"King of Pop" Michael Jackson dies at age 50
On the afternoon of June 25th, the world lost a great yet often mocked idol. He started his career young, and though he gave the music world some of the most well known songs of the 70's, 80's and 90's (most memorably likely being 1982's Thriller followed by Billie Jean, Smooth Criminal, and of his more recent works Scream with his sister Janet and Black or White), and was the pioneer of the long-form music video with Thriller's movie-esque plot and setting, something that had never before been seen on MTV.
On the other side of that, though, he was a man surrounded in mystery and controversy. His actions often garnered negative media attention, and a law suit and molestation charge nearly brought his career to a halt. Over the years the outraged cry of parents turned in to the mockery of the internet and media age.
I've had several talks with both friends and family about Michael, even prior to his death. My mother, father, and step mother in particular were fans of his music, and my father would often play his records around me as a child. I grew up watching Moonwalker repeatedly and imagining what it would have been like to meet him in person. Back when I was a child, no one really seemed to care that he was often around children himself. No one gave two thoughts to him building Neverland Ranch. It wasn't until I was a young adult that any of these things began to come up as an issue for anyone.
When having these discussions with other people, a common theme came up: that Michael was a sad and likely disturbed individual from his child hood experiences growing up in the spot light and never really being taught how to deal with life, having reporters constantly hounding him and mocking his actions in life. Couple this with a dependency on pain killers due to the accident that burned him horribly during the filming of a Pepsi commercial plus several other medical complications, he was really little more than a man trying to make a career while barely able to live his own life in some semblance of normalcy.
I still adore his music, but rather than hate him as so many do, or ridicule him as others do, I honestly felt sorry for him. He was a musical genius and yet he had no chance to be an average joe at any time in his tradgically short life span.
Say what you will about him, but I do believe he will be missed, and June 25th has become a sad day in pop culture indeed. This blogger only hopes that some peace for him can be found now that it's all over.
Saturday, June 27, 2009
Monday, June 22, 2009
Assignment 2: Web 2.0
A) Describe what Web 2.0 means to you.
B) Look up Web 2.0 on a site such as Wikipedia. Describe any controversies you find.
A.
Having being one of a handful of the current 20-somethings that started out in the world of computers back before the advent of public internet and new Windows and Mac systems, I believe that 'Web 2.0' defines sort of the 'new generation' of the internet, mainly that of the MySpace/Blogging age. Many of the people my age and older either don't blog at all, or are fans of the old school, like the original LiveJournal of ten years ago. Any more, though, the internet has become more and more about social networking, which gave way to the sites like MySpace, Twitter, and the like. Internet users are becoming younger and younger. The internet is a versatile, constantly changing media, and as such it seems to grow with each new generation.
B.
Web 2.0 has really only been a couple of years in the making, roughly ten as documented by the article 'Fragemented Future' by Darcy DiNucci in 1999. As such, there are some who don't view it as being a legit era in internet technology. The creator of the World Wide Web, Tim Breners-Lee, even went so far as to call it nothing more than a 'peice of jargon'.
However, like the phrases used to describe various generations as a whole (ie Generation X, Generation Y, ect), Web 2.0 has been accepted by many as the way to describe the way the internet has grown. Even though no update of technical specifications occured doing this transition, it simply meant that the dotcom bubble of the early internet crashed, a 'new' interenet rose from its ashes. The internet was always to be about communication through the world, but it seems to this blogger that now is the time that it's finally being implimented and put to use.
B) Look up Web 2.0 on a site such as Wikipedia. Describe any controversies you find.
A.
Having being one of a handful of the current 20-somethings that started out in the world of computers back before the advent of public internet and new Windows and Mac systems, I believe that 'Web 2.0' defines sort of the 'new generation' of the internet, mainly that of the MySpace/Blogging age. Many of the people my age and older either don't blog at all, or are fans of the old school, like the original LiveJournal of ten years ago. Any more, though, the internet has become more and more about social networking, which gave way to the sites like MySpace, Twitter, and the like. Internet users are becoming younger and younger. The internet is a versatile, constantly changing media, and as such it seems to grow with each new generation.
B.
Web 2.0 has really only been a couple of years in the making, roughly ten as documented by the article 'Fragemented Future' by Darcy DiNucci in 1999. As such, there are some who don't view it as being a legit era in internet technology. The creator of the World Wide Web, Tim Breners-Lee, even went so far as to call it nothing more than a 'peice of jargon'.
However, like the phrases used to describe various generations as a whole (ie Generation X, Generation Y, ect), Web 2.0 has been accepted by many as the way to describe the way the internet has grown. Even though no update of technical specifications occured doing this transition, it simply meant that the dotcom bubble of the early internet crashed, a 'new' interenet rose from its ashes. The internet was always to be about communication through the world, but it seems to this blogger that now is the time that it's finally being implimented and put to use.
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