IB 5

Yolo should be promoted to be used in positive ways.  Famous people should start to used yolo when they are doing cool and uplifting things.  The famous people should start using yolo when doing positive things will definitely challenge an audience.  One cannot make someone say something they don't want to.   The Constitution's First Amendment tells us that.  Of course it is impractical to try and get every famous person to participate in making yolo a positive thing, but if you could get a group of really famous and liked stars to start the movement then it could really make a difference.  A sad example of the use of yolo is when people drink and drive.  Yolo can make people feel invinsible and that they can withstand anything.  These stars who start the yolo campaign could talk about the dangers of drinking and driving, and then state things they do in their lives that are spontaneous.  For example hiking to watch the sun rise or zip lining etc.  Drinking and driving is a serious problem that kills so many people.  It would be great if role models could discourage it so that more people can be safe.

IB5

There are many conclusions one can get from Alcohol.  Alcohol is the leading cause of date rape because the more people the drink the more stupid things they will do like having sex when its not wanted.  People drink alcohol and black out and can remember what happened the night before and they wake up in some random persons bed and they claim that it is rape.  My main audience with be teenagers that drink and are in college I will be using pathos and the emotion ties with teenagers and drinking makes them unstable.  I will be showing all the results that alcohol has relating with all the date rapes.  Most date rapes go un reported because the young teenagers have alcohol in their system and they don’t want to get into trouble because they are still under age.  The main problem I may face with this is that a lot of the time the teenagers don’t report their rapes.  So there isn’t a lot of facts behind it.  This teenagers don’t realize what has happened till after they have showered and its to late to have any evidence on them.  Another thing is a lot of the girls will claim rape because they don’t remember it or don’t like the guy and want to get back at them which just makes the girls look like they are crying wolf.  When to many girls start to do this, when someone actually is raped no one believes them.

IB 5

Throughout my paper I want my audience to draw several conclusions about kids meals. My main argument will be that kids meals are a leading cause in childhood obesity because they draw kids into eating fast food at a young age. Along the way, there will be other conclusions that they should reach. My target audience will be parents so I will be targeting their pathos, and emotional ties to their children in order to show claim how fast food is targeting children at younger ages in order to keep them consumers as they grow up.  I will show the history of fast food chains and kids meals, then I will show how they continue to promote their own sales and food by having extremely timely toys, meaning the toys that the have in their kids meals have to do with whatever is going on in the world of children (usually movies or TV shows that change weekly). The challenge that I may face with my argument and statement is that fast food companies are now offering healthier options for their kid’s meals, but to refute that however my claim will be that those healthier options are usually an additional cost. To provide evidence for this I will find several kids meals options at several fast food chains and see what their kids meals contain and if they offer healthier options, whether or not they are an additional cost. I think these will be the major enthymemes that will arise from my argument; there may be more however that come up as I continue writing my paper. 

IB5 - Alex Chandler

The conclusion I hope readers to end with is that the portrayal of smoking in films depends on the context of when the film was made. And this will hopefully be shown adequately through an example of how the 1961 film, Breakfast at Tiffany's, has a much different portrayal of smoking than their current contextual knowledge of films made in the present era.
A line of defense that will need to be made to back this up is in regards to the present political situation in which films have started to portray the smoking of weed. Though this is a different substance and illegal, it is a topic of much controversy. The reason this will have to be defended against is because there are many films now-a-days that portray this smoking as okay as they are trying to cause influence for the legalization of marijuana. But on the other hand smoking, in regards to cigarettes, is still portrayed in a more negative light, and very little of it.
What I may then have to do is to describe the current situations in today's film, and perhaps use one or two examples from present day films that do portray the smoking of cigarettes.

Topic Proposal: Kids Meals

Trying to find a great iconic "artifact" for childhood obesity was pretty difficult. All I could really think of was cultural ideas or images that evoke thoughts about childhood obesity. But then with some help brainstorming from a friend, I discovered the artifact that best represents childhood obesity: toys in kid’s meals. Think about all of the fast food restaurants you have been too; McDonalds, Burger Kings, Wendy's etc., ALL of them offer kids toys in their kids meals. It’s calling to the child's inner id, "I want it and I want it now!" The reason the child gets they meal is for the toy, and then they are eating a meal that is not even healthy because they wanted a toy. Not only are they toys, which no matter what it is kids will want it to play with for a matter of five minutes, then later forget about it, they are toys that typically are current and relate so some movie or TV show that is out. This means that every time parents take their kids to a fast food restaurant, there is a DIFFERENT toy offered there. It is a continuous cycle of advertising poor food to children. With this artifact in the use of my next paper it will be easy to isolate an audience, the significance of the kids meals toys (using statistics on the profit through the use of kids meal toys), as well as how it reframes the message fast food companies are sending to children. I think this artifact is a great topic for my next essay. 

That's the motto

YOLO (You Only Live Once) was super huge in around spring of 2012.  A song called "The Motto," by Drake and Lil Wayne created a massisve phenomenon of teenagers saying YOLO after every sentence.  This motto that teens lived by for those couple months had a huge impact.  At least in my life and with my friends when we said it it gave us an excuse to do something crazy or funny just to 'live.' This motto could have positive effects like causing people to have more fun and live life more in the moment.  For example when my friends and I jumped in the lake in the middle of the night we used YOLO as an excuse that we should do it.  It potentially could have had some negative effects in the same reguard.  For example people going out and partying harder, trying new drugs or drinking more.  I know some of my friends did some really dumb things and used YOLO as an excuse to justify them.  It's amazing to think that one song could cause such a fad in recent times.  It shows how much influence stars and the media can have.  Within the context of the song I don't think that YOLO was supposed to have a meaning which caused people to go out and do worthwhile and uplifting things, but I think that for many it did have this positive effect.  YOLO had a massive impact on people, especially teenagers, during this spring and created this nationwide feeling of carpe diem.

Paper Proposal 2!

Evaluation Argument: 250 Word Proposal

 For this evaluation argument, I will write about the song “Lose Yourself” by hip-hop artist Eminem, which is a song that became extremely popular in 2003. I will be writing to the audience of Rolling Stone Magazine, which publishes articles about music and popular culture. I will use this to analyze the topic of Generation Y’s unique view of the American dream. The American dream of the Millenials, the most influential, relevant generation today in the United States, consists of different visions and has various characteristics. For this paper’s purpose, I will focus on the passionate desire for Millenials to reach extremely high levels of economic success at an early age. 

 “ Lose Yourself” represents many of the different inputs that go into our generation’s individuals achieving this version of the American dream. These inputs are all based on the theme of the song: taking advantage of any opportunity that comes one’s way to quickly achieve economic success. Subtopics that will be discussed include why Generation Y emphasizes reaching economic success at such an early age (importance of social status and reputation, the desire to live life freely and without worry not at the end of one’s career upon retirement, but throughout one’s youth, etc.). Various components of the song in question exploit this desire. Additionally, themes such as an increase in competition, the rarity of early economic success making it especially attractive, not settling to blend in with the middle class, and defying all odds by overcoming seemingly constant obstacles are all present in Eminem’s 21^st century hit, and all directly parallel with what goes into achieving the American Dream.

 To support this argument, I can pull from various references and sources. Research will include generation studies and works depicting development of generation trends to help define the topic, Eminem’s background to help tie in the entire representation of the song’s themes to the American dream, and statistical data showing the increased competition; thus, the necessity to seize any opportunity that comes one’s way to defy odds and find economic success at an early age.

Link to song & lyrics (censored): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=taTUM5Am-ss

Alex Chandler - IB4

Essay Topic Proposal:
     My essay is going to be on smoking in films through time. I will be watching one film from before the 1964 'Report on Smoking and Health,' one from within ten years after, and then a film from the past ten years. I will then be analyzing the way smoking is portrayed, and the effects it portrays on the characters. I will specifically be looking for mental and physical traits shown, as well as whether or not smoking is given a positive or negative denotation.
     I have yet to choose the two old films, but the current film I will be analyzing is Avatar. It will be an interesting thing to see how it has changed in time.