 by Laura Kincaid
I watch cartoons. I’m not talking about Family Guy or Rick and Morty, but cartoons created for and targeted at children. I’m not alone. Shows like Steven Universe, Adventure Time, and Avatar: The Last Airbender have garnered huge audiences from kids to teens to twenty-somethings and older. Countless blogs and video essays propose a pile of reasons why cartoons are suddenly “not just for kids anymore” like how they relieve stress, produce a sense of nostalgia, or provide life lessons useful to everyone. But when people ask me why I watch cartoons, I answer: “For the writing.”
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 image credit: Pinterest by Nicolina Givin
I sat on my couch on the fourth of October and flipped through the channels on my television. I caught a glimpse of Emily Blunt grabbing a blonde by the back of her head and dragging her onto the floor. The title, The Girl on the Train, flashed at the end and I was in bewilderment. “That’s a movie now?” I thought to myself. The movie was released to theaters on the eighth. I picked up the novel, which had been sitting on my bookshelf for some time, and opened the cover, ready to finally read what everyone was about to see on the big screen. I could not have the world tell me the plot and ending before I could figure it out myself; I had to finish it before the movie release. Why was I motivated soon after that preview to read the book rather than when I first purchased that book eight months prior? The answer was always sitting there on my bookshelf, but the media pushed me towards it and spoke clearer to me in that thirty-second preview.
by Sarah Knapp
The above videos contain clips from two very different, but two very popular TV shows: RuPaul’s Drag Race and Steven Universe. What do all of these seemingly unrelated scenarios have in common? In each clip, there are quite a few different uses of pronouns, some of which seem confusing or don’t exactly fit our expectations. There is a powerful force at work here: gender is being redefined. Subtly, and sometimes very overtly, the language used to talk about gender is being changed and shaped by the media that surrounds us.
 by Leslie Martinelli
A few years ago, I read that Encyclopedia Britannica no longer would be printing encyclopedias. Add that to the list of things from my childhood that no longer exist. Don't get me wrong - I'm not anti-progress. Where would we be without air conditioning, microwave ovens, and cell phones? And some of those extinct items deserved to go, like cars without seat belts and manual typewriters. But every now and then technology interferes where it doesn't belong, and I just have to say: Stop! Enough! Encyclopedias are a case in point. Those printed volumes held many fond memories for me. The first set to enter my family’s house came by way of a door-to-door salesman. That set caused some conflict between my parents. My father had warned my mother time and again not to let salesmen in the front door, let alone buy from any of them. They were, he said, like seagulls - once you fed one of them, you couldn't get rid of the flock. Our house was testament to that caveat; we owned a top-of-the-line vacuum and enough brushes and cleaning products to supply the whole neighborhood. My mother stood by her latest purchase, though. As she saw it, that set of encyclopedias was an investment in my and my brothers’ educational futures. by Andrew Bates There are certain unspoken rules amongst aficionados of media. One must always have a personal list of at least ten favorite works to call “the best” when called upon by others. When topics such as Twilight and 50 Shades of Grey come up, they must immediately refute them as terrible and trite. Using your cell phone in a dark movie theater is sacrilege. The arguably most important rule, and the one that is most common amongst media absorption, is that one must not reveal important dramatic turn of events. In other words, tag your spoilers.  credit: The Daily Fandom |
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