I was spending the last few hours of my night listening to a video of Jason Mraz's newest album "Yes!", and I was well aware this particular 52 minute "video" was peppered with ad checkpoints ever since I added it to my favorites list a week ago. At this point, I have memorized which songs an ad was due to make a rude appearance and jar my musically-meditative session. I had just started the album from the beginning, and after ten minutes of harmonious soulfulness, I prepped to hit the "Skip Ad" annotation that appears in the playback window. The particular ad that appeared surprised me at first, not because of the content, but because it was about 40 minutes long. What?? How is this considered an "ad"? The title above the content was as such: "Spent: Looking for Change (Documentary)". I wasn't prepared to spend 40 minutes of my time watching a "commercial" for something that had little relevance to me, but something held on to me as the video introduced four groups of Americans: a single mother, a family of four, an entrepreneur, and a young couple. They each explained their backgrounds, passions, life goals -- and then crisis hits home where they have to deal with mountains of debt in order to take care of an illness, learning disability, student loans, or past mistakes. The whole thing revolved around the American credit and loans system, and how it doesn't work for this country anymore. Especially with the condition the country is in right now, with the recession and all, people are attempting to dig themselves out of holes they had to dig in order to survive through it all.
Needless to say, I watched the entire thing down to the snail-crawling credits. It was a gripping rush of reality and made me realize how "normal" this problem has become in America. Where freedom and liberty disappears just as quickly as the dollar bill, the fuel which keeps this country spiraling into a repetitive lapse.
The cost of living is inexcusably too high for any common citizen to afford nowadays. As a result, there have been calls to raise the minimum wage of most jobs to match the price to maintain debts and every day expenses. The documentary did make a valid point of how the banking system needs to be changed, but all it seemed to do was cry out the obvious. None of the featured characters seemed to have a significantly happy ending except for the single mom, who was able to find a full-time job after leaving her previous one to care for her ill mother; all the other characters were either still stuck in debt or refused loans to assist them with their troubles.
What's more is that this documentary had special help from American Express, which is looking to resolve the debt and under-served population as well. What it is doing specifically, I have no idea. Establishing flexible programs for those who have been denied loans? The website provided at the end of the documentary seems to be a brochure of sorts on how to manage money for a financial crisis than a concrete proof of civil action. I suppose that's the beauty of social media; you can get anyone to look at anything, but getting through to someone to retain that information and make a difference is another trick.
I won't lie, I was moved by each story portrayed in this short film, and for a moment I was terrified. I'm not going to go too deep into my current situation, but it's orbiting slightly above the level of desperation these people have faced. This issue applies to me in the smallest of terms, but it struck a sensitive nerve. Finding a job that will provide me stability and comfort in this day and age is a difficult task. I've taken a few risks, and even scampered around quite a number of circumstances that in turn have taken a toll on establishing a prospective career. All of those decisions I have made in the past have brought me to this point now where I'm constantly worried about the future, and how the hell I'm going to work towards it. This video solidified that fear, and I suppose I have to thank it for making me more conscious of my actions and what steps I need to take from now on. I do not mean that in a sarcastic manner, but this realization is the only thing I will be able to retain from such information, and nothing more. I hope there comes a day when someone will have a brilliant idea and do everything they can to promote it, rather than speckle empty promises of hope in a melancholic documentary.
Needless to say, I watched the entire thing down to the snail-crawling credits. It was a gripping rush of reality and made me realize how "normal" this problem has become in America. Where freedom and liberty disappears just as quickly as the dollar bill, the fuel which keeps this country spiraling into a repetitive lapse.
The cost of living is inexcusably too high for any common citizen to afford nowadays. As a result, there have been calls to raise the minimum wage of most jobs to match the price to maintain debts and every day expenses. The documentary did make a valid point of how the banking system needs to be changed, but all it seemed to do was cry out the obvious. None of the featured characters seemed to have a significantly happy ending except for the single mom, who was able to find a full-time job after leaving her previous one to care for her ill mother; all the other characters were either still stuck in debt or refused loans to assist them with their troubles.
What's more is that this documentary had special help from American Express, which is looking to resolve the debt and under-served population as well. What it is doing specifically, I have no idea. Establishing flexible programs for those who have been denied loans? The website provided at the end of the documentary seems to be a brochure of sorts on how to manage money for a financial crisis than a concrete proof of civil action. I suppose that's the beauty of social media; you can get anyone to look at anything, but getting through to someone to retain that information and make a difference is another trick.
I won't lie, I was moved by each story portrayed in this short film, and for a moment I was terrified. I'm not going to go too deep into my current situation, but it's orbiting slightly above the level of desperation these people have faced. This issue applies to me in the smallest of terms, but it struck a sensitive nerve. Finding a job that will provide me stability and comfort in this day and age is a difficult task. I've taken a few risks, and even scampered around quite a number of circumstances that in turn have taken a toll on establishing a prospective career. All of those decisions I have made in the past have brought me to this point now where I'm constantly worried about the future, and how the hell I'm going to work towards it. This video solidified that fear, and I suppose I have to thank it for making me more conscious of my actions and what steps I need to take from now on. I do not mean that in a sarcastic manner, but this realization is the only thing I will be able to retain from such information, and nothing more. I hope there comes a day when someone will have a brilliant idea and do everything they can to promote it, rather than speckle empty promises of hope in a melancholic documentary.
If you want to take a 40-minute dive into these people's lives and see what other information you can find of the matter, the video can be found in the posted link below.
http://spentmovie.com/index.html
http://spentmovie.com/index.html
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