The Lego Movie, 2014, 4:37… “Everything is Awesome!” satirically implies that pop music convinces the masses to go with the flow, to follow social norms, and that although things are not awesome, the culture industry convinces you that it is.
The Concerted Cultivation of Spelling
Vice News, 2018, 7:12… If you keep up with the world of competitive spelling, you've noticed the 10 year winning streak of South Asian-Americans. Kids from India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh have simply dominated the competition, and the South Asian Spelling Bee circuit has a lot to do with that. Launched in 2008, the South Asian Spelling Bee is an elite circuit whose alumni account for a decade of spelling dominance in the nation's most competitive spelling competition.
Algorithmic Policing
Where are the women in art?
Sex Robots (SFW)
ABC News, 2018, 7:27… The makers of Real Doll (the most like-life sex dolls) have built AI into their latest models, creating a conversation partner akin to Siri, Alexa, and other digital assistants. This development is not surprising given that digital technology has been infiltrating our love lives for years.
The Ugly Business of Beauty Apps
NYT, 2017, 4:02… You don't have to get digital plastic surgery in order to be a person online, but there are a lot of companies that strongly suggest that you do. And many of these products have a really particular idea about how we're supposed to look: super white, hyper feminine and creepily youthful.
The Clutter of Consumerism
Sexism in Chinese Tech Companies
Space for the Dead in Hong Kong
Social Settings as a Placebo
PBS NewsHour, 2018, 5:36... The placebo effect influences all types of healing, from yoga to laying of hands to remedies in your doctor's office. While researching his book, “Suggestible You”, on the science of belief, science writer Erik Vance visited healers in the U.S., China and Mexico. He has been blessed, cursed and tortured in countless ways. He joined ScienceScope to journey from Mexico to Maryland to show how these beliefs influence healing.
Gender Pricing Exposed
CBC, 2014, 15:36... See a marketing team create fictional gendered toothpaste and learn how you can combat gender price discrimination. Although this video is from Canada it touches on New York City's legislation barring such discrimination. Yet laws can't solve this issue alone as a 2015 study from the New York City Department of Consumer Affairs found that, on average, women's products were 7% more expensive than similar products for men.
Art, Taxes, and Inequality
The Decline of Public Space
The New Wave of American Masculinity
Vice, 2016, 22:11... VICE UK Correspondent Gavin Haynes has come to the United States to determine what masculinity means to the American man. Though stereotypically masculine acts like fraternity hazings, monster truck rallies and food competitions still persist, there is a growing movement of men who are coming together to challenge these conventions and redefine machoism. Gavin meets with a host of these men, including a competitive eater, a troupe of stay-at-home-dads and a radical men's group hosting a slumber party in the woods, to survey the evolution of American masculinity for himself.
Planned Obsolescence
The Jim Crow Museum
Vice News, 2018, 5:41... David Pilgrim, a Black sociologist, runs the Jim Crow Museum of Racist Memorabilia out of the small, white, Trump-voting town of Big Rapids, MI. With the help of private donors like Chuck and Ward, an elderly gay couple, Pilgrim believes that sharing his expansive collection can change the way racism is perceived in the United States.
