This is How We Live

This essay written by Ellen DeGeneres about technology advancement contributing to our lazy culture intrigued me the most because she is very right in many ways. Due to technology, our lives have become much more convenient and fast-paced. However, you would think that new technology would make our lives so convenient that we would have free time for other things and lets us slow things down a bit if we really wanted to, but it only seems to make more room for things that make it hard for us to make room for other things. First you could tell a friend you'd see them at a certain place and time and hang out with them to catch up and see how they're doing. Then, you could just call them on your cell phone to catch up. Now, you simply text them to see how they're doing. You just cut out time needed to get to the place to see your friend, conversation time since you won't be seeing them face-to-face, and even cut down conversation because texting allows for only so much to be said at one time. So, what do you do with all this free time? You go on facebook and connect with other friends for more breif conversations and split-second interactions. Or, maybe you'll play video games and not really ever have true conversations with anyone for three hours. If you're like me, you will probably listen to music to choreograph to on youtube but become distracted by all the other cool videos people upload on youtube like silly cats and funny pranks. Our lives are suppose to be more convenient so that we can be more productive and allow for more important things in our lives so as to not be bothered by small, minute things. Yet, the more we get, the more we want. There will never be a balance. We won't bother texting each other one day because we'll have mind-reading technology available to allow us to think to each other because we won't have time to take part in any daunting tasks such as picking up our cell phones and moving our phalanges to text.

Hip Hop Life

It's not a surprise that I chose this reading to talk about because I have expressed in my portfolio that I am a hip hop dancer. However, I'm going to make a different argument on the essay I read about Hip Hop. I respect the craft usually, however, not always. Today hip hop isn't what it used to be. I sometimes beleive that it holds African-American culture back a lot because of the limitted ways hip hop is being expressed in this generation. Glamour, thug life, drugs, "hoes"-pardonnez mon francais, and clubbing is what is hitting the air waves a lot. You just can't deny it. There are a lot of conscious rappers out there, yes, but if you are talking about what makes up the general perception of hip hop right now and you leave out the bull that is forced-fed to you, then you are in denial. I give credit to hip hop for allowing a pathway of black culture to rise and be noticed, to influence American culture, and even offer a "way out the hood". However, I shun it personally for not doing enough to show the positive sides of what black culture looks like inside the homes and the ghettoes some of us grew up in. Not all of us "sling crack", smoke weed, "bag bitches", and take that route because we lack a better education system. Some of us still do our best to overcome our misfortunes and find different paths of getting to where we want to be. I disagree with what DeSean Walker was talking about in that sense.