What defines a human being as an individual? What makes a person different from any other being walking down the street? It is our qualities and backgrounds that make each person unique and in some way different from others. Every human being on this earth is made up of thousands of characteristics, traits, and attributes. The way we build relationships and connect with one another is based on our similarities in culture, religion, class, age, sexuality and so much more.

From the time I was born, I have been growing my identity each and every day. To start with the basics, I will start with some background. I am a 20 year old, white, heterosexual female. Growing up in Baltimore, Maryland and then moving to California in my later teenage years, I have lived in the middle-upper class the majority of my life. I was raised going to a church every Sunday at the Catholic elementary/middle school in where I attended grades K-12. I then attended a small, private all girls high school for two years before moving to Palos Verdes, California where I transferred to a large public co-ed high school. I am very fortunate to say I have no disabilities nor lasting health conditions. I am majority Italian and Cuban with a touch of French and Hungarian.

In my life, the facets of my identity that play the biggest role are my race, gender, and class. As a white person living in both Baltimore and Los Angeles, two extremely diverse cities, I have experienced white privilege in many different shapes and forms. However, as a female in 2018, I have also faced discrimination in the workplace, on the athletic field, and in school life as well. Finally, I have been privileged to have a financially stable family that is able to provide me with an extraordinary education and life. To me, the most important of these three facets is the fact that I am female. I have two older brothers, both whom have taught me an incredible amount about life in general. They have taught me to be a strong, powerful, and independent woman no matter what the circumstance. I will never let a man overpower me in an situation, nor tell me I am not worthy enough because I am a woman.

I believe almost all parts of my identity are portrayed in the media. We have all heard of the Oscars So White scandal and if you haven’t, you can find more about it here. Entertainment and news media industries are notably biased towards reporting on and filming white people more than any other race. After films Creedand Straight Outta Comptonwere disregarded, people protested with the hashtag #OscarsSoWhite to bring attention to the fact that other races were not being recognized in the media. There is an influx of white representation in the media and people are putting their foot down. Another media representation that I can identify with is the portrayal of females as sexual figures. I am in a sorority at USC, which is one of the most sexualized groups of people, especially in media. I think this is one of the most important aspects of entertainment that must be changed. This teaches boys and men the way society is expected to treat women, which has led to the advancement of sexual assault and harassment cases across the country.

Part 1:

This image seems like a nice picture of who we all know as Kevin from the Office, or Brian Baumgartner, and his wife, Celeste Ackleson. On my normal Saturday afternoon scrolling through Instagram, I came across this picture on a meme page accompanied with the caption, “This is Kevin from The Office and his wife. Now I’m not saying she’s a gold digger, but she’s literally holding him by the Rolex.” After a good laugh, I thought to myself, no way this can be real. Now I am aware that the caption had such a big influence on my immediate perception of it. If I had seen this picture alone, I probably would not have thought twice about it, but because of it’s hilarious nature, it just seemed so bazaar. As I sat down to write this blog, I thought back on this picture and said to myself, Is it real???

Since this image came from a famous meme page with millions of followers that alters photos to include captions, I had a hard time doing a reverse image search. Instead, what I did was attempt to find the photo on Google by searching “Brian Baumgartner and wife.” I found only one matching photo on this link: https://heightline.com/brian-baumgartner-wife-weight-loss/. Underneath this photo contained a link titled “image source.” This gave immediate direction to the source (Love Lace Media) that supplied this article with the photo. I decided to dig a little deeper and reach out to the team at Love Lace Media, in order to track down the original photo. Unfortunately, they did not respond in time for me to put it into an EXIF reader. This was as far as I could get into decoding this picture.

Since this image only had one matching result on my Google search, it didn’t seem to be very popular. In that case, I am almost certain that the image was not altered, and was in fact, originally taken and published by Love Lace Media without any alteration.

Part 2:

This article was provided by the New York Times on September 2^nd, 2018. It was written by NY Times White House Correspondent, Katie Rogers. While this article is an informative piece about Meghan McCain and her relationship with her father,  John McCain, it is rather biased. It is very clear that Rogers admires Ms. McCain and her determined mindset. Rogers’s use of quotes as evidence throughout the article is notable. From family friends of Ms. McCain, to Meghan herself, Rogers picks out very positive and strong quotes to argue her point. I conclude that the logic behind this article is to persuade the reader into becoming fond of Meghan McCain because she spoke very highly of John’s daughter and pointed out very credible things she has done/stands for. I commend Rogers for her use of pathos throughout the article in her creative writing. She brings her points home by evoking strong emotions, especially in the hook of the article when she states, “But as Ms. McCain shared one of her father’s dying directives — “Show them how tough you are” — her voice stopped wavering. The warrior’s daughter steeled herself, drew her eyes up and stepped into battle.” Lastly, since this article is so clearly biased, I think it leaves out important parts of Ms. McCain’s life. From what we have read, she seems to only have done good, but no one is perfect and there must be some faults lying somewhere. This gives the reader a suspicious feeling about the negative side, if there is one.

I always knew this day and age was filled with social media, I mean who doesn’t? Everywhere we turn there is an 8 year old with the newest iPhone or a toddler with an iPad in hand. We may think we have a grasp on how much media we consume, but in reality we have no idea. Technology has become such an integral part of our day to day life, so much that we cannot imagine what it would be like without it. For this assignment, I monitored the amount of media I was intaking over a span of 24 hours. (Here’s the link to my Media Consumption Log). To my surprise, I have come to realize that I subconsciously click the unlock button on my smart phone several times a day in hope of a notification popping up on my screen.

This summer I spent 2 and a half months attending a summer camp in the Sierra National Forest where I was a counselor for children ages 5-16. I had very minimal access to phone and internet, as I was in the middle of the mountains. The camp held very strong values, one of which was the “no technology” policy. They take pride in giving campers and counselors the experience of “real-ationships.” During my first few days at camp I was constantly checking my pockets for my cellphone, but eventually I became accustomed to checking my watch for the time and never feeling the need to look at my phone.

After a few days back at school this August, I caught myself forgetting my phone when I went places and barely relying on it at all. Since I’ve been back for 2 weeks now, things have changed. I have succumbed back into the 21^stcentury lifestyle of having a heavy pocket. After this assignment, what I have become most of aware of is not how much time I spend on my devices, but rather what I am doing on them. It has become evident to me that the vast majority of my media intake is entertainment rather than education. My media consumption log is made up of mostly Instagram, Snapchat, Facebook or text message loggings. As I was waited in line for Starbucks I checked my phone a whopping 14 times in a matter of less than 5 minutes. I do this because apps like Instagram keep me updated on what everyone did over the past week/weekend, Snapchat keeps me in touch with my closest friends on an hourly basis, and Facebook lets me know what is going on in my sorority. Checking these sites become a force of habit.  I am so concerned with what is going on in the social scene I forget the important things around me.

The more I thought about it, I noticed I rarely check news sites. Yes, I get emails from the Skimm every weekday morning and catch glimpses of article titles from CNN, but is that enough? According to my log, when I am bored I aimlessly scroll through social media only to load and re-load a page that probably won’t refresh in a matter of minutes instead of refreshing a news app that can give me information I can use in the real world.