I was first exposed to iCarly about a month ago, while I was baby sitting my cousin's kids. I'm not sure which was worse: changing a poopy diaper on the crying toddler I had just bathed whose bottle was leaking milk everywhere or watching two episodes of iCarly. That evening was the moment this 38-year-old lady became truly comfortable with her decision not to have children.
"Unless, of course, you're Heidi Montag and Spencer Pratt, who will never disappear, because the universe just likes to fuck with us sometimes."And that, Hortense, is reason number 45682 why I love you.
Oh interesting, I was just talking about this the other day. BBC is doing a series about finding the "best young" people in various jobs-- last week was butchers. The voiceover for the show explains that BBC is trying to find the unsung heroes of Britain. I thought it was incredibly cool, because it brings attention to some of the less glamorous (but still important) careers that kids these days aren't really considering. It doesn't try to make the people on the show famous, à la Big Brother or whatever, but it emphasizes that you can be a non-celebrity hairdresser, or be really proud of your knife skills.
It seems like kid and teen shows used to feature characters that were the epitome of normal...quirky, but pretty normal. Look at The Wonder Years, Clarissa, the kids on Full House, Boy Meets World, etc. (even Rory from Gilmore Girls, while super smart and more ambitious than your average teen girl, was not far fetched) and compare them to Gossip Girl, Hannah Montana, and every other show where the protagonists are either rich, famous, or both. Since kids are no longer able to relate to characters on account of their "every man" appeal, they must aspire to unrealistic goals in order to connect to the shows they watch.
Don't these kids know that if you're famous you can't have any fun and make any stupid decisions anymore? Think about how you'd have lock down your facebook page! And proof read your tweets! And like, comb your hair before you leave your house. It would be SO LAME! SO LAME, YOU GUYS!
Being un-famous is SO MUCH BETTER because the world at large doesn't care who you hold hands with at recess or if you're getting kind of chubby for your Jordache jeans. And they don't care if you just eat cheetos for dinner. And they don't care if you post stupid photos online, or if you fail a test, or whatever.
The perks of non-fame are innumerable!
Kids today have no foresight about important things. Geez.
There's something about this that is so completely foreign to my nature. I don't understand the desire for fame, not even for money. As soon as people think they know you, they think they know your business. And then your life isn't your own. Who would want that? It's crazy talk.
@CubeRootOfPi: They seem never to notice that celebrities are always bitching about not being able to go out for milk without being accosted. Or that they need to hire people to make sure they aren't injured or killed by crazed fans. Or that everything they do is publicized--half the time with the publication's interpretation of what it means.
I suppose like so many things that kids want, it's something that seems more desirable until you have it.
Sigh. I miss all the Nickelodeon shows of my youth-- Clarissa Explains It All, Pete and Pete, Salute Your Shorts, You Can't Do That on Television, Roundhouse, Out of Control, etc.
@Sputnik_Sweetheart: I liked how the old Nickelodean shows featured child/teen actors who looked like ordinary kids. Some were average-looking, some were pretty, but most looked normal, like people you'd know. On recent Nick and Disney shows, the kids have this perfect child-star look to them, that you can't imagine them as normal kids but belonging to an entertainment world and being more mature/media savvy.
I feel like the overarching theme of this generation of Nickelodeon shows was the "do it yourself" quality. This, like All That and Clarissa and Pete and Pete, always had a "made by kids/teens" feel, whereas iCarly and Hannah Montana feel so obviously written by creepy adults.
@curiousgeorgiana: Oh man, Salute Your Shorts made me REALLY want to go to summer camp. Then I went, and I was the weird girl and didn't have a group of equally weird friends and it kind of sucked. But I still loved the show.
Kami may be controversial for a westeran audience, but in parts of Africa, the pediatric AIDS rate can go as high as 50%. AIDs is not an "issue" there, it's a daily reality. #sesamestreet
@whynotshesaid: That's exactly what came to mind for me, too. His story was fascinating and sad to me. I grew up in Bloomington, Indiana, so it was also extremely close to home--and caused the first stirrings of disgust with the intolerance of the bible belt. I have no issue with an HIV-positive muppet; I think it's a wonderful way to teach children acceptance and tolerance. #sesamestreet
@Red-headed bookworm: @you've got red on you: I actually lived in Utah at the time, and a lot of kids didn't know anything about AIDS, but those who did were pretty ignorant and mean about it. It just wasn't something that was discussed, you know? Plus our educators were too busy sending home fliers warning our parents about drug dealers who were hanging around playgrounds and pushing LSD on Mickey Mouse stickers to spend any time clarifying things related to the "gay disease."
But I used to sneak my stepmom's People magazines, and I watched the made-for-TV movie with Lukas Haas when it came out, and I was so upset by the whole thing. Not just that he had this fatal illness through no fault of his own, but that other people were so cruel about it. I mean, I was old enough to know that people could be real dicks to each other - I knew about slavery and the civil rights movement and sexism and sex abuse and ugly divorces and custody battles - but even so, the language used to discuss people with AIDS was shocking to me.
@Red-headed bookworm: They even have a section of the Children's Museum in Indy dedicated to him - with his actual bedroom furniture and all. #sesamestreet
A while back I watched a documentary about Sesame Street and how they launch the series and localize it in different countries. And I have to say that lambasting an HIV-positive puppet for the South African series is just ignorant. A huge percentage of children have HIV/AIDS and/or have lost a family member to it. Introducing this character is a way for kids to know what's going on. This is a very real issue there. #sesamestreet
if sesame street really wanted to push the gay agenda, Bert would get aids from a late-night cruise in central park and pass it along to Ernie. That would be a great scandal. #sesamestreet
Kami probably got it from her mother as I read somewhere that mothers have about 1 in 4 chance of passing it on to their children if they give birth through the birth canal.
Personally, there is no "too" young, and I think this character is great. One of my best friend's hubby is HIV+ and it's important for kids (hell, grown ups) to understand that 1) this is not just a developing world illness and 2) it does not mean you're going to drop dead any second. Oh, and it's not contagious. Seriously, it still baffles me how some people retract.
Anything that promotes tolerance for something that has been so stigmatized is a positive in my book.
@Penny: Not only tolerance but actually knowing anything about it. I had a human sexuality teacher at a community college tell the class that HIV can skip generations. A woman can have it, not give it to her child, but then the grandkid can be born with it because apparently he thinks it becomes part of the DNA. Like, wtf. I was the only one to call him on it. The amount of misconceptions I have come across when it deals with HIV/AIDS is just staggering. #sesamestreet
@Elaken: My sixth-grade teacher told my class that AIDS came from people having sex with monkeys. Really. 1987 was a weird time, but still. #sesamestreet
@Elaken: This is actually possible, any university microbiology/virology classes will tell you that HIV can be intgrated into the host genome (AKA human DNA) and remain in a dormant like state called latency. It probably wasn't passed through the mother's DNA because HIV doesnt tend to attack gamete cells, they go for immune cells which could have been given to the child in many possible ways, through the placenta, or the breast milk. And then the child carried the latent form throughout her life and then in the grandchild the virus decided to manifest itself. #sesamestreet
@la.donna.pietra: Sometimes they tell me that the government created AIDS to kill black people. To which I reply, "Then why did gay white men have it first in the U.S.?" #sesamestreet
@la.donna.pietra: The section from that website about post-integration latency is says that the HIV genome is, in some cases, integrated into the host genome. Maybe I was a little unclear with my definition of latency? Latency in viruses is just when a virus establishes a domant state in a host cell, some viruses are incorportated into the genome and some just lie within the cytoplasm, but in the website article it is talking about clinical latency which is different. I just wanted to make a point that it could be possible for someone to have it, their kid "not have it" (latent virus stage) and then the grandkid have it, although this is probably very common, and that the HIV genome being integrated into the human genome is not some absurd idea (look at retrovirus, almost 10% of our human genome has ancient retroviral DNA). I'm not an expert (yet haha) by any means, I've only taken a few courses on this stuff. #sesamestreet
Oh Traditional Values Coalition--you never stop amazing me in your ability to not get it. The issue with Kami presumable has nothing to do with homosexuality since she's a 5 year old orphan--presumably infected by her now deceased mother! #sesamestreet
@jemandtheholograms: Another "what?" moment was when they said that HIV is primarily spread by homosexuals in the U.S. Now, I know in my area (DC) this falls under the Super Not True category, and while I'm not certain I would be willing to bet that it's not true elsewhere, either. But the big moment of confusion is, What the fuck does the US rates and means of infection have to do with the presentation of an HIV+ muppet to South African kids? #sesamestreet
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I don't know what that means.
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Being un-famous is SO MUCH BETTER because the world at large doesn't care who you hold hands with at recess or if you're getting kind of chubby for your Jordache jeans. And they don't care if you just eat cheetos for dinner. And they don't care if you post stupid photos online, or if you fail a test, or whatever.
The perks of non-fame are innumerable!
Kids today have no foresight about important things. Geez.
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I suppose like so many things that kids want, it's something that seems more desirable until you have it.
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I feel like the overarching theme of this generation of Nickelodeon shows was the "do it yourself" quality. This, like All That and Clarissa and Pete and Pete, always had a "made by kids/teens" feel, whereas iCarly and Hannah Montana feel so obviously written by creepy adults.
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But I used to sneak my stepmom's People magazines, and I watched the made-for-TV movie with Lukas Haas when it came out, and I was so upset by the whole thing. Not just that he had this fatal illness through no fault of his own, but that other people were so cruel about it. I mean, I was old enough to know that people could be real dicks to each other - I knew about slavery and the civil rights movement and sexism and sex abuse and ugly divorces and custody battles - but even so, the language used to discuss people with AIDS was shocking to me.
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Anything that promotes tolerance for something that has been so stigmatized is a positive in my book.
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[pathmicro.med.sc.edu] #sesamestreet
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