How do they not know?

Ok, so lately I've been engaging in late night binges of TV shows I really don't care about. It's a nice insomniac ritual and I think it builds character to watch terrible things sometimes. After all, someone went out of their way to make this *insert media here* and someone should at least give it a try.

While I was combing through the dross, I came across several witty-ish shows that had potential. I found at least two that I plan to re-watch immediately because they were hidden gems. And I would say it was a 30/70 ratio of American to Foreign programming. That 70% includes Australia, UK, Ireland, Denmark, Sweden and a few others. It's a broad sample is what I'm saying here.

In every single show, regardless of origin point, there was at least one scene where a cell phone rang at an importune moment. It rang during funerals, during love scenes, during somber moments, during wedding speeches, during firings; it rang everywhere.

"Of course I can talk! They are just getting ready to lower
the coffin, so we're basically done. I'm so glad I left my volume
turned all the way up so I could take this really important call
from my roommate who just needs to tell me that the sink
is clogged! I know, right? Hi-jinks!"

Picture from bestadsontv.com

Yes, this is a particular formula, allowing an inanimate object to break the tension or distract the viewers momentarily. But can I just ask a question here? How do they not know? How do these characters, presumably at least the ones who are electing to attend these events that have been planned and discussed for some period of time, how do they not remember to put their phone on silent?

I know. I know it's a thing. It happens. There's always some jerk who forgets to turn his phone off in the movie theater and you hear him beeping awkwardly during the previews to shut it down/silence it. But a wedding? A funeral? A session of nudity where people are going to rub together?? That just seems unrealistic and annoying. It probably isn't so bad if you haven't watched like 12 shows all do the same thing back to back for a week, but still. How do you show up at your beloved Gammy's funeral and not turn your cell phone at least to vibrate? I mean, that just seems weird to leave it on full blast walking into a funeral.

Honestly, I wish that was all. I do. But it doesn't stop there. No, not only do these Luddites leave their ringtone volume maxed out all of the time and never shut it off, they also do not know how to stop it from making noise. Now, I know we've all gotten new phones and had to spend a little time, maybe a month or two, learning every little thing about how to make it work, what buttons do what, etc. But after watching a character use this same phone for at least 6 episodes which encompass at least 3-5 months of in-story time, there is no excuse!

Maybe they just really don't understand the technology? I find that, as a viewer, hard to swallow. Unless the character is a grumpy elderly person who just calls it the "talking brick" or something, that's just flimsy. I cannot believe I'm the only person who notices this.

But there is a solution. It's fairly universal and works on almost all phones. Just press the power or volume down button.

If it doesn't have those features, close it. Turn it face down. Press the large button in the center. Press ignore and then silence your damn phone so when they call back you won't have to hear the ring again. No one does any of these things! When the phone rings, they just look at it stupidly and then do the comedic struggle to get out of wherever they are to take their phone call in private, letting it ring loudly the entire time. Seriously, the entire walk, just loud ringing. Are they making sure that people know it's not a drill? That the phone is still persistently ringing several seconds later? Do they enjoy the generic shrill beeping? It makes no sense.

There are people in my life with a passion for weird ringtones and they will let their entire song play at least once before answering just because they enjoy the tune. But that isn't quite the same. No TV show that I've seen has anything other than the standard, pre-selected tone. So why do they just let it keep ringing as they make their way out of the scene?! WHY???

Characters in TV and FILM: Just leave your phone on silent. Always. Forever. Check it occasionally, since you will anyway even if the damn ringer is set to jackhammer decibels, and turn the vibrate on if you are expecting a very important call or text during a sensitive event LIKE A FUNERAL!

I just cannot believe I've never seen a single piece of footage where the character hears the phone start to ring and simply clicks the power button to silence it while he or she excuses themselves to take this very important, deus ex machina phone call.

I won't get my hopes up.

Anyway, this just really started to bug me and so I thought I would openly plea to anyone involved in film or TV to please just teach the characters how to shut off their ringtones and find some new way of covering lazy writing or plot holes.

Exercise is Not Survival

This is really wrong.

Someone showed me this on Tumblr and I started typing out a reply there but I was running out of room, so I moved it over here.

First, the water was far from pure. Bacteria were around even then!

Second, and more importantly, they DID NOT EXERCISE!

Exercise is literally defined by the quality that it is specifically for health or fitness, i.e. “Activity requiring physical effort, carried out especially to sustain or improve health and fitness.” Basically it has to be in addition to normal duties you carry out during your life. I walk from my desk to the restroom or the kitchen, that's just normal survival travel, NOT EXERCISE!

No one drives to a fast food place, goes inside, stands in line to order their meal, waits around for it, then walks back to the car and goes back home, walking from the car to the dinner table inside and then posts on their fitness tracking system that they just worked out! (Well some people might if they are cheating, but that's not the point here!)

Anything that you do in order to keep living or be comfortable, such as walking to get yourself food or even just to fetch a remote you left across the room, is considered to be part of normal human movement. You are doing something with your body for some reason. This does not count as something done for health or fitness, therefore it is not considered exercise.

That's why it's wrong to say these people got plenty of "exercise", because they were not. THEY WERE NOT COMING HOME FROM A LONG BUFFALO HUNT AND THEN HOPPING ON A TREADMILL!

These primitive people did what they had to do to survive, not to get abs of steel. Try to remember, back then, fat was seen as being the height of society because it meant that you had other people to do they hard labor of catching your dinner for you.

I bet those people sat down and rested whenever they could!

They certainly slept more, from shortly after dusk to an hour or two before sunrise. In the winter, that could be almost twice as much as modern people get.

While their diet isn’t up for much debate in terms of organic, it was certainly free! They didn't have to eat food that was bad for them because it was all they could afford. If you could kill it you could eat it! Imagine how hard that must have been when there was nothing to kill?

Yeah, I’d be happy to switch back to people who want to eat free range and organic having to locate and then murder their dinner.

I don't have any issue with people who want to do all of the things that are listed here. I know the joke "Dead at 35" is meant to rebut the whole argument of going back to the way things "used to be", returning to "Paleo" or whatever. However, when I see it, I just get annoyed that people are missing the point.

Yes, the air quality and the water might have been less polluted. But were you always located conveniently near said water? No, maybe you lived down stream, after grazing and bathing animals and your settlement died out because of infection.

Yes, maybe your food source was free from antibiotics, but it also may not have been where you lived! Your food source could just get up and wander. If you didn't follow it, to some unknown new area, you died from starvation. If you did follow, you could have died from temperature change, or even another group of people!

They probably had such a young average death age because of other factors like malnutrition, disease, misadventure, murder, animal goring, accidents, war; the list is endless. But I'm pretty sure that either way, food, air or water alone were probably not what determined their lifespan.

Cheerleaders and STEM? MTP

I ran across this on Tumblr and I couldn't post my reply on the reblog for some reason, so I'm placing it here.

It’s vital to encourage little girls (and little boys too) to pursue careers that make them happy and satisfied. This may be the wrong way to do it.

When I (girl who liked physics) saw this, all I thought was:

“Well, obviously cheerleaders can have STEM careers because they’re hot enough to balance out the brains and still get sexual and/or life partners if they want one.”

Boys don’t like girls who are smarter than them, other girls don’t like girls who are smarter than them; it’s hard enough finding someone to be with when you’re a genius, if you add unattractive it’s nigh on impossible. Having the body and looks of an NFL cheerleader would be the panacea to distract potential mates from the brainpower.

If anything, this seems more geared toward young boys, trying to convey the message that it’s OK to find females associated with “science” sexy, and that’s missing the point entirely.

Why YOUNG GIRLS don’t pursue STEM careers is the double whammy of not enough encouragement and the clear prejudice against girls who are smart, unless they happen to be gorgeous, as is the case here. Then they can do anything because the physical appearance covers a multitude of intellectual sins.

Honestly, for young boys they probably don’t care what these young women do in their lives, because they are still incredibly hot and NFL CHEERLEADERS. They are attractive enough to pursue any career and still find a mate, which is really all most people end up wanting in life. I’m not saying this is good or right or even what should be, I’m just saying this is the world we currently live in and showing girls hot women doing science may backfire and contribute to not only them choosing a less demanding career path, but later, body image issues as well.

tl;dr

If I had seen this ad when I was younger, not only would I have been reminded that I wasn’t hot enough to be a cheerleader, but also that I should not pursue science because I wasn’t hot enough to be smart either.