Gossip Girl and Pretty Little Liars

Although I had already seen the first episode of Pretty Little Liars, watching it through a more critical lens, I definitely found myself recognizing things about the show that had not quite crossed my mind the first time watching it.

The shows undeniable obsession with technology is something that has come to be fairly common among shows feared towards millennials. The emphasis placed on the texts from “A” become a central component of the show. This emphasis is extremely similar to Gossip girl. Stein even notes that “Indeed, if A/Alison has a counterpart in currently airing teen TV programming, it would be the anonymous and all-seeing Gossip Girl.” What does this use of technology imply?

The articles we read for the week were intriguing, however, upon watching both shows something occurred to me and rather than really directly relate the reading the screening, this week I’m using the readings as a starting point but taking my post in my own direction. Gossip Girl’s storyline revolves around the power of technology, specifically the website posts and text alerts that come from a mysterious person. Pretty Little Liars uses a similar mechanism, except her name is “A.” What I think is fascinating to think about is the role technology has been given. While the teens in the show text each other, the primary use of technology in these two shows is to expose secrets for the most part. In both shows, characters are caught off guard by text messages about things they thought no one else would find out about. In a sense, technology is used to hold these teens accountable. It is sort of like a conscience of sorts. It implies they need to be careful, because someone is always watching and technology never allows things to remain a secret.

The spin that has been put on technology makes me think about the generation gap. Indeed it is our parents’ generation who is creating shows like this. Teens have become comfortable with technology and see it as a positive. While I certainly am not going to make the claim that the generation above us fears technology, I do think that there are some hints of that in these shows. My mom is always shocked at finding out about how much people reveal on the internet etc. How many times on the news have you seen a story where technology incriminates someone? I think that our generation realizes that but adults feel we may be too naïve and fail to understand the consequences and I think shows like Gossip Girl and Pretty Little Liars address that.

USA

I know I usually write about television shows, but I couldn’t help myself from posting about the killing of Osama Bin Laden. I just feel like I need to express my reaction and say something. Maybe this whole blogging experience really has grown on me more than I thought.

God Bless America. Justice has been served. While I know that he’s not the only bad guy out there, he certainly was the face of Al Qaeda and I’m thrilled after just about 10 years, we finally got him.

Its one of those things where I think for the rest of my life I will remember where I was when I found out this information. Interestingly enough, it relates to Millennial Media because it was social media that first allowed me to hear the information: Facebook to be specific. I think the sense of American pride that many others and I feel tonight is evident through numerous Facebook status updates and I just thought I’d share a few:

The hide and go seek champion of a generation is now dead...here we go America

Team America does it again! Nighty night Osama

USA.

God bless America

God Bless the U.S.A....justice has been served

WE KILLED BIN LADEN!!

we got him!!!

You get the idea. Clearly everyone is excited. People are arguing that it may end up being Obama’s biggest accomplishment in his presidency. It certainly was great hearing the news and while watching the Obama’s Press Conference with a few of my friends, I got Goosebumps thinking that we finally got him after all these years. While it seems weird to be so happy about someone’s death, I think its justified given the situation. Seeing all the random celebrations that seem to be popping up around the country and world for that matter, it really just makes you want to be with friends and family and for a minute appreciate this widespread feeling of national pride.

YES WE DID.

Here's a video of people celebrating outside of the White House:

http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/us/2011/05/01/bin.laden.vo.washington.crowd.cnn?hpt=T1

The Voice

Last week I went home for Easter and it was so nice to just be able to turn on the TV and watch random television shows because we don’t really have that opportunity at school. While watching a devastating Sabres game where they gave up a 3-1 lead in game 6 allowing the Flyers to tie the series 3-3, advertisements for the show ‘The Voice” were everywhere. My mom informed me that the commercials have been playing on NBC non-stop. Clearly NBC was trying to push this show.

When deciding what to watch, their persistent advertising method clearly worked because that is immediately what came to mind. Interestingly enough, I could not watch the whole episode on iTunes, but I could watch it on their website. Only allowing me to watch on their website forced me to actually visit the site where I could explore more about the show itself.

At first when I started watching I was skeptical of the show because I thought it was just NBC’s desperate attempt at getting their own American Idol singing-style television show. When I began watching, however, I was pleasantly surprised to learn that it had its own unique twist.

While watching those opening auditions on American Idol with horribly bad singers among the good ones can be entertaining, I always thought they went on too long. The Voice gets rid of this audition round and only puts people with genuinely decent voices on the show, which I liked.

Here’s how the show works. 4 successful singers (Cee Lo Green, Christina Aguilera, Adam Levine and Blake Shelton) act as coaches/ judges. In the first round these four sit in chairs facing the opposite direction of the singer, so that they are judging purely on talent not appearance. If they like what they hear they hit a button and their chair spins around allowing them to see the performer. If only one spins around that performer is automatically placed on that specific coaches team. If, however, more than one coach spins around, the performer then is allowed to choose which coaches team they would like to join. At the end of these blind auditions, each coach has a team. In the next round a battle round takes place where the singers are given advice from the coaches and then they two team members compete against each other and the coach decides who will move on. Then, in the last round there is a live performance where the public will help decide who moves on and eventually who wins a recording contract.

This is similar to American Idol because it still incorporates that interactive TV idea where viewers are active participants in helping decide the course of the show. One thing I found fascinating was that throughout the show, twitter posts were displayed on a banner across the screen and the proper hash tag was even posted for viewers. This new aspect highlights that social media is constantly evolving and shaping the way we watch/participate in television.