November 16th
Ch. 9 “Does Pop Culture Promote Smoking, Toking, and Drinking?
This chapter as I have mentioned in previous posts did a good job in explaining statistically that it isn’t just the “crazy teens” who are drinking and smoking, but more so adults. The book says that people are quick to blame pop culture and the media in general because it is easy to do and is the most simple and logical explanation. However people really do become blind to other reasons when they are focused on just one of many factors. Differences in family stability, education, socioeconomic status, race/ethnicity, gender, peers, ads and so on all have an effect in substance use. Something that stood out for me in the book was when it said a 1998 report said “that much of the racial and ethnic differences found disappear when income is taken into account.” (Sterheimer, 2013, p. 226). I have issues with this because people compare income with race all the time, to say that these differences disappear, just sound odd when are society knowingly or unknowingly makes these connections. When the chapter moved on to the topic of alcohol I thought it was important to note that “gatherings often involve alcohol as a normal part of adults life.” (Sterheimer, 2013, p. 229). Our society has made it such the standard to have alcohol as part of our normal life’s when it doesn’t have to be. I also found it interesting that music videos have a rather big impact on teens and their usage. There are many grey areas to understanding the hows and why of substance usage and abuse among teens and adults, however age and gender where reoccurring themes in this chapter as to who are the heaviest users. There were several points in the chapter where is spoke about men needing to be taught to handle a certain amount of alcohol and women were not as heavy of users are the men where. And back in the day when women were caught smoking they were seen as rebels. Another note away from the age and gender is that Latinos and Asians are the least likely to use drugs out of any other minorities. However “men have been and remain more likely to smoke than women”. (Sternheimer, 2013 p. 225). The book also explained that white and African Americans are the largest groups of smokers. There are various factors as to why but if anyone has possible explanations as to why they think this is I think it would be an interesting conversation. Especially when a previous report said that when looking at income the difference between race and ethnicity seem to “fade away”.
Street Art
This section was a bit difficult for me to comprehended and write about, and honestly I mix graffiti street art and any other related thing into one big group. When something is illegal I am really closed minded that it is bad and shouldn’t be looked upon as good behavior. Many of these people try to say a certain message about ads or other issues in society. As I said in a previous comment creating art for a cause, or issue to inform the public is different than just going out and doing something just because you can. What I have issue is with where the line is drawn with this repetitive behavior. I understand some look at these people’s work and think highly of it while others find it a public disturbance. These people are certainly daring and ambitious but does that make it right to do it?
