An Unnecessarily Serious(?) Analysis and Critique of "What Makes You Beautiful" by One Direction

(Lyrics taken from  http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/onedirection/whatmakesyoubeautiful.html)

[Verse 1]

[Liam]

You're insecure,

Don't know what for,

You're turning heads when you walk through the door,

Don't need make-up,

To cover up,

Being the way that you are is enough,

Analysis:

There is girl who suffers from self-esteem issues. However, Liam asserts this does not mean she doesn’t have value. She can be beautiful by just being herself. She doesn’t need to change her appearance or personality, as implied by the verb “are”, a conjugation of “to be,” which implies that the way she acts or presents herself is enough to be beautiful.

[Bridge]

[Harry]

Everyone else in the room can see it,

Everyone else but you,

Analysis:

Just because she is unaware of her beauty does not mean that other people do not see her beauty.

[Chorus]

[All]

Baby you light up my world like nobody else,

The way that you flip your hair gets me overwhelmed,

But when you smile at the ground it ain't hard to tell,

You don't know,

Oh oh,

You don't know you're beautiful,

Analysis:

The girl in question is radiantly and uniquely beautiful. Though she suffers from self-esteem problems she has a certain level of personality present in her hair flipping. However her shy smiling at the ground betrays her body image issues and lack of confidence. She is unaware that she is beautiful.

If only you saw what I can see,

You'll understand why I want you so desperately,

Right now I'm looking at you and I can't believe,

You don't know,

Oh oh,

You don't know you're beautiful,

Oh oh,

That's what makes you beautiful

The speaker sees a beauty in this girl that she herself cannot see. And if she could understand what he sees then she would not have her self-esteem issues. However, her beauty appears to stem from her humility, implying that this beauty is not entirely physical, though the vagueness of the line still allows for that.

[Verse 2]

[Zayn]

So c-come on,

You got it wrong,

To prove I'm right,

I put it in a song,

I don't know why,

You're being shy,

And turn away when I look into your eye eye eyes,

Her self-esteem issues are a failure for her to understand her own beauty. However, this man seems to think that by singing a thought he makes it true. This is a logical fallacy so intense it brings the rest of his argument into question. Putting that aside for now though, he ends this rather week stanza with a declaration of his bafflement at the girl’s self-esteem issues. Perhaps he is ignorant to societal standards.

[Bridge]

[Harry]

Everyone else in the room can see it,

Everyone else but you,

The repetition of this line calls attention to the importance of the fact that everyone else is aware of her beauty, even if the girl is not.

[Chorus]

[All]

Baby you light up my world like nobody else,

The way that you flip your hair gets me overwhelmed,

But when you smile at the ground it ain't hard to tell,

You don't know,

Oh oh,

You don't know you're beautiful,

If only you saw what I can see,

You'll understand why I want you so desperately,

Right now I'm looking at you and I can't believe,

You don't know,

Oh oh,

You don't know you're beautiful,

Oh oh,

That's what makes you beautiful

See previous chorus analysis.

Na Na Na Na Na Na Na Na Na Na

Na Na Na Na Na Na [x2]

I believe this sequence serves to fill up extra time in the song, but may also serve to be a repeated denial of the girl’s self-esteem issues in the hope that she will begin to see her inherent beauty.

[Middle 8]

[Harry]

Baby you light up my world like nobody else,

The way that you flip your hair gets me overwhelmed,

But when you smile at the ground it ain't hard to tell,

[All]

You don't know,

Oh oh,

You don't know you're beautiful,

[Chorus]

[All]

Baby you light up my world like nobody else,

The way that you flip your hair gets me overwhelmed,

But when you smile at the ground it ain't hard to tell,

You don't know,

Oh oh,

You don't know you're beautiful ([Zayn:] Oh),

If only you saw what I can see,

You'll understand why I want you so desperately ([Harry:] Desperately),

Right now I'm looking at you and I can't believe,

You don't know,

Oh oh,

You don't know you're beautiful,

Oh oh,

You don't know you're beautiful,

Oh oh,

[Harry]

That's what makes you beautiful

Rather than repeat my previous analysis of the last paragraphs, I will summarize my critique now. Though this song suffers from a few weak points, such as vague points and the entire stanza sung by Zayn, it has many strong point and appears to be working to encourage girls to not fear that they may be being judged as ugly or invaluable and instead to focus on their inherent beauty, which could well stem from a physical beauty or from an inner beauty. The overall message and theme of this song is a positive one. Girls, don’t live your life in constant fear of judgment or being called “ugly.” You are beautiful whether you know it or not.

In conclusion,I think this song has a pretty decent message, one that girls need to hear more often in a world populated by Usher and LMFAO. Also, though I try my hardest not to enjoy this song, it's too catchy for me not to like it. Here's a link to my favorite covers so far, as well as the original.

A New Article and an New Direction for My Blog

Howdy y'all. I ave recently develped a bi' of a southen accent. Ok that's not true, but I am in an exstatically extaticaly? Ecstatically? Aha! That's it. Anyway I am in an ecstatically good mood for a number of reasons. Reason number one:
       I have started watching the vlogbrothers youtube videos and they are just so awesome. So they have put me in a hyper static good mood. I don't even know what that phrase means but it is most definitely true.
Reason number two:
       This weekend, I not only acted in a student film for one of my fellow film students, but co-wrote and co-directed a film with my friend Ryan that we entered into a 24 hour film race competition. I'm not allowed to share either of these films with you guys yet, but as soon as they are done you can expect a large increase in the amount of videos linked in my blog. Man that was an awkward sentence.
Reason number three:
        I am now the guest movie reviewer/entertainment article writer for a website called SidewalkOnline Magazine (that link goes to the first article I wrote for them on Why Legend of Korra is so awesome).
As a result of this last one I have decided to write my major movie or TV articles for SidewalkOnline and to start using my blog here mostly to rant like this and to write short stories based on things I encounter during my week. This week's story will be the mystery of what happened to a letter to a dude named Greg. More on that later this week.
     
        So yeah, I just thought I'd update you guys and let you know about the content shift in my blog. Also I just really wanted to express my excitement today. Woohoo! I'll talk to you all later this week.

The Best Burger I May Have Ever Had

So I have never reviewed food before so this will be a little difficult for me. But I think the deliciousness of this burger is so great that I must share it. So today my friends and I were chatting about where to grab dinner. We had a lot of vegetarians with us so we were thinking something veggie friendly like Thai or Chinese. Then my friend suggested Mick's Karma Bar. Which is a burger joint. We laughed at him then said, yeah ok. So we went to this burger joint (Mick's Karma Bar, I'm gonna plug this places name as many times as I can so you guys go there), which is located in the restaurant section of one of those blocks filled with big businesses like Wells Fargo in Irvine, CA. Anyway we get there, and first off, the environment is just awesome. There are some weird modern art benches around this giant pond and a whole bunch of outdoor seating cafe style.  It feels totally unlike Irvine; it's pretty; it smelled good; it felt like there was actual culture (in case you can't tell I really hate Irvine). But so after discussing and agreeing that the outdoor seating was quaint and attractive, we entered Mick's Karma Bar and took a look at the menu. 5 burgers.

They had some other stuff that I'll probably never try
cause I'll always want the burger

5 burgers. I got the Karma Burger, their staple, some steak fries and a strawberry lemonade, all for a little less than ten bucks. It only took about ten or so minutes for us to get our food, and when we did. Oh my gosh. Everyone at our table had some sort of food induced orgasm. Even my vegetarian friends (you can sub a veggie patty free of charge) demanded we come back. I have had a lot of good burgers in my day. I'm a bit of a burger enthusiast. But this burger. Something about this burger - No . EVERYTHING about this burger was perfect. Amazingly high quality meat. Not cooked till after I ordered it (I know I chatted with Mick a bit after my meal). Cooked to literal perfection. Not tough nor crunchy. All the vegetables were fresh (how did they get tomatoes so perfectly plump and easily bitten into?). Good bread. Even the fries and lemonade were phenomenal. My point is the food was damn good. And then on top of all that the staff was friendly and helpful. Mick was insanely passionate about his burger joint and how important quality was to him. All in all it was just a wonderful experience. The best burger I've ever had, with great surface, and a great environment. Next time you're in Irvine and you're craving a burger, search this up on google and find it. It's worth the little money it costs and definitely worth the effort you have to put in to finding this place. And this, is the burger:

The 3 a.m. Whistle: A Short Story by Scott Spears

So I didn’t sleep last night and thought writing this short story would be a better use of my time. It’s not like my usual content, but really this is my ninth post so I don’t even have a ‘usual content’ yet. Sorry it’s still not that review I keep promising you. I will get that to you guys eventually. In the meantime, please enjoy.

The following is a true story. 

Except for pretty much everything after tenth sentence.

The Man sat down in his usual spot. Nestled in his corner of the couch, he began to peruse the web that so entertained him. Cruising through thechive.com's early morning posts: daily morning awesomeness and a low, dirty good time. It was late, or early depending on whether you were waiting to sleep or just now welcoming the day. For the Man, it was neither. See he had been working on a television pilot lately and the invigoration of writing at night had left his sleep schedule as tattered remains. As a result he could not – no – must not sleep this night, if he had any hope of ever returning to a sleep schedule in which he could wake up before 2 p.m.

Thus he began his unwitting journey. For every night since the massacre of his sleep schedule he had begun to notice a reoccurring event. At 3 a.m. every night a sound so horrifying, so piercing, so grating that it can hardly be described within the English language as anything other than a whistle. Every night upon this sound assaulting his ears, the Man’s blood would begin to curdle within his veins so that he might serve as some sort of vegetable side dish for the health conscious vampire.  On any and indeed every other night the Man would have ignored this screech. Yet on this night he chose to act upon the sound, for on this night, he suffered from an incurable boredom and was unable to shake the thought “eh, why not?”

The Man’s search began at the apartment acrossed from his, as he was sure he thought the sound may have come from over there. Though not a stranger to the complex, the Man was unfamiliar with this apartment, so he was justly surprised by the horror he found upon his arrival at its front step. Now dear readers, to aptly give you a mental image of the horrors of this dwelling, if it could be described as such, we will need to pause in our hero’s quest. But fret not, for we will return to the Man’s gruesome tale. This hovel, for it is more accurate to describe it thusly than as the apartment it once was, appeared in a state of complete disrepair. Upon the door hung an advertisement posted by The Irvine Company dated three days old. The windows were coated in a thin layer of dirt as if they hadn’t been washed in what may have been as long as a week. The blinds were in shambles; one window even missed a blind. The welcome mat sat askew on the front step, a corner hanging off the edge, and this author can’t help but connect the symbolism of the collapse of this mat to the gradual collapse of the apartment. To the Man it seemed that this apartment could no longer possibly serve as a home, unless the sole inhabitants were insects and rodents of various unusual sizes. And yet, a light burst forth from one of the windows even while our hero was pondering this! Someone was inside the apartment! “Perhaps they knew the source of the whistle, perhaps they were in danger from whatever ghastly villain haunted this place,” the man thought to himself. He reached out his hand to the door. Slowly gripping the knocker attached to the door, his hand, quivering, as if acting of its own volition, lifted the piece of metal which despite its small size seemed to weigh 5 pounds.

He knocked.

He knocked again.

It was at this very moment that the blogger writing this piece finished his waffles and had to rinse off his plate. The door creaked open on hinges that had never been oiled. A chain caught the door inside stopping the door from opening more than six inches. But even this gap was enough to expose the horrors inside. The light fixture had a bulb flickering, as if screaming in pain and revolting against what its light had to reveal to the world. Mail was strewn about the counter. Shoes littered the floor just inside the door. A spider had begun the insect’s take-over of the apartment, setting up camp in a web near the doorway. Dust had settled on the kitchen floor. After the second it took for him to regain his sanity after being exposed to such horrors, the Man took stock of what little he could see of the person who suffered daily from the poesque environment. He was a middle aged man with brown hair and eyes to match. The same brown hair peppered his face in unshaven stubble. He had the sullen appearance of a man who’d given up, or perhaps had just woken up at 3:30 in the morning.

“What?” the man groaned.

“I was wondering sir, if perhaps you knew the source of that atrocious whistle that invades our humble community every evening at 3 a.m. sharp?” our hero, the Man, enquired.

“Oh yeah, sorry. My dog ran off and I whistle for her every morning around that time cause she’s normally awake around then. Am I bothering you?”

Relieved and overjoyed that the whistle was not some apparition sent to deprive our hero of his sanity, he whooped and ran off without additional response. He returned to his apartment with a renewal in the hope of safety within his life, secure in his apartment, where he nestled back into his corner of the couch and continued his sleepless night.