I chose country music for my digital scavenger because it has been something that I have grown up with my whole life. I feel as though I have listened to the transition of country music throughout my life. My dad liked to listen to older country music on the AM radio and listen to artists like patsy cline. So I thought it would be intresting to look up where it started and the transformation it went through. According to Gogle’s Ngram Viewer, Country music dates back to the 1800’s but became increasingly popular in the 60’s. Because I know that the genera was called “hillbilly music” before it was country, I thought about comparing when that was popular compared to country. Surprisingly the database has little to nothing on hillbilly music because I feel that this was around and before it turned into country music. When I was looking on the library of congress, I think that the first couple of things I found that coorolates to country music is a country club, and then later on in the 1917, I found the first article really addressed country music, but kept refearing it to “bluegrass” which according to the Ngram Viewer, was popular since the 1880’s. It was intresting to see country music rising in popularitys as bluegrass decreases. I feel like there are different subgeneras within country music, so maybe that relates to the hillbilly music. Hilbilly country wasn’t as popular as the bluegrass kind of country.

I find it intresting how country music has always been in it’s own world. I came to this conclusion after looking at the earliest references on google books, but I feel as if it is something I have always known. It’s almost like they just live in Nashville and make their songs and have theior own awards show in the south and that’s essentially it. They don’t really cross over into other generas and they aren’t associated with other cultures of music. I think that is why Taylor Swift was hated and then loved for so long because she played with the fine line of what is country music and what is pop music and who gets to make up those rules. Some of the earliest country music that I can find are songs and artists such as the carter family and jimmy rogers. It is intresting to me how people lable George strait as the founder of country music because it has been around for son long before him. I feel he is more of the fifth generation of country music, Almost as if country music found a new sound in the 90’s. To this day I still listen to country music. Not so much the older stuff, but the songs from my generation and whats on the radio today. Its interesting how country music has come this far and morphed into what it is now. Today country music sometimes crosses over into the pop radio stations or is featered on the occasional hip-hop songs. Which I like because I listen to all those generas, too. My family listenes more to the third and fouth “generations” of country and I listen more to the fifth and sixth generations. I guess music grows as we grow.

The history of the internet is a wild thing. I know i’m going to run the risk of sounding like a millennial, but whatever I am a millennial. But back in the day, people really had to track down information. Students had to spend their days on end in libraries because they had to, and nowadays people spend time in library because they want to. If you want any answer to any question you might have, all you have to do is pull out your phone or open up your computer. First of all, I have no idea how all that information got there. Like seriously. You can never run out of pages to search on google. The opportunities are endless. How convent it is to look up information now is mind blowing. Even things like the Library of Congress and Google have made old historical documents all available online. You literally do not need to leave your bed to learn or see the world. It’s crazy to me because I have had my attention brought to this issue, but I would have never thought about it before because it has never been any other way.

What is family? I was thinking of this the other day, because I was booking my flight to go home for thanksgiving, and the phrase and idea of “spending time with your loved ones” during the holidays. After thinking of that phrase I wondered why I was going home in the first place. Like my family is fine I guess, but that’s not where my “loved ones” are. My friends are my family, and leaving them, even if it’s just for break is always really hard. So in class when we were talking about Silas Chanfler and how he saved his slave master and styaled loyal to him, I was reflecting on why he would even do that. If he was a slave, doesn’t that mean he would want to be free? but then I realized that they were his family, and his actual family was there, too, along with his loved ones and everything. The concept of family is so interesting to me. I feel like it is connected with values. Silas obviously valued family and loyalty. He thought that his values were something to fight for. Fighting for the cause we believe in is important. I think this is something bigger than ourselves that gives us a sense of community and gives our lives purpose. Like our example from class demonstrated, black people fought for the confederacy, they fought to wear that uniform and earn all the same titles and respect that white people did. This is something that they believed in and felt added meaning to their lives. People don’t get into conflicts because they have nothing better to do. They fight because they feel that they have been deprived or threatened. I feel like it isn’t important to communicate with anyone the reasoning behind your actions, but it is important that you know why you are doing the things you are doing. And you owe it to yourself to know those answers; what you value and what is worth fighting for.

There were two topics that sparked my interest in class today was the idea of choice making and the discussion we had on the rational self. I liked the reaction self class discussion because I do agree that there is more to being a person than what people say or give credit to. Like love isn’t rational and the choices people make aren’t always rational. People do not always make sense and we are moved by something bigger than ourselves or romance. I think that is important to remember and note, and it’s something I think about often.

When we were talking about making choices and how the real American dream is that nobody should be confined by the circumstances of their birth, I was reflecting on how true that rings for me. Everything is a choice. You make time for what matters and you prioritize things are they are important to you. Whether that is clearly labeled as a choice or not, it is. And the American dream is so stupid. “if you work hard enough you can accomplish anything”???? that is so stupid. We live in a world where the government is corrupt and ruled by money and people are judged by what is on the outside rather than what is on the inside. The real American dream should be that nobody should be confined by the circumstances of their birth, but they are and ignoring that won’t make anything better. We should recognize that not everyone is on the same playing field and do something to gain equality. In regards to music, we were talking about race music and questioning if is it acceptable to to listen to a certain type of music in a specific area where it isn’t popular. Is it acceptable to listen to rap music in Bulverde, Texas? Is it acceptable to listen to country in Fairfax, Virginia? and making these choices consciously, or unconsciously reflect back on who we are. I find it interesting that country music is  for all technical reasoning, black peoples music. They are the ones in the south and where the music started with them, yet I find it weird because a lot of people, such as my father, who is a white male would say that rap is black peoples music and he listens to country. I found it weird that a lot of the songs that we play in class, I listened to in my house hold. Some of the one’s were songs such as “Railroadin’ some by henry Thomas” and “yellow Rose of Texas”.

Radical racism, much like racism in todays age, is alive as well and was just as alive and well in the 1890’s until around 1910. It has been and continues to be popular and celebrated in the more southern states. It is interesting to see how racism has grown and evolved over the years. Before it was very much a violent conflict and shown and paraded around the whole town to see. Today is has grown and evolved into more of a structural violence issue. What I find interesting is that tradition never strays. Southern states are still known for their “conservative ways” and the north is known for being “more liberal”. Those are fancy words that are suppose to define you one way and end up being a blanket statement over the little racism factor. In my opinion, it makes sense the we dicuss the importance of racism because black culture plays a prominent role in the music industry and American culture. How music has changed over the years and where the songs we listen to today stemmed from is not only a cool fact, but also an interesting one. For example, Race records began to appear in the 1920’s. Race records are basically sub category of records, marked to both white and black people. These produced things like Black Swan Records that specialixed in recording black artists, such as Bessie Smith. In addition to the race records, we also learn where the country music we listen to comes from; folk music. Fold music tells a story and is typically set in a rural setting and has more of a twang to a drawn out melody. This has grown into the country music, similar to how race records have transitioned into rap music and somewhat pop, depending on who you listen to today.

I use to watch Charmed growing up on TV and all their spells would always include the phrase “time and space” and I always thought that was so cool. I had never really considered what that meant or the meaning behind it, but thankfully this class has shed light on the issue or I would continue through the rest of my life ignorant and uneducated. LOL maybe thats too much but you get my point.

Time and space is a crazy concept. Unlike back in the old days, we transition in time and space now. For example, today if you wanted strawberries you could just run to the store and look at all the options and choose the best plastic box that they came in. Now my father would shake his head at my “blondness” even though I am not even blond, but back in the day you could not do that!!! You had to wait until they were in season to eat. Every season runs on their own time. This is really opening my mind to how not only does this apply to fruit and food and stuff but also life. Everything in life has a season. A season for new beginnings, a season for when most people get with someone and then the dreaded breakup season. Friendships have seasons and come and go as you need them and as they need you. Wow I am at a loss for words. Seasons are important!!! But people don’t recognize that because everything is accessible now. Nowadays you can eat strawberries and any other food you can think of whenever and wherever. That, my friends, is privilege.

Don’t even get me started on timezones. Those I will never understand no matter how much I try. I am from Texas, and they are an hour behind Virginia. Virginia is where I go to school but we are in a totally different world than California where my other family is and I just can’t understand how that works and why???? I get the railroads and stuff, but like In some places it is dark and other places it is light and it blows my mind every time I think about it. Sure the sun rotation, but how can two states be so different when the time is only an hour behind. How can it be morning somewhere and night somewhere else and who made these rules? I have gave it the good old college try to understand and will drive myself crazy trying to understand the reasoning behind it. I will just appreciate the world for what it is and the beauty that comes with it.

I would make the claim that you can’t, or it would be difficult, to discuss the digital history of the past without discussing black culture. I think a lot of people avoid these kinds of conversations in class because of everything in the media and being that it is a touchy subject, but it’s so important and if anything, the media is even more reason we should be talking about it. The way that stories are spun and how they came about. The history in what events lead up to where we are today, and a important one to note is the Minstrel Show. I learned in class that Mickey Mouse was a minstrel character and my life will never be the same.

Minstrel Shows are something that I am really interested in. I think it is fascinating how genres came about and I feel like this is a defining moment in music. Minstrel shows are essentially white people pretending to be black. They would paint their faces black so that they could represent black people. This was a form of entertainment and SO MANY people lined up to watch the shows every week or performance. I think it is significant how even then, The Minstrel shows appropriate black culture. The shows are basically stating that as long as white people are the ones creating the form of entertainment and copying black culture for themselves, then it is okay. It is just interesting to me because people are lining up at night to watch the same thing that they were shaming people for during the daylight. This is a form of cognitive dissonance. Our cognitive systems make sense of the world and this is a really complex topic and it can be confusing when there is a discrepancy between our beliefs and our behaviors.

I think it is important to discuss how this might have evolved into rap music. Not necessarily the rap music we are used to listening to, because as time has gone on, music and the sound of genres have changed as time has, but rap music none the less. Rap music is essentially blackface. Furthermore, the idea of a persona vs the person you actually are is a hot topic between the two. The difference between who you are and who the person is behind the music or behind the blackface would be an interesting topic that I would have liked to go more into depth.

For someone who spends their whole life on the internet, I really know nothing about it. I always found it weird how in high school the wifi restricted what we could or could not access, but I never really thought much of it. Now I have learned in class the difference between internet and intranet. Originally the internet was used to survive warfare, and now its almost a basic human need. The internet can go anywhere. My dad would even make the case that I over use the internet because I run out of the 10gigabytes my family and I share every month. Furthermore, there is also the intranet, which I never knew was a thing until this class. It is crazy that schools and businesses can control what information you have access to. Controlled information is something I know is necessary, but have a hard time sitting with. I feel like education should be free, and that comes along with access to information and being able to find the answers to any questions you might have.

I am really impresses with how some of the tools we use today are made. I think this is because I would have never thought of and it would have never occurred to me how to create things out of nothing. Creativity is definitely something I value but don’t feel like I have a lot of, so the fact that people can use their imagination and use that power to create something for general use  is very impressive.

To tie this all together, I think that what we discussed in class about how “nobody produces good work alone” is really insightful. The internet allows us to add on and critique and come up with ideas and share them with the world. We have come so far since the beginnings of the internet. Furthermore, I will probably never fully understand how the internet works will all the wireless and towers and things, but I am never less impressed that it does.

There is a quote that says we should learn the rules to break them, and I try to live by that rule. I found the conversation from class today really interesting. I like how we talk about intelligence in class because it’s so different than how it is typically discussed.Following the rules doesn’t make you intelligent.  From day one in the class, the professor talked about being playful with ideas and that as long as you could build your idea on a firm foundation, you weren’t really wrong. I liked that, and I like that we acknowledge that intelligence looks different on everyone, it’s almost like a specialization. Some people are so book smart and could learn and pick ideas and topics up quickly, and ace a test or essay. But that isn’t the only was that intelligence looks. Intelligence is not mindlessly gaining information, intelligence is also originality and creativity, and being restorative and common sense.

This brought up the idea of if computers and technology was smart. I had never really thought about it, but my TV is literally a SMART TV and like my iphone knows more than I do. But I stand my my statement about how mindlessly collecting information isn’t what makes you smart. Computers don’t have a self. They aren’t intelligent because intelligence is a self. For example, curiosity is a sign of intelligence because computers can’t be curious. I think that the more uncertainty there is, the more information. Going about thinks in an intentional  and curios mindset is what makes intelligence because you have to know what you’re doing in order to be intelligent.