Today's Sex Symbol

If I had to pick a sex symbol of today I would pick Kim Kardashian.  She is certainly not the same level of "sex" symbol as Marilyn Monroe or Pamela Anderson are, but she is still a popular icon.  She is a perfect example of how people in America are thinking and functioning in our country today.  Americans today are very in to the reality TV.  We watch these shows feeding off of the possibility of a mistake or melt down.  We can not look away from a train wreck no matter how hard we try.  A perfect example of this kind of melt down would be Kim's 72 day marriage to Kris Humphries.  It was pretty obvious that the marriage was never going to make it.  A more recent example would be the relationship between Kim and Kanye.  Let's be honest for a moment... nobody wants them to work out.  We are all secretly waiting for Kanye to destroy Kim.  Or vice versa.  In a way, I suppose Kim could be a new way to identify sexy.  She is not twig thin but she still takes part in photo shoots.  I would like to think that our society accepts models who are not stick thin.

If we were to look at the flip side, we could look at Angelina Jolie.  Again, she is not a big sex icon, but she is the kind of person who uses her fame and money to make people focus on what she thinks needs to be focused on.  She has been named the Goodwill Ambassador at the headquarters in Geneva.  People do not watch her waiting for a melt down.  They watch her to see what good she will do.

The Internet

The Internet can be a very helpful tool.  It is making us smarter because anything and everything is available at the click of a button.  If we want to learn how the pyramids were built, to cook your favorite dish, how to tie a tie you can simply do it by typing in a few words into a search engine. You can also use the search engines as a reliable tool for research projects such as who came up with the idea of NASA, or who came up with the idea of evolution.  If you want to learn the little details about people, places, and things that you would normally have to go to the library for, you can now do it from your home with the Internet.

Facebook, Twitter, and other social media sites can make it difficult for individuals to accomplish certain tasks.  Everyday things that need to be done such as homework or paperwork for your job gets put off to the side because we are so caught up with these social media sites.  Posting statuses and tweets help keep us connected and sadly we have let that become more important than the essential tasks we need to get done for day to day life. 

The Millennial Generation

The Millennial generation is one of its own.  We are not like any of the previous generations. A positive trait of the Millennials is being tech savvy.  Technology was never something we had to learn or become familiar with because we grew up with it.  We always want to buy the newest thing. First, it was a flat screen TV and now everyone is wanting the new smart TV.  Another example would be cell phones.  As soon as there is a new version or model of whatever phone we upgrade. The Millennials have all sorts of electronic gadgets around their home (TV, cell phone, iPod, laptop, tablet, gaming system, etc.)

A bad trait would be poor communication.  Because of all these gadgets we tend to ignore face to face connections.  We are constantly texting on our phones, listening to our iPods, or playing a game on our tablet.  We use these gadgets to pass the time and we don't even realize that we are passing up valuable human interactions.

Happiness

After reading the two articles it was clear that one of the common arguments was that as humans, we have needs to be happy.  There are different things that make us happy.  In the Billy Sim reading, the Sim character is only happy if you buy him new stuff. Buying this character new or better things is a more permanent fix for being happy than it is in real life.  In the game, the only way the character makes any friends is if he buys things for his friends.  In The Futile Pursuit if Happiness it is talked about that we think we know what will make us happy.  We think we know what we want, but after we get whatever that thing may be, we keep going.  We say the next step, the bigger thing, or the newer thing (etc.) will make us happy.

What we think will make us happy is stuff that we actually buy.  From the second reading I believe it is a little more clear that buying stuff is a temporary moment of happiness.