Since 2009, Pawn Stars has dominated cable TV. With 15 seasons, 520+ episodes, and over 6 shows spawning off their own success, it has truly become the History Channel’s biggest show. To understand how such a, once foreign, concept was able to cut into American culture for so long, one must take a trip back.…
Michael Balogun spent his early years in and out of jail — until he decided to become an actor. Now he has a role in a production of Macbeth at the National Theater in London. Growing up in South London, Balogun stole, mugged and dealt drugs to survive. He spent much of his younger…
Was Motorola a big blunder for Google? Two years ago Google acquired Motorola for $12.5 billion, and has just announced an agreement to sell Motorola to Lenovo for $2.91 billion. The original acquisition of Motorola has proved to be a heavy financial loss for Google, but a steal on Lenovo’s part.
What was Google thinking? The company originally expressed interest in Motorola because they wanted the security of Motorola patents in order to stand up to Apple and Microsoft in court cases. In Microsoft v. Motorola, the original lawsuit was valued at $4 billion, but ultimately the case closed with Microsoft paying $1.7 million annually. At that rate it would take 3,235 years for the lawsuit to reach the original predicted valuation. Additionally, Motorola’s sales began to drop drastically over the two years.…
“Science,” a word that can generate a multitude of thoughts. Many people not from the field assume science publications to be fact, but in reality, those in the science community know that there is no such thing as a scientific fact. You can take a bottle of water and drop it hundreds of times and…
The biggest secret I have learned in life is the secret to living free. I grew up in a unique environment which included having “no rules around the house.
Whether you love him or you hate him, one cannot ignore Eminem’s success and lyrical expertise. Since hitting stardom in the late ‘90s, Eminem’s continual success can now be neurologically explained thanks to a group of researchers.
The answer lies in one of his latest hits.
According to psychologist Scott Barry Kaufman, the brains of creative geniuses and people with schizophrenia are much too similar to shrug it off as coincidence.
Is Eminem a creative genius?
Guess so.
Is he schizophrenic or bipolar? According to Eminem and those who study his music, there are two sides to him:
1. Marshall Mathers: the kid from a broken home, abandoned by his father, neglected by his mother, and misunderstood as an artist who is constantly discriminated against.
2. Slim Shady: a demented, psychotic freak who never apologizes for his views on the world.
Both sides can easily be seen through his lyrics.
Google them.
Eminem is a creative genius with problematic psychological tendencies. According to Kaufman, creative geniuses and people with schizophrenia both have extremely active precuneus, the area that facilitates daydreaming and free association (making stuff up, basically). The only difference is that unlike people with psychological problems, creative geniuses can distinguish between fantasy and reality.
According to interviews and data collected from people with bipolar disorder, the biggest struggle is the anguish the disorder causes, but there is the
silver lining of the euphoric highs it also brings, along with the boosts of confidence and the creativity it sometimes sparks. Kaufman states that it is a great myth that creative geniuses are always consistently geniuses, which supports the before claims by people with a bipolar disorder and Eminem’s lyrics.
Many of Eminem’s “flops” or failed projects only back-up the claim of him being a creative genius. Comparing him to another creative genius, Thomas Edison, we see that most of his [Edison’s] stuff is bad. Many even say he had some of the worst ideas of the time; he just managed to get it together for a few things. Through these few things, just like Eminem, Edison was able to show his more advanced cognitive skills. According to Heather Berlin, a partner researcher of Kaufman, Eminem probably has more advanced connections in his brain (despite the psychological problems) in terms of his language areas. This is easily seen in his new song, Rap God, where he slips 100 words into 20 seconds (Guinness World Record for most words in a hit single) averaging more than four words a second. Furthermore, both researchers would predict that his area of the brain that filters curse words might be smaller than average. This, though, can also be attributed to a bipolar disorder since Eminem does not use curse words around kids; hence, he has control on when and how to give in to Slim Shady, the “bad” side of him.
Last, these psychologists have also found a decreased rate of fired neurons in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, which has to do with your sense of self, within creative people. This means that “The Monster” inside Eminem’s head may be more real to him than it is to us.
Without this Monster, Eminem would not be the creative genius that he is. If he was to entertain his creative side more, as he did in 2009 with his album “Relapse,” which is filled with unsettling and to a point disturbing songs, he would become [more] schizophrenic and a [more] permanent Slim Shady. If he were not to delve into his creative side as much, the result is his 2010 album “Recovery,” which is filled with songs of redemption.
Only when Eminem balances his two personas does his creative genius skyrocket as it did when he won an Oscar, sold over 100M albums worldwide, and received the praise of everyone from Dr. Dre to Elton John.
Eminem would not be Eminem if it were not for The Monster.
The advocacy film Forks Over Knives focuses on the work of Drs. Caldwell Esselstyn and T. Colin Campbell. These protagonists argue that many common human ailments such as heart disease, cancer, and obesity are caused by the animal product-heavy Western diet. They contend that many of these issues would be greatly diminished or resolved if…
It is known that most American consumers want American-made goods over Chinese-made goods. However, over 60 percent of Chinese consumers also want American-made goods and are willing to pay more for them. In a study released by The Boston Consulting Group (BCG) American-made goods were found to be the most desired, with almost 50 percent…
Motorola, Google’s Blind Spot
Was Motorola a big blunder for Google? Two years ago Google acquired Motorola for $12.5 billion, and has just announced an agreement to sell Motorola to Lenovo for $2.91 billion. The original acquisition of Motorola has proved to be a heavy financial loss for Google, but a steal on Lenovo’s part.
What was Google thinking? The company originally expressed interest in Motorola because they wanted the security of Motorola patents in order to stand up to Apple and Microsoft in court cases. In Microsoft v. Motorola, the original lawsuit was valued at $4 billion, but ultimately the case closed with Microsoft paying $1.7 million annually. At that rate it would take 3,235 years for the lawsuit to reach the original predicted valuation. Additionally, Motorola’s sales began to drop drastically over the two years.…
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