MeatTubLemonSpinGirlParty 4A

Brainwashed

So I was just reading this article written by Seth Godin for my MDIA203 class.  It has a pretty good message behind it but to be honest about it overall, it’s like a relapse of the readings I had in MDIA101: a giant, cheesy, motivational mess.  However for this assignment I have to talk about two of the seven layers that Godin talks about.  One being a technique that I’ve never heard of by this title: Acknowledging the Lizard.  I call it not being a pussy or being confident.  How does this technique relate to my blog?  Well, maybe if I showed everyone my blog it would apply, but I really don’t think it does when only one, maybe two people are reading it.  Acknowledging the Lizard is basically acknowledging the part of your brain that doesn’t want to take risks or do anything out of the ordinary, and then ignoring it.  I think this video will sum up how I feel about the “Lizard” in my brain:

This is a video of me and two of my friends dressed up as a gorilla and two bananas running through Times Square.  We actually end up in the Today Show if you watch it to the end.  In my opinion if you care about what other people think or what might happen to you if you stand out, then you’ll probably never enjoy life half as much as someone who doesn’t care.  And when I say someone who doesn’t care, I don’t mean that in a negative connotation, I mean it in an extremely positive one.  Sometimes not caring is the best thing you can do.  Of course you should care about your future, your work, you friends, your family, your life, and so on, but why should you care what someone you don’t know will think about you if it could be extremely fun anyway. In fact those who don’t care about some of the things I listed could potentially and surprisingly be much happier than those who do care.  Acknowledging the Lizard allows me to say I love penis on my blog.  Disclaimer: I have no infatuation towards any penis.  See things like that I really don’t care that I put on here.  I don’t really care what my lab teacher thinks of me, I just care that she sees that I typed or spoke of exactly what the blog assignment asked for so that he or she can say: “Yup, that’s in here: 5 points.”  That’s the only way that I can think this Lizard thing affects my blog.  In terms of my career and life?  I really care what important connections think of me.  If this was my professional blog, then I would not say I love penis in it twice now.  How this affects my life… Well being in this major in the first place is taking a big risk, if I didn’t ignore the Lizard when I made this decision I’d be studying business or law right now instead of taking this potential risk.  I wouldn’t breakdance with my weak-boned shoulder, I wouldn’t have gone backstage/onstage to take pictures of Ben Folds, I wouldn’t have ran through New York in a gorilla suit, I wouldn’t have continued to snowboard after I pulled my shoulder out of it’s socket, I wouldn’t have ever touched a snowboard, I wouldn’t have ever gone to an out-of-state school, I wouldn’t have ever played a show at FrontRoom last night, I wouldn’t have ever tried cocaine, and I wouldn’t have ever said I love penis.  That list could have gone on for pages and pages but I stopped there.  You can see from reading the past two or three sentences how this Lizard has and could have potentially affected me in great ways.  If I Acknowledged the Lizard and then continued to, then I would be a completely different person right now.  And personally, I think I turned out to be better off without the Lizard. (I’ve never done cocaine, I think)

Another layer I guess I’ll talk about that I have been becoming more and more inclined towards throughout the year is Connect.  I have met so many people that know so many people that I have yet to meet.  And all of these people know other people that know other people that know important people that know more important people.  And when you know important people, you get more opportunities.  Right now I have about twenty or thirty friends from high school that went on to really good media schools such as Northwestern, Ohio University, Tisch of New York University, Syracuse University, Temple University, University of Miami, and so on.  I personally know a few people who have either graduated from college or high school and are now working in New York or Los Angeles in the media business, and I have personally talked to several local news celebrities throughout the Pittsburgh area and I actually got a pretty good internship out of one of these connections already at a sports news station.  My mother knows big media professionals in China, because she is from there and grew up with these people, so there’s already an international connection that I could use if work in America sucks.  Also all of these friends I know, if one of them becomes extremely successful, or has a friend that becomes extremely successful, that gives me a chance to become extremely successful as well.  Not that that will ever happen, but that is definitely the ultimate goal.  And if it ever did happen, I would help many, many others that I knew in high school or college get a job that they couldn’t get without me.  I love connections, and even if I hate someone I think inside: hey maybe one day I’ll end up having to call this annoying asshole… so I buy them GoodFellas pizza and that connection has been made.  How does this affect my blog?  Well, if I wanted to, I could send this to people to send this to people to send this to people and eventually it would spread to the point where I could get my pointless opinion out to many people, and if my pointless opinion began to look interesting, that group of people would continue to send out my blog until it reached the millions.  But it’s not going to so this really doesn’t apply to my blog that well because no one in the class is really reading anyone’s blog unless they have to.  But.  I am going to build a website, and when I do, I’m probably going to apply this technique to it by putting up a lot of videos I’ve created which I hope are interesting..

Anyway.  Read that article, come to think of it, it’s a short read, and it really isn’t that bad.  For some people it could cause a paradigm shift, but for most it just makes you think.