The World Wide Web of Lies

 
By Jillian Jenée

 

Sitting on your couch waiting for the guy you met online to pick you up for your first date, you gaze romantically at his profile picture. You “ooh” and “ahh” over his big smile and perfectly straight, white teeth as well as his gorgeous blonde hair, and big, baby blue eyes. You blush as you scroll down and see a muscular torso, tall stature, and huge bulge in his Hanes underwear. You close your eyes and drift off into a dream of what your lives will be like in ten years when you’re married with kids.

Suddenly, the doorbell rings. You jump up from the couch and without a thought, open the door and there he stands — a five-foot-tall, sixty-year-old man with two strands of grey hair laying flat atop his head, his dentures hanging partly out of his mouth and the skin on his face drooping far under his chin. He hands you a bouquet of red roses and says, “You look even better in person.”                 

He pulls out a flip phone from the front of his fanny pack and shows you the naked picture you thought you sent to the hottie last night. “This is you, isn’t it?” Old Man River asks with a huge smile.

Thinking that this has to be a cruel joke one of your girlfriends is playing on you as an April Fools’ prank, you look around outside for that tall, handsome, blonde hottie, but no one else is there. It’s just you and Old Man River.
                                       
This is not a mere hypothetical scenario. “Catfish,” the MTV reality show about online relationships, reveals these kinds of situations every week. (And as we all probably know by now, Notre Dame linebacker Manti Te’o recently fell victim to a fake-girlfriend hoax.)                                                                                                  
The freedom and anonymity of the internet makes us all susceptible to scammers.

          

I cannot even count how many times I’ve talked to guys online only to find that they are completely different from the people they claim to be. These perverts change their names, steal pictures from random people on Facebook, and lie about their lives. Some of them even go as far as to offer you money for sex.

           

Online communication can be highly dangerous because sometimes, no matter what people tell you, there is no way of knowing if it’s true. You may find yourself sharing an intimate connection and starting a close relationship with one impostor after another. Social media can cast a spell and evoke trust in people you’ve never physically met. Before you know it, you may find yourself submitting to your cyber-date’s request for R-rated pictures of yourself. This lack of inhibition online lends credibility to the saying “out of sight, out of mind.”

As “Catfish” shows, many cyber daters aren’t who they appear to be, lying about their job, hometown, age, and even their gender and ethnicity. 
                                                                                        
But don’t let that completely discourage you from engaging in online communication. If you use it well, it can be quite beneficial. Talking to friends, teachers, and distant relatives when face-to-face communication is unavailable is completely safe and helps keep those relationships alive. Many websites like Facebook, Twitter, etc. also have privacy policies that you can set up to fit your needs, so that only the people you want to see your profiles, tweets, and statuses can see them. Being social online can also be a great way of networking and making new friends.                                  

Just make sure you are careful about the information you send out to people and be wary that the Internet is accessible to anyone. Once you put something out there, you can’t take it back. As a character in the film “The Social Network” says, “The Internet isn’t written in pencil, it’s written in ink.”
                     
Be sure to listen to Media Matters this Saturday, 11 a.m., on WCRD, as the organization will talk about the implications of such online communication and if social media outlets can ever produce true reflections of their users.

Meet Media Matters

Hi, my name is Sam, and I’m a media addict.

Like many college students, I’ve long dreamt of being able to honestly refer to YouTube-surfing as research. Media Matters made that dream a reality. The day I found myself with the club’s president Rick Belbutoski, listening to “Tipsy” and studying other media depictions of drinking, I felt right at home.

The great philosopher Confucius said, “Find a job you love and you’ll never work a day in your life.” Media Matters provides that kind of job — one that never feels like a chore and aims to offer fun, enriching opportunities unlike any you’ve had before, namely giving you the freedom to explore what you want.

These days, most of us are explorers of media. From Facebook to “The Real Housewives of New Jersey,” media consumes us. Media Matters allows me to shed my consumption guilt and put my media addiction to good use.

The best part of this whole enterprise is not just studying media, but the feeling that we are making it. It’s not every day that you get to enjoy and contribute to a field you love. Butterflies still flutter in my stomach when I go on the radio show or sit down to write a blog. Working in the media is an exciting, daunting task — it's like holding a giant mirror up to society and telling the world what you see. I can’t think of anything else I’d rather do. And thanks to Media Matters, I’ve never been happier as a media addict. — Sam Watermeier

What is Media Matters? A Word from Our President

When I first learned about Media Matters, it wasn’t the organization that it is today. I went to the TCOM Super Party last fall and found it there. Though at the time it wasn’t as active a group, I immediately believed in the idea behind it. That wonderfully alliterative name — Media Matters — jumped out as a relevant idea.     

By the end of the fall 2012 semester we had broadcast four radio shows. I had recruited Joey Parrish, Bethany Wesley, and Sam Watermeier to join me in figuring out what this organization was going to become. Last week we celebrated show lucky number 13, a newly renovated Facebook page, and a blog that has grown right along with our organization’s identity.

We have sought to create a niche in tackling one issue related to media or pop culture every week, but this week we reflect in a behind the scenes look at what we are, why it’s so important to us, and where we’re headed in the future.

The “10 cent tour” of what we do is study a different subject related to media every week and share our thoughts through commentary both on our radio show and the blog, but the “10 cent tour” barely scratches the surface.

The radio show requires an average of four to seven hours every week to produce. The blog demands multiple drafts, meeting time, and revision before it’s finally posted. In regards to the commentary we produce we aim for excellence.

Though it sounds like a lot of work, the process is almost always delightful. I couldn’t ask for a better group of people to work with. We have gotten to know each other as more than just associates; we are friends, investing in each other’s lives, picking each other up when we’re down, and cheering each other on every step of the way. — Rick Belbutoski

Photos by Tracy Attaway

The Forbidden Allure of Alcohol

By Sam Watermeier

“In this country, when you say ‘don’t’ to a kid, it really means ‘do.’” So said Lionel Richie in a comment that’s just as relevant today as when he said it in an episode of “Politically Incorrect” fifteen years ago.

Richie was speaking about the forbidden allure of alcohol, the way the mystery surrounding it only draws kids closer to it.

In America, drinking is a rite of passage. It’s encouraged as a way of transitioning into adulthood. Hell, here at Ball State, one of my professors even suggested sipping a little Scotch to calm our nerves while writing our term papers.

Throughout my three years in college, I’ve noticed a largely playful attitude about drinking; parents and professors often smirk when the subject is broached.

Drinking is fun and socially accepted, but it’s also unhealthy and dangerous. However, unlike tobacco, alcohol hasn't lost its allure. Characters in TV shows and movies are still seen knocking back drinks, but it’s rare to see them lighting up. There is even talk of taking smoking out of PG-13 movies to prevent teenage tobacco use.

St. Patrick’s Day is coming up — a day synonymous with drinking. (It's practically as much of a requirement as wearing green.) This is further evidence that our culture tightly embraces the notion that being sober excludes someone from fun. No one seems to realize that drunkenness is really an artificial kind of fun. Alcohol is a social performance enhancer, often referred to as "liquid courage." (It helped Denzel Washington miraculously crash-land a plane in "Flight!")

The seductive quality of alcohol perpetuated by the media is seemingly impossible to subvert. Even in a film like "Flight," which exposes the dangers of alcohol, the consumer at the center of it exudes a sexy-cool allure. (Just look at that handsome devil.)

As long as the media associates alcohol with this image, its dangers will never be fully acknowledged.

We don't have to make the same associations as the media though. Be conscious of the dangers of drinking. And please drink responsibly.