Hip Hop Music Meaning and Materiality Paper Instructions for Consumption Paper: (I already attached detail instructions in file) A creative industry or sub
Hip Hop Music Meaning and Materiality Paper Instructions for Consumption Paper: (I already attached detail instructions in file) A creative industry or subsector/genre of a creative industry. — Music — K-pop, heavy metal, hip hop, etc.Find at least four academic sources beyond the course reading. Make sure that all your sources are reputable and relevant.Drawing on the central concepts and themes of the readings, compare the findings from these sources (your independent research) to the central concepts/themes in the course readings and lectures. You should show knowledge of the readings beyond the class lecture in your analysis of the course readings. Use relevant quotes/paraphrasing from the course readings. Be sure to cite internally in addition to listing citations in the references.You should focus on 3-5 key course topics (these are the topics of the readings) from various readings across different readings in the unit. You should use at least four course readings which I gave to you. The paper should be 4 pages, double spaces, not including the list of references at the end.12-point, Times New Roman font. Instructions for Consumption Paper:
1. A creative industry or subsector/genre of a creative industry.
Music — K-pop, heavy metal, hip hop, etc.
2. Find at least four academic sources beyond the course reading. Make sure
that all your sources are reputable and relevant.
3. Drawing on the central concepts and themes of the readings, compare the
findings from these sources (your independent research) to the central
concepts/themes in the course readings and lectures. You should show
knowledge of the readings beyond the class lecture in your analysis of the course
readings. Use relevant quotes/paraphrasing from the course readings. Be sure to
cite internally in addition to listing citations in the references.
4. You should focus on 3-5 key course topics (these are the topics of the readings)
from various readings across different readings in the unit. You should use at
least four course readings which I gave to you.
5. The paper should be 4 pages, double spaces, not including the list of references at
the end.
6. 12-point, Times New Roman font.
The Consumption paper may address many of the following questions, and
you may use the questions below to help you outline and organize your paper. This is
just a sample outline –
1. Meaning and Materiality
a. How does the meaning and materiality of your creative product
influence consumers’ interpretations of your creative product? How do
consumers’ interpretations of meaning change based on their social
context?
b. How does this compare/contrast to research on meaning and
materiality?
2. Fans
a. What are the motivations and practices of fans in your creative
industries? How do these fans differentiate themselves from non-fans?
b. How does this compare/contrast to research on fans?
3. Taste and Class
a. How does consumers’ social class influence their taste in your creative
product? Are consumers univores or omnivores in their taste for your
creative product? why? Has this changed over time? How do
consumers justify their tastes?
b. How does this compare/contrast to research on taste and class?
4. Morality and Censorship
a. Do consumers see some aspect of your creative product as immoral or
as especially ethical? Why or why not? How do these perceptions vary
based on consumers’ identities?
b. How does this compare/contrast to research on morality and
censorship?
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Simmons
The Consequences of Caring
From his daughter’s passion for the Cup-less Kings to his own for the aged Celtics, Bill Simmons gets a refresher course in
disappointment
by Bill Simmons on June 8, 2012
My daughter was crying. We were waiting for a green light on Olympic Boulevard, returning home from a Stanley Cup celebration that
never happened. A depressed Kings fan pulled up to our right, glanced over and mouthed the word, “Awwwww.” He alerted his
passenger, another depressed Kings fan, who leaned over to catch a glimpse. They only stared for a second or two, probably
remembering the days when sports made them cry. And then the light turned green and they drove away.
This happened on Wednesday night. Sports only brought my daughter to tears one other time: On a Saturday at Staples, after the Bruins
had defeated her Kings while I wore a Bruins sweatshirt, donned a Boston cap and respectfully cheered for the champs. I say
“respectfully” because we bought Kings tickets this season and I liked everyone sitting around us. Nothing sucks more than a visiting fan
crashing your section and cheering obnoxiously for his team. That’s what every Clippers game is like. I didn’t want to be That Guy. I
hate That Guy. We all hate That Guy.
So I downshifted a few notches. And even though I prepared her before that Bruins game — Look, this is Daddy’s team, just like the
Kings are your team, and if I ever teach you anything in life other than “stay off the pole,” “don’t date a Lakers fan” and “don’t text
naked pictures of yourself under any circumstances ever,” it’s that you only have one team for every sport — she couldn’t handle it when
it happened. She felt betrayed. When the Kings nearly tied the game in the final seconds, ultimately falling short, I pumped my fist and
caught her glaring with one of those “You will pay” death stares.
And just like that, she started crying. I remained sympathetic while being secretly delighted, like she had passed some sort of “Fledgling
Sports Fan” hurdle or something. On the way home, I discreetly snapped an iPhone picture of her post-cry for a keepsake — you know,
“Here’s the first time sports ever made my daughter cry” — only she caught me taking it, flipped out like a Real World roommate and
scratched my right arm so hard that it bled. She didn’t talk to me for two hours. And that’s when I knew my daughter liked sports.
I always assumed my kids would care … but you never know with this stuff. My son’s favorite celebrity right now? Michael Jackson. He
loves Michael and werewolves, in that order, so you can only imagine how he feels about Thriller. I never, ever could have predicted this.
That’s parenthood. You roll with the whims of your kids. At the same time, there had to be some trick for hooking my daughter on sports
beyond the old standby of “taking her to games and seeing if she likes it.” After she turned 5, I asked a few friends with older children for
tips. The same suggestion kept popping up: You can’t necessarily make them follow your team, but you can steer them away from your
least favorite teams. Good advice. Even if it’s difficult to sway a Los Angeles native toward Boston teams playing 3,000 miles away —
don’t rule me out, by the way — I could brainwash her to despise the Lakers (as covered in 2010’s “The Color Purple” column), any
team with the words “New York” in its name, and the Lakers a second time just to be safe. After that? Her call. This seemed like a fair
compromise. Really, I just wanted her to care. Of the 75 greatest moments of my life, sports were involved in at least 20 of them.
(Fine, I’m totally lying. It’s probably 30. Maybe even 40.)
Hopefully, she would care. Hopefully.
Starting last October, the Kings became my daughter’s first favorite team. Hockey moves at a different, more frenetic pace than other live
sports — it’s tailor-made for the ADD Generation, and that’s before you include fans yelling things like “HEY SMITH, YOU SUCK!” or
sarcastically singing a goalie’s last name. It’s also a more personable crowd: more lifers and diehards, fewer front-runners, less corporate,
just friendlier and more engaged. You always hear that hockey players are the best interviews, but you rarely hear anyone say hockey
fans are the best live event fans. They are. Of the four major sports, only hockey is significantly better in person.
I always thought my daughter would be a basketball fan — she loves playing hoops and even likes going to Clippers games. (She won’t
attend Lakers games because “the Lakers fans are there.” Let’s just say the brainwashing worked.) Imagine my surprise when she fell for
the Kings within minutes of her first game, even asking the lady next to us, “Who’s the best player?” The answer was playmaker Anze
Kopitar, but only because Jonathan Quick hadn’t morphed into an octopus Jedi yet. She watched Kopi skate around for a few shifts,
ultimately deciding, “I want to get his jersey!” because, as you know, little kids are the biggest front-runners on the planet. We showed up
for the next period with my daughter proudly showing off her black no. 11 jersey. She was hooked. There was no going back.
We spent the next six months attending Kings games. She learned about hockey on the fly, grasping “power plays” and “icing” pretty
quickly but being stymied by the vagaries of the “offsides” rule. (I’m still not sure she understands it.) She loved the concept of overtime,
and the fact that the word “death” is involved. She really loved shootouts. She noticed things that I haven’t noticed for years — you
know, like how linesmen use the boards to hop up before a puck hits their skates, or how goalies spray water in their faces OCD-style
during every single break. She hated how the fans treated Dustin Penner, their slumping left wing who couldn’t buy a break, frequently
yelling out, “COME ON PENNER!” right after someone razzed him. A hierarchy developed for her: Kopitar first, then Drew Doughty
(their handsome star defenseman), then Penner, then Quick. Those became her four guys.
As April approached, I started prepping her for the playoffs. So there’s this thing called the Stanley Cup. It’s a big trophy that looks like a
mammoth cup. You can drink out of it and hold it over your head. Everyone wants to hold it, so everyone tries harder in the playoffs. You
have to beat the same team four times before they beat you four times. Then, you have to do it again. Then, you have to do it again. And if
you do it a fourth time, you get the Cup. And what happens is, they hand the Cup to the captain, and he skates around and kisses it, and
he hands it to a teammate, and that guy skates around, and it’s fucking awesome. Excuse me, freaking awesome.
She didn’t get it. There were more than a few dumb questions like, “So if they beat the first team four times, THAT’S when they win the
Cup?” Eventually, she figured it out. You know the rest. The no. 8-seeded Kings stole the first two games in Vancouver, morphed into a
juggernaut and never looked back. My daughter attended all but one of their home playoff games. More than once she wondered, “Why
didn’t they always try this hard?,” like she was auditioning for her own “Because It’s the Cup” commercial. The short answer: That’s
hockey. Teams catch fire. It happens every year.
They made the finals when she was sound asleep, thanks to an overtime goal from Penner in Phoenix. After two wins in Jersey, she did
the math and realized that Wednesday night could double as Cup Night … you know, assuming they won Game 3. Which they did. The
Kings scored four times, Quick notched another spectacular shutout, my daughter broke her unofficial record for “Most attempts to start a
‘Let’s Go Kings!’ chant,” and she even unearthed a semi-creative heckle for future Hall of Famer Martin Brodeur (“Hey Marty, you’re
older than my grandpa!!!”). When Kopi scored their second goal on a spectacular bang-bang play that my friend Lewis (my only Kings
friend) described as “some 1980s Russian Olympic hockey shit,” she totally flipped out, jumping up and down with her arms raised,
high-fiving everyone in our section and even running down to pound the glass like a maniac. I can honestly say that I’ve never seen her
that happy — not ever.
So Wednesday’s game … man.
I tried to warn her. I tried to prepare her: “Look, this is sports, you never know, you can’t just assume they’re going to win.” She
wouldn’t hear it. She kept saying, “Dad, stop it, just stop. They’re going to win.” She had the whole night planned in her head,
inadvertently jinxing it with questions like, “Who gets to hold the Cup first again?” and “How long will they pass it around?” She
insisted on arriving 40 minutes early for warm-ups. On the way there, she leaned out her window and waved to anyone wearing a Kings
jersey. We made it downtown and realized it had morphed into a sea of Kings jerseys — more than we had ever seen. She was delighted.
“Look at all the jerseys!!!!” she gushed. “Did the Lakers ever have this many?”
And I just watched the whole thing happen, unable to stop it, knowing the entire time, “Oh God, tonight’s probably the night … her first
stomach-punch loss.”
I felt that way about all their fans, actually. The Kings have been kicking around for 44 seasons, with those years ranging mostly from
“unhappy” to “forgettable.” They had exactly two “eras” that anyone remembers (Marcel Dionne/Rogie Vachon and Gretzky), one
miracle (a 5-0 comeback to save the series against the ’82 Oilers), one Stanley Cup finalist (the ’93 Kings) and one genuinely
heartbreaking moment (the McSorley game). Kings fans weren’t tortured like Canucks fans or insanely bitter like Leafs fans. They
weren’t really anything. What were they? Even they didn’t know. Suddenly their boys started winning games, and they kept winning, and
the Lakers and Clippers disappeared, and Kings flags started popping up on cars, and locals started wearing Kings jerseys, and Quick was
getting Kobe-like “M-V-P” chants, and wait a second … what the hell was happening?
By Game 4, they were immersed in one of those improbable Vegas movie montages where the chips are piling up, the blackjacks keep
coming and everyone is laughing in delight. Before the game, longtime season-ticket holders posed for pictures with the rink behind
them, almost like they were preparing for a wedding or something. Even Julia (the patient soul who sits next to us and spent the season
fielding my daughter’s annoying questions) was shockingly optimistic for a grizzled hockey veteran. When I obeyed all jinxing rules by
saying, “Man, it seems like everyone thinks you’re going to win tonight — that would make me nervous,” Julia answered quickly, “Oh,
we’re winning tonight.”
Uh-oh.
They never saw it coming. After New Jersey scored a stunning go-ahead goal with under five minutes to play, the crowd reacted like Don
Draper and the fellas during last weekend’s office surprise on Mad Men. Nobody handled it worse than my daughter. She almost started
crying right then. I vainly attempted the whole “There’s still time, you have to think good thoughts” parental routine. The clock kept
ticking. The Kings took a dumb penalty. Tears started forming. I talked her off the ledge, rubbed her shoulders, did whatever I could to
prevent a meltdown. With 50 seconds remaining, the Kings pulled Quick and almost immediately yielded an empty-netter. Time to get
her out of there. Fast. We zoomed up the aisle as she buried her face in one of those annoying white towels that everyone waves now. She
kept it together until we reached our car. And then, waterworks.
Remember that scene when Forrest Gump finds out about his son, digests the news, then worries that the boy is just as stupid as he is?
For two terrible seconds, he’s thinking to himself, Oh, no, I hope I didn’t ruin this kid. That’s how I felt when I watched my daughter
sobbing. Why did I do this to her? Why would I pull her into this fan vortex where you’re probably going to end up unhappy more than
happy?
Then I remembered something. Sports is a metaphor for life. Everything is black and white on the surface. You win, you lose, you laugh,
you cry, you cheer, you boo, and most of all, you care. Lurking underneath that surface, that’s where all the good stuff is — the
memories, the connections, the love, the fans, the layers that make sports what they are. It’s not about watching your team win the Cup as
much as that moment when you wake up thinking, In 12 hours, I might watch my team win the Cup. It’s about sitting in the same chair
for Game 5 because that chair worked for you in Game 3 and Game 4, and somehow, this has to mean something. It’s about using a
urinal between periods, realizing that you’re peeing on a Devils card, then eventually realizing that some evil genius placed Devils cards
in every single urinal. It’s about leaning out of a window to yell at people wearing the same jersey as you, and it’s about noticing an
airport security guy staring at your Celtics jersey and knowing he’ll say, “You think they win tonight?” before he does. It’s about being
an NBA fan but avoiding this year’s Western Conference finals because you still can’t believe they ripped your team away, and it’s about
crying after that same series because you can’t believe your little unassuming city might win the title. It’s about posing for pictures before
a Stanley Cup clincher, then regretting after the fact that you did. It’s about two strangers watching you cry at a stoplight. It’s black and
white, but it’s not.
Only 12 hours later, I flew cross-country to watch the Celtics play Miami in Boston. My wife couldn’t believe it. We were committed to a
party in Los Angeles the following night. Who flies cross-country and back in 24 hours?
“I don’t understand,” she said. “Why can’t you just watch it from home?”
Because it’s my favorite Celtics team in 25 years. Because there was real history at stake — the LeBron/Wade era hanging in the balance,
the Big Three possibly playing their final home game, the distinct possibility of either LeBron’s greatest game or LeBrondown III (with
no in-between). Because I wanted to be there with my dad. Because I wanted to stroll down Causeway Street, see that familiar sea of
green, feel like I never left. Because I wanted to savor those “Let’s Go Celtics” chants, hear the accents, enjoy that only-works-in-person
moment before tip-off when a wired Garnett bumps fists with every opposing player, stomps over to the foul line near Boston’s bench
and yells at his fans. Because we spent five years watching Rondo, Pierce, Allen, Garnett and Doc fighting to maintain something that
mattered to them — and to us — even as teammates kept changing, bad breaks kept happening, trade rumors kept swirling and there
were multiple reasons for any one of them to pack it in.
Their improbable turnaround wasn’t about money, numbers, accolades, headlines, commercials, brands or contract runs. These four guys
loved playing together, loved their coach and loved their fans. It’s really that simple. When the trade deadline was looming last March,
right as the season appeared to be splintering, something interesting happened: They fought to stay together. Their coach called the Big
Four (that’s what they are now) into his office and asked if they believed they could win the 2012 title. They said yes. Over the span of
four days, they nearly swept the Lakers, Clippers and Warriors all on the road, showing astonishing resolve. At the same time, nobody
was bowling over Danny Ainge with killer offers. He decided to keep them together for one last run. You never know.
THE 1987 FINALS REVISITED
It has been 25 years since the Celtics showdown with the Lakers in the 1987 NBA Finals, here is an excerpt from The Book of Basketball
breaking down the final seconds of Game 4.
• “That Was Supposed To Go In”
Three months later, Derrick Rose was rehabbing his knee, Miami was imploding and the creaky Celtics needed one more victory for the
most improbable Finals trip in franchise history. They were so banged up, even their coach was battling a herniated disk. An injured
coach??? As casualties kept piling up and the boys kept chugging along, undaunted, they started resonating with Boston fans like the ’87
Celtics, ’76 Celtics and ’69 Celtics once upon a time. This was totally different than 2008’s whirlwind of a fantasy season. We knew these
guys now. The best teams are like dogs — even if it’s most fun when they’re puppies, the most meaningful moments come later, after
they’ve lost a step or two, when you know them about as well as you know anything. It’s not about Rondo throwing an ESP alley-oop to
Garnett, or Allen sneaking off a double screen to nail a 3, or Pierce gritting his way through a 6-for-19 and somehow making the game’s
biggest shot. It’s about the familiarity of those moments more than anything, and how they intersect with the franchise’s history as a
whole….
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