TikTok-ization of Teen Culture

First of all, I have to confess that, as far as Fb is concerned, I’m a teenager.  Or maybe a twenty- something.  I strongly believe that my posts are very adult —in the sense of grown-up, and nothing in my Fb transcript would indicate a tendency toward teeny-ness.

But the random crap that they throw at me in my ‘feed’ is very teen-oriented!

Of course, they put these so-called ‘reels’ in my feed.  Somehow, they know I’m more into seeing random girls than random boys.  But all the girls behave as though some boyfriend is videotaping them for YouTube.  They all preen the same way, they flip their hair the same way, when they’re done, they signal to their photographer the same way!  And they’re all delicate and feminine the same way—except for the ones who’re shuffle-dancing, or doing gymnastics, who’re usually muscular.

I’m sad to see that the vast majority of girls are determinedly girly.  Even the ones with nice muscles, and a solid set of six-pack abs, are girly.  So sad.

But I saw an awesome painting, though. 

Kay

Earning off Popular Media

Nobody is surprised that those whom we call "influencers" earn money from the various Meta websites, e.g. Facebook and Instagram.  (The owners—Meta—probably makes more.)

I get a lot of posts from a 'Sophie Cunningham' site.  I love Sophie C to bits, but the content on the site has somewhat questionable grammar, so I'm fairly sure that Sophie does not really own the site; if she does, she has outsourced the maintaining of it to someone else.  Probably someone she has only met on the Internet.  They may give Sophie some of the money they make off the Fb posts; they actually may not; maybe Sophie has a media manager who handles all that. 

Some celebrity accounts sound suspiciously like they're from abroad.  You 'like' one of their posts about some athlete you admire, and they immediately shoot back: "Send me a direct mail, dear. <3  I will answer, for sure."

Regardless of the provenance (the genuine-ness) of the Fb accounts of star athletes, I really find it difficult to deal with sports fans.  Some of them are OK; they make reasonable comments about the players, about specific games, about the statistics.  But the vast majority of fans commenting on posts about celebrity players are, well, really hard to stomach.  Abusive.  Illogical.  Racist.  Ignorant.  Uncalled for.

Maybe, in about 10 years from now, once I get to understand the game—maybe with the help of my little basketball-playing cousin!—I might be able to tolerate these ignorant comments.  But, my goodness; they're on a par with the off-the-wall comments from MAGA types.  Incidentally, there are highly racist comments made against Caitlin Clark, denigrating all aspects of her game, many of which I cannot understand, being as much of a basketball atheist as I am.  But there are numerous comments insulting black athletes!  Of course, they could be posted by foreign trouble makers inciting racist feelings.  

A Pic from Fb

 

The caption was:  This looks like a gang I don’t mind joining!!

Complexity, and The GOP

There are two things that people dislike: Complication, and Complexity.

Make it simple!

This is the plea of those of my students who don't like to think too hard!  I understand; these are the kids who think of Literature as just stories!  Of course they are.  And a movie is just a videoclip.

Complication:  These are the things that students—and people, generally—believe that have been needlessly thrown in, just to make life difficult for them. 

Like: divorce.   OK, it's not working out; it's splitsville.  Does the couple share a bank account?  <Ohh, why did you have to bring that up?>  Are there children?  <So what; cut them in half!>.  Does the woman have the ability to support herself?  < Oh.> Is there a house?  A car?  How to divide those up?

Complexity.  This is when all the processes that make something work are themselves complex.  In the end, there really isn't a huge difference—from the point of view of a student who hates complication.  From my pount of view, complexity is when there are wheels within wheels.  A complication is just an extra wheel!

Simplifying Government

Maga—and the Tea Party—have historically (that is, for a long time) held the view that government is needlessly complicated.  They have never liked all the complications of * Federal Income Tax returns; * Food and Drug regulations; * The Legal System; * Elections, including the much-hated Electoral College; * Higher Education; and so on.  So the GOP has promised to simplify government. 

Half of them don't care how it works.   The other half doesn't know,  and doesn't want to know.  This means that, if they take a chainsaw to, say, Welfare, they don't know what is going to result.

The same with Tariffs.  These are expensive customs rates tagged on to anything that's imported.  Most of what we buy—at Walmart, or on Amazon—are imported.  This is obviously going to make life more expensive for everybody who shops at those places.  So why did Trump do it?

His theory was that once imported things got too expensive, people would buy US-made goods.  Unfortunately, US-made goods are expensive.  Our workers make $7.50 an hour, while Chinese and Indian workers make much less. 

By now, most of my readers have probably gotten bored to tears!  This boring subject describes some of the most complex processes in trade and government: it's called Economics.  I don't know much about it; but Trump has got someone to give him a summrary of what he needed to know.  

But Trump is easily bored, so I bet it was a super, super, soooper simplifued course in Economics.

To cut a long story short, it didn't go as expected.  The US made a lot of enemies; we wriggled out of a lot of obligations; and we've arranged (supposedly) to depend on Coal and Gasoline for our energy needs.

Trump is a Big Picture kind of guy.  Other fellows must now step in, and make these dreams happen.  (If trump decides to do it himself, it could be very messy.)  But unfortunately guys who know the finer points of energy production, etc, are unlikely to want to work for trump. 

Kay

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