Cherise is an associate professor of communications at the SI Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University. She holds BS degrees in Brain and Cognitive Science and Comparative Media Studies from MIT. I'm assuming that you were one of the earliest majors, undergrad majors in CMS. Technically, my degree says humanities because CMS was not yet a labeled major. So I do have a Bachelor's of Science in Humanities from MIT.  So you were ahead of your time. There was, I think, four of us who graduated in my semester, one of which is in our attendees. But yeah, there's only four of us who graduated my semester. I think it became a named major two years, undergrad major two years later, so maybe 2005. Wow, great. Well, so then Cherise went on to get a Master's Degree from the School of Cinematic Arts and a PhD in Social Psychology from the University of Southern California. Cherise's work focuses on how media affects the way we think about ourselves and others, as well as how we use media to construct and reaffirm positive identities. Her most recent book, 20th Century Media and the American Psyche, about which she'll be speaking today, investigates changes to the communication environment over the past 150 years and how these rapid yet pervasive shifts have affected our psychology. At Syracuse University, Cherise teaches classes on communication and diversity to professional media students, specifically how to do media, how do media affect our understanding of different social categories and how do the social categories of media producers affect the media with which we all engage. She has mentored over 50 McNair scholars across disciplines at the University of Southern California, Loyola Marymount University and Syracuse University since 2008 and was awarded Teacher of the Year from the Newhouse graduating class of 2017. So welcome or welcome back. Thank you. It's very exciting to be here. I feel like my face is a little red. I'll pull that down a little bit. Yeah, no, I thank you so much for having me. Thank you so much for continuing to do great work. And I'm sorry, I probably looks even worse. Yeah, I'm I cannot express how excited I am to be invited to this colloquium and to talk to all of you today. I feel like even though my PhD is in psych, the role of comparative media studies and frankly MIT in general really impacted the way I think about the world and the way I approach questions just as a whole. And I feel really lucky to be able to impart this these critical thinking skills to students across disciplines and today to professional media students. Shall I begin? I'm sorry, I just kind of started diving into things. OK, cool. I will say that when I graduated from MIT in 2003, I really wanted to be the head of programming for MTV and that was my dream job. I thought I could make MTV a better network by producing better programming and encouraging audiences to demand more. I didn't even know how to apply to a job at MTV. I think I applied to a whole bunch of jobs when I graduated. I was completely lost. And since then, like my overall goal in leaving at that time, you know, 18 years ago, this dream can now draw this dream can almost vote was to make media better to make to improve the media environment. And I feel like I've really had that opportunity specifically with teaching critical thinking skills to media producers. So I knew how students can't major in theory. They major in broadcast journalism, newspaper journalism, advertising, PR, television, radio, film or like photography and multimedia design. So by imparting these skills to people who are actually going out and making media and affecting the discourse, I feel like I'm really having a direct impact on the quality of media and fostering producers that can create content that is disruptive and encourages other people to think more deeply about media and the world in which they live. So that's so that's that's kind of I don't know if that's an introduction, but it's a real context for what I've been doing over the past 18 years. And for and I assume everyone took a read to the scan took a listen that was thoroughly enjoyable. So out of curiosity, quick show of hands. How many of you listened to the thing? OK, cool. And how many of you read it? OK, a few other few different ones. OK, cool. Thank you. I'm really curious as to the experiential difference in these spaces around in this case, audio only media versus visual media. I feel like I make the argument in the third second chapter, second chapter, section one on the role of the power of audio to enact, enable, activate feelings of presence and the way in which we have become so accustomed to having, for example, our favorite musician in our home, in our bed, in our shower with us in the car, right, singing just to us. Technically, they're singing to a whole bunch of people, but they're singing just for us and that that personal intimacy that comes with audio media is frankly 150 years old, and yet it has become so normalized. So it was a delight to read that and create that content and thinking, well, this is for everyone, but knowing that people would be listening to it by themselves. So, you know, you spend so much time writing a book and putting all your words into happy little text and then to suddenly hear yourself talk through it is it was it was really striking and kind of an embodiment of the claims that I make in the book in the first place. But I did get an email from a buddy of mine who was reading is like reading this book is awesome it feels like I'm in a conversation with you. And so, you know, being able to actually bring that to fruition through the power of recorded audio. I talk about recorded music, but in the power of recorded audio was a delightful opportunity. So, um, well, what I had promised to you today in the talk was to kind of talk a little bit about the book but also to chart this sort of cross methodological journey. And so I use the term cross methodological more than mixed methods because traditionally speaking when we say mixed methods we're saying you know I'm doing a study here in this fashion in this fashion and in this fashion and combining multiple methodologies. Into one larger setting. When I say cross methodology, I literally mean, well, what did we learn from this method and how can we combine this method with this other method to get at a more nuanced explanation of some global or psychological or media phenomenon. And I will say, you know, I feel like it's an absolute privilege to be able to do that, especially when we talk about academia that's so desperately siloed right that if your methods don't fit into the methods that have been done that may work against you later. So I put that out there that it's very much a privilege that I've had the opportunity to do this and I've had advisors in including Professor about I've had advisors. Who have been supportive consider it and always willing to remind me about what is going to work and what's not going to work, despite what I want to do. And so I'll just briefly talk about some of the research that I've done, and I've got some slides on the kind of like my current stuff and it's kind of cross methodological approaches. And then I could talk a little bit about what as media psychography is and the goals of the book itself. And then I'm happy and excited to talk about your research, like I said, or like, Professor ball said I am. I've mentored dozens of McNair scholars McNair scholars, I don't know if they may know what a McNair scholar is. Okay McNair so McNair is the Ronald E McNair program we don't have one at MIT, which is fine it'll become ironic as soon as I tell you why Ronald E McNair was a PhD graduate from MIT first black man in outer space. It was not George Clinton or Sun raw. Don't worry about those are jokes at the expense of Afro futurism. So yeah first black man in outer space and he died on the challenger. And so it's a federally funded program to encourage students of color first gen college students low income students to pursue PhDs and pursue research. So I've had the privilege of working with literally dozens of students who are not generationally familiar with the phenomenon of research but are very excited about it. And what I've noticed in these conversations is this eagerness to answer questions that have come through their mind through their lives come through their eyes in unique ways, but also a general frustration with the structure of of what is traditional research. Right. So I've spent a lot of time talking students through you know sociology students history students media students psych students business students engineering students through ways in which to answer the questions that plague them in ways that will fit into simultaneously the expectations of academia and to fulfill their own to seek out the answers that they find most fulfilling I will say, and I talked about this, but you know, like just those early observations that first time when I had a real epiphany about media biases when I realized that little boys were always the ones who screamed I won in game commercials and it's funny because they always have these very diverse groups. Sure, whatever. They had racially diverse groups they gender diverse groups they generally did not have ability diverse groups so we can talk all about that and levels of dimensions of diversity but by 1990 standards, they had diverse groups, but it was always the little boys who jumped up and said I won and I just I noticed this then I started tallying it. Right, so I was doing little content analysis in my notebook next to my Lisa Frank hearts. I was just so incredibly bothered by this and I had teachers that I would go in and say this is ridiculous this is absurd I'm certain I didn't use a word absurd in fifth grade but and they're like, okay, you're absolutely right. Let's write a letter to Milton Bradley. And, you know, just that moment of seeing this phenomenon in the world, documenting it coming back to our scientific method, documenting it observing it and then starting to look for it in other pieces is such an essential piece of not just research but surviving and moving through the world as a human that, you know, we can start to see how we all do it and the question comes down to when it's it fostered and when is it not.   In fourth grade, we got to take chess and the teacher teacher. restricted me to three questions a day because I asked too many questions. So then I became like really paranoid about asking the wrong questions and being really conservative about which questions do I ask is this a good questions this a bad question. In ninth grade, I apparently would ask questions for which the answer was on the board, and then the teacher started calling them churris questions in my math class. And then she told the next teacher so that when I went up to 10th grade that teacher was already referring to unnecessary questions as churris questions. And then, and so that is kind of kept going for a while, because then I became that girl.  And regardless of whether I was, that's not true. I definitely heard that from my classmates.  And so this willingness to think differently and ask more questions and not be satisfied with the answers that you're getting I think are so essential to life. And then when we talk about media as this is comparative media studies, the extent to which we've been asked not to question media is really striking right that. And as somebody who teaches media students now media producers, asking why something is is not necessarily a good use of time when you need to turn out an article in 24 hours. It's not a good use of time when you need to turn out a news package in 12 hours right media moves so fast that we're not allowed to even stop and think more deeply about it. And so that was part of what brought me to this exercise. Actually before we get to that. Going through MIT I was a course seven, which is biology.   So that happened. I ended up dropping out of school because I was in a good position for a wide variety of other reasons I actually started college I actually started MIT at 16 wouldn't recommend it. It's not necessarily because 16 is inherently a bad number but my mother was very protective. So when I went to college, it was like the first freedom I ever experienced and it was, it was a lot there. I ended up dropping out of school without real direction and work suddenly becoming hard. And then I had this epiphany with which the whole book starts and I went back and got degrees in brain and cog and media studies. And for me I was always asking questions across these two disciplines, you know, using brain and cog to think about media, using media to think about brain and cog. One of my favorite course nine papers I ever wrote was for animal sex behavior, and I don't even remember who taught the class I should look that up. And I wrote a paper on the multiple mating habits of human beings, and basically closed it with critical psychological investigation of pimping culture, which was quite big at the time, you know, 50 cent PIMP JZ all it was really big in in the pop culture and thinking through how women are framed as a commodity, both in the animal world bigger your harem, the, you know, progressive male you are, and applying that to mediated culture. I got to see in that class but it is still my favorite paper. So then when I graduated from MIT I tried to write a book called the media made me crazy. It was going to be a critical autobiography about how the media caused me such emotional strife. I wrote up a proposal I sent it to David Thorburn David Thorburn responded and said it was the most naive thing he'd ever read. I broke down in tears and realize I need to learn how to write. So I went and got a master's at USC and critical critical studies in the school of cinematic arts, and then a PhD in the social psych department and again I was privileged to have a master's my advisor was Steve Reed and Lynn Miller, who's in Annenberg at USC. Never tell me no. And even though Steve's area Steve reads area was not media. He was constantly just saying okay if that's the question you want to ask this is how we will answer it from a psychological perspective. And that was that kind of support is what I tried to bring, not just to my students but also to myself. So, this book now the psychology of 20th century media or excuse me 20th century media in the American psyche. So the goal is really to think about how these new communication capacities, the ability for us to be looking at each other in real time. Miles apart is remarkable and frankly there's been a lot of discussion about like how zoom popped off out of nowhere, but now literally within a year. Since pandemic and we can talk about how pandemic accelerated everything zoom is now a verb, right, it took Google at least 10 years to become a verb. Now, it's, you know, we, we expect to zoom. In fact, I think I wasn't with as well as calling somebody else.  And he's like, Oh, are we doing this on the phone and like yeah I'm in the car we're doing this on the phone. And he's like going backwards in communication strategies was so foreign right we're always having meetings on the zoom now. I also like to say the before platforms it makes me feel delightfully old, like the Facebook and the Twitter. I'm really thinking through these technologies that have become so ingrained in our lives the phone, the ability to connect with loved ones and talk to them in real time across distance. Again, it's frankly only about less than 100 years old and we start to look at how quickly it was adopted and when it hit saturation and so on and so forth is less than 100 years old, but it has become so normal to the point where my three year friends are like yeah let's call so and so. Right. And so I really wanted to think about this is historiography, or to do a historiography. I'm probably using the term incorrectly but I really like it to do a historiography of how media has impacted our psychology over time, because psychologists for the most part are so distanced from history. I like to say, you know, this is what we do. This is how we think, and kind of map that onto how we have always thought, but one of the arguments I make in the interview with Henry, I think that was also shared is so much of psychology is based in people and psychological manipulations psychological manipulations are based in media usage. So reading a passage and then manipulating this passage to feature one name or another different argument, showing you a picture. Right, all of that has become so normalized, but literally 150 years ago, literacy was way low way down, and we didn't have photo realistic pictures. So everything that we measure in psychology is largely based in a world that we have forgot is based in today and we've kind of forgotten about what happened before the world we live in today existed. And that was always very troubling to me, and especially as we talk about it with media, you know, that communication specifically communication technologies in this case mass media for the most part, media that disseminate mass messages are, they're so new, they're very new, we talked about just a blink in the human eye and you know human history they're new. They're so normal. And so it was a delight to sit down and kind of collate all of this research in a conversational way to think you know how do these technologies actually impact us and change how we engage with the world and how have they done that so remarkably in such little time. So, I'll just say, and then I can pause or stop. I don't want I want to answer questions like I want to make myself available and hear about the work you guys are doing. Y'all are doing read somewhere is like oh y'all is a much better term than you guys. Oh, hold on and see. Sure. So, as we think about this I'll just hit a couple quick slides. When we talk about a media psychography I'm talking about the examination of how the collective psyche impacts and has been impacted by media psychologies. So, literally looking to our own history with media, how did you come to understand yourself through the communication technologies that have become available to you over your lifetime. It's very easy for us to talk about how writing or reading impacted us, but we often don't think about the other dimensions, the other technological affordances. So by looking to our own histories with media rather than coming to the allure of newness I think this is right out of the intro, we can further unpack relationships that users develop with media and provide insight into how people might build future mediated relationships so this whole book also is rooted in a class that I teach called psychology of interactive media. So I'm going to ask students to production students to think upstream about why people use media so that we can anticipate what people might do downstream. And I'll just I'll close with the I'll stop talking with this one I can also show you my lovely little, actually I got a couple a couple more. Let's see. So I'll come here. That. Yeah, I had a whole order and then I'm not using it so I apologize. I will say so for those of you who read it I didn't technically include the images or describe them so that's on me. So this is also basically my argumentation that we have a new technology that's developed this technology enables novel strategies for communication widespread adoption of the technology than those novel communication strategies become social norms social norms change culture customs and institutions and then we demand new communication strategies which relate to new technological development. Okay, as we think about. Sorry, as we think about I'll close with this slide. As we think about this is terrible. Alright, well it's fine. It's just very small so I apologize. As we think about the different ways. Media can be conceptualized. Okay, I argued for this fit taxonomy, let me see if I can get a better picture. That's not working anymore. No, okay. I'm going to better picture if I stop sharing. Just missing. As we think about technologies. We can start to break them down into different structures. So what I'm going to do is actually I'm just going to zoom in here and then blow this up for you. I apologize again for not having a better image. Okay, so that we have a format it's non visual audio static text static images synchronized video and interactive video and whether that's delivered an analog electronic formats or digital formats. So we get into industry and content journalism advertising entertainment and peer to peer. So we see in this graph in this image we see that the gray areas are basically areas where there is no research on the impact of race and gender in those dimensions in those media platforms. So we start to see when we think about media differently where the questions have been answered and where they have not. And I think that that's a really important component for any media scholar to consider is what questions have been answered, but more importantly which questions were we unable to even consider because we weren't thinking about media in this format. I can stop here this probably seems like good place to stop I could also walk you through the outline of the book and the different claims that I make in the three different sections intimacy regularity and reciprocity. Very briefly I'll show you this, this happy little graph, which is what I presented at MIT 10 when Andrew and I met in 2019. Basically I make the arguments that intimate media like theatrical film recorded music and consumer market cameras, as well as regular media so media that is integrated into our daily lives, like radio network television and cable television, and reciprocal media so media that responds to our actions like magnetic tape video gaming and dial up ISPs. All impact 21st century media practices, and we can only see how they do that by spending more time with media that we effectively now called defunct. Ooh, let's stop with that. I like the word defunct. I'll happily pause here stop here and invite questions thoughts here a little bit about your research. Or we can keep talking so I'll throw to Professor ball to and to moderate from here. Thanks for letting me tell my story though. Thank you. I wanted to just ask with regard to you in the introduction you, you talk about a, you know, the this historical process of, you know, of groups of people becoming accustomed to a particular particular forms of media that then that then conditioned the way that we understand and use initially new forms of media. There's, there's sort of a back and forth between what you're, what you're describing as as new and what you're describing as as old, right, that there's not a, not a clear break but this, this kind of ongoing process of or cycles of adaptation and change. I just wanted to ask if you could talk a little bit about this, the tension between sameness and newness, right that that sort of appears in in in what you're describing. And there's there's sort of a follow up question to about generations. But but we can get to that in a second. Okay, cool because I was about to start writing down your questions once you get into two parts and like I gotta write that one down. So, same same but different. I think is one of my favorite adages that somebody said I think this on because traveling with some Aussies and they kept saying same same but different. You know I think it was Brits same same but different. Um, so I will say and one of the points that I make is I only ever use new and old as relative terms right one media is newer in the grand timeline of things than some other medium. I try not to categorize media as new, but at the same time. We use new technologies, rhetorically speaking we use new technologies as an easier way to fulfill old habits, right so reason now say new media engaged with old brains that we use new media to fulfill old habits so when the cell phone was the cell phone it was a phone. And like we got to use a phone wherever we wanted to use this phone and then we learned that there was this thing called text messaging, and Americans were way late on that game right because we were so consumed with using the phone and now we don't even use the phone as a phone anymore because these these other opportunities email social media video games all of those things become the dominant use of the computer in our pocket even though we still technically call it a phone. So, I think that to come back to what I was starting to write is the tension between the idea of sameness and different is that we, and this is the claim I make about it being in a relationship with media we lead in every in every new relationship we expect to at the very least have all the good things that we had from the last relationship. And so that's, that's the baggage we bring to every new relationship and I probably shouldn't use baggage. So flippantly, but you know that's the baggage we bring to every new relationship is the joys and fears of our last relationship. And then I argue that if we think about media technology and that relational lens. What is the baggage that we're bringing to every new relationship and how does that impede us frequently from being able to see the potential, everything in this new relationship that could happen, when in reality we're looking at this new relationship through the lens of our old relationships and if we map that on to media. How are we looking at this new temporarily, temporarily, right time wise. Through media medium through the baggage of our old mediums. And I think that that baggage of our old mediums is not just how we engage with the technology but it becomes a way of understanding ourselves. Right. There's what you bring to every new relationship is a residual from the old relationship, but it's a residual of the old relationship because it still resides within you. And so that's basically the argument that I'm trying to make that with every new technology the only constant is us. And in that constant but that constant itself has been involving, because we have all been moving through these technologies, arguably together for, as I argue in this case 150 years and earlier. Does that answer your question. And it kind of it connects somewhat to the second part, which is that that, you know, also in the introduction you. You speak about you draw a distinction between different regions of the world, for example, that are differently resourced that have different modes of amounts of access to different kinds of technologies. And you draw a distinction in terms of the being able to sort of make make statements about the psychological relationship to media in one place based upon another. Right. And that sort of caution against that. Right. What what I was curious about in reading that and thinking about the, the, like aspects of generational change is, is that, you know what you're describing in terms of, you know, bringing the baggage of our past media use to each new medium. And generationally, there will be, you know, folks younger than us who's engagement with with the new media is actually their original engagement. Right. To the extent that in some ways you might argue that that generational differences might start to look more like the kinds of geographic distant differences that that you are are speaking about as well. I was just wondering, you know, about about that, or, you know, what can we say about, you know, is there a kind of essentially different psychological engagement with technology from one generation to another. I would say yes, I will say I'll make a point that I do caution against generalizing a small sample, right because I ever since I read that weird article from Heinrich at all Heinrich, something in nor is I am. I apologize for forgetting the second author but that weird article about social science, and that is that social science researchers look at Western educated industrialized rich democratic nations, and that and then they go and say oh this is generalizable to everybody. As somebody who is largely been outside of the intersectional space that is generalized and as somebody who has been taught to study those who are in that intersectional space, I'm very salient. I'm very salient to me about what I should and should not be generalizing to by which I mean to say I've definitely had reviewers ask me where my white control is right why don't you have a white control when I'm doing research literally on black and Latino populations. I've looked at my own data sets and just seen a dominance of white women in the case of psych research that are at private institutions studying college right like this sample is so narrow so I'm just always very hesitant of saying that this is generalizable to everyone. At the same time the whole book is called the American psyche right. Having said that I try to acknowledge my own generational situatedness like in the very first paragraph this is where I am. I tried not to include it just in the interest of, you know, privacy. I wanted to talk about it in the third part with Henry about watching my own child. Engage, and like husband and I was five years older than I'm right husband I was sitting here just like watching him come up on the Alexa be like Alexa, I want this song, and Alexa just plays it. And I will have you know that he has now discovered who let the dogs out. And so that is playing on loop in our house, which is not cool. In case you don't know about it that song is totally about sex, and it makes me very uncomfortable. And, you know, it's, it's just remarkable to watch his desires be met immediately. And us know that when we were his age, the only desire that could be met immediately was probably the book that was on the floor. Right, but he his infinite desires are met immediately and he will grow up with, and we're just trying to instill, you know, some level of lay gratification. I'm just trying to run him through the marshmallow test every few days, but because everything is so immediate to him, I can't even begin to think about what his generation will be like when it comes to this expectation of on demand like we came into on demand in the future, we came to understand it as adults, we're like, Oh, I can watch this now. Instead, this new generation is like, I should be able to watch this now, I am guaranteed to watch this now how dare you not let me watch this now. And I'm fascinated by it. I do think that generational differences because of the speed at which things advanced do have the power to become divisions on par with geographical distances and geographical distances seem to be collapsing. Alright, so our understanding of different groups of people and what we have known groups of people to be geographically disparate for example. Is it Friedman who wrote the world is flat. Right. That the geographical distances have fallen have have become less impactful, less impactful, still not less impactful, whereas the generational differences become striking and it is left up to us. The generation coming into content to move faster because the generation born into the content right what is it. Digital natives that the phrase they use are and that's got all sorts of problems onto itself but just keep going for now. Like, their expectation of what is normal in the world is something that we have to learn to be normal. And I think that I think that that difference has the power to have some really interesting and important intergenerational conversations and connections. It just doesn't seem as evident when you're, you know, when your child can do more on your iPad than you can. Let me let me open things up to questions from our students or from from our attendees for the Q&A. I'll also, while we're thinking about it, I'll just go ahead and just describe just give you a little bit of some of the research that I've done most recently. So, my research interests fall across representation of groups and media content using media to construct identity and disrupt discourse and testing the potential of technology and these are some of the pubs and auto ethnographic textual analysis of all American girl qualitative analysis of Caribbean, and multiracial Caribbean to how they use social media, satirical education or educational satire learning and laughing on last week tonight I'm actually working on a textbook right now on satire and diversity. So that's pretty interesting content analysis of early youth created music videos on YouTube. So engagement, which is a collection of quantitative studies arguing for a theoretical and practical model of interactivity and persuasion so basically what happens when you can skip ads it makes you like the platform more and hate the brand. Like the platform and hate the brand. And then this is a fun little cross section we look at a qualitative quantitative or critical. So, these are just some of the things I've been working on over the past couple years, and the diversity of research questions but in the end all of them are to get at the same question which is to talk about your slip of the tongue at the beginning. How do we media right how to media how do we media. Um, I was still readable awesome. I think that was my. I'm sorry I'm bad with chats. That was my table from forever ago. Thank you Andre. Questions, thoughts, angry rejections of my theory. I want to go with Tomas. Can you pronounce your name for me. Um, and yeah the question was around that about the presentation. So, um, so something that we've been thinking about lately in in the department we have a small reading group that's concerned with Latin American media studies just reading media studies from Latin America and understanding this tradition and video studies kind of goes with a lot of American studies with understanding cultural studies and that kind of stuff. And I understand you to work goals and directions right you address terms of Latin Latinx media. And those things that I think the last two years are getting more and more attention. And I was wondering if you give some insights on whether or where do you see that going if you think there's how do you approach. Um, understanding that you know audiences. And maybe if we were thinking about what advice you could give to students were approaching these topics maybe. Sure, thank you. I will say that my expertise is in processes of subgroup media. So I will, I will outright say that my expertise is not in Latinx media. I do look at subgroups specific and how subgroups use media so if we were talking about how observations of Latinx people in the United States I'm not going to talk about in Latin America because I will not be able to that's not my expertise and I hope that my perspective and methodology inspire you to ask similar questions around different media practices. I think a big piece of how we're talking about it. And I will also say so I do have work on multi racial Koreans but my family is British Caribbean I'm British Guineas. So it's always funny because people like oh you're from South America so you must speak Spanish I'm like. Oh, you don't. You've missed some points here that it's a much more complicated thing than you've come from this geographic region therefore you must be this. But and I think that that sentiment is still very much is in my observations I think that sentiment is very much pervasive in new media discussions and new media is in digital social media user generated content in the subgroups any given where they're demanding people to think differently about their existence and that's when we're talking about Latinx media in the United States where many of these that have been marginalized for such a long time. The content that I'm observing is very much about pushing back on faulty understandings of a group. So, I think that the question needs to be divided between what happens with Latinx media, where Latinx is a numerical minority and I put air quotes around and we can get into that and changing numbers and so on and so forth, but where it has been either a numerical minority or historically marginalized group, and how we see media being used to talk back to these norms, both for people who have internalized those norms like remember that stereotype you saw on television isn't you. And to people who are not part of this group right that there's a very complicated question there. And I look forward to your work if you're doing research on Latinx populations and Latinx media in Latin America. How those what voices have not historically been heard and how one of the papers that I have is on target versus total marketing and basically the oxymoron of the total market that inevitably we have this idea that we are all X whatever X is but at the same time we're constantly pursuing this individuated conversation. So I look forward to hearing about how media technologies are used to tell which stories and which stories are getting more coverage in any given community and population. Does that answer your question? Yeah, and just definitely some issues that we're, we're speaking about and it's a small group that with a lot of questions was also here so I've got students and deal also I all think it's here too. But yeah, we're definitely talking about this issues about also what it means to be Latin America and Latinx and what maybe the ideas of globalization or presentation mean there so definitely thank you for the answer. Absolutely, and I would also always always invite you that every theory that you read regardless of who wrote it ask yourself what does this mean for our population and what does this mean, our population of interest, our population of interest in our media, does it fit, does it not fit, and if it doesn't fit, how does the theory need to evolve. And that is the voice that I'm very excited to hear from you. I'm going to turn on another light because I'm getting super dark in here. Thank you. Anybody else thoughts. Oh, yes, Professor. Hi, Sharice. Great talk. Thank you. I'd like to hear more about your critical research on Romeo and Juliet. Could you share that with us. I would thank you. I research is a big word. Hi, guys, but Bob Thompson and I have been running this podcast for three years now we call it a pop trash podcast it was fired because we're both fast and furious fans and fast and furious have been largely discarded by the by academics right and by people in the public anyway they're like, Oh, fast and furious what are they on now like 23 like no they're on nine and it's coming out in May. And then we started thinking more deeply about conversations that were not happening, because we had dismissed it as trash. So then we talked about Keanu Reeves we did a whole case study on key a whole star study on Keanu Reeves I watched like 30 plus Keanu Reeves films, and really started to develop a theory of Keanu Reeves as a celebrity icon and the what he was bringing to the role and how he reflected American and human values right very much a Richard Dyer star study classic celebrity star study. So then we were stuck like what are we going to do next well we wanted to do something that's a bit more feminine because we had done fast and furious very masculine. And we do talk about Keanu Reeves playing with gender roles but it's still kind of masculine dominated and so then that brought us to we're thinking about doing a star study of Madonna. We're thinking about doing Old Testament new movie and just look at movies from the Old Testament. I'm a big fan of the book Esther just on a personal note. I started with Romeo and Juliet specifically looking at the remakes of Romeo and Juliet. Right so Romeo and Juliet is, is not pop trash, but it is kind of ultimately postmodern right we all know the Romeo and Juliet story sometimes because we are required to in class. So this becomes such a almost cliche piece of culture that we can now play with it. And so we are looking at remakes of Romeo and Juliet, starting in West Side Story so starting with West Side Story, and looking at how the choices of the writer and director as well as the cultural time right what's happening in the culture of the time, infuse and change and reflect the story, because Romeo and Juliet is such a. It's such a go to that anybody can layer something on to it so we start with Romeo and we start with West Side Story, and then we do the Zeffarelli right so these two very early ones. So the writer is very true to the narrative and is generally critically acclaimed. Then we jump ahead and do Tromeo and Juliet. I don't know if anybody is familiar with trauma films but they toxic Avenger. It's like grossed out B movie, really inappropriate stuff like incest and mutilation and basically all the stuff that made Shakespeare great. It's like the tagline of the film, but then thinking through how this kind of gross out punk culture of 1996, directed by James Gunn by the way of Marvel fame. This sort of punk grunge DIY culture that was happening in media specifically through phenomena like video cameras, also MTV and just you know seeing how this kind of Gen X gross out version of Romeo and Juliet. Then we do of course the Bas Lerman. That's with Leonardo DiCaprio and Claire Danes. That's that's the one. Then we also look at some other films we look at Romeo must die, which generally is considered pop trash. We look at. We did Shakespeare in love we did no me and Juliet we did private Romeo so if you haven't seen private Romeo it's also an independent film. But it was shot basically it was released three months before don't ask don't tell is repealed so it's shot in the midst of don't ask don't tell and features two boys, two young men in a boys military Academy, falling in love while simultaneously performing the play so at any given time you're starting to see how the play itself is simultaneously work in the classroom and like trying to understand this language, but also very much intimate and lived through this young love. It's great. We also watch David and Fatima, which I was very honored to be able to expose that to Bob for the first time he never knew that film, and it's basically Israeli Palestine injury. Romeo and Juliet in Jerusalem, starring Martin Landau smart and Landau's last film along with Tony Curtis is last film. It's, it's really weird, but it's, it's fascinating and just looking at how this story has been retold over and over and over again. And I'm trying to remember who the, the character from gossip girl. He's British and he plays like the evil one I can't remember. Anyway, he plays tibbled in the 2013 version and in an interview he said the thing about Romeo and Juliet is that every generation has their own. So we take that language and start looking at how are we telling generational stories through this story that we all know, and it has been a joy and thank you for asking. So, you know, like comment subscribe you can find it at critical and curious calm about to release episode nine, which is Shakespeare in love and then episode 10 which is no me and Juliet. And then we close with the 2013 and Romeo and Juliet and Harlem. If you haven't seen that one that's the first one it was sold as you know advertise as the first all cast of color to do Romeo and Juliet. So, you know they're all who who's doing a Romeo and Juliet remix. Anybody, everybody, please get to it. Give me more. We have a question from the Q&A. Yes, a couple of them, actually. This is from Mohammed Reza in the Siri. Hello and thanks for the talk in that chart that is also on page nine, where you consider the evolving interaction between top down and bottom up norm setting. For example, Twitter first started to adopt hashtags in a systematic systematic way after Iran's 2009 protests, and then later in the protests in Arab countries. And that changed the structure as well as the use of Twitter, and also the whole adoption of hashtag, even in our everyday conversations. This kind of interaction is especially more powerful in the new interactive media, as for example the norms of filmmaking were mostly set by a few studios in a more top down manner. As a result, the norms of filmmaking have also changed and evolved very slowly, and actually mostly unchanged since then, but the norms of new media and hence our communication is evolving faster due to this constant two way interaction. Yes. Yeah, no, I completely agree. And again, I think the accelerated speed at which we see things change are is essential like we have to acknowledge that what is current today will not be current tomorrow and that that level of evolution is not is new. I will also say it's funny that you bring up film because one of the papers that is it's in a book called mediated millennials and looking at how youth generated music videos and from 2007 and 2013 and looking at how in 2007 it was very much adopting tropes from film and kids were just trying to like remake their favorite music videos, but then by 2013 we see this real emphasis on kind of individualized and selfie culture which was not necessary which then like wrapped into the music videos that were being made at the mainstream level so to things advanced quickly because they can be shared, in my opinion, can be shared so quickly right so you have that back and forth. And now you see that older mediums desperate to survive are mining, whatever the young people are doing in hopes that that will bring them into the theater. I think it really comes down to institutionalization right film was institutionalized before it was required to change. 4040 years before television came along and intelligence like we're taking this good luck, and then film was forced to change, as opposed to other technologies, as opposed to like Twitter and social media. And their institutional power just comes from the number of users they have, in my opinion. You know, and the fact that they've got whatever hundreds of engineers that can turn around a new, a new skin like every six months, stop it Facebook to stop it. Sorry, thank you. Kelly had their hand up for a while and so did and bar, I believe I'm pronouncing this correctly please correct me if I'm wrong. Yeah, thank you for the talk. I was curious when you've been thinking about relationships with media. If you've thought about people's relationships with media that talk back like robots. Like how do you think from a psychology perspective, people should be thinking about their relationships was like that level of interactive media. Sure. And I think before we even get to robots we can talk about, we can, I guess Alexa is a robot. We can talk about GPS right we can talk about reciprocal, and I would argue that those are very much reciprocal media. I love talking about magnetic tape right because I push play and it goes I push stop and stops and like that was, that was, I argue unprecedented at a mass level. I think what's really similarly with video games, I think, you know, before we jump into was it her, she, her with Scarlett Johansson, or this Futurama episode where fry falls in love with a robot. I think we have to think about this nuanced expectation of communication, and the fact that I say go and it goes, I want something and it gives it to me. The fact that two things, you know the fact that we can have our emotions immediately or needs not emotions but our needs and most immediately gratified is something that we have to remember, like we have to be conscious of it. So I'm not saying don't use robots, I'm saying that robots are not humans, Reeves and NASA would say we might forget. And secondly, oh crap, did I lose it. Oh, I do talk about the availability paradox and this idea that when the world is at your fingertips, we don't pursue it. Right and I track this back to like cable news right. The two channels are all within the same like 10 channel spectrum. Right like if you go up to channels you go from MSNBC to Fox News. So you can literally push a button and have a completely worldview, completely different worldview presented to you, but we don't. And I have so many students that come into my office like they don't I don't know what this word means I'm like yo you're totally sitting with your phone. All you have to do is say Siri define this word and it will tell you this word, but instead we're like oh just this is too much stuff it's just too much. So I would argue that a we have to realize that that responsiveness is is is a privilege. Right, as opposed to the norm as opposed to the standard. And at the same time, how are we using that responsiveness to improve our own lives, or how are we becoming a little bit lazy by not utilizing the full potential coming back to potential promise and practice using the full potential of a given responsive And in the case of robots. I mean, do we have robots that aren't connected to the Internet anymore. I mean I assume so, but this. Yeah, the question comes down to what does the robot do what does the robot do for you. And why is that robot in your life. And I would argue that that's the same question we need to ask for any technology. Is that a good answer. Yeah, thank you. Amber. Yeah, thank you. Well, mine is a little like it's about my thesis in my video. So I don't know like if everybody will want to hear it but here we go. So basically what I'm trying to do is like comparing the way people create their autobiographical narratives with auto biographical biographies generated by algorithms in platforms. Oh yeah. So you but the thing is like I don't have a psychology background. Like I am trying to think about, like you know in psychology it has been recognized that the formation of life narratives plays a crucial role in the construction construction of personal identity right. So I was like, just, I was wondering if you could give me like an insight where to look at like I saw your, like what your talk, like your tech talk, and you're like, anyone help explore the self using like different media. Are you trying to see how, like algorithmic narrative. You're good. You're good. Keep going. Okay. How can like algorithmic narratives can be used as a tool for reflection, rather than a way in which like machines and companies like limit our reflectivity so I think you could give me a good insight. So I do discuss in chapter three on consumer market cameras and basically how consumer market cameras allowed us to create our own autobiographical visual narratives easily. Right like I push a button I have a picture of this moment and I can line them all up and create an autobiography. And so I do talk a little bit you'll you'll like that chapter because it gives you a little bit about the psychology in how we construct memories through visual images. I do explicitly talk about algorithmic pushing of stuff right so I keep getting notes from like, Shutterfly oh this was your, so what you did four years ago I'm like cool and I forwarded to my friends and I keep going, or Facebook will give you a whole pushing your memories back because we don't often stop to think about, well, let me rephrase that. Some studies said we'll only ever look at 25% of the pictures that we ever took. Alright, and so this is what I love about these algorithmic memories is that it's like oh you shared it well here look at it because you weren't going to go back and look at it. So I do think that it meets a real psychological need where we get to see and remind ourselves of things that we had forgotten that we wanted to remember. I do think that the book, and specifically chapter three, and I will say this you know the whole book has however many hundreds of citations. It is designed as a prior literature with respect to media technology and psychology for these nine technologies. And I think that you will appreciate and be able to use a lot of the references that are in chapter three. And they'll take you they'll help you down the right path, and help you start all that psychology stuff that you need I promise. Thank you. Of course. There's. So there's another question in the Q&A. From Corey Schweitzberg. You are given the chapter that we should avoid overly determinist understandings of how media technologies influence human behavior. For example, social media makes you depressed. And the things that are interdependent and convoluted psychosocial and technological effects are on people slash users that said Facebook's business model is to establish and strengthen predictable profitable casual relationships between data targeted advertising and user spending. So social media platform to pursue psychosocial needs. Facebook collects your data targets ads at you, hopefully influences your consumer behavior and makes money makes money if they succeed in incentivizing Facebook book to optimize their social media experience to make you more useful as a data mine and add consumer. Now the general idea that technologies don't dictate behavior with the fact that the tech giant successfully measured by multi-billion dollar profits use AI scientists data analysts and UX researchers to deliberately influence user behavior. Okay, so very quickly to three things I want to say one, I don't think they determine behavior they encourage behavior. And then when we feel good about it becomes a cycle into itself right so they're encouraging this behavior but at any given point you could turn it off right we have that free will you could delete Facebook and it keeps going like goes viral on Facebook to delete Facebook. You know, but it encourages this behavior and when that behavior feels good then we engage in that behavior so it is a cycle in which the platforms create one trigger, and then that continues to spin on itself like some kind of technological cotton candy. And, and it's sweet. I've already gotten lost in this metaphor I'm really hungry and it's dinner time. So I think it's not necessarily that the technology that when we look at it from an outside perspective it would appear that the technology is determining our behavior. But when we're in it we realize that we've only been pushed in one direction, and we keep going in that direction because momentum. And then, until we see that we're being pushed in that direction we cannot stop. Another thing I wanted to mention regarding Keanu Reeves is you know as you talk about Facebook, becoming a using human users as a mind I'm automatically like thinking about those shots from matrix where the humans become the battery from the robots right. And until we realize that we're in this space we cannot walk away from it. I would argue that this is something I say over and over and over again, if social media is not meeting your needs if a given platform is not meeting your needs. You've got to let it go. You got to like this, you have to. And it's easier said than done. I will say I.  So I created a new profile for him and I post a picture every day. So like, he's got his own page it's private we're not trying to make the baby go viral right. It's private, it's only family and friends. So he has a very limited circle, and now I'm on that one all the time because all it is his family, and like Smithsonian zoo pictures, and Dolly Parton's imagination library. And so regularly I get to the end of the internet, like that's not a thing you're never supposed to get to the end of the internet that's the amazing situation of infinite twirling. So I get to the end of the internet all the time and Instagram's like you have nothing new to look at, like, great. Right. So I would just encourage you know, we have to be able to see how our behavior is being manipulated. It's been manipulated since you know, newspapers, right this sensationalism yellow journalism, all of that stuff was trying to foster outrage and anger and policy change and popular change. So I'm not encouraging it. Now it's much more interactive. It's almost infinite. You know it's just accelerated but those same. That same willingness we have, and I feel like I'm using willing this wrong so let me just finish the sentence that same willingness or willing acquiescence and I do talk about this willing acquiescence. Now tie back to theatrical film, like we willingly give over our consciousness to theatrical film we sit in there, we turn off our phones, we separate ourselves from the outside world, and we say to the filmmaker to the screen, show me what you want me to see. Is it surprising that we would do that for social media as well. That's it I got deep, I got deep but I feel like that's where I got and anything more is just something to be repeating myself. Actually, I wanted to just follow up on that. And, and, and I think it connects somewhat with the follow up question that that's in the Q&A. And it is, you know, I was while I was reading. I was thinking about all of the kind of public conversation about about the 2016 election and about just the siloing of different sectors of society through social media. And I'm just curious to hear your, your take on that kind of conversation about like whether, you know, it's in some ways it's similar to, you know, the, I don't know if you remember the organization that PMR sees that was. Oh yeah the parent music resource coalition we watched that Zappa congressional hearing in class. So, you know, is this is the conversation around the, the kind of very dangerous fracturing and polarization of society via social media. Is it just a new version of the kind of conversations that were going on with the PMR C and others claiming that that punk rock and heavy metal we're creating violence in in society. Or is there something, you know, that is due to the, the, the nature of these technologies, the speed, the, the scale that actually where there are actual potentially very negative effects broadly in society. Well, just to let you know you guys all know that to harken back to the PMR C Prince invented sex, you know that right like that that's that's what happened, and people go was angry about it, Prince invented sex. I think that. So I do make the argument about silos as it relates to cable, because usually when we're talking about these siloing and these echo chambers we're comparing them to the three network system, when it was ABC CBS and NBC, providing all national content. So when we had three outlets three television outlets yeah you, it was a consensus conversation, but we're not talking about, you know the hundreds of partisan papers that were happening in 1700 and there's a great visualization I'm happy to find it I've got it in there. And some of my classmates about the rise and fall of American newspapers, and you start to see like how many there were just like everybody had a newspaper that was every partisan perspective that they wanted between 1700 and 1800.  But it's a really beautiful visualization and I think that what's lost in this dots is that each of those newspapers was a unique perspective and each of them were warring against another newspaper in a given area. So when we see the siloing of communities and I was just participating in a Reddit science panel on social media, political ideology and identity that we see the siloing rise and fall. Again, I don't know I can't predict that, but I think it's important to realize that when we're talking about partisanship now. We're comparing it to television we're comparing it to network television we're not comparing it to cable television, which you know diversify the spectrum to the point where people could find whatever they wanted. We're not comparing it to partisan newspapers from the 18th century. So I think that that historical lens is important that we consistently drift into our ideological echo chambers because it feels good. One of the arguments I make I was delivered the faculty address to my to the incoming class at Syracuse in 2017. I make this argument that we are not amoebas, but we will behave like one. So the mass will inevitably go in directions that make him feel better and away from things that don't make us feel better but as humans we have that ability. And I think someone here who is at Victor z t zong says I'm not sure if we have free will we're just pieces of a complex machine that seems Facebook and platforms have our behavior. All right, the problem is we can't let it go because of how it stimulates us right that we see. We're moving in these fashions but we need to be able to say stop. And on that note I will just use this to self promote not self promote but beg, if anybody's interested. My students this year are interviewing people who are demographically different from them on four different categories about their American dreams. So by turning these 30 to 40, the 45 minute conversations into bite size media content so by the end of this year will have 175 American dreams that really only take one minute to consume and it has been the students have really enjoyed it because they're being paired with people that they would never engage with because they because they're demographically different because we tend to homogenize into groups that are similar with us. So by the end of these conversations they're realizing about how much similarity they have. So if anybody wants to participate you can go to sherry slippery dot me and fill out the form I think it's right below the book promotion scroll down it's like the second post or something. And I would love to pair you with a student a media student a professional media student who would like to turn your autobiography amber into into bite size media content. So this is part of a conversation. I was a consultant for Buzzfeed and Proctor and gamble, doing this thing called talk about bias, where people were paired with strangers to talk about bias. And I think the potential versus the promise versus the practice of social media is one wherein the potential is we can engage with anyone around the world. And the practice is we will be told that our needs will be met, and the practices we engage with the people we want to. Right. But I think we need to revisit that potential but the potential itself is scary and I will mention this briefly my stepfather when he got off Facebook, friended everyone, everyone. And he was like, I'm going to talk to the world and I know people here here and everyone. So I'm sorry if you're watching everyone. Then all of a sudden, they start messaging me with their creepy messages and they're like I'm friends with your father and I'm like dude, stop. I realize that it's a weird weird weird space and now he's not on Facebook anymore. So I think, you know, we have to, we can use social media as I say, as Victor mentioned in the chat, we can use social media for our own needs and we have to remember that we can take control. And at the same time if we need, like, start a new Facebook I have another Facebook for my cats that only has 10 friends. It's great. So, you know, like, do with it what you want remember you don't have to let Facebook, or Twitter, or whichever other algorithm based platform is satisfying to define your only usage. It's a long walk. I don't remember what the original question was. Right. Are there any we're almost out of time but I just want to just see if there are any other questions out there. I will say there's a couple in the chats. So I'll just hit those. Roy apparently a distant relative of theirs worked on Romeo and Juliet and Yiddish. That's cool. I will say one of our choices on the Romeo and Juliet one was only was American so there are a lot that we did not get into it had to be. So, you know, like there's literally 200 in our database globally. And so we just had to start cutting things down so we cut them down for American productions or joint, but they had to have American production so I look forward to watching that one. I'm deep again, correct me if I'm wrong and come from a decade of an engineering background and media studies a bit foreign yet fascinating during your talk you repeatedly thought I repeatedly thought how I my dad and my four year old interact with various media forms. Loved it awesome absolutely and like just have my book is dedicated to Diane and Constantine Diane is my mother and Constantine is my son, and the line I say is who remind who helped me see the past and the future. And I think that those intergenerational concepts are intergenerational components are so important. And, and I was our last comment I found it really interesting the notion the end of the internet. I'm an editor based in Mexico City and one of my collaborators suggest that the end or limits of the internet maybe where there is no signal for example in indigenous communities do you think critical thinking maybe useful or which methodological tools to integrate them on the internet from an anti non post colonial perspective well that is a conversation for a talk unto itself and I hope. Professor Bald when you do you'll you'll bring me in on that conversation as well. You know, I just, I participatory media. Also something I learned at MIT. We have to bring in the people who are using it to have these conversations. And so, you know the only anti colonialist perspective that involves a colonized group for grounds and centers said colonized group, or previously colonized group I should. I'll talk about language later, we'll correct that post. And I think that so much coming back to some of our other points about media companies mining us for data there's something to be said there's a dot to be connected with the way in which we have historically treated certain groups, mining them for their resources mining them for their labor mining them for their land and leaving them barren. So thinking about this phenomenon across perspective across time across groups. I think that we can begin to tackle the questions of today with a more nuanced approach. Ooh, that's good let's close there. That's fantastic. Thank you so much Cherise. And. Oh, Andrew brought it. Okay. Yes. Alexa. Do you want to come upstairs and say hi to student Alexa announced do you want to go upstairs and say hi to students. I would have to go get him. Do I mean I'm happy to see if you have to go you have to go. But I'm happy to collect him. Or I could just show you my phone. Let's see here. He's very sweet. Here he is. I'm sorry this is probably not a good use of our last minutes together but get a really good one the other day. Okay. I'm sorry yeah so anyway yeah is we're working on potty training, and I don't think there's any technology that helps you with potty training that's that's what we've come, you know what books of potty training m&ms. That's pretty much it. It's like if your diapers dry you get m&ms that's all. We're very low tech. Yes. All right well thank you so much Cherise. And look forward to reading the rest of your book. Thank you so much thank you so much for having me I really really appreciate it it was an honor to come home.


It's a beautiful day out in Minnesota, probably one of the last we're going to get before the snow really starts to come down and the weather has dropped to the negatives. So I thought I'd come out onto the beach in this no-access area, no trespassing if you will, and talk about Harry Potter's spin-off flick, Fantastic Beasts and where to find them. I can tell you this right now, you're not finding them at the theater. I've been an aggressive way to start things out. This is, it's not a bad movie, I'm going to get that out of the way right away. Is it a great movie? I don't think so. Not at all. Is it my favorite Harry Potter movie? No, it's my least favorite, but quite a long shot. Full disclosure, I'm a big Harry Potter fan, even the ones that I don't think are that great are still great compared to a lot of other movies. I love the aesthetic, I love the music, I love the look of everything, the magic, the whimsy, the characters, I mean the characters, forget about it. So when they announced this new spin-off, J.K. Rollins was back in the mix, writing away, I thought what could go wrong? Nothing really goes wrong, it just doesn't go that right either. First off, the music is nowhere to be found. Where is the memorable Hedwig's theme? Where are some of these other scores that just really bring the world alive? There's hardly any of that. Hedwig's theme is maybe uttered once in this flick, and it's very kind of low-key. You don't really notice it. And I couldn't think of another standout song for the life of me. The film is shot very nicely, I think David Yates, highly underrated director, or at least that's what I thought. He did the last four Harry Potter movies, he's doing all these fantastic beast ones. But after seeing this, maybe I was wrong, maybe he doesn't have as much life and energy as is required in the Harry Potter movies. I think the later ones worked with his benefit because they were such somber dark affairs. But we're starting over again, so we need to rejuvenate the franchise. Get people once again pumped up for more installments. This doesn't really achieve that. Instead, we have a lot of lackluster characters. Newt Scranton, I can't remember the guy, Eddie Reddon, read something, I don't know. The guy from Theory of Everything, he's great in that, he's awful in Jupiter Ascending. And here he's just kind of, he's just there, that's what most of this movie is. It's just there. You've seen all the magic before, done much better. Yeah, they're moving some plates around to set a dinner table.  They did that in the Hobbit movies. I don't care, I don't need to see that. There's some, I'm just waiting to get mugged out here on the beach. That'll be a perfect end cap to this day. Characters are just not exciting. The blonde cute number, the sister, she's the most energetic and exciting of the bunch. The heavier set guy, he's pretty fun as well. But nobody, like I don't remember the names besides Newt. Colin Farrell's character, can't tell you his name either. That's also due to me just being terrible with memorizing names. He is the highlight by far for me. I think Colin Farrell as an actor is hugely underrated. Much like Yates as a director, or at least that's what I thought until I saw this. Effects, we expected this point to be very good. They are, but that doesn't appeal to me. Maybe when Doctor Strange just came out a week or two before.  I need more than that. I needed a gripping story. And here's where the movie really suffers. Now the pacing is terrible. It starts out slow, it stays slow for a good 45 minutes. We're building up this new situation. But the problem is, it's not only pacing, it's tone. Some of the tone is light-hearted and fun and playful, but then you have this really dark subset with the whole witch coven, the Salem witch trial thing.  We're talking child beatings and stuff. Yeah, the other Harry Potter movies gradually get darker, but the first two or three are pretty playful and light-hearted. Even when there is darker stuff going on in the background, it's told and visually shown in such a way that's not so threatening and scary. Whereas this one is just kind of, it's very adult. So to go from a scene where a mother makes the son take off his belt for a good whooping, then you go to a scene in the park with Newt Scranton dry humping the air to get a rhino thing back in his briefcase. You see the disconnect? Am I excited for future installments? I guess. I'm not. I'm indifferent. That's how I am with this movie. I am indifferent. It is in the Harry Potter universe though, so that automatically bumps it up for me quite a bit. It is nice being back, regardless of how kind of lifeless the characters are. I think there are some really exciting things in it. I'm not going to do spoilers, I decided we'll just stay away from that. But I think there are definitely things they need to improve on and I don't think they should title the next one Fantastic Beasts at all. It should be called something completely different for a sequel. I think they've tapped into the Fantastic Beasts enough. There's one cute little one that steals a lot of stuff. That's its trade. He's like a platypus thing. By far the highlight for me as far as the animals go. I don't know. I don't have a whole lot. I'm rambling on, but if I'm to grade this or rate this, as I always do, out of a ten point scale, I'm going to go 6.5. That might be lower than some of the other outlets out there, but I hold Harry Potter in very high esteem. So when one of them lets me down, it lets me down. You may enjoy more if you did. Please share in the comments. Thanks for watching. I'm going to go walk down the beach now on a very picturesque ending.