Author: admin

Memes are the way for teenagers and young adults share news and talk about what is currently happening in the world today. Though to older generations they could be confusing but they inevitably make sense. With all the news of a possible war with Iran, started by President Donald Trump. The most common meme I’ve seen is shocked faces of old tv characters saying that it’s only the 3^rd day of 2020 and a war is starting, or the cat sitting over a salad while in another frame there is an angry blonde being held back by a friend, with the text above saying something about Trump getting impeached so he is starting a war. 

            Looking into what these memes are actually saying behind their joking façade is that 18+ people, men and women, are scared of being drafted into the military. Online there is a lot of joking of women who wanted equal rights now refusing them because they don’t want to be drafted, which for many is a valid fear because many are scared of going to war for someone who would so easily throw the words or war around to incite problems to distract from his impeachment. 

            This whole scare of World War 3 or war with Iran was because Trump wanted to make the American people and the world’s community forget about his impeachment trial. But the trial won’t be forgotten because this is what so many have waited for, Trump out of office, but what was wrong with this plan is we get Mike Pence as a possible President and his views on LGBTQ+ and minorities is more conservative than Trump. For the conservative Americans that is something they want. Most of the progress that was made under Obama to be taken back, to go back to the world were LGBTQ citizens felt less safe In their communities. Granted even now with the progress that has been made not all are safe but it’s mostly better than it was 12 years ago. 

            Liberal Americans, young adults, and teenagers are worried that war is imminent, that because of Trump trying to distract the people, Iran will cause harm to our nation, which in a sense will cause more problems that we have seen in history to start again. My generation the 18, 19, and 20 something year old’s will be forced into a war many of us don’t want, and watch loved ones be shipped out to what could ultimately cause substantial harm to their minds and bodies. For history repeating itself the current generation to be drafted, there will most likely be the coming of another generation of baby boomers….our favorite thing to make memes about because jokes are how we cope with the fact that boomers are a major problem for young people because they destroy the world and don’t really give a single shit about it cause hey they won’t be around to deal with it. 

            Memes are how we express our feelings about current events without fully displaying the emotion we feel about it, while many get a vailed sense at the terror the current generation feels about war it is often played of as a joke to older generations who most of the time don’t understand meme formatting and how they spread news quickly through the people. Many fear a war with Iran that is fully being used to distract the American people of our presidents impeachment, mostly because in times of war a U.S. President stays in office, like FDR and Harry Truman in World War 2. War time Presidents are more likely to stay in office because the people fear changing the power dynamic in war. 

American Eagle is growing more body positive not just for women, the brand is being more body positive for men also. The widely known brand is opening up to the varying sizes of the men, women, and non-binary people of the world.

            While the company is realizing that in our modern world it is more needed to be body positive to the female buyers in our society, they have also come to see that men need body positivity also. Personally, I think it’s needed because male positivity is never talked about, everyone basically assumes that it’s something women need more. This is a major change for American Eagle seeing as their models are traditionally tall, slender, and muscular. Many plus sized men are often ignored in body positivity movements, partly thanks to American Eagle that is changing. Aerie, American Eagle’s sister brand, has led the body positive movement in mainstream fashion that is also affordable. 

            As of now American Eagle is killing it in jean sales after its release of jeans for all sizes, and in their newer advertisements they show off models of different races and sizes, looking confident in AE jeans. “Make Moves” seems to be the slogan of this particular ad. The ad goes through different areas and styles of dance. From being in the street, to a restaurant, in school, at a concert, walking down a hallway, a skate park and even on stage. The advertisement shows all walks of life going through different styles of dance to show not physical differences but the differences of people socially even. 

Having the ability to reach people of different racial and social groups is difficult because not everyone has the same thing they can relate to. There are very few things that most everyone can see themselves doing or being. 

            Denim jeans are basically the peak of being an American. Everyone has worn a pair or hundreds in their lifetime, it should only be fitting that there is a brand that reflects the sizes and needs of the people. Opening up to new ideas is another thing many people are desperate for, people are open to seeing more positivity in the world when it comes to impowering people of all shapes, sizes, and races. It’s something we need to embrace in our world today. Acceptance of others is a hard-fought battle that has been occurring for decades. Thee plus-sized American Eagle models aren’t just for other plus-sized people, it’s to show the importance of having all types of people shown to our whole society. We are supposed to be different but so many people believe that they have to fit in to how society thinks they should look. 

            American Eagle has led the pack on the body positive movement for affordable fashion but the importance that it brings to talk  about the importance of brining to light that as a culture we should look to support and inspire others instead of taking them down because they are different from us physically. 

The movie How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days used to be just a romantic comedy that was fun to watch because of the classic storyline that a “player” can get any girl in a bar but falls in love with her after 10 days. This target Andie Anderson writes for a magazine and she is assigned to write an article on how to lose a guy in 10 days. After they both fall in love with each other they begin to lose each other when it comes out that they are playing each other to win a bet/for an article. 

            I am confused about the ideology of this movie, there are many different points to it besides being a basic rom com that can be a tearjerker at times. But it has a lot of qualities that would make a feminist pissed. The way women in this movie are shown to be crazy, and full of hormones that cannot be controlled. Therein lies my issue with the movie. There is so much that is wrong with this movie, in the ways that women can’t be into sports and they have to be prissy and dumb to get a guy to fall in love with them. The movie negatively portrays so many women and boils it down to hormonal creatures who are too dumb for their own good, they are played by men too easily. 

            While it has its downsides, this movie is honest about one thing. Being too honest can hurt a relationship. Benjamin and Andie learned that when the truth about how they got together comes out. The breakup scenes in this movie do replicate how bad it really is to have your heat broken, to find out you had been lied to by someone you began to care deeply about. Looking back on this movie it’s pretty anti-feminist, which could be very typical for the time it was produced in. The movie is set to make the man (Benjamin) be very dominate and the classic male archetype of being the “top dog”. He is the classic male led that is hard on the outside but behind the walls and plays he’s a good guy from good family and that’s what makes Andie fall for him. She finally sees what he’s really like. 

The whole movie could use a lot of updating for people today to not find it anti-feminist and demining. That being said there is so many parts of it that are good, it kind of tells you what to look for when you find someone you think you are falling for. It’s an aggressively good time when watching. 

Chernobyl Diaries scared me as a young teenager. A group of tourists go to the city of Pripyat, where the Chernobyl nuclear reactor is located, and tour it. The vehicle that brought them there stops working and the guide with them disappears, leaving them trapped in the abandoned city over night. 

            The scenes that scared me most came at the end of the movie when, two of the characters that were left in the van were captured by mutants. Other members of the group return to the van at nightfall and see that the two were attacked and that the van is shredded to pieces. As the rest of the group looks to find them, they are chased by a herd of mutants, our “heroes” escape and find one of the previously captured girls (Natalie) but as the rest of the group gets distracted by a young girl Natalie is captured again. The remaining members of the group are forced into underground passages to escape the mutants, another one of the groups is captured. When leaving the underground passage, another is captured by a group of mutants and the rest are forced to leave her behind, while continuing they enter the exposed reactor core #4 and the radiation levels are causing blisters to appear on their skin. Upon leaving that area Natalie’s body is discovered and the two survivors are attacked by mutants but fight through them and are met by the Ukrainian military forces outside the reactor building. One of the survivors is shot by military because he tumbles close to them, leaving only Amanda who falls unconscious and when she wakes up in a hospital they tell her it was only escaped patients, and because she “ knows too much”, she is forced into a dark cell with and swarmed by the recaptured patients. 

            I was scared of these scenes because the mutant creatures were “just escaped mental patients.” The fact that they tried to blame deaths and complete terror on escaped patients to cover up what is actually going on in Chernobyl is one of the scariest parts to me. There’s so much about Chernobyl that many people don’t know because the government can hide mass amounts of information about it. To sound like a crazy conspiracy theorist, we don’t know what could have actually happened during the meltdown, it could have been a way to eliminate some of the population of that area or it could have been reason to poison the area for decades. 

“Breakeven” by The Script, “Good Life” by One Republic, and “I Will Wait” by Mumford and Sons are songs that have shaped my life in different ways. Each song represents different points in my life and how I was feeling at that moment in time. 

At 12 years old I heard Breakeven for the first time and it came right after my grandmother passed away. My grandmother for most of my childhood was my best friend, I was at her house every summer and every school break. The part of the song that stuck out most to me at that age being very full of angst was “ They say bad things happen for a reason but no wise words goanna stop the bleeding cause she’s moved on while I’m still grieving”  At that point in time it was the most emotional pain I had ever experienced and even today writing this I still cry hearing this song because of the strong response I have to it and the memories of that time coming back to the surface. It also just brings back a dark time in my life when family turmoil got worse and things became more stressful at home. 

I’ve listened to One Republic for years, but this song has always been one of my favorites because it’s a reminder to focus on the positives. Good Life is all about moving on from the past, and when I listen to it, I feel happy, like every issue is melting away and there is only good. “ Hopelessly I feel like there might be something that I’ll miss, Hopelessly I feel like the window closes oh so quick, Hopelessly I’m taking a mental picture of you now, ‘Cause hopelessly, the hope is we have so much to feel good about.” It Is just pure unbridled optimism, something good is bound to happen if you have hope.             

I Will Wait is a middle ground of both of the previous songs. Breakeven is a little more sad, heartbroken, and depressing. Good Life is very happy and bouncy, filled with the wonder of the next day. To me, I Will Wait was always about waiting for the right love to come around, I’ve wanted that since I was a child, growing older I thought it was not as likely to happen for me. In 2019 I met my person, the guy who helps me understand life and makes me feel safe, no longer waiting for this perfect love, because I have something damn near it. Now this song is a look into the future, the lines that stick out most to me are, “You forgave, and I won’t forget, know what we’ve seen, and him with less, now in some way, shake the excess.” Taking what you’ve experienced and what someone else has and using it to create a better future is what this verse means to me. Stop looking back on what hurt in the past and use it to move forward and prevent mistakes like it from happening again. 

            These songs founded how I see life today. They’ve helped me through tough times and remind me of those emotions and what occurred then so that I don’t forget the pain, but I can use it to make the future a little brighter. No matter how sad, happiness will return, but like all things it takes time. These songs and their lyrics will always hold a place in my heart and won’t be forgotten anytime soon. I hope that if I do forget one of these songs or all of them it will be because I have made my life how I wanted it to be, optimistic, and no longer holding on to sadness and pain.