Listening to my dad’s stories it is obvious that fighting in school has become more and more unacceptable over the years. My dad, who is 67 years-old, used to get into fights at school all of the time and met no real consequences, but any small scuffle that I witnessed growing up was met with harsh penalties. In the middle-class suburban town of Huntington Beach that I grew up in there was a no tolerance policy for fighting that most followed for fear of suspension. The schools in my district were all California Distinguished Schools and had pride in their student’s behavior. As I entered college I assumed that the kind of kids that would go to my private school would create a similarly safe environment, but I was faced with a new problem brought about by the internet: cyber-bullying.
Cyber-bullies say harmful things to others on the internet with the intention of hurting another person’s feelings. By not actually having the person in front of you to make you feel bad for what you have said or try to harm you, it suddenly becomes easier to say hateful things to one another. In 2006, 13 year-old Megan Meier committed suicide in her room after being the victim of cyber-bullying. This highly publicized event exposed a mother and daughter who were posing as a young male to form a relationship with Meier before telling her “you are a bad person and everybody hates you. Have a bad rest of your life. The world would be a better place without you." While teenagers seem to effectively bully others through chat rooms, instant messaging, and social media websites (A 2006 survey by Harris Interactive reported that 43% of US teens have experienced some form of cyber bullying in the last year), the most prominent fashion that I have seen this done in my time in college is on anonymous message boards.
Anonymous messages boards such as collegeacb.com and juicycampus.com are breeding grounds for hateful messages aimed at specific individual or groups. Carolyn Witte of the Cornell Daily Sun describes the website as “a disease, contagious and addictive. Worse, it is self-destructive and undermines everything universities stand for.” Although the newer website of the two, CollegeACB , features a system where visitors of the site can report an offensive post that can lead to getting the post removed, the traffic of the website often leaves inappropriate posts untouched.
In addition to being a safe haven for cyber bullies it is also an outlet to spread news stories that are false or damaging to their subjects. Just this semester, we’ve seen a university be put under scrutiny after the leaking of an email and a photo scandal. These stories, which were sensationalized and confused some with conflicting facts, were the primary sources for news outlets across the country and lead to the printing of poorly-written articles sprinkled with false information.
I think that it is about time that people take responsibility for their words and actions and stop spreading hate that makes our generation look malicious. While some people are genuinely seeking advice or sharing honest information with others online, a group of other people are proving that these kind of sites cannot exist and be anonymous. If we want to prevent events like the tragedy of Megan Meier from ever happening again, society needs to put an end to cyber-bullying and anonymous posting to set an example for our young and sensitive teenagers like Meier.
After a year-long study, a scientific advisory panel for the U.S Food and Drug Administration released a 231-page report on the harmful effects of smoking menthol cigarettes. The study revealed that smokers may have a harder time quitting and because menthols lessen the harshness of tobacco smoke the cigarettes may even be easier for non-smokers to get in to. Because of these statements, the FDA is now considering banning the mint-flavored cigarettes.
Being an occasional smoker who among many other young colleagues my age enjoys menthol cigarettes, I was surprised. Although I had heard that menthol cigarettes may be worse for you than other cigarettes I did not think they would ever consider banning them completely. For long we have known of the dangers of smoking, but like other harmful products that make money, I never thought we would attempt get rid of them. With a reported 30 percent of cigarette sales in the U.S. coming from menthols how could smokers who are particular about the kinds of cigarettes they smoke be suddenly cut off from them? It seems to me like another case of the government telling us what’s good and bad for us without giving us the option of making our own decision.
Earlier this year the FDA ruled that the alcoholic energy drink popular among young drinkers called 4 Loko was unsafe due to its mixture of malt liquor, caffeine, taurine, and guarana. It was argued that the contents in it that give you energy also made you able to drink more alcohol for longer amounts of time. The canned beverages were called “blackout in a can” by some. The drink was subsequently banned and pulled off of the shelves in liquor stores across the country. This serves as yet another example of a time where the government chose to make the decision for its people and deny them of the freedom to formulate their own opinion and make up their own mind. It is understandable that the government wants to protect their citizens, but seriously, what’s next?
If the government feels the need to rid our country of anything that could remotely be bad for us, we may possibly find ourselves in a bubble wrapped world of stuffed animals and smiley faces. Want to go to a concert? Not after the government decides that the loud music is damaging to your ear drums. Want to sun bathe at the beach? Not after the government decides that the sun’s UV rays are too damaging to your skin. Heck, we might as well start spending all of our days inside watching television, but maybe that new 60” plasma screen will hurt your eyes so a book might be a better call.
The fact of the matter is while cigarettes and alcohol aren’t good for you neither are a lot of things. The reports that products such as these pose a great risk to our well being and should be banned are ridiculous. If menthols are bad why not pull all cigarettes o the shelf? Aren’t they bad as well? It appears here that since the FDA knows they cannot pull all cigarettes off the shelf they are trying to slowly hack away at the problem, but this is the wrong approach. Instead, the FDA should spend their time and money campaigning against smoking in general. Advertisements and commercials have been used over the years speaking out against the dangers of smoking and while they are a bid abrasive at times for smokers, at least this approach gives smokers the option to do what they want to do while educating them about the dangers of smoking and possibly preventing future smokers from picking up the habit.
Each year following the NFL season the NFL Competition Committee gathers to propose new rule changes to be made for the upcoming season. The game of football is ever changing and requires some tweaking of the rules to adjust to the increased athleticism of the game and protect the safety of its players, but this new rule proposal is ridiculous: For next year, the NFL Competition Committee Co-Chairs Jeff Fisher of the Tennessee Titans and Rich McKay of the Atlanta Falcons and the rest of the committee are suggesting that kickers should kick the ball off at the 35-yard line rather than the current spot at the 30-yard line.
This proposed rule is meant to protect the players as kickoffs are regarded as one of the most dangerous plays in the game today. With players these days running sub 4.4 second 40-yard dash times and taking off full speed at the ball carrier, injuries are going to happen, right? While the play is often a dangerous one, the Competition Committee’s solution of moving the kicker forward 5 yards is not good for football.
While most kickoffs seem routine where the ball carrier rarely gets past his own 30-yard line, some provide replays that are shown on television highlight shows for days later. In football, few things are as exciting as seeing someone evade 11 defenders and run 100 yards into the end zone. Completing the run is no easy feat and never fails to rile up a crowd.
With the majority of kickers these days having no problem booting the ball 65 yards downfield, we may see the number of returnable balls decrease. Not only would this rob fans of a spectacular play, but it would reduce the effectiveness of special team players. Suddenly, the value of kickers who can kick very far, but are not that accurate drops as kickers will all have improved chances of kicking the ball into the end zone for a touch back. Additionally, second and third-string players who make money as return specialists will be in lower demand and teams who have enjoyed an edge over their opponents in the special teams aspect may see their advantage balance out.
Last year, in order to minimize collisions, the NFL ruled that blockers were no longer allowed to form a wedge for the return man with more than two players. While this did not have a huge impact on the return average, one can argue that it did cause there to be less head on collisions between defenders and blockers, even if making the return man more vulnerable in the process.
Additionally, in another attempt to minimize harm to the game’s players, the NFL’s Competition Committee has proposed that coverage units get no more than a 5-yard running start before crossing the point of kickoff. Currently there are no rules limiting how much ground coverage units can cover before the ball is kicked off and the Competition Committee is worried that extended time to catch momentum may be dangerous for return teams often running backward before coming to a complete stop to block another player.
While I do believe that this rule along with the elimination of the three-man wedge has the potential to make the game safer, moving the point of kickoff forward five yards does little to prevent harmful collisions other than reducing the chance that a return man will even choose to attempt the play. If the NFL Competition Committee was really concerned about kickoffs, they would eliminate them completely, not just reduce the amount of returnable balls and make a mockery of football.
While it is true that football needs to adapt to the transformation of its athletes, this is going a bit far. What’s next? Two hand touch football?
You have it all. One minute you’re a star high school athlete and highly touted college prospect. You finish your senior season and with such raw talent you get to choose from only the best of universities. Being a competitor with dreams of winning a national title, you pick a school with a winning tradition and legitimate potential to win it all in the near future. With hard work and dedication, you can see things falling into place until suddenly your team is banned from appearing in a bowl game. For two years.
Scenarios such as this happen all too often, but why should they affect the athletes and put all of their hard work to waste? It is a shame that athletes have to go through this and some day the rules should change that will instead penalize the athletic directors and the specific athletes actually breaking the rules. This will surely bring more justice to the situation than punishing the remaining hardworking, honest student-athletes.
It is the athletic director’s job to run the various sports programs at his school and make sure that the programs are adhering to the rules set forth by the NCAA. The infractions made that end up getting schools in trouble with the NCAA directly reflect on the athletic director. How could an athletic director let these kinds of things happen? All operations in the athletic department must be overseen by him and he must take responsibility for any mistakes made. Even if a rule was broken by an athlete without the athletic director’s knowledge, it is still his fault for not educating the athlete enough about doing things that will put the team in jeopardy.
In June 2010 after a 4-year investigation it was announced that the NCAA would be imposing sanctions on the USC football team for "lack of institutional control" which would result in the forfeiting of all wins which included Reggie Bush as an ineligible player, losing their 2005 national championship, losing 30 scholarships over three years, and a 2-year ban on postseason play.
The forfeiture of wins makes sense. Bush was receiving gifts and thus was no longer eligible making him an unfair advantage for the Trojans against other teams. The erasing of the national championship also makes sense. Even the loss of scholarships somewhat makes sense (though 30 is a very harsh number). The program abused their powers and broke key rules that should be followed by every school. But the 2-year ban on postseason play? How does that make sense?
How is it that Bush, a pro football player who broke the rules that erased everything his teammates worked so hard for and Mike Garrett, the athletic director who oversaw the program at that time, are untouched by the NCAA while the young players at USC are forced to sit out of the postseason for two years after the majority of them did nothing wrong.
Although Garrett was later fired and Bush’s image was removed from USC’s campus, what does it matter? Garrett was fired by the school, not punished by the NCAA and Bush is still making millions in the NFL. Something tells me that these two are not exactly hurting for money. The people who are hurting, however, are the young athletes who were lured into a school that can no longer enjoy playing in a bowl game. A college football career can go by fast and with many players leaving early for the NFL these days, 2 years can be a heartbreaker. There are many problems with the NCAA and BCS these days, let’s start looking out for our honest student athletes and fix this one for them.
Since 1997, the event production company Insomniac has held its annual Electric Daisy Carnival during late June in Southern California. The Electric Daisy Carnival is an electronic music festival featuring many of the world’s top disc jockeys (commonly known as DJs) which draws over 100,000 people making it the largest electronic music festival outside Europe. The event, which has been held at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, has become very successful and has made lots of money, but with the festival’s growing popularity has come some problems. In 2010, a 15 year-old girl who attended the event died and newspapers and news broadcasters alike in Los Angeles responded by criticizing the event unfairly with one-sided reporting. After months of suffering through bad press, Insomniac ultimately decided to move the event to Las Vegas for 2011. By focusing on a few unfortunate incidents and largely neglecting to present the bright side of the event, journalists reporting about the Electric Daisy Carnival failed to serve the public and acted irrationally causing its relocation.
While some may call the event a “rave,” the Electric Daisy Carnival is not exactly that. Traditionally a rave is an illegal underground dance party in a remote location hosting fans of electronic music where drug use is not regulated at all. The Electric Daisy Carnival (like similar events in Los Angeles) is a commercial outdoor music festival similar to a concert held at a large venue complete with security, food vendors, first aid, etc. L.A. City Councilman Bernard Parks agrees that these events are different from traditional raves. “These things are common and a part of society, so we should put forth efforts to make them safe,” Parks said. “It's unfortunate that we have tagged the label rave onto these events. These are legitimate, revenue-producing events that are mainstream.” The word “rave” is an inappropriate one that holds a negative connotation and the media’s decision to use the word only fuels the public’s outcry against the events. Insomniac realizes this and refers to its event as a “massive” to avoid any confusion that the production company supports drug use at its events. In Targeting Ecstasy Use at Raves by Michael H. Dore, Dore explains that rather than prevent events like Insomniac’s from continuing in Los Angeles, local government and law enforcement should instead focus on removing drugs from the event.
Targeting all raves will not stop ecstasy use because the drug will continue to be used at concerts, in bars, and on college campuses. The primary achievement of such an approach would be only to create a high-profile “victory” in the war on drugs by forcing a distinctive and unorthodox youth culture out of most people’s sight. The government should work to eliminate drugs at raves while doing its best to leave any innocent, if unconventional, activity alone. If items like glow sticks and pacifiers really do have the symbolic meaning that rave proponents claim they do, raves will continue without the drugs. If raves are only drug havens, eliminating the drugs will snuff out the raves and reveal this “culture” as a sham. Targeted law enforcement will provide the answer (Dore, 1623).
Seeing as these events are popular amongst the younger crowd of Los Angeles, it is doubtful that those in the news had ever attended the event or knew anything about it other than the common complaints. The way that journalists portray the Electric Daisy Carnival, you might assume that the event is an unruly gathering where all who attend openly do copious amounts of drugs and couldn’t care less about the quality of the music played or the excellent sound and light production not to mention the quality of entertainers that parade around Exposition Park.
While negative feelings towards these events have existed for quite some time, the unfortunate death of 15 year-old Sasha Rodriguez in 2010 was the final straw for some. The young girl (who was under the age limit for the event) was first thought to have died from a drug overdose, but it was later announced that she passed away from hyponatremia, which an electrolyte disturbance in the body caused by drinking large amounts of water in a short amount of time. This incident caused the Coliseum Commission to place a moratorium on festivals like the Electric Daisy Carnival. The moratorium was eventually dropped for the remainder of 2010 with the intent of revisiting the topic at the end of the year. Insomniac, eager to keep the show going and improve their image, released this statement
“We look forward to working with the task force examining electronic music event safety in the County of Los Angeles. I have reviewed the County’s proposed resolution and I am pleased that the Board of Supervisors will be including representatives from the music event promotion industry as part of the task force. Industry representatives can work with the task force to better understand the realities of the electronic music event industry and help the task force with outreach to the industry as a whole. We hope that the task force, with input from a broad range of the community and stakeholders, including representatives from the musical events industry will create responsible and reasonable recommendations which can be implemented for all musical events in the County.”
With the event becoming a two-day festival, the event drew in over 185,000 during the weekend and out of those people 200 were sent to the hospital. With such a large amount of people, it is inevitable that there are going to be accidents and this event, similar to crowded concerts, sporting events, fairs, parades, clubs, bars, etc., is no exception. For example, Kelly Alanbay of examiner.com makes a reference to another unfortunate incident caused by an overcrowded event.
200 attendees in 2010 were sent to the hospital, with problems ranging from drugs, alcohol, exhaustion and injuries. That’s a total of .018% of the attendees. 100 people were sent to the hospital with injuries during a stampede at a Justin Bieber mall appearance. That’s 2.5% of attendees, which event is safer?
Also, to put things into perspective for those who feel that the event’s heavy drug presence is the main problem causing attendees to go to the hospital (which may be what the media attempts to make people believe), one must take into consideration that of the 200 people sent to the hospital, many of them were sent for injuries that were unrelated to drugs such as injuries suffered when attendees attempted to jump over a fence and force themselves onto the Coliseum floor in front of the stage. Also, as far as arrests go, more people were arrested at last year’s Dodgers home opener tailgate than at last year’s Electric Daisy Carnival and unlike a scene after a championship clinching Laker game, attendees of the event do not cap off their night by flipping cars and setting things on fire. If these statistics seem shocking it’s probably because few people in the mainstream media including producers of television news and newspaper editors are willing to stand up and acknowledge the full story and give members of this new culture a voice. In The Rave: Spiritual Healing in Modern Western Subcultures, Scott R. Hutson explores this idea.
Reynolds, an authoritative rave journalist, summarizes the postmodern interpretation elegantly. Rave culture is “geared towards fascination rather than meaning, sensation rather than sensibility; creating an appetite for impossible states of hypersimulation.” I find the postmodern approach deficient precisely because it fails to acknowledge meaning… The studies above do not consider the complex ways in which symbols and surfaces connect, intersect and/or conflict with the praxis of the real human beings who construct and consume them. Their lives are certainly not meaningless, yet those who write about the rave rarely soicit the voices and experiences of people who actually go to raves (Hutson, 38).”
While some young online bloggers stand up for their generation’s great music festival, older and more established news outlets simply refuse to offer their followers the full story.
What happened to Sasha Rodriguez is very unfortunate, but it is unfair for the media to blame Insomniac and the Coliseum and dismiss the fact that she was underage and took illegal substances that Insomniac’s website states a zero tolerance policy for at all its events. In journalism, news sells and a 15 year-olds death is definitely news, but at what cost will the media sensationalize the incident? In News Media Discourse and the State of Public Opinion on Risk by Iain Wilkinson, Wilkinson discusses the news media’s tendency to shape public perception through its reporting of unfortunate events.
News media coverage of risk almost always appears within the context of “bad news”. Indeed, although news media may be important for shaping public perception of risk, for the most part they do not dwell in much detail upon the topic of risk itself. Risk rarely appears as the explicit theme of news; rather, it is raised implicitly in reports of disaster and human tragedy. News media largely focus upon the catastrophic consequences of assumed risks. In the words of Eleanor Singer and Phyllis Endreny: ‘media do not report on risks, they report on harms (Wilkinson, 22).
The media reported the news of Rodriguez’s death as a harm caused by the event, not as an incident resulting from an assumed risk with the support of statistics showing that she was one of 100,000 people at the event who made a few unfortunate choices that produced grim results. They presented Rodriguez as a young and innocent girl who attended this sinful event and was forced to take harmful drugs until she died from an overdose. The truth is, she did not die from an overdose. While her taking drugs may have caused her to drink too much water, the media’s decision to rush to call it an overdose prematurely goes against journalistic standards and affected the event promoters greatly. The underage girl decided to attend the event against her parent’s orders and broke numerous event rules which led to her unfortunate passing at an event she should have never attended.
The Dr. Phil Show aired a segment about “raves” after the 2010 Electric Daisy Carnival right before another electronic music festival took place at the Los Angeles Sports Arena in which the mother of the 15 year-old Sasha Rodriguez was a guest. While Dr. Phil did acknowledge that some people do go to these events for the great music and a fun atmosphere, he bashed the events calling them “out of control as far as dangers are involved.” The worst, however, was the false information that the mother offered viewers. First of all, the mother stated that the average age of people at the event was 12-15 years old. While the event staff failed to properly check identification and there were inevitably some underage kids present, the idea that the majority of kids could be as young as 12 years-old without staff checking tickets at the front entrance knowing is absurd.
Second, a professional on the show stated that on the night of Sasha Rodriguez’s death, there were 185,000 people at the event. The truth is that 85,000 people were present on Friday night and Saturday night saw 100,000 people enter Exposition Park for the event totaling 185,000 for the weekend, not Saturday night. While 100,000 people is still a lot of people (even for a venue as big as the Coliseum) and the large crowd surely caused complications when trying to take Rodriguez to the hospital, this error shows that the professional offering his opinion on the event on the Dr. Phil Show who complained about the degree of danger at the annual event did not take the proper time to educate himself about the event and was only quick to point out the event’s flaws.
The most important part of the segment was the part where Sasha’s mother, with a less than honest face, stated on television that “from her understanding” the drug ecstasy was slipped to her daughter without her daughter knowing it and disregarded the fact that her daughter chose to do it on her own. Is it completely farfetched to think that maybe a young girl who disobeyed both parents and went to an event that she was not supposed to go to would also make another poor decision by doing a dangerous drug? Her mother also stated that Sasha’s friends and family were aware that she was not allowed to go to the event and yet she still attended (assuredly with some of those same people who knew how her parents felt about the event). Rather than ponder her parenting skills and think about what she could have done differently (maybe have her daughter stay in on a night she knew there was an event her daughter might try to sneak into), she simply blamed the event’s promoters and rather than think about her daughter’s decision to attend the event against her will and do a drug she instead claimed that her daughter was given the drug against her will and dismissed her decision to attend the 16 and over event as a “typical teenage move.” While it may be impossible to tell whether or not Sasha Rodriguez took drugs by choice or by accident, her mother’s refusal to accept that there might be a chance her daughter made a mistake is striking and this kind of biased representation of the event on a popular television show was extremely harmful to the future of the event in Los Angeles.
The truth is, while the event may be dangerous for some who do not fully understand what the purpose of the event is, the Electric Daisy Carnival is also beneficial to the city in major ways. It brings a swarm of people to Los Angeles creating revenue for businesses such as hotels, restaurants, airports, taxi cabs, etc. An Insomniac-commissioned study revealed that the event brought in $30 million in economic activity to the region which is invaluable in today’s economy. According to Latimes.com,the event also made $800,000 last year for the Coliseum Commission. Additionally, Neontommy.com notes that the Coliseum makes nearly a third of its revenue from just four electronic music events which is a big deal for the stadium that was made a National Historic Landmark in 1984.
While it is safe to say that what happened at last year’s Electric Daisy Carnival was extremely unfortunate, the news media had a responsibility to report on the event and present it for what it was: a freak incident involving one girl who made ill-advised decisions. They failed on this level and did not serve the public correctly. While it was appropriate for the media to suggest that Insomniac should make changes to their event to make sure that this will not happen again including a higher age requirement, a more thorough inspection of identification, a decrease in capacity for the event, increased police presence, a more active campaign against illegal drugs, and more on-site medical services, it was irrational to use sensationalism to intentionally or unintentionally make others believe that the event itself along with its promoters are responsible for Rodriguez’s death causing a public outcry and resulting in the relocation of the event from its primary venue in the heart of the scene itself.
This past weekend was the 2011 NBA All-Star Weekend held at the Staple Center in Downtown Los Angeles. Every year, the All-Star game is a fast paced, high scoring game showcasing flashy plays with terrible defense. The players, with no real incentive to win and fearing unnecessary injury, rarely display real competition. This kind of lackluster effort makes the game hardly a fun one to watch, but every year a contest is held that makes the weekend worthwhile: The Sprite Slam Dunk Competition.
Many great players over the years have displayed their high flying abilities in this exciting contest and every February it seems to steal the show away from the actual All-Star Game. From Spud Webb (all 5’7 of him) beating Dominique Wilkins to Michael Jordan soaring to the basket from the free throw line to Vince Carter winning the competition with arguably the best overall performance in the history of the competition in 2000, the event always seems to please the crowd as well as the audience at home. There was something funny about this year though…
With the emergence of Blake Griffin this season as a high flying star who has helped sell tickets on the road at other venues and proven himself to be invaluable to his team and the league, there was no question who the fans (and league) wanted to win. Advertisements for the contest had him at front and center and to no surprise the order of participants had him going last after his three less flashy opponents. Griffin stormed out of the gates with a breathtaking 360 degree two-handed dunk that scored 49 points as well as a modest off the backboard windmill dunk that added another 46. With Serge Ibaka’s decision to choose an extremely gimmicky dunk (a kid and a stuffed animal? Seriously?) and the absolute robbing of DeMar DeRozan (both his dunks were amazing), these scores were good enough to push Griffin into the finals against Washington’s Javale McGee. Some may say that the only reason that DeRozan was docked points was because his first dunk took so many attempts, but you may notice that Griffin’s first dunk took a few attempts as well.
During the finals, McGee showed some skill with his impressive under the rim backwards one handed jam and although his second dunk was nothing special I still think he deserved a bit more credit than Griffin’s simple honey dip slam. Little did the viewers know, however, that the competition had already been decided. Upon Griffin’s turn, a Kia Optima was rolled onto the court (the official car of the NBA, big surprise there) and he then proceeded to dunk over the lowest part of the car, the hood. Did I mention that he brought out a choir to sing to him while he made the dunk? As an avid NBA fan, I hung my head in shame at this spectacle. How did the NBA know that Griffin would make it into the finals to make way for this blatant Kia advertisement? Well, it’s simple. They set it up that way. At this point, it was brutally obvious that the event was staged beforehand. This was to be the grand finale of the dunk contest that would benefit not only the league greatly, but please Kia as well.
Is the NBA really more concerned with making more money than presenting an honest competition amongst some of the league’s brightest young stars? Are NBA executives really willing to sell their soul? Probably. They’ve done it before and they will do it again. At this rate, next year will see the winner of the once proud contest dunk the basketball while making a phone call on a cell phone provided by the NBA’s favorite (and most financially generous) cell phone provider.
Despite the decline of record sales in the United States due to illegal online peer to peer music sharing, music remains a powerful industry in the US today and in a world that loves to give out awards and is enamored by tradition, the Grammys represent the biggest stage of them all for recognizing excellence in music recording each year. The Grammys should represent the very best in music in the classiest way possible right? Well, not exactly. We watch stars walk down the red carpet and into their seats while harshly judging what they wear, watch short clips of the each music video, and then sit through a painful acceptance speech by the year’s “big winner” who wins their 5th Grammy that night for the same song we grew tired of nine months ago.
The Grammys fall short of pretty much everything they should be. Here are just a few of the problems with the so-called “big night” for music.
1)The Nomination Process: Artists, albums, and songs are nominated by record companies. Does anyone see anything wrong with this?! This is a major conflict of interest. Of course the record companies would want to nominate the most popular music as it directly benefits them and gives their artists further publicity. These nominations are then sent to the National Academy of recording Arts and Sciences (NARAS) who narrow the list down to five final nominees
2)Choosing the Winners: The winners are then chosen by the NARAS. The NARAS is an organization of professionals in the music industry who are not always educated in the many genres that the Grammys give out awards to, which brings me to my next point…
3)Too Many Awards: The NARAS handed out a whopping 109 Grammys this year. Really? 109?! Must we know what was the Best Boxed or Special Limited Edition Package was as well as the Best Album Notes? Should we also perhaps know what the Best Surround Sound Album is too? Oh wait, it was given to Britten’s Orchestra. And that doesn’t even count the Latin Grammy Awards, so if you’re in need of another Grammy fix, November is just nine months and counting…
4)The Hollywood Factor: The night is less of an honorable event celebrating music and more of, well, a glamorized show parading stars around for another great photo op. While the night should be only about music, a quick Google search the next day yields completely different search results such as a story about how teenage heartthrob Justin Bieber’s fly was unzipped during the awards ceremony and another one speculating the possibility that John Mayer and Miley Cyrus may have “hooked up” at the event.
While some loved the show (it posted its best ratings in a decade), I can’t seem to view the night seriously. When taking into consideration that the highlight of the night for many viewers was seeing star Cee Lo Green dressed up as a giant bird complete with colorful feathers, I can’t help but see the annual show as a complete joke of music. Moreover, music is very important to me as well as for others in America and when everyone seems to have different tastes in music how could we possibly label one album as the best one? Is it the one that sells the most records? Is it the one that MTV plays the most and tells us to like? Or is it the one almost no one's ever heard of? The idea that one is truly "the best" is ludicrous. It’s completely subjective. Nonetheless, the Grammys manage to make money out of it and are here to stay whether I like it or not.
