Why Can't we Quit Reality T.V.

In 1992 MTV premiered their groundbreaking television series The Real World. The brain child of the late Mary-Ellis Bunim and Jonathan Murray placed seven to eight young adults from 18-25 in a house together where their lives would be taped. The show garnered high praise for their discussion and depictions of issues that affected the youth at the time such as sex, AIDS, substance abuse, race and religion.

I can faintly remember when I was in middle school in the early 2000’s when some old British rocker and his family had a show on MTV. The Osbournes continued what the Real World started while ushering in a new age of American television. A year after The Osbourne’s premiered, a group of washed up starts including rapper MC Hammer, Vince Neil of Mötley Crüe and former child star Emmanuel Lewis all moved into a house and lived together while the cameras rolled.

Hipsters, Yuccies and the Black Urban Creative

America loves to bash hipsters

So the end of the hipster has finally arrived, or so they say. The (seemingly exclusive) white kid who attends college for a liberal arts degree of very little merit in this day and age who fashionably wears old dingy and ratty clothes and whose Ipod is filled with obscure indie bands that you never have nor ever will hear of has been replaced.

So I bashed them a little bit, but who doesn’t enjoy taking jabs at hipsters? The hipster has taken a back seat to the new young urban individual known as the “Yuccie”. The offspring of the Yuppie and Hipster cultures, Yuccies combine social awareness and enterprising creativity while tackling the new world around them.

Blought #27: Cable's Deathbed

The model used by Adelphia for my family's cable box from

the late 90's the mid-late 2000's

As far back as I can remember my mom always had a cable subscription. I can remember watching old Nickelodeon shows like Legends of the Hidden Temple, Rugrats and Fox Kids’ X-Men on a black tube TV.

Then came the big clunky cable box. Now I could watch the animation giant Cartoon Network and their Emmy award winning programming (See Blought #11: The Evolution of Cartoon Network) along with a slew of HBO and Starz channels.
I remember sifting through the guide in awe that I didn’t have to watch the TV Guide Channel anymore to find out when something was coming on. Even better, by that time I was 6 and able to read a description about the upcoming episode of Sponge Bob or Dexter’s Lab.

Then 2008 happened. Mom took some employment hits and our cable subscription was severely downgraded, and I’m pretty sure we weren’t the only American family to cut down on our cable during the Financial crisis. It just so happens that around that time my mom began to get these weird red envelopes in the mail and inside would be a DVD. At the time I had no clue what Netflix was.