Both "Pretty Boy Crossover" and "Flowers of Edo" share a similar and resounding theme. People are afraid of change, death, being left out, and not knowing things. People would rather choose to evade these realities, or even decide to escape them by doing suicide. They do whatever it takes to fit in, to be worshipped, and to be immortal. They do all of this in order to maintain their sanity, because they can't accept being outcast, or can't accept death. People would rather do what's popular instead of what's right because they cannot stand the fact of that someone might be talking behind their backs if they don't; they would much rather fit into society. However, Pat Cadigan's "Pretty Boy Crossover" and Bruce Sterling's "Flowers of Edo" both portray protagonists that defeat the odds and decide to live in an actual reality where they choose to maintain their values and decide to do what's moral, despite society's strong influence and pressure.
"Pretty Boy Crossover," is about confused and rebellious future teenagers ,like Bobby, who literally go digital instead of getting things like piercing or tattoos. Bobby is one of the people that can't accept reality, so he chooses to go digital. His society has adopted the fact that once your 18, there is no longer a reason for you to live. From that age on, everything about you, whether it be physical or mental, begins to disintegrate. As a result, digitizing oneself has become extremely popular in the society of "Pretty Boy Crossover," and everyone must do it; if you don't, then you will be seen as a pariah amongst society. Not only that, but you will miss out on all the supposed "benefits" that the company that is selling this product has to offer. By going digital, all your fears of death, illness, and pressure will disappear. In the digital, you control everything including how you look, who calls the shots, and who gets to join your club. In the digital world, you are living an eternal youth where your dreams come true. "You don't have to die anymore, Bobby says silkily. Music bounces under his words. It's beautiful in here. The dreams can be as real as you want them to be" (548). You also get to be the center of attention where everyone loves and praises you. In "Pretty Boy Crossover", going digital means you don't have to do anything, and live the life that you've always dreamt of.
People are perceived and judged based on material possessions, socioeconomic status, intelligence and even political prowess. The author used third person narrative to make the claim that he is indeed an ordinary person; however, society seems to think otherwise. “‘That is so dope,’ the college student says… There’s something else he wants to say. It’s as if the man with the classes has some form of mastery…” (Shteyngart 1). The author explains how people seem to have elevated his status to some form of celebrity, due to his possession of a brand new device. It is quite ironic, that the author tries to show that he is just an average person living an average life, however, society thinks otherwise. The use of irony furthers the author’s argument that technology’s effect on society is evidently visible. Whenever, people see someone with technology, they become interested to find out what it is and how it functions. The author uses irony again, this time much more indirectly. He explains how he is on a video call with a friend using the Glass and uses his phone to take recordings of the museum exhibits. “…my Glass darting around the sociopolitical extravaganza… I snap a picture of it with my iPhone…” (Shteyngart 5). It is quite curious whether or not this was intentional, but it seems as if the author was connected and disconnected at the same time from the reality he
The world of young adults is a complicated landscape, with cliques and a desire to fit in. This push for conformity stretches not only through behavior, but more noticeably through the apparel worn by youths. At the beginning of the story, the narrator states that she and her friends are in “trouble,” but they “do not know what [they did], and [they are] sure [they] did not mean to do it” (103). This fear of the unknown continues throughout the entirety of the story, and readers can infer that the crime the girls have committed was simply dressing out of the norm for their age. The narrator also mentions that she is “white-skinned, ebony-haired, red-lipped, and ethereal,” far different than the expectation for her being “suntanned, golden-haired, peach-lipped, and earthbound” like her mother had been (103). As time repeats itself, so too do the fashion trends popular among the masses, and the look that the narrator’s mother portrayed was the same as the look her daughter is expected to adhere to. This is not the case, though, and because of her and her band’s choices in clothes, the narrator feels ostracized by not only her peers but her father as well, who “looks at [them] without moving his mouth or turning his head” as they leave the house (104). This reaction, or lack thereof, indicates that the father disapproves of the choices his daughter has made about how she dresses, but feels as though it is not his place to criticize her. The ending line does an excellent job at summarizing the angst felt by most teens as the narrator and her band feel as though “[they] are right to turn [themselves] in” to the pressures exerted by their peers to comply to what is expected of them (104). Just as women’s individuality is torn down by the pressures
These days, as both characters ironically prove, it is difficult trying to be different when being different is a category in itself. Dave and Julia, the two protagonists of this book, are both the cool, “hipster” type kids that would burn themselves drinking their coffee because they have to do it before it is cool. Both of them think high school is the biggest cliché imaginable, which – when you think about it- it really is. How many of us fantasized over being prom king or queen? Having someone ask you out to a dance in the most romantic, over used fashion possible? Wanted to run for class president or some other office? These are the sort of things that Dave and Julia vow never to do during their four years of high school, until one day everything changes. As the summary explains, Dave and Julia start a pact (which they write down and title the "Nevers List") right before high school, swearing off participating in any of the "cliché" high school experiences that were just bound to arise. The list goes as
Social division within the society is conveyed in the opening scene through a montage, displaying a satirical depiction of the commercial American youth culture: teenagers driving, swimming, partying, implying that it’s normal behaviour for adolescents in America. The use of music further enhances this image as “Kids of America” plays in the background, however it does not define the life of the majority, but only the wealthy children. Through voiceover Cher says ironically “Actually I have a way normal life for a teenager” contrasting the montage of her partying and using a computer program to determine her clothing. Social division, particularly within the school, is demonstrated through costume. The men’s fashion during the 90’s is described by Cher to appear as if “They just fell out of bed”. This is juxtaposed to when Christian is introduced through the use of slow motion and full body camera shots in the exaggerated scene portraying his perfect persona from his well groomed physical appearance contrasting him from other men. The notion of social division in Clueless is present through the cliques of modern society, defined by wealth, popularity and physical appearance which both reaffirms and introduces new insights due to the change of
section of the article “Girl’s Suicide Points to Raise in Apps Used by Cyberbullies” by Lizette
With all of the technological advances there are more things smartphones, computers, etc. can do. More things to distract us from what we need to do. In the article “Growing Up Digital, Wired for Distraction” Matt Richtel builds his argument by using the anecdotes of a few specific high school students and teachers. Richtel also understands his audience because he develops the article in a way where readers are introduced to the topic of digital media’s effect on students with sufficient and reliable information.
His article is persuading and declaring a point of discomfort and rebellion against being normal. The use of energetic language makes us feel how personal this topic is, not only because he was being prejudiced, but because it is a matter in which every person should be concerned, not matter what is your hobby or in which way you dress; everyday people is being catalogued. Likewise, despite Zimmerman attaches a tone of indignation and disapprobation, there also exists a tone of pride and affection. This pride is directed towards the embracement of one-self. This “herd mentality” that lead us to behave as dictated by our culture, our society and our school; where “We wanna be stereotyped, we wanna be classified, we want a suburban home” is the major contradiction of punk culture. Punk culture embraces the difference, the oddity and the weirdness in order to exhibit those traits as something beautiful and powerful. Individuality is a human characteristic that should be protected as an unmeasured treasure because it is the essence that make us be who we
He sets the stage by hooking the reader in, informing how far technology has come over the years and how easy access to information has caused students’ methods of learning to do a complete 180. For me, if I didn’t know the title of the article, I would curious after reading his introduction to know what article is really about. Porter shares a broader perspective of technology in our world and begins to narrow it down as he continues to write. He presents stylistic moves that create a sense of imagery. For example, Porter metaphorically states, “Between class periods, the halls of American high schools resemble a traffic jam on the interstate as they glare hypnotically into a screen. Some scroll their fingers down and across a tablet, other text faster than professional typists, while still other bop their heads to music.” While reading this small portion of the article, Porter wants his readers to envision what their high school may look like during a break between classes in hope that they might agree with his scenario that students are glued to their phones and there’s nothing to unstick them. Porter uses another example of student’s constant want to be apart of technology by quoting “Teachers are now forced to perform the ‘Put that away, unplug that, please log off’ dance every class period resulting in a waste of valuable
Technology has been involved in people’s lives forever, especially in the Millennial Generation. This generation consists of individuals born between the years of 1982-2004. The articles “The Flight From Conversation,” “Teens and Technology 2013,” and “Leading The Charge For Change” deals with teens interacting with technology today.Each article has different topics, but they connect through the over dependence of teens to technology. The Millennial Generation becomes less and less in touch with the real world and morphs into a quasi-reality.
Everyone deserves an education, but for some in the developing world, especially girls, it is hard to even get into a classroom, due to the opposition from those who believe a girl 's place is in the home, not the classroom. The 2013 documentary Girl Rising by Richard E. Robbins states, “There are 33 million less girls in primary school worldwide than boys.” Girl Rising tells the stories of nine girls varying in ages throughout the developing world who only want to learn or where school saved their lives. Richard E. Robbins the director of the film, uses famous celebrities to tell these stories in hope to reach people all over the world in order to raise awareness and money to girls’ educations worldwide. Mr. Robbins film produces a concerned or worried tone throughout the documentary which intrigued the viewer to pay full attention to the film. Mr. Robbins uses lots of textual strategies in the form of statistics and interesting facts, as well as audio strategies such as the celebrity
Masses of the Japanese population enjoy listening to American hip-hop today. Some youths actually visit the United States to experience what they believe to be real hip-hop culture. When one thinks of hip-hop culture, one would tend to imagine blowzy clothes, violent lyrics, drugs, guns, and chains. These are just some of the factors that outsiders tend to form together to form a generalization of hip-hop. Despite these negative associations, hip-hop has actually been dominating the Japanese culture and music industry. The Japanese hip-hop movement is economically, culturally, and generationally
According to the film Growing up online, there is an existing teenage social life on cyberspace outside of the purview of their parents. Online communication- unlike ‘face to face‘ conversations ,which often come with restrictions and social criticisms- is offering the youths of today the opportunity to play diverse roles or choose from many options as to what identity they love to represent and the impressions they want to create in the minds of their peers about their chosen identities . “You can alter your style of being just slightly or indulge in wild experiments with your identity by changing your age, history, personality, and physical appearance, even your gender” (Suler 455). Status updates, group links, photo and video sharing, accumulating friends and other interesting features that social sites like Facebook, Twitter and Instagram offer and the ability to live i...
Nick Hornbys’ novel ‘About a boy’ is a tale of two people growing up in two very different ways. Throughout the novel both the protagonists lead a change of self, which is a direct result of the actions of each other. Essentially both the protagonists allow each other to take a look at the world from a different perspective. The journey that the two characters experience in growing up is alike that of our own growing up, in that we have experiences that allow us to mature and become someone who is accepted by society. Both the characters give each other an insight on the way in which they lead their lives that allows them to better deal with their own problems. Each character helps the other fit in with his social class by showing them the things in life that should be important to them and for this they make them better people. Hornbys novel makes it easy to make parallels between our own life situations and that of the two protagonists, by giving the characters problems which are faced by all people at some stage in their lives.
A famous magician suffering from a head injury tries to convince his skeptical daughter that he came from another world, that he can fly, and that he must now return to his planet before the government finds him.
In a similar note, Twenge’s article utilizes a provocative title to set up a hopelessness attitude on the manner in which smartphones have turned kids of the current generation into lonely, depressed technology addicts who often fail to advance and achieve meaningful adulthood (Twenge). The article rotates around the apparent discontinuity in the intergenerational trends. She argues that smartphone technology has changed every aspect of the lives of modern-day teenagers, connecting their mental health to the nature of social interactions. In dystopian terms, Twenge explains that the current generation of kids is not alright. The smartphone is changing everything, from the latest birth cohort in America and total health destruction of these kids. According to the article, smartphones are responsible for the changes such as socialization, sex, sleep, courtship and mental health among the current generation of young people. While the press has always caricatured the millennials as the Shiva generation that wastes everything they come across, the post-millennial generation is worse. They are in fact pre-wrecked, shallow and brittle just like their smartphone