Advanced Essay #3

Sarah Berg

Mr. Block

English 3

8 March 2018

Advanced Essay #3: Social Media and Activism

Society is constantly evolving, and with that comes changes in every aspect of it. Each generation has been defined by a social or political movement, and the tactics involved in the movements have matched the times. In the twenty-first century, social media has become one of the most prominent forms of communication,- seeing as in 2017, 81% of people in the United States had an account on a social media (Statista)- and has subsequently become central to modern activism. On various platforms, different bubbles of accounts have formed based upon political and social opinions. People within these groups use social media to affirm their identity as activists. But is social media actually helpful in accomplishing real social change?

First, it is necessary to note the groups that are present on social media and how they interact. The groups that I have observed are usually comprised of young people, and therefore are a representation of the faces of future activism. There are two examples of groups that interact with activism by, for one group, being a part of it, and for the other, criticizing it.

One group is commonly referred to as “Social Justice Warriors” by others in a disparaging way. This group is made up of feminist, pro-gay, or pro-black accounts, for example, who follow and interact almost exclusively with each other, sharing opinions on topics relevant in current events. Examples of people in this group are Laci Green and Anita Sarkeesian. The other group is anti-politically correct, anti-”SJW” people who act in similar ways to the previous group, but are centered around near opposite opinions. An example of someone in this group is Paul Joseph Watson.

Both of these groups exist because people of like minds flock together to create a space in which they feel safe, a space in which they can base their identity. As Malcolm Gladwell says, “the self is irreducibly social”. A self is defined by those of others. On social media, you can pick and choose who will influence you the most, and members of these groups choose influencers by their political views. Interestingly enough, it does not appear that the members of these groups are always on opposite ends of the political spectrum, the far right or far left. Many appear to be on the left or in the middle. However, social justice has expanded farther to the left with more radical ideas, which lends to more conflicts between liberals.

The fact that arguments are occurring may not be a bad thing for activism. It means that conversation is happening, and that’s one of the biggest things to come out of the rise of social media. This may be because social media platforms are essentially breeders of “weak link” relationships. They encourage correspondence between acquaintances, people with mutual friends, and people with similar interests. These relationships are highly useful in terms of increasing awareness and participation in a movement. If someone has a message, they can send it out to hundreds or even thousands of people instantly, people who will now know what others are saying about the topic without seeking it out. Groups and pages can be created around a topic, allowing for everyone who wants to be involved further to do so. These interactions have contributed to social media’s usefulness in aiding political change. According to Professor Clay Shirky, “social media have become coordinating tools for nearly all of the world’s political movements.” Shirky also argues that social media utilizes the two step flow model of communication, which “proposes that interpersonal interaction has a far stronger effect on shaping public opinion than mass media outlets” (Britannica). In the first step, information is spread to the general public on mass media. In the second, people begin to talk about it. It’s this part - hearing the opinions of people you know - that forms one’s own opinion about the topic.

The argument against social media in activism is centered around the same weak-link relationships that increase participation in it. This is because the increase in participation is caused by a “lessening [of] the level of motivation that participation requires” (Gladwell). This means that people are less invested in the causes and their connections to the causes are less personal. It takes a much deeper commitment to participate in a protest that could turn violent, such as many during the Civil Rights Movement, than it does to hit “retweet”. The masses would much rather like a Facebook page than show up to a march. While there are still people who participate in real-life activism, social media can be unhelpful in organizing such events. Because these movements are not planned and put into action by a hierarchy of activists, ideas within the movement are more likely to conflict, and there is a “real difficulty reaching consensus and setting goals” (Gladwell).

Do the pros and cons even out? Would 1,000 people going out and risking their lives for a cause have the same effect as 100,000 people reposting a message? It’s hard to say, and could be different case by case. Claiming one way is better than the other may not be as productive as accepting this change in society. As long as the “slacktivism” found on social media does not serve “as a replacement for real-world action but as a way to coordinate it,” (Shirky) there will be benefits from its role. We must be aware of how much we depend on it, because if the stakes of everyone involved in a movement are low, the movement is bound to fail. Activists have still been getting things done recently, including the Women’s March, the #metoo movement, and protests for stricter gun control. They will undoubtedly continue to adapt to the rise of social media.


Bibliography


“Percentage of U.S. population who currently use any social media from 2008 to 2017.” Statista,

March 2017. Web. March 2018.

www.statista.com/statistics/273476/percentage-of-us-population-with-a-social-network-prof

ile/


Gladwell, Malcolm. “Small Change.” The New Yorker, 4 October 2010. Web. March 2018.

www.newyorker.com/magazine/2010/10/04/small-change-malcolm-gladwell


Shirky, Clay. “The Political Power of Social Media. Technology, the Public Sphere, and Political

Change.” The Council on Foreign Relations, January/February 2011. March 2018.

www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/2010-12-20/political-power-social-media


Postelnicu, Monica. “Two-Step Flow Model of Communication.” Encyclopaedia Britannica, 28

November 2016. March 2018. www.britannica.com/topic/two-step-flow-model-of-communication


Advanced Essay #3

Salsabeel Elbakhadaoui

English 3

Block

8 March 2018

Me Modeling


All my life, I’ve wanted to be a model. People have always told my parents --I’d make the perfect suit. As I grew up, I realized it was my passion. It’s something I always found interesting and fun. Aside from all the bad, I always saw good. As I grew up I began looking for connections, like close friends that could help me achieve my dreams. As I did that I got closer and closer. Modeling is a very difficult career. You must put your mind into it, have a lot dedication, and bravery if not you will lose.

Modeling comes with a lot of hardships that will possibly break you down. There are so many standards that come along with being in the industry-- size, height, weight, looks. A lot of models tend to form eating disorders. Like Sadie Robertson who performed on dancing with the stars. Also Zuzanna Buchwald who has developed Bulimia and Anorexia. They were told they were too fat and may not get any jobs. People will tell you that you're not pretty enough like for example some of the managers of some shoots or hate comments on social media. Jordyn Woods said an inspirational quote that stuck on the show Life of Kylie. “I'm not the typical model. I'm not size 0 and I’m not 10 feet tall. So I think it's really cool for you girls to see you can do anything you put your heart to, the possibilities are endless.” This quote resonated with me because society tells girls they must be a certain way but you can achieve anything. Getting into the industry you cannot trust anyone. Many photographers can use your body to make millions of dollars and give you nothing. You must know what you are getting into before anything.

Despite all the bad things, modeling comes with great and amazing experiences. I've always wanted to be a model because I always found and felt a great feeling while taking pictures. A quote from my friend who is a model “I feel unstoppable like superman on the runway.” Young girls look up to models but because of society and social media it makes it seem like one type of model is how women are supposed to be. These things are shaping young women and girls identity and making them feel like they are not beautiful. But you can do anything if you put your mind to it and everyone is beautiful in their own way.

Modeling nowadays can break you down and you have to be very confident and love your body. Modeling not only can hurt the model but also young girls making them believe their is only one kind of beautiful but if we all looked the same this world would be a boring place.

Fashionable trendy Clothing companies barely had any clothes that were Plus sized. Women who loved a piece of clothing weren't able to buy it because it didn’t come in their size. Lane Bryant was the first to start working with Plus sized clothing. If you are aware of Fashionnova which is a very successful company in which all celebrities and models purchase clothing from. They made two seperate pages on instagram one for Plus sized and the other for the main running sizes, instead of just having the sizes running to the highest number they have.

Calvin Klein also came out with their first Plus sized model in 2014 and had many people angry. “Tell me is this a joke? Plus size!? Congrats on giving another generation of girls eating disorders and insecurities.”(Tyldesley, Tweet) These things really damage a women and girls confidence.

Modeling is also a very enjoyable job. For example they get their makeup and hair done. There are a lot of clothes to pick from and they also get paid well for a job they enjoy doing. My father is my role model and he supports me everyday, he tells me how beautiful I am all the time and always buys me the clothes I want. My father makes sure everything is perfect for me. Sometimes he helps me do my makeup and hair and always gives me advice. My father always supported me through my dreams and one of them, of becoming a model. My father helped shape my identity and the person I have become today.

In conclusion modeling is the art of showing beauty and being confident. My father pushes me to become a model and he sees the potential in me. Modeling gives women and girls a sense of love for their inner beauty.






Sources:

Life of Kylie episode 1 Quote from Jordyn Woods

Mailonline, Unity Blott For. “'Congrats on giving another generation of girls eating disorders': Furious debate over 'plus-Size' Calvin Klein model after Corrie's Catherine Tydesley posts an angry tweet .” Daily Mail Online, Associated Newspapers, 23 June 2016, www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-3656549/The-truth-Calvin-Klein-s-plus-sized-model.html.



Advanced Essay #3: War Shapes Identity

Cynthia To
Mr. Block
English 3
07 March 2018

   Wars are inevitable and unavoidable. They happen when two sides disagree with each other and the conflict turns into something larger than the opposing parties. Many people have left their homes because their countries are being attacked by another country or due to the lack of support and resources. People are forced to deal with these struggles because their government were too unstable to protect them. War can change one’s perspective on their views of themselves and where they belong in the country. 
    From my parents’ experiences of growing up after the Vietnam War, they talked about the Vietnamese government and how it lacked financial supply for its nation, the little to no opportunities to succeed and become prosperous, and how not many in the country had the chance to have stable jobs, good education, and healthcare. Vietnam didn’t have enough money to rebuild the country and often times even the more popular parts of the county were dirty and run down.
Coming to the United States, those factors that chased my family away weren’t the case in the States. From my dad’s interview, he said that “Vietnam was really tiring because there was no money for anyone. People were too cheap to buy and spend. Everything was about making a quick buck with people who didn’t want to lose a buck. Your grandpa worked as a tailor and had to come home to take care of his wife and seven kids. Our family didn’t have enough money so we had to save a lot money for all of us to come to America.” 
   After interviewing my parents, this made me wonder what would my life be like if my parents didn’t decided to come to America. I would be living a much harder life and I wouldn’t be able to do a lot of the things that I do here in America. My parents’ identities have changed so much when they left Vietnam to come to America. They started going to school and working to support their families. My parents faced a really hard life when they came to America. In society, many people who have money leave their country to have a better life. They leave their country to start over and become what they dream to be for a long time.
   This situation not only happens to my parents but in the 17th century. Before there that time with the British and the colonists, the colonist thought they were British Citizens so they should also have the same civil rights as the British. The British did not think that the colonist was with one them. This result factored in with the British adding a bunch of laws and acts which was unbearable and unfair for the colonists upset the colonists. 
  At this point, the colonists got tired of the British ruling them. In the source Inspiction, they said, “the American colonists were actually some of the wealthiest people in the world, so much so that the poor ‘starving masses’ so prevalent in Europe were not present in the American social structure of a predominantly middle class.”  In society, people fight or change for what they believe in like how the colonists and British fought resulting in equal rights in a war. With the British adding a bunch of unless laws so the colonists, it allowed the colonists to become free from the British and make their own rules. The war allowed the colonist to make equal so there wouldn’t be really any nobility.   
   In a war, those who participate usually have more money are well off. They do not have to worry about the healthcare, but the lower class does. Social classes have a big impact on the war.  War can leave many whom are dying or not having enough money to support their families. In the source, Lumen, they said, “the upper class, likely have better access to healthcare, marry people of higher social status, attend more prestigious schools.” The source mentions that high-class people had better healthcare, wealth, and education. In society, people that are in lower class have to work really hard to protect and take care of their family. Many lower-class have a lot of health conditions because of their lack of money. When there are wars, taxes increases which affect the poor negatively. Lower classes have it really difficult when it comes to surviving during the war.
   Going back to my families’ relation with war, Vietnam is an example of a country that did not get totally destroyed by war. In fact, it is more modern, clean, and offer those who seek them, more jobs and better education. People never choose to live in a country that goes war but will try to escape their own struggles and their country struggles. From all of this, it is evident that war can shape identities.

"Advanced Essay" #3 - Money in America: Defining Who We Are and Where We Go

Introduction:
My goal for this paper was to not only bring to light an issue with identity in America that I felt passionate about but to bring forth some solutions too. Too many people write things to be "conversation starters." Not me. Overall, I feel I've done a great job. I find no wrong and see no errors in this piece and think I did everything I set out to do. I wrote a lot but I think none of it ever gets repetitive and everything there is there because it needs to be.

Essay:
It’s almost shocking to think how much the money you make means to you and who you are in 2018. Money has so much control over so many aspects of our lives, it makes it impossible to live a comfortable one without it. But it makes sense: when you work hard, you want something in return. Why not have that something be what you can use wherever you want to buy yourself whatever you want? We can’t argue the logic there. We can, however, argue that money shouldn’t be what runs our lives. Too many in America, who aren’t born with huge trust funds or parents on the Forbes 500, are stopped themselves from getting to that level of success because they can’t “afford” to get there. Success should be paid for with hard work, not with the wealth, power, or influence you’re born into. That’s a crucial part of the American Dream. Yet, more and more people every day see this dream as something less attainable. Too often are their identities becoming synonymous with the word “broke.” It’s about time we transform the goals of the American Dream and move our country toward a more social approach to our capitalistic nature, for the sake of those who have a chance to craft their own identities and not let their futures be dictated by income.
Finding solutions to the issues of income inequality, our country’s lack of social mobility, and addressing the American Dream’s outdated goal system should begin with understanding thoroughly why these issues exist. The most prevalent reasons being that, according to the Huffington Post, “Salaries have stagnated and entire sectors have cratered. At the same time, the cost of every prerequisite of a secure existence—education, housing and health care—has inflated into the stratosphere.” We also see that higher education seems to have become just another thing to impress potential employers for jobs offering the lowest wages as evidenced by the same HuffPost article when it says “48 percent of workers with bachelor’s degrees are employed in jobs for which they’re overqualified.” In 2018, waving around your bachelor’s degree in Chemistry is sure to get you a job at Walmart, but alone can’t help you if you apply to Dow or FMC. It’s obvious that these problems with the economy were ignored for decades just as the American Dream was being pushed down our throats and into our minds for years. We have for so long defined one another by whether or not we have achieved this dream without understanding that all the while, the world has been changing. We have continued to describe one’s standing and level of stability today according to the standards of those who thrived in the ‘20, ‘40s and ‘50s (very few thrived in the ‘30s), where the primary concerns of the average American citizen were the togetherness of family and whether or not there was “a chicken in every pot.” America has evolved since then. The workforce has evolved since then. But somehow, our ideas of who were all are haven’t.
It is so immensely important that we stop money from keeping those born in specific areas of the country down and start raising everyone up—rich, poor, immigrant, natural-born, black, white—everyone who graces the cities and towns of this great country. The systematic abuse of poorer citizens is causing each and everyone to feel as if they don’t belong anywhere but where they already are. But these systematic issues are not the results of malicious intent from a few at the top (at least not entirely). They are the result of those of us who continue to do nothing. They are the result of no action and the result of our flawed goal system.
Firstly, the American Dream is so superlative in its design; we just have to work out a few of the kinks. It’s not the idea that’s flawed; it’s the goals of the baby boomers that we continue to pursue in this time. Changing these goals and forming what I’d like to call the “American Reality,” is key to the success of every American. Courtney Martin said it best her TED Talk: “the nine-to-five no longer works for anyone. Punch clocks are becoming obsolete, as are career ladders. Whole industries are being born and dying every day.” We now live in a world where the systems that influence the success or failure of the economy change every day. 2018 is much more fast-paced than 1922. Hard work and dedication should still apply to getting anywhere any American wants (that’s the part of the American Dream that works and makes us who we are as a nation). But we need to realize that isolationism and white picket fences divide us. Division no longer works in a country more diverse than the one that was here almost 100 years ago. The division instilled in the United States from that century is hurting everyone today. These things, along with money, are what define most people today instead of themselves.
Secondly, we can change what kind of economy serves our people. We don’t just alter the system that motivates so many of us here and so many who come here because of it. We change who the economy works for as well. We make it so that everyone is guaranteed an education; education that is just as good in the Midwest as it is on the East Coast and vice versa. A healthy start and formation of a well-rounded mind is the first step to success for anyone. We must ensure everyone is paying their fair share in taxes. We have to strengthen our social safety net for those who are already struggling and anyone who may fall on hard times. Eliminating long-term poverty will be one of many other steps to pull those out of struggle and put our country back on track.
Some Americans claim my approach to dealing with the issues of income inequality and our lack of social mobility is an attack on corporate America. Many more claim people like me want to hinder American progress with “over-regulation.” That’s simply not the case. I believe wholeheartedly in a government’s responsibility to protect and help those can’t do the same for themselves. Those who obey the law and contribute to both our economy and to our society deserve to be treated with respect and have the ability to do anything they desire. Dreams are for the rest of the world. Realities in which people define themselves and don’t have to worry about what can stop them are what Americans create. Changing reality is what Americans do. Doing just that right now can propel us all to a new, higher level of prosperity for all citizens of this country and once and for all make almost any dream possible.

Advanced Essay #3 [How the Media Can Cause Invisibility]

Colin Taylor-McGrane

Mr. Block

English 3-Earth

March 7 2018


How the Media Can Cause Invisibility

One issue with our media has had harmful effects on the youth of america is the harmful effects of the absence of representation of marginalized groups in America. The reason why media representation is so important is because children are highly receptive to the characters and images they see in books, on television and in film. Children are impacted by messages from the media and carry them throughout their lives. When children do not see people similar to themselves in the media, researchers have found it lowers their self esteem and contributes to a self-view of unimportance. In a Huffington Post article entitled “Why On Screen Representation Actually Matters,” sociology professor Nicole Martin of Indiana University stated, “There’s this body of research and a term known as ‘symbolic annihilation,’ which is the idea that if you don’t see people like you in the media you consume… you must somehow be unimportant.”(Boboltz) The article describes a study that she conducted in which she showed children of color and white children a television program featuring white lead characters. She found that white children had much higher self-esteem after watching the program while the children of color reported much lower levels of self-esteem.(Boboltz) This suggests that seeing characters like themselves in the media may have a noticeable impact on their views of themselves and their roles in society. This can influence their aspirations about the life that they want to lead, the careers they wish to pursue, and the level of confidence that they have in navigating life.

One prime example of this phenomenon is the psychological effects of the lack of hispanic representation on the children of the latin community. In a 2017 study by USA today on racial representation in film, it was revealed that only 3.1% of speaking roles in films are were given to hispanic actors, despite the fact that hispanics make up 17.8% of the American population.(USA Today)  In a Ted Talk by Maria Hinojosa, founder of  the newspaper Futuro Media Group, “As a little girl, I understood the importance of journalism, reporting and media. But I never saw myself there. My stories didn’t appear. We were invisible. I was invisible from the media narrative. No one in the reporting that I saw I saw looked like me, looked like my family. So I began to think that maybe somehow my life —my story— was less valuable, less important.”(Hinojosa) This clearly shows how media representation affects the aspirations of minority children. If minority children do not see themselves receiving proper representation in the media, they will not view themselves as important members of society, nor will they feel that they have any place certain careers or social groups.

When a group is underrepresented or invisible in the media, the impact of any one character can be profound.  This can be clearly seen with the character in the Simpsons named Apu. This year, Indian comedian Hari Kondabolu made a documentary called the “Problem with Apu” where he interviewed many famous South-Asian actors about the impact that the character had on their childhoods, as well as their professional pursuits. Though one may initially believe that the fact that Apu is an Indian stereotype voiced by a white man was the character’s main issue, that is not the case. Nearly all of the Simpsons characters are stereotypes, however, when Hari was asked in an interview why Apu was so problematic, he replied by saying that:

“There are other representations of Italians. I'm not saying they're all good. But there's a - wider representations of people who are Italian, people who are Scottish. I don't know of any kids who are Scottish that grew up with - who are like, God, Groundskeeper Willie really embarrasses me and my parents. But, like, for me, because of my skin color there was no hiding from it. There was no, that's not me. You know, I didn't have a bunch of other brown characters. This was it. And that's the big difference.” (Kondabolu)

While this character is a stereotype of Americans of South-Asian descent, the main reason why this character is so unacceptable in the eyes of many South-Asians is because he was their only form of representation while growing up. Because there were no other forms of South Asian representation in the media at the time, one stereotypical portrayal became all the more harmful to the lives of people of South Asian descent.

The media is an amazing outlet for people of many different races and ethnicities to share their culture and talents with the rest of the nation, and sometimes, the world. However, many members of marginalized groups of people do not get the opportunity to share their talents and culture through the media. Therefore, each individual of that group that does get that opportunity has a significantly larger impact on the perception of children of the same minority group.


Bibliography:


“Study finds films exclude women, Hispanics.” USA Today, Gannett Satellite Information Network, 31 July 2017, www.usatoday.com/story/life/movies/2017/07/31/study-finds-films-exclude-women-hispanics/104158948/.

Hinojosa, Maria. “From Invisible to Visible.” Latino USA, 31 July 2015, latinousa.org/2015/07/30/from-invisible-to-visible-2/.

Kondabolu, Hari. “In 'The Problem With Apu,' Hari Kondabolu Discusses South Asian Representation.” NPR, NPR, 17 Nov. 2017, www.npr.org/2017/11/17/564936511/in-the-problem-with-apu-hari-kondabolu-discusses-south-asian-representation

Boboltz, Sara, and Kimberly Yam. “Why On-Screen Representation Actually Matters.” The Huffington Post, TheHuffingtonPost.com, 24 Feb. 2017, www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/why-on-screen-representation-matters_us_58aeae96e4b01406012fe49d.


Advanced Essay 3: Shaping a Person’s Personal and Social Identity

Introduction

My essay is about both what makes up identity and the different forms of identity. The main section that I am proud of is the part where the essay explains how memories affect your identity. I think that overall the ideas are good but could have been more specific.  


Shaping a Person’s Personal and Social Identity

Identity, at its core, is the understanding of what someone or something is. This understanding is made up of two integral parts, personal identity and social identity. Personal identity is an understanding of who you are as a person before you step into the role you play in society.  Social identity is made up of the labels projected onto a person based on how society views someone's personal identity.

People's personal identity can be shaped in many different ways.  Three factors that are important in shaping one’s personal identity include, but are not limited to, their culture, their memories, and their societal labels. Culture, simply explained, is learned behavior and norms we apply to the situations that we are presented.  In the words of the World Youth Alliance, which is a non-profit organization whose main goal is to create a culture that supports the dignity of every human person, “We are not alone. We live in a society, as wild as it is. We live in groups, we define ourselves through them, and hence, at least in some aspects, we belong to them.”  These groups that we live in are the cultures we create for ourselves. We do this to build social connections, which allow people to feel accepted by the general population. It is a human need to feel accepted by other people, so it is only natural for a person to gravitate to a group that is made of members that reflect their own characteristics.

Memories are almost as important in shaping a person’s identity as their culture. While culture is large and vast, memories are personal and very connected to what we do and say. Memories impact our identity by teaching us how to interact with the world around us.  According to “Psychology Today”, “These memories represent ongoing themes that we play out over and over again in our lives.” They create our moral code through repetition, providing positive reinforcement for good behavior and negative consequences for bad behavior. An obvious example of this concept is evident in childhood. When you were a kid, if you did something wrong, you got punished. The punishment, from that point on, was always connected to that bad behavior, which, hopefully, prevented you from repeating the action. This process slowly developed our idea of what is deemed good and what is deemed bad.  A person’s idea of what is good versus bad, what is ethical versus unethical, is largely developed through memories and plays a huge role in creating our personal identity. If you did not have the memories that make up your moral code, or ethos, then you would not interact with the outside world in the same way.

Societal labels is the third factor in shaping personal identity, and is as important, but vastly different than, culture and memories. Both culture and memories are very personal, and are unaffected by other people's views and experiences. Societal labels, on the contrary, are based solely on other people's judgements. How other people perceive a person largely impacts how they perceive themselves.  It is similar to culture in the way that we look to other people for acceptance, and place so much value on their opinions. These labels, whether positive or negative, have a vitally important impact on shaping a person’s personal identity.


Overall, many factors play a role in creating one’s personal identity.  A person’s culture, memories, and societal labels are just three of the many things that manifests themselves into your personality and how others see you.


Social identity is how other people perceive you, regardless of your personal identity. It is different than personal identity because it is based on societal expectations, which you do not have control over.  Unfortunately, one can do very little to change their social identity, because it has nothing to do with who you are as a person, or what your belief system is. Unlike societal labels, which you absorb and may become part of your personal identity, your social identity is completely independent of your personal ethos.  In other words, it is basically when people judge a book by its cover. Personal and social identities are intertwined constantly, changing as people learn and grow.


Work cited

“Does culture shape our identity?” WYA, www.wya.net/op-ed/does-culture-shape-our-identity/.

“Health, Help, Happiness Find a Therapist.” Psychology Today, Sussex Publishers, www.psychologytoday.com/.

7000 vs You

7000 vs You



Cigarettes are a big problem in US and around the world. More than over 17% of the US smokes and cause over 480,000 deaths almost every year. That’s ridiculous and only to tell you that it starts with young teens.

Smoking has been around for a while now and has recently died down since 2005 by 3% but that's 17% percent that I was talked about before was filled with 15% of teens smoke under the age of 18. Now to me thatś crazy and I bet that some of you didn’t even know some of these things I just told you and probably won’t know the things I’m about to tell you. The reason why smoking is so bad is because it’s increase in risks of incurable diseases such as lung cancer.

Lung cancer. Smoking causes 80 to 90 percent of lung cancer cases in the US. This happens from all of the over 7000 chemicals in cigarettes and some of them give a more of a craving from flavored cigarettes appealing to the younger community and therefore increasing a higher death rate from cancer in young teens and all over the world setting a trend of how smoking is cool when it’s really is not at all.


Image result for 7000 chemicals in cigarettes

A photo of only a few different chemicals in cigarettes. Check this image out for more information here


If you’re a smoker then technically you’re a murderer because second hand smoke kills 7,500 people per year . That is a problem because this consists of young children, elders and innocent people. It also messes up yours and others brain for the worst. It cause the brain to create extra receptors just to feel the sensation of nicotine in your system therefore giving you less money because you are craving something that is expensive. Every time  you buy a pack of cigarettes you lose up to $10. But back to the brian, cigarettes mess up the human brain sometimes causing brain damage due to nicotine withdrawal which comes from you losing nicotine which causes those extra brain receptors that you’ve built up to not receive nutrients then possibly some sort of brain trauma or making a person go crazy from lack of nicotine.


Image result for brain addiction nicotine

This picture shows how Nicotine builds those extra receptors in you brain




Those were just some facts about smoking and how bad it is but I want to tell you the reader a little story about my grandmother who smoked since she was 16 years of age and how that affected her life. My grandmother Linda was a lifetime smoker who enjoyed smoking and that ruined her life. Smoking made her crazy, poor and smell bad. Now I don’t like to speak on my grandmother that much because her addiction to nicotine has also affected my life for the worst as well. Smoking also gave her bronchitis which is a breathing disease in the bronchial glands and also gave a gum disease where she had rotten teeth that had to be removed. Now that sounds disgusting right? My grandmother is not a bad person, she is actually amazing but ever since she starting smoking or as it progressively gotten worse she gotten meaner in a since. Sometime she wouldn’t have the money to purchase cigarettes and would ask me. Most of the time I would pay for her addiction which I should´ve never done; But when I wouldn’t give her any money because either I didn’t have it or I didn’t want to give her the money she would get a really bad attitude and say things a grandmother shouldn’t say to her grandchild. What i’m trying to show you is that smoking changes people for the worse. It makes you very angry and upset and just not pleasant to be around.




Now speaking on the money issue with cigarettes, cigarette take up almost 80 million dollars  of the worlds pockets. Just like this picture shown here you’re basically burning your money away. Just imagine getting your check after a long week or 2 of work and cut it in half because that’s what your doing when you want to buy cigarettes that month. That is basically wasting money on suicide because every pack you smoke takes off 7-8 years

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A diagram of everything that I talked about.                     BAD facts about smoking effects on lungs


Infographic of second hand death...I meant smoke on children from ages 3-11Charts: