Wednesday, January 26, 2011

catfish review.

Facebook has become the world where you aren’t what you post. Fifteen fake Facebook profiles, a million little lies, a nine month online relationship, one person. Catfish is the movie that addresses Facebook drama, relationships and lies. Within this two hour movie, you will be drawn into the world of Nev, a fellow ‘facebookee’, as he discovers the new reality of what can happen if you subject yourself to the dangers and lies of this new media revolution we call Facebook. You will meet Angela, Megan, Abby and others affiliated with Nev in one way or another, and be utterly shocked with what you find out as Nev goes on a journey to  Michigan to meet his dream girl, or so he thinks. Within this movie, you will question the validity of social networks, and be opened to the dangers of this thing we call Facebook.
The movie I recently watched was titled Catfish. It was directed by Ariel Schulman and Henry Joost and filmed mainly in Michigan. This movie was made in September of 2010 and featured main actors Yaniv Schulman (Nev), Ariel Schulman, Angela Wesselman and Melody C. Roscher, who plays herself but isn’t seen in the movie as often as Nev and Ariel. These actors all starred as themselves and bring you into their world as they document their trip to the truth. When Nev suspects his online girlfriend Megan may be lying about some of the things she has said in previous conversations and on Facebook, Nev and his friends make the trip to Michigan to find out the truth once and for all-and are shocked with what they find. This movie is full of unexpected twists that will leave you questionable about Facebook, and what it is meant to do.
This movie has a lot going on. Between the feelings of Nev, Angela, Megan and Abby, you find out the characteristics of each actor, and are drawn into the life of each character. This movie opens up with the character Nev, and his online friendship with a 19-year-old girl named Megan. They have met each other through mutual friends, and they immediately hit it off on the computer. They begin calling, texting and Facebook chatting as often as possible. Megan and Nev then decide to take it to the next level and begin dating over the internet, more specifically over Facebook. As their relationship progresses to months of dating (9 to be specific), Nev begins to get a bit suspicious about Megan, as a lot of the things she says seem like they might be lies. He basically comes up with the conclusion that Megan is lying, and wants to confront her about it. So, Nev and his buddies make the trip to Michigan, and all the lies are revealed there.
The most important character in this movie was quite obviously Nev, who had the idea of everything himself. But, I don’t think Angela is given enough credit for who she is and how intriguing she really is. You don’t realize who Angela really is and what she is capable of. Now, don’t get me wrong, Angela did plenty of bad things. Lying, cheating and scheming were all on her list. But I don’t think people understand the brilliance of Angela; how she was able to do what she did in a short amount of time, how she kept Nev and his friends in the dark for so long. She truly is a schemer. Angela went completely out of her way to make Nev believe multiple things that were not true. She acted as multiple people and didn’t seem to have a problem with it. Angela hurt many people, but all she seemed to care about was herself, and what was going on in her life. She managed to keep her family afloat, while living a cyber life. That is quite simply brilliance. She was literally living the best of both worlds.
I would recommend this movie for any teenagers or any adults to see. It was not only a good movie just to see, but it gives out a feeling of suspense as well as drawing you in. This movie is something that billions of people can relate too; Facebook. It crosses that line between what is danger and what is not and opens up a brand new way of thinking to the viewer. This movie is not only for entertainment, but it is meant to open your eyes to see what could easily happen if we became dependent on a social media network. Nev, fell for it. Yes, he will be okay. Yes, Angela will be okay. But they will both be changed. This movie is a must-see for teenagers and adults that are avid Facebook users. It may not only change their opinion on what they are doing on Facebook, but also it will help show teenagers and adults the dangers of this social media, and help them in the long run.

peer edits

i edited rachel raske's and brianne price's papers today.

Friday, January 21, 2011

catfish day three.

ew angela. sick. gross. disturbing. utterly disgusting. insane. angela literally lied about every aspect of her life, stole pictures off of someone randoms facebook, made up information about her own daughters, and had a relationship with a twenty year old man, and she was fine with it. like, its disgusting. how can you lie about something like that? she took so much extra effort to do this, and in a way i just feel sorry for her. how sad is her life that she has to do what she did. she lied about her two daughters, she had a facebook affair with a twenty year old guy while she was married, she lied about having cancer, she stole pictures. she should go to jail. this movie is very messed up. so she wanted to be a dancer when she was young. she decided to party and screw it all up and now to relive her life over again she's hurting multiple people. whatever she has to do to feel good about herself she will do. and i hate her for that. i don't care if she has anything wrong with her. you don't do what she did. sick.

Thursday, January 20, 2011

catfish day two freewrite.

i am utterly disgusted. how the heck does that woman think she's sane by having a eight to nine month relationship with nev. so messed up. they sexted! sexted! they actually had text sex and she's like 55 years old with long stringy hair that is thin and icky and she needs a haircut. and poor nev believed it, for eight months at least. nev had feelings for her, like he actually legit cared for her. and then he found out she was a 55 year old woman. i just think its beyond messed up that 'megan' was a figment of that womans imagination. the effort she took to lie about megan and who she really was. the fact that she is in a relationship with a young man while she's married with kids at home. and the fact that she's just okay with it. if nev hadn't gone to visit, i'm sure she would of kept going with this big fat lie. and that is disgusting. now all i will think about is how she was just okay with it and sexted him and all this crap. ew.

Thursday, December 23, 2010

Friday, December 17, 2010

what are the implications of increasingly widespread use of social media?

            Twitter. Blogspot. Formspring. Facebook. Myspace. Xanga. These commercial website have been taking over the internet for years. As soon as we get used to one website, another one pops out begging us to use them. We can’t help but to give in. We love the thrill of being able to post pictures, comments and statuses. We love the power to be friends with who we want to be friends with, and block the people that we hate. This is the revolution we have been waiting for. The internet is taking over our society. We find ourselves more concerned with checking Facebook, than going out and doing something of use. We spend countless hours on the computer every day ‘creeping’ on the people we envy, or viewing pictures that our friends have tagged us in. We find ourselves so obsessed with updating the latest news in our lives, posting comments that agree with other friends, or tagging pictures of a weekend gone wrong. This is why we are consumed by these websites. The more popular these websites get, the more people join. The more people that join, the more popular the website gets. We are constantly advertising these websites for others, and we don’t even realize it. Websites like these are taking over, and nobody knows.
            Earlier in this class, I learned that if Facebook was a country, it would be the fourth most populated country in the world. That’s not the fourth biggest state in South America. That’s not the fourth biggest city in a state. That’s the fourth biggest country in the entire world. What kind of a world do we live in where Facebook controls our lives to the point that so many people have activated an account? That Facebook has enough users to be a country? That’s huge. The internet continues to get more and more popular with every day that passes. As the days go by, more and more things are added to the internet, and taken out of any other kind of media. For example, most newspapers are now available on the internet. Yes, it helps save trees. Yes, it’s a nice thing because you don’t have all this newspaper lying around your house. But, at what cost? Many people have now cancelled their newspaper subscriptions because the newspaper in readily available online, and for free. What are all the paper boys going to do? How are teenagers trying to snag some extra cash going to cope?
            The widespread use of the internet continues to get worse. As more material emerges onto the internet, we find ourselves spending time sitting at our computers, watching the latest episode of Glee or Jersey Shore, rather than watching it on TV when it’s actually on, and doing something more useful. We are consumed by the internet and check it multiple times a day, really for no reason at all other than to upload a picture, update a status, or comment on someone else’s page. It’s getting to the ridiculous stage. They say with certain things, that once you start it’s impossible to stop. With the way things are going, I fear we will all become addicted with the internet more than we already have been, and life will start to be lived virtually rather than for ourselves.