Category Archives: English 11

“no u” – Digital Poetry Project

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This image reveals to us the different lenses that we may use based on youth or age. Some may see it as a complete mess, but others may see it as an organized art piece.

“no u”

My mom told me to clean my room,

But I looked on the floor and it’s spring’s bloom,

“Son, get up, pick up that shoe”

But I laid back and mumbled, “no u”.

With the devil’s screech, “GeT yOuR eYeS oFf YoUr ScReEn,

And turn down that rubbish rappin’ ‘bout lean.”

Dragging my shoulder, with a menacing stare,

She doesn’t understand that I really don’t care.

But finally, I rise up from the lively grave,

But not just to behave,

But to show my gratitude,

By fixing that attitude.

 

The poem “no u”, by John Goh, is a brilliant, closed, narrative masterpiece that reveals to us that despite the differences between youth and age, there is still respect between the two, despite the generational gap. It primarily uses metaphors and allusions to memes to reveal the difference in thinking between the two generations.

 

The title, “no u”, is an allusion to a relevant meme commonly used by today’s youth. The meme is a satirical reference ridiculing the way that children and adolescents will often use a nonsensical rebuttal, such as “no u”, rather than a rational, comprehensive response to criticism. Lines 1-2 first talk about how the mother wants her son to clean his room, but the son doesn’t seem to recognize the issue. Rather than seeing the mess on the floor, the son sees “spring’s bloom” on the floor. “Spring’s bloom” is a metaphor for the way that colourful clothing spread across the floor, through the right lens, can look like the beauty of flowers blooming during the spring. Lines 3-4 continues this narrative as the mother continues to hassle the son to clean his room. Showing little care for what his mother is saying, he lays back unbothered, responding with a carefree “no u”, putting no effort into his response. Line 5 contains two different devices as the mother starts to become more aggravated. “The devil’s screech” is a hyperbole that provides some imagery into the way that the mother angrily speaks to her son. The irregular capitalization in the phrase, “GeT yOuR eYeS oFf YoUr ScReEn”, is an allusion to another meme that is commonly used by today’s youth. The meme, from the point of view of a child, satirizes the irritating way that adults criticize their children. This helps enforce the imagery of the main character in the poem being an annoyed adolescent who doesn’t understand the why his mother is telling him to do this. The phrase “rubbish rappin’ ‘bout lean” uses alliteration with the “r-” sound. It also reveals the way that the older generation tends to perceive modern rap/hip-hop that often references drugs such as lean. The mother calls the music “rubbish” due to the generational gap and different tastes in media/entertainment. The first two stanzas reveal the differences in thinking between the younger and older generation. The main character is shown to be a carefree adolescent who doesn’t care about the neatness of his room. This is revealed by his allusions to memes, taste in music, and his positive perception of his messy room. The mother is revealed to be an organized, responsible adult who understands the need for a clean room.

 

In the last stanza the son decides to listen to what his mother is saying. “Rise up from the lively grave” in line 9, is an oxymoron as well as a metaphor. Rising up from the lively grave is a metaphor for “getting out of bed”. The oxymoron “lively grave” is compared to a bed that you sleep in. Sleep not only gives you rest, like how a grave would help you “rest in peace”, but it also gives you life. In lines 9-11, the author continues to repeat “But” at the start of each line. At the end of the poem, the main character still doesn’t understand why his mother is telling him to clean his room because of his different understanding of life. Despite that, he decides to clean his room anyways because of the respect and gratefulness he has for his mother and what she does for him. The gifted poet reveals to us that despite the differences in generational thinking we may have, we can still respect each other. This theme is universal because different generations with different mindsets will come and go until the end of humanity.

Fahrenheit 451 Essay: The Effect of Technology in Fahrenheit 451

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Everyday of our lives, we spend countless hours under the grip of technology. In Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451, technology and media are evidently integrated into the lives of the characters in the novel. In this fictional, futuristic world, firemen start fires to burn books rather than stop fires. In this society, books are considered bad because they inspire free-thought. Many of the aspects of the society in Fahrenheit 451 are quite extreme. The TV parlour walls, laws against walking, and the stretched out billboards for high speed cars are all examples of this. Its exaggerated themes, however, create an effective satire of how today’s society functions. Fahrenheit 451 reveals how the dynamics of today’s society are altered by the influence of technology and media.

 

Fahrenheit 451 presents a society where technology and media creates a virtual world far from reality. Mildred, the wife of our protagonist Montag, is an exaggerated example of the typical technology addicted human being in today’s society. She spends her day staring at the three TV’s on the parlour walls of her home. She is submerged into a false reality where she thinks the people on TV are her family. As a result, she cares about this “family” more than she does about her actual family: “She shoved the valise in the waiting beetle, climbed in, and sat mumbling, “Poor family, poor family, oh everything gone, everything, everything gone now ….”” (p. 52). Rather than keeping quiet about Montag’s possession of books, she decides to report him in fear that she would lose her TV “family”. This is a clear example of how media has immersed Mildred into an unhealthy state of mind so far from reality that she considers the nonexistent characters on TV to be her “family”. She would do anything to save that “family” rather than save her real family, which is Montag. Montag later realizes that he would not be sad if his wife, Mildred, died because their marriage is solely a title without any meaning. Our society hasn’t come so far to be on the level of Mildred’s addiction to media, but there is some truth in how we value our precious technology over the human connection with our friends and family. Often we find ourselves placing the importance of technology over the importance of meaningful relationships. We would rather spend our meals communicating with someone else through text, than having a conversation with the person in front of us. David Brooks describes the technologically addicted Wireless Man and Wireless Woman in his article ‘Time to do Everything Except Think’. These characters are a satirical exaggeration of how technology is unhealthily integrated into almost every aspect in our lives. As Brooks says in his article: “if you are consumed by the same information loop as everyone else, you don’t have anything to stimulate you into thinking differently.” He explains how today’s society is caught up in the virtual world rather than the real world. In Fahrenheit 451, the people are addicted to technology and media, but they are oblivious to it because it is considered the norm. Today, we are in similar situation where we don’t realize our addiction to technology and do not consider it an issue due to its widespread nature.

 

Fahrenheit 451 presents a technologically addicted society distracted from their real problems. All of the technology and media in Montag’s world creates a setting where people don’t have time to think and are too distracted to think. They don’t realize the issues of their society: “The bombers crossed the sky and crossed the sky over the house, gasping, murmuring, whistling like an immense, invisible fan, circling in emptiness.” (p. 33). There is constant war going on in Montag’s world but no one seems to care. People, like Mildred, are too absorbed by their TVs and their superficial obsessions that they don’t realize how they are being “controlled” by the government. Technology seems to be distracting and desensitizing them from violence and its effects. The people don’t realize the consequences of war, and children try to run over Montag in a car without feeling any sort of remorse or guilt. Donald Glover’s music video for his song, ‘This is America’, gives effective insight into today’s obsession with media and technology. Watching the video, we are so distracted by his dancing that we don’t realize all the horrible things occuring in the background, such as the man being thrown off the balcony. Similarly, society is too distracted by media and superficial happiness, that we don’t notice the real issues going on in our world. Glover also sings about how people film incidents with our cell phones rather than involving ourselves in aiding the situation. People are too concerned about capturing events that they don’t realize the substantiality of what is occurring in front of their eyes. Fahrenheit 451 reveals societies obsession with technology distracting us from reality.

 

Fahrenheit 451 illustrates how society’s obsession with technology can have severe negative effects. All of the bright flashing screens and stimulants in Montag’s world have the people distracted from their obvious problems. Because of Mildred’s fixation with the characters displayed on her TV parlour walls, she is immersed in a virtual world that conceals her true emotions. She is revealed to be in severe pain and depression as she subconsciously tries to end her life by overdosing on sleeping pills. The stimulating effects of all the technology and media around her, creates a distraction from her real issues involving mental health. Similarly, Beatty, confident in his belief of giving people whatever makes them temporarily happy, is also revealed to be subconsciously facing suicidal thoughts due to the lack of a meaningful life. Beatty intentionally taunts Montag to the point where Montag kills him, Beatty subconsciously knowing that would be the result. Technology and media is revealed to be the factor that causes these mental health issues to occur. Montag initially lived his life burning books mindlessly, not knowing its negative effects because of how thinking is controlled in this society. Clarisse later makes him notice the world around him and its beauty, along with its problems as well. He later understands that reading books provide a way to learn about the past in order to understand the present. He also learns that reading books allow people time to think and reflect to further develop understanding, an ideology forbidden from his community. His heroic journey reveals to us how a technologically fast-paced society is not sustainable for a healthy meaningful life.

 

People generally treat technology as a tool that helps us progress as a society. Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 reveals to us that technology has the ability to not only negatively alter the way society functions, but also hinder our ability to express emotion. Fahrenheit 451 exhibits the negative effects of technology and where our society could one day end up. The exaggerated satirical features of Montag’s society in Fahrenheit 451, helps readers further comprehend the problems with technology and media that Bradbury is trying to address. The issues presented by Bradbury in his novel will hopefully help us as a society realize the similar issues that we face.

 

Sources:

Bradbury, Ray. Fahrenheit 451. Simon & Schuster, 2013.

Brooks, David. “Time To Do Everything Except Think.” Newsweek, 13 Mar. 2010, www.newsweek.com/time-do-everything-except-think-150597.

“Childish Gambino – This Is America (Official Video).” YouTube, 5 May 2018, youtu.be/VYOjWnS4cMY.

Kim Jun Un Looking to Make Peace

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You have to right click and open in new tab.^^^ Same with my other blog logs. There’s no other way to put the link in the blog post without it becoming a photo.

This article explains how Kim Jun Un is promising to end North Korea’s nuclear program and abandon their nuclear weapons if the United States agrees to formally end the Korean War and promises not to invade his country. There is skepticism, however, over whether North Korea will honor their promise. What interested me about this article is that we are learning about the Korean War in Socials Studies at the moment and recently talked about how the Korean War has just ended. It also interested me because President Trump and Kim Jun Un are meeting in Singapore, the place where I was born. The article makes me question why Kim Jun Un finally decided to try to make peace. What is going on in North Korea that Kim Jun Un needs support from other nations? There’s no sort of war happening, so it seems that North Korea is in some sort of trouble. I liked that the author illustrated all points of views in this article, including both positions of skepticism, as well as support. The author was also very in depth and descriptive. The article in a way depicts the human tendency to be untrusting of other humans, a quality that can be both negative and positive. It can damage relationships, but also protect our well being. This quality is illustrated by how people are skeptical of whether North Korea will actually end their nuclear program so abruptly.

Our Society is Becoming More Corrupted by the Online World – Blog Log

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This article explains the Cambridge Analytica controversy. It opens up the question of the ethics of data collection and the usage of that data. It brings up the 2016 US Election where Trump’s campaign used data from this company to attract voters. It is interesting and quite scary how companies are able to manipulate data from our online Facebook profiles to influence our decisions. Cambridge Analytica didn’t even have to do any sort of hacking or security breaching to access this data either; all they did was put out surveys to collect people’s public data. Elections, such as the 2016 US Election, aren’t controlled by rational decision making anymore. It is controlled by companies and their manipulation through advertising. Who knows how else they can manipulate us? The author’s style of writing gives good insight in the way it brings out multiple points of views. It also provides a lot of quotes so the reader can depict all the perspectives on the situation. The article reveals that our world is slowly becoming similar to the one displayed in the book Fahrenheit 451, where the world is controlled by the government, and people don’t think for themselves. Instead, the government controls what people think, which is similar to how political parties are using Facebook data to manipulate how people vote. It is frightening how our world is becoming more and more like these science fiction books where the worlds seem absurd at first, but now strikingly realistic.

American Gun Retailers Take Gun Control Into Their Own Hands – Blog Log

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This article talks about how two major gun retailers, Walmart and Dick’s Sporting Goods, are taking measures to enforce gun control after the unfortunate shooting in Parkland, Florida. It’s interesting and quite ridiculous how America’s laws are so skewed. It isn’t sensible how the minimum age for an assault rifle is 18 and the minimum age to buy a handgun is 21. Why is a perilous assault rifle less restricted than a not nearly as harmful handgun. The author’s style of writing is very factual and presented objective evidence, which is often difficult to find through the internet’s sea of false reports and biased articles. The author gave a lot of reasonable insight into the issue. The article reveals the human irrationality, in the sense that these laws in place for gun control are quite ridiculous. How is it sensible that, in America, the minimum age to purchase an assault rifle is 18, when the minimum age to drink a beer is 21? Even when Dick’s Sporting Good’s is taking their own measures to restrict the purchase of firearms to the minimum age of 21, people are filing lawsuits for age discrimination. The kind of laws in place for society are definitely not perfect, and sooner or later, there will be even more severe consequences.