Video Analysis Comments

Henry’s blog comment

 

I liked your analysis, I think it important that when we analyze these songs we get passed our bias of "this song is really annoying an pointless" and get to what the artists try to say.  I'd like to take your analysis a bit further and ask when she says "what you know bout me ..." that does imply that in the popular crowd they don't care about "her" as a person, my question is "Does she mind? does she care that people don't really know her? does this outweigh the joy of popularity?"

 

Rachel’s blog comment

 

Very short and concise, a good and simple interpretation, much like the video, very simple and concise.  I think your point in the end about costume changes and room changes isn't an artistic decision but a technological set back.  Keeping in mind this video is from the 70s their options in terms of visual effects are limited

 

Katherine’s blog comment

 

In the beginning you said that Lil' Mama wants to be popular so people will "hate" her out of jealousy, this is interesting because she's promoting  popularity with the prospect of jealousy, implying that no one can admire someone anymore, we live in such a self centered society that we can't have admiration for someone, we have to be jealous

Music Video Response

"Good Life" by Kanye West Featuring T. Pain

1- The basic idea of this video is that Kanye lives a good life, which he defines as owning material possetions and having sex

2-one main contradicting idea I see is when he says "the best things in life are free" when at the same he throws specks that turn into diamonds, which obviously aren't free.  Kanye is trying to visually express the importance of material items, throughout the video he's seen with expensive cars and money.  He's also seen with a woman who wears very little clothing implying that sex also defines a good life.

3-In the chorus Kanye says "I got for mine, I got to shine" which implies that fame is important, hence the "i got to shine" which refers to shining like a star.  The video which was done in a sort of marker/paint style expresses that this is a dream, much like a kid would draw out their dreams, and what he dreams of to have a good life is expensive cars, women, money and other expensive things

4-This video seems to build off of the common idea of Money+stuff+fame+women=happiness that we have in America, on his list of things that define the good life he doesn't have family, friendship or any sort of "free" source of happiness.  Kanye and by extension pop-culture defines happiness as status and the person who shows status in the best ways ie: things like solid gold cars and other ridiculous things, is the best and lives the better life.     

Is meaning Subjective?

                                                  

When I asked people what in their lives were meaningful, most people said that almost everything in their lives were meaningful.  My sources Granit, and Joe both said that everything in life is meaningful; this leads me to extend their point that you can potentially learn from any situation or make anything a meaningful experience.

On the other hand my brother Guido said that “anything you don’t learn from or don’t enjoy [is meaningless]” this adds the factor of enjoyment into the equation, he believes that something you enjoy gives your life meaning, he implies that meaning doesn’t always always come from self-improvement, he states that on some scale the person has to enjoy themselves to have meaning in their lives.  He also brings up the point that some things are meaningless, this differs from the more positive outlook of the majority of the people I’ve interviewed.

            When asked to rate their meaning on a scale of 1 to 10 the majority of the people I interviewed said that they were fairly meaningful, most saying that were between 7 and 9.  These people such as Granit and Joe say that everything is meaningful to an extent and that human life is especially important and meaningful based on their own criteria.

                                           

            When I interviewed my brother who again took the side of the minority said there’s a difference between meaning on a global scale and personal scale.  He said that on a personal scale he was between 8 and 9  because he was significant to those around him, but he said that on a world scale his meaning was 1 “because I don’t have that much of an impact on the world”

                                                                   

My sister Sandy disagreed with this saying that every small action can have big effects and she cited the “butterfly Effect”.  She demonstrates that everything has meaning because everything can have an effect on the world, this is reminiscent of the argument made before by Granit and Joe that everything is meaningful.   

Comments and Insights Assignment #2

Video Comments

Gavin's Video

I like it alot when you say "life isn't always meaningful, we just need to believe it does" That brings the question to mind that "if humans create and define meaning, then can't we make our lives meaningful by adjusting the criteria and definition of meaning?"

Jace's Video

I liked the video and the choice of music in the background.  I also liked how how you showed improvement in the video.  Your point about meaning being enjoyable and good for you is simple and agreeable

Henry's Video

It was good, I liked the editing on it and how yu listed what was and what wasn't meaningful in your life and you gave good explanations why.

Maxiel's Video

Cool, I like how you've put everyone in the video, everything fit together well and it showed what a close relationship you have with people which looked very sincere and that's very meaningful.

Ian's Video

I liked it, it was very relaxed and calm.  You explained well how somethings are meaningful and others aren't and they aren't always entertaining.  I'll make sure to pass on the hugs for you :D

Insights and Conclusions

1-When people know the purpose of their lives it drives them into depression and misery -Gavin (roughly) This leads me to question this and ask, does someone's life still have meaning when they're aware of it? Will the knowledge of your purpose cause you to not fulfill it?  This sort of brings to mind to conundrum about Pinoccio saying it's opposite day and his nose grows.  There is no answer to why it happens and the situation would present itself in a loop which would define the event as impossible, in short its impossible to know the meaning of your own life and knowing that meaning will take it away.

2-We each have our own definitions of meaning but most of them all boil down to 2 things, things that we enjoy and things that are god for us.  From watching these movies I've realized that the enjoyability of something has nothing to do with its significance.  Somethings already significant like reading, will always be meaningful if you like it or not, whether YOU do it or not is based on how much you enjoy it.  Entertainment may make you think that something meaningless is meaningful, people enjoy video games (as do I) but I can admit that they aren't meaningful, whereas someone else may view them as significant.

3-Meaning in my and some other's opinion's is a significant change, to challenge that thesis I ask "Is a significant negative change also meaningful?" I say that yes it can be meaningful and can sometimes be more meaningful than a positive experience.  experiencing the death of a loved one can have a great impact on someone's life and possibly change them for the better, but better or worse, its still a meaningful and significant event.  This is yet another example of how something meaningful isn't always enjoyable.        

Marco g Life Meaning

                                                                   Description

1-In this Video I've included some video of myself talking to the camera about my personal criteria for meaning and my opinions on it.  I've also included photos of things that I find meaningful or meaningless that I've put voice over to and talked about.

2-I've related the internet in terms of information, communication and research in the meaningful side of my life, things like google, wikipedia and sometimes youtube can be used to learn things.  I also talk about Myspace and Facebook as good sights for communicating but they can take away from real face to face conversations.  I listed storytelling (reading in my case) as meaningful because it serves as a form of entertainment and as a way to learn about ourselves through other characters 

3-If I had the technology I would have included better video than the kind that can be taken with the camera and microphone on my computer, I also would have liked to put in more pictures and made more commentary about the meaning of life with those pictures.  All of these regrets are due to technological errors.  I would have also liked to get video of me doing things in my spare time, like practicing martial arts, playing videogames etc.  and been able to decide which were meaningful and which were meaningless.        

                                         

                                                             Insight and Analysis

4/5-I asses meaning as something that has an impact on our lives, to further that definition it has to change our lives, preferably in a good way.  A sign that something is meaningful is that its remembered.  While this is debatable I feel that if something is recognized by many people its meaningful, take the American Revolution for example, it changed every Americans life and we all know about it, that would be a series of meaningful events based on my definition.  Another thing I say in the video is that the line between entertainment and meaning gets blurry because people want to say that whatever they do, which entertains them, is meaningful, therefore their life is meaningful.

6-I don't see this as a fairly good depiction of my life because, due to technical difficulties, I couldn't show my whole life the way I'd like to, I wasn't able to get video of the things I do in my spare time nor was I able to take photos since I only had my computer to use.

7-From an outside-in perspective it may seem meaningful but I wasn't able to show my love of videogames which would have likely tipped the scale in the other direction.  From an inside-out perspective I see it as meaningful because I have changed peoples lives, not in a big way or a "life changing" (other than the literal term I use above) way but enought that their lives would be different without me, as any other kid who goes to school and has friends and family could say.

8- N/A