Sydney Series

About 5,400 new words are created each day in the English language; the internet being a contributing factor of this occurrence. Since the mid90s, with the creation of the first social media--Six Degrees--internet forums and social media sites have been a prevalent part of our lives and cultures. Because the majority of people spend hours online, it is no surprise that interactions on the web have resulted in new colloquialisms.  Brief History of Social Media Mid90s: Six Degrees is first recognized social media created  Mid2000s: creation of MySpace and Facebook marks an increase interest in social media Early 2010s: Twitter, Instagram, and Tumblr gain popularity  Late 2010s-Now: TikTok immerges as a social media giant  The origin of internet slang and colloquialisms is dependent on the social media site and the youth who were active on that site. For example, letter Homophones like LOL and OMG were popularized by millennials on sites like Facebook, MySpace, and Earl...

This week in my English AP class I read “I want a Wife” written by Judy Brady. Brady summarizes the impossible demands wives face in her essay. This made me reflect upon the portrayal of wives in sitcoms I watched when I was younger. Many times, wives are depicted as overbearing, no fun second mothers to their husbands. This is especially common in sit-coms like King of Queens and the Simpsons. Carrie and Marge are the responsible opposite to their irresponsible husbands, Doug and Homer. The control freak wife and the buffoon husband is a trope that was used in virtually every sitcom in the 90s to the 2010s. The irony of the sitcom wives is that they are expected to manage all the affairs regarding the family that the husband is too stupid to do while also being a fun partner. The wives, like Carrie and Marge, were criticized by their husbands for being too controlling or boring, yet the husbands, like Doug and Homer, wouldn't lift a finger to help their family. These impossible st...

Released in 2004, Mean Girls has remained one of the most popular movies of the last two decades. On the surface level, Mean Girls is a teen comedy referenced a lot in pop culture, but looking deeper, it is a critique of the stereotypes of teenage girls. The protagonist’s dilemma is straightforward, Cady wants to fit in at her high school. She is granted the chance to join her school’s popular clique the “Plastics”. The plastics embody the stereotypes of teenage girls; they gossip, shop excessively, fight over boys, and wear pink. Although she doesn't intend to befriend them, Cady unintentionally mirrors their behaviors and becomes a mean girl herself. Reflecting on her actions, Cady concludes that all girls in her school are mean girls because they all want to fit in, even if it means feeding into stereotypes. The movie resolves with the girls reconciling and learning to be themselves. At first, the female characters are entirely based on stereotypes of teenage girls. Howeve...

Recall the last movie, TV-Show, or book you have read. Were there any characters that had a disability in it? More importantly, did you notice that there was a lack of disabled representation in the media you were consuming? In a society that treats disability as an oddity, it is rare for disabled people to see themselves represented in the media. Oftentimes, writers and TV-producers choose to exclude disabled people in their movies, books, and TV-shows because they are fearful that including a character that does not fit into the mold of a “normal” person would make the audience uncomfortable. On other occasions, a disabled person will be included, except the character is an offensive caricature of a disbaled person. Because good representation of disability in the media is scarce, disabled people feel even more alienated from a society that prefers able-bodied people. Fortunately, there has been an increase in accurate diasbled representation in the past few years. Netflix's hit ...