Posts Tagged ‘Media’

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Friday, July 2nd, 2010

Let me tell you about my latest discovery: www.chatroulette.com
Yes, I know I’m late. Chatroullette was launched in November 2009 and covered by numerous media in early spring 2010. Still, many people don’t know about it. I haven’t either. This is exactly what I like about being back at the universtiy – I get to leave my closed world of same age/occupation/status/interests and learn about some other stuff. The newest hype!
What makes Chatroullette so interesting is that it is more than application –  it is a fantastic social (and media) experiment. It is a mirror for the mankind to look at and see what we must see, not what we’d like to see. I like Chatroulette because it proves my thesis that if you leave people anonymous, without any rules and control (and yes – without a punishment), they turn into a bunch of ruthless, sex-obsessed mob. They will shove their dick into your face and click you away without a pardon the second you don’t fulfill their present needs.

The application has been created by a 17years old Russian programmer. Just for the fun of it. As the user number started growing, his family collected money for the unexpected expansion – the kid needed some more severs. Have we found a new Zuckerberg here? Is yet to be seen.
But let’s get back to Chatroulette. It is a very simple application which puts random people together for a video-chat. No need to log in, no need register – so it’s simple and completely anonymous. The only thing you need is a computer and a webcam. Go to www.chatroulette.com and you’ll see yourself in one window, your random chat partner in the window above, a text-chat window and two buttons: NEXT and STOP (I didn’t get the point of  the STOP button yet, maybe you can figure it out).
You get to meet random people from all around the world. You can chose from up to 22,000 people online. They are just a click away. And gone in just one click as well.

And here the Chatroulette phenomenon:
1. You’re completely anonymous so you can do whatever you want
2. The moment you don’t like the person you just click NEXT. This needs no explanation, no excuse. People do it anytime, even in the middle of a sentence or a chat. The moment there is anything they don’t like you’re gone. Or the moment you don’t do what they want you to do (masturbate). A very painful experience for people with low self-esteem.
3. It is all about masturbating men. 80% of people you find are… dicks.
4. People stick something over their cam so it does’t show their picture. Here’s the trick: When you do this, 90% of people think that if they can’t see anyone, no one is watching. How stupid is that? So they style their hair and check their teeth in the camera, or just go on masturbating.

Apart from getting an overdose of masturbating dicks (hey, why do only ugly little dicks masturbate online?), I had following experiences:
A Turkish guy with no teeth sitting in an internet cafe.
Many men from places like Las Vegas, London and Lisbon. They all clicked me away the moment they saw my whole (tired and unmade-up) face or the moment Marcus came into the picture. (although they were not masturbating, they were obviously looking for sex).
A woman who was interested in sex with me (sex).
A couple getting it on full picture in front of the camera. Few minutes after I found them, they got interrupted by someone who I would swear was his wife (or mother) – suddenly they jumped up and started dressing and just as I was wondering what kinky new sexual practice that was, a screaming woman entered the picture. I witnessed another 3 minutes of the fight, then someone finally thought of switching the camera off (sex).
Advertisement for sex chat (sex).
My neighbor Marcus claims he had a very nice 20 minutes long chat with a guy from Amsterdam. I don’t know if I want to believe that.

Yes, Chatroulette is wild, horny west of internet. A zoo of dicks AND men looking for sex. Pity. Because the idea of finding random people from all around the world for a short chat is actually very cool. But the reality is not. Still, Chatroulette is a fantastic social experiment. Also, you can use it as a platform for your ownn experiments – to test when, how and why people react the way they react. I decided to put on full hair and make up next time, just to see the difference in the reaction (and NEXT rates). I also want to see how the men react if you play they game and immediately ask them for sex.
Someone proposed to define chatroom topics. Dickroulette for whoever wants to share the masturbating experience. And then Footballroulette, Partyroulette, whatever…
But you see, we need rules to make it work.
Otherwise we’re simply stuck masturbating.
Next.

My Last 1 on S&C (I promise!)

Monday, June 7th, 2010

Hmmmm, I did it other way round and it miraculously worked: First I wrote my commentary on “Sex & the City 2” for 3 newspapers/magazines and 2 platforms – and then I went to see the movie. Last night. Ugh….

Although I was prepared for disappointment, it was much (much, much) worse then expected. I don’t have to say much (I already wrote my statements, and they perfectly fit) because everyone else is saying it. The most hurting part is that the movie is turned into one big advertisement.  The second most hurting part is that the series, which we loved for its realism (with a touch of magic) has turned into pure magic with no touch of realism whatsoever. The third most hurting thing is that the main characters haven’t gone though any character development or transformation (in 12 years). And we all know that the major point of any dramaturgical development is the main character’s development. None here. Charlotte is crying because she has two kids and when nanny is away, she gets a nervous break down. Taking care of your own two children is so enormously hard (even though you’re not working and have loads of money) that you even accept a porn-star nanny as long as she takes away the horrible burden of your own (2) kids from you. Samantha is 50-something and still fucking around. Miranda doesn’t like her job but likes working so she gets a new job. And Carrie…. If you didn’t hate Carrie during the series (I didn’t), you must start hating her now. Because now, all bad parts of her character come out. She’s self-obsessed, materialistic, egoistic and completely insensible of the needs and feelings of people around her. She repeats the most stupid mistake she made in the series – and this time, she even gets awarded for it! It was hard not to puke during the opening shopping scene. It was VERY hard not to puke during the karaoke scene. But IMPOSSIBLE during this one.

I really, really hope they don’t plan another film.

I’m sure all fans will pray together with me: “Sex and the City” – RIP!

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Saturday, May 22nd, 2010

What does Tajder mean when she says “Bimbo”

Friday, March 5th, 2010

Because it is now being discussed about what I meant when I said “Bimbo” during the discussion on Club 2, here a definition from Wikipedia, just to avoid any misunderstandings:

“Bimbo is a term that emerged in popular English language usage in the early 20th century to describe a physically attractive but unintelligent woman.”

Bimbo got stuck with me as the name for the over-sexualised, unnaturally perfect (or über-perfect) image of women that we have been bombarded with by the media in recent years. I got the name from the game called Miss Bimbo, which was launched two years ago and made a huge furore because it was targeted to 9-16 years old girls while the task was to “make your Bimbo (avatar) the sexiest, richest and most famous Miss Bimbo in the world”. This was to be done via shopping, beauty treatments, diets and plastic surgery. To do this, Bimbo needed money, which she gets, among other, from her boyfriend “Your boyfriend will (hopefully) give you some money every day. Because he loves you.”

First launched in France, the game reached 1,2 million users within few weeks. I wrote about this phenomenon in my article “Happiness is Just a Makeover Away” which was published in The Vienna Review in August 2008. Due to bad publicity and raging parents, the game has been somehow changed. Now, for instance, the task is to „Become the hottest, coolest most intelligent and talented bimbo the world has ever known!”  But Miss Bimbo is still a bimbo…..

For more information, go to www.missbimbo.com

Coma in a coma

Thursday, January 14th, 2010

We have an overdose of catastrophes. I wonder how much we really need of the global media. Just few days ago, I was sitting in Tirol finally enjoying some peace when I turned on CNN and saw a volcano eruption in Philippines. And I thought “How horrible, but sorry, I just don’t want to know”. I can’t process all of that. The world has always been full of wars and natural catastrophes but people were only aware of the ones that struck them. Now we have to digest every singe ounce of pain happening on any single spot of this planet. Whenever you turn your TV on or open newspapers, some disaster will jump on you. It is too much. We just cannot absorb that amount of tragedies. As Nietzsche, said “if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you.”

The possible results are: either we get immune, or we get swollen by the abyss. None is good.

Virtual Pollution

Monday, December 7th, 2009

Finally it is my time to bitch about Facebook! Our love relationship has turned into a love-hate relationship. I like(d) social networks. I am home in two different countries. Also, I went to an international school and an international university, and later worked in international business (woha, check this international chick out), so my friends are scattered all around the world. The networks are the the easiest way to keep in touch. So, I am everywhere: Facebook, Myspace, Linkedin, Xing, Small World, Internations, Twitter and some other site whose name I forgot. And yes, I admit, I have 390 friends on Facebook. And no, I don’t know them all – some of them are my readers who have expressed the wish to become my virtual friends. Virtual. That part is slowly fading away. But it is important because that is where the problem hides.

Few weeks ago, I posted  my dilemma about switching to Mac on Facebook. Within only few hours, I had 29 comments. Passionate comments. People were arguing and kept returning to see what the others replied. Last week, I posted that I was stuck at home with swine flu. Comments? 0. Zero. Welcome to the world of virtual friendships.

There is one slight problem with virtual friendships. No, three slight problems. Or more… One: We are spending more and more time in social networks. Meaning wasting time we could be spending in the real world, and also wasting money. CNN estimates costs of $2.2 billion a year due to the loss of productivity caused by time spent on networking sites. Problem number two: we are getting seduced by virtual friendships, maybe even allowing them to weaken the importance of the real friendships. What I learned with my post on having swine-flu is what sociologists are calling the phenomenon of “weak links”. We think we have 388 friends who are sharing our lives. We don’t. We have 388 virtual pan-pals who are only here when they want it. “Strong link” is my neighbour Markus. He fed me through closed door (yes, like you would feed a beast) while I was ill.

And what struck me most is that the social networks are strongly changing the way we begin romancing (and eventually end up having sex), which has a huge impact how we view and present our lives. Last two guys I met (yes, I admit, they were [much] younger than me) asked me for my Facebook contact. Phone numbers, even e-mail addresses, are passé. Hello, this is a revolution in our dating pattern! We used to get in touch so that we could get to know the person and see if we like him/her. Now, everything is upside down –we first get to know (the virtual) person, then we decide if we like him/her – and then we get in touch, or don’t. We are making decisions based on the ones-and-zeroes identity of the person. Dangerous. Because in the virtual world, what is missing is… yes, the real thing. Everyone is more or less same, and everyone can create the identity they chose to (do you really think I look like my Facebook pic?). We start thinking of our lives in terms of how presentable they are online.  How alienating is that?

I don’t know. I just know I’m cutting this thing to a minimum. I have already trained myself to only log on once a day. And I’ve introduced Facebook-free days. Mostly I combine them with news-free days. They are fantastic – suddenly life seems so easy and uncomplicated! You only have to remove the rubbish of other people’s destinies… Sorry, we’re just too many.

Media Objectivity & Business in Iraq

Sunday, November 22nd, 2009

Ask me where I’ve been in April, I don’t know. Mars? Strange how I’ve missed this one, but I guess it is never too late. The 2009 Pulitzer price for investigative journalism went to David Barstow of The New York Times for his story about how dozens of retired US army generals who were working as radio and TV analysts for major US media were co-opted by Pentagon to make its case for war in Iraq and how many of them had undisclosed ties to companies that benefited from policies they defended. Reading Barstow’s articles helps understand why war in Iraq and what proportions the business deals in an occupied country can take.

I wonder more and more who really bombed the towers…

From “Behind TV Analysts, Pentagon’s Hidden Hand”:

“But in the summer and fall of 2006, even as he was regularly asked to comment on conditions in Iraq [on CNN], General Marks was working intensively on bidding for a $4.6 billion contract to provide thousands of translators to United States forces in Iraq. In fact, General Marks was made president of the McNeil spin-off that won the huge contract in December 2006.”

Here his two stories:

Barry McCaffrey’s World

Behind TV Analysts, Pentagon’s Hidden Hand

Without Models

Thursday, October 8th, 2009

Here is a big applause for Brigitte, Germany’s most read women’s magazine!

From 2010, they are banning models from their pages – all editorials will we done with normal (I would rather say “average”) women. This is a fantastic step in the direction of  boycotting the artificially created image of the impossible beauty perfection which so strongly destroys not only women’s self-esteem but also men’s criteria.

Now, if they would also ban Photoshop, the job would really be done. I hope more magazines (and also the advertising world) are to follow. Let’s start liking the natural (and possible) us.

For more information go to: Bigitte

models-logo

Hair II

Saturday, August 8th, 2009

Few days ago, I read a statement in Grazia (British fashion& gossip magazine) saying that women can relax because it is now “allowed” NOT to have a Brazilian – now we may leave a stripe of hair down there. This had left me strange feeling: I wondered who has the right to dictate how that what I have between my legs should look like. And then, I grabbed Spiegel, Germany’s highly respected political magazine, to find a three page article about the newest fashion dictatorship of body-hair removal. And yesterday, I had a body-hair discussion with two female friends. The topic was sparked by our visit to a newly opened, stylish and expensive waxing studio. We were all surprised to see the price list was divided in two identically big halves: women and men. Which made me angrily protest (again) against men depilating their body hair. Men with moderate body hair are sexy – hair gives them the manly touch that clearly differentiates them from women. There is something gayish (yeah, call it meterosexual if you like), insecure, even childish to shaved chest. And then there is something very uncharming to it when it starts growing and turns into tiny black, unattractive, stubbing spikes. Why the hell would you ever do that to yourself? Have women really been so successful in hiding the pains of hair removal and hair re-growth? Maybe we made a mistake – had we confronted men with our legs, arm pits, bikini-zones and arms full of black stubby hair, maybe they wouldn’t have been so stupid to start depilating their bodies.

But let’s get serious here. The discussion about the removal of male chest-hair is not a discussion about a beauty norm or personal preference. It is a discussion about manipulation, about distraction, about consumerism, about fake liberty. In today’s world, when we are rapidly tuning towards living in “The Brave New World” or “Matrix”, the discussion about male body hair is a very important discussion.

Men depilating their body-hair is yet another step towards continuously blurring boarders between sexes. With the identities of the sexes invisible and roles completely androgynous, the natural fundament of our society will be crashed. When men are no longer men and women are no longer women, one more fundament, one more orientation, one more natural-law will have disappeared. And nothing new will come to replace it. While men used to be strong, hairy and concerned with how to win the next battle and secure the survival of their family, now they are slim, smooth and concerned with which bottle of skin conditioner to buy. Something is foul here.

And then there is this pathologic need to “take things into our hands” which the post-modern society managed to train us into. Just as the neo-liberal capitalistic system managed to free us from all traditional values and rules in order to establish greed as the only valuable rule, it managed to make us feel free and responsible to reshape every single aspect of our being. It is that self-realisation aspect in which it is not the nation, the social class or the education that are responsible for our success and our life-stories – it is only and exclusively us and how we manage ourselves and our lives. The neo-liberal capitalism gave us the right, which has then unfortunately turned into a painful obligation, to construct and shape every single aspect of our existence, including our body hair. While this can be liberating and fun, it can also be frustrating and exhausting. And here’s the real danger – concerned with shaping ourselves and our lives, we cannot be concerned with shaping the world we live in.

Taking things into your hands can turn into a problem, when the “things” are not important and when the re-shaping process turns into a process of enslaving instead of liberating. Look at what happened with women: For generations, feminists have been fighting against treating women as objects which can be shaped and used however men, or the society, wants it. Unfortunately, today women have turned into objects more then they have ever been. They are literally blackmailed by the existence of a new virtual woman presented by the media: the Bimbo. She is airbrushed, siliconised and liposucted, über-naturally slim and toned, with huge breasts, plumped lips, not a trace of cellulites, body-hair, brain or any other natural “imperfections”. The appearance of Bimbo resulted with naturally beautiful women feeling frustrated, insecure and unhappy. It resulted in a rocketing rise in eating disorders, deaths through anorexia, plastic surgeries and of course, bought cosmetic products and services. But what is even worse, it resulted in women wasting an incredible amount of time and energy on their looks. And we all know that today, more then ever, there are more important things to be occupied with than looks.

And because half of the market cannot be enough, now it is men’s turn to become victims. Have their ego crashed and have them waste money on cosmetics and have them waste their time figuring out the newest depilation techniques! Sheep like that are much easier to manipulate. The male Bimbo is already a reality. Open any magazine and you will find a six-packed, completely shaved, wrinkle and grey-hair-free Ken smiling at you, selling you one of the newest products.

Finally, there is the hidden agenda to create a complete dissatisfaction with anything we are born with. Because if you are unsatisfied with everything you are born with, and if you believe you must take things into your hands to change it and shape it the way magazines told you it should be, you will be a fantastic consumer of cosmetics, pharmaceuticals and various services such as waxing, hair colouring and breast-enhancing. It seems to work. Today, leaving anything untouched and unchanged seems like a proof of failure or weakness. And being  unhappy with yourself is good: self-secure and strong people might rebel. We seem to be safe from this: After you’ve spent 10 hours in the office, 2 in the gym and 1 reading about the newest diet, you will not have the capacity to notice the socio-economic system crashing, rich getting richer and the environment being poisoned to the point of no return. And even if you do, you will be way too tired to try and change anything.

This is why male body hair is important: To learn to love ourselves just the way we are. And to start working on improving the world rather then our unimportant little asses.

Michael, we love you!

Friday, June 26th, 2009

Michael Jackson is dead. This is officially an end of an era. End of what we have known as true superstars. One of the last of the truly great is gone. Welcome the era of products of market research departments.

He was special. He was unbeatable. He was incredibly talented. In so many ways. He was a fantastic singer. He was a dancer like only Fred Astair was. (There are great dancers, but there are God-chosen dancers. Like Shiva – when they move, the world moves with them). He wrote songs that moved us will always move us. He created ground breaking videos which started a new art form. And he had the “it” – the substance, the presence, the aura, the charisma of the chosen person.

But it was the very same talent, and the sensibility that comes with it, that crashed him. When you do things with your heart, because you simply must do them, because you have been chosen to do them, you are a victim of your own destiny. A superstar like Madonna, who has built her fame and her career on hard work and strong will, has that very same rationality to protect her from the burdens of stardom. A star like Michael Jackson, to whom the glory happened because of his talents, because he was “chosen”, has no tools to fight the negative aspects of stardom.

And there are many. People tend to glorify the idea of being a superstar. You have it all: the money, the fame, the power. The stars will tell us it is not that simple, but the envy will not let us understand. Imagine the amount of energy and essence that just one concert in which you give your whole existence to tens of thousands of people will rob. (And then do it for 44 years.) Imagine trying to keep your inner self intact and trying to build a protective shield between you and the people who believe they have the right to own you and know every cell in you. Imagine always staying alert against people who want to steal a piece of your fortune. Imagine the pressure of always being under public eye, of always having to stay on the top, of never making a mistake, never disappointing all those millions of fans. Money and power is good, but you can keep the fame.

And that is exactly the only thing Michael Jackson had left at the end. The worst of the best. Bankrupted, humiliated, and mentally and physically frail, he only had this fame that wouldn’t have abandoned him, no matter what people accused him for and no matter what a freak he had turned into.

Yes, the freakiness. Jacko the Wacko. But the freakiness is just a part of what he was. He wouldn’t have been Michael Jackson, the unbeatable King of Pop, without the freakiness. If you stand on the stage since the age of four, glorified my masses but also mistreated by people who are closest to you; if you never had a childhood, and never had a person that was truly supporting you through all those incredible things happening with your life; and if you could afford it – well, you had to become a freak. Freakiness was his way of helping himself. An illusion of Neverland, his paradise in which he was safe and happy; an illusion of Batman and Superman, who were his best friends; an illusion that he was – and looked like – an ethereal being like Peter Pan. They were his crooks. And we loved him for them.

Yes, we loved the freak in Michael Jackson. Millions of girls of my generation fell in love with him for this childish, Peter Pan-esque flair that turned him into an androgynous and ageless being. When you dreamt of Michael Jackson at the age of 14, it felt safe, because there was nothing sexual about him. He was not a man. He was a boy. An angel, a cartoon hero, a deity. The love for him was not worldly. There was something pure and ethereal in Michael.

Speaking of which… yes, the unavoidable issue of child-molesting allegations. This absolutely does not matter. We know he was different and we know that in this freaky childishness, he must have approached those kids differently than you would expect a normal man of his age. But we also know that people are greedy and we know that those parents let their kids play with a freak. We will never know the truth about what was going on. Maybe it is better that way. Maybe not.

We will miss Michael Jackson. We will miss his energy, his talent, his moves and his movies. We will miss the freak that he was. Because he was the last of the true, God-made freaks. Welcome to the age of plastic stars with mediocre talents and nothing to give. Welcome to the substance-free era.

We better just BEAT IT!