Hey! You Can't Wear That!

In response to Ms. Powell's Hey! You Can't Wear That!

Abercombie and Fitch, a teen clothing retailer, has undergone controversy in the past.  Recently, an interview from 2006 with the company’s executive, Michael Jeffries, re-surfaced.  Please read the following article to find out what the interview was about:

This issue was also featured on the Ellen Degeneres show.  Watch the following video to see how Ellen feels about this retailer:

Many individuals have been speaking out against Jeffries.  People are even being encouraged to sign a petition against the company’s policy.

Check out the following video to learn about what one individual is doing:

Based on the article and the video above, comment on the questions below in a blog post of 300 words.

1.     How do you feel about Michael Jeffries’ view on who should wear Abercrombie and               Fitch’s  clothing?

2.     Is it fair/equitable to target a particular group of teens?  Why or why not?

3.     How does this contribute to our already biased perception of what beauty is?

My responses are:

1. I feel that Michael Jeffries view on who should wear Abercrombie and Fitch clothing is that its really terrible and mean. I think this because he is being very stereotypical to people that are overweight. I think this because he said that overweight people will never be part of the "popular crowd" and also his clothing company does not create clothing sizes of XXL or XL while his competitors do. According to him fat kids will never be apart of his clothing brand. I feel that he should stop what he is doing and be like other clothing companies and have XXL and XL clothing. All of his comments are really mean, rude, and stereotypical.
2. No it is not fair/equitable to target a particular group of teens. It is not fair/equitable to target  particular group of teens because nobody wants to be made fun of or feel left out and out of place for something that isn't even their fault. Its not right to do what Michael Jeffries is doing, singling out and isolating one particular group. It isn't fair to target a particular group when you own a big company like Abercrombie and Fitch because you can also influence other teens and other people to isolate this particular group.
3. This contributes to our already biased perception of what beauty I. This contributes to our biased perception of what beauty is by saying being beautiful is when you are slim, clean, perfect, etc. With all the magazines with beautiful people, this is what is contributing to peoples opinions about what perception of beauty is. Showing only biased perception of beauty on magazines and television will only influence others that this is the only kind of beauty. People will only think of beauty as a very nice outer appearance and not on the what is on the inside which is their personality. Now that Abercrombie and Fitch is doing this it is going to get even worse because other companies and people will get influenced by their opinion and that's not good.

On a Tweet and a Prayer

In response to Ms. Powell's  On a Tweet and a Prayer...

Over the past few years, there has been much discussion about how to get our youth more involved in the life of our Church.  Our last Pope, Pope Benedict XVI began his own twitter account to reach out to the younger members of the Catholic faith.  Take a look at the following video clip to learn more about this:

 

The above video discusses that Pope Benedict was even encouraging people to send him questions about our faith.  In the few months that Pope Benedict XVI was a member of twitter, he made 39 tweets and gained 1.6 million followers.  Our new leader, Pope Francis, also started has a twitter account and has been tweeting regularly.  Read the following short article that talks about Pope Francis’ popularity on twitter:

http://vator.tv/news/2013-03-13-papal-twitter-account-revived-to-announce-new-pope

How do you feel about these attempts to reach out our youth?

In a blog of 300 words, please respond to the following questions:

1. Do you think that having twitter accounts will help attract youth to take a greater role in the life of church?

2. What are the benefits of having our church leader tweet? Are there any disadvantages?

3. Does your parish take part in the social media world? If so, please explain.

4. Are there any other ways that church can encourage our youth to get more involved? Do you have any personal experiences related to this?

 

My responses are:

 

1. I think that having twitter accounts will help attract youth to take a greater role in the life of church. I think this because youth already have twitter accounts and they love to use it to be in touch and use it to express their feelings and opinions towards things. If youth have twitter accounts they will become more active and participate in the life of church. Youth will become updated with information and become more active in the catechism. Twitter accounts will attract the youth to a great role in the life of church due to these reasons and youth are already really social with these sites.

 

2. I think that they're are benefits of having our church leader tweet. Benefits or advantages of having our church leader tweet is that he could answer our questions about the faith faster, instead of having to ask him questions face to face and having to travel back and forth for an answer. Another advantage of having the church leader tweet is that he can update us about the catholic church and if changes will be made. Another advantage is that the Pope can tweet about different quotes and parables about God and Jesus that can relate to us. I don't think there are any disadvantages of having our church leader tweet things.

 

3. I think that my church does take part in the social media world. My church takes part in the social media world by updating us on Facebook about different things happening like if there are certain events happening such as fundraises, barbeques, youth group, confirmation, confession, etc.

 

4. There are other ways that the church can encourage our youth to get more involved. The church can get our youth to be more involved by getting youth to be more involved in setting up events that they would like to see at church. The church can get youth to be more involved in many ways like if teens like to sing you can get them to sing for the choir and if teens like to volunteer at church they can be ushers. I have a personal experience of this and it is when my parish hosted a barbeque event at the parking lot and everyone is invited to it.