UCSD Sun God statue by Charis Tsevis
Via Flickr:
Mosaic portrait of UCSD Sun God statue. Created for the "non other campaign" by the University of California in San Diego.
[Academic] Quick Survey on Autism and Sound Sensitivity
For Industrial Design
https://forms.gle/3E8RwrTzWJfXkfjB6
Brisk survey no more than five minutes. You don't have to be Autistic to take the survey, but if you know someone who is feel free to share the link with them!
She sketches distorted and dead animals and people, sometimes made up and sometimes real, always carried with her a tattered sketchbook.
She swims in the great lake as often as she can, even going knee deep in the winter. Bella has a fascination with drowning and tries to hold her breath underwater for as long as possible.
She collects bits of animals; feathers, shells, bug wings, and pieces of bone. She hides them in her trunk for the most part but a few of the ‘less disturbing’ items are on her nightstand.
Bravo was launched by Cablevision as an ad free premium cable channel on December 1st, 1980. The channel was available two days a week and shared airspace with the soft-core porn channel, Escapade. Bravo has always focused on the same core audience and originally dedicated programming to international, classic and independent film and the performing arts. Celebrities like E. G. Marshall and Roberta Peters provided opening and closing commentaries on films. Four years after the networks launch it had reached 350,000 subscribers. In the mid 1980’s Bravo converted to a basic cable channel and began adding PBS style sponsorships to it’s programming in the mid 1990’s. Commercial breaks were added in 1998.
In the early 2000’s Bravo began its transformation into the Bravo we know today. In 2002 NBC purchased Bravo for $1.25 Billion. NBC had an almost immediate effect on the Network’s programming. Bravo’s makeover ironically came with their hit reality makeover series Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, which was ordered by the network in late in 2002 and debuted July 15th, 2003 and reached a high of 3.34 million viewers per episode. The show had a huge cultural impact and created its first set of “Bravolebrities” with the Fab Five. The series also won an Emmy for Outstanding Reality Program in 2004.
Though the series failed to hold up to its initial success in subsequent seasons it succeeded in creating a new style of original programming for Bravo that focused on popular culture rather than the arts. Despite their change in style the network continued to aim its programming at an upscale and educated audience. They quickly expanded their reality programming with shows like Project Runway and Top Chef, creating programming that focuses on food, fashion, beauty, design, and popular culture.
Bravo differentiates itself from other cable reality TV powerhouses like TLC, MTV, E!, History Channel, VH1, and A&E by focusing the subject matter of their programming on wealthy, successful, and career driven individuals. Bravo remains committed to appealing to the same, upscale and educated audience it was created to serve, a sentiment expressed repeatedly on their website and touted often by Executive Vice President of Original Programming and Development Andy Cohen in his memoir, Most Talkative. In contrast, The Learning Channel’s very name has become ironic when compared with the subject matter of many of their series. Bravo remains committed to culture and their philosophy seems to work. In 2012 Bravo achieved it’s 7th consecutive year of ratings growths in the 18-49 and 25-54 age demographics. Bravo plans on aggressively increasing its original programming by 15% in the 2013-14 season. The network has announced that in addition to the 18 existing series they’ve renewed, they will be green lighting 17 new unscripted series. The network has also begun to explore the scripted world by putting 4 scripted series into development for the 2013-14 season. Bravo’s growth doesn’t seem to be slowing anytime soon.
Bravo’s Housewives
I had a friend who once said that the Real Housewives franchise was the greatest sole cause of the stupefaction of the American public to occur the 21st Century. Love it or hate it the Housewives franchise has had a sweeping affect on American popular culture. And whether you agree with the above hyper zealous statement or not there’s no question that the franchise has enjoyed dramatic and lasting success, garnering seven unique franchises in the US including Orange County, New York, Atlanta, New Jersey, Beverly Hills, Miami, and D.C., international editions in Brazil, Vancouver, Israel, France, Melbourne and Athens. The franchise has created over a dozen spinoffs, helped launch careers and build international brands. The Real Housewives weren’t Bravo’s first hit, or their most critically acclaimed but something about these women have made Bravo a fortune and continue to garner seemingly unlimited success for the network dedicated to serving an upscale and educated audience.
Though the original Orange County wasn’t intended to be anything but it’s own reality show it became quickly apparent that the concept behind the show lends itself well to a branded franchise, quickly expanding to New York and Atlanta. One of the geniuses of the show’s franchises is the variety it lends, appealing to a wider range of viewers. Andy Cohen describes them as flavors, OC is cul-de-sac normality, Atlanta is campy and over the top, Jersey is hot-tempered and clannish, DC was thoughtful and provocative, Beverly Hills is image-conscious and this close to Hollywood, Miami is spicy and tele-novelic and New York is aggressive and controlling. Though each series uses largely the same formatting and concepts they feel very different due to theses “flavors”. It not only offers viewers a variety of options, it also creates a brand loyalty. Though it’s not foolproof (think the disastrous D.C.) but a series barring the name “Real Housewives of…” stands a much greater chance for success than the typical new reality show.
These series work because they take everything that’s good about reality TV and leave out everything that’s bad (when possible). First, the series are formatted perfectly. They’re just real enough to feel like reality, but fake enough to be entertaining. Wikipedia calls it a “docusoap”. The creators intentionally avoided a Real World style of filming where cameras are present 24/7. Instead they opted for a more economical style of shooting where cameras would be present to shoot “scenes”. Though the producers never tell the cast members what to think or say they monitor their relationships and lives to help decide when the cameras should be present and which cast should interact and when. It’s real but not too real and allows the producers to better construct a narrative.
The Real Housewives franchise is a soap opera. Andy Cohen’s inspiration springs from watching All My Children with his mother. It’s a tried and true formula for television. The Real Housewives contain real humor, conflict, emotion, heart, and something totally unexpected like a Brazilian and a Polish super model fighting at a charity lingerie party to support breast cancer. But the housewives don’t just offer a vapid barrage of alcohol and cat fights, they actually deal with real issues from small things like friendships ending and parties where someone isn’t invited to the serious like alcoholism and even (though on accident) suicide and domestic violence. They may be a guilty pleasure but it’s a guilty pleasure that does from time to time trick its viewer into thinking.
Why Bravo Works
At the end of the day The Real Housewives are fun to watch and you grow to genuinely care about the women and their families. People like stories about people. They love feeling like they can relate to glamorous wealthy people. They enjoy feeling like Lisa Vanderpump or “Countess” LuAnn de Lesseps is a close family friend who they spend time with every week. It’s the same reason Dynasty works. Everyone wants to feel connected to the rich and glamorous.
And that connection to the rich and glamorous is what fuels Bravo’s success. To me, TV is about two things. One it offers us a chance to see the things we would never ordinarily get to see and extends a chance to dream. TV offers a level of intimacy that allows us to feel like we’re a part of something, which lends itself to the second, and more important, thing I love about TV; it gives us a chance to learn about people. It lets us see their lives, relationships, hopes, dreams, and fears. It gives us the chance to better understand other people and by extension, ourselves. Being an only child with a single mother who struggled to pay the bills I ended up spending a great deal of time watching TV and as strange or potentially troubling it could be, it taught me something about almost everything. In a way it taught me to think. And it helped inspired me dream. It showed me there was a world out there.
And that’s what Bravo gives us. It shows us the lives of wealthy, interesting, and successful people and inspires us to dream. It also teaches us. We learn something from Rachel Zoe’s manic work ethic, from Jeff Lewis’ obsessive design aesthetic, from Bethany Frankel’s wit and confidence. Put a camera in someone’s face and follow them around for months and you’ll undoubtedly reveal something about the human condition. That’s why Bravo is successful. Hopefully they maintain the same ingredients in their future scripted programming.
