Dorian Nousias Post 1

        As a millennial I was born on the cusp of a revolution. The internet changed the world with its ability to propagate and distribute information. Thus, the 24/7 news cycle was born. Entire television networks are dedicated to around the clock coverage of the news, whether it is important or not. Websites run constantly, updating themselves with the new movie star gossip. Human beings have always had a fascination with these sorts of stories. Penny presses were popular back in the day as well, but they did not have the reach the internet has. Now my days are spent scrolling through a Facebook feed and refreshing Yahoo. Media consumption has overtaken a large part of our cultural identity, we graph the timeline of our lives by the firestorm story of the week. These water-cooler moments are chosen and tailored by the media industry, causing enough outrage and shock that people will continue tuning in.
      Society is ever expanding and becoming more inclusive every day, which leaves less ways to connect with one another. Religion and government are often divisive issues that no longer hold a moral framework to create common ground. However, pop stars and the media at large aim to reach every consumer, after all, every stranger has their opinion on the Kardashians. We place much of our cultural identity in the fictionalized world of stardom, a place we all hope to reach someday. Expansion of technology has now allowed us to track these people's every move, committing ourselves further to idol worship. When there is no god or reliable authoritative power to respect, humans will find something else to follow instead.
     While I do not create media myself, I am interested in the lens through which we critique media. My favorite youtube channels are those that criticize media, such as Idea Channel. I love reading articles that dive deeper into a film's meaning. Although I believe that media holds a negative control over us culturally, I think that individual bodies of work hold great power to teach us how to behave and what can be done to make the world a better place. My favorite film coincidentally explores some problems outlined in earlier paragraphs. Pulp Fiction depicts a world of American Nihilism in which power structures of the past have deteriorated.  All of its characters are lost, their identities barely clinging to pop iconography and their shared mob boss, Marsellus Wallace. The characters derive their meaning from Wallace's decrees.

The film depicts this dynamic visually, showing a glow from the case rather than its contents. What is in it does not matter, just that Marsellus Wallace wants it. The media decrees that an event is significant or not, and we derive our identity and opinions from which events have been chosen. The media is one of the strongest cultural forces at the moment and has overtaken numerous other institutions. It works to maintain the status quo and resurrect tropes, prejudices, and any other divisions that would make people distrustful of one another. Racism, sexism, class warfare, and body shaming are all too common in the news, hidden in the tone of online articles and displayed in explicit ugliness in the comments. The characters in Pulp Fiction ultimately abandon the power structure of American pop culture, reverting to the old institutions of family and religion. I personally don't hold much stock in either and would love to change the media from within. By using the powerful gaze of media we could put a spotlight on important issues of race, gender, and poverty rather than the latest awards show.