WILD CARD

Ultra Music Festival

Ultra Music Festival is an annual outdoor electronic music festival that takes place during March in Miami, Florida. This festival was founded by Russell Faibisch and Alex Omes in 1999. This festival is named after the 1997 Depeche Mode album, Ultra. Basically, Ultra Music Festival is held in Downtown Miami at Bayfront Park. From 1999 to 2006 it was a one day festival but it slowly grew into a two day weekend festival from 2007 to 2010. But, since 2011, Ultra has taken place the entire weekend (Friday to Sunday) during the month of March.

In 2012, a record attendance of 155,000 people attended the festival. In 2013, for the first time in Ultra’s history, the festival took place across two consecutive weekends welcoming a combined attendance of 330,000 people. In 2014, the festival returned to its original one weekend format, selling out pre-sale tickets in under five minutes. The most recent edition of Ultra, in 2016, welcomed 165,000 people to the festival. As of 2016, Ultra Music Festival is home to seven stages that span the picturesque Bayfront Park which include the Main Stage, the Live stage, the MegaStructure, the Worldwide stage, the UMF Radio stage, the Resistance stage, and the Oasis stage. Although they share names, Ultra Music Festival was not directly tied to Ultra Records, an electronic music record label. However, the two entities did announce a "global alliance" in August 2012, which would allow them to collaborate on marketing and cross-promotion.

Other Ultra Worldwide festivals and events take place across the world in locations like Ibiza, Spain, Seoul, Korea, Tokyo, Japan, Hvar, and Split, Croatia, Singapore, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil and many other destinations. The twentieth edition of Ultra Music Festival will be taking place March 23–25, 2018.

Ultra Music Festival 2017 (Miami, Florida)

The Ultra Music Festival 2017 (Miami, Florida) has to be one of the event I always wanted to attend. By the looks of it, this festival must be one of the most entertaining event of Spring. On March 2017 in Miami, four of my most favorite DJs/artists had performed. They were Afrojack, David Guetta, Zedd and DJ Snake. I am very much fond of their music and would definitely want to see them play live one day in one of the Ultra Music Festivals. 

                   AFROJACK UMF 2017

Nick van de Wall who is known as Afrojack was born on September 9, 1987. He is a dutch DJ, record producer and remixer. He released his first debut album "Forget the World" in 2014. He regularly features in the top 10 of DJ Mag Top 100 DJs. On Ultra Music Festival which was held in Miami on March this year, Afrojack was on of the DJs who performed.

                 DAVID GUETTA UMF 2017

Pierre David Guetta was born on November 7, 1967. He is a French DJ, record producer, remixer, and songwriter. He was the co-founder of Gum Productions along with Lisa Dodgson. He released his first album named "Just a Little More Love" in 2002. Later, he also released "Guetta Blaster" in 2004 and "Pop Life" in 2007. Until now he has released many hit singles such as "Where Them Girls At", "Little Bad Girl", "Without You", "Titanium", and "Turn Me On" merging with many famous artists. He was one of the performer in the Miami Ultra Music Festival March 2017.

                                                                        ZEDD UMF 2017

Anton Zaslavski better known by his stage name Zedd was born on September 2, 1989. He is a Russian born German record producer, DJ, and Musician. He primarily produces electro house music, but has diversified his genre and musical style, drawing influences from progressive house, dubstep, and classical music. His famous songs are "Clarity" ft. Foxes, "Break Free", "I Want You To Know" with Selena Gomez. He also performed on the March 2017 Miami Ultra Music Festival.

                                                                                                                                                                                                           DJ SNAKE UMF 2017

William Sami Etienne Grigahcine who is professionally known as DJ Snake is a French born Algerian DJ and record producer born on June 13, 1986. DJ Snake is a Grammy-nominated producer and artist who debuted into the international scene with singles "Bird Machine" and "Turn Down For What" in 2013. In 2015, he released a single named "Lean On" along with Major Lazer. On UMF March 2017, he also performed in Miami.

Official Website for Worldwide UMF 2017-2018

                                                https://ultramusicfestival.com/

Conclusion

The Ultra Music Festival is definitely on my to-do list. First time I heard about this event from my sister and some of my friends. I was shown some videos about it and since then I've always wanted to attend one. Someday I would like to attend The Ultra Music Festival which is held on Miami, Florida. It seems like a very fun event to be a part of. By looking at the videos, anyone can say that it looks very entertaining. 

BLOG 9 CLASSMATE BLOG CRITIQUE

Classmate Blog Critique: Anna Kirksey http://aek3503.blogspot.com/

Among all my classmates, I think Anna's Blog has been one of the most interesting one. From the very beginning I've always liked the way she has chosen the particular topics and has presented it in a very specific and proper manner. before doing the classmate blog critique, we have done like 8 blogs and I think all of her 8 blogs are very well written. The other thing I like about her blog is that she keeps it simple which is every easy to understand. But there is top 3 blogs that I mostly liked from her blog. They are as follows: 

The first on would be the first blog on Music in which she had written about "Troye Sivan" was very nice. I myself listen to his music and when she talked about it in class, I could totally relate with her blog. In this blog she has thoroughly mentioned about why she likes this artist and his music. 

There are many things I was unaware about him before she wrote in her blog. I didn't know that Troye was best known for being a * for LGBTQ+. I was also unaware from the fact that him and his music had to struggle because of that. But soon he ended up focusing in presenting about the LGBTQ+ community in his music which is very impressive and everyone should respect that.

Moving on to the 2nd one, Anna's third blog on Lifestyle and Popular culture was another impressive one and I also could related to this one as well. On this one she had written about "Two Favorite Beauty Trends and Two "Hacks"" which I thought was well researched and presented.

This blog is basically focused on women as women are the ones who look through beauty trends and hacks. As a woman, I thought this blog had tremendous amount of information which would definitely be helpful. I am not the type of person who is very much fond of make up but I was impressed by the knowledge given to me by this blog. This blog by Anna can be useful mostly for women. She has completely described about things like if hacks really work for people or not. So her blog made me think about this which is a good thing.


The third one on my top 3 list for her blogs would be the seventh blog on Social Media in which she wrote about "Social Media Stories". I think this has been the blog which I can relate to in the highest level. I am a social media person so for me this blog also has been super interesting one. I can relate to this because I am always on my social media and I am also updated to the new changes that take place in the various social media I use.

So basically, in this blog Anna has mentioned about the various Social Media Stories in social medias such as Snapchat, Facebook, Facebook Messenger, and Instagram. She has also mentioned how much people are liking it so far. Even though Snapchat was the one who invented this feature, other social media have been copying it and trying to make it work among people which can be a nice thing to go. Therefore, I feel that Anna has done a great job as far as her Mass Media Criticism Blog is concerned and I wouldn't mind going through her blog every now and then.

BLOG 8 INTERNATIONAL MEDIA

International Media : The Himalayan Times (Nepal)

The Himalayan Times is an English-language newspaper distributed in Nepal. It is published by International Media Network Nepal Pvt. Ltd. It was founded in November 23, 2001. It is a Daily newspaper in a broadsheet format. It is published only in English language. The headquarter of The Himalayan Times is located in Anamnagar, Kathmandu which is the capital city of Nepal. The online version of the newspaper is also popular in Nepal. It is ranked as one of the most-visited websites in the country. The Himalayan Times is the highest-selling English broadsheet in Nepal. It has also been credited with putting the murderer Charles Sobhraj behind the bars by publishing his picture in a tourist hub of Kathmandu.

About the Himalayan Times

Basically, The Himalayan Times is one of the most famous and stable source of news and information in Nepal. It is targeted to those people who can read English but to those as well who come to visit out country and are not aware about the "Nepali" language. So, in that case this newspaper tends to be super useful as for the visitors to understand the current affairs going on in the country. According to me, the other main purpose of publishing this newspaper is to encourage more people to learn the English language so that they are able to read it. English is an universal language so there is no harm in people being encouraged to learn it. I like the fact that my country is promoting these things because it doesn't have any negative factor, rather it has so many positive points which should be understood and followed by people of my country. 

The website

                                       https://thehimalayantimes.com/

The website of The Himalayan Times is very popular in my country. It focuses on the current affairs going around in my country Nepal, worldwide news as well, and other basic knowledge on business, environments, entertainment, education, science and technology, travel, mobile and apps, automobile, health, food, lifestyle, women, fashion, and people.

TGIF

TGIF (Thank god it's Friday) is a newspaper that comes along with The Himalayan Times every Friday. In simple words, TGIF is the entertainment sector of the Newspaper. There are definitely fun things on The Himalayan Times as well but TGIF comes every Friday along with THT letting us know about the entertainment world of my country. 

TGIF has to be one of the major part of THT. It helps to keep the user hooked to the newspaper so that they are not only bombard with political, worldwide, or technological news. TGIF gives the overall idea of what the celebrities of the country are up to and who is new in the showbiz. Therefore, the whole idea of publishing TGIF every Friday along with The Himalayan Times is very refreshing.

Conclusion

The Himalayan Times has to be one of the most highlighted media related subject that is very important and popular as well. I have literally grown up reading this newspaper. Everyday, my father used to bring a bunch of newspapers from his work and I used to always grab on The Himalayan Times go through it. My favorite part about this newspaper used to be the horoscope page which was right on the end page and on Fridays my favorite part of THT was TGIF of course. Basically, in a developing country like Nepal, it is pretty amazing to see something have so much value and importance among the people. 

BLOG 7 SOCIAL MEDIA

Social Media and older adults : Aging well 

The use of social media is significantly increasing among older adults with the 50 years and older group being the fastest growing demographic segment on the internet. In fact, internet users over the age of 55 are leading the growth in social network usage, according to a recent report from Nelsen, State of the Media. The picture below shows that seniors are joining Facebook, Twitter, and more, proving older adults are not too old for social media. 

In this info-graphic, it is clearly shown that Facebook is the social media that is mostly used by the older adults. I was surprised to see that Pinterest and Tumblr has also been used by the older adults because I've only seen most of the teenagers using it so this was a brand new information for me. 

It has also been said by the teenagers that because the older adults have been using Facebook so much so that they have loosen interest in using. I've myself heard a bunch of my friends saying the same thing. Teenagers nowadays prefer using Snapchat and Instagram mostly. But slowly, we can see that the older adults are moving on to those too. Not my parents but I've seen my friend's parents using Snapchat and Instagram almost as much as the teenagers do.

It is so different yet amazing to see that the older adults are becoming more active and showing the entire world that they can work their ways in things that teenagers are told to be good at. I like how they are not being dependent on us the teenagers and instead figuring out things on social media. Yes, they might have needed our help in the beginning but looks like they are working their way now.



                            https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LPpfR3JtaPA

Basically, this video shows how much parents know about the Social Media. Well, it was obvious to see that the app they are most familiar with is Facebook. Towards the end of the video, one parent said about Facebook that "It is for old people, that's what my kids say". I think this statement is being said by most teenagers nowadays as we can see too many older adults on Facebook which can totally be the reason why the teens are going away from it and moving on to other social media that are not being used by the adults. The app they were completely unaware about was WhatsApp. It is obvious that they didn't know about it because even teenagers don't quite use this app so it's completely normal to see why the adults wouldn't use it too.

My view

According to me, the connection between social media and older adults is something that is evolving day by day. At first, it was weird to see older adults using the social media but later I got used to the fact that they can also be independent and not depend on anyone else as far as the use of social media is concerned. My parents have Facebook and they like using it but I would love for them to know about other social media as well and learn how to use them. We can see that slowly the use of social media among the older adults is increasing in a good way. The teenagers should understand that the older adults are not going to stop the usage of social media and instead they will be using even more in coming days as we can see that they are really enjoying it.