Tuesday, March 10, 2009

Break Me , Shake Me Take Me

So went the lyrics of a Savage Garden song that I liked(I took some liberties with the arrangement).
Seems kind of appropriate to the Rihanna Chris Brown drama.
Why does it matter? For more than a couple of reasons.
Rihanna is a gorgeous and talented young woman who has the world at her feet(an overstatement , but you get the point).
She definitely isn't with Chris Brown for his money, since she has enough of her own presumably.
Yet after a highly publicised horrific beating at the hands of Chris Brown,t there are reports of them making up, and getting married.
Picture a young woman of modest means in a relationship which though passionate, is marred by domestic violence. What would she think of this situation?
Let me give it a shot .. "If a woman of Rihanna's stature could forgive a indiscretion such as Chris Brown's , what chance do I have?"
What's the young woman's partner thinking?
"Hey if Chris Brown, can do that to a woman like Rihanna, then I can too"
A little overly dramatic, but its not entirely inconcievable.
There is also the matter of a little something I read in the Tipping Point.
The story in question involved suicides in a tiny polynesian nation(the name I cannot recall).
Researchers found a high incidence of suicide amongst the young, over stuff that would be considered relatively minor.
A little more digging unreathed a local celeb(maybe a royal) who had committed suicide oer matters of the heart. Overnight something with negative connotations(suicide) had gone to being cool.
This arguably lead to a spike in the suicide rate.
This example was used in the book to make a point about how ideas achieve traction and finally explode.
If we do have a spike in cases of domestic violence, wonder we will think to link it back to Rihanna and Chris Brown.

1 comment:

Noam said...

Statisticians found that after a deadly car accident is widely reported in the media, the rate of car accident deaths increases. Moreover, when when the media widely reports a vehicular accident involving deaths of lots of people, there is a spike in such many-death accidents. Apparently the news reports are giving people ideas and they are going out and making such accidents happen.

Lesson 1: When you hear about an accident in the news, be extra careful driving.

Lesson 2: By simply reporting things, the media can make them more likely to happen -- whether an abusive relationship or a school shooting, which puts a serious moral burden on journalists.