Feb. 10, 2010 Anyone remember sweet Rosie the Robot from The Jetsons cartoon? (If you're not having a retro flashback there's a 2012 live-action remake in development so you'll no doubt hear about her soon) Robotic maids and servile techno gizmos and conveniences have come a looooong way since Rosie... Some show humanity ascending with hope and promise, others pose … [Read more...]
Flirt Bots, Sex Bots and Artificial Intelligence: Future Shlock?
iPad makes women iMad? Gender or Generational Naming Gaffe?
Jan. 28, 2010 While the Baltimore Sun visual at left handily depicts the pros and cons of the new iPad tablet gizmo at a glance, geek girls and IT career women have been raising an iBrow at the iPad feminine hygiene connotations, as well as the more affordable than expected price. Teens, however? Not so much. One girl vehemently claimed it was ‘idiotic’ to make the leap … [Read more...]
USC Media Student Bryn Kressin & Packaging Boyhood Book Winners!
Jan.1, 2010 Happy New Year! This joyous photo of youthful exuberance is Bryn Kressin, at left; one of our Shaping Youth winners of yesterday’s Packaging Boyhood book drawing where we pulled names from those who commented or tweeted about our weekly posts about boys, manhood and media messages impacting the males we love. The other two winners were author/educator Dr. Liz … [Read more...]
The Perfect Gift for a Man: Reinventing Manhood (Book)
Dec. 9, 2009 And now for the GOOD news! Yesterday for I wrote about ‘boys being turned into monsters’ with toxic marketing proliferation about what it means to be masculine, rolling out narrowcast perceptions and gender roles thinner than a crepe. Today, meet 30 men who donated their stories, time and talent to author The Perfect Gift for a Man: 30 stories about reinventing … [Read more...]
Disney XD: A Case Study on Packaging Boyhood
Nov. 3, 2009 In diving into media messages targeting boys for my weekly Tuesday Packaging Boyhood posts, my mind snap went to ‘gaming’ pronto. Is this a stereotype? Or did I just do a Malcolm Gladwell style "Blink” in rapid cognition? I flipped to the Packaging Boyhood chapter on “What Boys Do” since we know marketers are tapping a boy’s desire to be ‘powerful’ and admired … [Read more...]