Posts Tagged ‘will.i.am’


my robot is better than your robot…?

August 16, 2011

Check out the new video from www.iamfirst.com, an American initiative to encourage more students to study STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths) subjects at school and beyond. It features various celebrities highlighting the importance of science, including Justin Timberlake, Steven Tyler, will.i.am, Justin Bieber, Miley Cyrus and Jack Black.

While I think that trying to engage young people in STEM subjects (or any academic subjects at school) can only be a good thing, this video is all wrong for several reasons – which are outlined in my resulting questions from the video, listed below.

  • Why is will.i.am wearing a blood pressure cuff?
  • Miley Cyrus and Justin Bieber don’t even go to school!
  • Reciting names of elements does not make one a scientist.
  • What is a Doctor of Thinkology, and what scientific careers value this qualification?
  • Phones and pianos are made of science! Ergo geeks are great and you should become one!
  • WHERE ARE THE ROBOTS? I certainly don’t have a robot. I didn’t see any of these celebrities’ robots!? So how can their robots be better than my robot?
  • I am quite confident that Einstein was not a rockstar.
  • How shiny is will.i.am’s chest? Surely that’s not natural. Perhaps HE is the robot?
  • So people should take jobs in science, engineering, maths and robotics because there are more jobs there than in basketball (which I thought was obvious)? Not because they might be any good at science, or want to study it further? Surely we should be encouraging young people to follow their dreams and make use of their talents and aptitudes, not just advise them to choose careers based on which sectors have more jobs?
  • Robotics and science is the future, because robots are all futuristic and shit… yeah.

I agree with will.i.am that if every school has a basketball court, then they should also have a science programme. That is perhaps one of the few sensible suggestions to come out of this video. Also, he says that educating our youth and getting them equipped for tomorrow is important, and I wholeheartedly agree. My issue is that this video is not educational – they have basically thrown a bunch of celebrities at the screen, told them to say “Science is cool!” and hope that kids buy it. How does this equip them? What concrete knowledge does this video share? Our youth is surely not naive enough to buy into something without concrete reasoning of why science is important – saying that scientists made an iPhone is not enough! I would suggest that emphasising the importance of STEM subjects in order to go into a range of careers, increasing earning prospects, mentioning specific job fields where vacancies and progression are available would have been the way to go. Young people need and crave this kind of information when they’re making their subject choices, university and college applications, and so on. This video is a bit nothing-y, at the end of the day.


Rihanna – Rated R. (album review)

November 14, 2009









July 7, 2009

Something which I don’t understand, beyond pure and simple prejudice (which is of course a large part of the answer, but humour me), is why gay men generally are stereotyped as not being able to keep it in their pants.  In The Informers any gay person has multiple lovers, smiles lasciviously at young surfer boys, and talks with a lisp and a limp wrist.  My limited experience of gay bars sorta betrays the same stereotype.  But of course, it’s a generalisation, and not every single gay male is like that.

In the UK, the word “fag” is not used, and we have “poof” instead.  But in the US, “fag” is used more for very effeminate gays (or “queens”, another word I hate!), the type I have briefly summarised in the above paragraph.  (In the UK, “poof” is used for more or less anyone who is gay, and “fag” is a cigarette.) It’s considered an offensive term, for obvious reasons, but at the same time, it is also used as an effective summary of fey gay behaviour.  Even gay people such as Perez Hilton use the term (setting back gay equality fights about 30 years in the process), though that particular situation resulted in Perez getting punched in the face by will.i.am’s tour manager, and the rest of the world cheering and wondering why it had taken so long for Perez to get even just a taste of his own medicine.  And this leads me onto a different exploration of how a stereotypical gay man (“gurrrrl!!!!”) behaves.

In gay clubs, the more camp people seem to equate being a “bitch” with being “fierce”.  Exhibit A: the existence of Sasha Fierce (Beyoncé’s alter ego), who is in turn a garish caricature and a fabulous performer.  Exhibit B: Ex-Pussycat Doll Carmit Bachar’s new song:

I can empathise with having a no-mess attitude and looking fantastic and fashionable – those things are undeniably great.  But why idolise sleeping around, stabbing people in the back, spreading rumours and getting a bad reputation?  I mean, those things are each individual’s choice but not really an attractive choice IMO.  And apart from the sleeping around (as far as we know), that’s exactly what Perez Hilton does, making a fantastic living in the process.  I stopped reading his blog a couple of weeks ago because although his news scoops were quite interesting, I detested his attitude, his blatant favouritism of Lady GaGa and Katy Perry (who are not all that) and utter hatred of others without any rationalisation.  And I thought, rather than feed into his way of life and his success, I would make a point of getting my news elsewhere.

In using the derogatory term in the title, I’m trying to understand or explore not only why all gay men are stereotyped in such an unflattering way, but also why certain gay men seem to embrace this stereotype, apparently in order to “fulfill their gayness” and put themselves in the correct box.  I would never want to be defined by a stereotype, let alone such an offensive one, and I think that it’s important to aim to be more than a generalisation, and aim to be yourself and the best you can be.