Justin Bieber. There is almost no one in this world that hasn’t heard of this name. He is currently one of the biggest names in pop music as of now, releasing catchy singles like “Baby”, “Somebody to Love”, and “Never say Never”. Even though he’s only 17 years old, he has a fan base in the millions, has an autobiography and a film called “Never say Never” on his life, and has toys and games endorsing him.
So why do I bring up Justin Bieber? Like all other musicians, he will have supporters and he will have critics and “haters”. What’s interesting about Justin Bieber is that these supporters and critics are really biased and hardcore in what they say about him. While some of these supporters have caught the “Bieber Fever” and believe that he is the voice of your generation, others believe that he should get out of the music industry entirely. I mean for god’s sakes, you can just tell from his songs that he hasn’t hit puberty yet!
I am not nor will ever be in love with Justin Bieber. I mean his music really is awful. Every one of his songs on love and girls are corny. How can he know what love is beyond the teenage puppy love that most of us experience when we’re in high school? The autobiography and movie were overly excessive. He only released two albums “My World” and “My World 2.0”. How can you make a movie about his life after only two albums? Sure he’s made a lot of hit singles, but that isn’t saying much. If you don’t know about Justin Bieber’s childhood, he grew up in Stratford, a relatively small town in Canada. Living with a poor, single mom, Bieber took it out on the streets and sang for small pocket change. He then went on to singing at talent shows and posted Youtube videos of him singing before he was discovered by Usher and was signed a deal. This story, although somewhat remarkable, is not very appealing. Again, he’s only 17 years old. Does he really have any significant life experiences to talk about compared to someone like Kurt Cobain or Jimi Hendrix?
If you go on some websites, you can see how far this antagonism towards Bieber goes to. Take Youtube for example. Almost every one of Justin Bieber’s videos has over 100 million views, with his song “Baby” being ranked as the most watched Youtube video of all time with a record 470 million views. At the same time, it’s also the most disliked video in Youtube’s history. A lot of ordinary people post comments saying how Justin Bieber is a total fag to how small his penis is to how feminine he looks with his former hairstyle.
My point is this: Bieber isn’t the worst musician in history as most people tout. There have certainly been a lot worse musicians than him like Vanilla Ice, Soulja Boy, and Ashley Simpson. I certainly don’t like Bieber, but it isn’t necessary to go so far as to write long pararaphs in the comment box on Youtube or on a blog, ranting on how much you despise Bieber. Everytime I go to a Youtube video, I’ll see at least one of these hate comments regarding Bieber and it disgusts me to actually see one of these comments. There is no reason to hate him and there is no reason to worship him. Just know that he’s out there, making millions of dollars like any other music artist out there.We all have different tastes in music, but you don't have to be so extreme about them.
Friday, March 18, 2011
Thursday, March 3, 2011
TV shows nowadays (Part 2)
In my previous post before Agora Days, I talked about how today’s TV shows for children are just not what they were when I was a child. Now, I want to delve into that a little further, talking about Cartoon Network, the network I watched most as a child.
Cartoon Network made significant changes to its television programming in recent years. Up to around 2006, many of the more popular 90s cartoon shows were shown on Cartoon Network. Dexter’s Laboratory, Powerpuff Girls, Johnny Bravo, and Cow and Chicken are only some of the channels that I watched growing up. As I mentioned in my previous post, it was these TV shows that I enjoyed watching as a child and they had such wild and exciting plots that made them all the more memorable. When 2006 came around though, all of these cartoons were taken off the network completely and would only appear on the network as re-runs.
Coincidentally, 2006 was also the year when Hannah Montana premiered on Disney Channel and made its success in appealing towards tweens. Because of Hannah Montana’s success in so many different markets from music to TV to toys and games, it has spawned numerous rip-off programs that try to imitate the style of sitcom/live reality TV show of Hannah Montana. Cartoon Network was no exception to this and started to promote live-action series such as BrainRush, Destroy Build Destroy, and TowerPrep. Many of these shows involve kids ages 14-16, who are answering trivia questions or building random things and destroying them. In fact, Cartoon Network has even shown basketball games with teenagers talking about the highlights of these games.
Now I’m no expert in television programming and anything related to the subject itself, but isn’t the network called “Cartoon Network”? Why is Cartoon Network promoting live action series when they have nothing to do with the name itself? I know that Cartoon Network does show cartoons, most of which are pretty awful to say the least, but it boggles my mind that Cartoon Network is so desperate in competing against Disney and Nickelodeon to the point where it goes against the name of its own network and creates such boring reality shows.
If you ever watched Cartoon Network in the late 90s and early 2000s, I will always remember how Dexter tried to hide his secret laboratory from his parents while he built his wacky inventions or how the Powerpuff girls had to fight numerous villians ranging from the evil monkey Mo-Jo-Jojo to the effeminate devil Him. I repeat myself from what I said in my previous post: kids shows should make kids fantasize. The content of these shows should be wild and imaginative so that watching these shows will be all the more memorable.
I know that I didn’t talk about other channels and networks that have completely changed their programming. But, I thought that Cartoon Network and the changes it has made would give a good enough picture to the current status of most kids shows. Again, I don’t mean to say that these shows aren’t universally despised nor should be. But they aren’t as wild as they once were and writers of kids shows should really bring back the shows of the 90s.
Cartoon Network made significant changes to its television programming in recent years. Up to around 2006, many of the more popular 90s cartoon shows were shown on Cartoon Network. Dexter’s Laboratory, Powerpuff Girls, Johnny Bravo, and Cow and Chicken are only some of the channels that I watched growing up. As I mentioned in my previous post, it was these TV shows that I enjoyed watching as a child and they had such wild and exciting plots that made them all the more memorable. When 2006 came around though, all of these cartoons were taken off the network completely and would only appear on the network as re-runs.
Coincidentally, 2006 was also the year when Hannah Montana premiered on Disney Channel and made its success in appealing towards tweens. Because of Hannah Montana’s success in so many different markets from music to TV to toys and games, it has spawned numerous rip-off programs that try to imitate the style of sitcom/live reality TV show of Hannah Montana. Cartoon Network was no exception to this and started to promote live-action series such as BrainRush, Destroy Build Destroy, and TowerPrep. Many of these shows involve kids ages 14-16, who are answering trivia questions or building random things and destroying them. In fact, Cartoon Network has even shown basketball games with teenagers talking about the highlights of these games.
Now I’m no expert in television programming and anything related to the subject itself, but isn’t the network called “Cartoon Network”? Why is Cartoon Network promoting live action series when they have nothing to do with the name itself? I know that Cartoon Network does show cartoons, most of which are pretty awful to say the least, but it boggles my mind that Cartoon Network is so desperate in competing against Disney and Nickelodeon to the point where it goes against the name of its own network and creates such boring reality shows.
If you ever watched Cartoon Network in the late 90s and early 2000s, I will always remember how Dexter tried to hide his secret laboratory from his parents while he built his wacky inventions or how the Powerpuff girls had to fight numerous villians ranging from the evil monkey Mo-Jo-Jojo to the effeminate devil Him. I repeat myself from what I said in my previous post: kids shows should make kids fantasize. The content of these shows should be wild and imaginative so that watching these shows will be all the more memorable.
I know that I didn’t talk about other channels and networks that have completely changed their programming. But, I thought that Cartoon Network and the changes it has made would give a good enough picture to the current status of most kids shows. Again, I don’t mean to say that these shows aren’t universally despised nor should be. But they aren’t as wild as they once were and writers of kids shows should really bring back the shows of the 90s.
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