TOPIC: If you were writing social satire, like Voltaire, what aspect(s) of society would you satirize? Explain.
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People have a need to get the next big thing-no matter how unnecessary it may be. This applies to people of all ages. Whether you 4 and have to have the Tickle Me Elmo doll because Mary from Ms. Richardson's class has it to, or if your 15 and HAVE to have cell phone that can do almost everything except maybe turn on your car. This continues on to your adult life. If you like to cook, you may need a Mechanical Egg Cracker-after all it's SO hard to crack an egg- or, you may need a Twirling Spaghetti Fork, which does exactly what it sounds like-twirls you spaghetti for you.
ReplyDeleteIf your more of a Wii person, how many times have you been playing the Wii when suddenly, the Wii remote dies? Well a solution for that would be the Battery Powered Battery Recahrger. Yes, someone was stupid enough to invent a battery recharger that runs on batteries. Drive a lot? Then this inventions for you! It's a device that determines when you hit something if it was a pedestrian or not. Really. I guess its hard for people to tell the difference between a big metal pole and a person's face smashed against their windshield. And it totally matters AFTER you hit the person. Or, you could get Goodyear Illuminated tires. They are tires that shine brighter than your average lamp. You know just in case people can’t see your giant car driving past.
Humans shouldn’t be the only ones who get to enjoy such things! What about your dog Sparky? The Perfect Pet Petter is the invention for him. A plastic hand comes out of a box and moves in petting motions. Sparky will never know the difference between a bony plastic hand or human touch right? Speaking of hands, have you ever been asked for a “high five?" If not, not only do you lead a sad life, but maybe you need an Apparatus for Simulating High Fives. Yes, a guy (Albert Cohen to be exact) actually spent over $10,000 to invent a bulky machine that can be used (and I quote) "Unfortunately as known in the art a 'high five' requires the mutual hand slapping of two participants...as such a solitary [sports] fan is unable to perform a 'high five' to express excitement during a televised sporting event." Sure, get rid of the beautiful vase on my coffee table. I MUST get this big bulky weird looking metal hand.
Yes, people are actually stupid enough to invent such things. Worse, there are even more people out there who would buy such things. Next thing you know, someone will be buying a patent on a machine that ties your shoelaces for you. If these people could use their obviously smart minds (the person-car device actually uses really advanced and useful technology) elsewhere, wouldn’t the world be a better place? Now me? I’m off to my local Good Year to buy myself a set of illuminated tires. Although crazy, they’re also pretty cool. But mostly crazy.
When I see commercials about kids from overseas, or even people from overseas that are in bad conditions, and how you can spend a little under a dollar a day to help them. I start to think "So you can have commercials for people across the seas, but not for people and children in your own nation?"
ReplyDeleteOn a single night in January 2008 there were 664,414 homeless people in the United states. In a given week 842,000 are homeless. This number swells to 3.5 million over the course of a year, that's about 1% of the US population (The US population is the 3rd largest in the world as well).I find this statistic helarious, we can afford to give people around the world a little food and happiness while there are people in our own streets that are starving, jobless, homeless.
We owe China around 2 and 1/2 trillion dollars, yet we continually buy things from them that causes our debt to rise. (go around your house and just count how many things u have that say "made in China"). The US is turning into a "giving nation" in which we continually look out for others but never ourselves. I say "HOW DARE YOU UNITED STATES OF AMERICA!?!?!!"
Of course being highly hypocritical of certain things I probably would send a little money to some poor kid in another nation once in my lifetime. =_=
Manufacturers make millions off of toys and other unnecessary things and in other places in the world can’t even buy a house. Almost everywhere in Canada and USA people have access to clean drinking water and on the other side of the world people are drinking out of dirty rivers. The rich and poor parts of the world are horribly unbalanced. By just spending money on the things absolutely necessary for life we could level that unbalance but we choose not to. There is also the unbalance in gluttony across the world. In the USA region there are people that eat more than they need then throw out enough to save someone from hunger. There are restaurants and cafes when only a few hundred or so years ago people lived off the food they grew themselves. Having to go out into the fields and pull a potato out of the ground now just head to McDonald’s and order French fries. Although this easy access to food is not everywhere making it truly unfair that only a few countries are this spoiled. Satirizing these points would be easy considering the drastic changes the money and food access in the world.
ReplyDeleteLabels. These days everyone is obsessed with labels. The jock, the nerd, the rich, wealthy guy with the nice Porsche. These words are words that shape todays society. Not only do these labels shape society, brand names like Forever 21 or Audi, or even Apple shape the society. Everyone is worried about fitting into the "right" label. Making sure that they are not casted as an outsider by the people around them. To many people are worried about the material items, making sure they have the iPhone 4 or the next line of clothes that just came out. They could care less that about 10 miles away thousands of people are starving and that these people have been wearing the same clothes for months. People these days could care less about that. It doesn't even phase them because they are the ones that have an brand new outfit lined up for everyday of the week.
ReplyDeleteThere are to many people that try to fit into what we call the "norm." Meaning, to many people are trying to fit in the standards that today's society has set up. People, especially teenagers, are the ones that get caught up in this mess. They're still trying to find themselves still and as a result they try to fit in by dressing with the latest name brand clothes or watching the right t.v. shows and listening to the right music. They try to center themselves around what they see on the t.v. and in magazines.
The fact that everyone has this obsession with labels and conforming to what everyone else is doing and wearing is something satirize. Everyone no matter who you are take in to consideration what people with think of you, no matter what you are doing. Whether it's buying a new outfit from American Eagle or buying a new apple computer, people always think about how it will portray them in society. Some people can say that they don't care what people think about them or what they wear or what kind of car they drive, and that may as well be the truth but at some point in their life they did care about what people thought of them. They cared about what kind of clothes they were wearing or what cell phone they had. That's something to satirize. The obsession that people have with conforming to society so that they are not labeled as an out cast.
If I were to satirize anything about our society today, it would probably be gun control. I believe that our country's gun policy, that may havee been necessary in the 1700's when everyone hunted for their own food, is now quite outdated and responsible for many preventable deaths. What really made me choose this topic was the recent shooting of congresswoman Giffords by a young man who obviosly had problems, and was allowed to buy a gun because he hadn't yet committed a violent crime. He then went on to shoot twenty people, killing six, including a nine year old girl. If I were to write satirically about america's gun control policy, I would probably do it in Voltaire's style and write a fictional story that mirrors real life situations. I would write a story about a man similar to Giffords shooter that also paralleled other media heavy cases that showed the negative effects of this country's lienuent gun policy.
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