8. Documentary Outline (Work in Progress)

1) identify the culture/group
The piece will compare/contrast two groups of people: college students and parents of college students. The college students are generally more tech-savy because they have to use devices such as cell phones and emails to keep up with school and work. Their parents, who are more settled in their ways, sometimes find themselves unable to keep up with technology or reject it altogether. The research would show viewers the technology/generation gap and help to explain why it exists.

2) describe historical/political context: when/how did this group evolve.
College students, and young people on the whole, are quicker to adapt new communication technology to their lives because it is faster, simpler, popular, and easier for them to use. Older generations embrace such technology up to a point--they understand technology such as email and cell phones to be more efficient, but many of them reject popular technology such as social networking sites and texting because it is more complex, pointless, and does not have roots in the analog realm.

3) describe as specifically the ways in which the group identifies itself
Young people identify themselves as a collective whole on the internet, unlike any generation before. There are common 'memes' among them, a collective sense of humor, and a common understanding of digital interfaces that makes it easy for them to jump between devices. Older people don't have the same understanding about digital interfaces and are more hesitant to 'just push buttons' when something goes wrong. Many of them view younger people in a negative light because they waste a lot of time and money on digital forms of entertainment.

4) identify your assumptions of any outside perceptions
I assume that most of my audience will be young people, i.e. the participants in this class, and my friends. I assume that these people don't need dictionary definitions of "texting" and "Twitter" because they have had first-hand experience with said technology. But I need to be careful not to place the older people in a bad light--this project is meant to educate and address both sides of the argument respectfully.

5) what is your starting point: i.e. what message do you wish to convey?
Most of all I want to disprove the "kids these days" argument that technology makes people more stupid. I want to draw parallels to Plato and critics of the printing press such as I mentioned before on this blog. Conversely, I want young people to understand why older people are more reluctant to adopt new technology.

6) what images, text do you expect to collect to convey this image
Using my background in motion graphics and interactive media, I'd like to create an interactive collection of "topics" addressed by my interviewees. I've collected audio interviews and I've captured flat-looking digital images of my interviewees to cut out and manipulate, puppet-style, like in this mock-up:

7) who will you be inteviewing/photographing
I've collected interviews from my mom, dad, and sister, but I'm hoping to expand that to other students and their parents.

8) create a schedule

9) who is your audience?
My audience is the same as my subject.

10) what message do we give to those with whom we are working?
I'd really like to stress that our technology is part of our culture. It affects the way we talk, the ways we address others formally and informally, our patience and attention span. The language and mannerisms of texting and online communication are really important for young and old people to understand, to give their statements context, and to identify themselves within history.

11) what is our responsibility to them and how is it acknowledged?
I want to point out the ironies in the things my interviewees say (ie "kids these days") but I want the documentary to be light-hearted. This means taking my interviewees seriously.

12) what questions are you seeking to answer?
Why are older generations more hesitant to adopt new technology? Are new technologies such as texting and social networking valid forms of communication? Are any technologies truly revolutionary, or do they essentially serve the same purpose? I don't want to be explicit about expressing the answers to these questions--mostly because they cannot be explicitly answered. It's important to me that the viewer draws his or her own conclusions about them.

7. Documentary Project Update

"Kids These Days"

How College Students Interact with their Parents

1. As a college student I've experienced my subject first-hand. I obviously identify closer with the people of my age group, but can sympathize with the group of parents because of my interactions with them. Because I understand and use digital technology such as texting and the internet on a daily basis, I sometimes have a limited amount of patience for those who don't--like my own parents.

2. I assume that most of my audience will be young people, i.e. the participants in this class, and my friends. I assume that these people don't need dictionary definitions of "texting" and "Twitter" because they have had first-hand experience with said technology. I assume they'll find it funny too when the older adults mispronounce "the Google" or call an iPhone a 'BlackBerry.'

3. "Kids these days" get a lot of flak for spending most of their time in front of a screen of some sort. Parents and outsiders are quick to criticize teens and young adults for spending too much time socializing alone on computers or text messaging. But as their children leave for college, they have to adopt new communication methods to keep in contact. How do they feel about new technology? How does it differ from how they communicate with their parents?

6. "Kids These Days" - Documentary Proposal

Reading Marshall McLuhan and Walter J. Ong got me thinking about media and how our culure is affected by how we communicate. Ong discusses the switch from a primarily oral/aural culture into a visual one aided by writing which was greeted with much hostility many centuries ago. The same thing is happening today with the conversion of communication into electronic forms.

Texting, IMing, Twittering, social networking, etc. are closely associated with my generation. We were the first ones to grow up with these devices, so we serve as a sort of mediator between the analog and the digital worlds. In essence, we're cyborgs.

One criticism of digital communication is that it alienates people--"kids spend too much time on the computer" or "texting isn't as 'real' as a phone call." Does it really? Or is this an alarmist reaction? Why are older people more hesitant to adopt new technologies?

I'd like for my final documentary to illustrate the culture of web-savy American teens and 20-somethings, and perhaps contrast it to the adolescence of their parents. Overall the theme is digital communication and how it affects our culture--more specifically, personal interactions.

5. The iGeneration

I'm a proud child of the digital world. Wednesday's discussion on communicating in our newly digital nation got me riled up for this blog. Most of the arguments tossed around in the conference room were that "texting is ruining the English language" and that social networking is "alienating people." I'm not here to say that you all are wrong (even though you are), I just want to draw some parallels.

Many intellectuals were upset by the invention of writing. Culture was primarily aural/oral, and was the natural way to communicate. Plato wrote that writing disrupted this natural speech, and that recording words in writing destroyed memory (in the way that today, the calculator handicaps peoples' mathematical ability). He emphasized that writing and reading were passive and "inhuman," as external resources that alienated people. (Ironically, his argument presents itself in text.)

When books became more readily available for the common person, what today we call "progress" and "revolution," then, was greeted with mixed feelings. Many felt that replacing the dominant oral/aural culture with an increasingly solitary visual culture was isolating people and making them more disconnected from the "real world."

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Texting, Twittering, and social networking are causing many of the same alarmisms to resurface. Every generation believes each successive generation, ("kids these days") are getting stupider. Texting is making people stupider (not true), the internet is making people stupider (not true), television is making people stupider, sock hops are making people stupider, telephones are making people stupider, jazz music is making people stupider, books are making people stupider, writing is making people stupider, etc.

Our culture is changing via the way we communicate, for better or for worse. It's coming, and you have two choices: Embrace it, or GTFO.

I'm Ruthie, and I'm a child of the internet generation. I've had an AIM account since I was ten. I'm a member of several forums ranging from artistic endeavors to crude entertainment. The #1 Google result for my name is actually me. I've watched over 20,000 YouTube videos. I'm a master Googler, Facebooker, Twitterer, texter, Gmailer, Hulu-er, Skyper, BitTorrenter, Flickrer, Wikipedian, Tumblrer, craigslister, FourSquarer, LiveJournaler, Omegler, Newgroundsling, Sporcler, Vimeoite, an eBayer, a Blogspotter, and a worthy internet pirate.

4. Inherited Material Culture

My family believes in saving everything, wasting nothing, and accumulating mass amounts of useless scraps in the process. I never really thought about why we do it--I suppose it's a trait passed down from my grandparents who grew up in the Depression, an era characterized by economic frugality. But today in a nation whose plastic cutlery comes wrapped in plastic, packaged in cardboard, and shrinkwrapped in plastic once again, thriftiness can build into excess.

Moving my grandparents into a nursing home was quite a task. Their sizable house was filled to the brim with newspapers, calendars, boxes, condiments, napkins, bottles, and so on. Cleaning it out wasn't the hard part; all we had to do was throw everything in a dumpster. Convincing my grandparents they didn't need all this stuff was more difficult. With each box of old hotel soaps or worn-out shoes or pre-used wrapping paper my grandmother would say, "But I might need that some day." Will you? Probably not.

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When I made the move to my own apartment, I went through something eerily parallel. Pulling out boxes of old ribbons, scraps of plastic, and barely recognizable broken objects from under my bed made me realize that I was hoarding junk just like my grandparents. Just this afternoon I found three small containers of coffee creamer I'd indubitably stuffed in my pocket at 711 last week. I don't even use creamer.

Why do we hoard things when we don't necessarily need to? I suppose it's something to do with "getting your money's worth." But it's most likely just compulsive behavior, something done unconsciously, with no rational motive. It's just the way I've been taught to act, and no matter how hard I try to fight it, and call me an old lady, but at the end of the day I still manage to find myself with pockets full of bottle caps and ketchup packets.

3. My Observations on the Bus

This weekend I tried to think of places I go that have a defined culture within them. I went to Kroger. None there--people of all walks of life shopped there. Same for the big-box office supply store in Willow Lawn, whose unremarkableness can be characterized by my forgetting whether it was Office Depot or Staples. But on my bus ride back to downtown, I had a 'DUH' moment. The bus and its riders have their own culture and mannerisms.

The Greater Richmond Transit Company (GRTC) system runs all over Richmond's city limits, extending into the surrounding counties for more direct express routes. I ride the bus solely within the city limits, and mostly travel in the same area (from my house in Jackson Ward to locations in Richmond's West End, on buses 3, 4, 6, 16, 24, 74, and others). However, the demographics of the bus are never the same.

The first factor that affects the type of riders on the bus is the time of day. Early morning buses are crowded with people dressed for work, in dressy clothes or uniforms, and teenagers going to school. Mid-day is slower paced, and has an increased number of elderly and disabled people and families with young children. Late nights are sparse; if anyone is on the bus at midnight, they look tired, and are trying to go home.

I rode the bus this weekend which was a little, but not much different, than riding on a weekday. Around noon I departed 1st and Broad on the 6 bus toward Willow Lawn. There were several elderly people on the bus, one of which had a walker. She was white, very small and fragile-looking. She thanked the bus driver very loudly when she got off at Madison, confirming my assumption that she couldn't hear very well. A black family sat in front of me, with two toddlers who couldn't sit still. Other black teenagers were scattered around the bus, some chatting, some glued to their glowing cell phones, all of whom got off with me at Willow Lawn.

Only one person talked to me on the trip--the person who identified with me the most, appearance-wise. She was white, had long brown hair, and looked to be a college student. Unlike me, she was dressed very fashionably, with a long blue peacoat and matching beret. She asked me a question about the bus route--a sign that she'd never taken the bus before. She was the obvious outsider but nobody really treated her as such.

Despite the bus demongraphics' wide range of ages, colors, and class, we shared one thing in common: our winter coats. Every person on the bus (save for the blue beret girl) was wearing a puffy coat. Those who were not wearing their hoods up were wearing toboggans. I noticed that no one took their gloves or hats off once inside the bus, even though the climate was hot and muggy. Most people held their belongings close to them, in their laps, their figures distorted by layers of bulky winter fabrics and piles of bags.

Bus etiquette is something found nowhere else. Students in Cabell Library spread their belongings all over tables, couches, and floors, and elsewhere it is rude to not take off your coat and hat once indoors. Why, then, do bus riders seem to encapsulate themselves in "bubbles?" After some thinking, I'm pretty sure it has nothing to do with being germaphobic, antisocial, fearful of theft, or even being cold, because the bus was warm, comfortable, and full of friendly people. In the end, I thought way too hard about the "bubbles" and it finally dawned on me, as I scooted over to give the rider next to me more room, that it's all a matter of convenience--taking off one's coat means adding extra space to your bubble; placing bags in the seat next to you doubles the space and leaves them less secure from Richmond's craterous potholes jostling them around. It's an act of convenience, courtesy, and nothing more.

2. Reading

I share with the great Renaissance masters, Michelangelo and Leonardo, just one trait: the inability to finish anything. I appreciate a good read every once in a while but something in my eyes or brain causes me to fall asleep every time I open a book.

Nevertheless, these books sit in a towering pile on my nightstand. The first of these is Infinite Jest, by David Foster Wallace, which I've been trying to read at the gym. The emphasis here is on 'trying'--holding a thousand-page-long book while bobbing up and down on the Stairmaster and getting sweaty is, well, tiring. But I swear, one day, I'm going to finish this book.

My favorite thing about this book is the author's vocabulary. Wallace will use a phrase from contemporary slang or 'low-brow' diction right next to words I've never seen in my life. I try to write these words down so I can define them later. While I could mask this as a pursuit of knowledge, (like the good Honors student I am), I'll admit right here that I'm doing it so I can sound less stupid when I communicate verbally. I'm trying to fill the lacunae (thanks, David Foster Wallace) in my personal word-bank. I like to think that from a cultural standpoint, I appear curious and interested in self-improvement. And I suppose I'd like to differentiate myself from the 'likes' and 'ums' of other people my age.

It's hard for me to write about the book thematically, even revisiting this post months later, because I still haven't progressed past the first chapter. But for some reason, it's still sitting on my nightstand, begging to be read. The act of reading, then, not the actual content of the book, shows a lot more about my culture. Because I can't manage to set aside time to read Wallace's book, it makes me embarrassed how little I actually read. For all my professors' griping about how 'kids these days' don't read enough books, they don't allow me enough time to take a break from their assignments to actually read for pleasure. School is overwhelming for me, a struggling Honors student, who isn't quite smart enough to understand David Foster Wallace, and who has to balance school, homework, my artwork, and two jobs. But one day I'll get there.

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One other book I'm reading is Anthony Bourdain's Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly. It's great because he doesn't dumb down cooking like so many other chef personalities do. And he doesn't censor it either. The result is a funny, intelligent, and sometimes abrasive look into cuisine and the food industry.

I can cook. I don't know how to flambé but I can broil, bake, and sauté my way into a decent meal. I like complex flavors, and foods from all over the world. I'd say a lot of my tastes were inspired by Anthony Bourdain and his book. He shares his contempt for people who order well-done meat, and for cooks who cover up their slightly-rancid fish by smothering it in hollandaise sauce and put it on 'special.' The book delves into the "underbelly" of the restaurant industry, revolving around the grungy, oft-tattooed staff that makes a restaurant work. These are not the Rachel Rays and Martha Stuarts on TV.

I guess the reason I liked it is that I can relate to it. Like most kitchen staff, I never went to culinary school. My kitchen isn't decorated with tissue paper flowers and I don't have multiple wall-mounted ovens for making cute tarts with. Cooking in my kitchen is fast, aggressive and dirty. There is a lot of improvisation and taste-testing. Picky eaters are not tolerated in my kitchen. No one should limit themselves to hamburgers and chicken. I love Vietnamese food, Turkish food, real southern barbecue... I love it all.

1. Choosy Moms choose Jif

Normally, when one thinks of family heirlooms, one thinks of a certain piece of jewelry, furniture, a portrait, etc. But over the last half century, peanut butter has become one of the things to add to that list.

In North America, peanut butter evokes fond memories of childhood, family, and home. Elsewhere in the world, peanut butter is an unsavory American oddity. It's enormously popular here--some 75% of Americans have some in their pantry right now. And like Judaism, baldness, and a number of other things, many of us inherit our peanut butter brand loyalty from our mothers.

Most consumers of peanut butter seem to be strictly loyal to one brand or another. Advertising seems only to have a small part in it, considering two of the top brands, Reese's and Peter Pan, rarely advertise at all. What causes us to stick solely to one brand, then? Is it in our DNA?

I have eaten Jif for the last 20 years. Any other brand makes me cringe.

For more interesting data on peanut butter brand loyalty, market share, and advertising: click here.


Feedback: When I got feedback from Laura, she automatically assumed that my loyalty to Jif was something caused by nostalgia for the lunches my mother packed for me. I don't mean to criticize her assumptions, but my mom never made my lunch while I was in school. I suppose she was the one who bought the food, but I loathingly got up every morning and made my own PB&J. It's not the good memories that keep me coming back. It's a more complicated mix of advertising, tastes, cost, and convenience. But most of all I think it's based on the decisions of the person who buys the household's groceries: stereotypically and probably most likely, the mother.

0.5. Communion

Going to church was very natural to me. My family went two or three times a week, and skipping church was not an option. Most of my friends went to church too, and so did all of my coworkers when I worked at Camp Wesley Woods, a Methodist church camp.

Most of the kids at camp were Methodist too. But the camp would give scholarships to needy kids outside the church, and we hosted a lot of groups from organizations such as the Boys and Girls Club. Most of them were Christian but many of them had never been to church.

Thomas, though named after an Apostle, was one of those kids. While praying as a group before embarking on a caving adventure or horseback riding, I'd look up to see him glancing around, unaware of what was going on. The rest of the kids, like me, methodically closed their eyes and lowered their heads because it was what they knew to do. The bible lessons confused Thomas. He usually forgot that we had to bless the food before each meal. He was there to ride horses and climb rocks, unaware of the camp's purpose of influencing young people's spiritual lives.

On Thursday nights toward the close of the week, we took communion. To many kids, communion is a part of their normal church service, and though they don't always understand the symbolism, they understand that they are supposed to eat some bread and drink some grape juice and then pray. Like applauding after a concert or speech, it's almost involuntary.

My co-counselor passed out small pinches of bread to each of our campers. I held a small cup of grape juice and followed his lead. "The body of Christ, broken for you." The kids sat in silent reverence, waiting for me to come around with the grape juice to dip the bread in. "The blood of Christ, shed for you." Communion by method of 'intinction' is unfamiliar to some kids but they generally get the idea by looking around and seeing what other people are doing.

Unfortunately, Thomas was first in line. As he received his bread, he promptly stuffed it in his mouth, so that when I came around with the grape juice, he had nothing to dip. He put his hand in the chalice and slowly looked up at me and whispered, "What do I do?" I laughed and pulled his sticky hand out of the juice and moved on to the next camper, but it didn't hit me till later how funny a tradition Communion really is, to someone who has never experienced it before.

0. Max

I always thought Max was just "weird." My best friend in kindergarten, Max, and I shared an affinity for Skittles and all things Power Rangers. My favorite Ranger was Kimberly, so when we would play at recess, naturally, I wanted to be Kimberly, the pink Ranger. But Max would insist I be Trini, the yellow Ranger. It was irritating, but I shrugged it off. My classmates always noted that Max was "weird," but that was the only word we knew for it. His flailing arms and head tics were funny but strange, to us conscious, yet inexperienced 5-year-olds.

The summer after kindergarten, Max and I went swimming at the Y. He insisted he could swim in the deep end, so he swam out to the middle of the pool, struggling to keep his head above the water. He would flail and yell and his mom would rescue him. Then he would go back and do it again. And again. And each time, he would have to excuse himself to the bathroom because he'd swallowed so much pool water. That was really the moment when Max went from being just "weird" to "different." I still don't know exactly what was going on in Max's head, but when his mom transferred him to the "special" school the following autumn, I realized that not all people were like me.