First Thoughts of YDWTKYA

So far, I feel very… disassociated with this book. I understand that the things that are happening to Piddy are terrifying - because of the bullying, heart breaking - because of the loss of her necklace, confusing - because of the story of her father, and lonely - with the moving schools and Mitzi moving away. And I can sympathize with Piddy, but I can not empathize with her or connect to her story. The narrative feels very cut and dry. If it were from Darlene's perspective I'm sure it would be much more colorful - due to her penchant for drama - but Piddy tends to just float through things. She says, as the narrator, that she is upset but we never actually shows that emotion. Until, that is, her “fight” with her mom which really doesn't sound all that bad. Three sentences of shouting vaguely hateful things and Piddy storms of and makes out with a guy we have seen her interact with twice? Seems very realistic…

Also, this book is supposed to be about bullying as the title suggests, but in reality Piddy is a very attractive and smart girl who has somehow offended Yaqui but I can't connect to her situation, because there doesn't seem to be much to react to. Chocolate milk was thrown at her and her necklace was stolen. Yes, the necklace bit was awful, but Piddy didn't show how awful it was.

I don't know, maybe I can't relate to these things because when I was in school, I was bullied a lot and it was never as simple as having milk thrown near me or an easily proved crime. None of what she has gone through so far meets my definition of bullying.

I Like to Think I'm Funny (Subvertisement)

This week in class, we have been working on Advertisements and Subvertisements. We were tasked to take an existing ad and transform it into a subvertisement (which is the process of subverting the original message to create a new message). I decide to start with an ad for the popular show, Game of Thrones. This ad is very simple in its focus, the man (Ned Stark) sitting in a chair made of swords (the Iron Throne) and the title of the show followed by a tagline: “You win or you die,” which – in my opinion – is a very apt description of the franchise. At the bottom is copyright information and where you can watch the show (HBO). 

The focus is obviously to catch the audience’s attention – specifically, the target audience is people who are already familiar with the books – by George R.R. Martin – as there really aren’t many specifics of the connotations of a man sitting in this throne. Some would argue that the audience is meant for people who have never heard of the books or show. The idea behind this response is that people who are already fans of the series will be intrigued enough to watch it without additional convincing. The dusky background and dark colors also give hints to the stylistic choices the show makes – they are dark and mysterious. It would be odd to see an ad for Game of Thrones that looked similar to an Apple ad, because there is no continuity in the style.

 

I chose to create a more politically-leaning subvertisement. The audience of this meme is made up of people who watch – or read – Game of Thrones. In the series, more often than not, someone who is not fit to rule sits on the throne (usually very corrupt or going insane) and the rest of the cast is doing underhanded things to dethrone the king – so the kings don’t really last very long… (Of course, there are other things than just uprising after uprising going on in the show, but the dethroning is what the subvertisement is trying to get at.) The change in tagline to: “You win or you’re fired” is a nod to Trump’s TV show, The Apprentice.