Urban Legends

People receive emails about urban legends almost everyday; and don’t know what it really is, or if they do know what is they don’t know if it’s true or not. But an urban legend is a story that appears mysteriously and spread spontaneously in various forms and is usually false; contains elements of humor and is popularly believed to be true. An urban legend doesn’t really have an origin but it’s just a story passed on from friend to friend, and even generation to generation.
The first urban legend that interested me was: “A video shows a driver being thrown from his car in a collision and run over by oncoming traffic”. Comes to find out that this urban legend is true, Damien Harrington had died on the scene. In April 2002 it all starts when Damien Harrington was at liquor store in Alpharetta, Georgia trying to purchase some beer with a bad check. Then left the store, the store manager ended up chasing him while calling the police. Since he was drunk he bumped up against the car that was in front of him and swerve, the SUV tipped over and he flew to the other side, and got ran over by the oncoming traffic.
The second urban legend: “The term ‘420’ entered drug parlance as a term signifying the time to light up a joint. This urban legend is true, because high school students started using this old term in 1971, when they meet up at 4:20 to smoke marijuana to release stress about anything. After a number of times of doing this people around the word made April 20th (4th month 20th day) the day was smokers just smoke marijuana, as a national smoke day. There are many rumors about how 420 came about like; “420 is the penal code section for marijuana use in California. According to snopes.com section 420 of California penal code refers to obstructing entry on public land. There are many more rumors about 420 but it’s just a term use back in the day.
The final urban legend is; “Parking lot carjackers are placing flyers on the rear windows of automobiles, then taking the car as the driver step out and get the flyer. This urban legend seems to be false. People have received this message from time to time since February 2004, and we still haven’t heard of any carjacking reports that are done by this procedure on the news. Even though there is still people who carjacks like; people who need money, kids who want to be in a gang, and they wait in spots where the driver haves to get out by themselves. Isn’t any carjacker that has used this method yet.
I just gave you three examples of urban legends; some are true, some are false, and some are undetermined. There are so many urban legends about anything that you can think of. So if you receive an e-mail about a situation about somebody or something its more then likely a urban legend.

The Picture that Lies

My top 5 pics that standout to me are:
- Pic 21, the Jackalope Image
- Pic 20, Martin Postcard Image
- Pic 17, Hopper Image
- Pic 11, TV Guide/Oprah/Ann Margret Image
- Pic 10, Ann Richards/Texas Monthly Image

Out of this 5 pictures the that stand out the most is pic 10 Ann Richards/Texas Monthly Image because there is an old lady posing, like she is riding a bike. It grabs my attention because you dont see dat everyday.

Violence in the Media

Violence in the media, is played in our daily lives because people find violence interesting so that's what they want to see, hear, and sometimes read. Three ways that violence play in life is; the first way is that people might go see a movie and it might have violence in it. The violence might had been the solution to solve their problem and the movie ended good because of the violence, and people who watching the movie with similar problems would think that it would work for them. The second way is that a kid might be playing a fighting game, then think its ok to other people. The third way is if a person is going through something, he might want to listen to violence music, then depending on the person he or she might react on what the song is saying .

Hip Hop vol.1

-I enjoy listening to rap music.
I agree with this because i do enjoy it. I enjoy it because I can relate to it to my personal life. People think that hip hop is a bad influence on kids, but its like movies and tv shows were superman and batman fighting on the tv screen. Then sometimes it get me hype for a game. Or just listenin it for entertainment.
"Its only-at the end of the day, it's only entertainment."
-Jadakiss, Rapper

"Tough Guys vs. Killing Us Softly"

Over the past few days we have seen two movies about women and men bodies are used in advertising in pictures and commercials. The first person was "Killing Us Softly" Jean K. She was talking bout how women was being disrespected in the media by using their bodies to attract attention, how women have to look a certain way to be in these ads, and that in most cases that they are under men when it comes to power unless when it comes to race. She was stating that it was disrespectful to use a female body as a product (a cologne shaped as a women's body). My response to the messages that she trying to get at was very pointless, and she was blowing everything out of proportion. I think she was very sexes towards men, because she was saying that we be dogging women by punching, putting guns, etc.... to them.
The second movie we watched was "Tough Guys" by____. He was saying that as young men we think that you have to be strong, independent, rough, and tough to become a men. And if you not of those you would be called pussy, wuss, fagget,etc... To me thats true because you have to be strong to take care of your family, and handle business. He was also stating that over the years men in movies, and even toys have became stronger far as muscle wise. He was stating that the guns in the movie got bigger also. But one thing i dont agree with him about is satitics about; men is mostly doing violence, men is the highest rate of killing each other and women.

Superbowl Ads

I have learned that companies create a superbowl ad to attract superbowl viewers, so they can see it, then buy their product. Companies spend up to $3 million just for air time for a commercial during the superbowl. Companies create their commercial with many diffferent techinques such as; close ups, sound effects, music, talking animals, and etc..

Key Concepts

The main key concept that i understand out of the five is concept three: "Different people experience the same media message differently". This key concept is like when a ad or a message is trying to be sent out different look at it differently. For a example it be a picture of a man sitting on a park bench. Somebody might say that is his daily routine, the next person might say he was walking and he got tired, or they might say he could be sitting down, waiting on the bus to come. Different groups of people get a different understanding about the same message pertaining to their past experience.