Who are you & what is your relationship to media?

Well first off, my name is Abigail Tufts and I am an American Studies major/rising senior at Dickinson College. I was going to try very hard to keep this to myself, but I guess I should put it out there that I work at WNYW-FOX5 for the Sports Desk. I know that FOX as a whole is not popular and FOX5 is just as much loathed, but I swear Sports is not as evil News. If anyone wants to ask questions about the sports vs. news side of a network feel free. This past Thursday I decided it was time for me to finally get a Twitter account. The "biography" part took me an hour to think about and it is almost the same type of question as this. In it I say "Lifelong New Yorker, Baseball & Hockey fan, Rock 'N Roll aficionada, Simpsons devotee, & South Park enthusiast." For the most part that sums me up, and explains briefly my relationship to "Media".

I was raised the way my parents were raised, and by that I mean I grew up learning 1900's-1950's popular culture for the beginning part of my childhood and kept moving up a decade as I got older. Movies, music, television, politics, news/newspapers, art and books were, and still are, a huge part of my life - from 'The Jazz Singer' to 'Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2', from 'Saturday Night Live' to 'The Simpsons' to 'How I Met Your Mother', from 'The Aeneid' to 'Leaving Van Gogh', my parents made sure I grasped as much cultural knowledge as I could. One reason was so that they could take me to parties or events and be able to speak with their friends and connect with them. Another was so that I could understand my generation's culture and where it came from (for instance - knowing that today's music would not exist without The Beatles, and even further back The Beatles would not exist without Bach, and so on). I also came to realize at a very young age that the various genres of popular culture all reference each other, and so it was important for me to learn as much as I could - otherwise I would never understand any of the jokes in my favorite movies or tv shows. But more importantly, my parents helped me develop what entertains me.

Luckily, I have one advantage over my parents and their generation when it comes to "Media" - I grew up in the internet generation, where I am more "tech-savvy" and understand the latest forms of communication (Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, etc) better than they do, which could mean I am more "culturally literate" in today's standards. So to end this, i'll say that all forms of "Media" have had a gigantic impact on how I live my life - what I listen to, what I watch, what my political beliefs are, how I judge others, and what I quote or reference.

Media has became such an important part of my life that I use it in not-so-average circumstances. For instance, whenever a friend comes to visit NYC, I do not take them to the Statue of Liberty, or the Empire State Building, etc. I take them on move, TV, or music tours - places where 'The Godfather' was filmed, the Seinfeld Diner (Tom's), The Dakota, Electric Ladyland Studios, CBGB before it moved to Las Vegas. Besides a few places that are historical, like Grant's Tomb, I like to take my friends and family to places that remind them of their favorite movies or artists, something that will make them smile.