MCJ

What Do We Do with the Art of Monstrous Men? (5200)

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Claire Dederer’s article touched on an issue that has been on the minds of many throughout the whole #MeToo movement. She asks the question, ‘Is it okay to still enjoy the art of those who have hurt and taken advantage of others?’ She opens the article by listing off the names of famous men that have been accused or convicted of sexual assault or harassment. Anyone paying attention to the news in 2017, when the article was published, would immediately be tuned into the subject of the article, if the title didn’t already give it away. She lists 17 names, most of whose allegations we have known about for years, and all of which have at least one renowned work of art or attribution to their name. Doing this, she sets up the juxtaposition between fame and accountability well. 

Hearing a woman talk about her conflicted feelings about liking the art of men who hurt other women was very impactful.

MCJ

“How Elizabeth Holmes’ House of Cards Came Tumbling Down” (Vanity Fair, 5119 words.)

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Nick Bilton wrote this piece for Vanity Fair in 2016, two years prior to the publication of John Carreyrou’s Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies of a Silicon Valley Startup (which I must confess that I have yet to finish, but I am getting there.) It’s a piece which clearly profiles a now-famously delusional person, whose story rose to prominence again in the last year or two as the stories of other delusional scammers became the subjects of different stories much like this one. Bilton here profiles the things which are now widely known about Holmes: her jarringly deep voice, her obsession with Steve Jobs and subsequent affinity for black turtlenecks, undisclosed and professionally inappropriate relationship with an important employee. 

He also does well to shed light on many other things which have become well known details surrounding the massive and criminal decline of Theranos. Holmes dropped out of Stanford without having received her degree but having shared her idea for a patent: a device which would run thousands of tests on a pinprick’s worth of blood, tests able to determine a wide variety of future medical decisions a patient might make. Bilton does a great job of making sure that the reader knows that while this might be a good idea in theory, there’s absolutely no way that it worked. Holmes put people in harm’s way and swindled a massive amount of money out of a lot of prominent people (and a lot of people just looking to invest some of their savings into a Silicon Valley startup.)I think there’s a lot of potential steals to be found here.

MCJ

What Do We Do with the Art of Monstrous Men? (5200)

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Claire Dederer, the author of this piece, does well to introduce many concepts of human characteristics and conditions with a simple question: “what do we do with the art of monstrous men?” She begins with some background about said monsters- Bill Cosby, Woody Allen, Roman Polanski, and the like- and what they have done. They’ve been accused of and defamed for horrendous crimes like rape and assault, but their works remain important to their successes. They live within the art they produce, so how exactly do we separate these seemingly genius works from their seemingly demonic creators? Dederer uses an anecdote of her own to illustrate how she feels, and to suggest how others might feel, when faced with this dilemma: what do we do with the art of monstrous men? This strategy really pulls the reader’s attention, as it seems like she is speaking to you directly.

MCJ

What Bullets Do to Bodies (7800 words)

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In Jason Fagone’s article, “What Bullets Do to Bodies,” he takes an in depth look at the experiences of a trauma surgeon working at Temple University Hospital, specifically at her experiences with shooting victims. From the very first line, the reader is drawn in by the subject of the article saying that said article would be pointless. This paired with the title of the piece immediately made me want to keep reading. 

The strongest aspects of this article are it’s emotional appeals. Something about a long form profile made the subject even more impactful; centering the story around someone that not only deals with victims nearly everyday, but who has also been doing it for 30 years offers a unique perspective on the subject. Looking at the issue from a hospital is something that the average person would not give much thought to. You can hear about shootings on the news, but it’s always talked about very clinically.

MCJ

You’re Wrong About… Anna Nicole Smith

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Maybe this is cheating, since I’ve been a regular listener of You’re Wrong About for about a year (or whenever I went down the rabbit hole of retrospective reading/listening concerning Monica Lewinsky--and their episode about her is wonderful,) but my favorite episode of YWA was re-released over Valentines’ Day weekend, and I decided to give it one more listen. I knew it was a piece of content that had really given me a new perspective on a situation in our popular culture, and I wanted to revisit that. The “Anna Nicole Smith” episode was one of the first YWAs that I ever listened to. Having been 9(?) when Smith died, it wasn’t a situation with which I was particularly familiar outside of having seen her face on the cover of magazines after she died. This particular episode brings into perspective a lot of the things we don’t think about often when the name Anna Nicole Smith comes to mind--”If they made some prestige Anna Nicole Smith documentary on Netflix today, it would win a thousand Emmys next year.” is one of my favorite statements in this episode, and it seems to be true.

MCJ

The Babysitter’s Club (3,037 words)

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https://reallifemag.com/the-babysitters-club/

Reading through The Babysitter's Club, I already related to the very beginning, specifically the discussion of "caretaker speech". I might have found it nice as a kid, but the use of condescending language like "doggy-woggy" is the most insufferable and patronizing garbage ever. It treats kids as if they're stupid and pacifies them from actually understanding the world around them. This leads to a perfect segue on how Seamless ads manipulate people with "cool" and "hip" language that tries to be like a cool, hip teenage babysitter. In a way, the whole article does a great job segueing from subject and subject going to Yelp to Venmo to Uber to even Pokemon Go (remember when that was a thing?).

MCJ

The Atlantic The Paranoid Style of American Policing Ta-Nehisi Coates December 30, 2015 (1092 words)

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The topic of this piece focuses on the unnecessary fatal force police officers use against people who are allegedly posing a threat on society. The writer describes a time in their youth when their father was able to easily disengage a fight with one of their brother’s friends. This friend was not always known to be “stable” and sometimes looked for trouble. One day this friend decided to pose a threat by swinging a metal stake around and the writer’s father came out to disengage the young man. The most important note of this piece is that words, not violence were used to de-escalate the situation.

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Media Consumption Journal

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Jeremy Gordon, “Is Everything Wrestling?” (1825 words)

The comparisons made between the fake wrestling seen on TV and the reality TV shows people indulge in, are quite striking. As Gordon points out, fans of WWE are often looked down upon by outsiders. But the outsiders are the same one's elbow deep into Kim Kardashian’s life and the whirlwind of politics we think we’re ever so educated on. We are all like the fans of WWE, believing something that we know isn’t fully true. Until we accept that, we will follow the same theatrics.

MCJ

College Admissions

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The Atlantic article “College-Admissions Hysteria Is Not the Norm” written by Alia Wong examines the competitiveness and exposure that extremely selective schools receive from the media. Every year, there are reports on the acceptance rates of the Ivy League and other competitive schools. However, it is important to recognize, Wong argues, that many of the schools that students attend accept “more than half their applicants.” Wong is criticizing the fact that the majority of schools that students will actually attend do not receive the same amount of media attention. I find this to be important because many high school students feel that in order to become successful, one must attend one of the high-profile schools. However, success is determined by the amount of effort one is willing to put into their education and their career.