After watching and reading everything for this week it left me with the impression that everyone believes nowadays that in order to be rich it has to come from fame. From the video on Youtube about how social media is affecting teens, the Black Mirror episode 15 million merits, and the article “Foucault and social media: I tweet, therefore I become” by Tim Rayner I recognized this common theme.

First, I will begin with the Youtube video. It goes into the minds of teens of this generation and what they aspire to be. They all say famous. A crazy statistic that was mentioned in the video is that this generation has fame listed 4th on what they wanted to become when older, but all other generations had it at 15th. I hate to say it, but I blame this on social media. Social media shows people the success stories of people that made it from going viral or setting trends and never enough of the people that worked day and night and made sacrifices to get to where they wanted to be in life. So I feel that social media is affecting teens negatively. It is making them all chase the fame for fortune and not the what they are passionate about to bring them fortune.

Secondly, the Foucault article. Tim Rayner expresses Foucault’s ideas very descriptively. Foucault’s philosophy I agree with it. He feels that each generation has a different method of constructing themselves. For this generation it is social media. “Foucault’s philosophy can help us overcome the squeamishness we feel about self-creation online.” I agree that social media has become a very vital role in life today, but I also understand why is what this article showed me. Social media when used the right way I believe is necessary to build upon your brand, self or any job. Social media brings it a following and is able to allow the whole world to see. Social media is definitely a “positive tool” but I feel the purpose of it has been lost. individuals are now making it seem like it is the only way to become successful and that brings me to this week’s episode of Black Mirror.

15 million merits was based on meritocracy. It was very far fetched, but the points brought out were not. People are stuck in a world with screens everywhere they go and the only way to survive is riding on a bicycle all day to get merits. The only way to get out of this slave type life is to become the next big thing on a show called Hot Shots. Bing the main character of the episode finds love in a woman name Abi and gives all 15 million of his merits to her to get her a shot on the show. The show was nothing liked they thought when they got there they exploited Abi. She was forced to drink a cuppliance which is a drug that almost make people easier to comply. Bing starves and sacrifices everything to get his way back to the show and expose them for what they are doing. This ultimately made him get an offer to finally get out of this terrible lifestyle people were forced to live. What I got from this episode is how fame always comes with a price. Abi went into the show believing what she saw and so did Bing, but they got a rude awakening when they got there. This goes with life today many famous people say they wanted the fame for the riches, but it is not worth it. The amount of mental damage it does cannot be fixed and you are truly never happy.

WEEKLY NEWS: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-54094559

The news article I chose for this week is about how Trump knew about the dangers of COVID-19 and down played it to the media. It just made me wonder could all this have been avoided? And what is the government really controlling if they almost allowed us to get to this point? In regards to this week’s materials I also ask do you need fame to have fortune?