Overcoming a Reputation

Recently, Nadia Suleman, or more commonly known as 'Octomom' has recently come out in the media to say that she is ready to change her seemingly tainted reputation. A story about this 'breaking news' appeared on ABC. The reporter, had a sarcastic undertone in their presentation and conveyed the message that overcoming such a reputation would be nearly impossible. Is changing the way one is perceived by their peers impossible? In our sociecty, many factors point to yes. As a graduating senior I have heard countless numbers of my friends say that they wantt to change certain aspects of their identity in college or look forward to the fresh start. People who attempt to change their identity in high school often get ridiculed. With the inability to seek change, or even growth, it seems that as a society we are stunting our own growth by not allowing each other to change. It seems that, once someone has been stereotyped in a certain way they can't be taken seriously. This could be one factor that contributes to the stereotypical 'teenage angst' among adolescence.

Tumblr Fights Against Self Harm Among Users

"We aim to sustain Tumblr as a place that facilitates awareness, support and recovery, and to remove only those blogs that cross the line into active promotion or glorification of self-harm." Recently, many social media websites have vowed to crack down on posts and information regarding the promotion or glorification of eating disorders. Tumblr, being at the forefront of this movement has revised many of their policies with this motion in mind.

I think that this is a really interesting aspect of the social media world to sort of take on this issue. Why this issue? Why not censor posts regarding the glorification of gangs? Or drugs? Or the glorification of crude humor? I think that its a positive thing that eating disorders are getting this attention so that there isn't an online community created (or further sustained) via Facebook.

I think this movement stems from the general public in America becoming more accustomed to eating disorders, its becoming less of a stigma and less taboo to talk about. This is a good thing for those who are suffering from the diseases affiliated with body dismorphia but this openess shouldn't trancend to those who are aware they suffer from the disease but do not want to get better because it negatively affects the recovery of others.

"It Gets Better" MTV special

I think that this MTV special served as an uplifting and positive take on the situation of being a gay teen in the US. Although I did not feel that the made for TV special was entirely accurate (demonstrating only positive stories and none that might not have been so fluid) I think that the impact on the gay teenage community will be a positive one. The film makers might be critisized for their innacurate portrayal of life as a gay teen, but the name of the movement is "It Gets Better," not "It might get better for some of you but for others it might go horribly wrong for several more years to come."

This movement is really inspirational and I think help builds an online community for kids who might be feeling frustrated that they do not have anyone to connect with who is feeling the same way as them. Maybe if the kids we read about in the Rolling Stone article had a community like this, the outcome would have been different.

I also believe that the movement provides hope for these kids. Hope can be a very strong thing and its what a lot of people who are suffering from depression, suicidal thoughts or apathy, are lacking in their life. If this movement helps even just one kid to have hope that their life will improve then its doing a positive thing. I hope that these kids realize that they are not alone and that as a society we embrace each others differences rather than shunning them.

Bowling for Columbine and George Zimmerman

One of the first lessons that my parents taught me as a kindergartener was 'stranger danger.' Sometimes in elementary school, I would walk home a couple of short blocks from school. My parents would remind me to be aware of all of the bad people that might be out there and were constantly nervous about letting me go home by myself. The fear of strangers, is a phenomenon in the US that I believe is contributing to the surplus in deaths by gun fire. The fear that is instilled in our nation is driving people to believe that they need to protect themeslves and guns are often a justifiable mechinism for doing so.

In the film "Bowling for Columbine," Michael Moore makes the not so subtle arguement that people in our nation are overly paranoid, driving them to purchase weapons like guns. I agree with this arguement and believe that if our nations people were less paranoid then we woud have less deaths by gun.

Why did George Zimmerman, a man living in a gated community in a residential area of Florida feel the need to posses a concealed fire arm? Why did he feel that it was neccisary to protect himself from a child armed with skittles? Yesterday, Zimmerman was arrested for the murder of Trayvon Martin and I feel relieved that justice is being served finally.

If the US limited civilian access to fire arms then we would have less situation like the killing of Trayvon Martin, however, I feel like the paranoia that we experience as a society may never disipate.