier, etc. I thought the writers could have been more original (don’t take me wrong, Star Trek was definitely original). Anyway after seeing that episode in class, I wanted to watch more and I found a great place to watch them for free.

http://tv.msn.com/tv/series/star-trek

The website, like all Microsoft products, has some kinks to work out. (It’s not version 3.1 yet!) My chief complaint is that some episodes won’t play. But regardless, it’s a free place to watch Star Trek.

Star Trek is popular because many people watch it and are devoted to it. There are a lot of Trekkies out there. Watching tv shows online is now popular as well with all the content offered on the web and the popularity of Youtube. Star Trek has always been popular culture because of its nature – it’s a television show aimed for the masses. Although it really didn’t succeed the first time around (The original Star Trek was canceled), like James Kirk, it rolled with the punches and persevered.

The Minisode Network

If you have a desire to see an episode of Who's the Boss?, but only have five minutes to spare then The Minisode Network is your solution. While the show selection may be a bit slim right now, it proves to be ideal for a small break and a good laugh. Charlie's Angels, Fantasy Island, and Starsky and Hutch are just some examples of what The Minisode Network has to offer. I just enjoyed a five minute Married With Children. You can also suggest your favorite show and you might be able to see a brief version of it someday. Either way check it out...it won't take up too much of your time.

http://www.myspace.com/minisodenetwork

www.linkedin.com

Linked in is actually a little on-line community that is more professional than your my space page or facebook. It is a really great site for graduating seniors looking for jobs. It gives you the opportunity to search for jobs and also have your profile searched by companies! Basically it is your professional network!

Jellyfish.com

Jellyfish.com is an internet game show where you are able to purchase products from various stores. The idea of this "game" is that there is a set number of products, usually one, and it starts at full price. The price decreases every second until someone either purchases the product or it hits $0. Recently this site was purchased by Microsoft. I stumbled upon this site about a year ago and use it frequently. There is something called a "guru guess" where you guess the percentage that the item will be discounted. If you win this you have the opportunity to win prizes such as apparel or cash. This site has grown and changed even since I started using it. It bridges the gap between retail stores and online sales, and it makes it fun. It makes buying fun and while you're there you can chat with everyone else watching the show. This site has become a popular culture phenomenon and continues to grow.

www.jellyfish.com