Penn St. Party

In my opinion, i thought the This American Life podcast was pretty funny and accurate. Everything they said was completely true even though it made us look like a bunch of douchebags. They covered a lot of what drunk kids did and the negative effects of alcohol and that was the more serious part. But they also emphasized with the kids with their views of tailgating and putting themselves in our shoes. The most memorable thing from the article for me was the drunk kid in the house. That just seemed pretty wild and one of my friends does it to a lesser degree.  However, the article did leave certain things out. Not all of the students at Penn State act like how they described. Some don't go out and study.

I can't judge the tailgating here because i did not get tickets this season but I can say a few things about partying. People do really burst in to song or We Are chants on the bus. Most of the songs are the ones from the football games. Downtown people really do pee where ever they can. And most of the beer is natural light, the vodka is vlad, and the rum is admiral. They are all cheap, crappy tasting alcohol and would be out of business without college kids. About the drunk kid in the house, one of my friends likes to fall asleep on other peoples beds in my dorm. Personally i don't go out too much but i understand why others do. This is probably the one time in a lot of students lives that they can have fun like this so they take advantage of it.

This American Life was accurate in what they said but they only showed the school in one light and the podcast was only slightly balanced. And a few things have changed since they did that podcast, such as a dry campus, and they should come back and do a more balanced update (which they did but I'm not sure if its anymore balanced).

What is Art?

In order for something to be considered art for me, an artist has to put certain things into making that work of art such as creativity, emotions, and meaning. Without creativity all art would be similar, without emotions art would be uninspired, and without meaning a painting would just be paint on canvas, songs would just be empty words to music (especially ones without instruments) , and books would just be ink on paper. However sometimes the meaning might be hard to spot or is open to interpretation and somethings can be considered art that doesn't need a meaning like architecture or fashion design. As far as the medium is concerned it can be anything. As long it fits my criteria anything creative is art from designing clothes to music to painting to writing.

An good example of what i think is art is a song by Kid Cudi called The Prayer. When i first heard it a couple years ago i was just taken back by how deep the song was. In it he talks about wanting to be remembered for writing meaningful music and not just mainstream songs. You can just feel the emotion and soul that Cudi puts into the song when you listen to it. In my eyes this is definitely art because it satisfies my criteria and is a much better rap song then most of what came out this past decade.

Kid Cudi - The Prayer