#Selfie

 BGM

 One person. One facebook page. One image that represents us.

This image is called profile picture. It shows up on every activity you do in social networking sites: Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Google+, Yahoo, MySpace, Youtube, Skype, Instagram, Pintrest, Reddit, Kik Messenger, Weibo, Qzone, Flickr, Vine, StumbleUpon, Wordpress, Delicious, Last.fm, Habbo, Digg, Kakaotalk, DeivantART, Cyworld, various forums generated through vBulletin, and even Blogger, the very platform used my me and my classmates to do homework. Because this image represents every aspect of our social behavior within these sites, these images, conclusively, are our virtual counterparts of our very own faces.

However, there is one crucial difference between the profile iamges used on the 27+ platforms and our own faces. First, we cannot alter our faces once it is generated (at birth). While plastic surgery changes small parts our faces, they cannot make a large enough change to actually change your identity. However, our profile images can changes, quite radically. One moment, it can be a picture of yourself at camp; however, it can be a picture of your favorite pokemon, a picture that indicates support for gay rights movement, a picture of Justin Bieber, or a picture of yourself at camp, simply edited to make the owner look more beautiful, more buff, or more different.

"Selfies" are now one of these types of photos, where one takes a photo of themselves. While it became recently popular in the States with the popular adoption of smartphones-which often come with front facing cameras-it was popular for quite a while in Asian countries, mainly China, Korea, and Japan, where feature phones already had introuduced front facing cameras in around 2005. However, these selfies, or 'selca'*s in Korean culture, create significant bias. 

The pictures may not say much. The picture on the above  might be trying to say, "I'm pretty". The one on the bottom might be saying that "I am popular." But are these images true? While 'pretty' is too objective to determine whether or not the lady is 'pretty' or not, the sefie does not match the lady in the left. Same goes for the image in the bottom. Are they really close friends? Or are they acting friends so they have an image to tweet about?

These create bias about the person. We, the viewers, might think that this girl is pretty. Maybe those girls are popular. We never know until we actually meet them in real life. Afterall, the virtual society is a place where anything can be lied about.**

The horrid fact is that all of us are aware of these, either concsiously, unconsciously, or both. The overweight girl in the picture above knows very well how she was treated in real life when she was an overweight girl. The desire to avoid this is the very reason the girl decided to take her selfie. The girls in the bottom might have felt like they were being left out, while her facebook friends were out partying or hanging out. The selfie was her solution to those unresolved feelings.

With the recent spread of social networks, this is quickly becoming a psychological issue. While unified name for this phenomenon does not exist, it has been consciously proven that the girls above are simply a part of a bigger vicious circle, a cycle where one bad event leads to another. This is merely possible because the girls would see these pictures; become socially anxious; post biased pictures themselves; and another girl sees the picture. Social depression and general anxiety in superficiality is the quick result.

We all know the bias is there. 'Everything is an argument', and everything is biased. You know this, like it or not, and it's been proven when you chose that picture of yourself for Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Google+...

This is my current profile picture for Facebook.

Guess what I am arguing through this picture...

_____________________________________________________________________________
*short for self camera. These became wildly popular in 2005 in Korea, and quickly spread to China mid 2000s. Japanese, does not use the term, nor ever took this practice consciously; they were already flippin their phones and cameras around to take pictures of themselves.

**http://warrenleeap.blogspot.com/2014/02/id.html

A Mod-ern-est Proposal

BGM This is quickly bcoming a habit


It is a time of chaos in the land of Ukraine. The Crimean peninsula is once again the center of conflict. While Russia has decelared that they will be taking back the peninsula, the residents of Crimean had a state-wide vote on the issue. Suprisingly, 93% had voted in favor of being part of Russia.

Crimea has been a place of conflict several times in the past. The piece of land larger than the state of California was placed under the Imperial Russia for 200 years, until 1917, in which the Soviet Union was formed. Nevertheless, it was kept under Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic. Then, in 1954, Russia simlpy gave it to Ukraine. During this time period, such transfer of land masses in wholes were of not much importance. Afterall, both countries were still under USSR. This was the case; until the Union collapsed in 1991.

It was kept under Ukraine. There was an attempt of independence in 1992, but the Ukrainian government persuaded them to stay as a smaller republic under Ukrainian control. Still, the 93% of Ukrainian residents are demanding that they become a part of Russia. The US, along with the majority of the nations worldwide, however, has declared that they do not agree with the results. Meanwhile, military tension is growing, ready for war over who gets to keep the geographically important place.

I shall now give a modest proposal about this problem, which I am sure will nobody will object to.

I have been told by a profound American man* that this country owns 5113 nuclear weapons. Considering that a total of 70,000 pieces of nuclear weaponary was produced, that over 8 trillion dollars were wasted, and that US spent nearly 50 years building them, US certainly wasted time and space in what seems useless.

I do therefore humbly offer to the that man that the remaining 5113 nuclear weapons should be launched, detonated, or set off in such a manner that destroys the peninusla itself. This will eliminate Crimea itself. Furthermore, Russia and Ukraine will have on less reasons to fight for, and will be one step closer to becoming, once again, good international friends.

This is certainly not the only reason I suggest that the US use their weapons on Crimea. We, US, always loves to take part in the doings of other countries. This makes the United Nations virtually useless, but we can always waste another couple million dollars on sending military to other countries. What a peace-loving nation.

Furthermore, these nuclear weaponary need to be used up somehow. America wasted millions on getting rid of the already existing nuclear weaponary, and it certainly costs less to use them, instead of dissassemble them. The time and money spent during the Cold War must not go to waste.

Therefore, I repeat: America should launch nuclear weapons in to Crimea in order to project piece in eastern Europe.

A Measure of Progress

bgm

Only those who dare to fail greatly can ever achieve greatly - Robert F Kennedy

Meet Radium. It is number 88 on the Periodic Table, discovered by Marie and Pierre Curie, has radioactive properties, and ended up in killing many people such as the 'Radium Girls' who conacted radiation poisoning via radium in paint. Oh boy. Sounds bad. Or at least Chet Raymo, writer of The Virgin and the Mousetrap, thinks it was. He uses those negative facts to affirm that scientific development, including the current ongoing research about genetic engineering, will turn on us, and harm us, much like the two faces of Janus.

Whoa, whoa, whoa, I think our dear Mr. Raymo forgot to say a lot of things. Radium, with proper caution, was once one of the most early and popular methods in fighting cancer, or more specifically, bone metastasis. Even the FDA approved its medical effects. 

Raymo was certainly correct about science being the "circle of the Janus-faced god." However, this applies to other couple million things in our everyday lives. Take Blogger, for example. People can use it to share their experiences in watching TV or their thoughts about a ridiculous essay. However, people can also use it to share videos that infringe copyrights or post the privacy information of other people. Oh. Do I smell some sort of similarity between the very system we use to blog and some random element on the Periodic Table?

Yes and no. Radium quite certainly can be decieving, and you must be very cautious about dealing with the radioactive metal. However, they are both essentially similar in that they can both be used in good and bad ways. It's just that Blogger, or Google, can certainly censor things that they determine dangerous, while there certainly isn't a Chemistry God who can decide to censor things like Radium. Humans have to do it for themselves, ourselves.

Remember what I said about radium? It's helpful in cancer treatment "with proper caution." Raymo is certainly right about the fact that scientific discovery could be harmful. This is preceisely the reason mankind must learn how to harness science correctly, and be ready to be responsible for any harm. Progress is not simply about finding new discoveries; it's also being able to use it for our benefit. Only then is Radium effective in removing tumors, not the patient's life. 

Science is two faced. So what. Deal with it. Humanity dealt with it since evolution from chimps. If prehistoric people decided not to use fire because it was hot and potentially burn eveything including themselves, and decided not to use it, the only sort of meat we'd have is sashimi. But why hold back on science now?

Maybe "Consumer" should be replaced with Raymo...

No progress can be made without risks. No success can be made without the possiblity of failure. Raymo decides ignore this. Sure, the "unexamined quest for knowledge is hemmed with peril", but when you hem it all together, you get a piece of T-shirt called progress. Of course the T-shirt might be itchy or too unfashionable to wear. But there's no gurantee that all T-shirts mankind makes will be unwearable. So here sits mankind, diligently sewing together progress.

Identity and Public Space

Crack Rock by Frank Ocean. The song samples Little Miss Lover by Jimi Hendrix.
Listener discretion is advised, as the song contains foul language, violence, and  images of drug usage. Keep in mind that this song does NOT support drug usage. Instead, it criticizes drug usage.

Frank Ocean is not your stereotypical African American musician.For one, he hates drugs. His 9th track from the Grammy winning debut album channel ORANGE, named Crack Rock-in which Ocean pays hommage to Jimi Hendrix by sampling his song, Little Miss Lover- illustrates a man suffering from crack cocaine abuse, left with nothing but his drug pipe. But with drug abuse proven countless times to be harmful, and musicians blamed as one of the biggest causes of drug abue, this anti-drug movement is becoming more and more widespread.

Frank Ocean is homosexual. Gay. His coming-out was one of the biggest issues in the Black music industry, since the stereotype of the scene is that large amounts of the people there are homophobic.

While others might say that this is no big deal, this was extremely controversial in the scene. Not only were some artists pouring fire on Ocean, it changed the fates of the current music generation, and generations to come. Ocean is the first of its kind, the first major level artist to break the stereotype. This will not only change the way people in the Black music industry react; it will change the way people do profiling on African Americans.

This is more of the things needed to minimize stereotypes, like mentioned in my previous post. We need more people like Brent Staples, who do not match their stereotypes, and more people who understand that public space can be altered in many different ways.

Say that a young African American high school student decided to sing Crack Rock at school, with explicit words filtered out, emphasizing the fact that drugs will hurt you. This also is black man and public space; he only altered the space in a positive way. It's possible.

This, however, is often not the case. Going back to the idea of stereotype threat*, many choose to conform to the stereotypes posed upon them.

That does not mean you should walk out in to the world and act like someone who you aren't. Jeannette Walls, in The Glass Castle, shows readers the importance of keeping the balance between fitting into society and conserving who you are.

"'Just tell the truth,' Mom said.

'That's simple enough."

-Walls, Glass Castle

The outerspace is a large region, large enough to hold 7 billion different types of people. However, that loses its meaning when we are afraid to show who we are. Regardless of race, gender, or the way you can alter public space, you can be who you are. 

Stereotypes and Public Space

Like it or not, people use stereotypes. Unfortunately, that includes both you and me. Deny it all you want, but it has been proven statistically that the majority of humans use heursitics: a set of shortcut methods of the brain used to identify a situation or a problem, or judge and decide what to do. This psychological theory includes a certain heuristic called Representative heuristics. Basically, when people encounter a certain stimuli, they compare it with mental images formed by previous experiences.

This often works quite well. However, it often fails to work correctly and identify the situation. Take a look at this picture. Who do you think this man is?

Clean cut suit, clean face, gray hair, glasses. Businessman should come to mind. Not only because the keyword I used to find this image is 'businessman", but also because it matches our image of a business man. But there are other possibilities; he could just as well be a fittitng model for a suit, an actor playing a businessman, or even just a man who likes to wear suits. 

Apply this mental fault to different situations. You see an African American. He's wearing a oversized hoodie and sagged jeans. Dark circles under his eyes. Seems like it's been a while since he last shaved. Staring right at you. Chances are you'll be quite frightened, because this man is matching your mental image of a criminal or just dangerous in general, becoming a stimulus for the emotion of fear. In other words, you have just stereotyped this man, using representative heuristics. It is certainly not your fault. Afterall, use of heuristics are strategies that have been hardcoded into our brains.

Brent Staples illustrates this quite well in his essay, Black Men and Public Space. He is often mistaken as someone dangerous, which is shown quite well in his many examples, even though he was actually an University of Chicago student. 

While stereotyping is a social problem people have been facing for the past century, there is not clear solution since there is not much people can do. Psychologically speaking, we still will make stereotyped generalizations no matter what, since we can't choose to use heuristics or not. One thing that is possible, however, is editing the representative image that we compare the subject to in representative heuristics. Of course, this is not something that happens overnight. People who use heuristics need to be exposed to different images of a certain group, and those who are the certain group need to become different and disprove the stereotype. 

Take Native Americans for example. Sherman Alexie, in his short story, The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven, illustrates the reality, where Alexie is stereotyped as another dangerous, drunk, and violent Native American. This is because the people in Lone Ranger need to identify this Native American stranger. And people make those stereotypes because the representative image of Native Americans is dangerous, drunk, and violent, due to the way a large majority of they way these people act. If there are less of these types of people, and more of media exposure to the mass about these people, we can successfully remove stereotypes. 

Introducing the all new 2014 S/S Collection...

Parenting 101

So there are lots of parents. Obviously, there is a variety between all of them. One of the biggest difference in determining these is 'nurture', which states each distinctive difference everyone has come from they way they were nurtured. This heavily contrasts with the idea of 'nature', that much of our differences come from our biological genes. These two factors, together, determine each of us as people. For example, my small mouth is due to nature, but my habits of not opening my mouth wide come from nurture.

Parenting, however, is heavily dependent on our nurture. One of the reoccurring ideas in many developmental theories is that each parent's parenting styles our a model of their own parents. This correctly supports the notion that people abused as children abuse their own children when they become adults.

Our own parent's are no exception to this idea, which is why parents in different culture raise their kids differently. For example, the common stereotype of Asian parents, easily summed up in the phrase, "tiger mom", is that Asian mothers tend to focus heavily on academics and getting to a good college. However, this is only a cycle of what they had gone through.

For one thing, my mother was not  study intensive as a student. She loved books: Not your common light romantic novels, but recordings about the kings of Korea, or classic pieces of Western literature translated in to her native language. While we, as students, often read these books in order to get grades, her parents were not so happy about all these books, as they were posing as distraction to her studies. Her conservative father heavily affected her, and she, like the majority of her generation, was hit whenever she made him angry, in this case reading a book.

This reflected her ways of parenting. She took time to get me to read books. Furthermore, according to her own words, she "took time to make sure I didn't get hit." However, corporal punishment is still widespread in Korean parents, and its really only because they were raised in that way.

Green Menace

René Magritte's The Son of Man, 1964

-Warren Lee

A green apple is being thrown across the air,

full one hundred miles per hour, at 

a single man standing in front of an old wall.

The man dressed in a black coat and a black bowler hat,

did not see this coming.

He was simply minding his own business,

getting his picture taken.

Oh, he's no model

who would show off his marvelous swim shorts.

In fact, he is going to hide his awe-striking swim shorts

under his dull suit, but rather a common suit.

It's nothing to hide that his suit is worn by many.

It'll make him competely normal, 

someone so normal that they'd fit into the crowd perfectly,

so that if he takes his picture, nobody would notice him and his crooked left arm.

So he got his new camera out, set it on a stand,

went back to stand in front of the wall,

with his back to the vast ocean that smelt like

a piece of rotten old fungus, a fowl stench that would normally make people frown.

But,

maybe he was wrong.

Not only were people not frowning. 

the apple was coming straight for his face.

Blimey, he was not mixing in, in fact, he was very noticeable!

At first, the man wasn't alarmed.

He was rather curious-

a green unripe apple.

What could it possibly taste like?

He was imagining sour juices exploding in his mouth,

covering his throat as if it were trying to invade it.

The next thought blew on him as the apple got closer.

The man could feel the strong gust of wind, 

not simply tingling his skin,

but pushing against his face like a bully pushes little kids in school.

He felt slightly anxious.

Will the apple hit him?

He could hear the sound the wind created by the gale of green,

like the musical crescendo created by a full string orchestra.

Oh goodness, the man was feeling very anxious,

even fearful of what would happen next, buy

people could no longer see the man's face.

They could not feel what the man felt-

his emotions were already hidden under the green menace.

His arms were already hidden under the green menace.

The man in the suit was already hidden under the green menace.