Category Archives: Social

Attitudes & behaviors in society; looking at the past, present, and future characteristics among people.

Logic, Social

Buy Yourself a Personality: Gucci

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Buy Yourself a Personality: Gucci

Another installment in the series of ‘Buying Yourself a Personality’, which is a quick way for one to absorb a personality via the purchase of certain items; in this series, we focus on the popular high-end luxury brand Gucci.  Essentially, Gucci is a ridiculously priced luxury fashion line that makes everything from handbags, purses, suits, pants, and other items.  Its distinctive pattern is world renowned and easy to recognize – which has been problematic for Gucci as now it has to deal with bootlegging and the black market of its products.  It is estimated that the bootlegging of Gucci nets close to $500 million dollars annually.  Gucci has a crack team of lawyers to pursue the bootleggers, but they are far outnumbered.

Anyhow, it is important to note that Gucci is only found in high-end retail stores – so if you are buying a Gucci shirt at the local swap meet or flea market, and you are paying close to a $100 for it, you are being ripped off.  Or, you are buying it to fill a need to be seen as ‘wealthy’ and/or one with a high SES.  You are doing it to seem ‘cool’, to fill some void.  But, you got to realize that this is not the answer – spend your money wisely, please.  Especially to my black people who go to some crazy and extraodinary lengths to don Gucci attire.  Some even are so crazy with it that they outfit their whole vehicle with Gucci lining and upholstery.  I guess when you have some money, no financial planner, you can really do some stupid things – primarily the things that do nothing to raise the value in your assets.  With that said, here are some ridiculous Gucci designs.

Some people will pay hundreds, even thousands of dollars for just the Gucci fabric – which people, is just a flipping pattern! But, maybe I shouldn’t get all ‘bent out of shape’, as they are buying more than just a cheap fabric made in China, lol.

Entertainment, Hip-Hop, Popular Culture, Social

Guide to a Hip-Hop Blog

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guide-to-hiphop-blog

BlogStar

A guide to making a Hip-Hop Blog

Its been a minute since I have actually ‘written’ anything on the blog; notice the word ‘written’. Due to a busy and demanding schedule I had to resort to what my peers do so often – post Youtube/video clips. Now, there isn’t anything really wrong with that – heck, if a video is worth posting, then one should post it, right? And that is what many of my peers (the hip-hop/black blogs) seem to be doing constantly as they post the newest and latest audio track from Drake, Weezy, or Gucci Mane (which baffles me). To get into it, I have noticed that many of the hip-hop blogs out there have the same content, sometimes the posts are in the same order – meaning that they are importing a feed from somewhere. And I was like ‘wow’, this is really lame. Its good to see that the hip-hop/black blogs are out there, but people are not really giving opinions, no fresh ideas, or insightful wisdom is coming out – just regurgitated content coming from a few sources. So I had to ask myself ‘why is this the case?’, I mean the supply of content is plentiful, so why isn’t there varied content ranging from entertainment to social, psychological, and political issues? Or is the demand only focused on the entertainment?

Steps to Blog Fame

So with that said, I thought it would be prudent for aspiring blog ‘writers’ to have a guide as to how to produce and maintain a blog:

1. Cool Name

– Take a common phrase from hip-hop culture, like ‘Swagsterboys.com’ or ‘onthecorner.com’ or some other madness

2. Jack Off

Not literally, but if you do, do ya thing. But this refers to where you pull your content from, many bloggers like yourself get their content from RapRadar, Allhiphop, hiphopdx, worldstarhiphop, and vladtv. If you are ‘tech with it’, you can even take their feed URL, burn their feed with FeedBurner, and re-publish that feed for your own creative, unique, and suave blog.
– www.google.com/feedburner for more info

3. Collective Commentary

Of course you must distinguish yourself from the others, so what other way to do that than to comment on the content you ripped. The sharp and quick one-liners add flavor to your blog; even though the one-liners may be from the source you got the video from – hey, its ok, its still your own hands that wrote it!

4. That’s a wrap!

I mean, there is nothing else more to do right? Just mention your blog to your friends, your social network, and claim to have the latest and best content!

With the sarcasm aside, maybe I am expecting too much from these blogs, maybe I need to understand that this is only a section of hip-hop/black blogs. I mean, there are many good blogs on AOL’s BlackVoices.com, but outside of that, I don’t think there are much more. Maybe I am confusing the relationship between hip-hop & black blogs – though I am finding that most of the Black Blogs ARE hip-hop blogs. And then, maybe, just maybe, I shouldn’t complain as much as I am in my own lane, and I can actually string together words to make sentences, that makes paragraphs, that makes a ‘thought’ or an ‘idea’ ….

Step your game up peers.

.:: LiBM ::.

Cre8ive Abstract, Social

Nu American Gothic

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American Gothic

A little something to expand your art horizons and to coincide with the ‘Halloween theme’, as per Wikipedia, American Gothic is a painting by Grant Wood from 1930. Its inspiration came from a cottage designed in the Gothic Revival style with a distinctive upper window and a decision to paint the house along with “the kind of people I fancied should live in that house.”  The painting shows a farmer standing beside a woman whose identity remains ambiguous; she may either be his spinster daughter, as explained by the artist’s sister, or the farmer’s wife. The figures were modeled by the artist’s dentist and sister. The woman is dressed in a colonial print apron mimicking 19th century Americana and the couple are in the traditional roles of men and women, the man’s pitchfork symbolizing hard labor, and the flowers over the woman’s right shoulder suggesting domesticity.

It is one of the most familiar images in 20th century American art and one of the most parodied artworks within American popular


.:: LiBM ::.

Popular Culture, Relationships, Social

Racists or A-holes?

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Racism or A-holes

Gross ambiguity in ascertaining motivation

How we interpret events really depends on our perception; which is developed over time through experiences.  When we feel that we are ‘wronged’ or we are suffering some sort of injustice from our neighbors, ‘the man’, teachers, other authority figures – sometimes the only conclusion that we can arrive at to explain why people are treating us in a certain way can only be explained by ‘hatred’.  This ‘hatred’ though is ambiguous as it may be colored through ‘racist’ or ‘asshole’ goggles.  Ok, your probably not following, so let me paint this with examples:

The guy in this video is clearly an asshole, it is quite evident. Now, if you were the doctor, and you were black, some may interpret this as the guy not being an ‘asshole’ but a ‘racist’ – to explain why he is behaving so badly.  Essentially, you would have no choice to come to a conclusion such as that – this is why ‘context’ is so important and can lead to so many implications.

Many Cry

Thus many of the cries I hear from people in their attempt to describe authority figures like Cops, Teachers, bosses, etc. may be a mis-diagnosis — they are probably just assholes more so than racists.   To be an asshole usually suggests that one is not happy with themselves, and they take out their frustration on any and everything out there.   These people are rude, abrasive, and very self-centered – also mix in some condescending behavior and sarcasm, and you have an ambiguous person that can either be labelled a ‘racist’ or an ‘asshole’, depending on the context of the situation.

I guess if you find yourself dealing with an individual that you think may be an ‘asshole’ or a ‘racist’ … in the end it may not really matter how you label him; it just matters that you deal with the situation accordingly – if that means walking away or addressing it directly.  Just don’t let a false ‘labeling’ of such behavior fuel your anger to make you do/say something that you may regret – because then you may end up as an asshole yourself.

Check out the Asshole song by Denis Leary (90’s) here

Hip-Hop, politics, Social

Jasiri X – Blackface

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Jasiri X – Blackface

Just getting caught up on Jasiri X as he is capturing the essence of how this thing called hip-hop got started; that is by reporting on the issues that affect the black/urban community via rap. Apparently he has weekly music videos that are a summation of the weekly events, this week in particular focuses on the re-emergence of ‘Blackface’ entertainment; as featured on CNN and YouTube.
Check out his YouTube channel here at http://www.youtube.com/user/jasirix

Logic, Social

Social Sheriff – Action & Consequence

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Action & Social Consequence

The Social Sheriff is still relevant, crucifying those that act out of line

Every action has a reaction, this guy thought he could kick a little kid – with no consequence; well, he got a ‘face-full’ of consequence … I mean, at least try to block the hit.

Now after you are done laughing, I have to say that this quite refreshing as Social Justice as reared its vengeful head on this supposedly ‘mature adult’ with the glasses. Yes, the boxer who boxed out the lame, in the eyes of the law, will probably be charged with some sort of assault. However socially speaking, the man that had the nerve and audacity to kick a little child should be charged with some sort of offense for even thinking of the thought that he could do such a thing and get away with it. Now, we don’t have audio in this clip, so we don’t know if there was any provocation or what verbal events lead up to the man doing such a thing – not that anything would explain his actions, but it would give insight into why he ‘did what he did’. And ‘what he did’, got him a swift box.

Many other people should take on the ‘Social Sheriff’ role and ‘check’ people that get out of line, like:

Kanye West

Somebody should have gone up on stage, or just as Kanye was leaving the stage, and give him a swift box

Paparazzi

They invade celebrities privacy, cause disturbances, and remind me of cockroaches when the lights go on – some celebrity needs to get out the ‘RAID’.

Those that watched

This era of ‘Instant Social Media Popularity’ has desensitizied the youth; as many youth in Chicago watched, laughed, and even filmed a brethren, a human being, get killed. Then such individual(s) thought it would be cool to share it on YouTube. In this instance, I’m pretty sure you can figure out what the Social Justice would be ….

Wrapping it up and going back to the beginning of this rant, let’s be thankful that guys like the overhand throwing man in the animated gif at the top still exist to protect those that can’t protect themselves, and who stand for something.

.:: LiBM ::.

Popular Culture, Social, videos

Art imitating Life

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Art imitating Life

How TV can learn from the social media realm

The Life Event


The wedding of Jill Peterson and Kevin Heinz starts with a quality entrance dance to Chris Brown’s Forever…yeah, forever. It took place at a Church in Saint Paul, Minnesota.

The Art


This scene comes from Season 6 of the U.S. version of the Office show; as they make no attempts to deny the idea for this wedding dance sequence as they reference the popular Youtube clip that has over 2 million views, and I am sure that many more views of the real wedding were spawned since the airing of this episode.

I have to give The Office kudos for having the courage to take ideas from the social media world, which in turn increases the popularity of the show online and offline.

.:: LiBM ::.

Cre8ive Abstract, Entertainment, Media, Social

Marge Simpson Playboy Cover

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Beyond 2D Imagination

Playboy’s smartest move

Marge Simpson will be on the cover for the November 2009 issue for the iconic magazine Playboy. One way to generate interest into a dying medium & publication is to blur the lines of reality – so kudos to Playboy for accomplishing buzz and pushing the imagination of many to actually contemplate what is under that green dress (insert joke here). This issue can spawn Playboy’s competitors to think of other crazy issues, such as Cartman’s mother from South Park in Hustler, or even Lois from the Family Guy — the sky is the limit.

Here are also some other interesting derivations of the iconic cartoon mother


Designed by Elton Pot


Designed by Strike Force


Designed by Steve PR

.::LiBM::.