#livetheeasyway

[livetheeasyway-blog]

Counting YouTube Views on the Pop Charts: Forward-Thinking or Just Plain Unfair?

Every day the Internet becomes more and more ingrained in our society, and there are no shortage of debates on whether or not this is a good thing.

Some praise the Internet for connecting our huge world, and others ridicule it for inadvertently discouraging face-to-face contact. One major component in the connectivity and dis-connectivity of the Internet is the video-sharing site YouTube. On YouTube, one can watch anything from cat videos to professional-grade short films, but music and music videos account for a huge portion of YouTube’s daily traffic.

Earlier this year, Billboard realized this and decided to start calculating their Hot 100 list (a list of the top 100 pop songs of the week) incorporating YouTube views on music videos and official lyric videos. At first hearing this decision, most people thought it seemed like a great step forward in showing how music sharing in our society is changing, and many looked to the example of Gangnam Style, a song that got over 1 billion views on YouTube plus regular radio time but that never managed to take the number 1 spot despite its cultural impact at the time.

However, many opinions changed when the Harlem Shake viral video craze took over the Internet and, subsequently, caused the song Harlem Shake to sit at number 1 on the Hot 100 for an entire month, even though hardly anyone cared about the song itself, just viewing and creating the wild videos it went along with. Also, in the recent past, many songs have risen to number 1 or 2 in their first week and immediately fallen because of the massive video hits at their debut and a sharp drop in interest after the first few days. The Hot 100 theoretically represents popular opinion on music in a given week, and while this new addition to the list calculation makes it harder to distinguish fads from cultural landmarks that will last for years to come, it does accurately reflect the increasingly short attention span of the Internet generation, and how quickly we forget things that were all the rage five minutes ago.

What do you think about the Hot 100 counting YouTube views? Does it help accurately show or help misrepresent the nature of popular culture?

- Natalie is a junior in high school in California.

[livetheeasyway-blog]

What Makes a Song a Good ”Pop” Song?

Pop songs often shape pop culture, give us iconic images in videos, and get stuck in our heads WAY too easily. In the past, there have been obvious trends in popular music, with a lot of songs sounding similar or having a similar feel to them. However, nowadays, popular music is all over the place. In the Billboard Hot 100, the top 20 has your old stand-by pop divas like Lady Gaga and Katy Perry, but it also has indie artists like Lana Del Rey and Lorde as well as R&B artists like Drake and Jay-Z; even Norwegian Internet sensations Ylvis, with their comedy song “The Fox,” reached the top 10! What could all these different artists and their songs possibly have in common to qualify them all as Hot 100 material? There are several possible answers for this. Is it that you can dance to them? Well, not really, if the currently popular music is any judge; there aren’t a ton of upbeat club hits high in the charts at the moment. Is it just because they’re released by popular artists? That might be true, but Robin Thicke, Lorde, and Lana Del Rey are relative newcomers to the pop scene and their newest singles are some of the countrie’s most popular. My theory is that pop music is defined by its ability to get stuck in your head quickly and incurably. These are the kinds of songs that you hear once on the radio in the morning and that you’re still singing to yourself when you go to bed. They torture you with their catchiness, and as they become more popular, there is no escape.

What do you think defines “pop” music?

- Natalie is a junior in high school in California.

[livetheeasyway-blog]

http://icanhas.cheezburger.com/

[livetheeasyway-blog]

Tips for Resolving Roommate Conflicts

Getting along with your roommate is not always easy. It could be the way that they leave a mountain of dishes in the sink or not putting replenishing toilet paper. Regardless of the circumstances, here are some ways to resolve conflicts with your roommate without ruining the friendship:

Pick a time when you and your roommate are both free. Keep track of your roommate’s schedule so that you have a good chunk of time to talk. Knowing their schedule and suggesting a time to talk conflicts out shows that you cared enough to listen when they talked about their schedule in the past.

Do not approach your roommate with your game face on. When you start talking, be calm. Don’t gesture a lot with your arms and hands or put your legs in a power stance. Simply sit across from them and express your concerns in a cool and collected manner.

Speak about one specific problem. Try your best not to keep a record of wrongs. Address one problem at a time. You don’t want this conversation to become an assault on your roommate’s character.

If your roommate gets defensive, don’t retaliate. Emphasize how you understand how they feel, but that you don’t appreciate how their actions have affected you and your shared living space.

Hug it out or walk away. If the conflict is resolved in the time you have set aside, hug it out and put it behind you. If the conflict isn’t resolved in a half hour or so, walk away.

Give you and your roommate time to breathe then come back to the subject later. The best thing you can do is give yourself and your roommate time to collect your thoughts.

What tips do you have for students that are having roommate issues?

- Jamie Winder is a senior at the University of Delaware and will graduate with a BA in Creative Writing and a minor in Journalism this spring.

[livetheeasyway-blog]

http://icanhas.cheezburger.com/

[livetheeasyway-blog]

[livetheeasyway-blog]

Are you stressed out? Here are some quotes to calm you down

With midterms approaching, it is difficult to keep the stress level to a medium. However, I found out through four years of exams that starting each day with some inspirational quotes helps to put even the most stressed out college student in a positive head-space.

Here are some quotes that you can pin up on your cork board when you need some pre and post-studying encouragement:

“Deep water and drowning are not the same thing.” –Kenneth A. McClane

“The greatest weapon against stress is our ability to choose one thought over another. –William James

“Adopting the right attitude can convert a negative stress into a positive one.” -Hans Selye 

“Sometimes when people are under stress, they hate to think, and it's the time when they most need to think.” -William J. Clinton 

“There are six components of wellness: proper weight and diet, proper exercise, breaking the smoking habit, control of alcohol, stress management and periodic exams.” -Kenneth H. Cooper 

“In times of stress, the best thing we can do for each other is to listen with our ears and our hearts and to be assured that our questions are just as important as our answers.”  - Fred Rogers

“I was a little excited but mostly blorft. ‘Blorft’ is an adjective I just made up that means 'Completely overwhelmed but proceeding as if everything is fine and reacting to the stress with the torpor of a possum.' I have been blorft every day for the past seven years.” - Tina Fey from Bossypants

If you’re interested in finding more anti-stress quotes, Tumblr and BrainyQuote are great resources to check out.

 -Jamie Winder is a senior at the University of Delaware and will graduate with a BA in Creative Writing and a minor in Journalism this spring.

[livetheeasyway-blog]