Nick's Media Blog

When I started writing this at about 10:36pm on Saturday night, I had absolutely no clue what I was going to write, so let's begin with what I was thinking about while watching the documentary.  The Hillary campaign was marred by stupid controversies. First off was the one that doesn't relate to the video, which is the email one. Every politician is either crazy or has done the exact same thing Hillary has done, so that one doesn't matter. I mean, it does, but it shouldn't have had the effect. The reason it was exacerbated so much was because she was woman. This "criticism" was the one thrown at Hillary so much during the campaign. While a lot of it was sexist, there really was some valid reasoning as to pulling a "you're just hoping you'll get votes by saying you're a woman" card (this is the second controversy, it is not as stupid). This is because this is kind of what she was doing. Sure, she said things about what she wanted to...

In their relentless pursuit of the ethereal "cool", companies have gone on odysseys searching for what many claim to be unattainable. While some companies have shown some success in past, the near ubiquity of social media today compared to 10-20 years ago has given those companies the resources they finally need to be "cool" (or ironically not so). Merchants of Cool gave us the example of MTV, the TV entertainment giant that rose to domination levels of power, money, and appeal because of they were able to resonate with teens though music videos and other programming. While TV has the advantage of being solely entertainment, fast food companies and convenience stores are hopping in on the idea of marketing themselves as "cool". Obviously, "cool" evolves, and today this means having snarky twitter accounts that comment on things you wouldn't ever expect a company executive to even think about. From Denny's' dry humor to the boner jo...

Spikeball is the activity of choice for my friend group at lunch. In fact, the first thing I do, since I get there before mostly everyone with Parker, is get the net. The game is structured as a 2v2 competition to see who can win with more than 11 points and by at least 2 points. The teams can "set" the ball with one hand to their teammate, and a total of two sets can be executed before the ball must be spiked onto the net, and after that it's the teams ball until they hit it onto the net again. The game is enticing because of the technical skill, especially hand-eye coordination and good team synergy, needed to be good at the game. When my friends and I were introduced to the game by my friend's older brother's friends, I was by a long-shot the worst out of us, and didn't really play for a while because of it. Now, I'm known for hitting mostly BS shots, and occasionally play really well, but in all honesty I'm the most hit-or-miss when it comes to...

Like, ninety percent of everyone reading this probably played Minecraft at least once in their life, right? Back in fourth and fifth grade, the playing of the game was as ubiquitous as people jokingly singing Gangnam Style. Of course, I'm speaking from personal experience, but it goes without saying that from the years of around 2011 to 2015ish (this is a fat guesstimate) Minecraft was easily the top dog in terms of player counts. During that time it was pretty much the face of entertainment, especially on youtube where channels would reach into the tens of millions of subscribers. However, after 2014, the playerbase started to drop. Even though it has since always had millions of players at any given moment, no one has thought about it as the cultural icon it once was, but rather as a passing fad. However, now it seems to be changing again. While it will never be omnipresent as it once was, Minecraft for once is being thought of a by many across the internet again, so why? Man...