I have gone over to the dark side

That title pretty much sums it up. I am not ashamed to say that in my first few weeks of college, I have essentially turned into Superhipster--using slang no one understands, listening to music no one's ever heard of, wearing red lipstick and cloche hats to class, the whole nine yards. This was not intentional, I swear to God. And yes, I can absolutely still poke fun at the whole subculture (today I used the word "mainstream" instead of "normal" and immediately had to laugh at myself), but I think it's safe to say that I am not going to be promoting Disney on this blog anytime soon.

I blame this in part on Jonathan Slade. I really do. This man is a freaking genius, and his classes (Intro to Media and TV Production, just to recap) are mindblowing. Intro to Media is so much more than just a "This is what you need to know to pass" kind of class. This is a "what you need to know to LIVE" class. We watched a documentary called "Merchants of Cool" last week, and I swear on my life I was just sitting there crying for a good half of it. The damn thing was released in 2001, but it's even more relevant today, and I'm not exaggerating. Basically, it's about how teenagers are the most targeted demographic in terms of marketing. We are the generation with the most disposable income. We are the ones who spend the most money, so we are the ones to set the standards of what is and is not "cool."

Here. Educate yourself: Merchants of Cool

I have honestly never seen anything like this documentary. Without going into boring, school-essay-like detail, basically, "Merchants of Cool" outlines exactly how the media manipulates kids. It's an endless feedback loop: They sell us a stereotype (the example used in the documentary was Britney Spears), and then we try to emulate whatever they've sold us, because we see it as "cool." They watch us, trying to figure us out, trying to find new things to sell us, and when they see us doing what they've shown us how to do, they simply re-sell it as the newest thing. (Example: in 2001, it was Britney Spears. In 2005, it was Lindsay Lohan. In 2011, it's Ke$ha. It just goes on and on.)

Now, the part that I found truly heartbreaking was the last ten minutes or so, where the rage-rock band Insane Clown Posse was featured as the head of a rare underground culture. But guess what? This band that was once held so near and dear to locals and counterculture members signed to a major label and became a mainstream hit, just like fellow rage-rockers Limp Bizkit, proving that the media will re-package teen rebellion and sell it just like any other product. As documentary host Douglas Rushkoff so bluntly puts it, "Welcome to the machine."

In the last moments of the show, Rushkoff asks questions to which there is (still) no answer."So is there anywhere the commercial machine won't go? Is it leaving any room for kids to create a culture of their own? Do they even have anything that's theirs alone? All eyes are on our kids. They know they're being watched. But what or whom can they look to themselves? And what if they turn and fight? The battle itself is sponsored, packaged and sold right back to them."

At that point, I will confess that I just put my head down on my Intro to Media binder and cried.

Why? Because it's so true.

Think about it. There is so little left that is our own. I'm not saying that if someone else likes something you like, it's not okay for you to like it--I think I've made my views on that sort of attitude fairly apparent. But what I am saying is that if something speaks to you--if you feel that something is truly yours--and then you discover that whatever or whoever you worship is absolutely nothing like the image in your mind, it hurts like hell, and I've felt that firsthand so many times by now that you'd think I'd be used to it...but it's one of those things that you never really do get used to, I suppose, because every time I lose faith in someone or something, it feels as painful as it did the day I discovered that Tyson Ritter was in no way a sensitive, swooning romantic.

I refuse to idolize celebrities anymore. I did that when I was thirteen, fourteen, fifteen years old and had no clue what the hell the media could do to a person. I did that when I considered it the epitome of excitement to get dressed up and go to a Jonas Brothers concert in the über-classy Fox Theater with hundreds of other girls. No, thank you. That's all over with now.

If you look at the bands I've cited as my true favorites, they pretty much fall into two categories: either oldies/classic rock or independent bands that nobody has ever heard of. And to me, an "independent" band is not a tiny, labelless band that has never released a proper album or played for a crowd of more than ten. "Independent" is, plain and simple, real. A band that knows what they stand for and is not afraid to speak up. A band who will use whatever scraps of commercial success they manage to achieve to make the world a better place in any way they can.

Have you guessed by now that I'm speaking of Red Jumpsuit Apparatus? Of course I am. I absolutely adore this band. I've seen them live three times, and I'd see them again, anytime they're within any kind of reasonable radius. I love them, but not for their sexy lead singer (because trust me, guys, Cillian Murphy he isn't) or because they're the hottest thing around. I love them because their music speaks to me, plain and simple.

Here is how much I love RJA: They could completely and totally sell out--and I mean they could just go nuts, they could sign to Razor & Tie, release singles on the radio and rocket to #1 on every conceivable chart, do commercials for breakfast cereal and sports drinks and men's cosmetics, have so much money that they could paper the Empire State Building with it and still have plenty left over--and as long as they did not change their sound, I wouldn't care in the least. Well, I mean, I'd care--I'd be disappointed in them, to be sure--but I wouldn't stop listening to them, as long as they still had those tell-it-like-it-is lyrics and that head-banging, cathartic-as-anything-you-can-imagine sound.

But when I step back and look at how many like RJA are in my musical arsenal, when I look at the contents of my iTunes and what I look up on Youtube, I realize just how rare it is for a band to be so beautifully sincere with every song they release. So far I've found a few others--The Almost, Cloud Cult, The Offspring, Senses Fail, Augustana, Meg & Dia--but on the whole, it's so often the case that people don't just say what they mean. And why? Because it's not what people want to hear.

Look at the hit songs of today, for God's sake! It's all about partying. Katy Perry, with "Last Friday Night," Ke$ha with "Tik Tok," Hot Chelle Rae with "Tonight Tonight," Miley Cyrus with "Party in the USA," the Black-Eyed Peas with "I Gotta Feeling." It's all about getting glammed up and having a good time. And it's not just the music industry--it's in the movies, too. When a lovely little piece of cinematic art (can you smell the sarcasm?) called The Hangover came out about two years ago, telling the oh-so-riveting story of a trio of complete idiots who take their best buddy out for a bachelor party and get so messed-up in the process that the next day they literally can't remember anything, it was an immediate hit. And then, guess what? THEY PUT OUT A SEQUEL. I don't even want to know the thought process going on in the script meetings. "Hmm, these guys are complete idiots, we saw that in the last film, right? Oh, thank God--THAT MEANS WE CAN GET AWAY WITH ANYTHING."

I hate movies like The Hangover with a burning passion. I can understand "party music," and I love rocking out on the dancefloor like anyone else--and I respect Ke$ha more than you can imagine; it takes major balls to be a white female and rap on your CDs, even in this day and age--but movies like The Hangover and, heaven help us all, its sequel, require absolutely no imagination. Well, no, I take that back. The first one took imagination, I'll give them that--and waking up with a tiger in the bathroom was one of the only truly funny jokes in the entire miserable franchise--but it's not the kind of imagination needed to come up with a concept like School of Rock. If you're going to make a comedy, please, filmmakers, I beg you, make it a good one. Do not throw a handful of drunken, drugged idiots into situations that couldn't conceivably happen in our universe. Farce only works if it's clever. The Hangover is not clever. In patches, maybe, but as a whole, hell no.

I didn't mean for this blog post to be an unending rant against mainstream culture. Just so no one thinks I'm beyond hope, I promise you guys I have my weaknesses just like anyone else. I grew up on Disney, and to this day I tear up every time I hear the theme from Beauty and the Beast. I am addicted to Harry Potter like you would not believe (I don't think this should come as a surprise). I love rocking out to Katy Perry and Ke$ha, because no matter what you can't deny that these women are BAMFs. And the first time I saw Mean Girls, I laughed until my stomach hurt.

So no, I'm not an unrecognizable douche. Yet. But when I think of how far downhill the film industry is going, and when I think about how the music industry utilizes auto-tune more and more frequently with each release, and when I think about how our own rebellion has become a commercialized, re-packaged, plastic product, I seriously question myself. Can I really support an industry like that? And if I can't, how in the hell am I going to make a living as a filmmaker? Should I be afraid right now? Should I go into psychology or major in English, just because I know I'll never be able to make it in an industry based solely on competition, selling out, and pure commercialism?

I don't know. I won't know for a long time. But I pray that when the time comes, I make the right choices.