I just became a fan of "not being a fan"

Almost everyone in college is on facebook and has been undoubtedly asked by several of your friends to "become a fan" of "i used to blow air back into my Capri-Sun to make it look full again" or "sleeping with one leg out of the covers." Personally, I can't think of a worse idea that facebook has come up with. Not only is the fan pages just another version of the group joining trend that swept facebook last year, but it is now an even better way to exploit just how little life people have.
"Fanning" something has a less committed feel than joining a group ever did. It only barely associates you with a concept or cause. Now I believe some fan pages have their place. Personally I am fans of such things such as The Whitworthian, the Whitworth Men's Chorus, my church from home, and a friend of mine who is a singer. I'm also a fan of Bill Robinson, but then again, who isn't?
A few pages have their place. The Whitworthian posts updates about the publication from time to time and helps avid facebook users keep track of what they do. Some fan pages, people have personal stakes in, such as a music group and they can use the social networking to get the word out about the music.
It's the hundreds of extraneous fan pages I have a beef about. I see no point in becoming a fan of "I hate it when one string on my hoodie becomes longer than the other," or "Hi, Hi, who was that...I have no idea." If you look closely the only thing any of the pages have posted is a really excited couple of comments saying "OMFG we got like 1000 fans in 47 minutes!!!! Keep it going!" What have we accomplished here? The tween world has simply discovered a new way to annoy every other facebook user out there who gets requests to "fan" such pointless pages.
But then what about all the angsty high schoolers "fanning" things such as "I knew I wanted you from the moment I met you," and "I like you and you like me so why don't you just ask me out already?!?!" and "I really like you....but I can't tell you." By the way, my inspiration for this tirade was when my housemate just burst out laughing on the other side of the room at one of her facebook friends who had just become a fan of all three of those things at the same time. Teenage desperation at it's finest. Is "fanning" things becoming a new way of flirting? I hope and pray that this not be the case.
The next time, you blindly accept a fan request just so a page can obtain it's 1 billionth fan, think about why in fact you are becoming a fan "leaving post-it notes on the fridge." Defy the trends, be different, listen to Nietzsche and don't follow the Herd (yay Core 250).
I will say, for the sake of full disclosure, that I am a fan of exactly 14 pages at this time and about 10 of those actually deserve pages. I will also admit that I caved and became a fan of "Taylor Lautner shirtless," but can you blame me on that one?
♥~

A Semiotic Superbowl

So anyone in the communication department at Whitworth has taken a class in communication theory, most likely from Ron Pyle. When he starts the class he promises you that the class will ruin your life. The theories you examine will start appearing in all your everyday interactions and you will being to analyze your actions and the actions of everyone around you. Well he was right. I took that class last semester and it is still ruining my life and will most likely continue to for years to come.
The theory of semiotics, which is a theory dealing with how meaning is created through signs and symbols has entered into my mind. Maybe it's because for my Media Criticism class I read nearly 40 pages on the subject, or because I read two subsequent chapters on the application of the theory, including a whole chapter on semiotics in football. However I spent more time during the game analyzing the hidden messages in the game than actually watching it.
Whether it be the scantily clad dancers on the sidelines or the sexually charged commercials I was constantly analyzing every single thing.
This naturally led me to inform all my friends around me of what I was observing. Of course since none of them are communication majors it was slightly less groundbreaking news to them. In fact they grew quite tired of hearing about the in's and outs of the media from me. The effects of the media however should not go unchecked as the media influences nearly every single aspect of our lives through news broadcasts, radio, magazines, and advertisements. A single photo can have an incredible amount of subtle messages. Expand that to a 30 second commercial in the super bowl and you could begin to worry about indoctrination with how many subtle messages are crammed into such a short period of time. Then again who can blame them when a 30 second commercial costs anywhere form 2.5-3 million dollars! In some commercials it was unclear what company was advertising because they were so focused on flashy shots of cute animals on the Budweiser commercials, or sexually suggestive women on the notorious GoDaddy.com commercials. The commercials were not trying to show the merits of the company but simply trying to make their audience draw positive associations or images with their company. Showing a beautiful woman gets your attention more than a list of the benefits of a company. I have been watching the super bowl for years and seen the GoDaddy.com commercials and to this day I do not know what the site is for because the ads never explicitly says but for my own peace of mind I have never had the courage to go to the site to figure out what on earth it is all about. However I know there are people that are swayed by such images.
As such I would encourage people to start noticing what they notice. That maks sense if you think about it. Why do you remember what you remember? Do you remember a company based on their level of quality? Or because there was a beautiful woman talking about it. Or a talking dog advertising he product. Advertisers do not care what gets people to consume their product but maybe it should concern us what sticks in our minds.