So Octopussy is on welfare now (and has admitted her kids were a mistake)--shocking news! ~S ~ H~O~C~K~I~N~G~ are the tildes enough to convey my sweeping sense of sarcasm?

There is no barometer greater to measure the epic fail of a culture than viewing how that culture treats its children; ours is the one that commodifies its kids for really, really stupid shit. I mean, we always commodified our daughters--after all, we needed a currency to trade for new goats--but as a "civilized" (lol) society we're supposed to be passed treating people like possessions and trophies. I mean, just look at how much we shit on every other culture for doing the very same thing. We're allowed to criticize some members of the Muslim community who 'force' their wives to wear Berkas. Meanwhile we create, we cyclically create and effectively create, societal pressures that require all women to use their bodies as a means of gaining wealth, status and employment. Studies show women who wear makeup are considered more "trustworthy" than women who do not. If you're a girl you've probably had the experience where the same people  you see everyday treat you noticeably different on the days that you "look nice" versus the days that you do not--this includes women and men.

Case and point: We live in a hypercritical, hypocritical culture that overvalues extremely superficial shit. We're born into this culture and inevitably cannot opt out of its effects. We all play this craptacular game one way or another. I don't know if it's sadder when we use ourselves or flesh vessels (i.e. boobs) or when we inflict the fate on others (i.e. mates, kids) for purely selfish reasons.

The socially coerced use of the female body as a vehicle for material gain extends to pregnancy.

The commodification of children is exacerbated by the over-exposed Digital Era (Twitter, Facebook, aggressive paparazzi) and reality television. Just look at 16 and Pregnant, Teen Mom, Dance Moms, Toddlers and Tiaras, The Duggars, Jon and Kate + 8, Lindsay Lohan's mom... the list goes on and on about how easy it is to exploit the experience of parenthood for 15 minutes of fame. Baby bumps in gossip magazines sell big--if you can snap a pic of some pregnant celeb pretending not to be pregnant it's a huge deal. I am not sure why anyone cares and I can't pinpoint why our culture cares.

Why does pregnancy sell? We must remember it is not the children being sold but the act of parenting (the act of bad parenting without intervention.) We don't care about what these people's children do--that's boring--what we care about is what is being done to them. We care about the process not the product. Is it the resurgence of "family values" and by family values of course I mean "Christian values." The idea of family, of being fruitful and multiplying, or being a parent because of faith even if you're too young, too dumb, too poor, is one that has become a part of the cultural Zeitgeist.

Struggling, incompetent mothers (Sarah Palin) are the champions of our dumbdick culture. Is it related to our Protestant foundations as a nation? Or is it because we like to judge these fame-desperate women? Do we love to criticize the moms who live vicariously through their children on Toddlers and Tiaras, the naive and idiotic ones on Teen Mom? Or are we relating to them in some subconscious moral way? The answer is different for everyone who chooses to participate in the spectacle. The reality is we are all participating and thus rewarding and glamorizing the actual footage of the actual degradation of the actual future, because after all what is the future but the children....who will probably fuck it up for their kids too, anyway? 

Hey y'all, I realize I haven't posted in almost a month, but I've just been really busy, traveling to Toronto, applying for full-time jobs, writing for work at Gurl.com and other places. I'll be back to weekly updates as of now.

Which brings me to Game Change.

Game Change = Evidence That This Country is a Hawt Mess

I realize Game Change is a condensed fictional account, but the fact that Sarah Palins political advisers so emphatically concede it is the truth (meanwhile McCain and Palin say it's inaccurate even though they never watched it?) I am very willing to believe that the story captures most of what went down.

When McCain's campaign decided that a Black president meant they also had to promote a typically marginalized candidate, one of the political strategist literally Googled and Youtubed: "surly ladies in shoulder-paddy suits," and stumbled upon (not StumbleUpon the social blogging tool, though I wouldn't be surprised) Alaskan Governor Sarah Palin.

What was captivating about Palin is not that she was smart or qualified, it was that she could speak in an engaging way. What the movie does, whether factually accurate or not, is explore the idea of politics as a form of idol worship and celebrity.

The language and rhetoric used by presidential candidates is not one based on reason or facts, not on objectives or goals, it is largely based in the language of symbolism. What this means is that the power of each candidate is not in what they say they do or actually do, but rather in how they can articulate it to appeal to the masses. It's no different than Gaga pandering to queer communities with the language of freedom and self-expression or Al Sharpton creating a demagogy in the Black community by using rhetoric that highlights the oppressor and the oppressed.

Obama's "Hope" and "Change" are more palatable than McCain's "Maverick" and Palin's "Wild Card." We all want the former while the latter doesn't really make sense on a communal or cultural level.

In the movie, McCain's campaign refers to Palin as the "greatest actress in America," not "the best female candidate ever, lol." They even lol @ her when she compares herself to Hilary Clinton (who was the most qualified candidate for president in retrospect, tbh, vagina or not. McCain was only viable before he had his 989th stroke and caved into the ridiculous value-based, sensationalism of his party. Remember when he would be the only one to oppose Bush? Me neither, lol. )

When Obama says "there's not red states or blue states only blah, blah the union," he is speaking in American symbolism. He is deliberately and strategically framing the conversation in the language and rhetoric that is common across party lines because he knows constitutional values, the language of equal rights, citizenship and American Exceptionalism are the things we are all taught. And they are taught with the specific intention of inciting pride and faith in our lovely, shitacular, fallen superpower, country.

Sarah Palin was able to do the same, but only within a specific demographic of people - those in the rural, suburban, mid-west and south. She could engage with them symbolically because they shared similar experiences, they essentially led the same lives. Bush was able to do this too. Reagan was able to do this in a different way, quite similar to Margaret Thatcher it was more on the emphasis of family and Christian values rather than on being "down-home."

Though accusing Obama and Palin of being celebrities is accurate, it is not a legitimate criticism of their qualifications. Idol Worship is necessary, not because politicians have made it this way, it's because we have as a culture. The image of Obama standing in front of that podium, thousands of people cheering in confetti, and Julianne Moore as Palin says, "I didn't know I was up against a Greek God," is accurate.

When McCain gives his concession speech the crowd cheers, "Sarah," not "McCain." We no longer care about the politics, we only care about the celebrity.

We are a culture that likes to worship people. We like people that we can look up to because they give our lives meaning, they tell us what that meaning is. Whether it is to be a pluralistic American, that it's OK to be a hockey mom or it's fine that you're uneducated - these idols tell us who we are and that it's OK to be that person. The people who can do that - the ones that make us feel good about who we are, where we are and what we do - they are the ones that we praise and worship. It's no wonder so many of us believe that there truly is a God.

I hate "feel good" movies. People often regard my reluctance to sit through anything with Channing Tatum as a reluctance to feeling good in general; though "feel good" movies and "feeling good" are two unmistakably different things.

As my friend Chuck was having a giggle fit next to me when the trailer for 21 Jump Street came on at the theater, I genuinely wondered: is my friend Chuck a retarded person? This was as disheartening as when I found out some people watch Glee exclusively for the music. Wha-huh?

"That looks fun!" She said. Chuck wasn't laughing because the trailer was funny, that would imply a kind of satirical cleverness, but because the trailer was fun. Two wannabe cops, wackiness ensues, they'll probably be heroes at the end. That's a cute story.

I recall in 2007 or '08 my freshman year of college, my roommates were watching Justin Timberlake on SNL, not Dick in a Box but some sketches that went unaired. If SNL believes a sketch isn't funny enough to air, then it must be pretty not fucking funny. They yelped, when I said I didn't get it, they replied, "You know, he [J.T.] is just having a good time!" But, so what? What does that mean? Why do I care that someone else is having a good time and why is that supposed to translate into me having a good time? They meant: "That looks fun!" They meant: isn't that adorable.

This is the same generation that spends its past-time looking at pictures of cats. We became a culture of cute around the same time we became a culture of irony. I remember 2007 as a time of lolcats and of kiffeyeh scarves, mustaches, and about the time when "indie" became a part of the mainstream Zeitgeist. However, there is nothing ironic about cuteness. Cats are cute. Mustaches are (now) ironic. There is nothing ironic about a cat being cute, but there is something ironic about a culture that celebrates the cuteness of cats, when it began to overtly mock just about everything else.

The "feel good" or comfort culture of cuteness and irony is rooted in nostalgia and epitomized through movie reboots, sequels, comic book movies, movies based on books, movies based on foreign movies and the fact that almost no other kind of movies exist in the mainstream. What all of these things have in common is familiarity. We already know what will happen, we just keep recontextualizing the same things to either revere or hate them, and we can culturally love and hate two things that have identical elements. (See Lana Del Rey in 2011 and Lana Del Rey in 2012.)

I remember the kids I went to school with, when I was 18, feeling dissatisfied and unimpressed with anything that wasn't cool. And everything was uncool, except for the things that were purposefully uncool because they had an ironic self-awareness about how lame they were, while simultaneously mocking the arbitrary, superficiality of what cool is. This phenomenon is probably best illustrated by Rick Rolling and Rick Astley capitalizing on the ironic celebration of how horrible "Never Gonna Give You Up," is. It was a popular song in the 80s and is a terribly, dorky song now—so we can like it again through a modern, ironic lens. This all happened parallel to when being a dick on the internet became a thing that people do too.

Still, we love cute shit. Little puppies and Neil Patrick Harris. That tiger with the piglets. We love all that shit and we started loving it when things got ironic.

Perhaps the pure authenticity of adorable animals spooning came into fruition to compensate for the rise of cultural negativity as seen in Amazon.com reviews, Youtube comments and using the growth of one's haters as a barometer for fame. Maybe we love cute things now more than ever because everything else (because our personal entitlement as consumers and citizens) gives us so many reasons to feel upset, unrest and cheated. In 2007 it became clear that we had no idea where we would be, in let's say, 2012. The economy went for shits, there's this esoteric war and Sarah Palin. Not much has changed. When things get bad, pop culture becomes idealistic which points toward the success of Obama's "hope" campaign. This might explain why television was so happy-go-lucky in the 60s—a time of civil and social unrest and inequality.

Though I am still not entirely convinced it is that simple. Every culture is obsessed with itself and ours is no different. Though I think we've become self-aware to a point of self-consciousness which is why we mock everything we used to think was cool and celebrate everything we used to think was not. i.e. The Big Bang Theory. It's almost as though we're culturally embarrassed about ourselves.

We created this endless cycle of cuteness, of light-hearted entertainment, of Ryan Seacrest because we know that if we're too critical of our culture it might actually fucking implode. It's almost as though we're apologizing too much for thinking jocks, hair metal and Ronald Reagan were cool once because we finally realized that in the end they were just stuffing us into lockers. The early 90s tried to do that, but were eaten up by a mess of boy bands, Ace of Base, Limp Bizkit and George Bush.

We've combated a culture that celebrated a cliched kind of masculinity with adorkablity and metrosexualness (the latter not even being a thing anymore, but just being). Cuteness—feel-goodness—is a part of  this cultural "feminizing." Addressing aggressive, heteronormative culture sounds like it is a good thing, no it could be a good thing, but we haven't really done it in profound ways (unless you consider strides in queer rights as a part of this ironic-emasculation). We don't really think too much about it because we don't want to. What we do instead is reproduce the same things over and over, each time highlighting different parts. Today the socially awkward guy with glasses is cool and the guy with the muscles is lame and out of touch. We recontextualize. Through popular culture we re-write history without ever addressing or fleshing out why we want to re-write it in the first place. This way, we can change the culture without holding ourselves accountable.

The result is nothing new, just a slew of remixes. A new way of telling an old story becomes a formula and a lifestyle.

We erase the jock and praise the nerd, not because the nerd is better but because we owe him an apology.

While everyone is still debating the merit of the Lana Del Regular debate and Zooey Deschanel continues to be just awful, I’ve decided to talk about the thing we all actually care about: TV. No, not Two and Half Shits (I don’t give) or Bones (lol people are still into David Boreanz?). This is far more relevant to your life. If you read this blog, you’re probably as smart as I am, JK, but us members of the working-poor-bourgeois like our TV ironically bad or with great substance.

So, we’ve all pondered this: why the balls is British TV so much better than American Television? Now, don’t get all confederate flag on me. We have some great shows in the states: Breaking Bad, Boardwalk Empire, Mad Men, The Wire, The Sopranos, Boss, Damages, etc. But let’s be honest, all of those shows are kind of the same. I mean, obviously they couldn’t be more different, but thematically they all explore the human condition in a similar way. They test the morality of each character by placing them in worlds that are already riddled with corruption. These difficult constraints test how ethical or just they are given extreme circumstances. No matter how corrupt we can always empathize with the characters because we will most likely never experience such hyper-real situations and because we wonder if their choices are similar to the ones we would make.

British Television differs from this somewhat formulaic (although executed in great ways) plot device. Most British shows that make it to America can be categorized as dramedys. Misfits, Skins, Being Human, This Is England, Shameless, Doctor Who, even Downton Abbey have a more balanced use of comedy and tragedy in a way that is both farcical and realistic. Though that’s not why the Brits are winning.

If you notice British series or seasons, have far less episodes than American TV. Though American cable TV kind of mimics this format. Episodes are written and shot before they air, whereas here episodes are written a few at a time throughout the season. Writing everything beforehand offers continuity and assures that things make sense. If you’ve ever watched network television, storylines are all over the place, end abruptly or are dropped. Viewers and advertisers can influence storylines because of this and they often due so negatively. Pandering a storyline is a sure fire way for it get discombobulated. Less episodes means more substance and density in each episode, which is more compelling because there are less opportunities for filler. Remember the episode of Breaking Bad with the fly? Uuuuuugh.

The standards for TV in the UK are much higher because it is more severely (and practically) regulated by Ofcom and by the government. Because TV owners are “taxed” for TV licencing fees, people probably give more shits about what they are seeing. Not to mention the Brits are less sensitive about nudity and cursing and are more understated (so everything they say sounds smart because it is the opposite of what they mean) whereas Americans are more hyperbolic, drama queens that sensationalize everything, meaning melodrama meaning low culture, hello Desperate Housewives.

British TV is also far more diverse, unless it is a masturbatory British drama (like Downton Abbey) that highlights how “awesome” the British Empire was before their colonized peoples (brown folks) began migrating to the motherland. Though the Brits are a bit obssesed with their history and preservation of the culture, they still allow for television outside of that. In my opinion, the UK offers more original premises because their shows don’t necessarily try to make broad claims about morality as their sole way of garnering critical acclaim.

Misfits is completely nihilistic and completely excellent because it never goes back on its promise that all of its characters are fucked up and that even though they do bad things there will never be consequences to them. In America there are consequences to everything even sex, which should be morally neutral by now. Characters can’t do drugs without someone overdosing, characters can’t “do bad things” without feeling bad right after, characters can’t cheat without getting caught. We are a culture that loves to persecute people and judge them. That’s super lame and repetitive when it comes to entertainment. Every show on Brit TV has a different perspective and different sense of morality which is more interesting. In this way Skins and Misfits, two shows about teens can be extremely different, in the former the adolescents are striving for catharsis, growth and emotional understanding, whereas in the latter the characters could care less about personal growth so much as immediate gratification to their selfish needs.

Perhaps these disparities in UK TV exist because class is still so important (though no longer rigid), it is still a means of cultural identity and is more distinctly defined. In America, though we have different social and economic classes, we all still identify and refer to the same mass and consumer culture. This could be why our pop-culture is so freakishly similar, while the Brits must relate to several cultural representations of class, we approach culture uniformly.

The end of illegal file sharing will profoundly affect us more than any government primary or election.

_We don't have access to the government, but we have access to the Internet.

The Internet is this blob of information that we all shape and that shapes us. It  exacerbates a fragmented culture, all the while giving it a uniform shape. For young people it gives them a sense of identity - things to consume and cling onto. For others it's a resource - an archive of history, knowledge and information. And for some it's intellectual-masturbation, a tool used to affirm personal prejudices by providing "legitimate data" to rationalize their misguided beliefs. Yet, it is largely controlled by what we choose to put into as a global community.

It has a lot of utility these ole' tubes.

The federal government is like the Internet without a search engine. The screen is there, but we can't control what's reflected at us and we can't access any of the information inside. When we do it is esoteric, unclear, massive, heavy, gibberish. Politics have become purposefully esoteric and inaccessible to "the people" so that it can easily be undermined and generalized into the language of symbolism - of "death panels" and "hope." We can understand easy words, but we're not going to sit through pages of legal-speak that we're not qualified or educated to understand.

The average American cannot affect anything that affects him in the way that he would like to affect it because we're not given enough information, the right information, access to information or the tools to understand it.

Political apathy is manufactured to ensure political inaccessibility, to guarantee nothing will ever really change. If you don't care about politics, then, duh, why should you?

MegaUpload will affect us more than any primary or election because it affects us immediately, obviously and culturally. The Internet is the only aspect of our culture we have direct control over. The domino effect of the situation has resulted in filesharing websites closing, blocking features, deleting files - what affects the culture of the Internet affects the culture of society. What do politics do these days? Fear monger? Affirm prejudices? We got some health care, we got some war too. These things shape our lives in significant ways, but in turn, are impossible for us to shape. (Only blatantly heinous policies like the Arizona Immigration Laws and the ones marked socialist come to our attention, the rest is all invisible.)

Stopping SOPA/PIPA was successful because it was something everyone actually cared about and the way to influence policy was made clear: call this number, write these folks, the legislation was clearly outlined, etc. See, what clarity does? It creates action, which creates results.

Anyway... It's hard to say that what happened with MegaUpload was wrong because what MegaUpload did was (probably) illegal. The distribution of copy righted material IS illegal. No matter how much I would like for it not to be. I don't even remember how I watched TV before filesharing? Nope, can't remember.

Filesharing is a culture - it's how we are exposed to media, and all of the world is media these days. TV, books, film, music - it's art, even, yes, Britney is art. People deserve to be paid for their work, yes. But that's not my point. My point is filesharing is a part of contemporary culture. It is what we do. It is a taken for granted part of our lives. If easy and free access to ALL of it went away - I suppose I can't imagine it because I never lived it. Old folks, speak up!

I cannot imagine a world where, again, we, America, gather 'round the TV set at 8PM to watch Keeping Up With The KardASSians. "The people" reunited through TV? Presidents and peasants, gather 'round for 30 Rock.

_A return to mass-cultural unity, as the political sphere floats above our heads like an ungraspable, untenable, unrelatable gray cloud - and the high, low and all that's in between, art slowly slips from our fingertips. What is a woman without law and without art?

She is bored - and forced to go outside.

Everyone is talking about how everyone is talking about Lana Del Rey’s shitacular performance on SNL this weekend.

To quote Miss Del Rey, “Izzoo izzoo/iz aw fuh yoo/evreh then i do/ah seh et all dah ty.”

I don’t think anyone has ever had a good performance on SNL, considering their notoriously shitacular sound system. Most of the time performers opt for lipsyncing or distracting us with super colorful, shiny shit and dumb outfits a la Gaga and Ke$ha. These days, "artists" use glittery distractions as a part of their image and persona to divert from their lack of certain talents. Only people who can sing (often large brown women we call divas, and Adele) have the luxury of looking simple and standing still.

This is why we expected more from Lana Del Rey. See what had happened was, y’all got got on this. Of course Lana Del Rey is another manufactured pop-singer, duh, it’s 2012 why wouldn’t she be? But that's not why everyone is mad.

I remember the day Lana blew up ('Cause it was like 5 minutes ago). The “Born to Die” video dropped and all of Facebook, Twitter and Tumblr was a blaze and swooning over, what I find to be, a generic love ballad. The only specialness about these songs is Lana’s voice. The videos are just OK and her performances in them are vacant and unemotional. Lana has an interesting voice and that’s all she’s really got and that’s OK ( in this cultural climate).

The internet was full of praise for those “beautiful, well-written lyrics” then suddenly the backlash started. Everyone was accusing her of being a sell-out and a manufactured product made to appeal to the antithesis of such, indie bloggers. Then those making the accusations were accused of slut-shaming. (No one criticized Lana until they saw she was a pretty lady, according to New York Magazine, which is bull.) Let us not forget that it's the artist who makes us give two shits about their image when they so:

a) drastically change it to conform
b) heavily rely on it
c) construct it with the clear intention of making a statement about their artistic identity.

Being critical of a star's image is not slut shaming, it's called for.

The evidence, as we have it, amounts to this:
(see also, Lana Del Rey Exposed)

1. Lana Del Rey was Born Lizzy Grant.
2. The name “Lana Del Rey” was created by a team of marketing experts to convey the sense of pastiche, old school 50s Americana that is part of her image.
3. She drastically changed her image and sound after "failing" as a jazz musician.
4. She does not write her own songs.
   

There is no question about her authenticity. Yes, Lana Del Regular was created by the Soviet Union to appeal to pseudo-indie bloggers, but that’s not enough reason for most people to hate her. Most people don’t care about that stuff, just look at pop-music history. So why did America decide to take a dump on her face?

For starts, there is no doubt that the SNL performance was awful. Why does she have 90 different accents?

Truly though, America doesn’t care if you have surgical cat face, who you were before you were relevant enough to be on TV or if it took a team of 100 “experts” to write your mediocre pop single. What they don’t like is to be deceived. Lana was supposed to be good at ONE thing and that is singing. Not dancing, not writing, not anything so "skilled."

The presentation of a live band and a simple pretty dress implicated that, of all things. It suggested Lana doesn’t need prosthetic makeup, back up dancers or a feather headdress, just her voice. And she failed.

Though it is not completely her fault. As Brian Williams asserted, Lana is in her infantile state. Scarcely does an artist rise to such acclaim and fame so quickly and so early.  She was horrendous, but she is supposed to be! She’s a rookie, an amateur. She should be singing at open mics and doing small tours in obscure European nations with unibrows and strange beer. Blame SNL for that, not her.

And yes, blame the internet for being so goddamned easily impressed. 

While some of his fashion choices are clearly questionable and I don't really understand who he is appealing to at this point, Justin Bieber has not actually done anything wrong. Sure he peculiarly asserts an underdeveloped sense of religiousness (See: "I would like to thank not only God, but Jesus") and musically, he is super lame, but the only real reason to hate him is because he is a teenager who has more money than most people have seen in their full ancestry.

I mean, there are many reasons why I can assert he is evil, but those are only substantiated by my ideological stance on culture. And, let's be honest in a world where everything is relative there is no graspable, discernible, objective truth. Unless your ideological stance is that there is, lol, it's all so confusing!

Reasons why Justin Beiber is Evil/Not Evil

1. "I believe that Jesus died on the cross for my sins. I believe that he put me in this position, and that I have to always give him the glory he deserves for putting me here." —Biebz tells V.

Not Evil: Having Protestant values doesn't make you intrinsically evil. I don't believe in any of that stuff, but I don't care that other people do as long as it is done in a non-oppressive way.

Evil: However, arguably religion is the most successful form of systematic oppression (Wikipedia world history, see all of it, see all of the histories.) and because the Biebz is in a position of fame and notoriety the mere utterance of his religiosity propagates or even commodifies religion, thus making oppression (See women in the bible, eesh. See Leviticus and homosexuality. See owning slaves.) trendy. Celebrities who spread the gospel do so cavalierly, in passing, without proper discussion or fleshing out of what is inherently problematic about certain popular religious notions. They can say that's none of our business, I can say then don't bring it up. When celebrities take certain general views irresponsibly they can be used to affirm the prejudices of their fans. Is it their fault? No. Is that the world we live in? Yes. Capitalism makes us all evil with good intentions, but that's another story. (See the bourgeois.)

2. "Ooooh baby, baby. Ooooh."

Not Evil: Technically speaking making lame music isn't a crime. Music of all arts is the most subjective and has an array of utility (dancing, spacing out, self-reflection, hanging out etc.) so an array of music should exist. Lots of people make "bad" music and they mean it, some people just want the money. Who cares?

Evil: If you think capitalism is bad, promotes inequality, or at the very least makes people really unhappy when they can't have iPhones, then any musician's attachment with a major record label by incidence makes them evil because they serve to promote the system of capitalism. But by the incidence of being American we all do, so that argument is invalid unless you're also holding yourself accountable.

Making bad music is evil, not because it promotes consumer culture, but because it provokes no self-reflection or social critique. Pleasure is the means and ends of pop-music, which in turn does nothing to make the world a better place, all it serves to do is reproduce the same circumstance. The way a drug can serve to be a necessary distraction from the woes of living, it still can never really change the woeful conditions. Art is supposed to be a catalyst for change through representation, which Bieber is not.

3. The Musical Haircut

Not Evil: Hair cannot be Evil.

Evil: Or can it?

I graduated! Mom! Look at me, I graduated! No homework! *Flaunts superior 3.98 GPA* *Waves degree around*

Now I can focus on my career . . . awkwaaaaard.

Just about everyday I am reading an article in Forbes, HuffPo, Gawker, The NYT, about how some "poor college student" was "promised the American dream" then woops, the economy crashed and now "things suck, blah, blah student loans." Then about 3,000 comments from some old folks telling the college student to suck it up, they should have known what they were getting into when they took out tens of thousands of dollars in loans.

Outstanding student loans will exceed 1 Trillion this year!! WOOP!

This is the plight that I am in exactly. I have been a graduate for about two weeks and I still don't have a job, how dare you, America!

We live in a country, where though it is not necessarily mandated by government, but mandated by social structure for you to have a degree in order to get even a badly paying job, become socially mobile and have a fighting chance. That means you have to go to the best school possible, suffer the loans and hope to hell that you learned something. This is horrible if your parents are working-class hispanic immigrants (like myself) or economically marginalized in anyway. Everyone has big dreams and we have to suffer if we want the slightest chance to fulfill them.

We are one of the only, if not the only, post-industrialized nations with this kind of student loan issue, because universities aren't all public and (we are taught that) private education is privileged over public in the job market. It's cheaper if you go to public schools, except no one will care.

There aren't any jobs, especially in editorial. I don't expect to find one soon. I honestly don't expect to find one even this year. I think this is realistic and what ticks me off about these unemployed or poorly-employed college students in these articles is, while yes the economy is unfair, it seems as though they were coddled to believe in some sort of cause and effect A -> B job placement. If I go to school, I will get a job. Yes in certain ways that is what we are taught, but no one seems to understand that we are young and we'll have lots of pretty bad jobs before we get to where we want to be. Write for prestige, then maybe you'll make money writing in about ten years.

We like to complain, but we don't want to work. My generation of helicopter moms, blessed iPhones and trust funds. Maybe in certain ways these kids were lied to, because they were taught that they were special and to be entitled to a certain level of treatment and respect. Which isn't wrong, but it is confusing. My parents were immigrants who were taught to assimilate and that social transcendence is only possible through a strong work-ethic. Everything one gets is earned, not given, because that is the truth when you are marginalized.

I am not undermining the shock and struggle of those who were taught otherwise, especially because I know the economy is largely unfair to us young people who are suffering the consequences of poor decision-making by the generation before us. And nevermind, that it is also completely unfair to those who are older, have families to support and real job experience. Everything is really just a mess right now.

I only  hope that given all that has happened we will taught to be realistic and grateful, not entitled to things that no longer exist.

_
As a girl with fallopian tubes pop music is a dangerous drug, more intoxicating than ecstasy or 70% cacao dark chocolate. The allure of shitty club beats combined with my ovaries and ethnic designation as "brown" can have lethal repercussions for those within the scope of my ass when the beat drops. However, for those of us girls who would like to believe we are "smart" the insubstantial content of songs with lyrics like "Love is the new denim or black" and "Skeleton guns or wedding bells in the attic," we are often torn between feeling superior and feeling like Courtney Stodden's twitter.

Thus is our inner struggle. Lady Gaga recently released the 13-minute masturbation fest for "Marry the Night.” The video features Lady Gaga, Mother Monster and Stefani Germanotta proving with each second as you watch that: yes, she did in fact direct this herself. However, as a girl you have to wonder, am I just hating on this chick?

Personally, I liked her best when she was just kind of a slut who sang about being decadent and spoiled. Then (she obviously started doing mad cocaine) and decided she was the savior of queers and outcasts—how many times has she referred to herself as "Queen" or "Mother"? Who asked to be saved? Surely, I did not! But as I roll my eyes, she sells another bazillion records.

















The first half of “Marry the Night” features a Warholian Factory Girl kind of storytelling where you're essentially watching a faux-Parisian 1920s Gaga squirm around naked, bang some dudes, eat a bunch of Cheerios and cry. Her narration at the beginning of the video is annoying if you dislike her but perhaps succinct if you do. Her argument is essentially as such: I tell lies to make my life appear more interesting because I am an artist.

If Gaga isn't an artist then she is a very successful copycat—at best. She’s just some fame-whore who got a nose job, dyed her hair blond, gave up her career as a struggling vagina-music singer/song writer (all of this she admits in her New York Magazine profile) and sold out her original aspirations for money and notoriety. Her assertions of spinning lies for art are mere justifications for inconsistencies and obvious plagiarism. On top of all of that, her pop-music sucks! Like, a girl can’t even pop and lock to most of the tracks on Born This Way! What a shame. (Plus her column in V Magazine is verbose, sloppy and a testament to her inability to substantiate any of her bold intellectual claims with a showcase of real knowledge.)

If we accept that Gaga is an artist then these nonsensical extended videos feel less trite and pointless. With this assumption all of the disjointed flashing imagery smooshed onto the end of the video is performance art and the lack of cohesion or narrative is something we are supposed to read into. (Isnt' art retarded?) If Lady Gaga is an artist then the shitty pop lyrics and generic tunes cannot be separated from the imagery she presents. So all those critiques about her music lacking the substance and bravado of her videos and philosophical allusions are cancelled out. You would have to judge the total package or performance, in this case.

The question is: can we accept that she is an artist when the relationship between the art and commerce is so explicit? When the connection between the "evil record label powers-that-be" and the "art" cannot be separated, is it still art? Or is it a kind of necessary post-modern art where we've fully integrated ideas about capitalism into our understanding of the world, and being a "sell out" no longer has a negative connotation or is even possible (if it ever was)?

Which is it then? Artist or Sell Out?

If she is a “real artist” then she ain’t a very good one, riffing on everyone who came before her without critique or new interpretation. She is merely capitalizing on cultural amnesia to present the old as new.

If she isn’t an artist then she is just a snore at this point.

The reality is I don’t think any of us have enough information to decide. I would just say, she is fucking lucky.

Goodness gracious is she one lucky motherfuckingbitch.

The Pop Project Issue 1 is essentially a mini-zine of cultural criticism and musings. The final project for my digital art and new media course, it's a clusterfuck of kitsch, high and low culture and an acid trip.

Britney, Gaga, The Wire, Kanye and Amy Winehouse. Malibooya.

Check it out and download it below.