OPENWIDE v14.2

OPENWIDE OPENWIDEZINE.COM

FIMS’ alternative student publication

WESTERN INC. VOLUME 14, ISSUE 2

FIND INSIDE pg3 Guest Article by Indranil Chakraborty

123 PART

PART

Arts & Entertainment

World

American Insight: Guns and the Landscape of University Life

PART

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Beauty Is Only Skin Deep

13

E r i n Le v i t sky

K elly Hob son

Exchange Essentials K enne dy Rya n

Ma de l i ne Marmor & J ena i Ke r shaw

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Western Inc: Paying the Price for Education on the Corporate Campus

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Disorientation Week

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Pièce de Résistance

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Steven Wright & Ainsleigh Burelle

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Vine Deconstructed in 6 Seconds

15

The Evolution of Not Giving a Fuck

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Travis Welo wsz ky

S t e pha ni e G o rdo n

Internships

Western Life

10

S a m i r K a shy a p

Kaely D anahy

I

t seems that PINK is the New Purple at Western. If the cover didn’t give it away, this issue of OPENWIDE exposes a wide array of issues relating to pervasive corporate influence on the Western Campus. If you are still unconvinced of the prevailing trend towards brand appeal at Western after reading this issue, I advise you to visit your University Student Council’s website and read their apology for the Victoria’s Secret PINK Campaign they ran in the UCC atrium a few weeks back. The tasteless display, which perpetuated unrealistic female stereotypes by picturing the ‘ideal female figure’ as a tall, thin, blonde specimen with a face cutout for conformity’s sake, ironically fell on the same day as Western’s first ever Women in Leadership conference. In their apology, the USC have downplayed this insulting mistake as a “scheduling error”, but this deflection fails to explain The Victoria Secret PINK display in the UCC Atrium.

Photo: Jessica Liske why a display of this nature was condoned in the first place. The apology, even the display itself, is beside the point. The USC exists to represent the best interests of a diverse body of students, and its efforts include this demeaning exhibition? The PINK campaign reflects a notorious image-is-everything culture that has become normalized at Western. Disagree? Head downstairs to our glossy nutrition depot, where you can one-stop-shop for products ranging from weight loss supplements to mass gaining formulas.

These products work wonders for your waist and bi’s and do a hell of a lot less for your health. Beyond that, their placement and marketing promote image enhancement, reminding you that the Western Inc. brand is the one you should conform to - don’t forget your Starbucks!

STAFF Editor-in-chief

Chris Ling

World Editor

Kevin Chao

Managing Editor

Kevin Hurren

A&E Editor

Jenna Taylor

Web Editor

Emily Stewart

Western Life

Travis Welowszky

Assistant Web Editor

Marwa Hassan

Promotional Team:

Madeline Marmor

Graphics

Olivia Pierratos

Shayne Sadler

Photography/Images

Erin Hofmann

Lily Ljubicic

Disclaimer: The sole responsibility of this publication lies with its authors. Contents do not reflect the opinions of the University Students Council of the University of Western Ontario (“USC”). The USC assumes no reponsiblity or liability for any error, inaccuracy, omission or comment contained in this publication or for any use that may be made of such information by the reader.

Cover art by Eilidh Fisher

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guest//

The 21st Century Student Blues Indranil Chakraborty Indranil Chakraborty is currently completing his PhD in Labour and Information Technology in FIMS. He is also a TA for MIT 2500, the Meaning of Technology.

W

e are living through monumental changes that are turning our lives upside down in a maelstrom of uncertainty. For the first time in post-war history, undergraduate and graduate students are facing a future of declining living standards compared to those of their parents’ generation. With the exception of disciplines such as law, business, medicine, engineering, and perhaps some applied science streams like statistics, the majority of students in other disciplines must shoulder the burden of student debt for a long period of time post-graduation. Recently, the Vancouver Sun released a Bank of Montreal survey on student debt. The survey states that “86 per cent of students in Canada expect to graduate with debt and 21 per cent expect to graduate with more than $40 000 in debt”. The 2012 report by the Canadian University survey consortium on graduating undergraduate students states that the average undergraduate student debt is $14 453, 62 percent of which is being financed by government loans. But the figure of average student debt may not shed enough light on the situation, which by some indications (the BMO survey, for example) has worsened over the past year. Rising tuition fees and cost of living have driven a large number of students either to take on more loans from private sources, or take on jobs during school that negatively impact upon their academic performance.

A recent Western University survey of graduate students published in Western News captures the essence of the current situation. According to the survey, the largest sources of financial assistance for graduate students are parental support, repayable loans and summer employment. This must be considered in a wider political-economic context; as federal and provincial governments cut spending on education expenses, students are expected to be increasingly self-financed. However, this is only possible if there is an adequate supply of part or full-time jobs available that not only pay a decent wage, but do not hinder students’ studies.

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As the prospective job market for undergraduate students becomes increasingly saturated, many students turn to graduate programs to expand their skill sets. An undergraduate biology instructor who wished to remain anonymous said that many of his students can only find employment post-graduation in the retail and service sectors, both of which generally pay minimum wage. “Unless one has a Masters or PhD degree, the present situation does not help a student to get a government or industry job related to their discipline.” I also spoke with an MIT student who aspires to work in the radio industry. Like many of her peers, she feels that she will require additional study after the completion of her MIT degree to enter the industry. “That too, is not certain,” she says. A Western University survey published in late October reveals that only 18 percent of Western students “had a job arranged prior to graduation”. The 2012 Canadian University survey reports that “even post graduate students are finding it hard to have decent full-time jobs”. The average salary for graduate students entering the work force was much lower in 2012 than in previous years. Yet even this statistic may not reveal the precariousness of the situation; to do so requires a closer examination of the relationship between academic disciplines and job availability. The prospect of landing consistent employment with degrees in such faculties as Arts and Humanities and the Social Science becomes increasingly difficult every year. Many of these graduates end up in part-time retail and service sector jobs where they compete with students who only hold high school diplomas.

In order to understand the current situation in the labor market, we must first confront a theoretical issue. There is no short supply of capital or labour power in the market. As corporate profit skyrockets in Canada, the unemployment rate hovers around 7%, and in some demographic sectors such as students, seniors, aboriginals and recent immigrants, this statistic is significantly higher than the national average. So, both labor and capital lay idle! The question remains: how do we address this asymmetry, which capitalism as a mode of production reproduces its very existence upon. It is a profit-fuelled system that recomposes labour through the deployment of capital-intenAs the prospective sive technologies, the plundering of natural resources, the forging of wars and the job market for introduction of neo-colonial regimes in non-Western nations. New York Times columnist Thomas Freidman argues that the current distortion in the econundergraduate omy is simply the birth pangs of transformation to a high-skilled information students becomes become a information worker to survive society. Does this mean everyone must in this economy with dignity? The point increasingly saturated, is, the economic disparity we are facing is nothing new. A similar pattern accompanied the industrial revolution, after many students which many feel we enjoyed long-term shared prosperity. Even if we refrain from questioning the nature of this affluence, there are still issues that must turn to graduate be addressed. Proponents of the knowledge economy seldom touch the issue programs to expand of its precarious labour relations, such as the call centers and hardware-manutheir skill sets. facturing units located across the world.

The story of the knowledge economy is not only one of skilled technologists and operations managers working for Apple, HP or Honeywell. It is also the story of companies like Caterpillar Inc., the industrial automotive giant which closed down its prominent London factory in 2011 after 50 years of production when its highly skilled employees demanded a pay increase. The factory subsequently shifted operations to Muncie, Indiana, where Caterpillar could pay employees bare minimum wages (as low as 12 dollars an hour) without facing backlash from a unionized labour force.

The changes we are experiencing as post-secondary students cannot be dismissed as transitory. Unless we consciously protect our rights as students and demand that like health, education is our right and that our government is responsible for delivering it, we will not be able to resist the neoliberal juggernaut which proclaims that it is the individual who must take on the entire responsibility of educating herself/himself.

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world//

gun culture 4th year student Kelly Hobson talked to some of our neighbours to the south about the role firearms play on the American university campus.

AmericanInsight:

Guns and the Landscape of University Life

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W O R D S Kelly Hobson

he morning of Friday, November 2nd, 2012, begins like any other for Sarah Stickle. Sunshine peeks out from behind buildings, washing over her as she walks to work from her apartment. A student at The University of Vermont, Stickle is majoring in public communications with a minor in music. She spends her Fridays interning as a production assistant with First Night Burlington, contacting performers for an upcoming event.

Just before arriving at work, Stickle’s phone vibrates with a new text message. Checking the message, she realizes it is from the university’s communications department. It reads: “A woman with a toy gun entered Angell Hall around 8:30 a.m. She has been apprehended by UVM Police. There is no threat to the community. Details to follow.”

Moments later, her phone rings. Checking the number, Stickle ignores the call to avoid hearing the same message in a pre-recorded drone. Walking into work, she approaches the desk of her supervisor. “Hey, you aren’t going to believe this...”

Several blocks away, the story of the woman with the toy gun is spreading like wildfire across the UVM campus. Students who were in the classroom are telling and retelling their version of the bizarre incident.

The UVM toy gun incident took place three months after the Aurora, Colorado mass shooting, and just six weeks prior to the Sandy Hook massacre.

The world of guns and school shootings may seem distant for Canadian university students—hard to imagine except when brought to life by Bowling for Columbine or other products of American popular culture. The UVM toy gun episode illustrates one of the systemic differences in the experience of an American university student versus their Canadian counterparts. What would have likely been no more than a good story in Canada instigated a campus-wide emergency procedure in Vermont.

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UVM is just south of the Canadian border, two hours outside of Montreal. The campus can be likened to McGill. Its students could easily be attendees of Western or another Canadian university. But our southern neighbours at UVM (and other United States colleges and universities) face a terrifyingly different reality.

Stickle is now in her third year at UVM. While the incident of the toy gun didn’t affect her directly, guns and the conversation around gun control are part of her daily life.

Stickle vividly remembers her first encounter with a firearm. While visiting family in rural Cassidy, Michigan for Christmas, her cousins (in their early teens at the time) handed her a rifle. “My grandfather has a whole case of World War II rifles,” says Stickle. “My cousins decided it would be a great idea to hand a gun to an eight year-old.”

Teetering under the weight of the weapon, Stickle was instructed by her preteen relatives to shoot the rifle straight up in the air. So she did. “It was this weird thing where I shot it into clear sky and then suddenly there was a bird, just falling,” says Stickle, laughing. “I mean, it landed a ways away from me so [my cousins] all went to check it out and I went inside crying.”

Stickle hasn’t touched a gun since. But her life in Vermont has not been gun-free by any stretch of the imagination. “The big thing with Vermont is you can basically walk into a store and buy a gun, and you don’t need a registration or a license, or a permit. Nothing to carry one openly or concealed,” explains Stickle. “You can just buy a gun and have it. That’s it.”

While such loose laws around the purchase of firearms in Vermont makes attending university there seem dangerous, there is one safeguard for students. The U.S. has complex federal laws prohibiting firearms on or near school properties. The Gun-Free Schools Act was passed in 1994 by the Clinton administration, and is applied nation-wide to this day. The GFSA works in conjunction with the Gun-Free School Zones Act, which defines a ‘school zone’ as within 1,000 feet (roughly 305 meters) of any school property.

“That’s kind of the one thing the U.S. is universally strict about,” says Stickle. “No guns anywhere near schools.” However, she admits grey areas can exist. “There are some blurred lines with UVM because it’s so spread out,” explains Stickle. “There are neighbourhoods in the middle of it where I’m sure you could have guns.”

Stickle’s roommate, Rocko Gieselman, is also a third year student at UVM, majoring in gender and sexuality studies with a minor in sociology. Like Stickle, Gieselman has grown up around guns.

“My road trips generally go down south,” says Gieselman. “I didn’t realize until my last trip but a lot of my family members carry guns just like, to the supermarket.” Gieselman explains that for many Americans, guns are a prized possession. “For some of them it’s a feature, you know? Like, here’s my art collection, and here are my guns. But that’s definitely more of a southern thing.”

Both Stickle and Gieselman have an arsenal of stories about how guns have touched their lives.

“I actually have a cousin who was involved in a really small school shooting,” says Stickle, as if this is a normal experience.

“A shooter came into his classroom and killed half the kids in it. And he wasn’t shot, but I mean, it obviously really messed him up.”

Gun control has been a longtime debate in the United States, revitalized with each major incident involving firearms.

Except in peripheral news stories about these mass shootings, most Canadians can live in blissful ignorance of the real dangers facing U.S. citizens.

“It’s a very real thing,” says Stickle. “It’s something that really feels like it could happen any day of the week.”

Although Stickle never considered attending a Canadian university, she admits it would have yielded more comfort during her undergraduate degree.

“I am a huge proponent of gun control,” says Stickle. “I think Canada has it right.”

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Exchange

ESSENTIALS S

o you’re in second year. You’ve found a home off campus, you’re learning how to get on with your roommates. You’re expanding your cooking repertoire past KD. Maybe you’ve seen posters with earnest slogans like “Internationalize your degree!” overlaid on clip art globes. Maybe you’ve got a sense of wanderlust that can’t be cured by browsing Pinterest. Sounds like its time to head to the International Opportunities Fair to check out your options for overseas exchange programs.

THE PROCESS Applying to go on an exchange isn’t that hard, provided you don’t mind filling out copious amounts of paperwork.

Your starting point is the International Opportunities Fair in October (don’t worry, there are two rounds of application submissions so you aren’t

WORDS Kennedy Ryan too late!). From here, attend the information sessions, research the various destinations available to you and make a list of your top three. Send in your application and various references, pay a processing fee (it’s $150 dollars that’s in place to weed out candidates who aren’t serious about the commitment) and then wait for your letter.

A WORD ON MONEY Going on exchange is a huge financial commitment. Tuition won’t change and the procedure for paying it remains the same. However, there are fees to be paid to the university upon arrival, travel visas (if necessary), plane tickets, insurance, housing and accommodation at your exchange university, meals and a million other things. Don’t forget to factor in your necessities: toiletries, school supplies, etc. Let your bank know that you’ll be using your card overseas so your accounts don’t get frozen due to suspicious activity. Work out ways to get money wired or transferred to you ahead of time. I recommend using Paypal, it’s much cheaper than Western Union, not to mention more convenient. There are also various bursaries for students who wish to study abroad.

Contact the exchange office at UWO to find a list of ones that are relevant to your experience.

ACADEMICS Here’s a harsh truth. Most university Communications departments are just making it up as they go along. Communications is a many-headed beast and can be taught in a wide variety of ways. Some schools are more holistic, while others lean towards a prescriptive method of teaching. Each Communications studies program at a partner university will be different from what

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you’re used to and will have its own quirks, just like FIMS does. If there are office/contact hours, attend them. Stay as organized as possible.

Here in Singapore, I attend the Wee Kim Wee School of Communications and Information (WKWSCI) at Nanyang Technological University, referred to affectionately by staff and students as Wee-Kee-Wee. The curriculum here is less “philosophy with smart phones” and more learning how to program smart phones. Graduating FIMS classes know how to deconstruct an ad campaign - here at WKW, we learn how to produce one. There’s a stark difference in teaching styles between FIMS and WKWSCI. Part of it can be chalked up to cultural differences between Singapore and Canada.

For example, asking questions in a Singaporean classroom is, well, out of the question. It’s simply seen as ignorant and embarrassing to draw attention to oneself in that manner.

CULTURE SHOCK You’ll experience different levels of culture shock depending on where you end up. Singapore is as developed as (if not more than) Canada and highly urbanized. Everybody speaks English; it is the official language of education and administration. When I first landed, everything felt different, but I got used to my surroundings once the jet lag and initial shock wore off. Nothing that you can read ahead of time (especially in a Lonely Planet Travel Guide) will prepare you for the first week. Just keep note of the important bits, go with the flow, and immerse yourself in an enriching cultural experience.

Intern, Uninterrupted

Unpaid Internships.

I’m not here to tell you they’re bad.

H

WORDS Jenai Kershaw

ere’s what I can say. I never once bought anyone coffee (and it’s not because there wasn’t a Starbucks right beside us). I was an intern this summer at an advertising agency in Toronto. No, I wasn’t paid. Yes, I’d do it again.

Amidst the turmoil of abused intern testimonials in the news, I experienced an unexpectedly refreshing take on advertising as an intern, something that isn’t shared in an MIT classroom. I would conduct research daily, spending hours clarifying, analyzing, re-clarifying, and then reiterating small facts. I edited audio and video, and these pieces went into pitches and plans for potential projects that transformed into ads. I also learnt how to bind a book.

As a student in my second year, I can identify what I’m interested in pursuing, and what makes me happy. I don’t have the resources to spend years on a degree that leads me into a field where I find myself underprepared and overwhelmed, so an internship proved my most viable option. Internships provide a teaching opportunity for employers who may not have the financial resources to employ someone new, and a learning opportunity for students who think, “being a lawyer is like Suits, right?”

Generation X is aware that there are few jobs, and many educated youth are willing to slave to corporations for any opportunity that may present itself. Yet, not all companies – especially smaller companies – are as manipulative as the few rotten apples. There’s no denying the hole in my bank account or the dark circles underneath my eyes, but I entered September with the satisfaction of thriving in an environment where my research became the foundation for the advertisement you saw on cable last night. I left my internship with a wealth of knowledge, contacts and experience, which outweighs any paying job at a fast food joint, in my opinion. That’s bound to amount to something, right?

To read the full article visit OPENWIDEZINE.COM

The Inequalities of Unpaid Internships

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WORDS Madeline Marmor

he modern internship involves numerous trade-offs made between intern and employer, which vary based on the type of internship. Ideally, in an unpaid internship, the intern gains real life experience and connections in their field in place of a wage and employment rights.

Unpaid internships raise issues of labour exploitation and workers rights. There is no relevant federal legislation on the legality of unpaid interns in Canada. Some see this as problematic since there are between 100 000 to 300 000 unpaid interns across Canada.

In Canada, as well as in the United States, unpaid academic internships pursued through an educational institution are legal, although issues of inequality do arise. For example, student debt renders many unable to work for free after graduation. These students then miss out on the potential benefits gained in an unpaid internship.

Along with the financial security necessary to work for free, a number of internships, paid or unpaid, are secured through personal connections to the employer. Less affluent students tend to lack those kinds of family connections. In addition, many academic internships are during the summer months, when many students work to contribute to their student fees and living expenses during the school year.

People agree to sell their labour to employers in an unpaid internship, but instead of a wage, they receive experience, connections, and a line on their resume. In an academic internship, the addition of a credit makes the transaction more worthwhile. This transaction, however, is not always a fair deal. Sometimes, the employer will not provide the experience the interns signed on for, instead tasking them with menial work. Regardless of these reports, people still sign up to intern for free because of the unpredictable job market.

In this sense, students have become “willing victims”. We are participating in this culture of work, where it is our youth and time that is being consumed by employers. The need for internships is communicated to people through institutions such as universities, by our parents and employers: it is not enough to have a post-secondary degree since a well-rounded student with real life experience is the demand.

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Beauty isonly

skin deep

arts&entertainment//

In 1983, Vanessa Williams became the first ever African-American winner of the Miss America Pageant. Thirty years later, Indian-American Nina Davuluri holds the crown. These achievements would appear to be triumphs over the adversary of racism, if only these women had enjoyed their titles with ease.

Beauty is only

Skin Deep WORDS Erin Levitsky

A scandal triggered by nude photos which appeared in an issue of Penthouse magazine caused Williams to step down. She dutifully passed on her position to the pageant’s runner up just a few months following her crowning. Davuluri’s victory, on the other hand, was met immediately with a demoralizing array of racist remarks, particularly in the online sphere.

The hateful reactions toward Davuluri’s victory reveals an undercurrent of racism that exists today, concealed by a veil of tolerance. A woman of Indian descent may participate in the Miss America competition, but allowing her to represent American beauty is simply out of the question.

Mistaking Davuluri’s Indian descent for Middle-Eastern, many American’s expressed their dismay that her crowning took place so close to the anniversary of 9/11. They claimed that she must be part of al-Qaeda, and the very least a terrorist. Others simply mocked her for being of a minority status, slurring her as “Miss 7-11,” among other terms. Illuminated by these horrifying blows, the overt racism ethnic minorities face in the United States is a problem too often concealed under the tolerant guise of the Western world.

However, the dichotomy of white and black as representative of purity and evil, respectively, is not an exclusively North American phenomenon. Indian culture contains an inherently racist logic of its own. The caste system is a normalized hierarchy rooted in India’s ancient history, and still functions to this day. The system essentially ranks an individual’s social worth according to their inherited membership in a particular caste. As a result, socioeconomic conditions come prepackaged from birth, and the opportunity for individual advancement beyond these constraints is nominal. If you consider the history of the caste system, which was imposed by Aryan occupation around 1500 BC, you’ve got the basis for modern day, illogical racism in India. Darker skinned Indians are systematically oppressed today because of distant European imperialism, just as African-Americans are for being forced into slavery centuries ago.

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It might be useful, then, to remind ourselves of North America’s white supremacist nature . Many prefer to take the naïve stance that we are, in fact, are existing in a post-racial environment. There will always be those who believe racism can be fixed with a few large-scale public displays of acceptance - but this acts only as band-aid on a gushing wound. Case in point: the election of an African-American president for the United States. What is important, yet often overlooked, is that Obama is only half black. In North America, lighter skin is considered superior. Obama is black, but not too black. This is not to negate Obama’s leadership abilities nor deny his cultural significance. Rather, behind this illusion of acceptance is a culture which still believes that lighter is better.

Philosopher and cultural critic Slavoj Zizek is dedicated to challenging false ideas surrounding tolerance. Zizek argues that upon deeming ourselves tolerant, we no longer feel the need to fight against the evils of inequality, exploitation or injustice. In keeping up an appearance of multiculturalism, we tolerate those who are different, just as long as they are not too different.

Not satisfied with the current structure in India, activist group Women of Worth launched the Dark is Beautiful campaign in 2009. The campaign “challenges the belief that the value and beauty of people (in India and worldwide), is determined by the fairness of their skin.” This campaign recognizes that ideologies must be shattered, binaries deconstructed, and hierarchies overthrown in order make any real change in the world.

Like North Americans, Indians are exposed to the dangerously omnipresent influences of the advertising industry. Universally, advertisers manufacture desire in order to sell products, a process Marx referred to as the creation of “imaginary appetites”. This trend is often synonymous with a universal neglect for the social inequalities advertisers manipulate in order to reinforce these “needs”. Indian advertisers take advantage of the nation’s extensive history of social inequality rooted in racism to sell their beauty products. Advertisements Indian consumers “a radiant, pinkish white glow”. They do so by depicting a woman who makes a magical transition from unwanted to utterly desirable after using skin whitening creams. Products are said to whiten not only faces and entire bodies, but private areas as well. Women are told that they must be lighter - everywhere - if they ever wish to become a wife. When considered alongside American advertisements riddled with racist ideology, it is clear that in both regions, white privilege and systematic oppression have yet to be eradicated.

In this corner of the world, we see racism in terms of our own isolated malady. What we regularly fail to recognize is that other countries are inflicted by a similar prejudice based on skin colour. Apathy for racism in a country thousands of miles away relieves American media producers from being held accountable for disseminating racist messages. This same apathy has North Americans happily purchasing their Unilever products such as Dove and Axe, while the same brand that manufactures skin whitening products such as Fair and Lovely and Ponds’ White Beauty for Indian markets.

As we venture deeper into the 21st century, it is hard to believe that certain skin colours are still more desirable than others. That skin colour can be instrumental in determining social and economic status is even more shameful. Comparing and contrasting inherently racist systems worldwide can shed light on a common struggle of all those disenfranchised. Perhaps then, we can band together to shift the focus from tolerance to a revolution of skin.

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6

deconstructed in seconds WORDS Stephanie Gordon

With apps these days coming and going, how long will Vine stay trending?

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Claiming that Vine is just an app would belittle Twitter’s most popular creation. Vine is quickly becoming a new form of expression. Although users only have 6 seconds of footage to work within, the time limit encourages boundless creativity. It has become an outlet for artists, comedians, and unsurprisingly- advertisers.

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Scrolling through the popular page, you will stumble upon everything from an artistic stop motion segment to short comedic skits. Experienced users take advantage of Vine’s loop feature, but if you dig a little deeper, you can see how 6 seconds really makes a difference. With such a short time to induce a laugh or response, Vine users are not only thinking outside the box – they’re breaking it. With trends such as “do it for the vine” and “smackcam,” users are going to extreme lengths for likes.

Scroll a bit further and you encounter another trend easily summarized as “Us vs. Them” vines. Here we see vines comparing the black community vs. the white community, girls vs. guys, and so forth. These types of vines heavily rely on stereotypes for an easy laugh. However, don’t let this “humorous” mask act as a distraction for the complexity of issues Vine generates. These videos reinforce stereotypes and provoke binary thinking. At first glance, Vine is a fresh new medium, but stop the loop and realize that we are only perpetuating this vicious discourse of “the other” vs. ourselves.

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Viral vines have also lead to the creation of Vine celebrities. This phenomenon has made many “outgoing” individuals who have perfected 6 second storytelling exclusively famous on Vine. With some of the big names having a total of 20 minutes of footage translate into 3 million followers, these “celebrities” are becoming famous at an exponential rate. But these everyday people remain unknown outside

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of the Vine community for those who do not have the app.

With the spotlight on Vine, however, they are still able to enjoy the perks of being a celebrity. Famous viner Nicholas Megalis was given the opportunity to vine his red carpet VMA experience, while Jerome Jarre was invited to be a guest on The Ellen Show. These viners even interact with their fans through “supervines,” where they specify a time and place and a surprising number of their fans show up to.

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Advertisers have taken interest in these famous Viner’s and use their mass viewership as an opportunity to promote products. Brands have started commissioning Viners to make vines that promote their product. Paying some up to $2000 to do so, companies have used techniques such as stop motion animated vines to product placement included in famous Viners’ videos. For example, Virgin Mobile USA enlisted the help of Pinot, a well-known Vine artist, to create a vine for them advertising their #happyaccidents contest. Companies are starting to the see value in this unconventional medium to advertise and promote their brand.

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Vine has created a very profitable platform by combining advertising, mobility, and video all into a short 6 seconds. The question of whether parent company Twitter will monetize is becoming more relevant as Vine’s popularity grows. Twitter waited a while before ‘promoted tweets’ started showing up, how long will it be before we see ‘promoted vines?’

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Everyone knows the fastest way for something to lose its cool factor is to force a revenue stream upon its audience.

This is evident in fans calling Viners that endorse products “sell-outs.” The future depends on how Twitter sees Vine, whether it be as a platform for advertising or if it becomes one giant ad itself; this will determine whether we see promoted vines pushed onto our feeds, or more implicit methods such as the product placement already demonstrated on Vine. The trend towards enclosure and trying to profit from user generated content isn’t a new one in our information society, but with popular apps such as Instagram remaining ad-free, it’s not impossible for Vine to follow in its path.

theevolutionof

not givinga fuck F

WORDS Samir Kashyap

rom burqa fashion to spitting on fans to rubbin’ up on Robin’s Thicke, nobody can deny that 2013—or, hell, even the past few years—has been one gimmicky performance by the corporate music industry and their reactionary constituents: you. While an assortment of tactics has been used to popularize musicians in the past, the trendiest attitude an artist can adopt in today’s music climate is a familiar one: not giving a fuck. Although this time around, rebellion tastes a little different. You didn’t have to be an avid NFL fan to tune in to last year’s half-time show which was dominated by female pop titans. Of course though, with all the head nodding, there is always a proportionate amount of finger-wagging; in this case quite literally. Hip hop worldbeat sensation M.I.A. flipped audiences off (if only for a second) and entertainment media told us that it was a big-ass deal then and an even bigger deal now.

Apparently, M.I.A. is under fire once again for her actions eighteen months prior, this time being sued for $1.5 million for not representing the good values of the NFL—ain’t that a joke. But what does this matter? Sure the middle finger is the universally understood sign of disrespect but does it warrant such backlash? Backlash worth one and a half million? Those who oppose M.I.A. in this suit argue that she was reckless and obviously didn’t care which begs the question, “is this what not giving a fuck in the music industry looks like now? Is this what grinds people’s gears?” If the answer to those questions is yes—which we should all be embarrassed by—then we’ve surely come a long way from fighting Nixon with little more than love and two handkerchiefs or lamenting the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame a “piss stain” and a physical manifestation of industry greed.

She’s just being Miley! We’ve all heard this whether it’s in complete seriousness or drowning in irony. Note that this literally translates to “she just doesn’t care!” and as such, puts us in quite a predicament. As opposed to fans and nonfans being able to look at and understand Kurt Cobain’s disdain for the corporate direction his music was taking and being able to howl alongside him on ‘Scentless Apprentice’, we now have to learn to care about not caring in terms of what it means by today’s standards.

Those who would choose to despise Miley Cyrus’ not giving a fuck about how she dresses or bumshakes would put them selves in the crosshairs of a singular feminism which would only call out such rampant slut-shaming. Yet that same vein of feminism would also choose to ignore Cyrus’ not-sosubtle, abusive appropriation of “ratchet culture”. In that it becomes increasingly apparent that creating an ignoranceis-the-new-black image is not so simple and that what is cared about depends solely on a passive or active viewer and their lived experiences. Whether or not you appreciated John Lennon’s efforts against the Vietnam War, you understood his motive, you understood his followers and most importantly, you understood his genuineness. Can the same be said about pop stars today?

This new era of not caring seems to be exhausting and a lot more effort. We live in a time where musicians need to show they don’t care about the “haters” for the sake of an image and the industry knows youth find it hot. Why is that?

Because pop culture as we know it has been shaped by the likes of John Lennon, Kurt Cobain, Sid Vicious, Michael Jackson, Yoko Ono, Thom Yorke, and the like. And we know that brand of truly not caring about the dominant ideology within such a restrictive industry has passed. And maybe, maybe we silently or subconsciously clamour for a time like that again where we can truly get up in arms with someone who has the potential to upset the industry instead of #TeamOtherPopStar. Maybe we want to actually someday not give a fuck.

western life//

Western Inc.

RESEARCH Steven Wright WORDS Ainsleigh Burelle

Western Inc. Paying the Price for Education on the Corporate Campus

The controversial issue of corporate presence and sponsorship on

the university campus is a pressing one. In preparation for this article, we asked ourselves exactly what it is that renders corporate influences as inherently negative for the university as an institution of education.

Admittedly, this question is broad and inherently challenges the overarching neoliberal systems at play. However, it does give way to larger debate about corporate ethos’ obstruction of constitutional education.

At its inception, the university was merely a body of students interested in creating a space within society for free, critical, and unadulterated thought. Many have argued that while the university was intended as a “citizen training ground,” the 1960s and 1970s saw a shift in practice, causing this model to become obsolete and paving the way for the university as a factory for the “vocationalization of human capital.” As corporate institutions become more heavily linked to the corporate profit pipeline, as Cary Nelson wrote, their whole rationale begins to shift.

Inevitably, this has necessitated the operation of the university as an enterprise itself, enforcing market logic on its counterparts rather than the critical, freethinking ideals which lay at the heart of its foundation.

Because of the university’s current embeddedness within neoliberal capitalist society, its existence as the last bastion of free thought is being threatened. It is left trying to balance both the interests of students and private corporations.

The normalized issue of the Corporate Campus is two-fold: not only is the university administration further bound by corporate interest relative to the amount of funding it accepts from private groups, but there is also a general sense of apathy and indifference about this pressing issue amongst students. After speaking with countless colleagues and peers, the general consensus seemed to be that the issue of corporate presence on campus has become completely debased. Some responses included: “That’s just the way the world works, there’s no way around it,” and, “without corporate support, how would the university make money?” Not only are students apathetic about private dollars flowing into their education, but many see it as a necessary means to forge connections with the outside market. The concept of public educational funding has become next-to-obsolete in the minds of students.

This is especially evident in the USC’s Budget town hall.

The Gazette confirmed that, “most students seem to feel comfortable with the level of commercialization, and would even be open to increasing the corporate presence if it meant more money off of student fees.” While only 11% of the USC budget currently oversees government advocacy and lobbying, more students would rather see advocacy dollars spent on student programs like Homecoming and Charity Ball, which already uses 40% of the USC’s budget.

In 2010, Canada spent 5.5% of the GDP on education.

Tanzania spent 6.8%, and Cuba spent 12.9%. With education a democratic right in Canada, why is this the case? Not only is our corporate campus seen as a non-issue, many are supportive of corporatization if it translates into a few extra dollars in their pocket. And how could they not be? Recent tuition inflation has been merciless, and attending university amidst an economic crisis proves difficult enough. So where are the alternatives? And why don’t more students give a crap about fighting for their implementation?

There has undoubtedly been a shift within the administration itself from faculty to bureaucracy. The value of independent learning has decreased as the crisis within higher education has transformed university culture as a whole.

Finance, as Nelson argues, controls the discussion, and decides who is worthy of resources and support. This is evident in Western’s focus on funding those departments whose research generates a return for industry. The results of such an agenda are funding cuts to departments like FIMS, steadily worsened by provincial cutbacks on education.

The administration, as the economic spokesperson of university operations, has a business mandate to fulfill in order to successfully compete within the market economy and is, by extension, largely receptive to corporate support dollars that ensure the prevalence of the university “brand.” By the corporate logic of the admin, support from the private sector becomes necessary to preserve the university’s sense of “Excellence” - a term Bill Readings defines as ambiguous and semantically empty - and relevance to incoming consumers.

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Or rather, students.

To regulate corporatization on campus, there is the USC’s Advertising Oversight Committee, which supervises all corporate sponsorship agreements and their respective ethical implications. For instance, the USC has denied Red Bull’s presence on campus due to its notorious health effects. As such, coffee companies that appear on campus such as Williams, Starbucks, and the USC’s Spoke all serve fair trade, organic coffee (Tim Hortons’ is another story).

While each new corporate agreement is reviewed by the Committee, there exists no official policy in place denoting certain criteria by which corporate sponsors are approved.

Such a policy need be put into effect; this would lend a more democratic edge to sponsorship decision making and would provide some resistance to the University’s dedication to “Excellence” becoming, as Nelson writes, conflated with profitability.

Although the university has perhaps been forced to operate as a business enterprise, this does not necessitate that it hold the same values as the market economy. As a free-thinking institution within a corporate-capitalist society, the university ought to value cooperative scholarship over competitive branding edge, openness to learning rather than ownership of it, and education independent of entrepreneurial success.

The university campus should be a place for criticism of the current socioeconomic structure of the world; a place for the generation of genuine and sustainable alternatives. It should not funciton as another market-oriented industry, where students are funnelled into oppressive technocratic systems that function on exploitation and cause irreversible damage to the earth.

While the university was intended as a place of collaborative, collective, higher learning, it is quickly transforming into a deregulated and factionalized extension of external corporate agents. Is there any way to reconcile the tension between student and corporate interests within a university that operates as part of the neoliberal market economy? For, as Nelson writes, corporatization is here to stay. It cannot be stopped, but it can be shaped, and where appropriate, it can be resisted. If there exists any way to create genuine alternatives to the current system, it exists in the student collective.

We need to slow down, acknowledge where we are and why we’re here, and take a damn stand while we still can - because freedom to education through The Corporation isn’t really freedom at all.

disorientation week WORDS Travis Welowszky

“Freedom is something that dies unless it’s used.”

-Hunter S. Thompson

T

he championed “best student experience” rings out over deaf ears over the waves of purple seen inside the Talbot Bowl. The pamphleteering of affordable cable packages is welcomed with open arms while those of rising tuition costs are turned away. With the peaceful demonstrations of mobilized student activists defused in accordance with our events week, it’s time to reconsider our orientation to our university.

If O-Week is what’s presented as a crucial introductory experience for first year students to their university careers, it must incorporate some of the more challenging issues they’ll face at Western- like financial issues. While tuition costs are steadily rising, faculty funding is being cut and many students place significant mental real estate on the financial strain of their education. This is a major issue that is completely ignored in the name of ensuring a good time.

The university owes us a well-rounded introduction to our surroundings.

If we intend to build a better future together, we must consider the present.

The learning curve for new students is steep; a new environment, new people.

If we fail to engage with our surroundings critically, we become conditioned with what to think, rather than how to think. Ironically, an orientation you must pay for is an accurate introduction to campus life.

The concept of psychogeography shapes how people act in particular spaces, how we negotiate with our environment. For instance, the University Community Centre is structured in such a way that that encourages perpetual movement; we are persuaded to spend, appealed to through numerous advertising displays, the phantasmagoria of the Purple Store’s illuminated displays, the shining models on the Rogers Cable posters that hang atop the men’s urinals, the Victoria’s Secret display in the heart of the atrium. We only begin to understand these abstractions when they are made visible in the material sense.

We have seen the effects come to life with the removal of demonstrators. The university has become privatized space, where corporate influence is abundant but information pickets are quickly disbanded.

Does the presence of these campus niceties make our lives easier? The Starbucks seasonal features, the bodybuilding supplements depot in the community center, and a store that literally embodies the monetization of school pride in logo laden sweatshirts, gym bags, coffee mugs? Are these things offered truly for the betterment of our experience or are we being sold out? Will the freedom from critical thought allow us to solely focus on the goodness of our university education or does it only retract our grievances deeper into the recesses of our heads? We see these luxuries as benefits during our transitional years, but we must consider whether their presence and pristine presentation is only hiding the fact that we are paying more for our education, but getting much less in return.

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Here’s the thing about free speech: regardless how obscene or ill timed our claims are, we can only sort our differences if they are presented, in the naked open, for all to see. But first, we must ensure someone has the right to speak.

The decision is then yours - are you going to hear it, or are you are going to listen.

WORDS Rachel Ann Kelly Hungry. I am so damn hungry. I scroll through the names of everyone I met last night on my phone. All I want is a meal, but I can’t remember how to get to the cafeteria. I also can’t remember who lives in my building. My roommates are all gone, but I don’t know where. It is eight o’ clock on a Friday night, and I look out the window and think, So this is university?

I did not like high school. I met some friends, I had some incredible teachers, but I did not really enjoy it. Too many rules with too few reasons, and after four years I hated looking at the kids in grade nine and wondering if I had really been that annoying. I had heard that high school was supposed to be the best four years of your life, and the thought terrified me. When I told this to my mother, however, she assured me that it gets even better. She told me to wait until university. On September the second, I moved to Western University with six thousand others who had been told the exact same thing.

The way the university chooses to deal with first year students is a week called O-Week. One week of fun! Games! Meeting people and the like. I was excited. But for the first time in my life I was lumped in with one huge pool: a group of people more than ten times the size of my high school. The effect was drowning in a sea of cheering faces and jumping bodies while Steve Aoki’s “Boneless” was blasted over the loudspeaker.

The problem with O-Week was every student wanted their crazy university life to happen all at once right this second, which is a very standard attitude for people of our generation. After four years of slugging through high school, staring at the bright beacon that was university, and listening to the older kids stories of wild times and incredible friends, all six thousand frosh were immediately searching for this kind of legendary experience. Meanwhile, the university was trying to keep everything controlled by shuffling people from place to place, forcing you to form fast friends with people you would never talk to again because you needed some kind of life-preserver in this flood of energy and people. You were never allowed to stay anywhere for too long, and you were never given enough independent time to really connect with your life-preserver friends.

Photo: Chris Pandza

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You would not dare say that high school was the best four years of your life anymore. University is touted as the new Golden Era of Youth, and people buy into it. While I am not disputing that the next four years of my life may be wonderful, O-Week aims to make every student drink that Kool-aid while spinning us from one place to the next so fast that not a single frosh really understands what is going on. I must commend O-Week on one thing however: if they succeed in disorienting me, the weeks following just get better and better.

Pièce de Résistance Having a voice and being heard are two very different things.

WORDS Kaely Danahy

A

Film still from Mark Kitchell’s 1990 film Berkeley in the Sixties

t Western, students have little control over the quality of their education. Like any hierarchical structure, power trickles down from a few at the top. Western students are given a “voice” within a strict administrative framework, where being heard seems unlikely. To articulate a single complaint or suggestion requires overcoming a series of institutional barriers intended to be laborious. Even putting up a poster on campus requires going through an approval process where content can be censored.

Higher education was not always hierarchical. To look back at the history of the university is to look back at a history of resistance. In his book Student Resistance: A History of the Unruly Subject, Mark Edelman Boren paints a clear picture of the value students once held within the formation, development, and operation of the university.

The earliest medieval “universitas” consisted of loose collections of middle class scholars who recognized the collective political and economic power they had over the European towns in which they resided. Bonding together like this eventually earned them special recognition, and local government began granting universitas significant privileges. This set a precedent for future students to leverage their collective power to fight oppression from various agents, including their own administrations, their state governments, and the local townspeople with whom they coexisted.

Not only did student resistance help in the formation of the university, but it has also contributed to important social movements worldwide including the American anti-war movements, the civil rights movement, and uprisings in Russia, China, Latin America, Bosnia, Egypt, Tunisia, and more.

Shortly after President Nixon announced the bombing of Cambodia in May of 1970, students across the United States began to gather. At Kent State University, students opposed to the war and in support of university reform clashed violently with police. On May 4, the National Guard opened fire on students who were throwing rocks and bottles, killing four and injuring many others. The events at Kent State can be seen as a way the physical design of the modern university campus discourages protest.

As a direct result of these violent altercations–which were common at the time, as students were unafraid to speak out against oppression and injustice–campuses across North America have been constructed to avoid this form of political action altogether. Concrete Beach, for example, is designed to bottleneck large groups of students travelling through campus, with narrow passageways that make large gatherings difficult.

At Western, appears as though these tactics have worked. Despite the immense collective power that the almost 28,000 fulltime students could wield, resistance to unfair university policies is non-existent.

Whether it’s course-related stress, rising debt, or simple apathy, Western students have not realized their own potential. In the face of these obstacles, it is important to remember what professor Allison Hearn repeatedly asserts in her course on student activism: “Student resistance is at the heart of the university.”

Western, let’s find our heart.

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