On Why "Awkward" Has It Wrong

I have a dirty little secret.  I watch MTV.  Specifically, I watch Girl Code and Awkward.  That's right: my media consumption is not limited to BBC News, CNN, the NY Times and Wall Street Journal, HBO, and the internet.  Shocking, I know.  MTV's Awkward endeavors to present the life of a socially-awkward American blogger in high school.

But MTV has it wrong.  Not that this really surprises me, since MTV also gets Skins, the people who go "down the shore," and a lot of other things wrong.  But as much as I love Awkward, it is in no way because it accurately portrays the life of a blogger.

The show treats blogging like a tell-all confessional diary on the internet.  And for some bloggers, this is probably the case -- especially if those bloggers are, say, 13, which I assume is the market MTV is shooting for with this show.  But for most bloggers late into high school and into college, the posts are typically less about which boy is fighting for your attention and more about how you see the world.

Do I post life updates on my blog?  Absolutely.  Because they help contextualize the things I have to say, and also because they make for useful excuses when I've been bad about regularly updating, not because I fool myself into thinking my readers actually care about my exam schedule.

People still keep diaries, and some people are silly enough to make their deepest, darkest secrets open to the internet viewing public.  But that's not what most awkward teenage/twenty-something bloggers are doing with their blogs.  They're trying to change minds, spread awareness of issues, comment on social change and new media, not complain about the fact that their ex and their current boyfriend are fighting over them.

Also, that's not even awkward.  But it does make for interesting television.

The fact remains, though, that when this is how bloggers are represented in traditional media (kind of like how the movie Hackers presents hackers, which is not at all like what hacking actually is or what hacktivists do), it delegitimizes the medium.  Most bloggers see themselves as the voices of new media, their work taking the place of traditional Op-Eds in a world where print media is dying out.  Positing the work of bloggers through the lens of a girl who uses the internet to work out her petty relationship problems takes away from the legitimacy of bloggers, teenage girls, and the internet generation.

Don't get me wrong, though -- I would pay good money for Tamara's wardrobe and vocabulary, and Jenna Hamilton's life is ceaselessly amusing.  Just don't confuse what she does with what most bloggers are trying to do.

Unapologetically yours,
Rachel Leigh

On Schadenfreude, Falling For Your Best Friend, and Terrible Television

This post is decidedly not intellectual in the slightest. Please do not try to decipher an intellectual or pseudo-intellectual message from within it. I appreciate your cooperation in this matter.

So, my darling readers, as I'm sure you've come to understand, I have an addiction to bad television. And good television. Okay, just television in general. And my roommate does not help with this matter.

Recently added to our repertoire are such delights as Blue Mountain State, which I have to confess is actually ridiculously funny; Ridiculousness, which really just makes me want to lock Rob Dyrdek in a cupboard somewhere until he agrees to stop trying to be Daniel Tosh; and, thankfully, new episodes of South Park which, while mildly offensive and occasionally depressing, give me faith in the world's ability to laugh at itself. But what I really want to talk about is a new show on MTV called "Friend Zone."

The concept is slightly adorable, I confess. A guest on the show comes on and admits that they have feelings for their best friend and would like to take it to the next level (move out of the metaphorical Friend Zone). The episode progresses with the friend helping them to plan a date for "someone special" and then right before the date is supposed to begin, the guest reveals their feelings to their friend, in hopes that the friend will agree to go on the date that was really intended for him/her.

This concept is cute...supposing the friend says yes or returns the feelings. But let's take a moment to look at this a different way -- what if they say no? I have two major complaints here. The first is that it seems incredibly sadistic to watch someone get their heartbroken on national television. This show would be entertaining if the endings were always happy, but to delight in watching some poor kid who put their heart on the line get turned down (and probably ruin a good friendship forever), is a kind of schadenfreude that leads me to worry about the human race. Not that a lot of things don't do that. See Rob Dyrdek's "Ridiculousness" for examples of other things that test my faith in humanity.

My other problem here is that anyone who legitimately cares about your feelings, I would think, wouldn't turn you down on national television. If someone is really your friend and they ask you on a date on a reality show, your thought process should probably be "I may not like him/her like that, but the only thing worse than getting turned down would be getting turned down in front of millions of viewers." And then you suck it up and go on the date...then break the news to them after. Because someone who would knowingly humiliate a good friend on television probably needs a lesson or two in what being a friend entails. Like, y'know, a bit of self-sacrifice and some compassion for the people you supposedly care about.

Just my input. Anyone with some quality/terrible TV suggestions, I would love to hear them!

Lovingly yours,
Rachel Leigh

On Bad TV and Life in General

Okay, my darling readers, I am SO sorry. I have been a horrible horrible blogger. It is now September, which I believe means I've gone two months without a post.

My last 6 weeks or so have consisted of logic, economics, Ancient Greek philosophy, club meetings, bizarre trips to downtown Richmond, wonderful amounts of sushi, and bad television.

A lot of bad television.

My roommate and I go back and forth between watching MTV, Comedy Central, and the GOP debates. I don't know which I have a harder time taking seriously. I might be kind of obsessed with Awkward, and Fox's new series New Girl just deepens my unhealthy obsession with Zooey Deschanel.

I think, though, that the most entertaining aspect of our television-watching is definitely the running list of GOP/Tea Party debates. They are far too entertaining. I find Michele Bachmann to be one of the most entertaining examples of human insanity I have ever seen ever. Making the back-asswards statement that HPV vaccinations have been linked to "retardation" (which will never be politically correct, nor will it ever be factually accurate) is just so ludicrous that I cannot even begin to comprehend it. Ms. Bachmann, you entertain me.

Vegetatingly yours,
Rachel Leigh