Men on horses. Books on decisions. Tweets of sour, sour rage. The future archaeologists who scrounge for intact iPads among our bony remains may never quite understand the cacophonous, tongue-in-cheek media of 2010. But that is fine by us. Remembered here are our favorite 2010 media happenings. Click the icons below to explore.
Music
Taylor Swift’s Speak Now
by Kimberly Alters, sports writer and photographer
Whether or not you’re glad she spoke now, Taylor Swift’s message has been heard loud and clear: Yes, you can still sell a CD. Her third album, Speak Now, sold more than a million copies in its debut week, the first record to do so since 2008.
Now, you may have heard of a little program called iTunes, which launched in 2001. As of February 2010, over ten billion tracks had been downloaded from the iTunes Store. Take into account the Amazon Music Store, Rhapsody and dozens of other music downloading sources both legal and illegal — and CDs have problems. Why go out to buy an album when you can sit in your cushy wooden desk chair with a burger in one hand while the other is clicking away, getting music immediately?
Enter Taylor Swift. With her distinct curly locks and bright blue eyes, she’s won the hearts of millions across the globe (and apparently a few boys, if you’ve ever listened to her songs). And so, with 1,047,000 copies sold in its debut week, Speak Now beat Lil Wayne’s Tha Carter III from 2008 and had the best sales week of the last five years.
Yes, you can attribute a hearty amount of those sales to doe-eyed girls begging their moms to drive them to — well, wherever you can find a CD these days — and buy them a copy. Then, credit the teenagers who bought the disc and made their boyfriends listen to Taylor sing about all the things they should be doing.
Still, the huge success of Speak Now is a reflection of brilliant marketing. Sure, Taylor has as much appeal as every other girl who moved to Nashville with a big dream and a guitar and blah blah blah. That’s second to stellar advertising. But by keeping America’s sweetheart largely out of the spotlight for a year, no one got sick of her. In fact, they kind of missed her.
As a result, the anticipation for Speak Now was so big that in an age where CD stores go bankrupt and iTunes can raise its prices by $0.30 without a care, media was suddenly predicting this album to top the elusive million-sale mark. Then, by sending out copies to just about everywhere, Big Machine Records made sure that people saw those golden curls on the pretty cover of a CD at Starbucks or Wal-Mart or wherever and thought about how it’d been a while. Shoppers bought Speak Now because it was just too charming and convenient to pass up.
So record industry, take note. It is still possible to sell physical CDs. You just need a likeable artist, great marketing and maybe some help from Kanye West. But hey, let’s have some sympathy for Kanye. Critics loved his rival release, My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, and Rolling Stone crowned it the top album of the year — and it still sold about half a million in its debut week. Kanye, we’ll let you finish, but Taylor had the best debut week of 2010.
B.o.B.
Max Brawer, marketing director
I remember where I was when it happened. I was driving into Chicago at night in a friend’s car, taking advantage of a rare opportunity to listen to the radio. Hopping station to station was like hopping from one Ludacris song to the next. We tuned it out and started talking, but then, out through the chatter came the upper-mid frequencies of an old-school drum loop. Then came the warmth of a modest, yet jazzy electric piano. On the strings, a perfectly reverberated guitar hit and a bass line far too dirty for pop radio. The singer and rapper, then unknown to most, traded from verse to chorus to leave a little something for everyone. All in all, it was that perfect mix of pop, hip-hop and R&B that white kids like me dream of at night.
So began the Adventures of Bobby Ray (B.o.B.) and Bruno Mars with a nothin’ on you, baby.
“Nothing on You” entered the airwaves during a dancy period in popular music. Not that I don’t love the tunes of Ludacris and Taio Cruz, but they had reached a Euro-like dominance that this country hadn’t seen in some time. Student talent-booking groups joked that it was “the year of the Keg” — that is to say, the hits worth bringing were all mostly the club tracks you would hear at Evanston’s favorite dive. Ke$ha, Rihanna, Beyonce, Katy Perry ruled the world, or at least the charts. B.o.B. challenged that paradigm by bringing some emotional soul back to the pop game. Less grinding, more grooving.
When B.o.B.’s album The Adventures of Bobby Ray was released months later, “Nothing on You” was still in rotation, peaking at #1 on the Billboard Chart. The second single, “Airplanes was as much of a genre-bender as the first. One version of the song featured vocals by Hayley Williams of Paramore, and the other featured Eminem. “Airplanes” spent 36 weeks in the top 100, and when it started to slip, Bruno Mars returned with an album all his own, Doo-Wops & Hooligans. One album a piece and B.o.B. and Bruno already have six singles and 12 Grammy nominations between them. The public has spoken — it’s safe for to take a dance break and mellow out. Here’s to another year of these fedora’d trailblazers, together or apart.
Robyn
by Nolan Feeney, entertainment editor and print senior editor
None of Robyn’s songs make quite the statement like “Don’t Fucking Tell Me What to Do.” With a title like that, how could it not? Unprepared listeners will need a few listens before they’ll appreciate the pulsing electro anthem’s unconventional structure (tip: skip the first 30 seconds), but the track says a lot about why the planet’s “most killingest” pop pixie owned 2010.
It’s the first song off the first installment of Body Talk, the three-part album series that has delivered nearly two-dozen songs since June. Like Lady Gaga’s “Telephone” and M.I.A.’s /\/\/\Y/\ did this year, the song addresses the theme of overcommunication, but in way everybody can understand, not just the service-less club-goers (Gaga) and conspiracy theorists (M.I.A.). Its 3D, Twitter-powered music video proves Robyn’s in touch with the times, and the track’s overall message reminds you that Robyn — who founded her own label to boost creative control — is still in charge. In short, it’s pop music at its most innovative, but it’s also just one of the ways Robyn wowed us.
Across Body Talk’s installments, Robyn is a dubstep diva (Pt. 1’s “Dancehall Queen”), a rapping revolutionary (Pt. 2’s Snoop Dogg collabration “U Should Know Better”) and a lovable other woman (Pt. 3’s “Call Your Girlfriend”). She knows when to be sweet (“Hang With Me”), but she also knows when it’s time to shake her stuff (“Criminal Intent”). And as her contemporaries have figured out with songs such as “Firework,”“We R Who We R,” and “Raise Your Glass,” one of the most important tasks a pop star can perform is creating an all-inclusive space for fans who feel they don’t fit in. 2010 made an excellent soundtrack for underdogs everywhere and Robyn is no exception. Few artists capture the feeling of being an outsider quite like she does, and her touching tales of dancefloor loneliness — especially Body Talk’s first single, “Dancing On My Own” — are empowering in their universal qualities.
Books
Jon Krakauer’s Where Men Win Glory
by Eddie Rios, features editor.
While writing provides the platform for expression, it also carries the adjudication of hypocrisy.
Krakauer examines the unsettling paths the military hierarchy took to cover-up the killing of Pat Tillman, former safety for the Arizona Cardinals who turned down a multimillion-dollar contract to enlist in the Army shortly after 9/11. He recounts Tillman’s life from his high school days to show the indomitable character exploited in the media after his death and juxtaposes the underdog story with missteps the Bush administration had taken in the Middle East.
Above the surface, the Bush administration tried to use Tillman as the poster child of American patriotism. Krakauer writes:
“Although it wasn’t Tillman’s intention, when he left the Cardinals to join the Army he was transformed overnight into an icon of post-9/11 patriotism. Seizing the opportunity to capitalize on his celebrity, the Bush administration endeavored to use his name and image to promote what it had christened the Global War on Terror.”
Tillman, however, expressed his contempt for the media exploitations, shunned the media and expressed fear that if something were to happen to him, the Bush administration would use him anyway. Krakauer continues:
“Following his death on the battlefield, the public’s interest in Tillman shot through the roof. The posthumous media frenzy shed little light on who he really was, however. The intricate mosaic of personal history that defined his existence was obscured by the blizzard of hype.”
The circumstances surrounding Tillman’s death reveal Gen. McChrystal, then a one-star general of the U.S. Special Operations Forces, signed off on the giving Tillman the Silver Star for his valorous battle in the enemy’s face before his funeral, despite several ongoing investigations to reveal the cause of death. Medical examiners were perplexed after news came out Tillman’s materials were set aflame before they could analyze. Tillman’s feats rekindled. Krakauer set out to show Pat Tillman represented honor and courage, but through his outward expression of character — as revealed in his journals — rather than shouts and cries.
In the last chapter, the story comes together in a rather roundabout way as Krakauer relates Tillman to Aeschylus, a man beset by context, set to fall due to his fatal flaw. Like the rest of the book, Krakauer uses the unfathomable historical juxtaposition to display the political failures that led to an outlet to cover-up the country’s woes. The outlet, however, took the form of a patriotic man opposed to the Bush administration’s agenda, but steadfast in his desire to serve his country, dying with honor in a dishonorable manner.
Jonathan Franzen’s Freedom
by Dan Camponovo, writer
At least one of next year’s big three American/English literary awards, the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Award or the National Book Critics Circle Award, will go to Jonathan Franzen’s 2010 novel Freedom. Hell, it’s possible it’ll win two or three. I’m not saying it’s not a good book — not deserving, even — but Franzen’s unprecedented 2010 wave of popularity within the American literary community, if one even exists anymore, certainly doesn’t hurt his chances. Franzen graced the cover of the Aug. 23 issue of Time, the first American author to do so since Stephen King (maybe you’ve heard of him) did so a full decade earlier. Freedom’s rush of hype most probably comes from Franzen’s 2001 novel, The Corrections, arguably the most celebrated American novel in decades, and the 9-year hiatus Franzen took to hammer out his follow-up. For whatever reason, Franzen is marketable, as marketable as an American author has been in a century — a marketability folks like Jonathan Lethem, Denis Johnson, Elizabeth Strout, Philip Roth and Bret Easton Ellis, who have all published critically acclaimed “Best Books of 20__,” can only dream of.
George Bush’s Decision Points
by Caleb Melby, writer
When George Bush left office in early 2009, his legacy was up for debate. Ire-filled liberals promised that history books would remember the real George Bush. Republican leaders were already doing their best to forget the grinning icon of the party’s inability to deliver on promises of limited government and fiscal responsibility. How would history remember George W. Bush? For 9/11? Iraq? Katrina? The economic fallout? Or would he fade out of memory all together?
Decision Points is already altering how history will remember the 43rd president. Needless to say, the book’s scope casts the presidency in a more positive light than exists in most memories. But its impact cannot be measured by its content. Surrounding Decision Points’ release was Bush’s ascendency to the spotlight for the first time in two years. In fair-handed interviews with Matt Lauer, Brian Williams and Oprah, Bush’s folksy demeanor and straight-talk style shined. If we were previously disposed to remember the former president as an abstract amalgamation of policy decisions, these appearances helped us remember why some Americans fell in love with him in the first place.
Smirks that looked mischievous during the State of the Union address looked bemused when shared with Oprah. Vocabulary foibles seemed like natural slips of an overworked mind, and were easier to forgive of someone who wasn’t leading our armed forces. And Bush looked much more comfortable shooting the breeze with his parents than he ever did giving speeches. “Decision Points” is similarly comfortable. In no way does it indicate that Bush’s mind is troubled with dark thoughts or regrets. He seems reflective and it feels genuine. New history books remain unwritten, and we still can’t predict how they will remember The Decider-in-Chief. But Decision Points is Bush’s first noticeable effort to shape his legacy since he left the presidency. It should serve him better than eight years in the oval office did.
Stieg Larsson’s Millennium Trilogy
by Nolan Feeney, entertainment editor and print senior editor
In North by Northwestern’s television death match, writer Sean Kane referred to Scandinavia as a place full of “happy white people with no real problems.” But the late Stieg Larsson’s Millennium trilogy — The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, The Girl Who Played with Fire and The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest — introduced us to a completely different side of Sweden, where social corruption looms and where there sure are a lot of rapists.
Most importantly, the trilogy introduced us to Lisbeth Salander, one of the most captivating (and badass) literary figures in recent memory. The plots of the novels are complex and thrilling — maverick journalist Mikael Blomkvist tracks down a missing heiress and exposes sex-trafficking with the help of Lisbeth’s computer hacking skills — but what makes the series memorable and worth picking up are the characters. Lisbeth’s toughness is admirable, her vigilante justice is satisfying to those who stick around for her story, and her social awkwardness is both frustrating and puzzling. It all adds up to a character to whom I’ve never felt more attached. Not even the Harry Potter books I grew up with made me this excited about reading.
Momentum for the trilogy (named for the fictional magazine Mikael works for) has been building for some time, but this spring saw the final book, Hornet’s Nest, and the Swedish film adaptation of Dragon Tattoo arrive in the U.S. Actress Noomi Rapace’s must-watch portrayal of Lisbeth brought the punk enigma to life and won over both fans and critics — even those who weren’t thrilled with the movies as a whole.
Hollywood also took note. Not only is Rapace is getting plenty of buzz, but the hype surrounding the casting for David Fincher’s English-language adaptations made headlines as rumors of Natalie Portman and Ellen Page swirled before the Lisbeth role finally went to Rooney Mara, the soon-to-be-star from Fincher’s The Social Network. To the subtitle-averse and those unwilling to engross themselves in Larsson’s excruciatingly detailed novels, Mara’s on-screen Lisbeth will hopefully be one more reason the series is rightfully inescapable (and one more entry to a future Year in Media list, no doubt).
Stars
Isaiah Mustafa
by Denise Lu, entertainment writer
While 2009’s anthem was “I’m on a boat,” 2010’s meme was “I’m on a horse.”
The line is from Old Spice’s viral commercial campaign starring Isaiah Mustafa, which has become the fastest growing online video campaign in history.
In 33 fast-paced seconds, a smug, shirtless Mustafa plugs the men’s body wash to women by reeling off a list of womanizing offers including diamonds and “tickets to that thing you love,” claiming that, if men can’t all be like him, at least they can smell like him. Additionally, the commercial, filmed in one uninterrupted take, transitions from a shower set to a boat to a horse as Mustafa states, “anything is possible when your man smells like Old Spice and not a lady.”
The tongue-in-cheek commercial, launched on TV in February, was launched on YouTube in July, where it received record hits within a matter of hours. It was awarded an Emmy and Mustafa, previously a self-described “struggling” actor and former NFL player, burst to commercial fame. The Internet buzzed with queries of his identity and he soon began popping up in talk shows and signing movie contracts.
The uniqueness of the campaign, however, was the response that Old Spice gave. In reaction to the rave, the company filmed Mustafa in character responding in the same comedic fashion to individual comments on social networking sites such as Facebook and Reddit. Nearly 200 separate videos were posted as part of an innovative marketing campaign that directly reacted to consumer response.
According to Adweek, Old Spice body wash sales increased 107% months after the campaign, supporting the possible profitability of such advertising. Needless to say, Old Spice’s innovative campaign opened up a new avenue for companies to pursue: online advertising in conjunction with social networking.
What I want to see next: The Geico gecko addressing why he has an accent.
Paul the Octopus
by Vanessa Dopker, assistant managing editor
Highlights from the 2010 FIFA World Cup South Africa: the first World Cup hosted by an African nation, the French team’s internal breakdown, the return of Diego Maradona and an eight-legged oracle known as Paul the Octopus, this year’s runaway celebrity sea creature. Paul claimed fame by accurately predicting the victors of games played by the German national team and in the Spain-Netherlands final by eating a mussel from a box labeled with a flag from the predicted victor. (Spoiler: Spain won.)
In a tournament characterized by national divisions, Paul managed to surpass these divisions in his international appeal. The octopus’s far reaching popularity remains as mysterious as his very own ostensible mystical powers. Perhaps it was the sheer novelty of an accurate — and animal, no less — psychic in a tournament which proved that the rational transitive property does not necessarily apply to sports. Or perhaps because Paul was deemed cuter by the media than Zakumi. Or perhaps it was because Paul became an accessible icon of the World Cup that everyone — regardless of their personal team allegiance — could rally around. For the most part.
Paul’s accurate predictions, while welcome news for fans of the predicted victors, resulted in a flurry of death threats among fans of predicted losing teams (and bookies), often featuring Paul as the main entrée in an upcoming dinner. Not only did these threats invite attention to the various waysone can cook octopus, but the resulting fury among fans elicited further publicity for the octopus. Emotional toll and short lifespan of simple octopuses caught up to Paul in late October when he died in his residence in Oberhausen, Germany. Even in death, Paul the Octopus captured headlines from international publications — from The Guardian to The Washington Post — a reflection of Paul as the dark horse celebrity of this year’s World Cup.
Kanye’s Tweets
by Krislyn Placide, life & style editor
Kanye West is never starved for attention, especially since he created a Twitter account this summer. Although he doesn’t always behave himself, you have to admit that the man knows how to get the limelight exactly where he wants it — on himself.
Even if you haven’t bought or bootlegged his album My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, released Nov. 22, you may have seen his tweets, which are completely ridiculous but also quite entertaining. Kanye’s tweets are on countdown lists all over the web, and he tweets so often that the Twitterverse can’t even keep up. The New Yorker liked his tweets so much they started matching them up with cartoons. Babelgum Comedy released a series of vignettes of a little boy (who slightly resembles Ice Cube) reenacting Kanye’s tweets. They’re not particularly funny, but they are adorable.
Kanye’s Twitter is the best place to find out things you never knew — and probably never wanted to know — about Yeezy. Some classic tweets glaze the fascinating topics of Grey Goose and Swedish women, whether or not certain topics are LOLable and how he needs more church in his life. Most of his tweets err on the side of hilarity, but sometimes it seems that Kanye wants to inspire rather than entertain. Here are some of his more thoughtful tweets that didn’t make the countdowns.
“I am a creative person…. I’m not a good celebrity but I’m a great artist… I’m tired of using my celebrity to sell my art.”
“You have to balance ignorance with intellect! Can’t have school with out recess! #Greatesttweetofalltime”
“This is rock and roll life my people… you can’t stop the truth you can’t stop the music and I have to be strong or “they” win!!!!”
These inspirational tweets, retweets of his fans Twitter praise as well as Kanye’s self-admiration make up the content of Kanye’s highly visited Twitter page. Let’s have a toast for the accidental search engine optimization expert.
The Internet
Facebook Quiz: What Hogwarts House Are You?
by Maura Brannigan, opinion writer
If you haven’t seen the sixth installment of the Harry Potter films, you might as well pack up your trunk, fold up your dress robes and resign yourself to permanent Muggledom. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, the first part of which was released November 19, became completely inescapable in the weeks leading up to its premiere. Daniel Radcliffe’s deliciously toned bod was everywhere — billboards, magazines — but it was most prevalent on Facebook.
The Social Network, another obvious summation of 2010’s Year in Media, made it clear that we are a generation of communicators. As children of the Internet, we best express our relationships and thoughts through the World Wide Web, no matter how personal or irrelevant those thoughts might be.
Enter the ever-prevalent Facebook quiz, the best way to determine how evil you are or who you were in a past life (yes, real examples). The marketing geniuses behind Harry Potter decided that the best way to promote the newest film would be through Facebook, a website used by millions of adolescents and young adults worldwide for hours on end.
In the quiz, What Hogwarts House Are You?, users answer a series of 18 questions to find out which house they would be in if they were fated to sit under the Sorting Hat on their first day at Hogwarts. Everyone took it, and everyone’s results were startlingly realistic. He is such a Hufflepuff, you thought about your crush-worthy lab partner, after seeing his quiz results on his Wall and inevitably prompting a dreamy comparison to Cedric Diggory.
Just as we have grown up alongside Harry, Ron and Hermione — simultaneously grappling with acne, hormones and standardized tests (O.W.L.s, anyone?) — we have matured with the help of Facebook as well. Whether we like to admit it, both Facebook and Harry Potter have influenced our generation, and it was a viral quiz that succeeded in putting the two together.
Foodgawker
by Yehsong Kim, life & style writer
While foodporndaily.com may have incited a few hilarious parent-child misunderstandings, it was always worth the risk to be able to “click, drool, repeat” over close-up after close-up of mouth-watering food. But foodporn has been one-upped by foodgawker.com, a place where you can, yes, gawk at tantalizing photos of food, but also make it yourself.
The site is essentially a compilation of all other food blogs on the web with a clever layout of pictures and a search bar — everything you could possibly want, minus the chef. As soon as you enter, the page is filled with pleasant 4×3 photographs with brief captions, each of which leads to the respective blog when clicked. There, a gawker can usually find recipes and supplementary photos.
The proactive gawker can take a step further: utilizing the search bar, you can search for a desired food, click on the most appealing picture from the smorgasbord of choices and cook. But for those resembling myself, (lazy and stuck on campus without a kitchen) I highly recommend browsing the “popular” tab at the top of the page, sub-tab: “most-favorited: all time.” Really, all that is required of a gawker is to scroll and salivate.
Though launched June of 2008, it skyrocketed in popularity this year, recently boasting of 75,000 posts chosen from 165,000 submissions. Its popularity with submitters and viewers alike is most likely due to the easy-to-use design and the simple but smart idea of bringing foodies together to one place on the web.
Foodgawker is a part of the larger gawkerverse, founded by Chuck Lai, which also has similarly schemed sites dedicated to dwellings, weddings and crafts, but none nearly as popular as food as of yet. Basically, if you love well-composed photos of victuals and have an awkward minute in between classes, please, gawk away.
The “Bed Intruder Song”
by Alessandra Calderin, print associate editor
I adore the bed intruder remix. Among my friends I am probably the first to yell “HIDE YO KIDS, HIDE YO WIFE,” however inappropriate the situation may be. I even sing that shit in the shower. But when it comes down to it, the song and the original news story, are about a serious and very traumatic incident experienced by a young woman in her own home.
One of my colleagues here at North by Northwestern kindly forwarded me this blog post in which the author explains the way the remix has marginalized the sexual assault on Dodson and the invisibility that has ensued: “Every note we sing erases Kelly Dodson.” And as difficult it may be to swallow, the author is absolutely correct. Sexual assault has never had the mainstream attention like it does with this incident, but it’s been met with laughter, not concern.
To be fair, I highly doubt the Gregory Brothers were thinking, “damn, let’s marginalize the trauma suffered by this young woman and exploit her brother,” when they posted their video on YouTube. Remixing other people’s misfortune has become the norm nowadays and comparatively this case is not necessarily singular. Maybe that’s the most disturbing part of all this. Has schadenfreude become the primary form of viral entertainment?
We could blame it on the economy, politics or the general hot mess the world is in, but maybe we should come to terms with the real cause: human nature. It’s a lot easier to watch a funny video about a hilariously caricatured brother than one about the victim of the actual crime. Antoine Dodson himself loves the video and doesn’t see anything wrong with it and appreciates the revenue stream the song has provided.
I’m not saying the average viewer relishes in Dodson’s experience with attempted assault. Still, the drastic way the conversation shifted towards her brother and the remix that entailed does call into question our motives and our sensitivity towards the pain of others.
All this considered, belting the “Bed Intruder Song” at opportune moments would probably seem distasteful, but what can a young tech-addicted soul do? It’s only human nature — homeboy, homeboy, home, home, homeboy.
Facebook’s friendship page
by Julie Kliegman, news editor
With each Facebook change that comes about, there are millions of users who grumble about it for days straight through statuses and wall posts. The Friendship Page, which should strengthen friendships and foster intimacy, is perhaps Facebook’s most drastic and meaningful change of 2010.
This innovation sparked a new, less cranky interaction between digital friends. After the Friendship Page was revealed, people would write to their friends announcing that their “friendship picture” together was either ridiculous, cute or nonexistent. It’s not like the Friendship Page makes any more information available to the world, but it sure makes it easier to see what two people have in common in one place. Shared likes, pictures and attended events are at the ready. It’s like the episode of My Boys where Brendan tries to pick up a girl armed with only the information on her Facebook page. Why waste time trying to find common ground with a date when you already know where it is?
Either way, the Friendship Page seems to be a somewhat forced way of making online interactions feel more intimate. Facebook changed a lot on their website in 2010, including the “Like” button on comments, the notification system and the famous Facebook chat noise, but few recent modifications were more visually or emotionally shocking than this one. At least it feels almost like a self-esteem boost, in that it looks more like you have a real, heart-warming connection with the random guy from your seventh-grade gym class.
Realistically, the Friendship Page means a largely reformatted website. It also means that there’s no simple wall-to-wall feature anymore. But, most of all, the Friendship Page means that Facebook is constantly evolving into a more complex and arguably friendlier online social circle.
Journalism
Twentysomethings
by Matt Connolly, executive editor
It’s a question you may already be faced with: When are you going to grow up? Your parents did it, their parents did it — even the Rugrats did it. What’s taking you so long?
If you’re not sure yet, don’t worry. Robin Marantz Henig at the New York Times Magazine decided to answer for you. Her hefty article, published back in August at nearly 8,000 words, was met with a resounding “tl;dr” by many of the people it attempted to define. Other cultural commentators, though, had a field day. Publications from Slate to Cracked posted responses, all looking to characterize our generation.
Henig’s main point is that twentysomethings are taking longer to reach traditional adult milestones like marriage and home ownership (from the article’s photo collage, we’re presumably too busy posing for webcams and gazing pensively into fields). After leading in with two examples of youth culture — William Shatner and The New Yorker covers — Henig moves into developmental psychology work done by Jeffrey Jensen Arnett, a psychology professor at Clark University in Worcester, Mass.
Arnett believes that the 20s are a distinct life stage, much like adolescence. He calls this stage “emerging adulthood.” According to the article, emerging adulthood is marked by “traveling, avoiding commitments [and] competing ferociously for unpaid internships or temporary (and often grueling) Teach for America jobs.” Sound familiar?
It should, because we’re the ones Henig is writing about. Now I’m sure most of you have friends who aren’t even going to college, let alone worrying about going back to grad school or applying to Teach for America. Sadly, those without the money to travel or take unpaid internships are fairly absent from the article’s scope of our generation. When the New York Times Magazine writes about twentysomethings, of course, it really means ‘twentysomethings who care about the New York Times Magazine.’
So fair enough, the magazine knows its audience. Still, it’s a bit unsettling to see a large segment of media comment on how you tend to think and act. Robin Marantz Henig doesn’t know me. Maybe I can’t get a job because I’ve been listing Halo as the top skill on my resume, not because I’m mired in a new developmental phase. Why are so many writers worried about when I’m getting married?
The answer is that older Americans are curious about how we’ll handle becoming the dominant generation. In a few decades, perhaps we’ll be wondering why kids are spending ten years in college and staying with their parents through their 30s. Until then, we’ll just have to roll our eyes when we’re asked about growing up and maybe counter with a few questions of our own. After all, why’s it taking Baby Boomers so long to die?
Michael Hastings’ “The Runaway General”
by Eddie Rios, features editor
For writers, the written word becomes an empowering force of persuasion, capable of altering public perception with the allocation of information. But when that force combines with vivid storytelling, the outcomes rarely pan out.
In June, when Rolling Stone writer Michael Hastings published “The Runaway General,” it sparked admonition from within the Obama administration after Hastings quoted disparaging remarks directed toward President Obama, Vice President Joe Biden and retired Gen. Karl Eikenberry, U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan. These comments, unfortunately, came from top ranked commander Gen. Stanley McChrystal, who was eventually relieved of duty, and his entourage.
With critical storytelling, Hastings profiled a man whose storied past precluded his aberrant past beset by opportunity. McChrystal’s persona came to life: a boisterous, bedraggled man who the world’s most indomitable military into the deserted Middle East haven with a military strategy sound in reason but not in execution. When the Eyjafjallajökull eruption occurred, Hastings needed to catch a bus ride to Berlin with the general and his entourage. The memorable bus ride gave Hastings access to the personal commentary from McChrystal and his entourage — the usual bar chatter.
One moment, McChrystal led the America’s war in the Middle East; the next, he stood in front of family, friends and colleagues to formally retire and begin his next adventure behind a podium at Yale. Despite the quagmire the American troops have fallen into, such a swift action against military leadership shows such an action was a long time coming, yet all it took was the portrayal of a man chatting with his buddies to finalize the decision. But is such representation best shown at the tenuous moments in history or a sole moment, when joking with your friends unwary of the reporter’s pen running away with one’s character, is magnified?
It is known prior to the article McChrystal was not the most beloved member of the military, but the brash reportage from the media after the article’s publication put an honorable man in an overwhelming spotlight, especially as the war became ever bleaker.
The Decision
by Katie Tang, assistant sports editor
Before The Decision, LeBron James was a king. He had skyscraper-sized banners draped around Cleveland, where he brought life to the Cavaliers and promised to bring an NBA championship home. He was the NBA’s golden child, and Kobe Bryant was its villain. Before The Decision, athletes were competitors. Dwayne Wade, Chris Bosh and King James wanted to beat the best. They wanted to be the best. And they wanted to claim victory on their own. Before The Decision, Twitter updates indicated speculation. To consider tweets breaking news updates would be to consider Fox News a moderate voice in broadcast media. Before The Decision, sports reporters could trust sources. Rumors became truth because people knew the right information to back them up. Before The Decision, ESPN had specialized pages for major sports-metro regions. It wouldn’t reduce sports journalism down to a single page of worship. But on July 8, 2010, in the one-hour special heard around the world, LeBron James announced he was “going to take [his] talents to South Beach and join the Miami Heat,” changing the landscape of the NBA, of sports journalism, of Cleveland, for good.
The NPR and MSNBC firings
by Lindsey Kratochwill, managing editor
It’s no big news that journalistic entertainment is biased. Turning to Fox News or MSNBC will get you some heavy doses of news commentary, and even Comedy Central can satisfy your infotainment hunger. So when this news commentary starts making news, lines get a little blurry.
But when an analyst from the historically more liberal-leaning National Public Radio fired analyst Juan Williams this year because of “Muslim remarks,” it seemed like a clash of biases. NPR decided Williams’ statement, “But when I get on the plane, I got to tell you, if I see people who are in Muslim garb and I think, you know, they are identifying themselves first and foremost as Muslims, I get worried. I get nervous,” during Bill O’Reilly’s show this October was reason enough to give him the boot.
Williams wasted no time expressing his displeasure, using Fox News, no less, as the venting mechanism. But the firing was not out of left field, necessarily, as Williams’ status had already been shifted to analyst after stating his opinions in the public eye.
MSNBC, just a month later, showed us all that money talks in opinionated tones as well. Not long after Williams’ firing. Keith Olbermann seemed to be facing a similar fate, but this time a liberal station was hacking one of their own: the host of “Countdown with Keith Olbermann,” a biting show with slights made mainly on the part of conservatives. After Politico made public that Olbermann donated to three democratic campaigns in the midterm election, the same day that one of those candidates appeared on “Countdown.” This act was in violation the NBC ethics policy, however legal Olbermann felt it was. Olbermann was suspended “indefinitely,” which ended up lasting a very definite period of time, missing only two shows. It seemed that in this instance, for MSNBC opinions are okay, as long as they don’t come in the form of payment for a political party.
Some commenters called it a publicity stunt, but either way, when a media corporation has to report its own controversial news, it makes for an awkward situation. Perhaps in a very small, forgettable way, these events have reminded loyal viewers this year that perhaps what they are watching isn’t news anymore, per se, but something with a bit more bias to it.