Los Angeles Publically Transit-ed Disease

Los Angeles public transit is quite the ride. Occasionally, I take it from downtown to my job in Venice on Fridays. I would complain more but it takes about the same amount of time as actually driving during rush hour and is much cheaper than paying $5 per gallon for gas. It also provides steady entertainment.  

Last week, I was standing near the rear exit of a bus on the Metro 733 route that runs along Venice Boulevard. A man dressed in a suit chundered on the floor for a good 30 seconds. With every stop and go, it slid closer and closer to my feet until we were all asked to evacuate the bus and get on the next one.

A week before that, a homeless man sitting across from me peed himself while drinking from a flask concealed in a brown paper bag and simultaneously attesting his sobriety. The aroma was splendid.

Needless to say, I’m more than excited for the highly anticipated Expo Line to debut on April 28^th. The first phase, running from downtown LA to Culver City, has finally been approved to open to the public, after much more time and money than anticipated. It will be the first line to connect downtown and the Westside in over 50 years, and it’s about time.

Los Angeles and its lack of cohesiveness has always been a point of criticism. A point that, as an Angelino immigrant from the East Coast, I couldn’t agree with more. It’s the only major city I’ve been to that lacks any easy and tangible way to get from point A to point B. And I think this disconnect is the source of its fragmented feeling. After living here for 3 years, I still don’t understand its boundaries. Is Beverly Hills in Los Angeles? Is Hollywood in Los Angeles? I’ve asked people who are from those areas, and they don’t even know. It doesn’t matter how many attractions there are in the general area because if you can’t easily get from one to the other, you can’t appreciate their existence.

Maybe the new Expo Line will ignite a sense of unity among the numerous and diverse neighborhoods that fall under the larger umbrella of “Los Angeles,” mixing the ‘elite’ and the ‘street.’ I think the line will be very successful in attracting all kinds of riders, from the people who already frequent public transit, to business men and women looking for a shorter commute, to the many 20-somethings who want to avoid car payments and are advocates of green living.

I’m actually almost positive the line will be a success. It will surely be used by the lower class that already depends on busses. And I think it will attract the middle class and public transit virgins, because for some reason, public transportation attached to a rail of any sort is more appealing than when on an ordinary road. On the ranks of public transportation, speed lines and subways are usually top-tier, with busses on the bottom as least desirable. Taking the subway is like, totally cool and indie, and the bus is like, gross. Ask any girl from LA who has visited a friend In New York City for a weekend.

And for my last personal anecdote, my favorite transit experience: several weeks ago, a man sitting 2 seats away from kept humming Britney Spears songs and laughing uncontrollably. He dropped something under his seat and tried to pick up the object for a good 2 or 3 minutes. I realized it took him so long because he actually didn’t have either of his hands. I then realized the object he so fervently tried to pick up was a switchblade. Awesome.

Okay, so the Expo Line [thankfully] won’t prevent situations like that or those mentioned earlier. But it will provide a long overdue connection between the geographically close but culturally distant regions, allowing Los Angeles to function more like, well, a city. 

Evidence 1.0

A post I found while browsing Tumblr.

Reminds me a lot of this old time favorite,

Annoying Facebook Girl Meme

STOP KONY: A New High For Social Media, A New Low Gen Y

What does it take to get Gen Y invested in a global crisis involving the abduction of thousands of children and their subsequent conversion into soldiers and sex slaves? Branding and celebrity endorsements, of course.

This is not an attack on the STOP KONY movement or the unprecedented support the campaign has inspired. I doubt neither the authenticity of the cause nor its supporters. But, what presents a new high for social awareness exposes a new low for my generation: the most viral video in history owes its success to social media and celebrities.

Reaching over 100 million views in two weeks and dominating the virtual worlds of Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube, the STOP KONY Campaign speaks volumes about how we communicate, but it’s not saying anything good. Although it is groundbreaking that millions of people have been united by a common cause, they weren’t lead there by global awareness or empathy, but by the delivery service of social media and the presumptuous pull of celebrities.

It would have been near impossible to miss the STOP KONY video if you were anywhere near the internet during the month of March, and even harder to ignore its message.

How did this video become viral so quickly? The Invisible Children selected 20 “Culture Makers” to endorse and promote the cause. The list ranges from Gates to Gaga, Bono to Bieber. A range of celebrities who combined audience covers nearly every media niche. The culture makers updated their social media sites with links to the video and pleas to repost. It worked as planned, and the video had millions of views with hours, and 100 million in a few weeks. People listened.

From the get-go, the video captures its audience with slick production and a heartfelt story. The plot involves an innocent toddler slowly learning about Joseph Kony and the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), a group of Ugandan children telling their stories, and a bunch of young adults, like you and I, taking a stand. Emotion-provoking songs by upcoming artists fill the background noise and it ends with a strong call-to-action.

But, the call-to-action is asking the viewer to contribute by buying an “Action Kit,” which contains posters, a t-shirt, stickers, and a bracelet. Everything is nicely designed, trendy, and loudly promotes the cause. Buying this kit and sporting its contents is pretty much the extent of your support. All you have to do is buy and wear, the money going to Invisible Children to find Kony and rebuild the lives of the Ugandans affected. This message speaks loud and clear to Generation Y, who gets to feel the satisfaction of making a difference without exerting any tangential effort.

With the rate at which the video spread, it’s unlikely many people did much research before reposting, meaning they validated its truthfulness by the celebrity supporters and sheer number of hits. The new connectivity permitted by social media allows a message to spread quickly, but without any valor. The difference of being in the know or not is a matter of clicks, not a pursuit. But more awareness, in terms of numbers, is not necessarily an advantage. With large numbers comes a diffusion of responsibility. The more people that know about a particular misfortune, the less each individual feels the need to take action. Thinking “someone else will do it,” they justify their passive attitude and simply share the video.  The “awareness” reached by social media may in fact be a detrimental paradox.

External factors grabbed the audience, with empathy coming second. In a globally aware and humanitarian society, people would have already been concerned with this ongoing tragedy and been inspired to help by the empathy born from sharing the human experience. Instead, the millions of supporters were initially attracted by celebrities, and drawn in further by a video difficult for anyone with a conscious to disregard. What about the misfortunes without an eye-catching brand identity and celebrity endorsers? Should they take the backseat due to lack of appeal?

The people behind the campaign really know how to make us tick. They seem to have a better idea of how to influence the masses than the government. Using tools proved effective by social psychology such as good design, groupthink, a loud call to action, and clear instructions to reach the goal, the STOP KONY movement was ingeniously devised. It might even be one of the most influential campaigns since Nazi Propaganda. 

Lazy Sunday Reading

Some interesting op-eds...


Why I Am Leaving Goldman Sachs

 Skepticism: Helping or Hindering?

 How Charter Schools Can Hurt

www.me.com

You can do whatever you set your mind to. Impossible is nothing. Never say never.  Sound familiar? Of course it does—such clichés are the white noise of our childhood. 

Think about the Disney movies, TV shows, and children’s books, where failure was never the outcome and everyone wins. Has this bred an overly optimistic yet under-qualified generation?

And then we grew up a little.  How do we express ourselves nowadays? Facebook and Twitter. Status updates, profile pictures, mobile uploads, and 140-character witticisms. Each nurturing the idea that our thoughts/actions/experiences are worthy of being published to the interweb, to our own personal website, creating a false sense that everyone actually cares about what’s going on with each of us at any given moment.

Hungry? Pop something in the microwave. Viola—dinner in minutes. What’s everyone up to tonight? Text a few people and be in the know within seconds. Last minute question before exam? Email the TA late the night before. No response? Complain to the teacher the next day.

What does this all add up to? Anything, everything, me, now: the mantra of Generation Y, aka Generation Me. What’s the worst part? We’re all victims. I’m a victim, writing this on my blog like anybody cares. But does anyone care? Is just thinking people care enough? These are my peers and I face, problems we don’t know the answers to quite yet.

Psychologists say we’re going through a Narcissism Epidemic, everyone over-confident about their abilities and importance. Some even say it led to the economic crisis. “Sure I can afford that house.” “I can pay back that loan no problem.”

Anything, everything, me, now. What I fear the most about this mindset is my upcoming graduation. I expect to get a fulfilling, enjoyable job, aligned with my ideals, that pays enough that I can live comfortably while paying back the student loans that were so graciously handed to me by the government and private lenders.  Has the environment that birthed me fostered unrealistic hopes for the future, or gotten me so high on myself and instant satisfaction that perhaps I will be able to fulfill my own expectations? Time will tell.

Virtual Realit-Y?

Walking down a busy street in Manhatt…DUCK! A pterodactyl is coming straight towards you. Regain composure in just the knick of time to jump over the stream of molten lava. Wait…is it the end of the world or something? Are you on drugs? No, but you sure do look like a crackhead wearing those ridiculous glasses.

I wish I was talking about the end of the world or drugs or something else cool like that, but instead I’m referring to a new technology that’s been getting a lot of attention lately. Google recently announced they will be releasing virtual reality eyeglasses within the year. But despite the buzz, Google actually hasn’t unveiled too much about the product. Good. And I hope it stays that way for a while. Honestly, I think the last thing we need is another gadget weighing down our technological tool belt.

Good news for all you aspiring optometrists out there: I realized I spend probably about 90% of my day looking at a screen of sorts. At work? Staring at laptop. In class? Staring at laptop and projector. Doing homework? Glued to laptop, phone, and television. I’m not proud of this, but it’s the medium of my generation. And with the integration of virtual reality glasses, there goes the last 10% of the time I spend actually looking at the world.

I’m not denying that the technology would be useful, educational, and even fun. Running into someone you’ve met before but his or her name has slipped your mind. No problem, it’s floating above their head. Walking down the street and you see a historical monument. At the blink of an eye (well probably before that) a full explanation the piece is scribed in the sky above it.

But just because we can doesn’t mean we should. If you haven’t noticed, new technology doesn’t make our lives simpler, or even better. Sure it makes many tasks easier, but the time saved usually isn’t spent relaxing, but rather filled with more tasks. According to my social psychology teacher, we are “primordial beings living in an advanced technological world.” Remember that episodes when the Flintstones met the Jetsons? Kinda like that.

According to my teacher, we peaked during the time of Roman Empire. We were in our physical prime, walking miles a day and eating the basics: protein, fruits, vegetables. Now, we suffer from a national obesity epidemic and are lucky if we walk to the water cooler twice within the hour. Humans haven’t evolved much for thousands of years, but our technology has.

Is my teacher right? Should we look to the past for solutions for the present? I think so, because the remedy to many of our self-inflicted problems is simplification. Take a look at this video that shows the future of the virtual-and-augmented-reality technology discussed above. The video focuses on empathy. Pay close attention to 6:45, when the character is given a lesson on empathy and nature after putting a cigarette out on a tree:

“Empathy is not only projecting ourselves on our fellows but also on the world around us. One should never forget that we are all stardust we are one with the matter of the universe”

Best advice I’ve gotten in a while from talking glasses. But why does it take a billion dollar technology and a seven+ minute creepy video to tell us the same thing we could have learned by reading (gasp!) some Thoreau or get this—even venturing out into nature ourselves! (Gasp again, but this time for breathing in fresh air for the first time in years).

But what advice is it that we should borrow from the past? Simplify. Be a minimalist. Get rid of everything you don’t need.  Join the Simplicity Movement.

Think of times people associated with happiness. Childhood. College. Vacations. Traveling abroad. What do all of these have in common? Not a lot of stuff. People following the Simplicity Movement have traded in their McMansions, cars, technology, and luxurious material items for flats and studio apartments containing only the bare necessities. According to them, the less stuff you own, the less stuff that owns you. And they claim to never been happier.

Okay so I’m probably not going to run home and throw my iPhone in the garbage disposal or burn my wardrobe, but I don’t plan on adding to my technological armoire any time soon. If you see me ducking a pterodactyl or jumping over a stream of lava anytime soon, hopefully its because I’m starring in Jurassic Park V, and not lost in a virtual world. 

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Six-Legged Giant Finds Secret Hideaway, Hides For 80 Years