This just in, the news will continue to grow more and more opinionated and less about the actual news it is supposed to be reporting in the first place. Throughout all of the years that I’ve watched the news, in both the forms of television and YouTube, I have noticed a decrease in both news and the credibility of those giving it. Although the vloggers, video bloggers, I watch on YouTube are, in my opinion, more credible than the actual news casters, even they have their own opinions on what they are broadcasting. This new opinionated based news broadcasting is what brings down the credibility and the reliability to tell the nation what is happening in other countries.

            It’s always frustrating to me to have conversations with people who watch the news. With the new ways of getting the news are growing more and more popular, the news media had a bigger competitor to deal with in order to keep their own stations maintained. A lot of the media show that has slowly been growing for years has increased over the past few years to a circus of sorts. They all have been turned into segmented sections to try and hold the attention of the new instant gratification generation. However, this switch has seriously lessened the amount of news that we are subjected too. I pride myself on finding out information and being as knowledgeable on a subject as I can, so when I talk to others who rely solely on the mainstream media for their news it’s often frustrating to get them to understand almost everything that has been fed to them is unreliable and biased. That is not to say that my sources aren’t also biased, I, like many, many others who get their information online get it from more than one source and piece together what we can to understand the fullest back story behind the story.

            This new way of the news being broadcast is not only annoying bur severely damages how we, as Americans view the outside world. We are so focused on our own news and the skateboarding dog that we sometimes have trouble remembering that there are other countries out there which demand our attention and deserve our sympathy. Many of us stay in a blissful ignorance and ignore the outside world. Many people feel more peace in ignoring what is happening to continue to watch their skateboarding dog rather than fully understand the world and everything that is happening in it. These people only further perpetuate the stereotype that the media has it write by feeding us this fluffy and useless information instead of just the straight, cold, hard facts. 

Music

Music has always been a relatively large part of our culture and cultures from the past. In fact, as I write this blog, and probably as you read this blog I am listening to music. This form of media is the one form that has been integrated into our lives and has never fully been pushed out of our daily activities. From the time we are little, sometimes dating back even to when we’re still in the womb, to our funerals some sort of music can be associated with who we are, and what we like. Music has become one of the ways that the world identifies and clumps into groups of familiar people. When people first meet each other, one of the first things they do to get a judge of character on the person is ask what kind of music they are into. If they share similar tastes, they connect and if they don’t share similar tastes, often times they will go separate ways. The difficult part of this truth is that in society today it is becoming harder and harder to identify yourself by a unique type of music that fits your personality. The music industry has been looking at and recording what types of music society likes, sterilizing it, and putting it out on the market. It has gotten to the point where if you turn on the radio you can’t tell if you’re listening to a country, rock, or pop song unless you know the station it is on.

When asked on spot what my favorite music is, almost always I respond the same way, bebop jazz, metal, and any rock bands, preferably rock bands before the 90’s, but not exclusively only then. Most of the time this answer gets me a weird look, most of the music of today’s generation is the sanitized, meaningless pop that sprouts up overnight, and disappears before anyone can look closely at the lyrics and realize that they are completely empty and repetitive. Part of this plays into the instant gratification that so many of today’s children and teens have, but part of it comes from the lack of time (or talent depending on the musician) musicians have to complete and put out their new single.

Today, most of the artists who are well known and well liked (and aren’t from my parents generation) push out songs so fast because of the use of auto tune, which does exactly what it sounds like, it allows musicians to “look” the part and not worry about any of the actual singing. One big example of this, and sorry to any of her, uh, fans, would be the relatively new “singer” Ke$ha. Ke$ha “sings” dance-pop and electropop music according to Wikipedia. Which, to me, sounds made up special just for her. If you compare Ke$ha lyrics to any of the more old school bands, Tears for Fears for example, it’s easy to see the differences. Here is the chorus to Ke$ha’s “hit single” Tik Tok “Don't stop, make it pop / DJ, blow my speakers up / Tonight, I'mma fight / 'Til we see the sunlight / Tick tock on the clock / But the party don't stop, no”. From these lyrics it’s easy to pull out the literary meaning…. Oh wait…. There isn’t one. This song is just about partying. Now, if when looking at the chorus to Tears for Fears song, Mad World “The dreams in which I'm dying / are the best I've ever had / I find it hard to tell you / 'cause I find it hard to take / when people run in circles / it's a very, very / mad world.” From these lyrics, themes of death and stress can be pulled out. They have a much deeper meaning, and for that reason they will stay around longer.

Another big reason much of the music sounds so similar today is, well, it is similar. New and upcoming bands have to find some way of making a name for themselves in the world of music and since the unfortunate creation of the auto-tuned pop zombies, many of these new bands turn to the older generation’s music, which, in my opinion (in case it isn’t apparent by now) is much better. So many bands are re-doing older music, for the better or worse, to try and get noticed in the music world. Bands like KoRn, who remade Pink Floyd’s Another Brick in the Wall, Disturbed, who remade Genesis’s Land of Confusion, Limp Bizket, who remade The Who’s Behind Blue eyes, Five Fingered Death Punch, who remade Bad Company’s Bad Company, and Metallica (who really didn’t need to make a name for themselves,) who remade Queen’s Stone Cold Crazy among other songs, did the songs a great justice and pushed themselves to a higher status so their own music would be heard and remembered along with the greats. On the other hand; however, bands and musicians, such as, Kid Rock, who unsuccessfully smashed together Sweet Home Alabama (Lynyrd Skynyrd) and Werewolves of London (Warren Zevon), Jack Ingram a country singer who butchered Lips of an Angel by Hinder, and Brittany Spears, who remade and killed AC/DC’s You Shook Me All Night Long. With all of the remakes it’s hard to know and appreciate the bands for who they are and not the music that they stole and remade.

All of these different factors have added into the downfall and the separation of the music genres, and it only goes to show how much the music industry has changed music from being an inspirational soul music to sanitized pop crap. It’s really brought down the quality of everything these artists, good or bad, have devoted their life to perusing.

Publishing books

The book industry is well known for being extremely exclusive and hard to break into. Although it feels like almost anyone can get a book published and circulated because of pop fiction books such as Twilight and Harry Potter, actually getting published and making it into the big leagues for writing often feels like taking a chance at winning the lottery. Something I’ve wanted to do my entire life was to be a published author; however, the more and more I learn about the publishing industry the more I’ve come to realize that it may actually be very difficult for me to break into the business and actually get people interested in my books. Other than the gradual yet noticeable decline in the sales of paper books and the increasing sales of digital books, the book industry often feels like a popularity club. I’ve read amazingly written books that were never on the New York Best Sellers List and may never be placed there because of the pop books that publishers often try to sell because they think it will be the best option for their sales. However, there is a new way to get noticed in the world of literature and that is through the use of the internet.

Now, I’m not saying that every book that hits the top of the list is just a mediocre book that only got a spot because of its popularity. Many great books are or were on that list and that’s what makes it such an useful tool for finding good books. Currently, the number one selling book for the seventh week in a row is John Green’s The Fault in Our Stars which, seeing as he’s a relatively unknown author to many people who don’t read teen fiction, is something that he can be proud of. Many of his earlier works are a few of the books that I’ve read that blow books like Twilight out of the water in dealing with issues that a teenager can relate to. Some of these books however, never got the recognition that the book The Fault in Our Stars received. This is partly because he is slowly becoming more well known than before, but it also has a lot to do with a new way books are being advertized and sold to people across the world. Not only is John Green a writer, but he also has a vlog show on Youtube called “Vlogbrothers”. In 2007, John and his brother Hank started this show to try and communicate without using text for an entire year. Their fan base grew almost overnight and ‘Nerdfightaria’ was created. It is because of this fan base that John’s books got most of the attention that is given to them now. Nerdfightaria is the fan base that follows the lives of John and Hank Green. Along with the brothers, the Nerd Fighters, who are made of awesome instead of things like blood and bone, fight for the end of world suck.

Before the creation of the Vlogbrothers, Nerdfigharia, and Nerdfighters in general, John had published a book titled Looking for Alaska which was found and loved by a few people but never got the same attention that some of his later books did. Once his show took off however, a group of people who liked the same books were finally able to talk about them and enjoy them in the chat room ‘Your Pants’ created by the brothers. This set off a chain reaction that caused the two brothers popularity to sprout and take off and along with it, John’s books.

What John and other authors, such as Stephen King, started was a way for fans of books to get together and promote their books without the need of a publisher. Although John still has his books published through the Penguin publishing company if he were to switch completely too online books only he wouldn’t lose a single fan considering most of them are already online anyway. It is because of these advances in the internet and technology that allow readers to become more in tune with their favorite authors and connect more with people who might have missed the opportunity to read the book otherwise.

This all gives me a sense of hope that when I’m ready to publish my novels in a few years there is a chance that I will be able to do so without having to fight my way through publishers and ultimately have my books just sit on shelves without anyone reading them. The internet and people like John Green have opened up new ways of communicating about novels that don’t involve the bureaucracy that comes with publishing companies.