In Ear Monitors

Musicians have used In-Ear-Monitors for years. There are different beliefs, but the most widespread is that IEM's started showing up in the late eighties with Stevie Wonder and his engineer, Chris Lindop.

Since that time the technology has developed into custom molds of the musicians ear. 1964 Ears is one company that develops these. Here is a video to give you an idea of who they are and what they do. 

These can be used by professional musicians or just people that are really serious about the music they listen to. 

My question is this. Considering how much money people will spend for "Beats by Dr. Dre" and other brands of headphones that can cost over $300. Do you think people would spend the extra money to get in ear monitors that  are better quality and are molded to their ears?

Viral Social Media

This post is mostly me just being amazed by social media and how it works. We can analyze it all day long and talk about why things happen and what purpose they serve. However, like anything else, sometimes things happen that we can't explain. One recent example is the ongoing craze about "Alex, from target".  The article I read from Yahoo detailed an interview with the girl that took the picture.

Another article explained some of the numbers of his fame, such as followers, tweets, etc.
The article stated,  "Now "Alex from target" has 664,000 followers, fallout from the simple fact that, while at his job bagging groceries at a Target store in Texas, a girl took his picture and said he was cute. Other girls agreed, the picture went viral, and now Alex has been featured on the websites of CNN and The Washington Post. Ellen DeGeneres tweeted at him and (I'm pretty sure he was on the show too.) Five million people have read the BuzzFeed post about him.

All of this happened simply because one girl thought he was cute and wanted to know his name. So her friend took a picture of him with his name tag on.