Category Archives: social media

One Direction on the proper use of cellphones

Posted on November 7, 2012 | 2 Comments

One Direction is an extremely popular band with tremendous influence on their fans: one of their songs “Live While We’re Young” has received over 86 million views on YouTube, but that’s only half the number of views as “One Thing“, and a third of the views of “What Makes You Beautiful“. As with most of their videos, Live While We’re Young is full of fun-loving bright colours, smiles, and teens just hanging out, having a good time enjoying each other’s company. Yep. Just a bunch of teens thinking about how they’re looking forward to ‘getting some’:

Let’s go crazy, crazy, crazy till we see the sun
I know we only met but let’s pretend it’s love
And never, never, never stop for anyone
Tonight let’s get some
And live while we’re young
Oh oh oh oh
Oh oh oh oh
And live while we’re young
Woahhh oh oh oh
Tonight let’s get some

Because there may never be another opportunity to take pictures of each other on your phone:

Hey girl, it’s now or never, it’s now or never Don’t over-think, just let it go And if we get together, yeah, get together Don’t let the pictures leave your phone, ohhhh

Not only is the song replete with the kind of living-for-the-moment lets-get-me-some [action] hedonism, which defines life in their song, there’s an assumption that photos of said action will be taken. This is not a maybe. The only maybe comes from trying to convince the girl to not think about it too much.

‘Sexting’ – sending explicit images or text messages by mobile phone – is practised to varying degrees by teens. Here’s an extract from a handy infographic produced by Pew Internet Research on teen cellphone use:Another study, reported on Huffington Post, puts the percentage of teenagers who have ‘sexted’, as high as 20 per cent. The Official Journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics associates ‘sexting’ with sexual risk while another says that such behaviour is not yet normative; to say nothing of the destruction wrought by the unwanted distribution of explicit images through mobiles or on the internet.

One Direction does not explicitly endorse the practice of ‘sexting’ in the song, but they at least lay the foundations for it: Firstly, by implying that raunchy images are an assumed part the experience; and secondly, the overall light-hearted good-time nature of the song seems to (unintentionally) trivialize the risks, given the stakes. (I’ll leave it to them to prove me wrong by writing a cautionary song discouraging their target audience from the practice.)

In contrast, keeping one’s bits to oneself all but eliminates the risks that teens may not yet be ready to handle: the risk of pregnancy, the risk of sexually transmitted diseases, the risk of images of your anatomy being broadcast on the internet; issues for which society and individuals must pay and endure long political debates over, when a little self-control would go most of the way to prevention.

One Direction suggests that taking photos of sexual experiences is expected; the risk of such photos getting out is but one of many they are prepared to take for their own self-fulfilment. But hey, that’s living!

At least they’re honest in saying they would only be pretending to be in love.

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The Wonder of Directioners (Part Two)

Posted on April 16, 2012 | Leave a comment

In Part One, I concluded that behaviour exhibited by some of One Direction’s followers went beyond mere appreciation of lyrics, harmony, melody and rhythm. These phenomena and others like it have several elements in common, including

  • Attraction to the physical appearance of band members;
  • Desiring relationship with the band members (however brief); and
  • Desiring the good reputation of the band to be made known.

In each case, something glorious is desired above all other things for which sacrifices are made to achieve that thing, whether they sacrifice sleep, health, money, reputation or their moral conduct. The worship model of glory and sacrifice accurately describes this behaviour, as well as our relationships with many things in our lives.

Like much of popular music, One Direction’s lyrics elevate romantic love or lust as the way to maximum happiness and satisfaction. To take one example, in their song “What Makes You Beautiful”, the boys sing “I want you so desperately”. Yet, it is not hard to imagine this same kind of desperate-wanting thinking driving otherwise normal people to harass a radio receptionist out of jealousy over a possible date with one of the band members.

New Testament scholar N.T. Wright observes in Surprised by Hope:

One of the primary laws of human life is that you become like what you worship; what’s more, you reflect what you worship not only back to the object itself but also outward to the world around.  Those who worship money increasingly define themselves in terms of it and increasingly treat other people as creditors, debtors, partners, or customers, rather than as human beings.  Those who worship sex define themselves in terms of it (their preferences, their practices, their past histories) and increasingly treat other people as actual or potential sexual objects.  Those who worship power define themselves in terms of it and treat other people as either collaborators, competitors, or pawns.

Thus, the word ‘idol’ often used to describe pop stars seems appropriate, reflecting that the stars are recipients of some form of worship. The popular talent show like American Idol makes no attempt to hide this aspect of popular music.

Thankfully, not all band fans behave in the same extreme ways, and many other entertaining events can end up wreaking havoc. I would be wrong to suggest that extreme behavioural responses are limited to bands. At the same time, certain acts do develop the ability to pull huge crowds outside of the usual concert venues, fueled by media coverage, the accessibility provided by social media, and ultimately, the adoration of their fans.

The seemingly innate human tendency to make things, any things, into ultimate things, may indicate we were made to worship. Often – if not, always – the fleeting things we worship lead to disappointment and hurt, either for ourselves or others. Perhaps in these moments we should wonder whether our wonder is directed in the right direction.

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The Wonder of Directioners (Part One)

Posted on April 14, 2012 | 3 Comments

Until a few weeks ago, I didn’t even know about the band One Direction. Apparently, this British boy band is the most popular band on the planet, and everywhere they go they are mobbed by their adoring fans known as “Directioners”. You know you have true fans when they name themselves after you.

Three recent examples, though, illustrate the powerful effect that dedication to a band can have on an individual’s behaviour:

  1. One Direction fans camp out to obtain prime viewing position of the band members
  2. One Direction fans harass a radio station receptionist who was asked out by one of the band members
  3. One Direction fans send death threats to members of another band suing One Direction over the use of the name

Now, I don’t think these “Directioners” would actually carry out threats to these people if they were face to face with them. Yet, they so desire the company of the band, or believe in the goodness of the band, that they would promote their experience of the band ahead of the wellbeing of other people (and themselves). At this point, they cannot say they are simply enjoying the band’s music.

Here’s some news coverage of the band’s arrival in Sydney (RSS readers may need to view on a computer):

In Part Two, I will discuss how we get here.

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Miley Cyrus: ‘You are all stardust.’

Posted on March 10, 2012 | Leave a comment

Miley Cyrus has weighed in on the science & religion debate and found herself in trouble with her fans over comments by theoretical physicist Lawrence Krauss which she posted on her Twitter account:

You are all stardust. You couldn’t be here if stars hadn’t exploded, because the elements (carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, all the things that matter for evolution) weren’t created at the beginning of time. They were created in stars. So forget Jesus. Stars died so you can live.

She later deleted the offending tweet but the tweet illustrates one of the misunderstandings of the science vs religion debate: that understanding the way something works eliminates the need for a designer. This is known as a category mistake: a semantic or ontological error in which “things of one kind are presented as if they belonged to another”.

Miley has confuses mechanism with agency. In this case, the nature of stars and their role in the universe (mechanism) has lead Miley to conclude there is no need for a designer/creator (agency). It would be like saying that because we understand how an aeroplane flies (mechanism) means we don’t need the Wright brothers (agency).

The question Miley and her 5 million Twitter followers need to grapple with is not how the physical universe came together, though that is important, but which worldview – naturalism or theism – is best supported by the evidence. The origin of the universe – the ‘beginning of time’ – is a foundational part of this debate. Where Miley is with these questions is, to be fair, unclear from this particular tweet.

One thing is clear – science, Miley Cyrus and the Bible all agree that we are dust:

“Then the LORD God formed a man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.” Genesis 2:7

But we are so much more than dust:

“Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness…” Genesis 1:26

Our capacity for intellect, morality and love are unique to humanity, and as far as we know, this planet. We ought to be reminded of our peculiar human dusty-ness from time to time, lest we become too arrogant about our place in the universe or on Twitter.

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Posted in entertainment, music, religion, science, social media