Alexandra Thompson Essay as Cultural Commentary 10 June 2013 Altoon11@knights.ucf.

edu More Than Meets The Eyes (1450)

Every summer for the past four years I have had the opportunity to intern in the field of communications. Though there are many other students who have gained this same experience mine is unique because in addition to interning at the same place every summer, I've gotten to rotate departments every summer. I've worked with Administration, Accounts, Human Resources, Production, Engineering, Promotions, Creative, Sales, Research, and last but not least, the most seemingly glamorous of all, News. Because of this opportunity, I've gotten to learn about the inner workings of a top news station and met a lot of different and interesting people. It was two years ago that anchor Matt Austin moved from Oklahoma and joined our station. After our noon anchor left to join a radio show he had been hired immediately and him and his entire family would be moving to Orlando, FL. That summer I worked in promotions and was put on the job of arranging the production of his headshots, business cards, and overall appearance at the station. Though I was put in charge of so much for this individual, our connect was extremely unnoticeable because I, being a intern, was always on the run and he being a new news anchor was getting familiar with his new environment. All that I actually knew of him was that a. he was married and had two children, he was mighty young to be an anchor, and that our viewers

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liked him from the moment he did his first Skype appearance preview on our station. An instance that is uncommon, but that was suggested by him as a way for the viewers to see his face before he delivered our loyal fans their news. Those few things led me to the assumption that he was an extremely professional person who has been on a strict track to end up as successful as he was at his age. It wasn't until two years later that I got to see another side of this new, seemingly busy man. Matt was sitting at his desk with a cup of Starbucks coffee, he had on a pale blue button up with his tie loosely undone, and headphones in his ear. As I sat in my desk, directly in front of him he crooned the following words, "Do what you want but you're never gonna break me". He was really singing Pocket Full of Sunshine by Natasha Bedingfield. I couldn't help but to burst into laughter. I guess my amusement was apparent to him behind both of our computer screens because he then replied, "What are you laughing at!" In my mind of course I was laughing at the fact that a man, who breaks news that affects the central Florida community, and who I see on the news every morning and afternoon as a calm and serious personality was blurting out, and listening to a song written by a artist that has been spoofed by too many movie to count. Now that I think back, I'm almost certain that he fully had the attention of starting a conversation up and this was his way of doing it. "You look familiar!" and then it started, the conversation that kicked off an admiration (by admiration I do not mean crush or liking, I simply mean respect, hes a married man with kids people!) for a person I had said high to in passing to for the past two years but never took the time to get to know. He was intelligent, but extremely awkward and hilarious and though he was the bearer of bad news to the community, he

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was the source of my laughter for that hour. When talking to one of the producers he did a celebratory dance after realizing he'd won a bet on when the lottery jackpot was going to be won. When another intern left their cellphone in the news meeting he took it upon himself to photo bomb the unsuspecting guy and took a series of hilarious photos that were eventually posted to the guys instagram. He gave me advice on working in the news business and shred photos of his early adolescence, particularly a bad mullet phase he went through that led him on the path to news. Before this interaction I knew for sure that Matt was nothing like this. I hadnt attempted to get to know him but from seeing his news broadcast I was so certain that there was no way possible he would be anything like this character I was interacting with now! When we see people we tend to forget how human they really are because they are on a screen. Even when people are on reality shows the like the Kardashians we form these perceptions forgetting that we're not seeing the real them. The whole them. A them that isn't sitting in front of a camera knowing that one day someone is going to view what is being recorded and instantly judge them. From national television programs to local news broadcast, these individuals walk around with the terrifying thought that someone is forming a seemingly unwarranted opinion of them that is either really great or really horrible. Celebrity worship syndrome is an obsessive-addictive disorder in which a person becomes overly involved with the details of a celebrity's personal life. Psychologists have indicated that though many people obsess over glamorous film, television, sport and pop stars, the only common factor between them is that they are all figures in the public eye. In 2002, United States psychologists Lynn McCutcheon, Rense Lange, and James Houran

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introduced the Celebrity Attitude Scale, a 34-item scale administered to 262 persons living in central Florida. McCutcheon et al. suggested that celebrity worship comprised one dimension in which lower scores on the scale involved individualistic behavior such as watching, listening to, reading and learning about celebrities whilst the higher levels of worship are characterized by empathy, over-identification, and obsession with the celebrity. This study also found that majority of the participants didnt personal come into contact with are conducted research on said celebrity but felt as though they knew the person enough to have a accurate perception of them. Logan Browning, lead antagonist of the new VH1 show, Hit The Floor, is one network celebrity who has recently began to experience the backlash of peoples perceptions of her character being projected upon her. As the antagonist, she of course is seen tormenting the lead protagonist and being an overall bad girl, but Logan has taken every interview she gets as a chance to let the viewers of the show that she is nothing like the character she plays. Her reason for doing this is because after the shows Memorial Day premiere, angered viewers took to her personal Facebook (though the character she plays has a Facebook run by the shows creative team) to share their opinion on how horrible of a person Logan isat least, what they thought she was. Logan was quoted saying, I always wanted to play the bad guy but I hoped people would realize that I was just playingpretending, acting. Ive been called so many horrible things lately I tend to avoid social media. Im nothing like my character, please dont hate me for playing the role so well! It should be taken into considerations the pressure of being a public figure with the fans, stalkers, spectators, and the least favorite of the bunch, the judgers. Why is it so

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easy for us to criticize and evaluate the people we choose to watch as though we are angry teenagers forced to attend their mothers knitting class? Matt, like most other people on television or actors in movies or music artist, choose to put himself on the big screen because he thought that people would appreciate him for doing his job. Not judge his personal life because they though he had evil eyes or looks like a stuck up prick. We can't all meet a celebrity that we've formed our own perceptions of because of a movie that we saw, or gossip column that we read but I'm sure if we did we'd learn that they really aren't the characters or personalities we've made them out to be. Dont get me wrong, some people are just as mean and nasty as you may imagine them to be. Another seemingly pleasant news personality taught me! However, on that day Matt taught me that news anchors can be hilariously entertaining and not as a big of a bad news barer that most would assume. As he put it, "I may be a anchor but that doesn't mean I can't bust a move!!!"*Moon walks out of room*

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