The other day I started watching Journey videos because we were talking about them in class. I noticed that in two of their videos, members of the band have mustaches, and I think they were legitimate mustaches and people of the period accepted them without thinking twice. Later that night, I heard some kids talking about me and my mustache while I was cleaning a table. One of them said, "He's just doing it to be funny." I wanted to respond with, "You wear Abercrombie to be cool. And for your information, I don't have this mustache to be funny. I was funny way before I had a mustache." But I held my tongue. I think the difference in media choices between me and my awesome customers has caused us to be worlds apart.
This made me think about how the meaning of media can change in our culture. Those Journey videos were made to be cutting edge and innovative, now it is difficult to watch it without chuckling. Reefer Madness was an educational film but is now a cult comedy classic. It would be interesting to have the class make a list of the qualities of good media so that the film, show, etc. would still send the intended message long into the future and not be dismissed by the children of the "Chuck Norris joking, Abercrombie wearing bro" generation.
I wish I could post the videos here but embedding was disabled upon request, so here's a picture instead.
http://www.americanmustacheinstitute.org/
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