Trends and Fads Blog!

One major fad Cody and I know of in my life right now is the HCG diet. I, Valerie, currently work at a medical clinic and the nurse practioner I work for sells the HCG diet like crazy! Along with the diet, comes no calorie dressing, protein shakes, chocolate and carmel syrups, and teas. This appeals to the consumers because they are still able to eat good tasting foods while staying on a 500 calorie diet for about 30 days, giving themself an injection of the HCG hormone daily. This is a fad because it is huge in the women community, but it is a diet. And the key to losing weight on this diet is te 500 calorie consumption a day, and no one can stay on a 500 calorie a day diet without getting sick of eating plain dry chicken and fake chocolate syrup for the rest of their life. It is like every other diet plan, and diets don't every work long term for anyone. Also, on of Codys friends did it and it was hard for him to not be able to eat whatever he wanted. As a male, you want to be able to consume a lot, and have that energy to lift weights or work out but while Frank was on the HCG diet he had very little energy to do much and was always hungry and grumpy! HAHA!

Another fad we came up with was Facebook. It has people all excited and ready to meet new people and even use it as a DATING site! Some people are just crazy! Let's be real though, we all use Facebook, some of us may not even post pictures or statuses all day everyday, but we are addicted to getting on it. We are addicted to ready about people lives, the gossip, and even to see the vacations and events they go to. The funny thing about being addicted to Facebook is that if you don't have time to check your page one day, you feel completely out of the loop, like you missed out on some important, world rocking news that day. We are all so crazy about Facebook that we even add people we don't even know or have barely said five words to because we want so badly to have the most friends. Not only do people accept other people to be their "friend" on Facebook, but business also use Facebook to promote and advertise. People, businesses and promoters use Facebook to network, and social networking has exploded in today's Popular Culture.

One of our favorite and most used fads in today's culture is texting. Sadly, it has become one of the main sources of cummunicating for us with our family and friends. Since our lives get so busy and hectic we have no time to sit and talk on the phone so we text and have conversations through that. Texting has also become a convenient form of communication, especially if you are in an where it is not the appropraite setting to talk on the phone, but you need to talk to someone at that moment. Texting is also a form of privacy when out in public. We all lived perfectly fine without texting, but now that we all have it, we never want to give it up!

One fad that Cody and I just recently used is Youtube. It has erupted in mainstream for people to market themselves and products. Celebrities, like Justin Bieber, have become FAMOUS and made millions off of one simple video they posted on youtube and just happened be noticed. This has happened numerous times with the "Charlie Bit My Finger" and just recently with the little girl Sophia who kills it with her remake of Nikky Manaj's "Super Bass" song. We all love to go on youtube and watch anything and everything you could possibly think of to watch. Not only do we get to watch what we want, but we also get to be entertained with people making the most ridiculous videos in hopes of being recognized or just simply for their own entertainment to share with their friends as well.  Just the simplicity of youtube is amazing too. Being able to load your very own video in a matter of seconds, and the opportunity to let your voice be heard, when in earlier years it was a lot harder to be heard or voice yourself so pubicly. This fad is sure to have people excited for years to come!

Last but not least, we would like to discuss the fad of Fantacy Football. How crazy is it that we are able to chose our own "professional" football teams and make money off of them! Not only in the idea incredible, but the experience of having your own fantacy football team is pretty amazing as well. Imagine being a professional football coach and being at the beginning of your season and you have the ability to pick any superstart player you want?! That is what it is when you chose your fantacy football team. Coaches in the NFL try to pick all the great players, have the chance of going into the playoffs. Once you get through the playoffs your team gets to play in the Super Bowl and after you win your teams get a big trohy and accomodate your extra time spent and job well done! Now, back to reality. With the Fantacy Football League it is now possible for everyday to people to be able to do this! All the control is in our hands, and we get to make the decisions. Fantacy leagues are a fad  because it has recently given football fans a fun way to keep up with their favorite players and have some competetiveness even more than just watching the games, but also with having their very own team to compete with others!

One trend that we decided to discuss is reality tv. Not only just for the fact that it completley took over tv as a whole pretty much it seems that alot of the new shows and series are based upon some form of reality. It used to be rare that you would see more than a couple reality shows on at time like the Price Is Right or Jepaody. Now its impossible not to see reality tv shows on any channel. Pop Culture has definitley taken over tv mainstream qnd it gives people the impression that anybody can get on tv and become a star when in reality half of the people on tv are major goofballs and need to quit. Take the show the X Factor, what a joke theres five other shows just like it, how many shows need to have people come on and perform for the world to see. Or what about Jersy Shore on MTV, that show is ridiculous and has no rights being on tv in the first place. Valerie and I feel that the world needs to take a vote and get origional shows like Reba and All That back on the air.

Re making of movies is also another trend that we would like to focus on real quick. This trend has over powered the movie industry for quite sometime now. Its almost unheard of to go to the movies and not see something that has been re made. Take all of the comic books from back in the day, the directors take the charachters and turn them into some kind of modern day hero of vilan. It doesnt end there look at a movie like the Karate Kid, it has been re made four or five times and the character has gone from a white teenage boy to a teenaged girl to a black teenaged boy, wow really whats the purpose of this maybe its the message thats portrid, it could be possible that the audience is more comfortable watching movies they have already seen or maybe the directors are hoping to strike it big in the box offices. Either way you want to look at it re making movies will always and forever beat out origional peices.

The Internet is another very important trend, not only nation wide but world wide. The internet may be the biggest avenue of Pop Culture to take for giving yourself a platform to be heard and recognized around the world. The internet started out as a way of getting information and communicating through emails. The internet has expanded, and we as normal people have the ability to make the internet our vry own. We can customize our own webpages, let our voices be hear through blogs, network with friends and meet new people online and for some, even find our soul mates. Peope can virtually do anyting and everything they could think of with the internet. Some of our favorite celebrities were founded from the internet...HOW CRAZY IS THAT?! Val and I use the internet to network with friends, shop, plan and book vacations, and stay in the loop with the world! With a little creativity and passion, you can do anything you want on the internet, and it is only going to get better from here on out!

Video games are a huge a trend in the last forty years. Beginning with Atari, video games have re-invented themselves, sort of speak. With games starting as just playing a game on one screen, it developed over the years to the screen being able to change bckground and having multiple players that were able to play against eachother by spliting the screen. Then we started having video games on the internet, where players were able to not only play versus the internet, but also play against other people around the world. Video games in the last five years have sky rocketed and blown up like crazy. The Wii, where you are able to move witht he controller to control what goes on in the video game and basically play the game yourself, not just with a controller. The most recent and astonishing to us is the Kinect. YOU ARE THE CONTROLLER! You ultimately control what your player does in the game, but doing the moves yourself! Video games have evolved and gotten better time and time again over the years.

Last but not least, we would like to discuss the trend in FASHION! It is a major trend in any society and has been vital to pop culture since models first stepped on the scene. Fashion is what makes everyone want to look good ad be noticed. Everyone has their own taste and certain look, yet we always tend to mimic another generations state by adding something a little more or taken something away. Fashion is what defines a culture. You can look at pictures and depending on the type of style of clothing and hair style you can determine or guess around which era that was person was in when the picture was taken. Fashion DEFINES who we are in society and our culture. It is always changing, but it is always known as what is hot and what is popular in that time period.