I'm not entirely certain, to be quite honest. Just that a lot of books, movies, etc. seem to only care about superficially appearing to do something rather than actually doing it, if that makes sense. And that oftentimes there's little understanding for why such things are done.
The only example I can come up with is the constant misuse of the hero's journey.
I'm not entirely certain, to be quite honest. Just that a lot of books, movies, etc. seem to only care about superficially appearing to do something rather than actually doing it, if that makes sense. And that oftentimes there's little understanding for why such things are done.
The only example I can come up with is the constant misuse of the hero's journey.
Or trying to seem clever by calling attention to the use of tropes and clichés or allowing them to play out "like they would work in THE REAL WORLD™!!!" without really justifying them or actually examining them?
I'm not entirely certain, to be quite honest. Just that a lot of books, movies, etc. seem to only care about superficially appearing to do something rather than actually doing it, if that makes sense. And that oftentimes there's little understanding for why such things are done.
The only example I can come up with is the constant misuse of the hero's journey.
Or trying to seem clever by calling attention to the use of tropes and clichés or allowing them to play out "like they would work in THE REAL WORLD™!!!" without really justifying them or actually examining them?
One of the Internet's favorite pastimes is having opinions about Macklemore. This is not because he is a particularly good or interesting rapper, but instead because he is a particularly non-good and non-interesting rapper who is extremely popular and has more money than everyone who has ever blogged about him combined. He seems to understand that he pisses people off and acts like he feels vaguely bad about it, which is even more maddening to people on who did not make "Thrift Shop". And just when you think the discourse around Macklemore has quieted down, Mr. Steal-Yo-Grampa's-Clothes tends to find a way to reinsert himself into rap's conversation, or at least finds the conversation thrust upon him.
Yesterday, we found ourselves engaged yet again in first-degree Talking About Macklemore when it came to our attention that he’d beaten out Kendrick Lamar at the Grammys for Best Rap Album, and then texted him about how he felt bad he’d beaten him, and then posted an Instagram of that text to show that he was really really sorry about it. This prompted yet another round of anti-Macklemore thinkpiecery.
Now, allow me to be clear—people who are genuinely surprised upset that Macklemore won a bunch of Grammys are fucking idiots. The Grammys, and any award ceremony on TV for that matter, are not an actual metric of the taste of young people who like good things. If they were, Gucci Mane would have a million Grammys and Killa Season would have won Best Picture in addition to going platinum, stupid. Just because Kendrick Lamar, a musician we actually like for once, was nominated for a bunch of Grammys doesn't mean they were going to magically get less shitty. "You think I give a fuck about a Grammy?" Eminem once rapped, and he was right in doing so. All awards are arbitrary just like the fact that we will all die alone.
Still, there’s this nagging, sinking feeling that comes with thinking about Macklemore’s Grammy wins. Not because he won them by circumventing the paths to traditional hip-hop stardom and then pretended to feel bad about it, or because the so-called socially progressive message of songs like “Same Love” help blind people to his privilege, even as he, himself, starts a pro-gay marriage anthem by rapping, "When I was in third grade, I thought I was gay," essentially the hella-liberal bro version of "no homo." He is annoying for these reasons, sure. But what kills people the most about Macklemore is that he's categorically fucking swagless.
The reason people who love rap hate Macklemore is because it is embarrassing to have that dude be what adult, mainstream America thinks of when they think about hip-hop. Now, when I say "mainstream America," I don’t mean your little cousin who works at Aeropostale and gets buck at the Applebee's in Shelby, North Carolina on a Friday night. I mean your parents, your grandparents, your aunts and uncles, women with grey-blue wigs you might pass in the grocery store and pay no mind to, people with eyeballs and ears and souls who despite those eyeballs and ears and souls still have no fucking idea what rap music is. There is room enough in these people's brains for one rapper at a time to occupy their notion of "Rap Music," and because he's just won a bunch of Grammys and everyone is talking about him, right now that rapper is Macklemore. And that's fucking horrifying. It makes me want to stop caring about rap and instead listen to some shit like polka because, at this point, even accordions are less embarrassing than Macklemore.
To wrap up, here are all of the reasons why Macklemore is uncool and makes me, as a rap fan, shiver: He is an unfunny episode of Portlandia brought to life, the personification of why the well-meaning American upper-middle-class is a fucking nightmare. His favorite movie is probably An Inconvenient Truth. Saying, "I am a Macklemore fan" in a mirror three times in a row will automatically make you donate to your local 4H Club. His hair makes his head look like something you'd clean a dry erase board with. He used the phrase "turn up function" to caption an Instagram selfie he took with Miley Cyrus, which managed to siphon the swagger right out of words like "turn up", "function" and "Miley Cyrus", relocating them directly to hell. The face he uses in his said selfies is the sort of smug, self-satisfied grin that just begs to be punched off of someone's fucking face. Macklemore sucks because he tries to take hip-hop and make it goofy, fun and family-friendly, but does so in a way that makes it seem like he's making fun of it. He sucks because we shouldn’t even have to debate whether or not he sucks because he shouldn’t exist. He sucks because he seems like a nice guy, but he also sucks because meaning well can only get you so far. He sucks because his music is wild corny and makes him seem like he's really into Reddit. He sucks because in the face of all his success he has only paid lip service to the idea that he might have become successful by taking advantage of the fact that he is white and good looking, and this gives everyone the sneaking suspicion that he just might suck because he is disingenuous and not actually worried about his privilege.
And really, why should Macklemore be contritious about his fame and success? He has millions of dollars and a bunch of Grammys, and we have zero dollars and zero Grammys because those things don’t exist when you hold the moral high ground. All we have to cling to is our precious coolness, something Macklemore gave up long ago on the road to fame and fortune. We are cool, Macklemore is not, this is fucking awesome.
Also, rap has been a thing since the late 1970s, and it entered the mainstream around 1990. That's pert near 35 years and 25 of mainstream success. If someone hasn't heard of rap by now, they've been living under a rock.
Also, rap has been a thing since the late 1970s, and it entered the mainstream around 1990. That's pert near 35 years and 25 of mainstream success. If someone hasn't heard of rap by now, they've been living under a rock.
This assignment will take you through the first four steps of the research process as outlined on pages 46-47 of Croteau & Hoynes’s text, Experience Sociology. For this assignment, you will design either a survey research study or an experimental study but will not collect or analyze data. Use the instructions and questions listed below in the Pre-Writing section to guide your thinking and your preparation of the report. Follow the guidelines provided in the Writing section to write your report. Note that you must complete and submit the appropriate IRB form and Informed Consent form with your project.
Comments
The only example I can come up with is the constant misuse of the hero's journey.
i suppose there's a danger in treating it as something overly prescriptive
Can't find my cellphone either so I'm sure I'm gonna get yelled at for that later.
I don't even wanna do schoolwork but I should at least get something small done.
I'm glad your enjoying T&B. It's not quite in my top 10 but it's one of my favorite anime.
people with no memory
people who literally never heard of rap before 2012
(this is silly)
Assassin poems, Poems that shoot
guns. Poems that wrestle cops into alleys
and take their weapons leaving them dead
we are not talking about macklemore mo
objective truth
proof
nobody here agrees with whatever stupid review Naney cares to dredge up
I SWEAR THE ENTIRE INTERNET MUST WANT TO BLOW THE GUY OR SOMETHING
THERE HAVE BEEN
FAR
FAR
FAR
MORE RAGE-INDUCING GRAMMY WINS IN THE PAST AND NOBODY CARES ABOUT THE GRAMMYS ANYWAY, I JUST WANT IT TO STOP.
Guys
I just got my first sociology project
heeeeeeeelp.
i don't particularly want to talk about him anyway
i think it just means
make an experiment
but don't actually do the experiment
empirical study
actual work
*recoils*
Now time to hate myself for the rest of the day.
Assassin poems, Poems that shoot
guns. Poems that wrestle cops into alleys
and take their weapons leaving them dead
but I showed them this by accident