Michael Wesch Video

The Machine is Changing Us: YouTube and Politics of Authenticity a video by Michael Wesch was a insightful video. It makes you reflect on the effect media has on your life. Mr. Wesch believes that Neil Postman’s” Amusing Ourselves to Death” is more appropriate today then when it was written more then twenty years ago. He gives an example by using the word “whatever” and how the meaning of the word has changed throughout the years. Starting out by meaning whatever - that’s want I said, before the nineteen sixties, to the whatever- I don’t care by the end of the sixties, to the MTV generation’s change from whatever to the interfere “meh” and finally to today’s whatever- meaning I’ll do what ever I want to weather you like it or not. I agree with Mr. Wesch we need to turn that whatever into I will help who ever needs help whatever it takes. We need to learn to be less selfish, to teach our children to care for one another, to be proactive in changing the world for the better for all. To answer Dr. Stranger’s questions, how does this video relate to my life? Between work and school I have very little free time, but I will admit I spend to much of it in front of the TV, when I should be spending time with my family and friends. I don’t have a typical college life, I am thirty-two years old, a mother , and a wife, my college life is interwoven with my personal life. Me and daughter have shows we watch together that brings us closer, girly shows as my husband calls them, and there are shows my husband and I watch together , and some I watch by myself, which isn’t hard since we have three TV’s in the house and four computers. My husband watches YouTube all the time, the only time I watch it is for a class assignment. After watching this video I see it in a whole new way. I think as a teacher I could use YouTube in a variety of ways once I become more familiar with how it works. I also think I should read Mr. Postman’s book. I’ll let you know how I like it once I read it. I was moved by the free hug video, everybody has those days when they just need a hug, and the video with man in the mask and the hand statement was inspiring. It makes you realize your not alone in wanting everyone to just come together and agree to fix the worlds problems. If everybody would treat each other the way they want to treated we wouldn’t have so many problems.