So, What Do You Think?

I printed 10 of my surveys and I gave some to a few of the kids that I talk to but I got the urge to print a few more and hand them to people outside of the school atmosphere. Safe to say there was mix results in my short three question survey, if you can even call it that. Whether they were affected because I handed them the surveys in school or because they didn't really know what I was blabbering about it was different from the rest. My survey focused mostly on the impact of the music in general rather than what genre it was primarily from. It was three questions and they were pretty simple and to the point of what information I was attempting to obtain from the people that took the survey.

The main question I was focused on was one were I asked "Do you believe that Music really is a major problem?" and surprsingly a large percentage of the people asked answered no. Why was it a big surprise well because it seems that even if the people asked were few in quantity, it seems that what I have been thinking and saying in this blog since I started is viewed genuinely also by other people. Putting everything else aside it isn't hard to make up your own mind on a big topic like this when you actually look into it. There was different opinions in other questions for example one where the question asked was "Are people really so weak minded that we let things like music persuade our minds and inner conscious" I would say about 70% said that Yeah we are so easily influenced by music and also things like the mianstream media like movies and television while the other 30% claimed that we are influenced but when the media is applied to the context in which the person affected is currently in. That information you can take what you want from it while I have my opinion that it does affect us to some short extent but that's about as far as it goes the rest it just us. Seeing and reading outside opinions really adds a new dimension to the topic which I hadn't seen and read until someone else implied and shed light on their opinions and thoughts about this topic.

Why Do I Get Blamed For Everything :( ?

"You don't blame the person, the victim, you blame the opressor." A quote I've read and heard that has stayed with me since. I bring this quote up because I think this quote goes perfectly with the question about my topic, Do Certain Genres Get More Blame Than Others?. By this I mean, do specific genres get targeted more than some others would when it comes to more controversial topics or issues. Right off the bat you don't even have to be familiar to the topic to say "Yes". Why such an easy answer? Well because if you've been alive for the past twenty years or more so the past decade than it isn't hard to tell what's really going on. Some genres do get more blame because of their content, popularity, and aggressiveness.

For example the biggest case that will probably be brought up will be the Columbine massacre. Now I think everybody knows the basic outline in what happened with this tragedy but let's get to my point, Marilyn Manson along with a metal band Rammstein got a lot of the heat for this case. My question is instead of bringing into the light the problem that kids gave, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold how they were outed out of their own social high school scene for being different or for not being cool, instead their preference of music is brought into the discussion more so than than some other real issue. So they liked some metal, does that mean this made them go out and massacre thirteen people? Until I get factual evidence that the content of metal music had more of an impact and influence for them to commit these acts rather than the neglectance and pain that they seem to think they were suffering until they were pushed to the limit, I think those claims are propaganda. In 2002 the Secret Service conducted a report that examined school shootings; Incidents of targeted violence at school rarely were sudden, impulsive acts and Many attackers felt bullied, persecuted or injured by others prior to the attack were some of the common themes that stood out to me. Statistics like these show at least to me that, rage and anger that had been accumulating for quite a while possibly because of the constant bullying was finally unleashed when it reached it's tipping point. This is pointing to the whole bullying angle more than to what music they preferred if you ask me.

Not to long about eight months or so there was this case about two teenagers giving marijuana to a five and two year old on video, the reason I bring this up is because (yeah you guessed it) another controversial music genre got the blame for it. This time Hip-Hop which seems to be the current scapegoat was brought to the plate. Like usual your Fox news and all your other news networks started saying that "the popular genre of hip-hop praises behavior like this and glorifies drugs." I thought well true enough, a lot of acts do glorify drugs these are usually the ones trying to fit a specific persona but to categorize this particular case where there isn't the slightest trace of hip-hop music or influence over their actions is absurd. Why would hip-hop even be brought up honestly, is it because of the actions in the video or maybe the answer is deeper, because it was two urban black kids doing this. People saw this and immediately put two and two together and said "oh, well it has to be that damned rap music which drove them to do this." With how easily the media labeled it as Hip-Hop's fault and didn't try to dig deeper into the real cause to make this teen do this it seems they went the same old reliable route.

I've heard country songs about someone putting a boot in someone's bottom side, or pop songs about boy bands "killing" to be with a girl yet the mainstream continues to be irrational and target some specific genres. Instead eyes should be opened and be able see that every genre has their black sheep.

Who knows though, maybe in a few years Disco will be "in" again and it too will be targeted........?

Nah.